History of Apple’s Developer Relations
On the podcast I talk with John about the fascinating 40-year history of Apple’s developer relations, how almost going bankrupt in the 1990s shaped today’s control-focused approach, and why we might need an ‘App Store 3.0’ reset.
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As the App Store became a services giant, the partnership vibe faded. Developers went from partners to “users” of Apple’s marketplace.
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Today, indie devs can pay Apple millions, while giants like Meta pay almost nothing. The fee logic and incentives don’t fit 2025.
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With Apple’s senior leadership nearing retirement, now is the time to set new priorities: empower developers, invest in the ecosystem, and ensure Apple’s platforms stay vibrant for decades to come.
There’s lots of interesting stuff here, but one point I wanted to highlight is how they talked about complexity. Apple could have just applied the App Store small business program rate automatically—it has the sales data—but perhaps they make marginally more services revenue by introducing an application and enrollment process. The antitrust compliance stuff has so far been country/region-specific, which is confusing for everyone. Instead of dragging it out and giving as little as possible in each jurisdiction, they could just introduce a new set of broadly acceptable rules that are applicable everywhere and move on to focus on other things.
Previously:
- App Store Study Shows 90% of What?
- EU App Store Tiers and Core Technology Commission
- WWDC 2025 Keynote
- WWDC 2025 Preview
- WWDC 2025 Wish Lists
- Apple Turnaround
- Court Orders Apple to Comply With Anti-Steering Injunction
- Soured
- One Year With the Vision Pro
- Apple Sitting on Applications and Requests
- The Asymmetry of App Review
- Enrolling in the App Store Small Business Program
- App Store Small Business Program With 15% Fee
Update (2025-08-13): Natasha Murashev:
According to customer support, apparently I was actually enrolled this whole time 😅There is just no celebratory “Welcome to the Apple Small Business Program” email that I was expecting or any other indication except they just start taking the 15% cut instead of 30.
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@Michael as the curator of the website that chronicles Apple's misadventures with the App Store perhaps most completely, have you ever done a podcast with anyone on this subject? Would you if anyone were interested? Maybe you have a podcast already and I don't know it, but you do good work here and I would think you'd have interesting things to say on the subject, as you do here.
Not that I'm in a position to make it happen but I'm sure you have readers who are. Just a thought.
@bart Thanks. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m just not interested in podcasting. I feel like I probably already spend too much time documenting stuff here, and once I’ve said what I wanted to say I don’t feel the need to rehash or ruminate further.
With senior leadership nearing retirement they will be sure to find successors following in their footsteps. Unless something really forces Apple to let go of their colossal arrogance nothing will change.
