The real story here has nothing to do with "jobs" in the macroeconomic or political sense. Instead, the interesting thing here is that there are a lot more people out there writing software for apple platforms using apple development tools. That's a radical transformation relative to just 5 years ago. It is a great benefit to Apple to have such a large developer community. For one thing, it creates a larger labor pool for Apple itself to hire from.
Just wait until we see the numbers from the iBooks textbook platform
Oh, how dare you write about this, don't we all know know that Apple only takes jobs outside of the US?
This article illustrates the problem with sensationalist reporting - like on Apples foreign manufacturing. Why didn't the NYT article note that while manufacturing jobs are overseas, buying Apple products creates jobs in the US? (I won't go into the utter failure to place the working conditions issue in any meaningful context.) At least Apple Insider readers are getting some information that can help them understand the whole picture of Apple's impact on the economy. The Gorrilla Glass story is another example - Apple's innovation revived an innovative product and helped give Corning's otherwise apparently dead product an new life.
It's not really a rebuttal at all. To make an apples to apples comparison, you'd have to include all the people employed in the "GM economy" back in the day, including suppliers, auto mechanics, etc.
I think its a partial rebuttal. But you make a really good point that I didn't think of. The GM economy is huge.
This is an interesting rebuttal to the New York times piece, specifically this:
Yellow journalism doesn't need a rebuttal.
Quote:
"Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple?s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple?s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States."
When did people in the USA becomes so self centered that they would rather see the rest of the world live in deplorable conditions? The thing that is being glossed over here is that many people in China are having their standard of living vastly improved by having these jobs available to them. Just because it isn't the standard that the rich left thinks the should have available to them doesn't make it any less of a vast improvement.
Quote:
Although it is doubtful the "App Economy" jobs are the high-wage, stable union jobs of the 1950s, they're still jobs.
BS. Write a good app and you will make millions where as a union worker seldom has much left to retire upon. More so the situation only gets better as more and more iOS devices hit the hands of users.
What makes these jobs almost idea is that they represent small independent businesses that are free of Unions and high over head. Thus the vast majority of the cash generated goes to the business owners who are often the developers themselves. It is pure capitalism at work.
None of this takes in account all the American jobs created by companies who make hardware add-ons for Apple iDevices like cases and covers! There must be... umm... never mind...
When did people in the USA becomes so self centered that they would rather see the rest of the world live in deplorable conditions? The thing that is being glossed over here is that many people in China are having their standard of living vastly improved by having these jobs available to them. Just because it isn't the standard that the rich left thinks the should have available to them doesn't make it any less of a vast improvement.
BS. Write a good app and you will make millions where as a union worker seldom has much left to retire upon. More so the situation only gets better as more and more iOS devices hit the hands of users.
What makes these jobs almost idea is that they represent small independent businesses that are free of Unions and high over head. Thus the vast majority of the cash generated goes to the business owners who are often the developers themselves. It is pure capitalism at work.
Umm... not so much capitalism, more like free-enterprise which has been the real backbone of the U.S. economy since its beginning.
It's not really a rebuttal at all. To make an apples to apples comparison, you'd have to include all the people employed in the "GM economy" back in the day, including suppliers, auto mechanics, etc.
I mean really how far does one need to go here. Micron, Intel, Samsung, Toshiba, Corning and a host of others are all associated with Apple in one sense or another and are in the same way part of the Apple economy. Notably the list could go on for much longer but you get the idea.
Frankly all of this focus on Apples business in China is BS. It is no different than the TV manufacturing of the 60's leaving the US or the gentle decline of the US auto industry. Frankly Americans have been living high on the hog for so long now that we as a nation don't have a clue anymore about what it is like to actually manufacture something. I see this all the time in the forums here as people whine about why Apple can't build this or that in the USA. It is pretty simple they can't afford too.
By afford too I mean more than just the problem of producing an iPhone economically, there are other issues that one has to deal with such as lazy stupid workers, unions that protect those workers, outside interference from government in its various forms, taxes, the welfare system and the entitlement mentality that it creates and a host of other issues that makes US based manufacturing a difficult if not impossible idea. Until we have a massive make over with respect to social issues and start to admit to mistakes like the current regime in the White house we will never recover.
Yet all armchair critics talk about and focus on is why Apple isn't bringing those shitty low paying manufacturing jobs in China (that Americans don't want) back to the U.S.
