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The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

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Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#371

Post by op00to »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #144

I think this article is overstating the effect that Apple's walls have on lock-in effect. I'm an Android user, and a little less than a year ago I actually bought an iPhone, specifically due to Apple's iMessage lock-in (nearly all of my friends have iPhones, and the especially broken group messaging between iMessage and Android was the primary driver of my desire to get an iPhone). Except the problem was that, after…

> broken group messaging between iMessage and Android was the primary driver of my desire to get an iPhone

I'm not a group messenger, and basically mute any group messages I'm a part of, so please excuse my ignorance. What's actually broken between iOS and Android with group messaging? Are Android-only group messages better? Will RCS improve this at all?

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#372

Post by 015a »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #360
015a wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one I know uses Apple audiobooks, I thought it was only Audible in this market. Yes, I'm sure Apple keeps it around out of the goodness of their heart and not because its used and is profitable. > Spotify is a loss making company Spotify is profitable [1]. > as their see their dominance erode they are trying to find boogeyman’s to blame 19% YoY MAU growth, 14% premium subscriber YoY growth, 20% YoY revenue growt…

Do you just blatantly lie thinking no one will click on your links or are you just absolutely ignorant and have no understanding how to read company financials? Here’s the net income on statista : https://www.statista.com/statistics/244990/spotifys-revenue-... They’ve lost 532 million in their most recent year, the lowest they’ve lost is 32 million. They’ve not had a single profitable year in their entire public hist…

Net income on Statista? You know you don't need to rely on that shoddy site, right? Spotify is a public company. I linked their Q1 2024 public disclosure. Did you even click on it?

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#373

Post by hu3 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #337
hu3 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analogy doesn't hold because Nike shirts looks and behaves just the same regardless of my jeans brand. Whereas a green bubble means degraded experience for the entire messaging group just because of that one guy.

Then use the myriad other cross platform apps. Also, one’s appearance can also cause a group to be viewed and treated differently, akin to degrading the “experience”.

Yes, it would help US teens were convinced to use another communication app that treated people equally in a group regardless of their phones. But they are teens and culture from network effects is hard to change.

Or a much easier approach, Apple could fix that, if they wanted. But they don't because iPhones would lose their status symbol (blue bubble) and teens could then buy other phones without suffering rejection in groups. Apple can't have that.

If culture among teens is hard to change and Apple values income above all, it's up to regulators. But US regulators aren't as active than EU.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#374

Post by [deleted] »

simonask wrote: post #359
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #144

I think this article is overstating the effect that Apple's walls have on lock-in effect. I'm an Android user, and a little less than a year ago I actually bought an iPhone, specifically due to Apple's iMessage lock-in (nearly all of my friends have iPhones, and the especially broken group messaging between iMessage and Android was the primary driver of my desire to get an iPhone). Except the problem was that, after…

As a European, it's baffling to me that your friend group wouldn't simply switch to a messaging app with good group chat support. WhatsApp, Signal, Messenger (FB) - these are all great alternatives that are extremely popular, and all have more features than iMessage. For example, in Scandinavia the current marker leader on all platforms is Facebook Messenger, despite this also being one of the only markets where iOS…

[deleted]

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#375

Post by shuckles »

015a wrote: post #372
sashank_1509 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you just blatantly lie thinking no one will click on your links or are you just absolutely ignorant and have no understanding how to read company financials? Here’s the net income on statista : https://www.statista.com/statistics/244990/spotifys-revenue-... They’ve lost 532 million in their most recent year, the lowest they’ve lost is 32 million. They’ve not had a single profitable year in their entire public hist…

Net income on Statista ? You know you don't need to rely on that shoddy site, right? Spotify is a public company. I linked their Q1 2024 public disclosure. Did you even click on it?

Statistia is more accurate in this case. You didn’t link to a public disclosure per se, you linked to an investor marketing statement formatted like a financial statement. Spotify’s 20-F at the SEC shows that any “operating income” is more than offset by share-based compensation expenses which your investor presentation doesn’t adjust for at all. When counting the liquid stock Spotify pays employees as an expense, they are unprofitable.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#376

Post by shuckles »

jncfhnb wrote: post #154
criddell wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small correction: Apple was getting 15% from Spotify, not 30%.

