davidw

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davidw
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  • Calls for Tim Cook's resignation over Apple Intelligence miss that he has made Apple what ...

    davidwdavidw
    charlesn said:
    DAalseth said:
    Yes he has done great things at Apple. But that’s in the past. the last few years are filled with Apple Intelligence, Apple Car, Declining quality, and missed deadlines. Even Michael Jordan knew when it was time to hang it up. If Cook stays in the top seat he risks being the Willy Mayes falling down in the outfield. 

    Cook was the perfect person to replace Jobs, but that was a long time ago. 
    Love the way the Cook naysayers love to have it both ways. The EV business has been an absolute proven bloodbath for virtually every carmaker who's in it except the Chinese--and I'll bet Tesla will join the club once the latest U.S. and China sales figures are reported--but it's a "failure" that Cook made the smart business decision to cut his losses and not move forward. According to the naysayers, if's a "failure" that he didn't forge ahead and maybe joined Rivian (which is at least still in business unlike Fiskar) in losing nearly $40,000 on every vehicle sold for the most recently reported quarter, up from about a $30,000 loss YOY. Or maybe Ford, which was losing $130,000 for every EV sold. As the song lyrics go, "You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away." And Apple is FAR better off for Cook walking away. 
    ........
    Not only, as it turned out, is producing and selling EVs not a profitable venture, the only real valuable assent from selling EVs is for the carbon credit. The likes of Ford, GM, Mercedes and other gas auto makers depend on carbon credits, that allows them to sell more highly profitable gas guzzling SUV, while avoiding being fined by their government for exceeding over all emission standards. Even with Tesla, that don't make a gas auto, relies on selling their carbon credits to be as profitable as they are. And by most metric, they re not very profitable when factoring how much is being invested to make their EVs.


    I can't imagine for a second that Apple Inc. would want to sell EVs, whose only way of being profitable, might be to sell their carbon credit to  gas auto makers, so they can sell more gas guzzling SUVs. . Can you imagine the hate Apple is going to get for doing that. And probably from the same group that is now criticizing Apple CEO for not going through with producing an "Apple Car".

    muthuk_vanalingamtiredskillsronnjroywatto_cobra

  • UK says Apple stifles browser innovation, but chickens out of imposing regulation

    davidwdavidw
    avon b7 said:
    It’s not chickening out. 

    It’s doing the right thing. 

    For once. 

    In this case, the EU doing nothing is doing the right thing. 

    The whole DMA fiasco needs to be reversed ASAP. 
    This isn't about the EU or the DMA. 
    Sure it is, the UK is just copycatting the EU on these issues.

    But, it's hard not to see corrupt intent here from the UK "regulators" when they blithely accept, against all objective evidence, the word of Meta, et al. that they are being prevented from doing good for consumers by "not being allowed to innovate" with browser technology. First of all, consumers don't need (or probably want, if they were to actually think about it) innovation in rendering engines (HTML/CSS/DOM/Javascript). "Innovation" in rendering engines serves only one purpose and that purpose is anticompetitive — user and developer lock-in to a specific rendering engine. And, no, that is not what Apple is doing with WebKit, they follow standards and don't add "features" that make websites incompatible with other browsers. Secondly, the facile representation by these companies that they are in any way interested in improving the user experience is laughable; they are interested in improving their own experience in monetizing users, period. So, how do we explain this attack on user privacy, in both the EU and the UK, that is cloaked in terms like "competition" and "fairness" but seems to have no purpose other than to destroy privacy and pervert the concept of fairness?

    The regulators in the UK, like those in the EU, are either so ignorant of these issues that they have no business regulating anything or they are so corrupt that they view their job as selling "regulation" to the highest bidder. Personally, I think it's a combination of both. But, the UK in particular have a track record of being anti-privacy in all regards, and the EU has a track record of hobbling US companies to benefit EU companies. It's not surprising that they are engaged in these blatant attempts to undermine privacy and competition, but it is particularly hypocritical of them to pretend they are doing the opposite.

    It's not that the consumers don't want or need, "innovation" in browser engines ....... so long as it's in the browser they are already using. But for sure, developers don't want to have to develop websites for more than the 3 main browser engines (WebKit, Blink and Gecko) we have now. The last thing they want is to develop websites to be compatible for another browser engine, no matter how much more "innovative" it might be. And Blink is a fork of Webkit but there are enough differences *(improvements) made over the years, that Blink is now considered another browser engine. And have an over 75% market share. All three are open source and "innovation's " are still possible with-in each browser engine. But Google with their 75% Blink market share has nearly full control on how browsers will have to work in order to properly render internet websites.  Once Blink approach the 90% market share, developers will begin to no longer see a need to develop for the WebKit engine.

