App Store

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Apple 2019 Revenue Up 15% at $39 Billion From App Store

Andrew Orr ·

Apple 2019 revenue for the first half of this year is up 15% from last year, topping US$39 billion from the App Store.

According to a new report from Sensor Tower, the iOS App Store and Google Play combined brought in $39.7 billion in worldwide app revenue in the first half of 2019 — that’s up 15.4% over the $34.4 billion seen during the first half of last year. However, at that time, the $34.4 billion was a 27.8% increase from 2017’s numbers, then a combined $26.9 billion across both stores.

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News+: The App Store Enables Spying, Tracking, and Analytics

Andrew Orr ·

In the latest issue of Fast Company magazine, Mark Wilson writes about the business of spying, advertising, and analytics that the App Store enables.

[Apple] designed a dead-simple interface that, to this day, allows users to sign away contacts, location data, and camera and microphone access with a single tap as they install an app. Apple also created efficient APIs—the software connecting its hardware to outside apps—to provide third-party developers access to sensitive user information. Meanwhile, iPhone apps are not required to encrypt their transmissions. “Apple was well known for usability before it was known for privacy,” says Riana Pfefferkorn, associate director of surveillance and cybersecurity at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.

This is part of Andrew’s News+ series, where he shares a magazine every Friday to help people discover good content in Apple News+.

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Apple Creates ‘App Store: Principles and Practices’ Page

Andrew Orr ·

Apple has a created a new web page titled, ‘App Store: Principles and Practices’ possibly as a reaction to the accusations that the App Store is a monopoly.

We believe that what’s in our store says a lot about who we are. We strongly support all points of view being represented on the App Store. But we also take steps to make sure apps are respectful to users with differing opinions, and reject apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line — especially when it puts children at risk. For example, we strictly prohibit any app that features pornographic material, discriminatory references, torture and abuse, or anything else in exceptionally poor taste.

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Why Does Apple Allow Pervasive App Tracking?

Andrew Orr ·

In the future, I hope Apple puts restrictions on the kind of app tracking developers use. We already have Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention. I’d like to see that for the App Store.

SDKs present a solution to Apple’s pesky tracking restriction for advertisers. They can connect who you are between apps, provided the developer of each app uses the same SDK and the advertiser is able to use signals to figure out who you are. If we look at the top 200 apps on the iOS App Store, it’s interesting to see how broad the reach of most SDKs actually is.

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Time For Apple to Revisit Its Slice

Charlotte Henry ·

M.G. Siegler’s views on Apple are always worth reading. As we wait for the ‘It’s Show Time’ event on Monday, he looked at one of the most pressing issues the company is having to tackle – the cut it takes of purchases made through its platforms. He said that while it will add complexity, things like the 30% App Store cut need revisiting.

The 30% cut is under assault from multiple angles. Spotify is the most high-profile example — antitrust complaints tend to do that — but it was hardly the first or the only grievance in this regard. Multiple businesses across multiple sectors are now vocally complaining about such a cut — and some, from small developers, to the biggest of the behemoths like Amazon and Netflix, are balking at coughing up such a bounty to Apple. Meanwhile digital stores from other companies are revisiting their own cuts. Competition is doing its job.

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Kaspersky Lab Jumps on Apple Monopoly Bandwagon

Andrew Orr ·

Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity company accused of having ties with the Kremlin, violated App Store rules and had its app removed. Now it says Apple uses its “position as platform owner and supervisor” to give itself special treatment.

From our point of view, Apple appears to be using its position as platform owner and supervisor of the sole channel for delivering apps to users of the platform to dictate terms and prevent other developers from operating on equal terms with it. As a result of the new rules, developers of parental control apps may lose some of their users and experience financial impact.

You can obviously tell I think this is hilarious. To be fair, developers getting sherlocked by Apple is a real thing, but having your app removed because it breaks the rules isn’t getting sherlocked.

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Facebook Research Broke the Rules. Now it Faces the Consequences

Andrew Orr ·

Casey Newton wrote a defense of Facebook/attack of Apple, because of the Facebook Research app that got banned.

But for all the attention we’re paying to Facebook’s moves here, I hope we spare at least as much for Apple. If Tim Cook can wreak this much havoc on Facebook’s day, however justified, just imagine what power Apple holds over the rest of us.

That power is App Store rules, which Facebook willfully ignored. We should be glad that big companies have to follow the same rules as small companies. If you’re a Facebook employee unable to use internal apps, don’t be mad at Apple. Instead, be mad at your employer who was willing to throw it all away in order to take advantage of children.