davidmalcolm

I wonder how much trouble they could or couldn't get into if they actually just let you store your Music Library in iCloud Drive and stream it even without Apple Music or iTunes Match. (I suspect Apple will want to hold on to the revenue they make from Apple Music though). I think they could really tick off the streaming companies if they let you hook up an HDD to an Apple TV and also let you run a torrent client on the Apple TV.

If Apple made it easier to connect external storage to the Apple TV, and let it run emulators and torrents, I think you'd suddenly see it sky rocket amoungst the home brew type market.

Beyond that I suspect that once more countries push them to allow more third party software that doesn't make them any money but makes tons (looking at dating apps) I suspect that they'll probably invest in something that would make Tinder absolutely worthless. Not sure what exactly what would be, but I suspect that Apple could easily afford to single handedly fund a 'start up' in the online dating space that could basically do what Tinder does but for free. Sure it would cost a few million to run, but bankrupting Match would be a fun thing for Tim to do before he retires. And since they'd just be lowing the price for consumers, that can't be monopolostic behaviour! 

Seriously though, I really hope that if Apple is going to be forced to do all this stuff for the EU regulators they just eventually hit a point where they say, "Fine you want these device to be just as open as a desktop computer, fine! Enjoy having all these same companies who were complaining before about our walled garden, now complaining that our walled garden was the only reason any of them had a business model!"

Do they control how most people put software on their phones? Yes, which is a massive security improvement for most people, and aside from games and a few others most apps don't even cost anything, they're almost all pushing software as a service stuff and the only ones who are charging through Apple are the ones who are so small they're relying on the fact that people trust Apple. Game devs act like if they could charge directly they'd make so much extra money but there's a reason most game devs also use third party billing on Steam, it's because most people don't want to give their billing info to some rando company!

Spotify has far more users than Apple Music does. Microsoft has a much larger computer install base. Steam is the largest game store on desktops. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all run their own walled garden stores on their own devices that they make.

Really the only market that Apple is absolutely dominant in is headphones. Yet they're not even focused on that.

They're mad that you have to have an iPhone to use an Apple Watch but they're also mad that you can't pair crappier watches to your iPhone and have them do the same thing as an Apple Watch. (Since when did anyone think it was a good idea to force companies to help other companies make accessories for their products?)

It's crazy because yes Apple owns the high end of a lot of product categories. But that's largely been because nobody wants the hodgepodge crap that other companies put in the high end. Like yeah Sony and Samsung have both made some 'nice' Android phones. But Android is fundamentally a low end product. Microsoft, Nokia, Palm all tried to make competing OS projects for phones but all of them knew they weren't going to make anything nicer than Apple so they all targeted the low end. Realistically Android is only as nice as it is because Apple made a high end product and Google reworked the whole OS to try and compete with iOS. Windows is only as good as it is today because they've had to try and compete with Apple. (And in some ways they've done a good enough job particularly when it comes to supporting video game designers and some other markets.)

Honestly most of this nonsense is happening because of a few very loud, very dishonest companies. Spotify who actually are a lot closer to being a monopoly in music than Apple is (and if you look at who owns them last I checked it was basically the big record labels and the Chinese government.) also Match.com... you know Match, the makers of Tinder and Plenty of Fish, the ones who are the reason why single people are all lonely and depressed and think no one will ever love them? And of course Epic Games... you know the company that is doing it's best to make any teenager around you addicted to one particular game. Now there are a few other companies but those are probably a big share of the ones doing most of the bribing... I mean 'lobbying'.

If the US government really wanted to do things to HELP consumers in 2024, they'd be going after grocery chains and food companies. They'd be going after social media companies like Facebook/Instagram, Twitter and 'Truth' social. (Heck if you want to go after Apple about something, go after them about the fact that they allow these incredibly messed up social media companies on their platforms despite the fact that they're pure psychological poison! Also I'm fully aware that the US government would never do that, because the US government has long held that companies ought to be able to poison people in ways they don't understand as much as they want, because corporations are people and if Apple actually removed a social media app they'd be flogged publicly.)

But yeah, this is all theatre. This is mostly just the DNC trying to shake Apple down for donations.

Besides half the time people only end up paying for iCloud once they run out of space to store all the photos they take on the phone. Without that people just fill up the free 5 gigs and say oh well nothing bad will ever happen, and then proceed to lose their phone in the back of an cab and then tell everyone within ear shot, "You don't understand, all my photos were on that phone!"

I'm trying to decide if I want the M3 Pro or the M2 Air. I have the Mac Studio with an M1 Max, I have the MacBook Air with the M2, part of me just wants them M3 model so I can say I've had one of each generation. Realistically, I do have a drawing project I want to work on, but I probably don't need more than an Air. I feel like Face ID is going to be a big deciding factor. Ironically I don't mind touch ID at all on a phone but I had it on my old iPad Pro and my 9th gen iPad and I really hated always having to use the home button to unlock the iPad. I suspect I'd feel the same way about the Air if it continues to have the touch ID button rather than Face ID.