7 Reasons Every iPhone User Should Be Worried About the App Store’s 30% Tax

In the last few months, many prominent app developers voiced their disapproval of the App Store policies Apple imposes on all apps. Why should that concern you if you own an iPhone? Here are 7 reasons.

HIGHER PRICES. Apple’s 30% commission makes all apps and digital goods more expensive for you. It goes on top of the price you pay to developers for any services and games you buy on your phone. You pay more for every app, even though Apple already charged you a few hundred dollars more for your iPhone than it cost to make. In short, you keep paying even after you have paid.

CENSORSHIP. Some content in apps like Telegram is unavailable to you because Apple censors what is allowed on the App Store, which it fully controls to enforce the 30% tax. Apple even restricts us – app developers – from telling our users that certain content was hidden for iPhone users specifically at their request. Apple should realize how ridiculous their attempt to globally censor content looks: imagine a web browser deciding which websites you are allowed to view.

LACK OF PRIVACY. In order to install an app from the App Store, you must first create an Apple account and log in using it. After that, every single app you download and every push notification you receive is tied to your account, making you an easier target to track. Since the main reason you have to use an Apple account to download an iPhone app is Apple’s desire to enforce their 30% commission, the cost of their greed also includes your private data.

DELAYS IN APP UPDATES. You get new versions of your apps several days or weeks after they are actually ready, because Apple’s review team is notoriously inefficient and often delays approval for no apparent reason. You would think Apple could use the billions of dollars it receives from third-party apps to hire additional moderators. Somehow they are unable to do even that, and us – big apps like Telegram – typically have to wait several days to publish updates.

FEWER APPS. Apple’s 30% commission on apps goes on top of all the other expenses developers must pay for: government taxes such as VAT (~20%), wages, research, servers, marketing. Many apps would have been net profitable in a world without Apple’s 30% commission, but being forced to surrender 30% of their revenue to Apple makes them unsustainable. As a result, many of them go bankrupt and lots of great apps you could have enjoyed just don’t exist.

MORE ADS IN APPS. Because Apple makes selling premium services and accepting donations one-third less meaningful for developers, many of them have to show ads in their apps in order for their companies to survive. Apple’s policies skew the entire industry towards selling user data instead of letting them adopt more privacy-friendly business models like selling additional services to their users.

WORSE APPS. Billions of dollars are taken from developers who could have otherwise spent those funds on improving the quality of the apps you use every day. Instead, this money rests idly in Apple’s offshore bank accounts and does nothing for the world, while app developers struggle to find resources for the research and development the world needs.

The situation is so bad that one would expect Apple’s 30% cut to be unsustainable. Yet it’s been around for more than 10 years and is still there. In my Telegraph post below, I'm explaining how Apple has been able to trick consumers and regulators into inaction for so long.

I can understand why Donald Trump threatens to ban TikTok unless its US assets are sold to US investors. After all, China bans pretty much every non-Chinese social media app on its territory. Why should the rest of the world, including the US, let a Chinese app have a free ride in their markets? If you want to access the markets of other countries, you should also open your market to them – that would be fair.

However, the US move against TikTok is setting a dangerous precedent that may eventually kill the internet as a truly global network (or what is left of it). Before the US-TikTok saga, only autocratic countries like Iran, China or Russia were known for bullying tech companies into selling parts of their businesses to investors with close ties to their governments. It’s not surprising, for example, that Uber had to sell both their Russian and Chinese branches to local players.

I am proud that, unlike Uber, we at Telegram have always declined offers to sell our operations in specific countries. A few years ago we received letters from two funds with ties to countries that later attempted to block Telegram. Both letters expressed the same idea: “Telegram is going to get blocked in our country soon, so your only option is to sell us the local part of your business”. My response to those offers has been along the lines of my 2011 middle finger photo: we are not in the business of betraying our users. We are not selling Telegram – neither in part, nor in full. This will always be our position.

The problem with the US-TikTok case is that it legitimises an extortion tactic previously employed only by authoritarian regimes. For decades, the US has been perceived as the defender of free trade and free speech. But now that China has started to replace them as the main beneficiary of global trade, the US (or at least the Trump administration) seem to have become less enthusiastic about those values. This is regrettable, because billions of people on this planet still like the idea of an open and interconnected world.

