[mattboardman]

I don't think Apple will back down in order to appease developers. Their strategy is pretty clear: make their platform so popular people pay to play by Apple's rules. Apple could charge 50% or 70% on their app store and developers would still line up. The bigger issue in the relationship is when they started building competing apps with the developers. Why would anyone want to help Apple build a platform that they will then use to undercut you? This is also after they already took a huge cut of your revenue.

[bdw5204]

This strategy works because investors will demand that companies support a popular platform.

I don't know if this will work for Vision Pro because there's still no evidence of mass market appeal for VR or AR technology. Even Facebook's money and marketing muscle hasn't been able to make Meta VR mainstream. Nor is Playstation VR going to get widespread adoption or significant software support until Sony starts bundling it with Playstations which would be very risky by making Xbox dramatically cheaper.

I think companies are making VR devices because they're appealing to their engineering department not because they actually have reason to believe there's consumer demand for such tech. But the popular alternatives to invest in are things like crypto and generative AI that also have open questions about whether the product is actually useful to the mass market.

[FirmwareBurner]

> support a popular platform

Apple's $5k headset is not a popular platform yet, nor will it be as popular as smartphones anytime soon.

Companies want to push their apps to Apple/Google because everyone has a smartphone in their pocket at all times and has their eyes glued to it most of their spare time meaning shopping, product sales and advertising $$$.

Compared to that, even if the headset would be half price, very few people will be as absorbed into it as much as they are into phones, therefore companies are in no rush to port their apps to Apple's headset.

And I'm saying this as someone who has a VR headset and is bullish on VR. It's difficult to beat the convenience and portability of a smartphone with a clunky headset you wouldn't wear on the street.

Maybe when headsets will be as slick and as functional as Iron Man's E.D.I.T.H. glasses they'll be able to fully replace smartphones for eyeball time, but we're very far from that future, as the current iteration is more of a tethered virtual TV/monitor rather than a fully immersive stand alone AR experience device, and silicone and battery technology isn't advancing fast enough anymore to bring Iron Man tech to reality anytime soon, let alone make it affordable.

So I think devs are right in giving the headset the cold shoulder for now until it becomes a mass market product with mass appeal that people wouldn't mind wearing on the street.

[practicemaths]

You're making good points.

My reflective thoughts are first if you make a solid piece of software Apple should be hiring you to integrate your product into their main software stack.

Secondly, particularly to your last point, I think this encourages short development cycles and continually pushing something new.

Since if you build a good innovative product you run the risk of Apple undercutting it like you said. Unfortunately this means that there's less incentive to maintain and update a software product in exchange for developing and selling something new.

[lkadjal]

> Why would anyone want to help Apple build a platform that they will then use to undercut you?

Awesome. I will build some apps and make the 30% then. Even if it's short term it's still a lot of money. Thanks.

[bogwog]

> Their strategy is pretty clear: make their platform so popular people pay to play by Apple's rules.

*by illegally excluding competing platforms