Podcast Search

Under the Radar

36: Should You Release Every App?

Select a time to play from there. The line being spoken is highlighted as the audio plays.

0:00:00Welcome to under the radar a show about independent iOS app development

0:00:03I'm Marco Arment and I'm David Smith under the radar is never longer than 30 minutes. So let's get started

0:00:09So in in the absence of much iOS news this week

0:00:12I wanted to talk a little bit about the Mac as I mentioned before I've been getting

0:00:16Slowly into with a couple of small utility apps the first one being quitter, which I launched

0:00:21I don't know a month ago something like that. And now I'm working on a basic podcast post-production tool

0:00:28I wanted to talk a little bit about the considerations behind selling this Mac app potentially in the near future

0:00:33You know both releasing it to the public polishing it up and then whether to charge money for it

0:00:39Do I sell it in the Mac App Store versus non Mac App Store? Do I worry about piracy stuff like that?

0:00:44the first concern I had is

0:00:47Do I want to release this app to the public at all?

0:00:51When you're in the middle of building an app and you're like, oh, this is kind of fun

0:00:55You might think you know, oh it's right now. I I've gotten to a point where I can use it

0:01:00And it's kind of done for a while and then you might use it for a while

0:01:02You might share with a couple of couple of friends or something like that and you might think okay, you know

0:01:07I should release this this is useful

0:01:09the difference between like the point you're at at that at that moment where like you have the app working for you and

0:01:15Maybe a couple other people versus something that is releasable

0:01:18That's a very very wide gap and I learned this when I did quitter

0:01:23Where I had like this basic Apple script first and then I had this basic menu bar app and I thought you know

0:01:29other people might find this useful I should release this and

0:01:31to get from that point to

0:01:34Releasable in in a responsible and and pleasant and likely to succeed way was so much work

0:01:41Because what you don't realize when when you when you have the initial app, you don't realize that

0:01:47There are like all the edge cases that you're not considering that cuz like you don't use them yourself edge cases

0:01:54You know, we had a whole show on edge cases

0:01:56There's all the education are considering and the standards for what is good enough are

0:02:00Way lower when it's just you or your friends using an app like what's good enough with the UI

0:02:06What's good enough with input handling with edge case handling in general?

0:02:10You just need far less polish and then other stuff like that you don't even think of at first

0:02:16but that is actually that could be a lot of work or or expense or just a hassle is

0:02:20You know a private app for yourself doesn't need a public name. It doesn't need a decent icon. It doesn't need documentation

0:02:27You don't need to worry about distribution

0:02:30It doesn't need a website doesn't need like an auto updater feed stuff like that

0:02:34And once you have it working for yourself

0:02:37It basically doesn't need any maintenance because you know all the limitations you avoid them yourself

0:02:42And it just it works for you and you consider it done if you release to the public you have to go through this massive

0:02:49Polishing stage it seems like oh, you know this weekend. I'll polish it up and get it out there in practice

0:02:56It usually takes a lot of time like you don't you typically underestimate that time. It's it's not easy or fast and

0:03:03Once the app goes public people will have expectations for it. They will start emailing you feature requests they will

0:03:12Expect improvements to all the bugs that you didn't find because you didn't hit any of the edge cases and

0:03:16What started out as a as a simple idea of all, you know, I've made this app for myself

0:03:21Maybe I'll release it that can quickly balloon into a much larger

0:03:26Project like what happened with quitter like there was a lot of temptation that like, you know quitter as it is right now works

0:03:32fine for me

0:03:34But there was immediate temptation once I released it and started getting all these people saying, you know, oh man

0:03:40this is great it be even better if it did this or

0:03:43man, you could really make this into a bigger thing by adding this and

0:03:46it quickly became very tempting to take this what you what was this very basic little utility app and

0:03:53To try to make it its own bigger product

0:03:57But then of course like do I have time for that bigger product?

0:04:01Do I want to even be in that business?

