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Apple’s Social Network

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Re: Apple’s Social Network

#191

Post by erikpukinskis »

mikhailt wrote: post #50
throwawayinside wrote: post #25

If you are a developer with a SaaS business, be very afraid. Apple is going to do everything possible to collect a 30% tax on your business to fix their growth problem. It’s ironic, really. The company that mastered tax evasion is about to become the world’s most determined tax collector.

Or you can just distribute the apps without using the platform's payment processor. No one says you have to use Apple's payment processor. Direct users to sign up on your website and then have them download the apps free of charge. Btw; So does Google and Microsoft. They all take a cut of every app sale. The difference is the rate they take out. Oh, for Apple, it's 30% the first year of the sub only, it goes down to…

Yes, you can do this, but you can’t have ANY connection between your app and your web site. Your app can’t mention a subscription, can’t link to your site, etc.

So it only works if users first go to your web site, sign up, and then get the app on the App Store. If they get your app on the App Store, there’s no way to convert them without Apple’s blessing.

Essentially Apple contractually mandates friction between you and iOS users and then charges you to alleviate it.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#192

Post by shadowfacts »

macintux wrote: post #177
briandear wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to like “middle-men” — when it improves my experience and saves time. I don’t want to go to the refinery to buy gas any more than I want to spend a day driving to a dozen farms to pick up my weekly groceries. Middle-men are bad when they add no value. For example, subscriptions in the App Store — I love that because I can go to one place and cancel anything instantly without having to go through The NY Times…

A long time ago I hoped Apple might set up some sort of micropayment system for online journalism. I don't want to get subscriptions to all of the news sources I appreciate, but I'd love to throw some money their way.

I think this would fit rather nicely into Apple News. Get all your news in one place and optionally set up a monthly subscription that gets split proportionally between the publications you read.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#193

Post by austhrow743 »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #146
ethagknight wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I'm speaking from Apple's perspective thinking through how they could double in value. I don't think the current method of bills coming from everywhere with different payment requirements is all that great. If this new "middleman" provides value and protects me, then what's the problem? I wouldn't see direct integration with my apple device as a middleman but an endpoint. Furthermore, there are loads of whitelabe…

> I'm speaking from Apple's perspective But why? It greatly puzzles me how many "consumers" now think in terms of "brands" and dream up and discuss strategies on behalf of them. Companies should concentrate on fleecing customers, and customers should concentrate on not getting fleeced.

Companies and customers are just people wearing different hats, not distinct groups.

Most of us spend our day fleecing and then go home to be on the receiving end. If thats the terminology you want to use for the production/consumption cycle.

There's nothing that says one has to be wearing their consumer hat when using hacker news. In fact given the context of both the forum and article, it makes far more sense to me that people would be commenting as fellow fleecers not the fleeced.

Hacker news in general has more content relevant to fleecing rather than being fleeced. This article being a prime example.

As a consumer its of zero interest to me. What do I care of iPhones growth or lack of it? Reading about Apples market position and growth options only appeals to me as a producer.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#194

Post by bandushrew »

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 wonder how many apple households locked in are actually locked in.

We have 2 apple computers, and apple tv, 4 android tablets and three windows computers, 1 iphone, 2 android phones.

I dont think any of my friends are apple-only, even those who love apple.

Is an apple-only household really that common?

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#195

Post by ethagknight »

sametmax wrote: post #58
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…

Great idea. This way when this powerful gigantic entity will screw up, or worse, misbehave, all your life will be destroyed at once. It's very efficient !

Sarcastic comments are unsubstantive and generally not appreciated on hacker news.

I do concede your point that greater centralization isn’t really in the consumer’s best interest. I stand by my point that it could be on apple’s radar for ways to continue growth, in its best interest. My parent comment is not a consumer wishlist but that of a (rookie) investor.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#196

Post by ethagknight »

bandushrew wrote: post #194
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 wonder how many apple households locked in are actually locked in. We have 2 apple computers, and apple tv, 4 android tablets and three windows computers, 1 iphone, 2 android phones. I dont think any of my friends are apple-only, even those who love apple. Is an apple-only household really that common?

