Not that they're perfect by any means, but the pattern seems pretty clear: they start off with a restrictive situation, see how it works, and then adjust. (Sometimes they restrict more, then relax; sometimes they stay more restrictive.)
They're engaged in a learning process, folks. Nothing quite like the App Store has been attempted before on this scale, and you know they've gotta be rather conservative at each step. You would if you were in their shoes.
Yes, they're trying to make money, but I see lots of signs that they're also trying to accommodate the needs of users first, then developers.
Never assume malice when it could just be incompetence (i.e., learning from mistakes), etc.
(I'm not shilling for Apple. I didn't even attend WWDC this year for the first time in many years. ;-)
The "same price or less than it is offered outside the app" clause was the part I always imagined to be most likely to set off a DOJ smoke detector. Not surprised to see it go.
Do you think Apple really cares about competition from an e-book company who we never heard of before their open letter, and who's name we can't remember now?
Microsoft used to take on little companies too and either buy them out or run them out of business with any means necessary. If you wait too long they get hard to kill.
I personally find the notion that anyone at Apple with influence over app store t's & c's has ever heard of iFlowReader insulting to our intelligence. I'm saying that this notion that Apple actively tried to kill iFlowReader is pure geek fantasy, a product of nerds like us wanting stories with clear bad guys and underdogs. It bears no relation to reality. Apple did not give a shit about them.
>Apple doesn’t give a damn about companies with business models that can’t afford a 70/30 split. Apple’s running a competitive business; competition is cold and hard. And who exactly can’t afford a 70/30 split? Middlemen. It’s not that Apple is opposed to middlemen — it’s that Apple wants to be the middleman. It’s difficult to expect them to be sympathetic to the plights of other middlemen.
..
>This is what galls some: Apple is doing this because they can, and no other company is in a position to do it. This is not a fear that in-app subscriptions will fail because Apple’s 30 percent slice is too high, but rather that in-app subscriptions will succeed despite Apple’s (in their minds) egregious profiteering. I.e. that charging what the market will bear is somehow unscrupulous. To the charge that Apple Inc. is a for-profit corporation run by staunch capitalists, I say, “Duh”.
>If it works, Apple’s 30-percent take of in-app subscriptions will prove as objectionable in the long run as the App Store itself: not very.
Looks like Apple didn't really succeed and backtracked once Amazon and Netflix started threatening to pull their apps which would make the iDevices much less valuable to many users. You can only pillage the ecosystem so much before it starts hurting you.
" 'It’s not that Apple is opposed to middlemen — it’s that Apple wants to be the middleman. It’s difficult to expect them to be sympathetic to the plights of other middlemen.'"
is clearly in agreement with what he replied to:
"this notion that Apple actively tried to kill iFlowReader is pure geek fantasy... Apple did not give a shit about them."
I made a stronger claim than that; I said, nobody with any influence over app store terms and conditions had ever even heard of iFlowReader. I'm trying to convey how absurd it sounds that Apple would tailor its corporate strategy to an independent software product with so little traction or market impact.
If you think they did, you're free to think that. I think it's profoundly unlikely that they even knew about them.
You are probably right, but is it possible they saw the type of business that iFlowReader what doing, not them in particular but the general idea, as something they wanted to be in and they were looking at making it hard for others to compete? I do have to admit I'm implying they were trying to be mischievous and I hardly have proof of that but it's just I possibility.
"Right after that e-book competitor shut it's doors (It's been like 3 weeks.)"
"This is how apple kills off competitors. They "experiment", competitors close shop, then they come to their senses and undo the damage."
Do you really think Apple went through all this to kill off some tiny company building software for their platform? No. They're relenting to make sure companies like Amazon, Netflix, and major newspaper and magazine publishers stay on iOS.
"I am surprised Apple is not being brought up on monopoly charges."
Note that only Section 2 of the Sherman Anti-Trust act even mentions monopolies. The rest of it deals with anti-competitive actions, of which monopoly may only be a potential outcome.
In what practical sense did Apple's original rules ever impact Amazon's Kindle app? Are you just saying Apple was playing chicken with Amazon? Ok. They lost. And?
Err, I take it that you haven't been keeping up with the hoopla? Both the Netflix and Kindle apps were totally affected by these rules and would have had to pay up 30% of their subscriptions/ebooks. The deadline for enforcement was June 30th.
In the meantime, Apple started killing off the small guys while approving updates to Kindle and Netflix. Things were suppose to come to a head this month.
