30% to Apple for folks selling iPhone apps??
Check out this post from Planet RubyOnRails:
I doubt few of my readers have missed that Apple just released the iPhone SDK. How many read through the fine print? Bottom line is: If you want to sell apps for the iPhone you gotta give Apple 30%. Thirty percent!? Why?! Apple is making ridiculous money off selling the iPhone. The more apps the iPhone gets, the […]
(from: tirsen: Apple doesn’t get it)
Update from Pito : Seems like I jumped the gun a little. Such are the risks of blogging I guess. If you look at the comment thread to the post I referenced I would have to say that Apple’s position is fairly reasonable. 30% for hosting apps, credit card processing, and most importantly promotion of my app to gazillions of iPhone owners. The only remaining beef if any is that (according to the thread) there is no other way to get a 3d party app onto the iPhone - you have to do it through Apple.
Popularity: 6% [?]
March 11th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I don’t know; I read elsewhere that if you develop for Palm, there are basically two main channels, Handango and someone else I can’t remember. They both take 40-50%. Also, if you’re a small business, credit card processing fees (and the terms of your contract with the processor) are truly outrageous. It sounds like a pretty decent deal.
Anyway, if you don’t like the terms, don’t develop software for the iPhone.
If I were in a complaining mood, I’d complain more about the $99 certificate fee. On the other hand, as a businessman I understand what they’re trying to accomplish. Single source and signed apps means that they can instantly revoke a piece of software worldwide that is found to be secretly malicious. A modest barrier to entry will also mean less crapware to wade through. It’s a valid tradeoff. Heck, iPhone/Mac users have it easy… Apple gives away very powerful dev tools for free. Until recently for students (and still true in general) developing for Windows in C++ requires very expensive software suites from Microsoft!