30% Apple

[Richard Pieri]

On Feb 17, 2011, at 9:06 AM, Chris O'Connell wrote:
> 
> This cost is simply going to be handed down to the consumer.

Let's put this into context:

Apple currently takes 30% from all App Store sales.  The rest goes to the developer.  This is actually a pretty good deal for developers, especially the small, independent developers who don't have a high-profile distribution chain of their own.

Apple is now applying this 30% take to purchases made from Apple's store from within applications.  This is not, in and of itself, any different from the application sales skim.  This is not what content providers are bitching about.

What they are bitching about is the requirement that any application that can purchase content from within itself must make that content purchasable through Apple's storefront and must do so at the same or better price point as the developer's own storefront.  The prototypical example is Sony's Reader application since that is what brought all this to the fore.  In order to support in-app purchases of Sony Reader books, Sony must sell those same books through Apple's storefront, and Sony must sell those books at the same price as it sells through its own store, or at a lower price.

It's not the 30% skim that they hate.  It's the requirement that they sell through Apple's storefront that they hate.

--Rich P.