Comment by notnullorvoid
2 years ago
I'm guessing because outside the Apple ecosystem apps are primarily free.
Apple App Store is $99 annually + cost of owning a Mac, compared to a one time $25 Google Play Store (develop on PC or Mac, with the possibility to avoid the Play Store). More people own PCs (even within the developer community) so this leads to more apps in the PC and Android ecosystem. More competition, means lower prices.
I've also heard Apple is much more strict about what they allow on their App store, which further restricts supply and keeps prices high. I don't think this is an accident, Apple intentionally wants high prices on their platform, because it keeps the illusion alive that Apple devices are luxury devices and a status symbol.
There is no way that developer costs of $100/year + a $2k Mac is the reason why all the money gets spent on iOS.
“Keep prices high”. The top grossing iOS apps are all like $1-2. That is not high. In fact, from what I could tell on sensortower.com, apps from the same developers were priced identically between stores, and the average prices of Android top grossing apps were higher. Probably because of the LOW VOLUME, not related to overhead.
You’re trying hard to find reasons to blame Apple for an active marketplace. What exactly do you want to achieve?
The PlayStore on iOS? The free market doesn’t work. It’s a myth. I’d much rather pay $10 for a good app here or there than have a store full of “free” or $0.05 trash where it’s not worth anyone’s time to invest in building something good.
There’s also privacy considerations to consider. How easy is it to pirate apps for androids? To use alternative clients?