gatorguy

davidw said:

The solution for Apple seem quite simple. If a developer want to have an app in the Apple App Store where there are advertising and links in the app that allows for any IAP payments outside of Apple iTunes, then Apple will charge those developers $1 per app downloaded per month, with a deal for $10 per  app per year.  (or something to that nature). It will be up to the developers if they want to charge their customers for downloading the app. So a developer can weigh in on whether to have a free app where Apple will get a commission or paid for each downloaded app and hope the users makes enough IAP to bring the cost of having such an app, below what they would had paid in commission.

This way the developers that are happy with the arrangement of having a free app and paying Apple a commission to handle IAP payments (along with refunds and updates) can still do so. And those that don't want to pay Apple a commission on IAP can do so by paying Apple upfront for having an app in the Apple App store from which they are profiting from using Apple IP.

Isn't Apple already doing something like this in the EU, with downloads from third party app stores?

Apple’s response to the Injunction strains credulity. After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth emerged. Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the Injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream.

Remarkably, Apple believed that this Court would not see through its obvious cover-up (the 2024 evidentiary hearing). To unveil Apple’s actual decision-making process, not the one tailor-made for litigation, the Court ordered production of real-time documents and ultimately held a second set of hearings in 2025.

To summarize: One, after trial, the Court found that Apple’s 30 percent commission “allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating margins” and was not tied to the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive. Apple’s response: charge a 27 percent commission (again tied to nothing) on off-app purchases, where it had previously charged nothing, and extend the commission for a period of seven days after the consumer linked-out of the app.

Apple’s goal: maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.

Two, the Court had prohibited Apple from denying developers the ability to communicate with, and direct consumers to, other purchasing mechanisms. Apple’s response: impose new barriers and new requirements to increase friction and increase breakage rates with full page “scare” screens, static URLs, and generic statements.

Apple’s goal: to dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.

In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction.

In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option. To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly.

The real evidence, detailed herein, more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation. The Court refers the matter to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California to investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.

This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases.

The TLDR version? 

"This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order."

Wesley Hilliard said:

9secondkox2 said:

Wesley Hilliard said:

9secondkox2 said:

Difficult to see apple producing snother headset. Maybe if the did a super cheap version. But not just changing a few things. 

Either go all in with glasses for mass market or do the cheap tethered thing, but with great cameras and screens. Otherwise it will just be the same or maybe rvrn worse now that the early adopters are saturated with the expensive version one. 

twolf2919 said:

9secondkox2 said:

Difficult to see apple producing snother headset. Maybe if the did a super cheap version. But not just changing a few things. 

Either go all in with glasses for mass market or do the cheap tethered thing, but with great cameras and screens. Otherwise it will just be the same or maybe rvrn worse now that the early adopters are saturated with the expensive version one. 

Agree - I can't imagine Apple doubling-down on a design they know didn't get enough sales.  They need to face reality: there simply isn't much of a mass market for a device costing multiple thousands of dollars that can only really be used in private, since it's too cumbersome to use on the go - and you look like a  complete tool if you do.

To this day I have no idea why Tim Cook let himself by led into this technological dead end called the Vision Pro.  i remember him clearly stating that Apple's next big thing would be AR glasses.  Somehow he got convinced by someone that these devices must be standalone products rather than an iPhone dependent one like Apple Watch and AirPods.  Unfortunately, that decision meant the future devices needed to cram a lot of CPU power and battery capacity into what needed to be a very light, small device - glasses!  The AVP VR headset became their first stab at it.  But it seems obvious that they will never be able to shrink that down to glasses anyone is willing to wear.

Google produced useful AR glasses TWELVE years ago.  If Apple hadn't gone down the wrong path, I'm sure they could have developed a sleek, much better product given all the miniaturization that's taken place win a decade.

Both of your assumptions are based on the idea that Apple sees Apple Vision Pro as some kind of failure. Only Apple knows what its goals for the device were and if it met them or have been satisfied. Your personal opinions are not part of Apple's calculus here.

Tim Cook shouting its praises well ahead of launch and pushing it as the next big thing only to be met with a teoid response. Cook was reduced to calling it an early adopter product, etc. 

apple most definitely views it the way everyone else does - a flop. Of course apple won’t publicly state that. They still have to sell the thing snd don’t want to be viewed as having made another mistake. 

I know you are personally a customer and a fan. But for most everyone else, it’s…a headset. And headsets just aren’t it. Never have been and aren’t now. Any further investment in headsets is foolish. When it’s a pair of glasses/sunglasses, that would be big. And if apple doesn’t want to innovate to that degree, they can arill do a headset, but tether it to a Mac or iPhone/ipad while reducing features in order to make the niche device priced accordingly. A 499 device would probably find its way in most apple customers’s lives. Continuing along the lines of the current VP will see it continue its downward trajectory. 

Many of us called it back when it was just a rumor. Headsets just aren’t going anywhere meaningful and crazy expensive headsets doubly so. 

A cheap headset would fare better. But glasses /shades would be the ultimate form of the Vision Pro concept. If done right, they could fit in anyone’s lifestyle and would likely be widely adopted. 

9secondkox2 said:

mattinoz said:

9secondkox2 said:

Wesley Hilliard said:

9secondkox2 said:

Difficult to see apple producing snother headset. Maybe if the did a super cheap version. But not just changing a few things. 

