I don’t really want to write this article. But as an Apple commentator, I don’t really have a choice. I’m not what you call “developer-friendly.” I suspect that is how it should be since I am much closer to being press than PR. I am also an Apple enthusiast doing an Apple enthusiast blog. It should come as no surprise that I mostly see things Apple’s way on most, but not all issues. There are plenty of things where I believe they are doing a terrible job. But my goal for this site is not to blast on about how terrible Apple is doing. All companies are doing a terrible job in some things. There are plenty of commentators who are happy to make a living downgrading Apple. This is not that site.

I could be accused of motivated reasoning. I try to avoid that. And what I have said on the subject and am about to say is my honest take on the matter. I do not expect it to be popular. It might even cost me a few readers. I will try not to let such pressures influence me. This will not be neither fun to write or read. I will try to keep it brief. I will not be offended if you feel like you need to skip this one. Here we go:

Developers are just one piece of the puzzle

Platforms need developers to survive. Just ask WebOS and RIM if you don’t believe me. But developers didn’t leave those platforms because of their policies. Those platform owners were willing to do everything including pay developers in advance to write apps for them. It didn’t work. Furthermore, developers are not beating down Apple’s door because they like the policies. They hate them. I always say that happy developers are a problem for the platform and end users. Developers don’t want what is best for you. They want what’s best for them. They don’t give a damn about the platform. They will happily burn it all down if they think it will get them a few extra bucks.

The developers complaining the loudest are either platform owners themselves such as Microsoft, or they have everything they want on Android. Yet they are still not happy. They have to have Apple’s piece of the pie because Android is a toilet full of digital puke after the developers have gone on a decade-long bender. iOS is a monopoly only in that it is the only environment where people with resources want to shop. They have a monopoly on premium computing devices that people aspire to have. Apple has a monopoly on the most valuable customers on the planet.

No serious developer would try to run their business without having a presence on iOS. That is why after all these years and despite marketshare, the best apps come first to iOS, if not exclusively. That is a simple fact that is not going to change anytime soon. All the noise being made by certain high-profile developers today is a tacit admission that they need iOS while they just settle for Android.

But none of those facts are headlining recent news articles. The only message getting out is how unfair and greedy and horrible Apple is behaving. How dare Apple have so much control over their own platform! What hubris they are showing to enforce their perfectly legal business model and make money off the backs of these poor developers! How dare Apple seek rent in their own house!

I turned 50 earlier this year and am doing my best to process how these man-children think. They are not employees of Apple. They are self-employed. No one owes them anything. There are fees and taxes and marketing budgets and all sorts of other things related to running a business. Yet they expect to get the most premium digital retail space for free, not so they can sell and app, but so they can set up their own store and sell their wares. Further, they want to do this without paying a single penny to Apple. I don’t want to be overly rude about it. But fuck these guys! I will gleefully watch their businesses burn to the digital foundation!

I would have more sympathy for developers if they were actually suggesting a reasonable compromise to the current rules. But they will never do that because to them, nothing is reasonable. Epic even sued Google. And you can’t get much more open than Google. They want free access to everything in perpetuity with no restrictions and backpay. What they want is for Apple to be a dumb pipe. In the developers’ perfect world, Apple would be like AWS, just a space where they can park their business. The difference is they don’t even want to pay for the space.

You can hear the disconnection with the real world in the way they talk about the 30% fee. They go on about how it doesn’t cost that much to process payments. They are actually arguing that Apple should only run the store at cost and not try to make any profit at all. They sound like children, which many of them are, and idiots, which many of them are. I suspect Apple is having as hard a time engaging with their thought process as I am. It is hard to take any of them seriously.

New game, new rules

That said, we must take them seriously because they are simply a part of a new reality. Business does not work in the same way it did when I ran my business. I used to sell a product and provide good customer service. In exchange, the customer would give me a predetermined amount of money. If I wanted more money from them, I would have to sell them another product or service.

Today, you enter the market by offering a product or service for free, then try your best to make money on the user data you can scrape. The cashflow and value proposition is very different. It is a very different game. Apple can try all they like to hold the line on how business is done. All their decision-makers are at least as old as I am. But they have to find a way to survive in the new economy, even if it doesn’t make any sense to people like us.

The latest business model to contend with is the game-streaming service. As it stands, there can never be a game-streaming service on iOS. That doesn’t bother me in the least bit. But it bothers a lot of people who spend an inordinate amount of time and money playing video games. I suspect this will be the way of gaming going forward in the same way that music streaming took over music purchases.

It doesn’t matter why Apple’s rules are the way they are. For the record, I believe they are in place for good reason. It simply doesn’t matter. If Apple is to be a part of the next wave of gaming, they have to change the rules to allow game-streaming services. There is no way forward without that happening.

The real change Apple has to make

We can go on about all the paper cuts Apple has to endure if they want to navigate these choppy waters. But it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, there is only one real change Apple has to make. And I suspect it is going to require a Supreme Court ruling to get them to make it. Furthermore, if it goes that far, the courts will rule against Apple.

The one change Apple is going to have to make kicking and screaming, is how they view iOS devices. Right now, they see their devices as appliance computing terminals. What the developers are demanding (if they had the sense to make a better case for themselves) is to reclassify iOS devices as general computing devices. Apple would have fundamentally different policies if they had to treat the iPhone the same way they treated the Mac. I believe the whole point of the iPad is to have an appliance rather than a general purpose computer platform. If they are forced to change, all of these paper cuts would go away.

Apple will never do this. And developers will never be happy until this is done. Apple could give in to every demand on the table right now and developers would still come back with more demands until the iPhone was no different from the Mac. Chrome is Google’s general computing play. Android is the app layer that powers it. That is why most developers are not outwardly complaining about Google’s app marketplace. It works sort of like an app store does on a PC. This is the hell they want for Apple. I don’t think Apple can successfully hold the line on appliance computing for much longer.

Conclusion: It wouldn’t be an iPhone anymore

The emotions I have about the developer issues are fundamental to how I feel about the products. If developers got even a fraction of what they are demanding, it wouldn’t be an iPhone anymore. It wouldn’t be an iPad anymore. It wouldn’t be an Apple TV or HomePod anymore. You are free to love Apple or hate them. But you can’t gut them and expect the products to be unchanged. I like the walled garden. And I want to have an appliance computing option. If developers have their way, that option will disappear forever, and with it, the most insanely great devices ever to come to market.

David Johnson