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Why are you people defending Apple?

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Re: Why are you people defending Apple?

#221

Post by [deleted] »

akashs wrote: post #219
sethg wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most of those companies are not dependent on direct-to-consumer sales for their revenue. You’re never going to see “Oracle Database, Standard Edition One—$6,000” on the App Store directory. I suspect that even Microsoft gets most of its software revenue from either OEM deals or big-business hundred-seat license packs, rather than from over-the-counter sales.

Who says iOS devices are consumer only? There's plenty of business apps in the app store and plenty of large enterprises who are using the iPad and plenty of people who would love to handle their ERP through the iPad. Even then, not all of those businesses are enterprise focused like Oracle. I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of people (myself included) who would love to have MS Office on the iPad instead of what's out…

[deleted]

Re: Why are you people defending Apple?

#222

Post by sethg »

akashs wrote: post #219
sethg wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most of those companies are not dependent on direct-to-consumer sales for their revenue. You’re never going to see “Oracle Database, Standard Edition One—$6,000” on the App Store directory. I suspect that even Microsoft gets most of its software revenue from either OEM deals or big-business hundred-seat license packs, rather than from over-the-counter sales.

Who says iOS devices are consumer only? There's plenty of business apps in the app store and plenty of large enterprises who are using the iPad and plenty of people who would love to handle their ERP through the iPad. Even then, not all of those businesses are enterprise focused like Oracle. I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of people (myself included) who would love to have MS Office on the iPad instead of what's out…

SAP doesn’t have to sell an ERP client through the App Store; they can just have the SAP server put up secure Web pages that end-users with iPads access. End-users can either suffer the limitations of an HTML-only client or they can suffer the limitation of a client that won’t run on iOS. (When it comes to “enterprise” software, end-users tend to suffer, no matter what....)

Re: Why are you people defending Apple?

#223

Post by jon_hendry »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #116
jon_hendry wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But will this be true for long, now that this particular shoe has dropped?" iBooks is still an also-ran. Publishers pretty much have to work with Amazon. iBooks is easier to ignore, I should think.

We'll see. Your logic was impeccable a year ago, before any iPads were sold; that's probably why iBooks is such an also-ran today. (Contracts take time to run out, the iPad isn't even a year old, and its success has taken even the optimists by surprise.) But ignoring the iOS market gets harder by the day. There's a lot of tasty, tasty customers out there. We'll see what happens. Note that Apple's new, um, clarificati…

The thing is, publishers and distributors can make better deals with Amazon, because Amazon will carry a wider array of stuff including physical books, including books that don't make sense as ebooks such as pop-up books, or the books that come with accessories like tree seedlings to plant or meditation beads or whatnot.

Re: Why are you people defending Apple?

#224

Post by Natsu »

justincormack wrote: post #195
Natsu wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need DRM for a web app with a subscription model?

To stop subscribers copying all the content and then unsubscribing. For services where most of the value is in the back catalogue this is a risk.

If that's all the value you're offering your users, DRM is the least of your problems. If it's that easy for users to exhaust the content they actually want, you're going to have problems with customer retention, not to mention customer acquisition.

Re: Why are you people defending Apple?

#225

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Travis wrote: post #217
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android was shipped on three times as many phones as iOS in Q4 (in the US). You might be confusing it with the fact that installed base of Android is now equal to iOS on smartphones. (It's not yet caught up with iOS across phones, pods and pads)

Correct me if you disagree, but it sounds like there is a pretty healthy non-monopolistic ecosystem in the mobile market, doesn't it? It confuses me how people can equate Apple with a monopoly, when they clearly are not controlling the entire market (unless you reduce the market to "Apple App Store", which really doesn't make sense).

Well, I'm probably not a typical case, because I'm European and have an economics degree so I see the core problem with IT today as being the constant chasing after network effects and monopolies. How many times do we need to see ignorant people lured into these roach motels before we as an industry or a society do something about it?

On the other hand, I think Android has already earned its place as the next Windows, which I'm glad of, because it's open source which avoids the possibility of it being abused too much.

But monopolies are about power rather than simple numbers. One good test would be if Apple can single-handedly dictate a price rise across the industry, which is one possible outcome of this latest announcement. Though, I actually think the interlocking demands are specifically intended to remove certain competitors from iOS without explicitly naming and kicking them out, much like they blocked Flash apps via over-broad limitations on programming language choice.

Re: Why are you people defending Apple?

#226

Post by Travis »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #225
Travis wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if you disagree, but it sounds like there is a pretty healthy non-monopolistic ecosystem in the mobile market, doesn't it? It confuses me how people can equate Apple with a monopoly, when they clearly are not controlling the entire market (unless you reduce the market to "Apple App Store", which really doesn't make sense).

Well, I'm probably not a typical case, because I'm European and have an economics degree so I see the core problem with IT today as being the constant chasing after network effects and monopolies. How many times do we need to see ignorant people lured into these roach motels before we as an industry or a society do something about it? On the other hand, I think Android has already earned its place as the next Windows…

I definitely see where you're coming from -- excellent point, mentioning that monopolies are about power, not numbers.

However, your comment, "How many times do we need to see ignorant people lured into these roach motels before we as an industry or a society do something about it?" stuck out. From my perspective, the fallacy there is that we as a society exist as something more than a collection of individuals. I read a very interesting article today about how Darwin might actually be a better economic father, as opposed to Adam Smith. The reasoning was that Darwin's theory explains self-interest outside of the context of society; that individuals act in their best interests which may or may not benefit society.

Perhaps our differences are down to our backgrounds. Europe, as a whole, tends to look at the societal unit, whereas Americans tend to look at the individual level, where societal consequences are emergent behavior.

Re: Why are you people defending Apple?

#227

Post by Macha »

swombat wrote: post #196
potatolicious wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What yungchin said, but also because last.fm and Pandora's source supplier has a stranglehold over the market (aka the traditional labels). Like Netflix, their entire business revolves around having the right to play their content, so the content producer can take them to the cleaners easy peasy. And now they're being squeezed from the other side. Life sucks right now for services that make content discovery and reco…

The real problem there is that there are already two sets of distributors in the music market. The songwriters/artists/producers create the songs. The record companies distribute it. The "distribution plus" companies like last.fm distribute it. Now they want Apple to distribute it too (quite reasonably). Well, one of those distributors is going to have to drop their rates. I'd suggest the one that already takes most…

But they don't want Apple to distribute it. Apple is telling them that if they want to distribute to Apple users, it has to be through Apple.
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