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Do Mobile Apps Have a serious Control Issue?

A topic related to SAAS or APPs

Lex Love

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I'm keeping a notes section on my phone about potentially needed ideas and have already stumbled across a few ideas for phone apps. Some even score high in 4 of the 5 C-E-N-T-S criteria:

- High Entry Barrier (an app utilizing image recognition software that would have to be learned)
- High Need (quick access to an abundance of nutritional facts about what one eats)
- Time (well, I think virtual all of the apps qualify in this area)
- Scale (any one of the millions of people conscious about their diet)

But when I consider the principle of Control, I easily see a massive hole. All of your sales would be funneled through one of a couple outlets: IPhone App Store, Google Play, etc.

I'm not married to any of these ideas. Just keeping notes on anything that runs across my mind. But were I ever consider taking an App seriously, I feel like this could be a massive hole potentially ending the viability of an otherwise great solution. Obviously many have made a fortune off of mobile apps, but is there an equally great or even greater risk with the lack of control?

Does anyone else, particularly those who have experience with them, feel like mobile apps violate the commandment of Control? And if so, is this a big enough violation to make the rewards not worth the risk?
 
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Valhalla

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I haven't developed an app but looking at what you're saying, you'd lose scale of those massive platforms by not giving up that control. For me scale>control
 

Lex Love

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I haven't developed an app but looking at what you're saying, you'd lose scale of those massive platforms by not giving up that control. For me scale>control

So I guess here you are ceding that apps are a violation of control but the rewards outweigh the risks?

Of course if one didn't use one of the major app platforms there would be no app to really sell. My question was is relying on one of these platforms a violation of Control, and if so, is it still worth it.
 

Samix

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I think of control as more of a sliding scale, not as a binary option. In the case of apps, I would focus on keeping it platform agnostic and keeping control of the source code. App stores evolve over time and having a product that you can adapt to the changing times will be key. Facebook was big, but nothing like what it is today until it figured out mobile. You want your 70% of the watermelon, not 100% of the grape.
 
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loop101

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It depends on the app. If your app is a front-end to a service you control on the back-end, it is a lot safer. Apps like Waze, Uber, Tinder, etc, are really websites accessed via their apps. If your app exists exclusively on the device, like Flappy Birds, Flashlight app, etc, it could be completely killed by Apple/Google removing it from the device. A lot of people are going with PWAs that are optimized for mobile layouts, especially since Google and Microsoft are pushing them. Apple has the most to lose from PWAs, since they mean less native Apps for Apple.

I would not be surprised if Microsoft adopts Google's Flutter, just like they are dropping IE for Chrome. If PWAs can replace 50% of mobile apps, and Flutter can replace 60% of the remaining apps, then 80% of all apps would be able to be written in cross-platform tools. That would make it a lot safer to make mobile apps.

This article shows how a company in China got a guys app removed. America is a first-to-use country, and China is a first-to-file country. So if you have a popular app, and its not registered in China, someone in China can register it, and then have Apple/Google remove yours.

Apple removed my game from the app store because some company in China made a clone, trademarked the name we were already using, and then asked Apple to take down my game.

Microsoft did the same thing to the "Lindows" version of Linux a long time ago, they sued them in America and lost, then sued them in every other country in the world until they won, which they eventually did in Luxembourg.
 

Lex Love

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I think of control as more of a sliding scale, not as a binary option. In the case of apps, I would focus on keeping it platform agnostic and keeping control of the source code. App stores evolve over time and having a product that you can adapt to the changing times will be key. Facebook was big, but nothing like what it is today until it figured out mobile. You want your 70% of the watermelon, not 100% of the grape.

Sure this is a helpful way of thinking about it. Of all of the 5 commandments, I find control the least intuitive. The concept itself is easy to grasp but its applications seem a bit complicated.
 
D

Deleted50669

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If you handcuff yourself to one platform, that is more of an operational risk than a control issue. A control issue is if you do not own the legal entity that is your app. If your app is only on Apple Store, and Apple Store tanks, well, your app is tanking with it. However, you never loose ownership of that entity.

Now say your app is deployed on the App Store, Android, and AWS for desktop. Now if App Store or Android go down, users can still access their account from desktop until it's back up. This is the ultimate importance of "cross platform", mitigation of operational risk.

But to your concern about control, as long as you own your app's entity, wouldn't worry about it. If Apple tried to encroach on your product without legal rights, you could sue their balls off.
 
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Lex Love

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It depends on the app. If your app is a front-end to a service you control on the back-end, it is a lot safer. Apps like Waze, Uber, Tinder, etc, are really websites accessed via their apps. If your app exists exclusively on the device, like Flappy Birds, Flashlight app, etc, it could be completely killed by Apple/Google removing it from the device. A lot of people are going with PWAs that are optimized for mobile layouts, especially since Google and Microsoft are pushing them. Apple has the most to lose from PWAs, since they mean less native Apps for Apple.