Size does not matter when defining a monopoly. Monopolies restrict trade. There are many services that are actually equal in price or less than iTunes with similar catalogs. Definitely not a monopoly.
It's like price-anchoring (see iPad) except instead of dollars it's restrictions. Apple sets the restriction bar at a crazy level, and then when they relax the restrictions it feels like we're all getting something great when in fact Apple is getting exactly what they wanted.
I don't think anyone is calling them evil due to the app store restriction here. But they definitely stole the guy's app and logo. That's both illegal (at least the logo part) and immoral.
Reject the app, sure. Build similar functionality yourself, perhaps a bit scumbaggy but also probably legal. (This crowd still hasn't forgiving Microsoft for doing that 20 years ago.) Do all of that and steal the logo too and you've crossed the line.
The logo was a combination of two of Apple's own images (iSync, and the wifi menu bar). I think your claim that they "stole the guys app and logo" is a little murky, at least regarding the logo.
They're engaged in a learning process, folks. Nothing quite like the App Store has been attempted before on this scale, and you know they've gotta be rather conservative at each step. You would if you were in their shoes.
It never fails to amaze me how early adopters react to new services and technology. Of course it's understandable that devs want to be treated fairly and (notwithstanding Apple's missteps) make a living. However it would behoove us to bear in mind that these services are new and still being developed. It's natural that a system should go through changes some of which are actually mistakes that will hopefully be reversed. Such evolution, one would hope, ensures that at some point an equilibrium is reached wherein both parties interests are addressed. Keeping in mind that the better the AppStore is (for users) the wider the reach will become and in turn this should mean a larger user base for devs.
Yes, it's great when husband stops beating his wife. What a great husband!
The policy was greedy, and current policy is not a complete reversal — any other purchase systems and even linking to an external shop are still forbidden.
pornel's point is that this isn't a point in Apple's favor, they just saw that being horrible didn't work for them and scaled it down to being merely terrible.
You really equate continual physical and mental abuse with unfavourable trade practices?
Each to their own I guess.
EDIT: My point is that it's a bad metaphor not because there are no links between the two but, as with most heavily emotive metaphors, it comes with too much baggage which distracts from the intended message.
A metaphor doesn't have to be a perfect match for what it's describing but the broad content and emotional tone should be similar and here I think it's hard to justify that this is the case.
A metaphor doesn't equate two things - it suggest some congruence among features.
The original [great great grandparent] comparison was not primarily noting the congruence between Apple's behavior and wife beating, but rather the congruence between the praise some people were giving Apple for their change of behavior and praising someone for ceasing to beat their spouse.
Which makes it a bad metaphor, Apple's behavior is not abusive. We may not like it but Apple only wants a cut of the revenue they think they help generate. There is nothing in my developers agreement that will lead me to believe that Apple loves me so much and won't enact restrictions to my activity as an ios developer to increase their own profits. Our only recourse is to stop developing for Apple's app store.
My point is that it's a bad metaphor because, as with most metaphors which have emotional, criminal or violent connotations, it comes with too much baggage which distracts heavily from the intended message.
I'm happy to accept that negative is reasonable here, I don't accept that emotive in this way this metaphor is, is useful or a good reflection of the situation.
And those are just the tip of iceberg. Is killing the dreams of small businesses built on months of blood and sweat and money for no good reason an acceptable practice?
Big bad Apple taking away all the success iflow was about to have in their dreams of being a third middleman of a zero marginal cost egood.
At what point do the people at iflowreader and readability put on their big boy pants and take some responsibility for lack of their dreams coming true?
In terms of iflow their level of innovation was minimal and they started their business on a platform that took a cut of music sales and a cut of app sales and were then surprised that Apple wanted a cut of other sales.
Readability I'm very slightly more sad about because their model was slightly more interesting but fundamentally it's business and if you put yourself in a position where you're beholden to someone who has shown themselves to be ruthless then I can't get too worked up about it.
Ah, that must be why people complain about my metaphors all the time. I am pretty good at not paying any attention to the baggage, which makes me judge a metaphor just on its merits, whereas other people complain because, ostensibly, they are offended by that.
Given that metaphors are about communication, that people complain about them all the time, and that communication is about other people, you might want to accept that they are bad metaphors.
The whole point of the metaphor is that it would be better if the wife beater hadn't started beating his wife in the first place and doesn't deserve any kudos at this point.
