“Apple Inc.’s App Store has turned countless software developers into millionaires since its launch almost a decade ago. But working with the famously controlling company has often been frustrating,” Alex Webb reports for Bloomberg. “Apps were rejected with little explanation, and Apple has been stingy about sharing customer data that could have helped developers improve their products.”
“In recent months, Apple has made a number of concessions to developers. The company has built analytical tools that provide insights into how apps are used and monetized, sped up the approval process for new ones, halved its take for many transactions in the App Store and made it easier for developers to sell subscriptions,” Webb reports. “Services are an increasingly important piece of Apple’s business, with revenue surging 22 percent to $24 billion last year. The standouts are the App Store, where revenue increased by 40 percent to $8.6 billion, and the Apple Music subscription service, whose sales surged to $1.6 billion in its first full year, according to estimates from Gene Munster, who runs Loup Ventures and covered Apple as an analyst for many years.”
“About fifteen months ago, Cook took the App Store away from Eddy Cue, the senior VP of internet software and services, and handed it to marketing chief Phil Schiller, who had been running developer relations for years. Schiller got busy,” Webb reports. “By May of last year, developers noticed that Apple was approving their apps much more quickly than before. Rather than a week or more, it was now taking less than two days to get an app greenlit.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Make great products, update them routinely, and make/keep developers happy and the gravy train will have no end!
Perhaps a few other items should be “taken away from” Eddy Cue..
oh snap!!!!!!!!
“Countless” millionaires? Looks to me like the apps store is going the same route as the purchased music on iTunes. But go ahead and believe the services “growth” mantra that Apple PR is spinning these days to cover Cook’s ass.
Maybe move Eddy out the door and into mowing the lawn?
Other than looking like a fun guy wearing California beach scene shirts, his major wins in the last four or five years are…?
With all of the greenery at Apple Park, he’d probably f*ck the lawn up, too. Maybe a bathroom atten–no, forget it. Perhaps Eddy could work at the front des—wait, nix that. Maybe Eddy could be a greet–you know what, just fire the guy.
Is it the beginning of a monumental refresh cycle for Apple that will bring us to iPhone 8 in all its glories!
Wow, I am dreaming now!
A writer who cites revenue numbers in an article and uses the term “countless millionaires” , um, is not skilled at counting.
Now, if only Apple would give up on their eternal-betaware Mac App Store app and get serious about providing a fully functional app instead. Simply having the functionality of iTunes would be great. Next: Work on reliability. Neither App Store nor iTunes score well on reliability. Both are bug-fests, which gets to be a downer at the end of an already difficult day.
Seriously Apple.
~ ~ ~ ~
As for why Apple has been “stingy”, protective, secretive, garden-wall oriented… As long as it has all been for the protection of their customers that’s just fine with me! Security, safety, privacy are all KEY functionality I appreciate from Apple and always will!
Stick to it and thank you Apple!
Well, if TC would really care about user’s privacy, he would allow apps like Little Snitch or any conn monitoring apps on iOS. The fact that I can’t monitor my conn when the little spinning circle come up drives me crazy. TC should get back to the origin of Apple and let users with iOS IT tools privileges like its been on the mac for decade. It is not that difficult. The simple fact that we can’t is a dent into his privacy speech.
It is already on Mac, why not on iOS
Nevertheless, I still love Apple products.
TOTAL Agreement!
Then again, Apple is keeping iOS as closed to users as possible. Fiddling with Little Snitch permissions boxes doesn’t fit Apple’s manifesto for iOS. That’s one example of why I think TC was an utter dolt to compare the usability of iOS with macOS. Users leave a lot of trust in Apple’s hands with iOS AND can end up leaking a lot of data to the marketing vacuum.
We here would probably all prefer the option to have a *ahem* Pro level of access to iOS, offering something closer to macOS functionality.
Note that Apple does provide IT tools for administrators of iOS devices. The biggest tool is Apple Configurator, which is currently at v2.3. Apple also allows, for better or worse, the ability of enterprise developers to create their own security certificates for their enterprise niche apps. (I say ‘worse’ because this certificate system has in the recent past been notorious for being abused and enabling malware in-the-wild).