0:04:03Like, you know, I'd start competing with us with a whole other market of products that frankly I don't know anything about

0:04:08I don't know what it's like to compete in that market, you know

0:04:11Do I really want to be doing that like it's a whole different ballgame

0:04:14Can I spare the time from my other projects that I want to be doing to turn this thing into a bigger thing?

0:04:20That all the people are asking for that might be tempting, you know

0:04:23It's a very hard balance to find and it can so easily get

0:04:27Totally out of control before you even step back and realize wait a minute

0:04:30Do I even want to be doing this as a big app?

0:04:34Or do I want to just keep it as this little thing that I spend, you know a few days on once and then never touch again

0:04:39and this is a lesson that I've

0:04:41had to learn many many times I have the tendency to build anything I can think of and

0:04:48several times I've built something and put it out into the

0:04:52As I get it to that point where you're talking about where it's like it's sort of done. It's useful enough

0:04:58It's kind of at that cross that functional threshold

0:05:01Maybe you'd say right done is in the biggest quotation marks ever. Yeah, it's it's like it's

0:05:06Sort of functional maybe is a better word than done. Yes, and

0:05:09I'm like, okay, maybe I'll release this me. I'll put this out in the store

0:05:14Maybe I'll like it's maybe other people would find it useful

0:05:17the thing that I find that I now have maybe it's maybe a bit strong to call it the wisdom but

0:05:24I've been caught up with it enough times to know that there's a

0:05:29Difference in the way you approach building something if you're building it as a product

0:05:33versus if you're building it just as

0:05:36Like on a lark just a little hobby project a little experimentation a little prototype something like that

0:05:42You have to be more thoughtful. You have to think about how it's going to be used and

0:05:48What even even answering questions for you know? What is a typical user going to be and

0:05:56Optimizing it for them and sometimes it's great if you are the typical user I suppose

0:06:01but if you're not then

0:06:03You know it gets starts to get really squishy and tricky to make sure that you're actually building a product that other people would know

0:06:10how to use

0:06:11And you know, I have many utilities and things that

0:06:14I've never released but I use myself or at least what off perhaps moreover

0:06:19What will happen is I'll build something use it for myself for a long time and then take like the lesson learned from me

0:06:26Using it and turn it into an act

0:06:28You know fold it into a product

0:06:30but the actual product part is going to be very different like necessarily and so it's definitely a tricky thing to

0:06:37Look at something and say do I actually want this to exist outside of my own use or at least you know my close friends

0:06:44Or family you know like there's a couple of apps or tools that I use that you know like I put

0:06:49There only only exists on my wife and my phone, and that's fine like they don't have to be products

0:06:55They can just be things honestly. What is that number? I'm curious. It's probably a lot. It's only a way. It's probably a handful

0:07:00Well, I mean most people that number is zero so like sure it's it's greater than zero and a lot of these things

0:07:06I guess it are

0:07:08It's the it's fighting the temptation to anytime you have an idea to

0:07:13rush it out to market versus trying to use it yourself for a while and

0:07:18Seeing if it actually is something so a lot of times when I these probably things will ultimately end up being a product that or

0:07:25Will be a part of a bigger product

0:07:27But they start life is just things to keep close because I used to rush things out

0:07:31I mean that's part of why I ended up with the problem of having

0:07:33Dozens and dozens of apps in the app store because anytime I had an idea I'd build it and put it out and

0:07:39to start with I had the mindset of well if I

0:07:43like you never know what's going to be a hit maybe I should just always push things out and

0:07:47Let the market tell me if it's useful or cool the reality problem with that is like what if the market tells me that what?

0:07:53I'm doing is

0:07:55like useful and cool, but in a way different very different way or

0:07:58with a very different

0:08:01slant than I want to actually use or build a product for then I'm kind of like

0:08:05stuck into that and also it gets this to a really weird thing of

0:08:08Like is it reasonable to put something out that I don't have expectations to support for example

0:08:15Or like what level of support do I expect to provide for something?