The problem with that it doesn't seem like they backed out of the goodness of heart to benefit app developers. It seems to be that the major services like Kindle and Netflix etc. would've started pulling out if this wasn't done, and since that will greatly diminish the value of the iDevices, Apple was forced to back off to protect it's bottomline. Otherwise it would've continued to impose those fee on small developers and users. To come back to metaphor, it's like the man stopping beating the wife after he was finally threatened with a hefty fine.
Yes, and he's still not beating his wife and that's good. Sure I'd have preferred it if it had come about some other way but this is still good.
The reality is that companies only do things for their own benefit, directly or indirectly, Apple, Google and everyone else included and we shouldn't kid ourselves that they do anything else. Google don't make Android because they love freedom or giving stuff away, they do it because they make shedloads of cash through advertising off the back of mobile internet use on a platform they control. You may love the side effect but I honestly think you're kidding yourself if you think they're doing it out of altruism - after all, don't be evil is looking pretty flakey in quite a few areas now.
(And please note I'm not trying to make this an Apple vs. Google thing, I'm just saying that this is what companies do - they do what works and makes them money).
But ultimately when people screamed and shouted for them to change this stuff, what outcome were you looking for other than it be changed? People spoke and acted, they listened, surely that's good?
If I could come up with a sarcastic one-liner that summarized my hope and belief that not every thread involving Apple has to turn into a holy war, I would post that here.
Sticking with your horrid analogy, it's more like announcing that beatings will begin on a certain date in the future. They received feedback of the negative flavor and changed their minds before the date arrived.
Right before the date arrived - In the analogy, a therapist would probably classify the behavior as emotional abuse.
In the real world, the negative feedback came right away, however Apple let the consequences of their announcement play out and thereby drove potential competitors from the markets in which they are interested.
In addition, Apple did not admit their behavior was wrong, nor did Apple commit to avoid similar behavior in the future.
Although Apple wasn't explicit, I believe only the $30 upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion is exclusive to the App Store.
The App Store doesn't exist in Leopard and Tiger, so Apple will probably release a full price DVD set for $180 that includes Lion, iWork, and iLife.
Not exactly great, but it is an alternative if you don't want to download from the Mac Store. Keep in mind, prior to Snow Leopard the OS X upgrades were $130 anyway.
I believe they made it fairly clear that the only way to get Lion will be through the App Store, though I don't recall the exact wording during the keynote. What I'm trying to say is: I came away with the impression that the App Store was the only way to get it; could be wrong though.
I guess it's easier to give people a bit more freedom when the initial rules are causing a lot of bad will than to restrict functionality down the line that people are relying on/used to having.
The problem with in-app purchases was always that Apple HAS to use the same 30% fee. If they use another percentage, developers just create free apps and make 'premium' features available for the same price as their paid app would otherwise be, thereby handing over less money to Apple.
Because Apple's in-app purchases don't distinguish between features and content, Apple can't use different pricing schemes.
I think Apple may try to change this situation with their News Stand system in iOS5. The content appearing there are still normal apps, they're just grouped together in a special folder and feature automatic downloads.
My guess is that content purchased in those News Stand apps will be less taxed than other in-app purchases, for example just 10%. That way Apple will keep some of their most important 'partners' happy.
Aren't iTunes gift cards Apple's big constraint? They pose a more difficult problem than developers abandoning paid apps in favor of in-app purchases (which could, as you say, be solved by Apple keeping in-app purchases at 30% outside a narrow app category).
Gift card retailers get most or all of the standard 30% cut, as I understand it, leaving Apple with nothing. If that's true there's no way for Apple to withhold less than 30% without either breaking their unified payment system or losing money on each sale. Taking the loss would expose them to massive fraud from collusion between app vendors and retailers.
Charging a lower rate for some categories (like News Stand content) without risking losses from gift card arbitrage would mean creating another payment tier where gift card balances didn't work, complicating the model.
Can someone with knowledge of the situation confirm whether this is accurate?
I'd also like to see someone with knowledge weigh in. I find it unthinkable that Apple would give more than a 5-10% margin on those gift cards. Retail stores love them despite the small cut because they're pure profit on the books: there's no inventory since they have no value until sold. I think they also get favorable terms on the transfer of cash from the sale of the gift card.
This also shows where retailers can be confusing (to me): it takes labor to ship, display, and activate those cards (activation can be a huge pain) but that's all considered fixed overhead I suppose.
Unless Apple regularly sell giftcards to retailers at significant discount, there's more than 50-10% markup.
