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Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

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Re: Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they don’t run iPadOS? People love all the things the OS can do. They just wish it wouldn’t stop them from doing that one thing in particular that they it to do. Tantalizingly close to perfection with one glaring flaw is extremely frustrating!

What can it do that other ones can't? Integration with Apple's walled garden is the most common complaint.

It's the UI. It is designed from the ground up for touch. People who like iPadOS do not like Windows Surface tablets for that exact reason. A desktop UI that's been shoehorned into a tablet is not as good as a purpose-built touch UI.

Re: Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

#302
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic, the iPhone wouldn’t have been able to play music as soon as it launched. Yet that was part of the whole pitch: “an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator”.

And then the iPod died.

Yes, exactly, that’s the point. Apple did it to themselves. They didn’t “silo off the two product groups”.

Re: Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

#303
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic, the iPhone wouldn’t have been able to play music as soon as it launched. Yet that was part of the whole pitch: “an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator”.

Not so sure. From mid-to-late 90s onwards a mobile phone was basically an essential item. I was never tempted to buy an iPod, but combine the phone and iPod and give me internet access to boot... sold.

> I was never tempted to buy an iPod, but combine the phone and iPod and give me internet access to boot... sold.

Before the iPhone there were already phones which could play music and access the web. I even remember some Motorolas which interacted directly with iTunes. The iPhone didn’t succeed just by smooshing those together.

Either way, that’s neither here nor there, the point is precisely that Apple didn’t shy away from cannibalising their own product.

Re: Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it right to say that currently the cost of the hardware is being partly subsidized by the profits Apple makes from the software? If some of the profit from the software gets taken away will we see the price of the hardware rise?

Probably not. If the current price is optimal then it will remain optimal even if costs rise.

That's really not true. The optimal (in the sense of where the supply and demand curves intersect) price for maximum profit rises as costs rise. It's true that the revenue-optimal price remains the same, but I think Apple's shareholders care more about profit than revenue.

To build intuition on this, it helps to think about the extreme cases: If the marginal cost of production is zero, you can sell the product for close to zero to pick up pennies from almost every human on earth. So the revenue-maximizing and profit-maximizing prices depend on demand elasticity, but are both low.

If the marginal cost of production is a million dollars, selling for anything less than that will result in negative unit economics. You can still maximize revenue with low prices, but that incurs negative per-unit profit. In fact, the price must be more than one million dollars per unit to make any profit. That might imply that the profit-maximizing condition is one unit sold for $1m+1.

For certain demand curves, that might even imply the profit-maximizing condition is to tell zero units! A real-world example of this is Rivian. They have negative unit economics, and would be more profitable if they simply stopped production.

I think what confuses some people is that all these things can be (and are) true at once:

1. The price where Apple achieves maximum profit under the new rules is higher than before.

2. After raising prices, that profit will be less than what they earned before.

3. Units sold will be less than before.

4. Apple won't reduce prices in response to the lower profit because the new higher prices, lower quantity and lower profit are profit-maximal under the new market conditions.

What we will observe in practice is not higher MSRPs in Europe, but fewer discounts (it is an open secret that you should never buy an Apple product without at least a 10% discount).

I see a lot of people claiming (I believe disingenuously) that the changes forced by the EU will convince them to consider buying Apple's products in the future. If you believe those people, that's yet another reason to think Apple hardware prices will rise in Europe: Both the supply and demand curves are moving in directions that imply higher prices.

Re: Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

#305
post #100

Do I think side-loading and alt app stores would make iPads and iPhones more versatile devices? Yes. Do I believe indie devs will be worse off? Unfortunately, also yes. If you are a solo app developer, you will now have to keep presence on all app stores out there, since if you don’t publish on one then a copycat will. Every store would have its own review processes, fee structures, billing and tax procedures. Since…

This is already mitigated with copyright laws. If a copycat is using your brand, you’ll have zero issue removing them from any App Store. If a copycat is just copying your app, well, that’s called a competitor.

And if the store is hosted outside of Europe? Just like how nobody can access the pirate bay?

Re: Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

#307
post #170

Almost a decade ago, I bought an iPad Air to try and replace my MacBook Pro. It didn't work and had to resort to laggy online editors with paid subscriptions. And even then, when I was doing Ruby on Rails, it didn't even work out. Ok, so, the technology was new, sure. Last year I got myself an M series iPad "Pro" thinking things would have changed. Well, VS Code was the only product that allowed me to run a tiny VM t…

Why don't you just use a 13" MacBook Air? It seems to solve all of your problems without any hacks. "work from a small factor without carrying a brick to charge a 14", almost 3Kg device" 13" M2 Air - 15 Hours of battery life and 1.24kg. An iPad + Keyboard case is likely going to weight more than a MacBook Air anyways.

I like the flexibility of the iPad. I use it a lot for note taking during meetings. I use it to draw architectural diagrams without having to deal with drag and drop interfaces. Plus, not always I find the need for a keyboard. In fact, my favorite setup was an Apple keyboard plus iPad Pro. It almost solved my use case with VS Codespaces. Almost. I think I may re-visit the Raspberry pi solution for now.

These days, my work is almost mostly AI related, so I am on Google Colab most of the time too. So, the use case for a proper laptop without a touchscreen is diminishing with each day (for me).

Re: Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

#308
post #170

Almost a decade ago, I bought an iPad Air to try and replace my MacBook Pro. It didn't work and had to resort to laggy online editors with paid subscriptions. And even then, when I was doing Ruby on Rails, it didn't even work out. Ok, so, the technology was new, sure. Last year I got myself an M series iPad "Pro" thinking things would have changed. Well, VS Code was the only product that allowed me to run a tiny VM t…

just buy the starlite tablet https://fr.starlabs.systems/ Install Wayland (easy install now). Enjoy Linux Dev & Android Apps

Wow, that looks really good. I have never heard of this company personally. I also like the app ecosystem of Apple iPad. But this looks really good if I was going to buy a new tablet. I am at the moment looking for solutions with my existing iPad unfortunately. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine how a working developer can believe that maintaining a platform where anyone can do anything has only upfront fixed costs. Apple spent about 4 years trying to change the contract of the pasteboard API to resolve unwanted data access concerns.

> It's hard to imagine how a working developer can believe that maintaining a platform where anyone can do anything has only upfront fixed costs. Isn't that how Google Play Store works? $25 once, for life. Presumably revenue is from IAPs and ads.

The Play Store has similar fees for IAP and sales as Apple. When people complain about Apple charging developers, it’s not about the $100 annual cost of the developer program.

Re: Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a choice will not harm you. The "brainpower" required to stick to one appstores is virtually nil, evidenced by the vast majority of android users sticking with only the play store. You don't want other people to have that choice because you're a sycophant for a corporation.

So if Android already offers the choice you seek, why does government need to make Apple offer that choice?

Because Apple is not necessarily entitled to an anticompetitive market just to provide product differentiation.
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