Last week, Turkey introduced a bunch of laws limiting social media companies. A few years ago, the US would have had the moral right to criticise such efforts, citing freedom of speech and free trade as ideological foundations for their concerns. Today it’s less clear whether the US still has that right. Authoritarian leaders all over the world are already using the TikTok case as justification in their attempts to carve out a piece of the global internet for themselves. Soon, every big country is likely to use “national security” as a pretext to fracture international tech companies. And ironically, it’s the US companies like Facebook or Google that are likely to lose the most from the fallout.

Today we are adding native support for comments in channels. So once you update Telegram, you’ll be able to leave comments in some channels, including this one.

Throughout the next 10 days I’ll be posting stuff here to try this feature out.

What I like about our implementation of comments is that they are indistinguishable from a group chat. In fact, all comments in a channel are hosted in a group attached to that channel.

This allows for many possibilities both for commenters (e.g. adding voice messages, stickers, GIFs etc. to comments) and for admins (e.g. limiting voice messages, stickers, GIFs etc. in comments).

Another new feature in today’s update is search filters. You can see the search tabs when tapping on the search icon/field from the main screen of Telegram.

The obvious purpose of these tabs is to make finding messages easier. But you can also use them to view all media from all your chats and channels in one chronological feed. It gives you a quick overview of all your audiovisual content.

What I like about these search tabs is that they look and act exactly as shared media tabs you already know (and love).

However, we don’t want new users to get confused by a level of complexity they don’t need, so you have to have at least 10 chats in your inbox to see the tabs.

Lastly, we have introduced Anonymous Admins for groups today. This is a handy feature for celebrities and generally for anyone who wants to run a large group chat without publicizing their personal account.

The creator of the group can make any group admin (including ±self) anonymous. After this, the admin will disappear from the group member list and will post messages on the group’s behalf.

If you add different “titles” for various anonymous admins in the group chat, the members of the group will be able to tell which admin posted each message. I am personally happy we added this feature, because for the first time in many years I was able to start a public group chat (@durovschat) without having my inbox flooded.

We try to launch a major Telegram update every month, but sometimes we are late. I designed this poster for our office wall in Dubai to remind the team they won't get this middle eastern fruit unless they push some new features for you guys.

#telegram_office_posters

Every major update of Telegram also brings you hundreds of professional animated stickers. These stickers are featured in the trending stickers section (to get there, select the emoji icon when typing a message, then tap on the sticker icon and choose the “plus in a circle” section). Just a few minutes ago this section got updated and now features a list of 20 excellent sticker packs including - YES - baby Yoda.

P. S. The moderators of my comments keep turning stickers off. I don't blame them. Personally though, I would rather receive a sticker than a message in a language I don't understand.

Last night Telegram was down for about an hour in Europe due to hardware malfunctioning. Some iOS users who tried to access Telegram during this time may have been logged out and will unfortunately have to relogin.

We have already fixed the iOS app and the update is on the way to the App Store. We are also tweaking our networking software to minimize the risk of such issues in the future.

Telegram has a unique custom-built multi-datacenter infrastructure spread across the globe. This approach allows us to make things very efficient in terms of speed, security and cost, but can also pose some challenges in times of rapid growth. Each week, at least 10 million new users sign up for Telegram, and we are constantly scaling both our software and hardware.

Apologies for the downtime. We know how important it is for you to be able to access your messages 24/7 and we are working hard to achieve 100% uptime.

Some users asked whether comments will become the default mode for channels. While we think it’s fun to comment on channels, most channels don’t need commenting, so it will remain optional and disabled by default.

That said, native comments are a great upgrade for channels that had been previously relying on the web comments bot. Native comments are faster, more feature-rich for posting and moderating, and have built-in reply notifications.

Some users rightly pointed out that Telegram native comments look like chats rather than the two-level comments you can find on social networks. That’s exactly the point - Telegram is not a social network, but a messaging app.

While many people successfully use Telegram to distribute information among millions of users (posts broadcasted by channels generate over 350 billion views monthly), Telegram will remain an easy-to-use minimalist tool, with chats at the center of the user experience.