My sole means of paying for iTunes purchases is via giftcards because they can always be obtained for a discount of between 20-25% if you look. A retailer here was recently offering them at buy 2 get 1 free, or 33% discount.
I still don't buy any argument that Apple is entitled to any subscription fee at all.
If I use my own subscription system, own payment system, own user system, and my own bandwidth to supply the content, then I shouldn't have to give anything to Apple. I don't need to send a fee to Microsoft if I have software that delivers content in the same way. That Apple thinks they are entitled to anything in this regard is absurd.
Apple brought you the customers, Apple adevertised your application, Apple provided you with the bandwidth to distribute your software and updates, Apple provided you with the SDK/APIs to write the application, Apple provided you with support for that SDK and the OS it runs on, and Apple takes on some legal liability for selling it.
How are they not entitled to something?
You wouldn't have the customers if they hadn't provided the market place.
This (and don't forget apple made the device itself).
Basically Apple is like a giant cruise ship company that can stop at any of thousands of islands along it's way. The islands that don't want to follow their rules (give us 30% of your bananas, don't use our private radio channel, wear some pants for god's sake, etc.) well that's their prerogative but they won't be able to sell their wares to Apple's thousands of well heeled tourists.
Is it possible that Amazon was playing 'chicken' with the Kindle app, and finally at the last moment, Apple relented and Amazon won?
On an episode of The Talkshow, Gruber was speculating that this would come to a head in early June and that something had to happen either way: The Kindle app gets pulled or Apple makes some kind of exception to the rule.
Kindle is not a subscription service. The relevant clause would be about in-app purchases. But it wouldn't surprise me that Amazon threatened to pull off the platform, and more power to them. If I were Jeff Bezos I wouldn't be removing any buttons or links from my apps, either.
Netflix is a subscription service. Apple's been approving Netflix and Kindle updates silently while picking on the small guys because they could, many small guys left the platform in frustration.
I chuckled when I read this. Work out a compromise with Apple? Most reasonable people would view Apple's position as being too constraining on content providers. If another tech giant whom I won't mention pulled a move like this, then people who be up in arms about it. But no, not for Apple ;-)
Well, clearly that wasn't the case. Unless the 'compromise' consisted of Apple relenting fully. Almost all the terms of IAP for subscriptions that were unfavorable to publishers have been removed.
"provided that the same content is also offered in the app using IAP at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app."
...and the new...
"that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app"
Now it appears that it's fine to show content that is subscribed for outside of the App Store ecosystem (but you may not link directly to your payment pages).
Yes, it's closing the stable door after the horse has bolted somewhat.
Presumably the recent announcements from large media brands (Playboy, FT) of their intention to deliver through webapps has caused this, so we should be thankful to them for this result!
I don't understand why they didn't position subscriptions more sensibly from the start - if it had been a 5-10% cut this situation probably wouldn't have happened in the first place.
30% would be somewhat defensible if Apple provided the CDN for the content. As they don't, they're taxing convenience and taking it far too high. The 5-10% number holds a lot more water.
On the flip side, young upstarts will still lap the system up. Apple has has given them a chance to get one up on old media. The problem is it makes Apple a very large, capricious gorilla in the market.
My problem was more about setting restrictions on what I could charge my customer. If the customer wants to pay the premium for buying from the iphone application, fine by me.
As far as a "reasonable" fee, I think it should be more in the range of what a credit card charges.
young upstarts will still lap the system up
I totally agree here. I wonder if it's a viable long-term strategy. In the first wave Apple's store got a bit of a reputation for having a lot of crap in it.
But they could be doing the following, which I think would be pretty brilliant:
We have a new platform, and a new way of interacting with media and with each other. What is the best use of this? What ideas will be seen as valuable? Well, let's just get as many ideas as we can as cheaply as we can, let the system percolate for a bit and see what is great.
When we know what is great, we'll then steer things strongly that way either by (1) building more stuff in-house and relegating indie applications to the cellar, or (2) very tight restrictions on the devs. This amounts to a huge marketing experiment that they make a ton of money from rather than having to spend a ton of money. Brilliant.
It wouldn't be defensible as long as they force them maintain the same price. For some of the companies, 30% of the profit is all they've got, perhaps even more than they've got. The biggest problem with this is Apple wouldn't allow them to increase prices. So Amazon wouldn't be able to sell an e-book for $14 to compensate on iOS, and $10 on their own site.
