osmartormenajr

danvm said:

davidw said:

ITGUYINSD said:

Beats said:

ITGUYINSD said:

Beats said:

I carefully read the article for a change.

I gathered,
Epic wants to bypass Apple fees 100% but want to set up a shop on Apple products and reap 100% profit.
Epic is complaining that Apple has a monopoly on Apple products.

It may be an Apple product, but it's not owned by Apple, it's owned by the user.  Epic should be free to "setup shop" on any device the owner of the device wants and Epic should not have to pay the manufacturer of the device a fee for the "privilege" of doing so.

Did you carefully read the article?  I think not.  It literally says "That power emboldened it to design restrictions to create and maintain monopolies in app distribution and in-app payment processing."  Monopoly of distribution and payment processing, NOT Apple products.   So, you gathered wrong.  Apple does have a 100% monopoly on distribution and payment processing.  No lies there.  Is it legal?  I think that is what this is about.

Nope Apple owns the iPhone and iPad.

Same as Netflix owns Netflix and Wal Mart owns Wal Mart. I can't just walk into Wal Mart and demand they paint the walls a different color and demand an organic juice bar and demand they carry my product like a crappy flea market.

"Epic should be free to "setup shop" on any device the owner of the device wants and Epic should not have to pay the manufacturer of the device a fee for the "privilege" of doing so."

Cool. Now go criticize Nintendo, Microsoft, Netflix, Wal Mart, Amazon. I always find it funny how Apple is always shi* on for things 99% of the industry practice.

You're making no sense.  Walmart doesn't own the TV that I purchased from them and walked out the store with.  They can't tell me what I can and cannot watch on MY TV once I purchase it.  Netflix?  I guess if Netflix sold a Netflix device and a service and locked the user of the device into only using Netflix then maybe we could talk similarities, but as it is, Netflix is not similar in this case.

The other companies you listed?  How are they like Apple?  Walmart and Amazon do not force buyer or sellers to have to sell at Amazon or Walmart.  My TV example above proves once I've purchased the TV, I can do whatever I want to do with it, not what Amazon or Walmart tells me I can do with it.

You are truly lost. 

Walmart has every right to not sell the TV brand that you might want to buy. If Walmart don;t want to sell Samsung TV's because Samsung is not willing to drop their wholesale price to the point where Walmart can make a certain precent profit from each retail sale, then Walmart has every right not to sell Samsung TV's in their stores. And Samsung has no right what so ever, to set up a shop inside a Walmart to sell their own TV's, to people like you that might want to own a Samsung TV. If Samsung want to sell TV's in a Walmart, they have to deal with Walmart. Walmart has full control what brand TV's are sold in their stores. They have a monopoly there. The same monopoly MS has with their X-Box, Sony has with their PlayStation and Apple has with their iDevices. No one is going to accuse Walmart of abusing the monopoly they have in what is sold in their stores, if they refuse to sell Samsung TV's or refuse to allow Samsung to set up their own shop inside a Walmart.  

And you are completely wrong about you being able to watch anything you want with your TV, once you buy it. You can only watch what the TV allows you to watch. You can not install your own app in the Smart TV menu or anyone else's, that has not been approved by your TV maker. If your TV didn't come with the Amazon Prime app, then you can't watch what's on Amazon Prime, no matter how much you think you can watch whatever you want, because its YOUR TV. And unless the TV maker allow Amazon Prime in their TV, all your crying about how the TV has a monopoly on what apps can be installed, is not going to get you to watch anything you want. If you want to watch Amazon Prime, then you have to buy a TV with Amazon Prime app pre-installed or hope that in the future, your TV maker will update their apps to include Amazon Prime. Or you can install an external TV box and use your TV just as a monitor, to watch what your external TV box allows you to watch. 

If you bought a PC, can you install a Mac OS X program? Why not? You bought it. It's YOUR computer and you should be able to install and run what program you want ... right? Same with buying an X-Box. Why can't you play your PlayStation disc on it? Why can't you buy games only on Nintendo, from the MS Store in your X-box? It YOUR X-Box and you should be able to play what games you want on it. See how your illogical thinking work? It doesn't.  

I think you cannot compare gaming consoles to iOS / iPadOS devices since consoles don't force customers and developers to use the digital store.  They can go to a retailer to purchase or sell their boxed games.  iOS / iPadOS devices are forced to use the apps store, for better or worse.  

Oh dear...

Let me try again.

That’s a distinction without a difference, boy. If you ever heard of the expression. Be it a digital download, or a physical disc bought on a store, all terms and fees are the same! Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have control on what runs on their platform.

I’ll grant you that there’s a difference though. Console vendors typically sell them at cost, or even loss (which also have antitrust implications, btw). They expect to make their money from a piece of software sales.

Apple makes its bread from direct hardware sales. But that doesn’t force it to give freebies in the services area. That’s a market decision. And if you follow the numbers, it would seem that the market agrees with that. Apple hardware, software, and services are selling like hot cakes!

You're making no sense.  Walmart doesn't own the TV that I purchased from them and walked out the store with.  They can't tell me what I can and cannot watch on MY TV once I purchase it.  Netflix?  I guess if Netflix sold a Netflix device and a service and locked the user of the device into only using Netflix then maybe we could talk similarities, but as it is, Netflix is not similar in this case.