0:08:18You know is this just if it's just something I built on a lark and put in put out into the world

0:08:22It's you know you there's always especially if you put it into like an you know into the App Store or something like that then

0:08:28There's a certain expectation

0:08:30I think that people naturally have for what they should get from that and so it definitely makes sense for as you're going through this

0:08:36Process of you know do I want this thing that I find useful

0:08:39To actually exist in the world to make sure you have a good answer to that that do I want to support this do I want?

0:08:45to

0:08:46Chase down the various bugs and issues that people are having are people going to use this in a professional context for example

0:08:53Where if there's a problem there's potentially?

0:08:56financial implications or

0:08:59More serious things that could go wrong. You know in Twitter if it doesn't quit Twitter for somebody

0:09:04That's probably not a big deal

0:09:06but if it if you're doing an app that could have a bigger implication if it goes wrong like

0:09:13There's some weird more like liability type of questions that you have to be comfortable with before

0:09:17You'd move forward into an act into into you know broader distribution

0:09:22Exactly and and all those you know all the problems of are you willing to support this and are you ready to support it?

0:09:29All those things really do apply whether it's free or paid

0:09:33Although I will say though whether you charge money at all

0:09:37Makes a big difference in the type of expectations and entitlement that your customers will feel to things like you know

0:09:44Quality like if somebody pays for an app. They're certainly going to expect you know it better be good

0:09:50You know it better work and have good features it also better not crash or have bugs that they can notice

0:09:55you know they expect you to support it ongoing you know with updates with maintenance and

0:10:02Also as you mentioned support you know if people paid for an app even if they only paid a dollar

0:10:07They expect a certain level of support

0:10:11I mean heck people expect support for free apps, but they they expect a lot more for paid apps

0:10:15It's not proportional to the different like you know they don't if they paid a dollar versus paying nothing

0:10:21They don't expect like a dollar more support. They expect a lot more support psychologically. They people are very

0:10:27protective of having spent money on something and they really get angry if it doesn't matter to their expectations if they paid even just

0:10:34$1 for it and the good thing is you know on the Mac you can charge more but

0:10:39charging more brings on even higher

0:10:42Expectations, so you know if you if you are what I would consider like a cheap app so on iOS

0:10:48This would probably be like less than three dollars. Maybe on the Mac. I'd say under ten dollars probably

0:10:53That is like one level of expectations of you know quality updates support

0:10:58If you charge you know what I would call real money

0:11:02And and that the perception of what real money is will vary by your market

0:11:06But you know I'd say on iOS maybe ten dollars on the Mac

0:11:09Maybe fifty dollars if you're charging that you know that kind of like what people think of as real money

0:11:14You will be held to much higher expectations

0:11:17Like you know if people just paid you ten dollars for your iOS app

0:11:23And it doesn't work on the phone they buy next month

0:11:26They're gonna be mad like they're gonna be real and understandably so because they pay what they believe is a premium price

0:11:32And you better be supporting that if they spend

0:11:35$50 in your Mac app and they email you with a question you don't answer that email

0:11:39That's that's gonna look really bad for you in their eyes

0:11:42And they're gonna get very angry about that and so you have to really consider all this and then and you know this goes back

0:11:47To trying to estimate your market if you talked about within the ideas episode trying to estimate your market of like

0:11:54Given all these all the overhead of making a paid app and selling a paid app am I likely to actually get

0:12:01enough copies sold

0:12:03To make enough money from this that it will be worth all that overhead in my business and in my life

0:12:09And is that really worth it or not and it might be easy to rationalize

0:12:13Oh, you know I made this app it's kind of used for charge. You know ten bucks forward or whatever or on iOS

0:12:18I should charge two bucks for it or whatever by the way that multiple makes me sad, but that's the reality but anyway

0:12:23You know there there's a temptation

0:12:24Oh, you know I could charge a few bucks for it and make a little bit of money, but the reality is

0:12:28Making that money charging that price will have costs to you

0:12:32And you need to make sure that you are being realistic about your expectations of like how many copies

0:12:37I'm really going to sell and is that going to be worth?