I would not be surprised if Microsoft adopts Google's Flutter, just like they are dropping IE for Chrome. If PWAs can replace 50% of mobile apps, and Flutter can replace 60% of the remaining apps, then 80% of all apps would be able to be written in cross-platform tools. That would make it a lot safer to make mobile apps.

This article shows how a company in China got a guys app removed. America is a first-to-use country, and China is a first-to-file country. So if you have a popular app, and its not registered in China, someone in China can register it, and then have Apple/Google remove yours.

Apple removed my game from the app store because some company in China made a clone, trademarked the name we were already using, and then asked Apple to take down my game.

Microsoft did the same thing to the "Lindows" version of Linux a long time ago, they sued them in America and lost, then sued them in every other country in the world until they won, which they eventually did in Luxembourg.

Perfect. This was very insightful. Definitely changes the game as far as the controlability of an app.
 

Lex Love

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If you handcuff yourself to one platform, that is more of an operational risk than a control issue. A control issue is if you do not own the legal entity that is your app. If your app is only on Apple Store, and Apple Store tanks, well, your app is tanking with it. However, you never loose ownership of that entity.

Now say your app is deployed on the App Store, Android, and AWS for desktop. Now if App Store or Android go down, users can still access their account from desktop until it's back up. This is the ultimate importance of "cross platform", mitigation of operational risk.

But to your concern about control, as long as you own your app's entity, wouldn't worry about it. If Apple tried to encroach on your product without legal rights, you could sue their balls off.

Right while I get what you're saying I do believe we are still talking about control. The App Store is essentially a distribution center for a digital product. While yes you might still have ownership of the product itself, if the App Store is your only means of disseminating your product, you have lost control over your distribution.

MJ gives examples of this in UNSCRIPTED (selling only thorough Amazon, Wal-Mart, etc.). Distribution is a massive component of your businesses success so to lose control of your distribution is losing control of a major component of your product's longevity.

Clearly finding ways of diversifying your distribution outlets will help you regain that control back so I agree with you here.
 
D

Deleted50669

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Right while I get what you're saying I do believe we are still talking about control. The App Store is essentially a distribution center for a digital product. While yes you might still have ownership of the product itself, if the App Store is your only means of disseminating your product, you have lost control over your distribution.

MJ gives examples of this in UNSCRIPTED (selling only thorough Amazon, Wal-Mart, etc.). Distribution is a massive component of your businesses success so to lose control of your distribution is losing control of a major component of your product's longevity.

Clearly finding ways of diversifying your distribution outlets will help you regain that control back so I agree with you here.
In this case, it's almost not worth considering it a control issue. The alternative to using the store is to build your own server, and if you scale big enough that would be a straight up nightmare requiring a dedicated reliability team. You'd also have to do database hardening to make sure no one could access your db without proper authorization. Not saying you couldn't do it, but uh, cost-benefit analysis would say store is less risky option.
 
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Valhalla

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So I guess here you are ceding that apps are a violation of control but the rewards outweigh the risks?

Of course if one didn't use one of the major app platforms there would be no app to really sell. My question was is relying on one of these platforms a violation of Control, and if so, is it still worth it.

Others said it better but yes, that's essentially what I'm saying. There was a discussion with MJ on another thread I can't find about the weighted distribution of importance in CENTS, I think scale definitely carried more weight than control. You've had some great answers from others and wouldn't let the platform duopoly hold you back. Cheers.
 

luniac

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It depends on the app. If your app is a front-end to a service you control on the back-end, it is a lot safer. Apps like Waze, Uber, Tinder, etc, are really websites accessed via their apps. If your app exists exclusively on the device, like Flappy Birds, Flashlight app, etc, it could be completely killed by Apple/Google removing it from the device. A lot of people are going with PWAs that are optimized for mobile layouts, especially since Google and Microsoft are pushing them. Apple has the most to lose from PWAs, since they mean less native Apps for Apple.

I would not be surprised if Microsoft adopts Google's Flutter, just like they are dropping IE for Chrome. If PWAs can replace 50% of mobile apps, and Flutter can replace 60% of the remaining apps, then 80% of all apps would be able to be written in cross-platform tools. That would make it a lot safer to make mobile apps.

This article shows how a company in China got a guys app removed. America is a first-to-use country, and China is a first-to-file country. So if you have a popular app, and its not registered in China, someone in China can register it, and then have Apple/Google remove yours.

Apple removed my game from the app store because some company in China made a clone, trademarked the name we were already using, and then asked Apple to take down my game.

Microsoft did the same thing to the "Lindows" version of Linux a long time ago, they sued them in America and lost, then sued them in every other country in the world until they won, which they eventually did in Luxembourg.

oh shit i started a whole thread about that story before reading your post lol
 

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