Either go all in with glasses for mass market or do the cheap tethered thing, but with great cameras and screens. Otherwise it will just be the same or maybe rvrn worse now that the early adopters are saturated with the expensive version one. 

twolf2919 said:

9secondkox2 said:

Difficult to see apple producing snother headset. Maybe if the did a super cheap version. But not just changing a few things. 

Either go all in with glasses for mass market or do the cheap tethered thing, but with great cameras and screens. Otherwise it will just be the same or maybe rvrn worse now that the early adopters are saturated with the expensive version one. 

Agree - I can't imagine Apple doubling-down on a design they know didn't get enough sales.  They need to face reality: there simply isn't much of a mass market for a device costing multiple thousands of dollars that can only really be used in private, since it's too cumbersome to use on the go - and you look like a  complete tool if you do.

To this day I have no idea why Tim Cook let himself by led into this technological dead end called the Vision Pro.  i remember him clearly stating that Apple's next big thing would be AR glasses.  Somehow he got convinced by someone that these devices must be standalone products rather than an iPhone dependent one like Apple Watch and AirPods.  Unfortunately, that decision meant the future devices needed to cram a lot of CPU power and battery capacity into what needed to be a very light, small device - glasses!  The AVP VR headset became their first stab at it.  But it seems obvious that they will never be able to shrink that down to glasses anyone is willing to wear.

Google produced useful AR glasses TWELVE years ago.  If Apple hadn't gone down the wrong path, I'm sure they could have developed a sleek, much better product given all the miniaturization that's taken place win a decade.

Both of your assumptions are based on the idea that Apple sees Apple Vision Pro as some kind of failure. Only Apple knows what its goals for the device were and if it met them or have been satisfied. Your personal opinions are not part of Apple's calculus here.

Tim Cook shouting its praises well ahead of launch and pushing it as the next big thing only to be met with a teoid response. Cook was reduced to calling it an early adopter product, etc. 

apple most definitely views it the way everyone else does - a flop. Of course apple won’t publicly state that. They still have to sell the thing snd don’t want to be viewed as having made another mistake. 

I know you are personally a customer and a fan. But for most everyone else, it’s…a headset. And headsets just aren’t it. Never have been and aren’t now. Any further investment in headsets is foolish. When it’s a pair of glasses/sunglasses, that would be big. And if apple doesn’t want to innovate to that degree, they can arill do a headset, but tether it to a Mac or iPhone/ipad while reducing features in order to make the niche device priced accordingly. A 499 device would probably find its way in most apple customers’s lives. Continuing along the lines of the current VP will see it continue its downward trajectory. 

Many of us called it back when it was just a rumor. Headsets just aren’t going anywhere meaningful and crazy expensive headsets doubly so. 

A cheap headset would fare better. But glasses /shades would be the ultimate form of the Vision Pro concept. If done right, they could fit in anyone’s lifestyle and would likely be widely adopted. 

Can you point to a quote of Tim Cook suggesting it was a mass market product because the launch key note and a couple of things I’ve found are very clear they are calling it the start of journey like the Mac and the iPhone were the start of journeys?

so later when is quoted saying "Right now, it's an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow's technology today—that's who it's for. Fortunately, there's enough people who are in that camp that it's exciting."

that seems very much a supportive clarification of what was said at launch than admitting defeat like many doomsayers want to bill it as. 

Tim Cook never refers to products as “mass market” etc. they just are. 

It’s only when they aren’t a huge hit that we get the qualifiers:

Apple TV was a “hobby” according to jobs. 

Scuba gear was a ln “early adopter” product according to cook. 

Apple makes great things. Rarely they don’t land thst well. The headset was never going to be big. 

Booth of these statements are, again, your opinion. And regardless of your opinion, Apple Vision Pro isn't going anywhere. Cook seems to be single minded in pushing for glasses, but I expect it'll be some time before those arrive in any form more substantial than Meta Ray Bans, which are just AirPods that cover your eyes.

Afarstar said:

jfabula1 said:

So I’m thinking, if a US company get very successful in their business model & it get rich it becomes monopolistic.. 
Will Facebook be the next? 

Hopefully. 

danielgomes said:

Siri has been a failure due to a stunning lack of vision 
at Apple about this. I blame the overall leadership team. 

Personally I love Siri and have since it debuted. I’m on iPhone 13 and use it daily to set reminders, alarms, check the weather, read SMS aloud while driving, reply to sms while driving and set timers. 

Its best feature is that it works offline. Unlike Google Assistant which is utterly useless if you don’t hand an internet connection.

9secondkox2 said:

AppleZulu said:

A tariff is a sales tax levied on goods as they enter the country. The buyer pays the tax, not the seller. On finished products, that tax will be passed on directly to the consumer. On parts, that tax will be incorporated into the price and passed on to the consumer. The talking point that Apple or “China” or anyone on the supply side will pay the tax for any length of time is ridiculous. Also remember that sales taxes are regressive. The more of your income that goes directly to buying things, the greater percentage of your income goes directly to paying the tax. 

This is going to be a disaster. 

Actually it depends on the seller whether or not they will absorb the cost. 

Ford motor Compsny announced today that they will be selling their vehicles under invoice from today through early June. They have enough inventory to help offset the loss somewhat, but it’s an example of how sellers get creative in a temporary reset of trade relations.