Wow, this could not have come at a better time, since I was just wondering the other day if our companion app to our SaaS offering would be approved. Very pleased to see them reversing their position on this, and further clarifying that even this guideline excludes SaaS subscriptions (which I think is why they specifically spell out audio, video, etc. as the types of content). Thanks, Apple!
I think at that time there was one of those one-word email from Steve Jobs to someone basically clarifying that SaaS subscriptions were not part of that model anyway.
Now the whole thing is moot though.
Probably their lawyers got to them. They have a near monopoly in legal music downloads (market share at 70%), so if their app store policies led to Rhapsody or Rdio going out of business it would look pretty bad in the eyes of regulators.
I don't know, "near monopoly" doesn't mean anything - 70% or 7%, you either have a leverage over the market and are a monopoly or you don't and aren't.
I think it's rather that Apple figured that those two (and others) going out of business (or at least ditching iOS) will hurt their platform more than anything they'll gain from the subscription rule change.
Apple has paid 2.5 billion to developers -- and that doesn't include other ways of making money on the ecosystem (e.g. writing apps for others)
The danger parts are if you are trying to make money in the same way Apple is, or threatening them in some way.
Some examples:
- if you are going to try to make some kind of significant (30%) affiliate payment as a go-between. (iFlow)
- if you try to fill a temporary obvious gap in iOS, that nearly every user would want -- this only works if you can keep out-innovating Apple (if they even allow it). (Instapaper -- but I think he'll out-innovate)
- if somehow your app/service gives some advantage to Apple's competitors (AdMob)
They claim that because it’s what Apple CFO Oppenheimer said in February during a shareholder meeting: “We run the App Store just a little over break-even.”
Apple makes money by selling hardware with good margins. The App Store and the Music Store help them sell more hardware.
Well, I'd imagine they still can't sell it in the app, because the agency model means that they have to pay out 70% of the sale price to the publisher. After Apple's 30% cut, that leaves nothing for them.
However, it seems as though Apple's ok with apps selling content through a website, as long as it isn't linked to from the app.
Not under the Agency model where they still owe publishers 70% of the sale and Apple 30% of the sale. If they want a cut, they can only sell from a website, outside the app. They had a flawed business model to egin with in my opinion.
It makes perfect sense now that they have Newsstand in iOS 5.
Netflix, Amazon Kindle, SaaS apps and what-have-you can do what they want subscription-wise and still provide immense value to the platform, while magazines and newspapers will want to be part of Newsstand and will give Apple their 30% without much of a fuss. Everybody wins.
I truly don't understand why apple does this, I can only assume its because they have nothing but contempt for the people who develop apps for their platform.
To play devil's advocate, the original policy was nearly* unambiguously good for users of Apple devices: same content, same price or cheaper, without having to give your payment information to a 3rd party.
*with the very large caveat that it drove (and would have continued to drive) competitors out of the market decreasing customer choice & ultimately innovation. It's possible (though, I think, unlikely) that they didn't really know the extent to which this would throw developers large and small into a tizzy. Hence a lot of the confusion about SaaS etc.
I'm aware this is a positive change, my point is as a developer it breeds ever increasing uncertainty. Apple introduce draconian changes penciled in to come into effect in four months time, everyone complains about it, they don't say or do anything about it for four months and then quietly change policy a couple of weeks before it comes into effect.
I'm not saying apple can't act like that, I'm not saying that it might not be in their own business interests, I am saying that it shows complete contempt for the people developing apps for their platform who have to plan around changes that might or might not come into effect and which might or might not be clarified at some point sooner or later but probably later.
Reversing a negative doesn't yield a positive, it puts you back at neutral. This is only "positive" if you don't include the previous negative that was a massive abuse of their position.
I would like to point out to people who say that Apple is being greedy: until they came out with their 30% deal it was normal for Phone companies to ban all software from their phones except for their own. When phone companies did include outside developers software, deals of 90%+ were common (as they still are in the games' industry)
This was never true on the two dominant smart phone platforms, Palm OS and Windows Mobile. Development on the former required only Codewarrior while the latter VS.Net, which became free. Neither Palm nor Microsoft ever required you to pay them money either to develop or release applications, nor did they require approval for those applications to run on devices.
You're comparing Apple's smart phone ecosytem against other companies' dumb phone ecosystems. A more reasonable comparison against other smart phone platforms shows that Apple's is unusually restrictive.
Actually, virtually all dumb phones allow installation of Mobile Java applications (.jar), and most have no limits on the source of the applications (at least in Europe, I know of some limitations for US carriers and certain devices). Once you can send a link to the installation file to your phone, you are good to go.
