For smartphone owners who can’t bear the bugs and software problems that sometimes accompany the multi-manufacturer nature of Windows Phone and Android devices, the Apple App Store has been the best way to find and enjoy the best new applications that run on the company’s iPhone and iPad devices. Apple marked a milestone last year when it announced that it had shipped over 1 billion iOS devices to users cumulatively, but the company has cause to celebrate once again, with CEO Tim Cook announcing that the App Store recently passed the 100 billion app downloads mark since it was released seven years ago.
Although the store’s number of app downloads is laudable, last year the service experienced a little over a third less downloads compared to Google Play last year, yet still enjoyed revenues a little under fifty percent higher than its competitor. Apple has, unlike its more widely-used competitors, adopted a position of charging slightly more for app downloads than their Google Play equivalents, but it seems that this approach is paying dividends for developers choosing Apple; since launch over $30 billion has been paid out to developers who have hosted their apps on the service.
Part of the success has been down to the sheer number and variety of apps available on the site. iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch apps performing a myriad of functions are posted on the service and posted at a rate of hundreds every day, and games from providers such as http://www.spinpalace.com are proving immensely popular with the mainstream gaming public, who seemingly are at ease with the prospect of paying a slightly higher price for the guarantee that their favourite apps will be assuredly less prone to bugs, shutdowns and – at the worst end of the spectrum – hacks and information theft.
It seems that these very same fans might be paying a little less in the future though. Earlier this month, the company announced that it would be cutting the rather large fees it takes from developers, a 30% amount that has led to services such as Spotify, hosted on the App Store, costing $12.99 and month instead of the usual $9.99. Why one wouldn’t just subscribe to the service through Spotify itself is a question for another day, but the rate cut comes as Apple is poised to introduce its own subscription services. Lowering the cut of subscription revenues is a message to regulators that the tech giant is going to be playing nicer in the future. So, could we soon be seeing cuts in non-subscription areas, such as games and other apps, soon? With Apple about to lose a chunk of revenue, the answer is likely to be a resounding no.