Yes, but a sweetheart deal to avoid a legal battle for the greater good with the few entities that have sufficient mass to potentially win at court is a scummy thing in its own right

There was no sweetheart deal. Spotify pays Apple 0% because they offer no in-app subscriptions, and any developer with long term subscribers gets 15% pricing.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#377

Post by BenFranklin100 »

Repulsion9513 wrote: post #370
BenFranklin100 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s dead simple to switch from Apple to Android and vice versa. Or are you trying to say Android is such a significantly more difficult platform that Apple users are too stupid to figure out and thus locked into iOS? Otherwise your argument applies to Android as easily as it does to iOS.

Dead simple until you consider that you have to (a) buy a new phone (b) transfer all your passkeys (c) transfer all your apps (and find replacements for those that don't exist on both platforms) (d) transfer all your data/log in to all your accounts... etc. It's anything but dead simple. (And I went from Android to Apple back in 2020 and back to Android in 2021. It sucked, both ways.)

Most people buy a new phone every few years as it is, app passwords are the same between platforms, and the average user only uses about a half dozen apps. No one is locked into iOS nor Android. We are talking about 2-3 hours of effort to switch, hardly a ‘anti-competitive’ burden. Get real.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#378

Post by Terretta »

starttoaster wrote: post #255
notyourwork wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes businesses are in the business of making money. Apple is a business. The hope for you (a consumer) is that your needs and theirs are aligned sufficiently well that they solve problems you benefit from while minimizing how much they exploit you. It’s capitalism.

Accurate. Businesses that show consistent good will towards their users often just haven't become successful enough to afford to exploit you yet. Pointing out that Apple only really cares about extracting your money is mostly an admission that they've found we will let them do it.

Or, Apple gives you your time back, and for that, you are happy to trade a bit more money and a lot less time, to be a customer.

Apple makes hardware enabled platform experiences for end users who don't want to tweak and people who value their own time more than money. That's a big reason Apple causes so much resentment -- not everyone can value time over money.

It's also resented by devs who don't understand or value what a hardware enabled platform experience for end users can mean to their income if they grok it.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#379

Post by Terretta »

pompino wrote: post #242
sashank_1509 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a bad take, please go back to Reddit where you might be congratulated for garden variety “everyone else is greedy and evil, but I can see through them and speak truth to power”. People here have higher standards on their takes. If all Apple cared about is making money, would they have spent upwards of 10 Billion+ on an Apple Car only to cancel it later. At its height, Vision Pro R&D cost 2 billion per quarter, y…

No thanks, I don't want your fake "higher standards". >Does this sound like gouging the customer to line their executive pockets to you? Yes, it does, when they lobby to fight against right-to-repair. Yes, it does, when they price gouge the customer on storage upgrades. Yes, it does, when they hide defects in their products and push people to buy new products. Yes, it does, when they use child labor.

“Right to repair” is shallow thinking compared to durability and safety at billion device scale.

“Storage upgrades” are shallow thinking compared to reliable unified memory at GPU speed -- again across a billion devices.

Both of these benefit more consumers more, and more of the device lifetime, than the rarely applicable supposed harms you cite.

Re: The walls of Apple's garden are tumbling down

#380

Post by Terretta »

simonask wrote: post #359
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #144

I think this article is overstating the effect that Apple's walls have on lock-in effect. I'm an Android user, and a little less than a year ago I actually bought an iPhone, specifically due to Apple's iMessage lock-in (nearly all of my friends have iPhones, and the especially broken group messaging between iMessage and Android was the primary driver of my desire to get an iPhone). Except the problem was that, after…

As a European, it's baffling to me that your friend group wouldn't simply switch to a messaging app with good group chat support. WhatsApp, Signal, Messenger (FB) - these are all great alternatives that are extremely popular, and all have more features than iMessage. For example, in Scandinavia the current marker leader on all platforms is Facebook Messenger, despite this also being one of the only markets where iOS…

In the United States, if your friend group is using FB Messenger, all their messages are* readily pullable by police looking at someone two or three times removed from any one of them without a warrant “investigating” whether someone in their network asked a friend what to do about an unplanned pregnancy.

That's less likely to happen to you in Scandinavia, perhaps since Puritans found it safer to set sail for New England than keep trying to evangelize Vikings.

Also, yes, everyone's perfectly free to use a different messaging app, and in different cohorts everyone does, which suggests it's not Apple's "walled garden" causing these difference.

* This has been true at various times, including times FB has said it isn't true. I did see the WhatsApp founder walk away from a billion dollars over various issues, and stopped using it then too.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/im-a-sellou...

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