All the high paying jobs that's involved in developing iDevices (software and hardware) is still here in the U.S.
Umm... not so much capitalism, more like free-enterprise which has been the real backbone of the U.S. economy since its beginning.
Can one really have one without the other? Are they not more or less linked at the hip?
YOu do have an interesting point but I don't really see how you can have free enterprise without capitalism. Granted many of the companies that are part of the app economy don't have much capital or at least don't need much to get started, but others need to raise money and that is in part what capitalism is all about.
There is much negativity with regards to the works capitalism {definition: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state} these days but I think those people are highly misguided. The definition comes right from my Mac. Now often the word is used to smear people but that is down with a very narrow meaning of the term.
Maybe the term free-enterprise is a new age term for those afraid to associate with their parents!
Tho nobody is actually talking about the article, this how I got my job. I was a unemployed industrial designer until I became an app developer in 2010.
The darker side to this story, that Apple doesn't want you to know, is that many of these people are working long hours, often in their own homes, with nothing to eat but pizza and soft drinks! In fact, a significant number of these laborers don't even own suits!
By afford too I mean more than just the problem of producing an iPhone economically, there are other issues that one has to deal with such as lazy stupid workers, unions that protect those workers, outside interference from government in its various forms, taxes, the welfare system and the entitlement mentality that it creates and a host of other issues that makes US based manufacturing a difficult if not impossible idea. Until we have a massive make over with respect to social issues and start to admit to mistakes like the current regime in the White house we will never recover.
Hey, TRAITOR, go back to Red China where you belong. Or maybe they are paying you already?
"Lazy, stupid workers?" US workers work longer hours than anyone in the developed world.
Stupid? I met a kid here from China last Saturday. In his country only the top 2% of students get to go to university. We have a highly educated workforce, much better than most countries.
"Outside" interference from government? That is OUR government, not black helicopters manned by the UN. Our elected representatives voted for those regulations because Americans wanted safe workplaces, safe food, minimum wages and a clean environment. Go live in the pollution and exploitation of of Shanghai and see how you like it.
USA has either the largest (or second largest, depending upon how you count) manufacturing sector in the world. So you really believe it is tough to create jobs here, or are you just an anti-American BS artist? Lazy and stupid applied to you, not me and my fellow Americans.
I'm as much of an Apple fan as the next guy, but this sounds absurd. Taking the $4 billion number floated by Apple & dividing it by 466,000 people gives an average share of the pie of $8583/person. Assuming that this is divided out over however long the app store has been in existence, and the $ amount per year per person drops. Even assuming that half of the payouts have been in the last 12 months gives an average of less than $4300/ person. That number assumes no overhead or benefits. The numbers just don't add up.
Apple recently announced that it had paid developers over $4 billion since the launch of the App Store, and the company's over 315 million iOS devices sold has helped software engineers make $700,000 during the last quarter alone.
This appeared in another article. Shouldn't that number be $7,000,000?....or $70,000,000??? $700K is nothing for a quarter and if one multiplies that $700K shocking figure by as many quarters as iPhone/iPad has been selling (20?), it adds up to a pittance. ($14,000,000 or $1.4B) Based on that quarterly figure, how can Apple have paid $4 BILLION since launch of the App Store?
Am I missing something?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mkral
I'm as much of an Apple fan as the next guy, but this sounds absurd. Taking the $4 billion number floated by Apple & dividing it by 466,000 people gives an average share of the pie of $8583/person. Assuming that this is divided out over however long the app store has been in existence, and the $ amount per year per person drops. Even assuming that half of the payouts have been in the last 12 months gives an average of less than $4300/ person. That number assumes no overhead or benefits. The numbers just don't add up.
It is a basic theory of Economics/Business is that when an economy grows, it went to a different level leaving the old behind. For example, why Americans do not produce garments anymore. Because they can produce Guns with the same resource and it gives a better return. Americans can buy Garments with the surplus. So, the whole system (education, aim in life, mindset) shifts. Since factory work is at a lower level than Corporate White Collar jobs or Intellectual Works, America have shiofted to that gear muchy earlier.
Do any American really wants to do Factory works? Do any School, College, politician, parents told you that you should do the factory work? Nobody. But in China and other countries, people are taught that way. They have Vocational Training Institutes which teach these kinds of things. People have an aspiration to work at Foxconn.
