I am just now running in to another potential cost - the $99/year cost of becoming an Apple Developer. This is apparently what provides your certificates and profiles that make it possible to sell in the MacStore OR the iTunesStore.
I discovered this (to my annoyance) about half an hour ago when I tried to develop an iOS app (not in XOJO, unfortunately) that I would have to spend $99/year to put a piece of software that I wrote on my iPhone that consists of 6 text boxes (5 inputs and 1 results) and a button to do the magic.
I get that they need to pay for xCode (I thought the 30% covered that??) but this is quite a shock from the old days when I was an Apple Developer.
Will this be a requirement for any XOJO iOS builds? I assume it will, by arrangement with Apple (and use of their SDKs).
@Martin Gallo, that is beyond Xojo’s control. If you deploy on iOS, it’s 99/yr, if you deploy on OS X, it’s 99/yr. Nothing anyone can do about it except Apple.
Depending on how old those old days are $99 is cheap.
I recall spending several thousand a year to remain a developer with the privilege of submitting a handful of priority support cases & buying a few systems. And you got MPW which was a nasty dev tool.
I think 30% is very reasonable. Using amazon for a book (analogous to App Store) it’s much more than 30% and there is a similar intellectual nuance. To me it’s a question of economies of scale. Is it better to have 70% of something or 100% of nothing? I’ll take the former.
Also you should consider the life cycle of your product and price it appropriately depending where you are and what competitive/alternatives there are. Also think about how to reach potential customers and I think it’s a pretty good deal for 30%. All my opinion.
Even in Apple store the software doesn’t sell itself.
There are many other vendor places to add your software where they charge a lot less; e.g. 3-10% plus a $1-2 fee.
Some of those places have associate programs where you can offer 10-20% per sale to have your software promoted.
[quote=16748:@Nick P.]I think 30% is very reasonable. Using amazon for a book (analogous to App Store) it’s much more than 30% and there is a similar intellectual nuance. To me it’s a question of economies of scale. Is it better to have 70% of something or 100% of nothing? I’ll take the former.
Also you should consider the life cycle of your product and price it appropriately depending where you are and what competitive/alternatives there are. Also think about how to reach potential customers and I think it’s a pretty good deal for 30%. All my opinion.[/quote]
Then what if they charged 90%? Would you say the same thing? It’s better to have 10% of something than 100% of nothing?
Amazon used to badmouth Apple over the 30% cut they take without mentioning that Amazon was taking a bigger cut themselves (and was forced to reduce their cut to 30% afterwards)
The 30% is NOT for marketing - Apple doesn’t advertise your app.
The 30% is for access to the market place, having the developers registered/checked, having the apps checked (so that users can sleep easy), for copy-protecting and managing your app installations, for download transfers, and for having a place where users can leave reviews etc.
If you sell just a few copies then that is actually very cheap - you are certainly not making Apple any money.
If you are selling millions then you might think it a bit much - but you are subsidizing all those “not so fortunate” developers, and without Apple you might not have gotten anything at all.
I once “sold” some free software on my website (gave it away) which was unexpectedly popular. Two days later I got a $120 bill from my ISP for using more than my allowed transfer quota. Stopped THAT pretty quickly.
Problem is the “free lunch” mentality on the web that some people here are displaying. Lets take that to its logical conclusion: “you should really give away your software for free! The price is way too high anyway, nobody is going to buy it at that price, and anyway I can find a cracked version soon anyway”.
There, all the moaning already done.
But hey, feel free to sell the software via your own website - you’ll get 100%.
[quote=13607:@Mike Charlesworth]When I upload to the Mac App Store is my software covered by any licence by Apple or should I still include my licence within my software?
Does anyone have or know where I could obtain a commercial software licence for a desktop app without forking out that can be adapted to my software?[/quote]
Think of Apple as a retailer. You still have to write the terms of license yourself.
As for the document itself, I suggest you get examples from the numerous software liceses around. Most of them say the same thing with different wording :
Don’t expect this software to do anything or not to break down
This software is sold without any warranty expressed or implied that it can serve any purpose
You do not have the right to copy or resell this program
You do not have the right to reverse engineer
… and so on, much more politely written but the result is the same. Terms of license are not meant to be nice, they are meant o serve as a tool if and when you need to go to court against someone, or to protect you against liability. The more you decline responsibility for, the less people can attack. Hence the ‘as is’ clause
[quote=13607:@Mike Charlesworth]Being a UK based developer, should my licence be worded to cover UK legalities even though my software will (hopefully) be purchased worldwide.
[/quote]
You are going to sell worldwide on the MAS, so you want to word your document worldwide. However, as an additional legalese item, you may want to start your terms of license with something like :
Just joking about Ipswitch. Have no idea if they even have a courthouse. The intent is to set in advance the stage for any arbitration should the need arise. And discourage frivolous lawsuits from lawyers in the middle of nowhere, America. Just imagine US lawyers having to deal with provincial courts in the UK, that could be an amusing sight
When I upload to the Mac App Store is my software covered by any licence by Apple or should I still include my licence within my software?
Does anyone have or know where I could obtain a commercial software licence for a desktop app without forking out that can be adapted to my software?
Being a UK based developer, should my licence be worded to cover UK legalities even though my software will (hopefully) be purchased worldwide.
thanks.[/quote]
Apple will give you an option of using their “PreMade” Commercial License EULA for your software if you choose. You will also have the ability to upload your EULA however the Apple legal people will also review it closely as they look for a “minimium legal set of requirements” as they have outlined here http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore/dev/minterms/.
I ended up taking their free EULA and adding my state and a few other legal statements to it. I didn’t have any problems.
