mpantone

DT36MT said:

mpantone said:

racerhomie3 said:

Isnt it obvious that Apple faces competition in all sectors in operates in?

That's not the point. No one has denied the existence of competition in any of the sectors that Apple operates in.

Apple says that they have intense competition in their market sectors. The operative word here is intense.

Apple is saying that so government agencies don't take steps to curtail what some perceive to be an unfair advantage namely Apple's various App Stores and media stores (music, movie, video, book, whatever). You haven't noticed but Apple has received ongoing scrutiny about their overwhelming dominance in these business operations.

For example, how many other app stores can you buy apps for your iPhone? Apple also takes their own cut of content sales and forbids alternative payment mechanisms, something that has been declared illegal in some jurisdictions.

So Timmy is trying to put on his nicest PR face to the Japanese PM so Japan's various agencies don't start dogging Apple to open up their tight fisted control.

"Oh, no, we don't have an unfair advantage. We have lots of very serious competitors. No need for oversight. Really!"

That's what is happening here.

All big companies do this not just Apple.

AT&T said the same thing in the Seventies. Coca-Cola continues to do so all around the world, particularly regarding soda fountain operations (where they own like 90% of the worldwide market).

Nothing new here, just big business as usual.

Well, yes and NO.
Apple App Store is part of what makes the iPhone an iPhone. It is an integral part of how the iPhone operates (simplicity of updates, security, ..). So, saying there is no competing App stores for the iPhone is not a valid arguments. Me, and the absolute majority of Apple customers/iPhone owners bought (and keep upgrading) our iPhones with the perfect understanding that we are committing to Apples "walled gardens" which Apple critics and competition despise but Apple customers are happy with. iPhones have a lot of competition from other phone makers, including significantly cheaper alternatives. Customers have a chance to leave the iPhone for an Android handset at least once a year when carriers offer a free phone and some people do (there are available statistics on switchers) but only a small minority does this every year. You know why? Because Apple customers are happy with the way things are working with the iPhone. Many of those complaining about the App Store want only to dismantle the way the iPhone work, introduce flood us with crappy apps and spyware/malware for which everyone will blame the iPhone and Apple for it. If you can't get your products up to Apple standards, why not bring Apple products down to yours, right? This App Store thing has nothing to do with giving the consumers what they want or promote competition and innovation.

That's not how many regulatory agencies are viewing Apple's stranglehold, "walled garden", or whatever anyone wants to call it.

Apple is being heavily and justly scrutinized by various government bodies around the world. As we already know, at least one jurisdiction has declared Apple's App Store payment system monopoly to be illegal. The smart guess is that more and more places on this planet will deem Apple's restrictive policies to be unfair.

We've also seen high profile Apple partners also call Apple out on their practices. One very notable episode was Taylor Swift's displeasure with Apple's streaming royalty payout structure. She clearly pointed out that her proposed change would not affect her income but she was campaigning for smaller artists. And guess what? Apple eventually relented and changed their streaming payouts to artists.

Apple -- like all companies -- need to be monitored so they don't start running unchecked.

Trust me, I'm mostly happy with Apple's products and services. I appreciate their stance on user privacy. Like most Americans with a retirement account, I'm also an indirect shareholder as well. I materially benefit from Apple's continued success. But then again I materially benefit from the continued success of most Fortune 500 components as well as probably 150-200 foreign corporations.

But Apple should not be excused from consumer or government review. Nor should any other company on the planet. You don't get this.

Why do you think there are food safety laws today? For fun?!?

I've worked at companies ranging from Fortune 500 to tiny outfits and there are always moments where I don't agree with what management is doing. Hell, even if I ran my own company, I'd probably end up having to do some things a different way than what I'd want simply due to market conditions or business regulations. 

Do you think any American winery or distillery wants to pay the TTB to run a bonded facility? Automobile manufacturers could save some money by not installing airbags or seatbeats.

Just face it: increased scrutiny for Apple's business practices is a good thing for the consumer. And the government should also be scrutinizing Intel, Google, PG&E, Qualcomm, Georgia-Pacific, McDonald's, ExxonMobil, the cable company, the phone company, etc.

History has repeatedly shown that unchecked dominance by one company eventually leads to bad things. Ever hear of Standard Oil?

It's more imperative than ever for various agencies around the world to keep an eye on companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Baidu, Netflix, etc.

racerhomie3 said:

Isnt it obvious that Apple faces competition in all sectors in operates in?

