sacto joe

dewme said:

swineone said:

Unbelievable -- is everyone in here an Apple shareholder?

There's no other possible explanation for people begging on their knees to be restricted of their freedom to install any apps they please on their own device, paid for by them.

I can only speak for myself, but when I got my first iPhone, a 4s, I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into, which is a package deal of sorts. I knew the App Store was an integral part of the iPhone, love it or leave it. If there was app that I absolutely needed that I could not obtain through the App Store but was available on the Android platform, I would consider switching to that platform or carrying multiple phones, which I'd been doing for years anyway because I never used my work phone for personal business.

Freedom? Yes, I exercised my freedom of choice and selected the product that best fit my needs and budget. There's nothing theoretical or philosophical behind my product choices, it's all about finding the best fit and doing a little upfront research to get a handle on what each choice offers. If I discovered after the fact that I had made the wrong choice, that having the "Any" app on my phone was a make or break requirement, I would switch. Why keep using a tool that doesn't fit your needs? Staying on the Apple platform and being miserable about it is a choice and the remedy for it is completely in your own hands.

spice-boy said:

MONOPOLY APPLE

linuxplatform said:

wonkothesane said:

Thank you. Can we now move on please and spend effort on real abuse of market power? 

And who performs "real abuse of market power" pray tell?ihatescreennames said:

Not a surprise to me but I’m not sure the same can be said for many who post here or to others going after Apple for their “unfair” App Store practices.

”But Apple has a monopoly on iOS!”

Looking at it from the other side of the argument ... compare to Windows back in the day when they were a monopoly. You could actually install a competing web browser - plenty did - but just not make it the default browser. You could also install applications from any source that you wanted, not just applications provided by Microsoft. 

Apple does have a monopoly on iOS. Not in the sense that there are no alternatives if you want a mobile device - but more on that later - but rather if you own an iOS device or if you are an app maker who wants to access owners of iOS device them Apple is the only way for you to get apps on that device or reach Apple users. So in that sense Apple has more of a monopoly on the billions of iPhones, iPads, watches and Apple TV devices that it has sold than Microsoft ever did on Windows PCs. The fact that Windows had about 98% of the PC market at the time wasn't the issue. The DoJ never did anything to, say, force the adoption of Macs or Linux. They simply altered the way that Microsoft handled Windows.

Now back to "no alternatives if you want a mobile device" ... I dare say that Apple advocates try to have it both ways. 99% of the time, Android is a garbage ecosystem privacy and security issues and bad products that offers no quality apps to its users and no way for developers to make money that everyone should stay away. That leaves Apple with a monopoly on the ability to reach enterprises and affluent users on a platform that offers privacy, security and quality control. Maybe this isn't a compelling argument for the promulgators of free-to-play mobile games than can effectively run on cheap hardware like Epic Games and Fortnite, but if you are BaseCamp - or Microsoft - and need to be able to offer a secure, private consistent user experience to paying customers then iOS/iPadOS/watchOS/tvOS is the only way to go. And to those customers Apple is the only gate. 

Again, Apple advocates are 100% in favor of this argument in every other context. In every other context Apple advocates claim that a developer is wasting is time dedicating any resources to putting apps on Android because he will never make any money on anything except games that force you to watch an ad every 3 minutes or lootbox/gacha type games that target developing countries. Or Apple advocates claim that developers should reject Android on principle even if they could make money because they should want no part of the privacy, security and copyright infringement issues that Google, Samsung, Xiaomi and the rest are clearly guilty of. It is only when the anti-trust arguments are raised that these very same people say "what monopoly? Android exists! Android is a great platform for targeting enterprise and affluent customers! So anyone who doesn't want to play by Apple's rules can just put their apps on Android, advertise them and get rich! The banks, hospitals and government agencies that require security and privacy with their devices, apps and data? Let BaseCamp use Android to target them! They'll be completely fine and NEVER get sued because some data snooping app that Google allowed in the Play Store stole classified government or sensistive user information!" 

Again, all the people who believe this in any context other than to avoid Apple getting sued for anti-trust, raise your hands. All the people who are really happy going around reciting "Android is for poor people" and "no one" (or no one but Google and Samsung) makes money off Android" and "Android is just a spyware platform for terrorists and foreign governments" in every other use case ... you know who you are. And the people who are filing these antitrust lawsuits as well as the regulators and judges who are going to weigh them know the arguments of this type that Apple advocates have been advancing in blogs, the mainstream media etc. for over 10 years too. All these plaintiffs have to do in order to stop the "what about Android?" argument in its tracks is cite Tim Cook's own repeated public statements attacking Android over security and privacy. Or cite Phil Schiller's statements stating that school children who use Chromebooks and other Google platform products are going to fail because they aren't going to have the superior engagement that iPads offer. It is going to be impossible to claim that Android is a viable alternative for enterprise app developers when you have Apple executives like Cook and Schiller saying that it isn't! All app developers have to do is say that they avoided Android because Apple executives like Schiller and Cook have spent the last 10 years telling them what a terrible idea it is to put apps on an insecure platform that is based on a stolen product in the first place!

And everyone who sincerely believes that Cook, Schiller etc. are wrong ... say so. And do it in contexts other than Apple getting sued for antitrust. You won't and everyone knows it.

EsquireCats said:

Not in defence of Apple, but this is cherry picking the numbers, and misrepresents the reality of the int'l tax law problem. The core is that international tax law is fundamentally incompatible with globalisation or globally spanning businesses. All countries wish to obtain tax in their markets, but simultaneously also wish to claim the tax built from the value provided by their markets - both feel valid, but it essentially means two countries are vying for the same tax dollars.

As an example, if you have an orange orchard in the USA. But sell orange juice in the UK, it's possible that all of your UK revenue will be spent on acquiring the staff, rent, utilities, local investment and local marketing, that means that despite earning revenue in the country, your tax bill is zero because all of the profits were spent on operations in the local economy. It also means that the largest component of tax paid will be in the USA, since the USA sold the oranges to the UK subsidiary. Despite this increase in UK productivity and economic function, the zero tax bill has poor optics, since the lay person believes that a company's sole contribution to the economy is via tax. (It's actually via gainful employment.)

The kerfuffle between Apple, Ireland and the EU right now is centred in this idea. Apple aren't paying less tax than they should - no - rather there is disagreement if it should be paid to Ireland or the USA. The USA is the main source of Apple's intellectual property (both their own and 3rd parties), and if those costs are fairly licensed to the Ireland subsidiary that would erode Apple's Irish profit, and thus taxable income.

In the case of the UK, it's almost certain that the taxation is being paid into Ireland, as it's the regional centre. Tax problems are way more nuanced than comparing revenue versus company tax - when you see the two being compared in conclusive terms it means that someone is trying to fool you.