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Apple’s Social Network

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Re: Apple’s Social Network

#71

Post by basch »

ethagknight wrote: post #19

I don’t think he mentioned it, but the easy way for Apple to grow to a $2T company is to get my household, a typical locked-in Apple household with an iPad or iPhone for every person and a computer for each adult and an AppleTV at every TV, to start paying for ever more services through those Apple devices. TV service. Ubiquitous internet service. Financial services like payments but grow into banking. manage all my…

I completely agree. Apple needs to move into full banking.

Mint, 401k Management, Bill Pay, TAXES, Yahoo Finance, Student Loans, the old Manilla (collecting ALL aggregate statements in one place forever.)

They should buy Schwab, Envestnet, Personal Capital, YNAB, and Motif and slap a Robinhood/Monzo coat of paint on a new frontend. They could go from Apple Pay to Best Banking Experience in the World, in no time. As far as "Services" go apple competes in Music, Health, Maps, Messaging. They dont compete in Backups, Photos, or Banking. I would love for Apple/Google/Facebook to move aggressively against Intuit/TurboTax, if for no other reason to create a more competitive environment.

Imagine Apple getting into LENDING. They have cash up the wazoo. They should be able to determine who is most likely to pay back a loan, and come up with pretty accurate interest rates. And at that point, why is apple just a personal bank, and not a corporate bank as well, fully taking on QuickBooks. And if they dont want to get into business logic programming, become a Financial version of AWS and offer finanance, accounting, and banking APIs as a service, for App Developers to build on top of, like a AWS/Firebase/Pulse meets Chase/WF/Intuit.

I find it VERY odd that none of the big players (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Samsung, Sony, Facebook, Apple) have done anything more than a Wallet and Money Transfer. Why is Mint/Personal Capital/YNAB not on everyones radar. Why are TurboTax and 401K management not being looked into by ANY of the major tech companys? So many people have a bunch of accounts that need individual management. Make my life easier Apple/Microsoft/Google/Facebook.

Ive outlined this idea before. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12868316

I ALSO think SOMEONE should come up with a "financial ID." Instead of signing into banking sites with "Facebook" or "Google" each one has its own unique login, password, security questions, validation. One Financial ID, isolated from Social IDs could drastically cut down on phishing, hacking etc. Smaller institutions would not be running their own Identity/Trust silos in isolation. Resources to build trust over who is who could be shared. Intuit has something like that for their services, but it really needs to be a Chase/WF/BoA effort like Zelle. "Sign in with your Pony ID"

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#72

Post by OJFord »

matty_makes wrote: post #27

I only skimmed the article until I realized they weren't talking about Apple starting a privacy focused actual social network. That's what I thought the article would be about. So this is off topic but what I'm imagining is letting people connect with other iCloud users (aka friends and family) to share pics, videos and comment on them. Maybe they can link iTunes/App store content (apps, music, movies, etc.) with eac…

Apple tried that with music [0] - it was disastrous. I do agree it has a lot of the infrastructure and 'network' bit in place though with iCloud, it's just missing the 'social'.

(At least, so it seems from outside the walled garden looking in.)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Ping

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#73

Post by bunnycorn »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #16

I think Apple has some serious issues with growth; they have expanded a huge amount based on a few key and impressive products and ideas at the right time and in the right way, but I think they've ridden that pony almost as far as it can go [but they've done a better job than most at it]. They have done very well with it, but like most corporations who do that, they usually miss the next big thing, because it is some…

> I think Apple has some serious issues with growth

Apple has just announced a 20% year over year growth.

> but I think they've ridden that pony almost as far as it can go

17% growth in the services division that is now bigger than the Mac or iPad, and bigger than Facebook and Netflix (combined)

31% growth over year for the small accessories. Apple Watch, HomePods and AirPods cathegory.

The cathegories that poundits were betting hard on Apple losing and the "press" making downright negative reviews?

> They've lost some of the key risk-takers and creatives

Who are those?

That Tony Fadell that has been aquihired by Google and then fired because his company outright failed?

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#74

Post by nickthemagicman »

ethagknight wrote: post #19

I don’t think he mentioned it, but the easy way for Apple to grow to a $2T company is to get my household, a typical locked-in Apple household with an iPad or iPhone for every person and a computer for each adult and an AppleTV at every TV, to start paying for ever more services through those Apple devices. TV service. Ubiquitous internet service. Financial services like payments but grow into banking. manage all my…

I used to have this exact same problem. I'm currently using privacy.com to manage all of those little one off subscriptions. It's basically unlimited virtual credit cards. You can pause them, you can add limits to spending, you can delete them if youre done with the service and the service won't be able to charge your bank account. I just discovered it and have been using it for a few months and it's awesome. I highly recommended for internet purchases.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#75

