

Steve Jobs Email Suggests In-App Subscriptions Don't Apply to SaaS?   - siglesias
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/21/steve-jobs-email-suggests-in-app-subscriptions-dont-apply-to-software-as-a-service/

======
thought_alarm
It's disappointing to me how quickly people lose sight of how the App Store
completely changed the game for indie developers. 

If you depend on the App Store to market and grow your business then you're
not really delivering SaaS, are you?  You're delivering iPhone software that is
published and marketed by Apple.  In that case, you have no problem paying
Apple 30% for the business you otherwise wouldn't have.  It's a no-brainer. 

If you don't depend on the App Store to market and grow your business, then it
doesn't matter much either way, does it?  Either the cost/benefit of 30% vs
potential new business is worth it or it isn't.  Nobody owes you anything. 

~~~
tomjen3
Thats not so. 

Lets assume that 5% of the people use your offering because there is an ios
option.  A lot more may use it, but they would have paid you anyway so you
didn't get those as a customer and a lot of them is going to choose your ios
sign-up because its a lot more convinient. 

Now you have to pay 30% on everybody's signup fees, even if your offering is
much larger than just the ios. 

You also depend on electricity, computers, safety and security, a server OS,
the internet, etc, etc to have a Saas business - do they also deserve 30%? 

~~~
dalore
I thought you only had to pay 30% of the iOS users that subscribed using IAP,
and not 30% of everybody.  So lets say those 5% all used IAP, you would have to
pay 30% of 5% of your total. 

Now if your margin is less than 30% you could eat the loss of those 5% of
users or increase your prices for the other 95% (and hopefully not lose more
customers).  Or somewhere in between where you up the price, but not enough to
cover the loss of the iOS cut. 

~~~
tomjen3
Quoting myself:

>but they would have paid you anyway so you didn't get those as a customer and
a lot of them is going to choose your ios sign-up because its a lot more
convinient. 

In other words: absent a convinient one-click button, they would have gone
through with their signup but given the convinient sign-up, they would use
that. 

In other words, their preference is:

    
    
        sign-up using apple convenient button >sign-up manually > not using the app at all
    

which is going to cost you 30%. 

And almost all of them is going to be in this group. 

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
So 95% of them would have purchased it even if there was no iOS version (as
per your original post), but as there is an iOS version 100% of them will now
make their purchase using the IAP model (as per the post above)? 

That seems a pretty unlikely scenario to me.  If they're all purchasing in app,
then it's an indication that that's where they're using the subscription and
that's where a significant value is being added.  That provides in some part a
justification for Apple's involvement. 

------
credo
It will be great if someone from Apple officially confirms that the IAP
subscription policy will not apply to SaaS. It will also be interesting to see
whether they provide clear definitions for what they consider as SaaS.

In general, the mandatory subscription policy was a bad idea - for SaaS it is
an even worse idea. 

I think that Apple will ultimately back down from this policy (not just for
SaaS, but for all apps) - partly because of DOJ concerns (antitrust regulators
are looking at the policy as per the NYT) and also because they will lose a
lot of apps from companies ranging from Rhapsody to Netflix. 

Losing the "there is an app for that" slogan will be a huge loss to Apple and
someone at the company is bound to realize that. 

~~~
enjo
It all seems very subjective at this point doesn't it?  What's the difference
here exactly?  If you're selling your content then you pay, if you're moving
data around you don't? 

On top of that I'd be HUGELY nervous if I was a SAAS provider that Apple might
change their mind... they've done it before. 

------
Maro
Steve's very short reply is: "We created subscriptions for publishing apps,
not SaaS apps." 

~~~
Ygor
Does this statement sound stupid only to me? 

"We said you can drive a car, not a blue car." 

~~~
jmah
I think you parsed it as:

We created subscriptions for publishing (the following): apps, not SaaS apps. 

Whereas the rest of us see it as:

We created subscriptions for [publishing apps] (apps by content publishers),
not [SaaS apps]. 

~~~
Ygor
Yes, that was the problem.  Thanks for the clarification.  It indeed sounded
very strange to me, since I am not familiar with the topic. 

------
smoody
What about SaaS apps that serve up content as part of their service?  It starts
to get gray at some point. 

~~~
gojomo
Indeed... for example, what if 'premium' published content arrives via a
Dropbox folder shared to the publisher? 

