EsquireCats

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EsquireCats
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  • TP-Link cancels HomeKit plan for Kasa smart plug mini

    Pre-announcing HomeKit support is a well-worn marketing device for IoT manufacturers that have little, if any, intention to deliver.
    At this stage it’s fair to label such companies as frauds, because there have been enough companies that had struggled or scaled back their HomeKit intentions to give pause to anyone that wants to legitimately launch such a feature.
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  • Apple Services can't help cover at-risk App Store fee, says Macquarie

    "By way of example, dating app Tinder "which is one of, if not the largest payer of app store commissions on the planet" according to the firm, has altered its Android app so that payments go through a different process than Google Play for billing, which Macquarie worries is a technique that other tech firms may follow in pushing back against the fee."

    Somehow analysts fail to fully grasp more than one-step ahead. If developers did a rush on the store, then Apple would simply change the conditions to keep revenue coming in.

    At the moment we have an "App Store" that metaphorically treats apps like individual products on a shelf. Apple manages the store and the people who make the products manage their side of their businesses. This is a pretty normal arrangement that begins to approximate consignment. 

    Following through on the scenario proposed by the analyst to the logical extreme: All apps are now free with developers earning revenue via externally managed subscriptions.

    So now the "free" apps are no longer metaphorical products on a shelf - instead it's more like the developers are no-cost leasing space inside of the Apple building and running their own business on the side to keep the margin out of Apple's hands. So what does Apple do now? Well they change how they derive revenue from the developers of course, for example, they could metaphorically charge rent. Like all rented store fronts, the landlord can require that the various stores report their earnings, from which Apple could charge a sliding scale of fees based on their revenue. Those making money from the store pay something. They could base it just on number of downloads. They could base it from notifications delivered. They could even jack up the annuals. There are so many ways any company can fairly apportion costs.

    The point is that there is no such thing as a free ride and the App Store is not free to run. Apple can make moves to obtain revenue from developers who make money through their platform one way or another. But also keep in mind, there is nothing stopping a competitor from coming along and upending the business model of delinquent developers - heck maybe even Apple could commission a free tindr clone and destroy Tindr's business model in the process.

    randominternetpersonAppleExposednot_anton
  • The best alternatives to Adobe InDesign for iOS and Mac

    If you're in a position where you don't need to hand over InDesign files to clients. (E.g. agency land or people using Windows.) Then I can recommend getting in bed with Affinity - their software is great and they're all in on iPad as well. Being on Adobe means that you need to take your workhorse with you everywhere, which often means having both a laptop and a desktop mac. (Adobe really aren't into optimisation, rather it seems the opposite.)

    While I'm making recommendations, don't bother with any of Adobe's HTML5 tools, go straight to Hype. It is infinitely better.
    williamlondonsportyguy209FileMakerFeller
  • Qualcomm uses evidence from settled Apple case in bid to stay antitrust ruling

    This is why you can't just drop evidence in at the last minute. The evidence too must go through legal rigour and not just be accepted at face value. As an exaggerated example, the previous slide could say "Things we won't do", but the court would never know this if this practice was allowed.

    It's like when Samsung showed photos of a "Sony" smart phone which looked identical to the iPhone 4. Samsung were attempting to make it seem like Apple had copied a poorly sold or unreleased Sony concept, when in fact it was just Apple adding a bunch of sliders and buttons to their existing iPhone 4 design as a design experiment for how they would envisage Sony would style such a device.


    AppleExposedradarthekatSolironncharlesgresleavingthebiggmacxpress
  • New iOS 13 feature uses Siri smarts to thwart spam calls

    ktappe said:
    Why would this require Siri? It's simply referencing the incoming # against a database. It's extremely straightforward from an engineering perspective.
    Siri is the name of a variety of AI-based technologies. In iOS12 "siri" reviews your mail and messages for data that looks like phone numbers, email address and the like and presents these to the user as needed. For example when receiving a call from a number not in your contacts, Siri may furnish a message "Maybe: PERSONS NAME", where that name has been automatically gathered from a email/message source. Similarly these contact details can be easily added to existing or new contacts.

    This new feature likely takes that existing iOS 12 capability and provides it with the skill to automatically reject unfamiliar numbers/facetimes. There is an expectation that the feature does a little more to thwart spam calls, since Apple would be able to gather a statistical model of spoofed phone numbers.
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