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We are making some changes in the way we position and charge for adverts.
Instead of positioning and charging by page, adverts are charged by their position in the advertising column. Premium ads appear at the top of the column and on every page. Please go to mwls.com/advertise for more information.
19 February 2015
I finally got a reply from Apple about the unannounced increase in developer fees:
On the first of January, 2015, the European Union approved changes to VAT legislation impacting the applicable VAT rate for the sale of digital goods, which includes Developer Program purchases. For this reason the value-added tax (VAT) rates for Developer Program purchases were changed for all territories in the European Union and they are based on the country in which a customer is resident.
The annual fee by this calculation should be £72 rather than the £79 charged but at least it goes some way to explaining the increase. By contrast, Google developers are charged a one-off fee of $25.
5 February 2015
Our latest newsletter has just been published.
2 February 2015
Did you know that many US companies charge UK and European customers much more than their US counterparts?
We often pay for the same goods and services at a rate of one pound to the dollar. That is, we pay about £10 when a US customer pays the equivalent of about £6.50.
I was planning to join the Apple Developers' programme so that I could develop free applications for the people who visit my website until I discovered that I had to pay £60 a year before I could test applications on my own phone.
I thought that there was no point in paying this until I had some applications to test. Recently, I went back to sign up only to discover that the price had been increased to £79! US developers only pay $99 (£65) - not as bad as the exchange rate mentioned above but still unacceptable. (By the way, if you have signed up for Apple's iTunes Match for 24.99 a year, you'll be interested to learn that US customers pay $24.99).
I contacted Apple support about this and despite the fact that they aim to respond to queries within one business day, I have had no reply but I did have an email reminding me that I hadn't completed the purchase of my developer licence. So, I contacted them again using the email address in the reminder and quoting the original ticket number, but I have still had no response - only another reminder to pay up!
It looks as if I won't be developing iOS apps for the Apple store but I will develop web apps - the only disadvantage being that you have to be connected to the internet to use them. I can develop, test and distribute OSX applications without putting them on the Apple store and I'm currently looking at developing Android apps which can be developed, tested and distributed without joining a developer program.
29 January 2015
Reflects the latest changes in Amazon's fees.
They have changed because VAT now has to be charged at the seller's home country rate instead od the Luxembourg rate of 15%.
View the latest version
22 January 2015
This article is about managing your people's concerns, problems and complaints so that there is no need for a formal grievance to be raised.
19 January 2015
I've just published the first edition of my re-launched newsletter (www.mwls.com/newsletters/2015-01.php). It's been a long time since I published a newsletter - partly because I didn't have a good method for distribution, opting-in and opting-out but the main reason was that social media seemed so fashionable. So what's changed?
In some ways Twitter and Facebook have become too successful and what you are interested in is being swamped by advertisements and over-enthusiastic tweeters and posters.
But it gets worse: Facebook decides what you see and it's impossible just to only see a person's timeline - you have to view what they have re-posted and their friends' photographs that they have appeared in.
I will continue to use Twitter and Facebook because they do have the advantage of providing instant notifications of new items without swamping my newsletter subscribers with emails.
12 January 2015
The 2015 MWLS Almanac of Significant, Notable and Interesting Dates is now available.
29 December 2014
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