0:12:40Making that you know a few hundred dollars that I make from this or whatever it might be

0:12:44And if you end up with saying that it's not like then you have the weird question

0:12:48It's like well if I make it free then why am I even releasing it?

0:12:53Like fair enough there's a certain like altruism or like you know being or maybe like exposure or

0:13:00Marketing angles that you could see like long-term reputation marketing kind of things yeah

0:13:05Or like those types of or like bigger you know in broader sort of play

0:13:09I mean sort of in the way that overcast is a free app

0:13:11With in-app purchases in it to support its development

0:13:15But you know you've said many times that you made it free to try and

0:13:20you know establish it as a

0:13:22Big player in the in the space because you had other motivations for that that you wanted the platform to

0:13:27You know stay competitive and open and so that can be worthwhile even though

0:13:32It's not financially the the directly of the financial incentive is there

0:13:36But like there is a weird thing or you'll end up with people be like well then why don't you just open source it?

0:13:40It's like well

0:13:41Then you kind of have two problems like you have

0:13:43Like you have the source code and developer problem as well as the the customer facing problem

0:13:48And you have to manage and deal with those types of things that

0:13:52It gets really

0:13:54Complicated to a point that you have to decide like why am I doing this and you have to have a good answer like a good

0:14:00Concise answer for like why would I want this to exist in the world and if you have a good answer awesome if you don't

0:14:05Maybe it's not worth doing

0:14:08Our sponsor this week is Pingdom start monitoring your websites and servers today at Pingdom.com/radar

0:14:16You get a 14-day free trial and if you use code radar at checkout you get 20% off your first invoice

0:14:21Pingdom is focused on making the web faster and more reliable for everyone who has a site by offering powerful and easy to use

0:14:28Monitoring tools and services if you're a Pingdom user monitoring the availability and performance of your server database or website is a breeze

0:14:35They use more than 70 global test servers that emulate visits to your site checking its availability as often as every minute

0:14:42So you can check all sorts of things you can check the whole site you can check certain parts of it things like ecommerce

0:14:48Checkouts contact forms login search and they make it possible to monitor all these things with performance metrics with uptime

0:14:56reports and all sorts of customization of how you can customize the requests and what kind of things they're looking for what kind of

0:15:01Requirements if you need to require certain strings on the page

0:15:04It is incredibly useful and Pingdom detects tons of outages for their customers more than 400,000 a day

0:15:12You probably need Pingdom in your life if you run any kind of service or website

0:15:16So regardless of whether you have a small website or you're managing a big infrastructure

0:15:20It is very important to monitor its performance

0:15:23All Pingdom needs is the URL that you want to monitor and they take care of the rest when they detect an outage

0:15:28You're alerted in lots of customizable ways

0:15:31But more importantly you're alert quickly so you can fix the error before the downtime affects you and your customers any further

0:15:38You don't want to be caught out when somebody wants to access your site

0:15:40I know all of a sudden it's down and you don't want to be hearing from people on Twitter saying it's down

0:15:44You need to know that first so you can fix it before too many of your customers see it

0:15:48So you need Pingdom check it out today and you will be the first to know if your site is down go to Pingdom.com/radar

0:15:55That's Pingdom.com/radar for a 14-day free trial use code radar to get 20% off at checkout

0:16:01David and I are both Pingdom customers. I've been using them now for something like eight years and I love them. They're great

0:16:06Thank you very much to Pingdom for sponsoring our show. All right, so

0:16:10assuming that you have decided that you want to release your app and that you want to charge money for it and

0:16:15And that it's a Mac app. So, you know iOS that's a whole other point. We'll talk about that in other shows

0:16:20Suppose you want to charge money for a Mac app

0:16:23How do you do that? And where do you do that? The most obvious first choice is the Mac App Store

0:16:28The Mac App Store though, you know as as we know by now the Mac App Store is a mixed bag

0:16:34You know like like the iOS App Store it builds a big wall between you and your customers and this has some benefits and some downsides

0:16:42The obvious benefits are that you don't need to deal with things like basic distribution of versions updates

