Kushal Dave, who was once a senior engineer at Four. Square and is now working on a new project, says small apps just starting out were particularly vulnerable and could get totally stuck at any given time because so much was up to Apples whim. Apple wasnt deaf to the complaints. Engineers at the company had been pushing their bosses to provide more data to the app developer community since at least 2. They felt Apple needed to close the gap with Alphabet Inc., whose Google Play store has long approved apps faster than Apple and provided rich analytical detail on their usage. About fifteen months ago, Cook took the App Store away from Eddy Cue, the senior VP of internet software and services, and handed it to marketing chief Phil Schiller, who had been running developer relations for years. Schiller got busy. By May of last year, developers noticed that Apple was approving their apps much more quickly than before. Rather than a week or more, it was now taking less than two days to get an app greenlit. If theres something we need to fix or we want to get out an additional update, we dont have to worry about waiting a week or two weeks any more and thats been hugely positive for us, says James Vaughan, whose Ndemic Creations sells a mobile game called Plague Inc. Suddenly, Apple became more willing to share usage data. Now, developers dont have to rely on gut instincts, which can often be wrong, or waste time trying to scrape up the information themselves. Instead, they can fine tune their products on the fly. Yuval Kaminka, whose Joy. Tunes makes apps that teach kids how to play the piano, says he can now see what prompts people to subscribe, when they convert from trial runs to paid subscriptions and when theyre cancelling. The Apple tools helped his business grow seven fold last year. We know whats working much sooner, Kaminka says. Apple will continue to roll out new data tools in the coming weeks, developers for the first time will be able to respond to customer reviews in the App Store. The company has also tried to tailor app recommendations to individual users. Over time, how Apple monetizes apps could turn out to be the most important change. Its not just that the company has halved its 3. Its that Apple has opened the subscription model to new app categories. In the past, subscriptions were mostly the preserve of content companies such as Netflix and management apps like Dropbox. Now a host of apps can charge subscription fees for everything from games to photo editing tools to fitness. Itai Tsiddon figures selling subscriptions could boost the revenue of his photo editing apps Facetune and Enlight 1. Last year his company, Lightricks Ltd., sold about 1. By attracting four million subscribers, Lightricks could surpass 1. Tsiddon reckons. For us, thats whats exciting about this new model, he says. The more proficient you are, the more value you can get from a tool over time. So a subscription model really works. Global smartphone sales grew at the slowest pace on record last year, so Apple is in a duel for the customers of such rivals as Samsung Electronics or Huawei Technologies. App subscriptions help Apple keep people loyal. Investors value Apple shares at an estimated 1. Alphabet and 1. 74 times for Amazon. Inc. To merit a valuation that brings it closer to its peers, Apple will have to bring recurring revenue closer to that of its tech rivals. To me this change means that Apple is serious about building bigger businesses that depend on the App Store ecosystem, says Kaminka. I think its a very big bet on their part.