The other companies you listed?  How are they like Apple?  Walmart and Amazon do not force buyer or sellers to have to sell at Amazon or Walmart.  My TV example above proves once I've purchased the TV, I can do whatever I want to do with it, not what Amazon or Walmart tells me I can do with it.

Well, if there ever was a pot-kettle situation.

You do own the piece of hardware, which is about as useful as a paper weight, or a door stopper, without the OS that runs it. And guess what: all comercial OS is only ever licensed to users, never sold.

Apple maintains absolute ownership of all its OSes, as they should. We only license it, as most of us knew very well, before making the purchase. And that also comes with terms of use, that you agreed to. If you did not like the experience, return the product, and buy something else from another vendor! I hear Samsung made a phone that doubled as a barbecue starter some years ago. Maybe that’s the phone for you?

If someone got the bucks to invest in Apple hardware, but not the wit to understand why the products are appealing, despite the premium price, well, that’s nobody else’s fault.

If you want you iPhone to work like a white box Android, you may have taken a wrong turn a while back. And I sincerely hope you never get your wish!

I find this hard to believe. The revenue drop and ad companies backslash are things Apple surely anticipated while developing the technology.

And besides, why give a damn? Regulatory and antitrust pressures are here to stay, at least in the foreseeable future. There is no “incentive” in “playing nice” with other sectors of the technology industry.

But most importantly: this move doesn’t resonate with Apple’s values, such as they are recognized. Nor does it makes sense for Apple’s consumers.

As excited as I am with the promise of Apple Silicon, I can’t help to think if that’s going to be a good move, for me at least.

Even though Macs never really got a sizeable piece of HPC market, I still like to compile some research software (mostly written in C or FORTRAN) for quick calculations (or as an proof of concept) on my MPB. And nothing really comes close to Intel Compilers (even though Intel MKL performance library is only slightly better than Apple Accelerate framework).

Worst than that, CUDA is still king of the hill on GPGPU, and I’ve seen little traction on Metal in changing that.

I really hope that the rollout doesn’t leave too many gaps, for too many work cases.

ITGUYINSD said:

Hosting?  Apple doesn't host the game servers.  They host the server where a tiny app lives that Apple forces Epic customer to download from.  That's it.  Once downloaded, Apple's job is done.  Why should Apple get 30% for "billing and bookkeeping" when Epic is perfectly capable of doing that itself if not for the fact that Apple forces them to go through Apple and pay 30%?  I wonder how many bookkeepers in the companies of the world get 30% of the companies revenue (not profit, but gross revenue)?  I'd venture a guess of practically NONE.

To be fair, Epic should charge $1.99 for the app, and Apple gets 30% of that.  Then, all the IAP's are through Epic payment systems since Apple has nothing to do with that.  

Well, as every other professions, there are IT guys, and IT guys... some show a fundamental lack of understanding into something that, although marginally, is in their area of expertise.

Fortnite is a multi-gigabyte download, that I sampled myself, when it came out. As a free app, I didn't pay nothing to download it. I played around for a time, thought it not to my taste, and removed the app. I didn't try it because of the hype, but because I had previously bought Epic wares, like the Infinity Blade games, and really enjoyed them, so it was a developer I trusted with my most precious resource: time (not money, really)!

Nonetheless, that download cost Apple. Someone on another discussion about this estimated the cost of all Fortnite downloads on Apple's hardware if it wee hosted on AWS, and if the rollout happened over 3–4 months. The bill was on 90,000.00 US dollars a month! That's real money to anyone I know. Apple operates its own datacenters, so let's say the cost was about half of that still leaves us on a total 200 thousand ballpark. Does any reasonable person thinks it's fair to Apple to foot the bill?

Apple also took care of many operating costs, like bill processing, credit cards, taxes, etc. Epic is big enough to handle those themselves, but not every developer. And the App Store treats everyone the same, as a level playing field. Marketing costs are real also, although I'd doubt the value of that, given the massive campaign I remember from that game. You just could not go anywhere and don't see it in some form, back in the day.

Apple also developed all API used to bring the game to life on all Apple platforms. If you think that cost is covered by a yearly $99 fee, you are delusional. The way I see it, Apple only charges that fee to keep "weekend developers" (or people with more enthusiasm than technical skill) out of the platform, managing the burden on reviewing crappy apps.

In your work, don't you use specialized tools and/or software to be more productive, or at all efficient? Didn't you had to pay upfront for those tools? Or if they were really expensive, lease them? This here is the same thing. Apple makes nothing upfront on free apps. But it does want something, for their contributions, when and if, the developer gets paid.

Finally, there is also customer reachability. Apple and my bank are the only ones that I trust with my credit card data. There is really no one else with that information. I've seen too many leaks and fraud with people close to me to stray from this stance. I've never had trouble with my card, only changing it when it expires. I'm not going to change that now. If it is not on the App Store, or if it does not accept Apple Pay, it doesn't exist to me. And I've never missed a purchase!

So yeah, to my thinking, that 30% offers great value!