0:16:48And the big thing you don't deal with payment and those are those are all

0:16:52Substantial gains that you don't have to deal with because those are all complicated to different degrees

0:16:57I think payment being probably the most complicated not having to deal with that is is a huge win

0:17:02It also kind of acts as a support wall between you and your customers like your customers might not contact you directly

0:17:10They might like go to the Mac App Store for that contact thing or they might just blame Apple or blame the App Store or whatever

0:17:15else if people have problems and that's

0:17:17probably

0:17:19It's probably a good thing in the immediate term if you don't think about it too much, but in the long term

0:17:22It's probably a bad thing

0:17:24Buying from the store though. A lot of people prefer it it reduces

0:17:28Issues around things like trust, you know, if people don't really trust you or you don't seem

0:17:33Legitimate or large they might have trouble giving you money

0:17:36Whereas they tend to not have those problems in the App Stores

0:17:39And of course, it's easier for people to install stuff from the App Store. Usually when it works

0:17:43They don't have to fish out their license key or anything like that

0:17:46So like many customers do prefer buying from the App Store and that is not to be underestimated

0:17:51but

0:17:53For those benefits with the Mac App Store you pay major costs

0:17:57It is incredibly inflexible on

0:18:00Pricing models distribution updates stuff like that. You know, there's no trials no paid upgrades

0:18:04There's a lot of rules

0:18:06You also have to go through app review and to enforce a lot of these rules and you have to be sandboxed and these are

0:18:12all pretty major restrictions for a lot of Mac app businesses

0:18:16a lot of apps just can't be sold through the App Store for some of those requirements and a lot of them maybe could be but

0:18:22It would be unwise for them to be sold through the store and it would be bad business for them

0:18:26The biggest thing to me is is well the two biggest things to me

0:18:30You you definitely have less access and knowledge about your customers

0:18:35So it's harder to do things like build an email

0:18:38list for you know new releases and stuff like that and it's harder to like offer certain people discounts things like that and

0:18:44mostly to me they take a 30% cut and 30% is

0:18:49A lot like it's it's easy if we're you know, for those of us who were accustomed to iOS

0:18:55It's easy to forget or to or to not really ever think through like how much is 30% exactly

0:19:00So just to give you an example of how much 30% is in practice

0:19:04Suppose you make you suppose you have a really good app. It makes $50,000. Well, you made $50,000

0:19:10What did the app actually make? So if you got $50,000 from Apple the app made about

0:19:15$71,000 so you got 50 and Apple got about 21,000. So Apple got almost half of what you got

0:19:23If you sell outside of an App Store, but you can't do an iOS really but if you do it on the Mac

0:19:28That 30% cut that is taken by your parent processor goes down to maybe you know

0:19:34Three to six percent depending on how you're doing it depending on international support payment provider stuff like that

0:19:40But it's it goes down, you know almost order of magnitude from from Apple's cut

0:19:45So in that example just to give you some numbers

0:19:49For your app that you made $50,000 from in the App Store you would have made about

0:19:53$66,000 from Fatspring or

0:19:56$69,000 from stripe. So these are not small differences 30% is a lot and

0:20:03If you know if Apple brings that 15% cut to a lot more places that will help a lot

0:20:0815% is also a lot but it's way more competitive than 30 compared to selling it yourself

0:20:13so the App Store really is

0:20:18You you really you get a lot of benefits for it, but you do pay dearly for those benefits in a lot of different ways and

0:20:24For a lot of people it's just not worth it. Sure and the App Store too is this

0:20:30Like it is it's a weird thing to have the choice in some ways coming from an iOS background

0:20:35Where like I just because I have no choice in the matter

0:20:38Like if I want to make iOS software and give it to someone else beyond unless I'm within a big company and I do an enterprise

0:20:45Distribution thing like the only option is the iOS App Store. So like whatever I can lobby and

0:20:51Encourage Apple to change policies or to make things happen, but by and large it's their store their rules

0:20:57I do the best I can because you have the choice on the Mac App Store

0:21:01You really start to see that like the the hurdles and the challenges that that situation