Apple is requesting that we shut down 3 channels used by the people of Belarus to expose the identities of their oppressors.

@karatelibelarusi
@chatpartizan
@belarusassholes

Their concern is that publishing the personal information of law enforcers and propagandists may incite violence.

I think this situation is not black and white and would rather leave the channels be, but typically Apple doesn’t offer much choice for apps like Telegram in such situations. Unfortunately, I assume these channels will end up getting blocked on iOS, but remain available on other platforms.

P. S. Everyone is welcome to express their views and comment on this post provided they stay on-topic and use English. Thanks!

Apple released a statement saying they didn't want us to take down the 3 channels run by the Belarusian protestors, but just specific posts "disclosing personal information."

This sly wording ignores the fact that channels like @karatelibelarusi and @belarusassholes consist entirely of personal information of violent oppressors and those who helped rig the elections – because that is why those channels exist.

By hiding their demands with vague language, Apple is trying to avoid the responsibility of enforcing their own rules. It is understandable: according to this poll, over 94% of Belarusian users think the channels that made Apple worry should be left alone.

Previously, when removing posts at Apple’s request, Telegram replaced those posts with a notice that cited the exact rule limiting such content for iOS users. However, Apple reached out to us a while ago and said our app is not allowed to show users such notices because they were “irrelevant”.

Similarly, when Facebook wanted to inform its users that 30% of the fees users were paying for online events went to Apple, Apple didn’t let Facebook do it saying this information was (once more) “irrelevant”.

I strongly disagree with Apple’s definition of “irrelevant”. I think the reason certain content was censored or why the price is 30% higher is the opposite of irrelevant.

Apple has the right to be greedy and formalistic (or maybe not – that’s something for the courts and regulators to decide). But it’s time Apple learned to assume responsibility for their policy instead of trying to hide it from users – they deserve to know.

As I’m turning 36, some people ask how I manage to look younger than my age. I’ve asked the same question of many people who age well (from Jared Leto to a random fitness trainer who looks like 25 at 50). Here’s what all of these young-looking individuals do (and don’t):

1. AVOID alcohol. There may be some rare exceptions, but in general, alcohol (as well as other addictive substances) makes people less healthy and visually older.

2. Sleep a LOT. Sleep is when your body repairs itself. You can’t borrow it: lack of sleep during the week can’t be compensated with oversleeping on the weekend.

3. Do NOT overeat. Excessive weight makes people look older and correlates with dozens of illnesses. Typically I eat twice a day within a 6-hour window or once a day, no snacking. Eating 3+ times a day is just a (bad) habit.

4. EXERCISE. Moderate but regular exercise makes people look healthier and live longer. Personally, I don’t do much cardio (I’d rather walk/cycle/swim in the open air) and prefer moderate weights.

5. LIMIT stress. There are mental habits that help. It helps to believe that everything that happens is for the better. Stoic techniques such as negative visualisation and generally not giving a shit also work. Living close to nature makes all of the above easier.

6. Do NOT eat meat. Eating seafood and wild-caught fish is fine, but farmed red meat is something most people who look younger than their age avoid. I suspect the unhealthy nature of farmed meat has to do with the way livestock is raised and killed (growth hormones, fodder etc).

7. Live ALONE. Surprisingly, all the young-looking, middle-aged men I spoke with lived alone for most of their lives. It may be the result of their independence from the sleeping/eating/behavioral patterns of another person. Or it’s just correlation, and people who are independent from unhealthy societal norms are also independent in their personal lives.

Interestingly, you can find scientific explanations for most of these points (even the last one is defensible, e.g. there are multiple studies showing that sleeping alone improves the quality of sleep). I’ve been following these rules for over 10 years, with "more sleep" being the most difficult due to the nature of my work.

If you are twice as young as I am and looking for the key takeaway, here it is: NEVER DRINK ALCOHOL. Once you give up on alcohol, you’ll stop silencing your intuition, which will tell you what is good and what is bad for you. You will figure out everything you need to know by yourself and won’t depend on other people for advice.

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. The celebration inspired me to create another one of our #telegram_office_posters

Happy Halloween everyone! 🎃

I hope you liked yesterday’s Telegram update with multi-pins, proximity alerts, playlists and other features.