Once the Chinese economy grows sufficient and people start earning more than they used to, they will want more. It is Maslow's Need Hierarchy. You can't overstep the steps. You have to cross them one at a time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Macky the Macky
None of this takes in account all the American jobs created by companies who make hardware add-ons for Apple iDevices like cases and covers! There must be... umm... never mind...
I'm as much of an Apple fan as the next guy, but this sounds absurd. Taking the $4 billion number floated by Apple & dividing it by 466,000 people gives an average share of the pie of $8583/person. Assuming that this is divided out over however long the app store has been in existence, and the $ amount per year per person drops. Even assuming that half of the payouts have been in the last 12 months gives an average of less than $4300/ person. That number assumes no overhead or benefits. The numbers just don't add up.
The methodology used in the article doesn't just look at direct employment, but also assumes an "employment spillover" factor of 1.5 (which seems pretty high to me, but I'm not an economist).
Their overall methodology was:
1. They found 44,400 non-duplicate help-wanted ads for "app economy" technical jobs (i.e. computer and math)
2. They Multiplied this by 3.5, assuming for every want ad there are actually 3.5 jobs
3. They assumed that for each tech job there is also one non-technical job (sales, marketing, HR, etc...)
4. They assumed a multiplier of 1.5 for spillover
5. 44.4K*3.5*2*1.5 = 466K
They also mention an estimate of $20 Billion for the App market.
The amount of money Apple pays iOS developers is only part of the equation!
The number of free apps that are created by companies is staggering -- look at Facebook, Home Depot, Amazon, and of course, many many others. People were hired to do these apps, even if they contracted the work out, somebody had to cut the code!
I think this is great news, and I know its improved the economy, considering that I know many people doing app development, who were outsourced, or otherwise; companies were started, just based on app development!
I don't think this news should poo-pood in any way. If you don't believe me, search for 'mobile app development companies' and see how many results & ads you get :-)
I personally credit Apple for this, because Windows Mobile & Palm were dead long before the iPhone, and Android would have never happened if it weren't for the iPhone.
20 app categories. You need to be in the top 100 in a category to make a living from the App Store (I'm an app developer, I'm usually in the top 100, so I base this assumption on my personal experience). If we ignore the fact that one programmer can make several apps (I used to have 5 apps once), and sometimes several people make one app, we will have 20 x 100 = 2000. Ok, let's multiply this by 10, and we'll have 20k. This should include the Apple stuff who "test" the apps and writes the server code and so on, because they are paid from the Apple's 30% cut, and as Apple said that's a break-even business for them. How on earth did they come out with 466k? That's beyond me.
According to Apple's numbers they paid out $2 billion to developers last year. If the top 100,000 got most of the money, that's an average of around $20,000 each. Some must have gotten more and made a good living, and some must have just augmented other income. But it's still a lot of jobs, and obviously much more than your initial estimate of 2,000. And this estimate doesn't include any Apple employees, which I assume would be included in the 43,000 US employee number perviously reported.
Comments
The real story here has nothing to do with "jobs" in the macroeconomic or political sense. Instead, the interesting thing here is that there are a lot more people out there writing software for apple platforms using apple development tools. That's a radical transformation relative to just 5 years ago. It is a great benefit to Apple to have such a large developer community. For one thing, it creates a larger labor pool for Apple itself to hire from.
Just wait until we see the numbers from the iBooks textbook platform
This article illustrates the problem with sensationalist reporting - like on Apples foreign manufacturing. Why didn't the NYT article note that while manufacturing jobs are overseas, buying Apple products creates jobs in the US? (I won't go into the utter failure to place the working conditions issue in any meaningful context.) At least Apple Insider readers are getting some information that can help them understand the whole picture of Apple's impact on the economy. The Gorrilla Glass story is another example - Apple's innovation revived an innovative product and helped give Corning's otherwise apparently dead product an new life.
It's not really a rebuttal at all. To make an apples to apples comparison, you'd have to include all the people employed in the "GM economy" back in the day, including suppliers, auto mechanics, etc.
I think its a partial rebuttal. But you make a really good point that I didn't think of. The GM economy is huge.
This is an interesting rebuttal to the New York times piece, specifically this:
Yellow journalism doesn't need a rebuttal.
"Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple?s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple?s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States."