0:21:07Creates. Oh, yeah. I mean like, you know the App Store it's always kind of been like this carrot and stick balance

0:21:14On iOS, they don't really need to offer much carrot because the stick is so big like iOS

0:21:18You have to use the App Store period like there's no you there. I mean, yes, I guess like Cydia exists or Cydia

0:21:24However, it's pronounced but that's you know, not really easy to build businesses there

0:21:28You know, you're basically stuck with the App Store or nothing on iOS on the Mac, you know

0:21:32and even Apple like they used they used to tie major features to the App Store like like iCloud and and they just announced

0:21:38WBC this year these features are coming to other apps. You don't have to be in the App Store anymore

0:21:43So it seems like on the Mac

0:21:45Apple has recently kind of shifted away from

0:21:48Keeping much of a stick around there

0:21:50So now they're relying only on the carrot of like, you know, what are the benefits of being in the Mac App Store?

0:21:55So now you kind of look at it purely on business terms

0:21:58And I don't think the Mac App Store is a very appealing place for for new businesses to go these days

0:22:03Even the the promotional value I think has proven to be fairly minimal in actual installation numbers from featured apps

0:22:11So it's unfortunate because it would have been nice if it would have worked better

0:22:13but it does seem like it has both failed in a way that it's most likely to be neglected forever and

0:22:20And that most developers shouldn't go there anymore

0:22:23Sure, because I think the thing that I think of we're like why why would I use the Mac App Store?

0:22:28Like if I since I now have this choice

0:22:30like I can decide if I want to go this like a or B or both like which obviously you can also do you can

0:22:35Sell in both places but say I'm go am going to be in the App Store like in my mind the main reason on the Mac

0:22:42App Store that I would want to be there and this is speaking mostly just as a customer for like why do I when do I?

0:22:47launch the App Store app on my Mac is

0:22:51Usually it's like if I have a very specific utility or tool in mind

0:22:55Yeah, I will go and search in the Mac App Store first and I do that mostly just because I have it

0:23:02Anyway, it has that sense of being curated that

0:23:05Somebody else a like a impartial, you know to some definition of impartial

0:23:09Third-party has looked at this application and said it meets a basic set of criteria

0:23:14Don't worry. It's not going you're not installing malware. You're not installing

0:23:19Sort of something that doesn't actually do what it says. It's

0:23:24Has this basic level of criteria?

0:23:26So if I can find a tool, you know

0:23:28I'm just trying to do something to do some random operation that I need a utility for

0:23:33I'll go to the Mac App Store and if I find it great, I'll get it from there

0:23:36if not, you know, then I just go to Google search around in there and

0:23:40Find it that way and so the main benefit from being in the Mac App Store from my perspective based on my own experience is

0:23:47Just as a marketing tool just as being in the place that

0:23:51You know, there's a non insignificant number of people who may go there and look and so it's like being on that shelf is useful

0:24:00but

0:24:02If you're trying to build a business that you know, you're making your living from something

0:24:05Mac App Store on its own is unlikely to be the right answer

0:24:11my guess is you're gonna want to be at least in both if not go your go your own and

0:24:16because once you've

0:24:18gone down the road of doing it your own you can start to realize a lot of benefits and both in terms of like you're

0:24:23saying in terms of the costs and the money you can make as well as just

0:24:27having

0:24:29So much more flexibility about how things work

0:24:32You're never you're never stuck in the situation of like oh I need to get this

0:24:36You know this update this both fix update through app review

0:24:38Even though a preview is great and down to like, you know a day or so now it's still a day is the longer than

0:24:45you know one minute from now, it'll be available on my CDN and

0:24:49That's kind of nice. Oh, yeah, and and just the flexibility you gotta doing yourself

0:24:55I mean, you know

0:24:55The downside is you have to build it yourself and and there are different degrees of building yourself

0:25:00like if you use something like fast bring or digital river formerly accelerate or kagi like the these things

0:25:07They they charge, you know

0:25:10A little bit more percentage like a few more percentage points than like direct credit card processing from stripe or something like that