Post by jbob2000 »

ethagknight wrote: post #19

I don’t think he mentioned it, but the easy way for Apple to grow to a $2T company is to get my household, a typical locked-in Apple household with an iPad or iPhone for every person and a computer for each adult and an AppleTV at every TV, to start paying for ever more services through those Apple devices. TV service. Ubiquitous internet service. Financial services like payments but grow into banking. manage all my…

This would only work in an unregulated market. Thankfully, most of the countries around the world do not take kindly to one company owning entire households and will take steps to prevent this from happening.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#76

Post by smashingfiasco »

Spooky23 wrote: post #42
matty_makes wrote: post #27

I only skimmed the article until I realized they weren't talking about Apple starting a privacy focused actual social network. That's what I thought the article would be about. So this is off topic but what I'm imagining is letting people connect with other iCloud users (aka friends and family) to share pics, videos and comment on them. Maybe they can link iTunes/App store content (apps, music, movies, etc.) with eac…

They've had that for years -- iMessage. IMO Facebook is for aspirational connectivity... you stalk your high school friends from afar. iMessage is for the people whom you actually talk to, and the green vs. blue bubble is a subtle peer pressure factor to get people to flip. As more applications expose functionality via iMessage, that will get more powerful.

Shared Albums in the Photos app lets you do just that.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#77

Post by mikepurvis »

bunnycorn wrote: post #53
bedhead wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's pretty clear that online video slipped right through their fingers. They were early with Apple TV and Steve Jobs' assertion that he had "cracked" TV back in 2011. And what happened? They did almost nothing and let Netflix run away with it. Apple wasn't even a contender. Same thing goes for mapping, which was highlighted in that recent blog post. They came out with Apple Maps years ago but almost did noth…

Online video and Maps. Markets that started before the iPhone and when Apple was collaborating very closely with Google. Apple let Google win in those markets without opposition and then Google stabbed Apple in the back with Android. Reminder that the original iOS versions had YouTube built in, and Google Maps.

Not only were they built into the OS, pre-dating any third-party app capabilities, but the native apps literally were designed by Apple engineers. Like, Apple created the entire blueprint for what the end user experience on mobile was supposed to be, and was happy for Google to supply the backend service and collect all the analytics and advertising revenue.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#78

Post by toyg »

macintux wrote: post #62
toyg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or like the Earpods. I expect they will continue making discrete, targeted bets on wearables and other augmenters, while they keep poking at big ideas like the car. I really don't see them going the "social" way. Cook does cloud software as well as Steve did (i.e. not very), he'd rather sell physical widgets and be a landlord on the resulting platforms. I think this post reads too much into "Today at Apple", Apple ar…

> Apple are just reacting to Google building a similar network of physical locations for outreach and training last year You know Apple has been offering free classes at their retail stores for years, right?

Yeah but they’ve mostly been basic tutorials. The idea of “Today”, if i remember correctly, is to go beyond that, both in terms of volume and audience.

Are you suggesting “today” is just a coat of paint over the existing stuff?

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#79

Post by ru999gol »

vectorEQ wrote: post #22

one of the few companies who consistently keeps bumming it's users with higher prices for the same shit and no one is complaining :')... look at most tech giants out there, and you will see only Apple and Nvidia keep cranking up prices for same product range. only companies where you need to pay MORE to get the same tomorrow. buying a relationship with apple? first treat your users like they have value, thank you.! n…

Why should they? They have probably the most blindly loyal customer base of any company in the world. Just look at this thread of supposedly informed customers to see its ugly mug.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#80

Post by snuxoll »

bedhead wrote: post #29
sanderjd wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the next big thing that they have missed?

I think it's pretty clear that online video slipped right through their fingers. They were early with Apple TV and Steve Jobs' assertion that he had "cracked" TV back in 2011. And what happened? They did almost nothing and let Netflix run away with it. Apple wasn't even a contender. Same thing goes for mapping, which was highlighted in that recent blog post. They came out with Apple Maps years ago but almost did noth…

> They shut down their router business while Ubiquiti (run by a former Apple engineer) has run wild in the networking world and looks primed to completely disrupt Cisco over time.

Out of everything you listed this is the one that I don't think Apple is really missing out on, as they were never positioned to be a major player outside the prosumer space which often has needs beyond what Apple was providing. The average consumer is an idiot when it comes to networking, most of them run ISP-provided equipment, and those that don't are often informed enough to get hardware to run DD-WRT/etc. or buy a proper prosumer solution like Ubiquiti's.

Back when wireless routers weren't provided by default with your internet service, a half-decent one wasn't cheap, and people just wanted a simple solution that "worked" then the Airport had value in ensuring Apple's other products had connectivity. There's no benefit to them doing this now, and Apple is not positioned to get into the prosumer/business SDN market that Ubiquiti is in.

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