When did people in the USA becomes so self centered that they would rather see the rest of the world live in deplorable conditions? The thing that is being glossed over here is that many people in China are having their standard of living vastly improved by having these jobs available to them. Just because it isn't the standard that the rich left thinks the should have available to them doesn't make it any less of a vast improvement.
Although it is doubtful the "App Economy" jobs are the high-wage, stable union jobs of the 1950s, they're still jobs.
BS. Write a good app and you will make millions where as a union worker seldom has much left to retire upon. More so the situation only gets better as more and more iOS devices hit the hands of users.
What makes these jobs almost idea is that they represent small independent businesses that are free of Unions and high over head. Thus the vast majority of the cash generated goes to the business owners who are often the developers themselves. It is pure capitalism at work.
Yellow journalism doesn't need a rebuttal.
When did people in the USA becomes so self centered that they would rather see the rest of the world live in deplorable conditions? The thing that is being glossed over here is that many people in China are having their standard of living vastly improved by having these jobs available to them. Just because it isn't the standard that the rich left thinks the should have available to them doesn't make it any less of a vast improvement.
BS. Write a good app and you will make millions where as a union worker seldom has much left to retire upon. More so the situation only gets better as more and more iOS devices hit the hands of users.
What makes these jobs almost idea is that they represent small independent businesses that are free of Unions and high over head. Thus the vast majority of the cash generated goes to the business owners who are often the developers themselves. It is pure capitalism at work.
Umm... not so much capitalism, more like free-enterprise which has been the real backbone of the U.S. economy since its beginning.
It's not really a rebuttal at all. To make an apples to apples comparison, you'd have to include all the people employed in the "GM economy" back in the day, including suppliers, auto mechanics, etc.
I mean really how far does one need to go here. Micron, Intel, Samsung, Toshiba, Corning and a host of others are all associated with Apple in one sense or another and are in the same way part of the Apple economy. Notably the list could go on for much longer but you get the idea.
Frankly all of this focus on Apples business in China is BS. It is no different than the TV manufacturing of the 60's leaving the US or the gentle decline of the US auto industry. Frankly Americans have been living high on the hog for so long now that we as a nation don't have a clue anymore about what it is like to actually manufacture something. I see this all the time in the forums here as people whine about why Apple can't build this or that in the USA. It is pretty simple they can't afford too.
By afford too I mean more than just the problem of producing an iPhone economically, there are other issues that one has to deal with such as lazy stupid workers, unions that protect those workers, outside interference from government in its various forms, taxes, the welfare system and the entitlement mentality that it creates and a host of other issues that makes US based manufacturing a difficult if not impossible idea. Until we have a massive make over with respect to social issues and start to admit to mistakes like the current regime in the White house we will never recover.
All the high paying jobs that's involved in developing iDevices (software and hardware) is still here in the U.S.
Umm... not so much capitalism, more like free-enterprise which has been the real backbone of the U.S. economy since its beginning.
Can one really have one without the other? Are they not more or less linked at the hip?
YOu do have an interesting point but I don't really see how you can have free enterprise without capitalism. Granted many of the companies that are part of the app economy don't have much capital or at least don't need much to get started, but others need to raise money and that is in part what capitalism is all about.
There is much negativity with regards to the works capitalism {definition: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state} these days but I think those people are highly misguided. The definition comes right from my Mac. Now often the word is used to smear people but that is down with a very narrow meaning of the term.
Maybe the term free-enterprise is a new age term for those afraid to associate with their parents!
By afford too I mean more than just the problem of producing an iPhone economically, there are other issues that one has to deal with such as lazy stupid workers, unions that protect those workers, outside interference from government in its various forms, taxes, the welfare system and the entitlement mentality that it creates and a host of other issues that makes US based manufacturing a difficult if not impossible idea. Until we have a massive make over with respect to social issues and start to admit to mistakes like the current regime in the White house we will never recover.
Hey, TRAITOR, go back to Red China where you belong. Or maybe they are paying you already?
"Lazy, stupid workers?" US workers work longer hours than anyone in the developed world.
Stupid? I met a kid here from China last Saturday. In his country only the top 2% of students get to go to university. We have a highly educated workforce, much better than most countries.
"Outside" interference from government? That is OUR government, not black helicopters manned by the UN. Our elected representatives voted for those regulations because Americans wanted safe workplaces, safe food, minimum wages and a clean environment. Go live in the pollution and exploitation of of Shanghai and see how you like it.