That's not the point. No one has denied the existence of competition in any of the sectors that Apple operates in.

Apple says that they have intense competition in their market sectors. The operative word here is intense.

Apple is saying that so government agencies don't take steps to curtail what some perceive to be an unfair advantage namely Apple's various App Stores and media stores (music, movie, video, book, whatever). You haven't noticed but Apple has received ongoing scrutiny about their overwhelming dominance in these business operations.

For example, how many other app stores can you buy apps for your iPhone? Apple also takes their own cut of content sales and forbids alternative payment mechanisms, something that has been declared illegal in some jurisdictions.

So Timmy is trying to put on his nicest PR face to the Japanese PM so Japan's various agencies don't start dogging Apple to open up their tight fisted control.

"Oh, no, we don't have an unfair advantage. We have lots of very serious competitors. No need for oversight. Really!"

That's what is happening here.

All big companies do this not just Apple.

AT&T said the same thing in the Seventies. Coca-Cola continues to do so all around the world, particularly regarding soda fountain operations (where they own like 90% of the worldwide market).

Nothing new here, just big business as usual.

cia said:

lkrupp said:

Remember how long Ming-Chi Kuo predicted an Apple branded HDTV? Let that sink in.

That was actually Gene Munster. For YEARS predicting the TV was right around the corner.

I bet there really was a Apple branded TV set that was far along in development but was scrapped.

Correct.

The longtime "Apple TV" rumors were a Gene Munster fabrication. Ming-Chi Kuo doesn't bat 1.000 but he never had any preposterously inane predictions like Munster whom AppleInsider worshipped like some sort of living god.

My guess is that Apple had many "Apple TV" prototypes over the years in their labs but the economics never made any sense since televisions are low-margin devices that tend to spend many years in possession of the purchaser.

More than a handful of people who frequent these Apple rumor sites seem to get their history wrong about analyst predictions.

Munster was a notoriously poor predictor of Apple product features.

robin huber said:

Oh goody, the girl who can’t sing without Autotune gets more money. 

As far as I can tell, she does not use Autotune in her live performances. She did not use it at the Reputation tour show I saw. She can't sing nearly as well as her backing vocalists which is a key metric to determine if the star is using Autotune. 

And if she's using it on her studio recordings, she needs to hire someone else to run the software.

Only a handful of pop stars are good enough to outsing their backing vocalists unaided and Taylor is not one of them (Kelly Clarkson on the other hand is).

Even if you don't care for her singing (which is understandable) she is the voice of a generation. She probably has a better chance than anyone else her age at winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, like Bob Dylan.

I'll be long gone and forgotten by then but if it happens, I wouldn't be surprised.

Who do you think would attract more subscribers to the Apple Fitness+ service? Itzhak Perlman? The estate of Charlie Parker?

Anyhow, Taylor Swift and Apple have had a long partnership together on many projects and she rightly got Apple to change their streaming payments policy to benefit smaller artists.

Remember that she's not a teeny bopper anymore singing about the quarterback on the high school football team. She'll be 33 in a couple of months and her fanbase represents one of the most coveted audiences for the Fitness+ market.

rob53 said:

Not sure NVMe single blades will max out that projected speed and I can guarantee you that TB5 hardware will not be inexpensive. Article talks about 8K displays and only a bit about faster SSDs (for gaming? what about for real work like video production), which also will cost more. Higher bandwidth also ends up meaning people will want larger storage because, conceivably, faster speeds will allow more data to be pushed and stored. There is a usable limit to these speeds, which always has to do with money. You got it, you can buy it. Most consumers will never see the speed of TB5, same as now because most consumers only use USB3.x speeds instead of TB3/4 speeds because of the extra cost in making the interface hardware.

I agree, I don't see how Joe Consumer will be able to saturate TB5 bandwidth.

A pro certain probably could, writing multiple streams of 8K video (or other data) to a disk array with multiple NVMe drives. TB5 is intended more for that professional audience; Thunderbolt compatible hardware is already expensive.

In any case, TB5 is still in the proposal stage. Once it's approved in its final form, there would be more activity to develop compliant hardware.

Up until now, Thunderbolt has essentially been an externalization of the PCIe bus as far as I can tell. As PCIe bus bandwidth increases, Thunderbolt follows.