tjwolf

Chrome beats Safari in Apple's Speedometer browser test

tjwolf

March 2022

As others have already pointed out, raw performance isn't all that important. What good is a browser that blows away the competition in CPU benchmark, when it bogs down your system as you open more browser tabs because it's a memory hog? And that's not even considering privacy.

I use Safari almost exclusively. Only two cases where I resort to Chrome: on the work side when testing my applications for cross-browser compatibility and on the private side, when I need to go to a foreign-language web site. Safari is nowhere near as good as Chrome in auto-translating web sites to English. Especially since Safari only supports a handful of languages :-(

Apple is 'ungodly well-managed,' says Berkshire Hathaway vice chair

tjwolf

February 2022

"... [Berkshire Hathaway] still holds Apple as one of its most valuable assets." Understatement of the century - Apple is, by far, Berkshire's biggest holding. Berkshire owns some $170 BILLION worth of AAPL. Their next biggest holdings are a mere $25 BILLION each: American Express, and Coca Cola.

Microsoft dethrones Apple, becomes world's most valuable company

tjwolf

October 2021

To overtake AAPL,, MSFT's P/E ratio had to go to 37. AAPL's is at 29.3. Big difference. Why does MSFT deserve a higher P/E? Apple's services business is growing just as fast as MSFT's. It's established products (iPhone, Mac) are growing just as quickly, if not more so, than MSFT's cloud and subscription services. On top of that, Apple has new hardware categories (e.g. AirPods, Watch) that are growing gangbusters and for which MSFT has no equivalent.

MSFT has done a great job getting into the cloud business and moving their core software assets into a subscription-base. In my view it just doesn't deserve a 10 point higher P/E as it's not growing its revenues much (any?) faster than AAPL.

Apple not a monopoly but must allow alternate payment methods for apps, judge rules

tjwolf

September 2021

The title is factually incorrect or at least extremely misleading. The one ruling against Apple (all others were in favor of Apple) was that Apple can no longer prevent developers from linking to alternative payment methods OUTSIDE OF Apple's ecosystem. I.e. developers can present a link/button to an outside web site for making payments. The judge did not tell Apple it must allow alternative payment methods within its ecosystem.

Big deal! Most iOS users will still use Apple's payment method because they trust it. Who knows what that outside vendor will do with your credit card info.

Fortnite lost on all real anti-trust claims. And they have to pay Apple around $4 million for lost revenue.

Apple's lobbying against Georgia app store bill included threats to pull investments

tjwolf

August 2021

amar99 said:

Used to be against Epic, the push for 3rd party apps, etc. But given the recent steps taken by Apple I'm all for the opposition. Apple has shown their true colors, and they ain't pretty.

You're not logical. You're fine with EPIC lobbying states to create laws in their favor, but you think Apple fighting this effort with its own lobbying is "showing their true colors, and they ain't pretty"???

This issue isn't (or shouldn't be) resolved at the state level. Whatever people think Apple is doing wrong with its App Store policies it is doing at the national, even international level.

My personal opinion is that as long as Apple is applying the same rules to the apps it sells on the iOS App Store as it applies to third party apps, it can create whatever rules it wants - the App Store is its property! People crying monopoly abuse are just making noise. Apple can't have a monopoly, since there is no "market of App Stores" in which it is the dominant/monopolist participant!! Apple created the App Store to let developers sell their wares to its iPhone and iPad customers - provided they followed its rules. It told potential iPhone and iPad users that if they buy one of their devices, they don't have to worry about security as much as when they buy other devices, because Apple protects them by only allowing apps on their devices that have been vetted by Apple. All was good in the world - customers got what they want (a more secure device) and developers got what they want (another channel through which to make money).

But as time went by, some developers - primarily the more successful ones - no longer liked those rules. They wanted to keep more of their money. Leaving the iOS platform in protest wasn't an option - they were making too much money from iPhone customers - so what to do? The answer, of course, was to turn to politicians for a little "help". Telling those politicians about "monopoly abuse" and "customer harm" (from not being able to choose where they get their apps from), and greasing the wheels with promises of future campaign contributions, their pleas found fertile ground.

The only customers that will be harmed if Apple is forced to allow other app stores are Apple's EXISTING CUSTOMERS! Most bought an iPhone at least partially because of the additional security a single App Store affords. They would be made less secure if, suddenly, there were multiple stores. Supporters of more App Stores would argue that those customers would still be just as safe because they could ignore the new stores. But is this really true? No, it isn't! If I get an email with a link to an app or an existing app I already have has a link to another app, I now have to be more vigilant that it's not leading to a non-Apple app store. I now have to worry that everyone in my household that is on my Apple ID is just as vigilant - since a malevolent app on one iPhone can have disastrous effects on all the connected services & devices. Even outside my family, I now have to worry that my data on iCloud isn't quite as secure as it once was, since there are now more malevolent apps able to run inside the Apple ecosystem, potentially taking advantage of weaknesses in Apple's security, since that security up to now assumed a relatively clean set of devices inside the castle.