USA has either the largest (or second largest, depending upon how you count) manufacturing sector in the world. So you really believe it is tough to create jobs here, or are you just an anti-American BS artist? Lazy and stupid applied to you, not me and my fellow Americans.
I figured closer to 420K IMO.
Heck, you're probably right: perhaps it's only 420K, not 430K.
Apple recently announced that it had paid developers over $4 billion since the launch of the App Store, and the company's over 315 million iOS devices sold has helped software engineers make $700,000 during the last quarter alone.
This appeared in another article. Shouldn't that number be $7,000,000?....or $70,000,000??? $700K is nothing for a quarter and if one multiplies that
Am I missing something?
I'm as much of an Apple fan as the next guy, but this sounds absurd. Taking the $4 billion number floated by Apple & dividing it by 466,000 people gives an average share of the pie of $8583/person. Assuming that this is divided out over however long the app store has been in existence, and the $ amount per year per person drops. Even assuming that half of the payouts have been in the last 12 months gives an average of less than $4300/ person. That number assumes no overhead or benefits. The numbers just don't add up.
Do any American really wants to do Factory works? Do any School, College, politician, parents told you that you should do the factory work? Nobody. But in China and other countries, people are taught that way. They have Vocational Training Institutes which teach these kinds of things. People have an aspiration to work at Foxconn.
Once the Chinese economy grows sufficient and people start earning more than they used to, they will want more. It is Maslow's Need Hierarchy. You can't overstep the steps. You have to cross them one at a time.
None of this takes in account all the American jobs created by companies who make hardware add-ons for Apple iDevices like cases and covers! There must be... umm... never mind...
I'm as much of an Apple fan as the next guy, but this sounds absurd. Taking the $4 billion number floated by Apple & dividing it by 466,000 people gives an average share of the pie of $8583/person. Assuming that this is divided out over however long the app store has been in existence, and the $ amount per year per person drops. Even assuming that half of the payouts have been in the last 12 months gives an average of less than $4300/ person. That number assumes no overhead or benefits. The numbers just don't add up.
The methodology used in the article doesn't just look at direct employment, but also assumes an "employment spillover" factor of 1.5 (which seems pretty high to me, but I'm not an economist).
Their overall methodology was:
1. They found 44,400 non-duplicate help-wanted ads for "app economy" technical jobs (i.e. computer and math)
2. They Multiplied this by 3.5, assuming for every want ad there are actually 3.5 jobs
3. They assumed that for each tech job there is also one non-technical job (sales, marketing, HR, etc...)
4. They assumed a multiplier of 1.5 for spillover
5. 44.4K*3.5*2*1.5 = 466K
They also mention an estimate of $20 Billion for the App market.
The number of free apps that are created by companies is staggering -- look at Facebook, Home Depot, Amazon, and of course, many many others. People were hired to do these apps, even if they contracted the work out, somebody had to cut the code!
I think this is great news, and I know its improved the economy, considering that I know many people doing app development, who were outsourced, or otherwise; companies were started, just based on app development!
I don't think this news should poo-pood in any way. If you don't believe me, search for 'mobile app development companies' and see how many results & ads you get :-)
I personally credit Apple for this, because Windows Mobile & Palm were dead long before the iPhone, and Android would have never happened if it weren't for the iPhone.
20 app categories. You need to be in the top 100 in a category to make a living from the App Store (I'm an app developer, I'm usually in the top 100, so I base this assumption on my personal experience). If we ignore the fact that one programmer can make several apps (I used to have 5 apps once), and sometimes several people make one app, we will have 20 x 100 = 2000. Ok, let's multiply this by 10, and we'll have 20k. This should include the Apple stuff who "test" the apps and writes the server code and so on, because they are paid from the Apple's 30% cut, and as Apple said that's a break-even business for them. How on earth did they come out with 466k? That's beyond me.
According to Apple's numbers they paid out $2 billion to developers last year. If the top 100,000 got most of the money, that's an average of around $20,000 each. Some must have gotten more and made a good living, and some must have just augmented other income. But it's still a lot of jobs, and obviously much more than your initial estimate of 2,000. And this estimate doesn't include any Apple employees, which I assume would be included in the 43,000 US employee number perviously reported.