    With the EU forcing Apple to allow browser engines other than WebKit, this will only serve to cement Blink "monopoly". What did Microsoft do when they needed to "innovate" their Edge browser ...... they adopted Blink. If company has the money to come up with a new innovative browser, it's Microsoft (not to say that they actually have the talent.). Any market share that Webkit looses in mobile, will be Blink gain. Gecko has no mobile presence. This has already happened on desktop computers when Edge started using the Blink browser engine. But the EU politicians are too tech ignorant to see what most here already know. Do the EU politicians actually think some EU firm is going to develop a new innovative browser engine that will compete with or replace .... Blink?



    If the US DOJ get their wishes and prevent Google from sharing their ad revenue with the owner of the browser, (in exchange for being the default search engine), then we can probably see the end of Gecko engine "innovations", as Google ad revenue sharing accounts for 80% of Mozilla Firefox revenue. And most of Gecko market share will most likely go to Blink.

    Here's a good article detailing the criteria thresholds that the EU came up with, to determine which companies would fall under the regulations outlined in the DMA.


    With the conclusion being .......

    >The Commission has not disclosed the thinking behind these thresholds. However, a reading of the Digital Markets Act Impact Assessment support study annex, which reported an analysis of various quantitative indicators[1] for 19 digital firms[2], shows three things: (1) the exercise carried out by the European Commission was subjective. There is no magic economic formula that would suggest that these are the optimal quantitative thresholds that maximise the efficacy of the restrictions and obligations imposed by the DMA. (2) The approach applied by the European Commission was most likely based on a backward induction process: the Commission had a rough idea of the companies that the DMA should capture, it then crafted the thresholds accordingly, to be sure the bigger players would be included. (3) Finally, the Commission had to make a clear trade-off: too-high thresholds would limit the impact of the DMA because companies with strong market leverage and capable of limiting competition in digital markets could fall out of scope; too-low thresholds would, however, entail high costs, for example burdening companies with compliance duties when they do not restrict competition in the digital market, or increasing pressure on resource-constrained public enforcers.<




    muthuk_vanalingamtiredskillswatto_cobra

  • Don't expect cheaper iCloud storage as Apple wins another monopoly lawsuit

    davidwdavidw
    DAalseth said:
    It’s not mandatory to purchase iCloud storage. 

    And competitor services exist from Dropbox, Google, Microsoft, etc. 
    The point being that yes you can connect your Mac or iPhone or iPad to these services, but can you set Photos to backup and share through them? I mean natively within the app. I write a lot in Pages. Can you use one of these services as the default saving location so you can share the files between devices as it is with iCloud? I don’t think it is. If it is let me know, I’d love to use some of these less expensive services, but I haven’t found a way. If you can’t then Apple is being a bit heavy handed. 

    Sure you can link to these and other cloud services, but if everything you want to do is kludgy you are limited as to how you can use them, then you really don’t have access. 

    The thing is that Photos (on iOS), Pages and others are Apple free software. Of course they're highly integrated with their iCloud. If you want to use Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive to easily save your data and save on cost, then use their free software. Nothing is stopping you from using Google and Microsoft software, in order to easily save your data on their cloud services. Apple do not have to make their free software easy to use with Google Drive or Microsoft One drive. You don't think Microsoft One Drive is more easy to use with Microsoft software than with Apple or Google software? So long as Apple do not prevent their users from using Google and Microsoft software or prevent Google and Microsoft from using their own cloud services on their software (that runs on Apple devices), Apple is not doing anything wrong or illegal.


    You think its Google that makes it easy to transfer your data from an Android phone to an iPhone? No, Google makes it easy to transfer your data from an iPhone to an Android phone. Apple and Google have no interest in providing free software, that makes it easy to switch to a competitors devices.  I'm sure that if you use Google Doc, you can just as easily save your data on Google Cloud, as you could saving your Pages data in the iCloud. And this also goes for Microsoft software being more highly integrates with their own cloud services. 

