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Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

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Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#421

Post by azinman2 »

Closi wrote: post #374
hnlmorg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AWS pricing is extremely thorough and not at all comparable with Apple's App Store: - AWS charge you on bandwidth used, Apple don't charge developers for the number of downloads - AWS charge you on compute time, Apple don't charge you for ongoing use of their services beyond one initial charge for app submission - AWS charge you for storage, Apple don't charge you for storing your app I'm not a fan of Apple's App Sto…

> - AWS charge you on bandwidth used, Apple don't charge developers for the number of downloads Their point is that Apple could charge based on bandwidth used, and that this could be more fair for some developers. > AWS charge you for storage, Apple don't charge you for storing your app I would be pretty happy with Apple charging for app storage if it was at S3 rates - it would amount to almost nothing.

S3 is actually quite pricey. Not as much on the monthly storage (tho it can be depending on size), but network egress is really where they get you. On the scale of the App Store where the app might be 100mb but it gets downloaded potentially millions of times it gets expensive fast.

Now imagine your app is free. Yet you have to pay for all these downloads. There wouldn’t be any free apps anymore.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#422

Post by bnj »

lucasyvas wrote: post #122
Hamuko wrote: post #2

Tim Cook's line of argument seemed a bit weird to me. On one hand he's saying that he doesn't know if Apple's customers would be able to distinguish between Apple's good and holy curated store and Epic's filthy shitheap of porn and blackjack, but he's also saying that Apple's customers definitely want Apple's App Store as-is. > Lawyer says, “if people really value Apple’s curation and Apple’s App Store, even if there…

This exchange appears to be open admission of unapolegtic, monopolistic behaviour. Also, the suggestion that customers want it to stay like it is is a flat out lie given his preceding statement where he admits they've never offered the choice, so can't possibly know.

It’s really interesting to observe the way that we can all read that exchange with different interpretations. I don’t see the conflict you’re pointing to at all— to me, it makes sense that Cook can say users don’t want to navigate multiple stores if they had done, for example, focus groups.

Meanwhile the experiment that he didn’t want to run is whether users could distinguish between good quality app stores and bad quality ones, which he doesn’t know because they’ve never had to do it before.

That all seems sensible enough to me.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#423

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

slenk wrote: post #406
wincy wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw the new Mac Mini on sale at Costco for $600 yesterday, I don’t see how Apple hardware can be called “expensive” anymore.

Don't you still need to buy a monitor and all peripherals?

Those don’t need to be apple products - the mini has standard ports.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#424

Post by 5560675260 »

akudha wrote: post #144
jrsj wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because my grandma is clueless and I give her an iPhone so she doesn’t install malware like she managed to on her Android phone

So the solution is to force majority of the population to use Apple store, to protect minority of the population who aren't tech savvy? If Apple allowed other stores, before a user can install an app from non-Apple store, iOS can show a message saying the app is not from Apple's holy store and that it is users responsibility to make sure the app is trustworthy? This won't be pretty, but at least it is a compromise. T…

One possible solution is to start giving our money to companies that are not Apple or Google. Otherwise we'll be forever stuck with this duopoly and various alternative OS will keep being niche at best.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#425

Post by 5560675260 »

oblio wrote: post #411
5560675260 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, all of this is available via web browser.

Ah, nice, can I do any of that offline?

Well, you've asked if it's possible, not if it's practical and convenient under any circumstances.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#426

Post by abecedarius »

simonh wrote: post #363
abecedarius wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The capability you give an app for X doesn't have to be the raw system X. It can interpose some policy or tracking-of-use, or let you revoke just the X, or fake the whole X to begin with, etc. This is one of the things distinguishing the object capability model from basic sandboxing. Another is that the set of kinds of X's is open-ended -- anyone can make up higher-level abstractions like an advertising server with a…

Do you really think that companies lobbying for side-loading of their apps, and getting legislation through to force it on Apple, would be satisfied with heavily locked down access to subsets of functionality? To more restricted access than App Store apps? Somehow I don't see that being acceptable to the side-loading lobby. An App Store App can be granted low level network access etc because it can be vetted and cens…

Every hardware capability is potentially available in this kind of framework. It's ultimately up to the user whether an app can get at it, or with what limits. This is an inevitable source of problems for sufficiently reckless users, but it should be possible for reasonable users to keep reasonable control -- not just hacker types.

A "side-loading lobby" wouldn't have grounds to demand more. (The overenthusiastic copyright lobby would probably have better luck in getting their demands wired in, going by history, but that's another issue.)

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#427

Post by Seattle3503 »

DangitBobby wrote: post #172
akudha wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the solution is to force majority of the population to use Apple store, to protect minority of the population who aren't tech savvy? If Apple allowed other stores, before a user can install an app from non-Apple store, iOS can show a message saying the app is not from Apple's holy store and that it is users responsibility to make sure the app is trustworthy? This won't be pretty, but at least it is a compromise. T…

But then Epic will have detailed instructions on how to sideload apps, and if enough apps do this it will be common practice for users to do so. If users are trained to do this by safe apps, they won't be on the lookout for the malware that does the same thing.

Maybe a wacky idea, but what if Apple required you to go to an Apple store to sideload a new app or app store. That way the person at the store can stop really stupid mistakes.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#428

Post by michaelmrose »

ericlewis wrote: post #226
truth_ wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bull. Apple deserves a "rent", and not a "cut". They are providing infrastructure and services, and they deserve a minimum rent for these, which they already take. But Apple should not take cut on every purchases made through the app. It makes no sense. AWS does not take a "cut" on every Netflix subscription bought. They just charge for the storage and traffic. This is how App Store should function.

Rent would go up and there would be basically 0 actually free apps anymore. It’s already hard to pay 99$ a year for many people. Now you have to pay some larger number and your app may never make money. It’s always an achievement just to get your 99$ back anyway.

Logically apple makes most of their money selling IPhones based on them being desirable phones in large part because of useful apps.

The cost of sending your app through automated processing and serving it to 99 people needed to make back your fee is probably on net less than a penny.

Offering this service to small time developers would still be 99.99% profit so there would be no reason to make up for lost profits.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#429

Post by GSimon »

wincy wrote: post #389
thayne wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that you have to purchase expensive apple hardware to develop for iOS.

I saw the new Mac Mini on sale at Costco for $600 yesterday, I don’t see how Apple hardware can be called “expensive” anymore.

The new M1 Mac Mini might literally be the first 'affordable' Apple machine that isn't underpowered. Will need to cough up some $ for display adaptors if you want more than one monitor for development though.

Re: Tim Cook’s Fortnite trial testimony was unexpectedly revealing

#430

Post by jedberg »

tarsinge wrote: post #373
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No developer in their right mind would let Apple take a cut of anything. No developer in their right mind would let Apple take a 30% cut of anything. Most developers would pay Apple a 3% cut in order to use Apple's built in-payment mechanism, and not force their users to leave the app and type their credit card information into a browser. 30% is exploitive, and not at all proportional to the value provided. People…

What was the cut when software was published physically and sold in a store? 30% is not a lot for being in a store.

Depends on how you look at it. I used to work in a store that sold software in the 90s. The publisher would sell us the game wholesale and we'd charge retail.

So they would sell it to us for $22.50 and set the retail price at $29. So in that sense it was a 22% cut, because we only kept 22% of the sale price.

But in most cases the publisher didn't make the game. They were a middleman who took a game from a studio and sold it to us. I have no idea what their cut was between them and the actual maker of the game, but I'll bet it was more than 8%.

So in that regard, the app store is a really good deal because it lets developers publish directly to consumers without a middleman.

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