Quote:
Originally Posted by sclitheroe
So why do developers tolerate it on the iOS platforms? There are a number of apps now in the million dollars of revenue club. Apple's cut isn't chump change for these companies (and conversely, Apple's app store has made them a LOT of money they may not otherwise had made in a fragmented or non-existent app store)
You could argue Apple is dominant in the mobile app space, but they actually only have like what, 20% of the smartphone market? This compares pretty well to Apple's market in the PC world too, if we believe the numbers they trotted out today.
It's an interesting situation. At the end of the day, I'm sure Apple is shooting for something like Steam, and know they can never lock it down like they did with iOS without ceding massive amounts of goodwill and market share back to the PC.
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Well, The App Store was the first major mobile platform for shopping apps. (I think?). And with the popularity of it, other stores spawned, such as the Android market. Developers have made millions in a market that did not use to exist (to this extent). They created an opportunity for developers that some never had, alongside a good SDK.
The computing market has been well established, and switching to a platform where you would instantly lose 30% of your revenue due to a closed down system would not make the majority of developers pleased. Especially with developers like Microsoft, Adobe, etc.
But yes, I do think Apple is shooting for something *exactly* like Steam, but for apps (and some games, but hopefully this will just make Steam more competitive, but they did display Steam in the Keynote today)