cropr

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cropr
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  • France plans to take Apple and Google to court over 'abusive commercial practices'

    croprcropr
    Owning an app developing company I do understand the argument of France.  The complaint is that app developers for iOS and Android are forced to accept the rigid rules of these stores.  If you develop for e.g. Mac you can choose to use the Mac app store or you can choose you own pricing policy and distribution channel.

    The technical rules for an app development are not the issue: they ensure that the user experience is great.   The commercial rules are a different story.  As an app developer I cannot give discount during launch (to create a critical mass for my app), I cannot use coupons,  I cannot do cross selling (you bought my first app, now you can a discount on my second), I cannot freely define prices, I have stupid currency restrictions ...  These limitations can seriously impact the profitability of an app. 

    Off course there are ways to circumvent this.  Since 2016 all my new apps are free to download.  They use data that is stored on a paying cloud service where I have full control.  Very similar to the web based client I developed for PC and Mac.  In this way I even get rid of 30% cut Apple and Google are asking.   I do have to provide my own paying service, which I did anyhow for the web based clients and which costs about 2.5% iso. 30% Apple and Google are charging.   But this scheme is only possible for cloud based services where the real value is in the cloud data.

    If France would go to Vestager, the famous European Commissioner in charge of competition, France might have a point.  If the EU commission finds that a mobile app developer has no choice but to accept the commercial rules of the App Store and/or the Play Store, these commercial rules might be perceived as anti competitive behaviour.  The fact that App Store and Play store have very similar commercial rules, might even be interpreted as forming a cartel, which is not allowed

    airnerdavon b7

  • Apple HomePod sales 'underwhelming,' AirPods still growing, analyst says

    croprcropr
    sflagel said:
    dick applebaum said:


    I've never used a Google or Amazon smart speaker (I have no need for what they offer) -- how do they handle requests for names like: Estrellita or La Paloma by Julio Iglesias?
    I tried playing a German song a few days ago on Alexa. At first it did not understand me, then I said "play the German song blah blah" and it understood. Haven;t tried it with Siri yet. I am wondering, though, how Siri interacts with Germans (ie Siri language set to German) that request to play English music titles (possibly pronounced with a German accent). Does it work?
    I don;'t know about German, but I live in Belgium, where 60% of the people are Dutch speaking and 40% French speaking.  Given the international status of Brussels, our capital, there are a lot of English speaking people as well.    So in our daily lives we have a constant the mix of languages (street names, city names, music, ...) 

    How does Siri cope with this. Simply,  It doesn't.  Siri is a joke in a Belgian context. 

    If you put in it English, it does not understand Dutch and French names and is not aware of any Belgian context: Siri understands your question, but it cannot answer because it lacks the context.  It fails on almost all the names. 

    If you put it in French or Dutch,  its comprehension of the language is much worse than in English: Siri takes the Belgian context into account in case it does understand what you are asking,  which is only true for very simple things.  Siri does not understand French names in Dutch and vice versa, which is horrible in a city like Brussels. 

    If you are wondering how Google handles this (no Amazon in Belgium), well it fares a lot better than Siri if you use it in Dutch or French, but also here there are a lot of dark areas where it fails.

    On a regular basis I do a test with 5 main streets in Antwerp, the biggest Dutch speaking city in Belgium.  Siri + Apple Maps only score 1 out 5, Google Maps 4 out of 5 and even 5 out of 5 if I adapt my pronunciation.
    muthuk_vanalingam

  • Google's Android P supports same HEIC format as Apple, has software display notch like iPh...

    croprcropr
    Too bad everyone (including AI) is talking about the notch in Android P and not about the interesting features. 

    Increasing the security of phone by disabling the camera and the microphone access to the running background processes is a very neat one that's left unmentioned.
    muthuk_vanalingamgatorguy

  • Why Apple's HomePod targets home entertainment, not a voice-first mobile-free world

    croprcropr
    asdasd said:
    Also, because siri sucks. 
    Spot on. 
    muthuk_vanalingamlkrupp

  • Google ships first beta of Flutter framework for developing both iOS and Android apps

    croprcropr
    I have created my app development company in 2012.    All the apps, mostly cloud based applications, are developed on both platforms simultaneously. And in a lot of cases a web based client is also developed. 

    Google is not the first company that creates a tool that allow cross platform mobile development environment: Ionic, Xamarin, Cordova, Reactive native, ... are other implementations.

    My experience with these tools is that they are great for certain types of apps (like a notes app), but not suited for others (like games).  In case they are suited, they give a cost saving of around 30% compared to a double native development.    I'll have a look at it, but I am not sure I am going to use it.
    mwhitemuthuk_vanalingam