No idea, but my comment is focused on how Apple could deepen the moat and find evermore cashflow.

You point out two distinct aspects, how locked in is a locked in household, and how many households are actually Apple only. I bet it’s rare to be all-Apple households, but Apple should be finding ever more reasons for a household’s next purchase to be an Apple related one. Since my locked-in household still only buys so many devices per person per 2-3 years, Growing services is another way to do it.

As far as degree of lock in, I’d say not much, I think it could all collapse with a few major missteps. There’s an enormous amount of pressure on the board of directors and C suite to maintain the expected quality.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#197

Post by secabeen »

oflannabhra wrote: post #98
ardy42 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that they see the investments that they are making in performance will pay off greatly in the coming years, because suddenly our phone will be more powerful than our desktop. The only way I can see that happening is if people stop upgrading their desktops for years and years AND phones are able to make steady performance improvements AND people don't stop upgrading their phones regularly. Larger form factors (b…

I agree with all of this. I'm not arguing that laptops and desktops will disappear. But, when people are deciding what to spend money on, I think laptops and desktops will become increasingly marginalized and niche. Also, I think that it very well might be the case that Apple can deliver performance parity compared to larger form factors. The latest iPad Pro is an indication of where iPhones will be in a year. The ne…

>Why would a consumer spend $1500 on a laptop that they use 1-2 hours a day, compared to a phone they use 8 hours a day and is always with them? I'd argue that we are already at the point where most consumers aren't even at the point of considering traditional "computers" in their decisions.

I think as long as you act primarily as a _consumer_ of other people's content, this is accurate. As soon as you want to _create_ media of your own in any significant way, you then need a keyboard, a larger screen, a decent pointing device, etc. (maybe not all of the above for a particular creative endeavor, but these sorts of things).

The question then is, what percentage of people create enough to need creative devices, and what percentage are happy just being consumers? I think Apple is focusing on the creatives.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#198

Post by nunez »

oflannabhra wrote: post #33

I appreciate that Ben took the time to read between the lines of what Apple has been saying, to tease out how Apple is thinking about Apple. It's clear that's why he has a successful business. This article made me stop and think about Apple's future, and to be honest, the future of computing. I think it is clear that in 10 years mobile computing has reached maturity (which is astounding). There is no broad use-case a…

This is what I'm thinking too. It's pretty clear (at least to me) that Apple is trying to make the future of computing look more like iOS, albeit very slowly, instead of making today's tablets look more like OS X, despite everyone saying that this is what they want. This would explain iPads that are faster than today's MacBooks that don't have a proper filesystem yet. It's like they are redoing computing from the ground up, hence the "What's a computer" commercial.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#199

Post by nunez »

snuxoll wrote: post #80
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…

> 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…

That, and access points/routers aren't things you buy every year or two. Our AirPort Extreme worked for five years before I replaced it with a Google Wifi mesh (and it was still working when I did so). If it were $1500 or so, then keeping it would make sense (and nobody would buy it), but it was $250. I think Apple got into the AirPort game because they were one of the first companies to push Wi-Fi on everything (a great strategy too, as it's a big reason behind why iPhones are so successful now), and because most ISPs provided crappy access points/routers, they could step in and fill the void.

Re: Apple’s Social Network

#200

Post by ozmbie »

oflannabhra wrote: post #33

I appreciate that Ben took the time to read between the lines of what Apple has been saying, to tease out how Apple is thinking about Apple. It's clear that's why he has a successful business. This article made me stop and think about Apple's future, and to be honest, the future of computing. I think it is clear that in 10 years mobile computing has reached maturity (which is astounding). There is no broad use-case a…

I’m starting to think that iPhone SoC performance gains are just a side effect of them investing heavily into their controlled hardware ecosystem. But the real payoff is in their wearable SoC. The watch is seeing huge performance gains. And the W1 chip in their headphones is similar. Low power, high performance wearable chips are something their competitors are far behind in. This is where Apple are headed.

It’s like building a high performance supercar to learn and grow in order to understand how to bring that technology to a lower powered and more effecient vehicle.

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