My last two phones before the iPhone were symbians and there was no independent software for either. My phone supplier (Orange) provided a few authorized buggy overpriced games but that was it.
Really? Had Orange removed the ability to install native Symbian (.sis) apps and Mobile Java (.jar) apps?
Because if you would have a normal Symbian devices, there would be plenty of free software available. Not as easily as through AppStore (almost with the Ovi) but the platform is much more open than iPhone in that it allows installation of software from any source.
How would I have got it on there? I'm a technical guy but I never worked any of that out. I managed to get images off via bluetooth but never managed to get anything onto it. My second 3G phone a Sony-Ericsson was slightly more successful (I managed to stick some MP3s on it). But that was it.
Despite supposedly having email, video calling and internet both phones failed to do any of the three despite numerous attempts. I could get WAP but that was it (and typing a full url with the numeric keypad was a nightmare - it took about as long as the page took to render i.e. forever).
I and a friend got Nokia 3G phones at the same time sat down to make our first video call - a momentous moment. Total failure. Not even a pretense at a picture.
The Ericsson was a terrible MP3 player too. Really tricky to use. However it was a fantastic camera.
I stand by my assertion that Apple changed phones forever when it introduced the iPhone. Everything worked and was usable. Then, when they introduced the App store this was the first time I was able to use a phone with 3rd party software despite numerous attempts.
Ah OK, so your point in the original message is that you could not get independent software into your phone.
Because there sure was PLENTY of independent software for Symbian, and the system does very little to restrict what these apps can do.
Off the top of my head, a few simple ways to install apps in these devices that are independent of the operator and theis offerings:
1. Website that allows you to enter your phonenumber, and sends an installation URL via SMS. Just a few clicks on the phone side, very simple. For example Google uses this. <http://www.google.com/mobile/maps/>;
2. Enter the short mobile optimized URL in the phone. How hard exactly is it to enter something like "m.google.com/maps" to the browser of your phone?
3. Send SIS/JAR file over Bluetooth to the device -- quite a few of my "non-techie" friends have managed to do this.
I fully agree that Apple has made game changing improvements to mobile applications, especially on the user experience side. But to say that there is no independent software for Symbian is plain wrong.
I believe I said was not is. I gave up on Symbian in 2007. I'd also like to pint out that in 2006 I was working with ex-Symbian employees and they seemed equally clueless about how you would go about installing software onto my device. The answer they gave involved a Java compiler and programming environment.
I don't think we disagreed on the tense: My point is that there was indeed plenty of apps for Symbian.
I find it extremely odd that someone working with Symbian wouldn't know HOW to install apps in the phone. Or maybe they were not tech people?
I had to check some dates:
We released "Pro Session Golf" first as part of the N93 Golf Edition package in 2006[1], and later in 2007[2] as a downloadable standalone. And it definitely wasn't the only Symbian app around at the time!
Where are you based? I am from Finland, I guess Symbian
products and especially app culture varied a lot between countries.
BTW, about ways to install apps to Symbian devices, I forgot the popular and simple way that I personally hated: Nokia PC Suite and USB or Bluetooth -connection.
I gave up on Symbian long before 2007 and I had plenty of 3rd party apps (and developed a few myself). If you took an iPhone, put a capacitive touch screen on it, and made it fat ugly and slow then you'd have the phone I had 10 years ago.
If your only experience was Symbian and Nokia then I can see why you feel that way. There's a reason that even 10 years of development after you had your phone, Nokia has decided to dump Symbian. Terrible platform.
I think this also has to do with the in-App Patent trouble. Now Apple can say, hey, we did not force you to offer in-App purchase in your app, you can sell your subscriptions just outside the store; in the end, you as the developer of the app are responsible for any resulting legal trouble.
"Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a “buy" button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected"
Not that they're perfect by any means, but the pattern seems pretty clear: they start off with a restrictive situation, see how it works, and then adjust. (Sometimes they restrict more, then relax; sometimes they stay more restrictive.)
They're engaged in a learning process, folks. Nothing quite like the App Store has been attempted before on this scale, and you know they've gotta be rather conservative at each step. You would if you were in their shoes.
Yes, they're trying to make money, but I see lots of signs that they're also trying to accommodate the needs of users first, then developers.
Never assume malice when it could just be incompetence (i.e., learning from mistakes), etc.
(I'm not shilling for Apple. I didn't even attend WWDC this year for the first time in many years. ;-)