>pressure placed upon software developers to sell through that app
To be fair, I haven't heard of any pressure at all. It's just a very nice platform to ALSO distribute through, as it handles updates far better than many other platforms.
The app would need to be open source for this to be possible.
It's still possible to make money with an open-source product. When you're targeting a developer audience, it might even be more profitable to be open-source.
That’s not the problem, it’s having to manage a bunch of sets of credentials, and the logistics of pushing updates through multiple stores. Both are obviously solvable problems but definitely annoying barriers to someone who really just wants to make their app.
Or more realistically, it means developers will have to start paying for a middle man saas thing that distributes apps in all the stores and aggregates reviews etc.
Distribution of applications is only a subset of publishing. Mobile app developers often willing live in the walled garden because it is easier and more profitable, at least initially.
Yes, we will be releasing our product (packaged in the platform) and then allow developers to add their apps to the platform too. We are even thinking of open sourcing our app to make it easier for developers.
Genuine question: why not distribute them yourself (e.g. on GitHub)? If more and more developers do this, it will be like pc software. We don't have to accept a storefront (on Android at least).
I think any platform can make both developers and user's happy. I agree and empathize with jwz in that its got to be incredibly frustrating to write two relatively simple apps only to have to jump through hoop after hoop to get them published.
I know I'd be equally as frustrated if I couldn't just get my apps on the store.
No one really says they have to. As Jobs said it won't be the only way to get Apps. But smaller devs benefit greatly. You can go from 0 to collecting payments worldwide, having distribution, updates, a 'store' to display your product, etc. with very little work (in comparison to doing it all yourself).
To ensure that developers continue to develop for their platforms and users continue to turn to their platforms for implicit advice about apps, the same reason they do most things in their stores.
Apps with large install bases are implicitly valuable to the platform as they are popular with phone-buying customers. It's not in the platform's interest to alienate the developers of such apps as those apps, together, cause people to buy that platform's devices to run them. The incentives are aligned.
If I distributed VPN malware via enterprise certs, I would lose my developer account. When Facebook does it, they lose the enterprise cert.
Just goes to show that selling App's in a walled ecosystem is NOT the exact same as building a software business. You lose so much control over your product, you essentially become commission-only contract software developers. Publishers have been pushing for this kind of control for a long time.
To be fair, I haven't heard of any pressure at all. It's just a very nice platform to ALSO distribute through, as it handles updates far better than many other platforms.
You certainly can distribute outside of that.
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