Arturia: A new chapter awaits…

[Ibarch]

23 minutes ago, Mark Schmieder said:

 

Not to mention that the value added from Sweetwater vs. the annoyance factor from the Apple store might be a big motivating factor as well. As someone who has been caught in situations where the Apple Store delayed software product release to the point of impacting competitiveness, I see many vendors trying to move away from reliance on that sales model, to the degree that they can.

 

From 1st hand experience, it is the need to submit frequent updates to apps to be compliant with the latest APIs, the ever changing and expanding developer 'guidelines', the delays and inconsistentcies in manual app reviews. All adds to the cost of supporting the platform and 90% of the time provides no new benefits/features to customers. It is mere overhead to keep an app available on the store. 

 

When I submit a software product to a retailer, the retailer doesn't demand new versions all the time. They sell the product till I supply a new version. 

 

When I build software for iOS, it requires me to use Apples xcode software on Apple Mac machines. Xcode requires frequent mandatory updates. It requires current versions of the OS. The OS requires supported hardware.

 

 No other retailer tells me what tools I have to use, what version, when to upgrade them, when to replace my hardware. 

 

The costs to build for iOS are significant. They are not a one off but are recurring for the life cycle of the product. The life cycle of products is a fraction of that on windows/mac. 

 

To suggest that another retailers margin is equivalent to the pound of flesh that Apple extracts is laughable. 

 

[Ibarch]

6 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

 

An interesting approach taken by Pianoteq and VB3-II is that their iOS versions are free... but you have to have a license for their desktop versions. So they're not selling any lower cost version, but they may well sell more of their desktop product because of the perk of customers also being able to run it on their iPad at no extra cost.

 

That model only works whilst your competitors don't have iPad versions. The early adopters may gain some market share but the moment it becomes slightly significant, everyone else will follow suit and the advantage is lost. 

 

Once everyone sells on iPad, there is no extra revenue but a 3rd platform to support and significantly increased costs. This is I believe why none of the major companies have released iPad versions to date. The business opportunity is time limited and too small versus the certainty of extra costs afterward. 

[Mark Schmieder]

On 4/12/2024 at 7:22 PM, Ibarch said:

 

From 1st hand experience, it is the need to submit frequent updates to apps to be compliant with the latest APIs, the ever changing and expanding developer 'guidelines', the delays and inconsistentcies in manual app reviews. All adds to the cost of supporting the platform and 90% of the time provides no new benefits/features to customers. It is mere overhead to keep an app available on the store. 

 

When I submit a software product to a retailer, the retailer doesn't demand new versions all the time. They sell the product till I supply a new version. 

 

When I build software for iOS, it requires me to use Apples xcode software on Apple Mac machines. Xcode requires frequent mandatory updates. It requires current versions of the OS. The OS requires supported hardware.

 

 No other retailer tells me what tools I have to use, what version, when to upgrade them, when to replace my hardware. 

 

The costs to build for iOS are significant. They are not a one off but are recurring for the life cycle of the product. The life cycle of products is a fraction of that on windows/mac. 

 

To suggest that another retailers margin is equivalent to the pound of flesh that Apple extracts is laughable. 

 

 

I don't quite understand your point in your final line. Are you saying Arturia is overpriced because they are merely selling via stores on their own terms vs. suffering the huge development cost of building something for iOS? Or are you agreeing that it's a better business model for everybody as the development cost doesn't get excessive?

 

I worked for a startup company at the beginning of the pandemic that failed because iOS was so hard to meet the standards that I had to be let go so that they could afford to hire even more iOS developers to try to save the version of the product that was NOT successful -- an ultimate irony! But the VC's had the final say and said "iOS or bust".

[Ibarch]

6 minutes ago, Mark Schmieder said:

 

I don't quite understand your point in your final line. Are you saying Arturia is overpriced because they are merely selling via stores on their own terms vs. suffering the huge development cost of building something for iOS? Or are you agreeing that it's a better business model for everybody as the development cost doesn't get excessive?

 

The last line is in reference to earlier posts that suggested that Apple's margin on the app store is no different to the other retailer's margins for selling products. The point being that whilst the headline figure may be the same, there are lots of hidden costs to iOS in addition. 

 

My thoughts are that Arturia won't enter the iOS market and provide iOS versions of the V collection and its other premium software as there is no business case to do so. Same for the other big companies. iOS will continue to be a playground for independents and small challenger developers, not those with established market share on PC/Mac.