Apple's 15% Solution

-


Apple logo eating a dime and 5 pennies
When I wrote about Apple's 30% Dilemma, I didn't expect Apple to have a solution so quickly. For this  small independent developer, it feels like a holiday gift.

30% was the original cut Apple took from developers on their app store. Critics felt it was outrageously high. I was more moderate because my past experience with app stores for Palm made clear the value of Apple's eco-system and the tools they produced. Still, I hoped Apple would lower the rate because it would the wise, and business-savvy, thing to do.

Apple recently announced the App Store Small Business Program which reduced the commission from 30% to 15% on businesses earning up to $1 million per year. Ars Technica ran the story and a minority of the commentariat pointed out that the $1M limit would discourage development as earnings approached that figure. The reason being to avoid the 30% bracket.

Entrepreneurs and creatives don't think like that. Bean counters do. Apple just gave the small independent developer a better chance at success. Thank you.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bookshelf: UNIX A History and a Memoir

-
Image
  A man page will give you, in black and white, specific information about UNIX. Brian Kernighan's new book adds color and depth about UNIX you won't find anywhere else. I'm not a gray beard (yet), but I imagine they would plow through the book knowingly, but at the same time, learn a few things. Those new to UNIX -- recent college grads or those experimenting with Raspberry Pi -- would be better off starting with Chapter 8 which describes more relatable events and the descendants of UNIX, including Minux and Linux. It's when they start to ask questions like "Where does UNIX come from?" and "Why is Gamora grep?" that they should start from the beginning: Bell Labs, 1969. Kernighan opens with a birds-eye-view of Murray Hill New Jersey, zooms in on the buildings, the offices, the significance of Center 1127, and offers a brief look at some of the key players there. As I progressed through the book, the two factors that made UNIX not just possible, bu
Read more

Bookshelf Classic: The C Programming Language

-
Image
My first job had me programming in Microsoft BASIC for the IBM PC (DOS).  BASIC worked well enough, but its limitations were clear.  The language was interpreted and therefore slow.  More importantly, it wasn't a modern structured language, and instead, relied on line numbers and the GOTO statement.  Anyone who has read Dijkstra knew  GOTO was a bad thing . Having learned a structured language in college ( PL/I ), using BASIC felt unnatural.  When a C compiler became available for the PC, I saw a chance to improve and modernize our software.  The problem was selling the idea -- a problem made harder because I wasn't fluent in C. "It would be a staffing problem.  Not many people know C, but we can find a lot of programmers who know BASIC," noted one manager. The argument was strong as my knowledge of C was weak.  But I knew that C, by design, was a small language and thus easy to learn.  "It has about 30 keywords," I proffered to another manager. U
Read more

Connections

-
Image
Opening a drawer in my hotel room in Toronto, I found this.  I worship at the altar of tech, but I imagine the reaction between two priests might go like this: Mormon Priest:  "At least we're wireless!" Catholic Priest: "And from the very beginning too!"
Read more