Panic’s 2016 App Store Feedback
Panic’s @cabel shares App Store thoughts with Phil Schiller
Some of these sentences seem very familiar, so I wonder if this e-mail has been published before, though I can’t seem to find the link. In any event, what a good communicator Cabel Sasser is. His first point about App Store–induced stress reminds me of what Rich Siegel has spoken about, and that situation hasn’t changed. Most of the other points are also still valid today, although Apple did add a limited way to reply to customer reviews, and subscriptions make it possible—albeit curiously difficult—to implement trials without having to keep purchasing “‘fuel’ to keep the Transmit truck rolling.”
Previously:
- More Documents From Epic vs. Apple
- Coda to Become Nova
- Receipt Validation and AirPlay 2
- Transmit 5 on the Mac App Store
- Apple Support Tells Customers to Ask Developer for Refund
- Replying to App Store Reviews
- BBEdit Leaving the Mac App Store
- Coda 2.5 Not Sandboxable, Leaves Mac App Store
4 Comments RSS · Twitter
Yeah, Cabel strikes me as a very cool and impressive person. The only part I don't understand is him even suggesting the 30% cut might be fair for what you get.
I read it more as a hostage letter signed under duress.
If you stoped introducing stress by mismanaging something we've got covered already, then maybe I'll be able to stomach you taking 30% for the privilege, is damning with faint praise.
I'm impressed he went as far as he did straight to Phils face. Brave.
Panic is one of a few developers that can get away with it, because of their longevity and status in the community. They're one of the few that Apple gave special entitlements to in order to get Transmit into the Mac App Store, for example. If Apple started picking on Panic, any remaining goodwill Apple has with the developer community would pretty instantaneously vanish.
There's something disturbing about calling a top class software producer "Brave" for telling a hardware producer that its store is not user friendly... It's almost as if everyone accepted that the hardware producer is behaving like a monopolist.