I just realized I've been using the Android Halloween theme for most of this year, as it goes well with the general mood of 2020.

If you're also on Android, check it out using this link – or choose a similar theme in your Chat Settings among the Dark Theme presets. It works best with the Halloween-inspired side bar, which users of Telegram for Android should be seeing today.

For iOS and Mac, this link should install the Halloween theme.

Do you like this month's trending sticker packs? My personal favorites so far are HalloweenUtya and ShadowKitty (but only because the creator of PepeVampire didn’t come up with enough stickers to get featured).

Feel free to share your favorite Telegram themes and sticker packs in the comments.

Just tried an iPhone 12 Pro – what an incredibly clunky piece of hardware. It looks and feels like an oversized version of an iPhone 5 from 2012, but with an ugly array of cameras sticking out at three different heights. The notorious notch and wide bezels are still there, creating a low screen-to-body ratio and general outdated feeling for the device.

9 years after Steve Jobs died, the company is still living off the technology and reputation he built, without any meaningful innovation. It’s no surprise iPhone sales were down by 21% earlier this year. If this trend continues, in 7-10 years time the global market share of iPhones will be negligible.

My new post:

https://telegra.ph/Consume-Less-Create-More-Its-More-Fun-12-04

As Telegram approaches 500 million active users, many of you are asking the question – who is going to pay to support this growth? After all, more users mean more expenses for traffic and servers. A project of our size needs at least a few hundred million dollars per year to keep going.

For most of Telegram’s history, I paid for the expenses of the company from my personal savings. However, with its current growth Telegram is on track to reach billions of users and to require appropriate funding. When a tech project reaches this scale, typically there are two options – start earning money to cover the costs, or sell the company.

Hence the question – which path will Telegram take? I’d like to make a few points to clarify our plan:

1. We are not going to sell the company like the founders of Whatsapp. The world needs Telegram to stay independent as a place where users are respected and high-quality service is ensured. Telegram must continue to serve the world as an example of a tech company that strives for perfection and integrity. And, as the sad examples of our predecessors show, that is impossible if you become part of a corporation.

2. Telegram is here to stay for a long time. We began developing our apps for our personal use over 8 years ago and have come a long way since then. In the process, Telegram changed the way people communicate in several aspects – encryption, functionality, simplicity, design, speed. This journey has just started. There’s much more we can – and will – bring to the world.

3. In order to make points 1 and 2 possible, Telegram will begin to generate revenue, starting next year. We will do it in accordance with our values and the pledges we have made over the last 7 years. Thanks to our current scale, we will be able to do it in a non-intrusive way. Most users will hardly notice any change.

4. All the features that are currently free will stay free. We will add some new features for business teams or power users. Some of these features will require more resources and will be paid for by these premium users. Regular users will be able to keep enjoying Telegram – for free, forever.

5. All parts of Telegram devoted to messaging will remain ad-free. We think that displaying ads in private 1-to-1 chats or group chats is a bad idea. Communication between people should be free of advertising of any sort.

6. In addition to its messaging component, Telegram has a social networking dimension. Our massive public one-to-many channels can have millions of subscribers each and are more like Twitter feeds. In many markets the owners of such channels display ads to earn money, sometimes using third-party ad platforms. The ads they post look like regular messages, and are often intrusive. We will fix this by introducing our own Ad Platform for public one-to-many channels – one that is user-friendly, respects privacy and allows us to cover the costs of servers and traffic.

7. If Telegram starts earning money, the community should also benefit. For example, If we monetize large public one-to-many channels via the Ad Platform, the owners of these channels will receive free traffic in proportion to their size. Or, if Telegram introduces premium stickers with additional expressive features, the artists who make stickers of this new type will also get a part of the profit. We want millions of Telegram-based creators and small businesses to thrive, enriching the experience of all our users.

This is the Telegram way.

It will allow us to keep innovating and keep growing for decades to come. We will be able to launch countless new features and welcome billions of new users. While doing that, we will remain independent and stay true to our values, redefining how a tech company should operate.

UPD: More on this topic – https://yangx.top/durov/153