141–150 of 781 posts
It's weird how Epic has no problem with closed hardware consoles...
[1] https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/the-fortnite-m...
In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000 Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day of release: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22prima+cinema%22&source=ln... In m…
I think people should have the freedom to consent to buy whatever products they like so long as the functionality of the product is not kept secret. They also should (and do) have the freedom to try and jailbreak it but not to the point of obligating the manufacturer to produce an open system. But even if there is some sort of law that you can’t sell closed-stack systems, you could just migrate everything to equipment leases. IMO this would make matters much, much worse for the consumer in terms of having control over their own equipment (though maybe some equipment would be made to last again).
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Not my sole reason, but since you asked, here I am. I give my children iPhones. I like having certain family controls over what they use, and further controls over what appears in the app store to begin with. I like having a single vendor for all my software purchases, that I can trust to issue refunds and discontinue subscriptions promptly. I spend all day thinking about computers, I don't want to also be my own IT…
> I give my children iPhones. I like having certain family controls over what they use, and further controls over what appears in the app store to begin with. Okay.. then their opinion is what's relevant here, not yours. > I like having a single vendor for all my software purchases, that I can trust to issue refunds and discontinue subscriptions promptly. Weren't they in hot water recently for forcing developers to u…
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Me for one. I don't want to deal with several different terms of service, different ways of payment, lack of clarity on if an app is trustworthy or not. Apple is simple. I trust Apple to protect me and honestly based on the stories I read about Google's Play Store I feel more confident in Apple to do the right thing for consumers in the long run. Their incentive is aligned to my needs (good safe hardware that protect…
Is Apple's app store actually protecting you from anything, or do you just get the illusion that its protecting you? Although the situation has gotten much better the past couple years, its still not uncommon to find apps on the app store that charge like 10$ a month for some wallpapers or something of a similar nature. Furthermore, every few months there are new news articles coming out about how ""XYZ"" app is coll…
In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000 Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day of release: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22prima+cinema%22&source=ln... In m…
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Nope. If a person "owns" a piece of hardware, it should be legal to jailbreak it without any consequences (except perhaps lack of support for 3rd party software) and companies that sell products that build off of jailbroken products should be 100% legal. Edge case products like Prima Cinema can simply lease the hardware with restrictions on how can be used under the terms of the lease. If Apple feels so strongly abou…
At the beginning you said nope but based on your explanation I feel like you meant to say yep... e.g. yes, we should make it illegal. Ahh, I see the problem - thanks Osiris - there are 2 questions, each of them opposite. > Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? and > Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? Good thing I'm not a lawyer!
His answer: Nope.
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This is something I hadn't thought about until the article pointed it out. According to the first link in google ( https://www.braze.com/blog/in-app-purchase-stats/ ) the average iOS IAP in 2017 was $1.08. If you compare that to Square and Stripe's fee structure then the processing fees charged by the credit card processors is about 25%. This means Apple's taking for themselves much closer to a 5% cut which seems muc…
Why compare to Square's or Stripe's fee structure? It's ridiculous to claim "This means Apple's taking for themselves much closer to a 5% cut" as if Apple is paying a $0.29 processing fee per IAP. If developers had a choice in payment processors, they could choose one with smaller minimum per-transaction fees, aggregate multiple payments from the same customer, try out subscriptions instead of microtransactions so th…
In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell? Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal? To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000 Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day of release: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22prima+cinema%22&source=ln... In m…
While I'm sympathetic to this idea, one thing that I get hung up on is game consoles. I enjoy multiplayer shooters, and I like knowing that none of my opponents are using bots. So the fact that the console is locked down is part of the value proposition for me. It's a pro, rather than a con.
Okay this is going to sound stupid but maybe someone else feels like me about it: I don't understand why Apple has to take such a big chunk from transactions of in-app purchases? Similarly Google. Why 30%? Why not 5%? That feels like it would be more honest. Is it just because "they can"?
I assume their costs are just, Credit Card Fees, Infrastructure Fees (Bandwidth, Storage), Reviewers Salary. Not sure this adds up to 30%. I think the real reason is that when the Apple store was started, they looked around at the current prices for "software distribution". Retail was like 70%, and other app stores; for example the Danger Hiptop / T-mobile Sidekick charged 60% for their apps store, and the carriers w…
Part of the problem with this whole market is that we're talking about zero marginal cost goods. Taking away frictional costs of transaction, distribution and support, the economic argument is for prices to trend towards $0. Hence the "race to the bottom" once the App Store made distribution "free" for free apps.
Basically figure out how to make mobile gaming available via Mobile Safari, Mobile Edge or Mobile Chrome browsers.