191–200 of 389 posts
Will the executive actually face an criminal charges? No they will not.
> Will the executive actually face an criminal charges? No they will not. How so?
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> Back then, they needed developers to turn the ship around, now they think devs need them. No, that's the opposite of what actually happened with the iPhone. Back in 2007, Apple actually saw evidence from the customer buying frenzy that Apple didn't need 3rd-party devs to make iPhone a wild success. After the very desirable iPhones got into millions of customers hands, it was the 3rd-party devs that needed Apple mor…
The OP isn't talking about iPhone devs, they're talking about a decade before that when Apple was called 'Apple Computer' and had mad a series of bad business choices (confusing product line up, allowing other companies to make Mac clones, etc). Developers had started to abandon the Mac OS platform - or at least start making Windows versions of previously Mac-only software - and getting developer confidence back was…
OP's wording was somewhat confusing because they were talking about the later iPhone devs with, >", now they think devs need them" by comparing them to the 1997 Mac OS devs.
As though possibly implying that Apple incorrectly misjudged the later iPhone-era devs' leverage as if it's the opposition situation of "Apple is the one that needs the devs" and somehow Apple misunderstands that.
I was clarifying that Apple didn't misjudge the devs and they correctly predicted that devs would want access to millions of new iPhone customers. It isn't just "Apple thinks devs need them", it's more definitive in "Apple _knows_ that devs need them." The timeline of events reinforced in Apple's mind that it was "Apple's customers" more than the "dev's customers".
Seeing customers camp out overnight in front of Apple's stores for iPhones that didn't have any 3rd-party apps -- and still sell millions of them -- is why they're so arrogant. Apple concluded it was Apple's efforts alone that recruited those customers to their new platform and not the 3rd-party devs. (Apple itself created the first Youtube app instead of 3rd-party Google devs doing it.) The 2008 devs may have had a chance to flip that narrative by rejecting iOS and only create apps for Android and Windows Phones but they didn't do that and instead, went along with Apple's gatekeeping and 30% fees.
>Developers had started to abandon the Mac OS platform [...] and getting developer confidence back was one of the key things that kept the company alive to grow
Well, the 1997 dev confidence behavior for a Mac platform with only ~5% market share at that time wouldn't be relevant to Apple's attitude about iPhones because devs never abandoned the iPhone. iPhones were an instant hit with 100% market share of touchscreen smartphones until Android came out a year later.
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Consoles are trivially avoidable. Family group chats that require a blue-bubble-capable phone, grandmothers that only know how to use facetime, those are actually important. I can't get into my coworking space without a door unlock app on my phone. On the other hand, exactly 0 times in my life have I ever been told "yeah, you need to own an xbox to go to the dentist's office". Phones are indeed in a different class f…
> I can't get into my coworking space without a door unlock app on my phone. And that app is probably free, covered by the costs of the paid apps, the majority of which are brainrot games and social media[1]. Honestly this system isn't half bad, it's essentially a tax on idleness that funds a bunch of virtuous activity. [1] https://www.statista.com/chart/29389/global-app-revenue-by-s...
Free apps on iOS should be subsidized by, I don't know, the purchase price of the phone and the $100 yearly developer fee I'd think.
> Honestly this system isn't half bad, it's essentially a tax on idleness that funds a bunch of virtuous activity.
The system isn't funding "virtuous activity", the system is a for-profit system for the benefit of the richest company on the planet.
In the words of a trial lawyer friend of mine, “Nobody in the history of the world has said, ‘You know what? The judge was right; I was an asshole.’ Definitely some of those vibes there. I’ve generally been on team apple for this case, and as Gruber notes, they largely won the case. Dunking on their power to set other contractual fees seems to have come back to bite them. That said, as a user, I strongly prefer to us…
Apple Pay is 0.15% fee and have no bearing on this case. In-App Purchases are 30%.
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Also, Apple was down to 90 days of operating cash and almost went bankrupt in 1997.
And Microsoft had to invest in Apple, as a bankrupt Apple would have left them with effectively no defense against the antitrust investigation they were undergoing.
Tim Cook has overstayed his welcome. He should have left years ago at this point. That plus the fact that all his successors are built on the same nondescript mold he came out of, does not bode well for the strategic vision of Apple.
I'm hoping for John Ternus to take the reins soon. At least from the casual outside observer, he seems like someone that's actually excited about tech and customer experience. Maybe Apple is too big to have a product person as CEO? They are so big that they essentially need a diplomat at the top spot? If so, at least let someone like Ternus call the internal shots and lead the products.
Apple is extremely not the type of company to recruit a CEO from outside, so if Cook is doing any kind of succession planning I have to imagine it's Ternus.
>Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly. The real evidence, detailed herein, more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation. Judging by tech, apple is right now in deep water due to the failure of deli…
Objectively and ethically, it's reprehensible, but subjectively, we're now living in a blatantly pay-to-play world and everyone else is doing it, and there are clear, easily quantifiable gains of billions to be made from that bribe.
(The best part of all this was learning that inauguration bribes have been happening for decades, generally to little fanfare.)
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What made the early apps great and viral on iPhone were the indie developers. The ones making flashlight and farting sound boards. They paved the way, and for them $3500 is a lot of money. Who cares if it’s pocket change for google or meta, nobody wants another Facebook app.
$3500 doesn't matter at all for developers. It matters for users. If there are a billion users, devs will pay $3500 for access no problem. But you can't get a billion users for a $3500 product unless it's at least as useful as a car.
But imagine for a moment an alternate reality where they at least moderately tried to keep the cost down, and then further subsidized it, selling the headsets for $599 and made developer terms wildly attractive (like, your first 20 million in revenue having a 5% fee instead of 30%). It would cost Apple billions, but they pissed away more on the car idea with nothing to show for it. This could have launched a category, instead I predict a future more like Apple TV hardware where it's niche due to being 4x the price of what most people want to pay for the category.
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I wouldn't blame them, Americans on the whole fall over themselves to defend Apple. Apple is the magic entity that figured out how to send full videos and pictures in text messages. Something a google android could never figure out. Apple phones didn't come bloated with garbage. You go to the apple store for help rather than the verizon store. You are above others when you have an iPhone. Apple's external veneer is s…
I want Apple to protect me from app developers. For me, it’s a feature not a bug. I want them to prevent social media companies from tracking my device across my other apps. I want them to integrate billing so I can easily cancel subscriptions or get refunds. I want them to require Oauth that allows me to keep my email private from app developers. These features make my customer experience better not worse. I’m sorry…