    There's a reason why iCloud storage is more expensive than that of Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Apple lease cloud storage from Google and Amazon. Apple have no where near the cloud storage capacity that Google, Amazon and Microsoft has. What cloud servers Apple has is mainly for their own internal business like iTunes Store, App Store, pushing software upgrades and updates on their devices, music and movie streaming, etc. and it's still not enough. Apple rely on Google and Amazon for their customers iCloud storage. No way Apple can compete with Google, Amazon and Microsoft when it comes to profiting from charging for cloud storage.




    williamlondonwatto_cobratiredskills

  • EU's dominant music service wants Apple to be penalized for dominance

    davidwdavidw
    avon b7 said:
    As the headline says, if Spotify is the dominant provider in the EU so it can hardly complain about Apple Music dominance.

    We all have a choice which service we use so there’s no need for any external pressure.   If you want to build your company provide a reason why customers should buy from you.

    It’s just nonsense and noise and just another attempt by companies to blame Apple for their incompetence.
    Is it about dominance or abuse of dominance?

    Does the headline fit in that context? 

    If there is no need for external pressure then why did Apple need anti-steering rules? Why was it found to be not complying with the regulations?

    Better to wait and see if Apple's changes bring it into compliance or not. 

    IMO, they don't but it's not my call. 

    You're right, it's about "abuse" of dominance. But how can Apple be abusing something they don't have? Spotify is the one abusing their dominate position (not only in the EU with 54% market share but Worldwide with 32%)  in order to sway EU politicians into thinking that Apple is not complying with the DMA because Spotify is having a hard time trying to innovate, in order to become profitable. Spotify recently had to rely on raising prices, laying off employees and reducing royalties payout to the artists, in order to report their first annual profit. This after nearly 20 years in the business and being the dominate player for all of those years. (And the first 9 years without having to compete with Apple Music.) This shouldn't be happening because the DMA should be giving EU companies a home court advantage. Not just an attempt to level the playing field.   


    However, from the CEO, perspective, Spotify has been very profitable.


    IMO- Spotify CEO aught to be spending his time and resources on making sure bills like this don't pass, anywhere they do business. Something that will actually negatively affect Spotify bottom line. Otherwise, it's lights out for Spotify and it won't be because of Apple "dominance". It will be because the likes of Apple, Google and Amazon can afford to pay artist $.01 per stream without raising paid subscription prices, as they have others means to subsidize their music streaming services.


    We often hear about Apple DNA


    but if these are any indication of Spotify DNA, any Apple "dominance" is not Spotify's problem.





    Ek and Epic Games CEO Sweeney, are cut from the same cloth in that they are biggest CEO crybabies when it comes to demanding that the government help them compete with companies that actually innovates, without having to innovate.










    ForumPost

  • Phil Schiller recounts concerns over App Store fees for external purchases in hearing

    davidwdavidw
    DAalseth said:
    davidw said:
    DAalseth said:
    When I first heard about Apple getting a cut from sales outside of the AppStore I thought it was wrong and would come back to bite Apple in the ***. 30% to offset the cost of running the store was fine. But once someone loads the app I never agreed with Apple claiming a cut of sales from other people’s stores. That always struck me as abusive.

    If one purchased the digital downloaded version using the  Amazon app, then Apple charged a commission.

     

    And I always thought that was a very bad idea. If I buy a grocery bag from Target, Target doesn’t get a cut if I use it at Fred Meyers. 

    If you buy a grocery bag from anywhere, you own the bag out right. The seller has no say on where or how you can use it. But IP is different. You never own the IP. You are licensed to use it based on the terms of the license. Target don't own any rights to the grocery bag, after you paid for it.

    When you buy a CD, you can not use the CD or any of the songs on it, like you could with the purchase of a grocery bag.The artists of the songs (or copyright owner) deserves to get paid, if you were to make money using their songs. Commercial use of someone else's IP is not covered under "fair use". But you are allowed to sell that original physical CD, even at a profit, under the First Sale Doctrine in Copyright Laws. But you can never use the IP on it to make a profit, without the permission of its owner.

    If Apple (along with Google, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo) did not charge a commission for the purchase of Fortnight Bucks (IAP), when playing Fortnight, using a free app on their devices, then how is Apple suppose to recover the cost of hosting Fortnight on their devices?  Fortnight was one of the most downloaded apps from the Apple App Store and Epic made hundreds of millions of dollars selling Fortnight bucks through that free app. The very bad idea was that of Sweeney, when he violated Apple App Store policies and bypassed Apple commission. Policies he had to agreed to before Fortnight was allowed to be a free app in the Apple App Store. This cost him hundreds of millions of dollars (if not over a billion) by now, by getting kicked out of the Apple App Store. (Not to mention the loss from getting kicked out of the Google Play Store, on Android.)



    muthuk_vanalingamForumPostwatto_cobra