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Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

bbc.com

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Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#91

Post by root_axis »

PierceJoy wrote: post #85
root_axis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't cherry-pick anything, those were the examples listed in the article and quoted to me in response to my original comment. As I already stated, I don't have a problem with acquisitions, I am aware that Apple isn't the only company that does this, I'm just pointing out the contrast in tone and rhetoric when it comes to Apple vs pretty much every other big tech company on this website.

No offence, but this latest comment doesn't fit with the original comment I replied to. You were clearly commenting on what Apple does with their acquisitions, not the tone of the response, and that is what I was replying to. You said "What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant" and then went on to detail how you thought they handled their acquisitions differently. That said, I don't agree tha…

I don't mean this to sound snarky so I hope you don't interpret it that way, but I think the flow of the conversation makes more sense if you read from my original comment. I was only responding to what was written to me. I made the point about Apple's acquisition behavior because the reply to my original comment suggested my observations could be explained by the cost of Apple's acquisitions as compared to other examples listed in the article by other companies. My response described why I don't think the amount Apple paid should really matter in this context, especially with respect to examples offered to me for comparison, then you came and suggested it's a distinction without a difference, and when I explained the differences I see, you then accused me of cherry-picking, but the context you're missing is that I was never trying to debate Apple's acquisition practices to begin with.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#92

Post by warkdarrior »

purpmint008 wrote: post #64

Apple is the biggest monopoly in the US right now. Hands down. They get to get away with everything! Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. all get hammered on the daily in the US and in the EU. But, Apple is a golden child that can do no wrong. Do you people not realize that they've created a peer-pressure device in the form of the iPhone by packaging SMS and iMessage into 1 app called "Messages"? How is that even legal?…

> Do you people not realize that they've created a peer-pressure device in the form of the iPhone by packaging SMS and iMessage into 1 app called "Messages"? How is that even legal?!

https://www.gihosoft.com/iphone-tips/best-messaging-apps-ios...

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#93

Post by root_axis »

dang wrote: post #84
root_axis wrote: post #58

The HN commentary on this article is amusing to me. Every story about a big tech company on this forum is a lecture on our degenerate age of failed antitrust law, but when it comes to Apple we're treated to a litany of "so what?". Honestly, I don't mind Apple's acquisitions (though I do wish I was living in a world where I could buy an M1 the same way I can buy an i7), but I just felt compelled to drop this little nu…

This sort of perception about community bias comes up with every $BigCo. Then the comments complaining about it get highly upvoted, undermining the supposed observation. I think it has more to do with how our emotions subtly influence how we weight what we read. We're more likely to notice the cases we dislike/disagree with and let the ones we like/agree with glide by without affecting our impression of the community…

Fair enough, and the search results are both illuminating and humbling, but I'll also offer that perceptions of community bias aren't necessarily wrong even though they aren't an absolute fact.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#95

Post by sircastor »

root_axis wrote: post #52
sircastor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that Apple buys companies because they want to research and build a technology into their products, rather than eliminate competitors. It seems to me they’re more interested in the talent than the market. That kind of behavior I attribute to Facebook.

Huh? This seems totally backwards to me. Stripping down an acquisition to incorporate it into the acquiring company is the ultimate competitor crushing strategy; buy up all the best technology and sell it exclusively through your locked-down walled garden. Apple products integrate with Apple products and nothing else by design . Granted, the Facebook product is an absolute cancer on society, but Facebook's acquisitio…

Perhaps so, but that encourages innovation on competing features from other parties. Consider Prime Sense, whose technology started out with the Kinect and ended up as the FaceID sensor in iOS.

Microsoft still had a Kinect after the acquisition, and a host of other time-of-flight devices have shown up in the market (Intels RealSense camera, Leap motion), and other companies have pursued TOF sensors in phones using alternative technologies.

Just because one company disappears doesn’t mean the concepts disappear along with it. And if they did entirely disappear when the company is acquired, that (to me) is indicative of how well the technology was performing in the marketplace to begin with.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#96

Post by SllX »

root_axis wrote: post #61
SllX wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most small businesses fail. Nobody put a gun to their head and told them to take the money and the W2 salaries; each company was in a position to assess their own situations and make their own choice about whether to be acquired or try to stay independent and succeed or fail on their own. Other companies have said “no” to Apple in the past, Dropbox most famously.

I agree with your comment. None of it contradicts anything I wrote.

Upon reflection after a second read through, you’re right: we agree more than we disagree, and any disagreement I have on my end amounts to mere nitpicking when I put it in words in a box. At least in this thread.

Cheers, mate!

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#97

Post by PierceJoy »

root_axis wrote: post #91
PierceJoy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offence, but this latest comment doesn't fit with the original comment I replied to. You were clearly commenting on what Apple does with their acquisitions, not the tone of the response, and that is what I was replying to. You said "What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant" and then went on to detail how you thought they handled their acquisitions differently. That said, I don't agree tha…

I don't mean this to sound snarky so I hope you don't interpret it that way, but I think the flow of the conversation makes more sense if you read from my original comment. I was only responding to what was written to me. I made the point about Apple's acquisition behavior because the reply to my original comment suggested my observations could be explained by the cost of Apple's acquisitions as compared to other exa…

If you were never trying to debate Apple's acquisition practises, then you probably shouldn't have participated in the debate about them. Someone else started it, yes, but you then replied to them. That makes it fair to respond to your reply and address the contents of that reply. You directly commented on how Apple assimilates their acquisitions, and implied others do not. That is what I am addressing.

I completely understand that's not what your top level comment was about, but I didn't reply to your top level comment.

I think you might feel insulted by my use of cherry picking. I apologize for that. I can understand why you might feel that way, but it was meant more in the sense that the examples referred to are not comparable, not that you did it on purpose out of bad faith.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#98

Post by purpmint008 »

warkdarrior wrote: post #92
purpmint008 wrote: post #64

Apple is the biggest monopoly in the US right now. Hands down. They get to get away with everything! Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. all get hammered on the daily in the US and in the EU. But, Apple is a golden child that can do no wrong. Do you people not realize that they've created a peer-pressure device in the form of the iPhone by packaging SMS and iMessage into 1 app called "Messages"? How is that even legal?…

> Do you people not realize that they've created a peer-pressure device in the form of the iPhone by packaging SMS and iMessage into 1 app called "Messages"? How is that even legal?! https://www.gihosoft.com/iphone-tips/best-messaging-apps-ios...

I am well-aware of these.

The issue is the joint-packaging.

If we went hard on Microsoft for packaging IE and WMP into Windows, we should go equally ballistic about iMessage and SMS being fused in together. They should be broken up.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#99

Post by mistersquid »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #9

So ~15 companies a year? That doesn't sound outrageous for a company with billions and billions of dollars in the bank, and billions more coming in every quarter. edit: If anything there's probably immense pressure on Cook to buy buy buy more stuff. I don't think anyone inside Apple wants to have a repeat of stuff like old Apple maps or other products that just languished and died internally while external companies…

> Easier to just spray the money & acquisition cannon around indiscriminately.

Apple does nothing, especially anything involving money, indiscriminately.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#100

Post by purpmint008 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #2

I'm beginning to think maintaining competitive markets requires broader criteria. Like any of super-majority share of: market volume, revenue within a market, influence over market, consumer harm, significant reduction in number of competitors.

Apple has the majority of profits in the smartphone industry in the US, and even globally. To me, that warrants a major anti-trust investigation into: the App Store and pre-included apps like iMessage being fused into the SMS system on their devices! Bring them down to size.
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