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Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#51

Post by lacker »

It's gotta be tough running the "EU Alternative App Store" team, when the best thing for Apple overall would be if the alternative app store was a complete product failure, while technically satisfying all laws and regulations.

Imagine doing a great job and building a great product, and upper management being like, well... strategically, ideally this product wouldn't be so great. Let's put someone more incompetent in charge, who will create a buggier, worse-designed product. Let's put a leader in place who will make this thing as bad as legally permissible.

Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#52

Post by Miraste »

drexlspivey wrote: post #18
Miraste wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, a lack of software and market penetration on the Mac App Store is the only thing stopping Apple from disabling non-App-Store applications on Macs like they do on iOS. They've already implemented the technical side of it under the guise of "security."

That's the only thing stoping Apple? Not the fact that if they did that every mac out there would become unusable?

Macs would become unusable because so much software doesn't come from the App Store. If they can get enough market penetration through other means first, that wouldn't be a problem. It would break all kinds of development processes, but Apple doesn't care about developers. They'd work out some kludge and do it anyway.

Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#53

Post by wmf »

transpute wrote: post #8
spogbiper wrote: post #2

Interesting that they are creating a separate team just for the EU app store, presumably because the EU is forcing Apple to make some changes. It seems like the investigations in the US, UK, Japan, etc will eventually lead to them being required to make similar changes everywhere.

Geo-fenced app stores could align with geo-fenced networks bounded by GFC-style inspection and filtering of network packets.

It's already happening. You can save money on the firewall if you can convince FAANGs to enforce things for you though.

Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#54

Post by drexlspivey »

Miraste wrote: post #52
drexlspivey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the only thing stoping Apple? Not the fact that if they did that every mac out there would become unusable?

Macs would become unusable because so much software doesn't come from the App Store. If they can get enough market penetration through other means first, that wouldn't be a problem. It would break all kinds of development processes, but Apple doesn't care about developers. They'd work out some kludge and do it anyway.

> but Apple doesn't care about developers

Why? Their whole "Pro" line is targeting developers. How many enterprises/startups would have to switch away from macs if they cannot be used by their devs any more?

Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#55

Post by lapcat »

willseth wrote: post #49
lapcat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the submitted article: > Apple Fellow and former marketing SVP Phil Schiller will continue to oversee both of the new divisions. From Apple: > Phil Schiller is an Apple Fellow, responsible for leading the App Store and Apple Events." https://www.apple.com/leadership/phil-schiller/ https://9to5mac.com/2024/08/21/app-store-vp-departing-apple-... > According to his LinkedIn, Fischer currently holds the title of “Vi…

None of this supports your claim that these roles are "within the marketing department". Phil Schiller is a _former_ marketing VP, a position he left 4 years ago. Carson Oliver has been business management roles his entire tenure at Apple. Ann Thai worked in apps marketing, but moved to product 4 years ago. These execs have marketing experience, but none of them came directly from marketing roles and one has no marke…

> Phil Schiller is a _former_ marketing VP, a position he left 4 years ago.

"Apple today announced that Phil Schiller will become an Apple Fellow, continuing a storied career that began at Apple in 1987. In this role, which reports to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Schiller will continue to lead the App Store and Apple Events." https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/08/phil-schiller-advance...

Schiller will continue [emphasis mine] to lead the App Store. In other words, he was already leading the App Store before he stepped back from SVP of marketing to be an "Apple Fellow".

Schiller's entire career has been marketing and nothing but marketing.

Admittedly, the App Store isn't under "Joz", who is the currently SVP of marketing, but let's not pretend that Schiller is anything other than marketing. Schiller has a special place at Apple because of his long tenure and relationship with Steve Jobs. Essentially, he has his own mini marketing team now (and continues to report directly to the CEO).

The main difference is that Schiller used to be the public face of Apple. Now Joz is the public face, and Schiller is more behind the scenes. But he certainly didn't magically transform from marketing to product security at age 60.

> These execs have marketing experience, but none of them came directly from marketing roles

App Store at Apple is a marketing role.

Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#56

Post by willseth »

lapcat wrote: post #55
willseth wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this supports your claim that these roles are "within the marketing department". Phil Schiller is a _former_ marketing VP, a position he left 4 years ago. Carson Oliver has been business management roles his entire tenure at Apple. Ann Thai worked in apps marketing, but moved to product 4 years ago. These execs have marketing experience, but none of them came directly from marketing roles and one has no marke…

> Phil Schiller is a _former_ marketing VP, a position he left 4 years ago. "Apple today announced that Phil Schiller will become an Apple Fellow, continuing a storied career that began at Apple in 1987. In this role, which reports to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Schiller will continue to lead the App Store and Apple Events." https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/08/phil-schiller-advance... Schiller will continue [emphasis mine…

Now you're not only moving the goalposts, you're fabricating your own! App Store is not organized under marketing at Apple. Simple as that. You think there are too many "marketing types" running the App Store. Fine. That's not what you said and now you're trying to rationalize it.

Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#57

Post by hu3 »

renewiltord wrote: post #31

This is great. We get to see the experiment play out in real time. If it sucks, it'll only suck for the EU. If it rules, it's possible the global App Store will take on those characteristics or we may be able to do this by just importing from the EU.

I'm sure it's on Apple's best interest to make it suck as much as possible within safe margins.

So they can go like: "Seee! I told you it would be bad! Blame EU!"

Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#58

Post by lapcat »

willseth wrote: post #56
lapcat wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Phil Schiller is a _former_ marketing VP, a position he left 4 years ago. "Apple today announced that Phil Schiller will become an Apple Fellow, continuing a storied career that began at Apple in 1987. In this role, which reports to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Schiller will continue to lead the App Store and Apple Events." https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/08/phil-schiller-advance... Schiller will continue [emphasis mine…

Now you're not only moving the goalposts, you're fabricating your own! App Store is not organized under marketing at Apple. Simple as that. You think there are too many "marketing types" running the App Store. Fine. That's not what you said and now you're trying to rationalize it.

You're being pedantic. It's a distinction without a difference. The OP said, "AppStore came out of iTunes and has always been part of services under Eddy Cue", but it's actually been a very long time since Cue was in charge of the App Store. Schiller became the head of the App Store while he was still SVP of marketing and continues to be the head of the App Store today.

App Store is absolutely organized under marketing at Apple. Not under Joz, as I've already said, but under Schiller. Both are marketing. "Apple Fellow" is a euphemism, a term of marketing!

If I would have said on August 3, 2020 that the App Store is within the marketing department, there would have been no dispute. The only change on August 4, 2020 was that Schiller gave up some of his responsibilities to Joz, but Schiller still retained some, such as the App Store.

App Store is not under Eddie Cue and services. It's not under Craig Federighi and software engineering. It's not under Apple Product Security. It's not under Jeff Williams and operations. What would you call it, if not marketing?

For reference, Schiller became head of the App Store in 2015: https://techcrunch.com/2015/12/17/apple-promotes-jeff-willia...

Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#59

Post by haswell »

jedberg wrote: post #39
jrochkind1 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After Authy discontinued their Mac app, there was a several month period where I could install the iOS app on my Mac laptop to keep using it anyway. It stopped being installable a few weeks ago, presumably because they unchecked this box. (I bit the bullet and started paying for 1password and using it for my TOTP needs, btw) As a MacOS user, if you have only an iOS app and not a MacOS app, why not allow Macs to run i…

> It stopped being installable a few weeks ago, Well that sucks, I just recommended it to someone. I assume this also means it will eventually stop working for me once I upgrade something or other.

I've been using a very simple app called "OTP Auth" since I heard Steve Gibson talking about it on his Security Now podcast.

It's a few dollars, works well, and I've been really happy with it after using Authy for years.

Re: Apple splits App Store team in two, introduces new leadership

#60

Post by Miraste »

drexlspivey wrote: post #54
Miraste wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs would become unusable because so much software doesn't come from the App Store. If they can get enough market penetration through other means first, that wouldn't be a problem. It would break all kinds of development processes, but Apple doesn't care about developers. They'd work out some kludge and do it anyway.

> but Apple doesn't care about developers Why? Their whole "Pro" line is targeting developers. How many enterprises/startups would have to switch away from macs if they cannot be used by their devs any more?

They'd still be usable by devs. We'd get VS code on the App Store and some kind of iOS-style ability to run unsigned binaries on some limited number of computers with an Apple Developer subscription.

As for why Apple doesn't care about devs, I don't know, but they are not afraid of massive, breaking changes. Remember a few years ago when they permanently deleted the entire MacOS game back catalog by removing 32-bit support?

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