0:25:14but they take care of a lot of the just payment complexity for you and you basically just provide serial numbers and

0:25:22You will have some support costs from these things. You'll have some issues but probably fewer, you know from developers

0:25:28I talked to there's probably fewer of those than from from most places

0:25:31and

0:25:31so it seems like a very good balance to use a service like this versus like Mac App Store or totally doing yourself because

0:25:37You only pay a little bit more and and you know than doing it yourself and you get a lot

0:25:42So that's probably I'm going to try first

0:25:44You know something maybe I was looking at fast bring earlier probably them and then you know

0:25:48Because you can always change later with these things like what it's it's very it's harder to move in or out of the Mac App Store

0:25:54If you change your mind later if your needs change later

0:25:56But these kind of services it's pretty easy to move between so that the costs of trying one out are pretty low

0:26:01So I want to talk briefly about

0:26:03Piracy concerns because this is something like you don't really have to think about an iOS much because an iOS like I mean there is

0:26:11iOS piracy certainly but it's limited almost completely to the jailbreak community and and you don't really

0:26:16It's kind of like a losing battle. Like you can't really fight the jailbreak community on piracy. So you're usually better off not even trying

0:26:23and

0:26:25That is largely true of Mac piracy as well, but not completely

0:26:28on the Mac

0:26:30You know with with people using the Mac like you don't have to be like a special class of user the way like, you know

0:26:35You like you kind of have to like devote a lifestyle to be a jailbreaker

0:26:38like on the Mac you can pirate Mac apps if you really want to and a lot of people do and

0:26:43it's it's easier to do it and and so

0:26:46you do have to worry about that as a Mac software author of you have to worry about piracy and and how this will affect your

0:26:52app how it will affect your customers and

0:26:54generally, I've talked to a lot of developers about those recently trying to figure out what I need to do here and

0:26:58the

0:27:00number one is stay out of the Mac App Store because

0:27:02Mac App Store piracy is rampant because they all use the same wrapper that everyone has cracked a million times and

0:27:07You kind of can't do much about it as a Mac App Store app

0:27:11Also Mac App Store even without piracy the Mac App Store license allows for the same Apple ID to install your app on like hundreds of

0:27:19Macs

0:27:19So that's a big problem

0:27:20If you have a business app where like a whole office full of computers might have your app installed off of one purchase

0:27:25Which is not great

0:27:28So generally with piracy like a little goes a long way

0:27:31You need to do some piracy prevention you need to have some kind of like license or serial number checking or something like that

0:27:40Just to prevent casual piracy you need to put up some kind of barrier to make paying you easier for most people

0:27:47Than pirating the app to a large extent your app will be pirated anyway

0:27:52And you know you can do things like you can scan the internet occasionally trying to like look for

0:27:56Pirated serial numbers of your own app and then ban them in a future build of your app

0:28:00This is all examples of like low-hanging fruit like a little goes a long way here

0:28:04You should have some kind of piracy avoidance mechanism in your app

0:28:08And this is something you have to worry about with direct distribution

0:28:10But you know that's just a cost of doing business, and that's that's part of

0:28:14It's part of you know just the reality of a software business on on a computer these days

0:28:21You know it's less so on mobile, but on a computer. That's that's still part of why you get paid the big bucks. I guess

0:28:27And you know you have to always balance versus legitimate customers versus hurting them

0:28:32you know with every any kind of piracy prevention system you pick but

0:28:36Generally you know in summary. I don't know much about this yet

0:28:39But it does seem like the common wisdom among people is a little goes a long way you need to do something

0:28:44But you don't need to you don't need to go crazy with it sure and I think that's probably the best path is

0:28:48It's a you know build build something yourself do something basic, and then just don't worry about it exactly

0:28:54All right, well we're out of time this week. Thank you very much for listening everybody

0:28:59I know this is officially an iOS show, but we will occasionally talk about the Mac because it's related

0:29:03Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week. Bye

0:29:05Bye.

0:29:06[