freeassociate2

Nice. Have to keep an eye on this.

Apple’s apps are still pretty basic. If I had to guess, I’d say Passwords is more about getting people who won’t pay for a third-party product to have better habits and ultimately get them using Passkeys instead of passwords. Safer for everyone.

I’ve used or do use almost all of these apps, and none of Apple’s offerings are as feature rich. Shout out to the developers of Calcbot, and their wonderful conversion features. Also, 100% disagree with Mr. Grumpypants - 1Password 8.x is great, despite its Electron underpinnings. (And I detest most of those flaky apps. Slack, I’m looking at you.) Ditto for Grammarly — indispensable in so many ways. Got my teams all writing up material with clarity and the approved style. And I can’t see anyone but a casual hiker using the Maps feature. All Trails is simply better for anyone hiking on the regular (although this is a community that likes to put away electronics while doing their thing).

In short, I can’t see anyone losing customers here. I do see Apple’s offerings as gateways to introducing people to these types of software solutions.

And for the love of all that’s holy, once again, stop being so lazy and un-nuanced. Come up with a better term.

PS - Additional shout out to Vysor, which allows remote UI control of mobile devices. Many of you have missed that Apple’s new iPhone on the desktop, and the older ‘’push to jump over” to an iPad with Continuity replicates some of that feature set (although arguably, NeXT had similar features with DisplayPostscript).

roake said:

globby said:

gatorguy said:

What would Apple say if you asked them?

Apple made a nearly identical rights claim change in its Terms of Service at the end of March, worded in much the same way but far more vaguely. But no one noticed. Perhaps that's why Apple has never clarified what it means, either. My guess is the same as Adobe's, but like them, Apple ( and everyone else) needs to be clearer on it.

"Except to the extent prohibited by law, you hereby grant Apple a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, nonexclusive license to use the materials you submit within the Services and related marketing as well as to use the materials you submit for Apple internal purposes. Apple may monitor and decide to remove or edit any submitted material, including via automated content filters and/or human review." 

There are too many questions surrounding how our data is being used across all LLM training and delivered AI services. Companies try to avoid discussing it unless the questions become too public. For Adobe they did.

Er ... except that the context for those Apple terms is totally different: "Our Services may allow you to submit or post materials such as comments, ratings and reviews, pictures, videos, and podcasts (including associated metadata and artwork)." That's totally different from what we thought Adobe was claiming.

Anyone can read it here in context: 

K. YOUR SUBMISSIONS TO OUR SERVICES

Our Services may allow you to submit or post materials such as comments, ratings and reviews, pictures, videos, and podcasts (including associated metadata and artwork). Your use of such features must comply with the Submissions Guidelines below, which may be updated from time to time, and if we become aware of materials that violate our Submission Guidelines we will remove them. If you see materials that do not comply with the Submissions Guidelines, including any offensive, abusive, or illegal content, please let us know at reportaproblem.apple.com or by contacting Apple Support. Except to the extent prohibited by law, you hereby grant Apple a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, nonexclusive license to use the materials you submit within the Services and related marketing as well as to use the materials you submit for Apple internal purposes. Apple may monitor and decide to remove or edit any submitted material, including via automated content filters and/or human review. 

GatorGuy would make an excellent CNN reporter.  Enough said.

And here I was thinking a Fox News entertainer, because of the ridiculous levels of whataboutism, deflection, denial, low-key histrionics, lack of substantiating facts, and blatantly manipulating the context. (Also, who the eff unironically uses “Enough said” like it’s some kind of snappy mic-drop? Gag me with a spoon.)

PS - Continually restating false statements after being roundly de-bunked, that was another red flag.

foregoneconclusion said:

Facts...

• Digital stores on consoles and the Steam digital store on Windows charged 30% commission at the time the App Store launched in 2008.

• Brick/mortar stores charged commissions significantly higher than 30%.

• The iPhone had launched a year earlier than the App Store. Apple's market power was very limited when it set the 30% commission.

• Apple never raised the commission when they achieved greater market power. 

• Since the App Store only operates on Apple's 1st party operating systems and hardware, Apple cannot be considered a middleman. 

Small quibble: The fee is a markup, effectively. Not a sales commission. Commissions are subtracted from a buy, markup is added on top (yes, this is a rough explanation).

Everything we buy has a markup in whole or part, whether that cost is apparent or not — usually the consumer end user isn’t aware of most of it.

Fifteen percent (for commissions or markups) are incredibly common. Items in your average big box store can be marked up by hundreds or thousands of percentage points, and that’s just one vendor.

Developers have nowhere near the overhead that a manufacturer or a seller of physical wares has and so have been able to take that savings and lavish it on employees and shareholders. We all know that particular  gravy train is under pressure, and many groups that have had it good are fighting to retain their piece of the pie at the expense of others. It’s lazy, entitled greed. Time to come down to earth.

designguybrown said:

As much as the world is a better place for Apple having existing, I feel that Apple has to be taken down a notch - forced obsolescence in operating systems, software, hardware, and online services; morality police in passwords and data; over the top DEI initiatives; endless 'highly exclusive' proprietary wireless, chips, and online services; etc., etc. Apple hasn't done much really, really wrong as they have horribly neglected to do much 'politically' and socially right. This means they should win the suit but lose much money, customer loyalty, and developer/vendor attention/ service. Maybe a 30% drop in stock prices can deride the Arrogance. Hopefully, Apple will be a bit more like Tesla with absurdly open protocols and standardization - benefitting the industry more and the bottom line less.

“Tell me you’ve never run a business without telling me you’ve never run a business. Particularly not a tech or automotive business.”