------
jessedhillon
You know, when you can reliably expect Jon Gruber's opinions on a matter to
lean pro-Apple -- when he does all sorts of mental gymnastics to make the
logic come out right, no matter how absurd it sounds -- well, how is he not
regarded as a shill? 

~~~
tjogin
John Gruber has been one of the most vocal critics of the App Store, its rules
and the inconsistent application thereof. 

~~~
jessedhillon
Gruber says, FTA: "Maybe I'm missing something, but these guys claiming to be
surprised and disappointed by Apple's insistence on a 30 percent cut of
subscriptions when their own business model is to take a 30 percent cut of
subscriptions strikes me as rich.  And how can they claim that Readability
isn't 'serving up content'?  That's exactly what Readability does." 

On the one hand you have Apple, who charges 30% for access to a platform.  An
app developer creates that value by writing something that people want, and
then Apple takes 30% to deliver it. 

On the other hand you have Readability, who essentially creates a filter for
content -- just a little bit beyond applying a stylesheet to the content, as
far as the end result goes.  The actual mechanics are more involved, but the
end-result is the same as if someone were to apply a custom CSS to your
article that made it nice and, well, readable.  And for this service, they
charge $5/mo and spread 70% of your $5 with the producers of the different
content which gets made readable. 

To say then, that Readability is creating content is ridiculous.  They are
transforming existing content -- there is no comparison between them and, say,
Amazon, who this policy is meant to target.  Under Gruber's definition of
'serving up content', the mini Opera browser which delivers pre-rendered
images of web pages (on some platforms) is also 'serving up content'. 

Hell, VNC clients can easily be construed to be content servers under this
rationalization! 

~~~
tjogin
I didn't even comment on this specific case.  I just wanted to point out that,
contrary to what you claimed, John Gruber have in fact criticized Apple quite
a bit, and _especially_ on the topic of their App Store regulations.  To claim
that he always agrees with Apple is simply either uninformed, or a lie. 

~~~
TillE
Yes, Gruber is generally decent (except when it comes to Android, where he
seizes every available opportunity to make snide, petty, uninformed remarks). 

But everyone else here _is_ talking about this specific case, which, as you
suggest, seems startlingly out-of-character for him. 

------
statictype
_Sent from my iPhone_

How does someone like Steve Jobs - someone who presumably has an inbox that is
under a constant barrage of spam - productively check mail on an iPhone? 

I don't get a lot of mail and still, the lack of junk control filters makes
managing mail on the phone almost impossible. 

~~~
jmah
I expect his mail is heavily triaged / filtered by a secretary or assistant,
so it'd be quite manageable on a phone or whatnot. 

~~~
dalore
It's also easier to manage if you don't bother with politeness or try to be
clear.  One line vague replies seem to be the go. 

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Realistically a CEO isn't going to have time for more so you have to ask
yourself would you rather have this or nothing.  How many other CEOs even
engage at this level? 

The man has a company to run and some personal stuff to deal with.  Yes I wish
we got more detail but I'd rather this than nothing. 

~~~
nr0mx
What you say makes sense, except when this substitutes for official
communication from the company, as often is the case with Apple.  If the CEO is
aware of this issue, and the company prefers to keep mum on this topic, then
it is obviously a considered silence. 

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Apple haven't replied _yet_.  That doesn't mean that they're not going to
reply. 

Generally companies are ill advised to make knee jerk reactions to these
situations.  More customers and potential customers are joining the debate each
day and if Apple made a statement today, it could be wrong tomorrow.  This
whole thing is less than a week old. 

If Apple haven't responded in a month then I'd agree, however right now I
think this is a sensible pause for reflection. 

------
Corrado
Man, reading this stuff is like trying to figure out the US tax code.  Every
time I get more information on the new app store rules I just get more
confused.  At first I was really liking the fact that I could purchase apps and
have them available on any Mac I use.  Now I'm not so sure that the App Store
is a good thing at all, for developers or consumers. 

My personal feeling is that any contract that has this many rules and
exceptions is probably going to screw me over. 

------
toddh
Don't apply to SaaS today.  What about tomorrow? 

------
Flenser
If there's only one copy of an article stored on Readability's servers, then
I'd say they're a publisher.  If they store everyone's articles separately,
then they're a service. 

~~~
ugh
Well, that’s a meaningless distinction.  Those technical details don’t change a
thing for the user or the business. ( Did you know that Dropbox will upload
identical files only once?)  They are interesting to engineers and developers
but no one else. 

You can define “publisher” and “service” like that but it would be meaningless
and arbitrary.