181–190 of 230 posts
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It's especially funny to me, since I apparently have exceeded my monthly premium medium article limit - and would need to pay to actually read this.
Does "open in a private window" work?
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The First Amendment of the US Constitution is restricted to the government. Free Speech is a wider concept than that.
Why do we chain ourselves to such a limiting construct? Companies; S,C, LLC. They did not exist, and by request they were willed into 'personhood' at the signing of a government pen. They were not required to approve the incorporation request. So, I ask this: Why do we not enforce incorporated entities to also abide by the Bill of Rights as being extensions of the government? They certainly weren't born, and there's…
because they are extensions of the private citizens that own them
your extension is accomplished when government entities under the US Constitution are significant funders or owners of these entities
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Most console makers make NO money from selling the console itself, zero, nada, because they count on people buying enough games to make up for it, that's almost the opposite of how Apple works, where the extremely high margin they get for each iPhone is their main source of revenue and on top of that they do this thing of charging 30% for each transaction.
That 30% is specifically designed to be a little bit above the cost of running the system as a whole, but not much. As you point out, they really don't make much in the way of profit on their software or services -- almost all their profit comes from selling the hardware. So, 30% is just the cost of doing business in the ecosystem. If you don't like that, you don't have to participate in that ecosystem. It is entirel…
Unless you work in the finance department at Apple, you have no way of knowing this. And if you do, disclosing this is a fireable offense.
>On no other platform would we accept a scenario where the owner of that platform dictated not only the tools developers can use, but restricted the ways they talk about their products and pricing. We would call it unfair, monopolistic, and overbearing. But on our smartphones, it’s just a fact of life. I am pretty sure game consoles have been doing this basically since their existence. None of them allow you to make…
It's interesting that you cited retail. In retail, there's an actual cost to stocking items, especially in areas visible to the customer. No such cost exists on the app store, in fact Apple makes you pay extra to advertise for what retailers offer for their 30%. App stores and retailers are different. There's almost no cost to list an app (for Apple, Google) and yet they charge a 30% fee. Apple, especially, is a text…
If Apple were like Safeway then you'd have to pay them a few hundred grand to even be in the store, AND you will pay the 30% markup, AND guarantee a certain level of marketing spend out of your pocket (a portion of which will go to vendors/services they specify), AND if you don't make certain sales numbers they simply delete your app.
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I wish game consoles were open, but I don't care as much because they're single purpose. A PS4 is not designed to be your primary computer. An iPhone, by contrast, will be many people's primary or even they're only computer. What does it mean for our society if a single company has control over what that computer can display? I see this issue as broader than just competition—I think it's analogous to free speech.
There is a moral/philosophical connection to free speech and the app store pseudo-monopolies (code as speech), but it also happens to be very concrete in Apple's case: you literally cannot tell customers through your app what other alternatives might be used to pay you. (And before someone comments about how this doesn't conflict with the 1st Amendment, you are obviously correct; but free speech is as much a societal…
If all this competition that the article talked about was such a good thing, apps would be cheaper on Android, and I, as a consumer, would switch. Fact is, the fact that Tinder et al are now bypassing Google’s mechanisms isn’t a good thing to me at all. It’s more the reason to stay on iOS.
The article writer is pissed he can’t get access to me without paying Apple’s toll, but what he doesn’t understand is that I am like it like that.
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There is a moral/philosophical connection to free speech and the app store pseudo-monopolies (code as speech), but it also happens to be very concrete in Apple's case: you literally cannot tell customers through your app what other alternatives might be used to pay you. (And before someone comments about how this doesn't conflict with the 1st Amendment, you are obviously correct; but free speech is as much a societal…
You view this as a bad thing. As a consumer, I view it as a good thing. I’m not sure if folks remember what “apps on mobile” were like before Apple came along, but it was the goddamn Wild West. The fact that it’s walled in, that I’m not going to get pwned, that my parents won’t (and won’t be tempted to by the promise of an extra $0.99 saving) is to my mind, a good thing. If all this competition that the article talke…
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> I don't want to be forced to trust every company with my credit card information This problem is solved with Paypal.
Why would anyone trust PayPal? They still owe me $900 from 2005 when I was the victim of a reverse scam. (Buyer claimed i scammed and never sent it; they refused to investigate or accept my tracking info as proof)
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The First Amendment of the US Constitution is restricted to the government. Free Speech is a wider concept than that.
Why do we chain ourselves to such a limiting construct? Companies; S,C, LLC. They did not exist, and by request they were willed into 'personhood' at the signing of a government pen. They were not required to approve the incorporation request. So, I ask this: Why do we not enforce incorporated entities to also abide by the Bill of Rights as being extensions of the government? They certainly weren't born, and there's…
Barns & Noble should be able to decide what types of books to put on their selves. Hacker News's moderators should be able to make decisions about what types of content lead to intellectual curiosity. And while I strongly believe all software platforms should allow sideloading, I also think Apple's curated, "safe" App Store is a great (optional) service for consumers who want it.
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> I don't want to be forced to trust every company with my credit card information This problem is solved with Paypal.
You haven’t heard about all of the issues with PayPal for over decade?
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What? I'm a console developer. I can use any PC I want to deploy software to the console. I can use Intel, AMD, or any other x86 compatible chip (mainly because I don't want to deal with the headache of cross compiling). I can even choose the compiler I use and the IDE. Sure the debuggers they ship run on Windows, but that's just the tools they know how to write, and they are damn good tools. iOS in comparison is dow…
If you use a cross-platform tool like Xamarin or Unity, the only step of the development process that requires macOS is the publishing-to-app-store - and debugging on actual iOS hardware, if need be. So it's not that bad, you can do most of your everyday work on whatever OS you prefer.
Also, if you think developing in Xamarin or Unity can be done off platform with some last minute debugging and ship... then you're in a reality many of us wish existed.