flydog

EsquireCats said:

> Other critics have suggested that it's unfair for Apple to claim revenue from content it doesn't produce or host.

This line goes a long way to describe how two faced some of these execs can be. It's "unfair" for Apple to claim revenue, but they can't see that there is real costs in:

• Hosting their app and providing editorial to keep a compelling store to drive awareness/traffic to their app

• Keeping backups of their app, along with maintaining the servers and server security
• Increasing server farms to allow their app to be distributed to larger audiences, and working with the various governments worldwide to provide this, including in regions where their competitors are banned.
• Building and running green energy facilities to run said server farms
• Make store cards and deals with retailers world wide to minimise friction into the store and provide a bricks-and-mortar presence.
• The continual development of APIs to provide new features for the developers to monetise into their apps. (Plus other features such as allowing Siri to search their content for easier purchasing/use.)
• Continually enhancing and reacting to threats upon iOS/macOS security so these apps won't inadvertently divulge customer data or put their users at risk.

Yet all of that is included after paying a measly developer subscription cost - which is significantly less than any other kind of professional grade software subscription. Maybe we should go back to renting movies at Blockbuster or buying software on floppy discs in boxes?

No one has said Apple deserves nothing.  But taking a 15% or 30% cut of all revenues from an app that grosses hundreds of millions of dollars a year is absurd and grossly disproportionate to the cost of the things you mention, most of which Apple does anyway for its own apps and services.  

Moreover, as a developer, I can tell you that Apple is miserable to work with and provides near zero support to developers.  Often app rejections and other decisions are arbitrary and based on the subjective opinion of whoever is interpreting the rule, and appeals take weeks or months while the developer is left with no revenue while the app is in limbo. Our company pays Apple six figures a year in App Store fees, and there is no way for us to get a hold of anyone either my phone or email if we have a question or problem.  if we are lucky enough to get a response from someone at Apple it is generally some canned nonsense that has no relevance at all to the question or problem. 

As long as Apple continues to treat developers like crap while extracting these absurd fees, developers will continue to find ways to sell content outside of the App Store. 

melgross said:

What happens is that the money goes down a black hole, while there’s no evidence that shares go up at all.

Perhaps you're not familiar with the principle of supply and demand.  When there is less supply or more demand, the price goes up because buyers are competing for fewer shares.  This is taught the first day of any high school economics. 

In addition, financial ratios such as price to boo, price to earnings, price to cash flow, etc become more favorable.

Finally, do you really think any company would throw money into a black hole?

The good news is that you appear qualified to be the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

canukstorm said:

rogifan_new said:

NY1822 said:

Funny how the other apple focused website has the similar article but their headline is slanted in the opposite direction making the Xr seem like a failure...but with the exact same data

Does anybody really buy these 3rd party figures? How do we know they’re even close to being accurate? They just survey random people? What’s the sample size and is it a good representation?

The sample size of this survey is 165 people and it's USA-only.  Given the size of the smartphone market, it's hardly what I call meaningful.  The most accurate I've seen in terms of iPhone adoption trends is this one by Mixpanel

https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/iphone_Xs

A small sample size does not make a survey invalid or inaccurate. What matters is whether the sample group is representative of the entire group. A professional survey firm such as this can provide data with a markin of error of just a few points using a small sample size.

On the other hand, the data in link you posted would likely have a large margin of error, not because of the sample size, but because the sample group is made up of people who use certain apps and users of those apps aren’t necessarily representative of the general population. And also it says it’s based on 1.2 trillion records, which is absurd on its face. 

propod said:

Apples greed has put them in this position, was it worth 50 billion $ in lower valuation? How much has their greed cost in trust? The stockholders can’t be happy with this strategy. 

I'm a stockholder, and I'm happy. 

Apple has been taking phones in on trade for years, both as part of the upgrade program and in straight purchases.  This year for whatever reason the internet clowns decided it was evidence of something, when in fact it's business as usual. 

ktappe said:

I wonder if a legal expert could answer this Q:   If the requisite evidence has already been presented in U.S. court, isn't it therefore available to the German court? Or are German courts willfully blind to previously available discovery? If the latter, that seems like a pretty f---ed up "justice" system Germany has.

No. That’s not possible anywhere even within the US. You can’t simply take evidence from one case and automatically use it in another case. 

“f—ed up” would be if that was possible since the opposing party would not have an opportunity to challenge the admissibility of that evidence (you know that whole due process thing from the Constitution). 

What you may have meant is whether a judgment or ruling in one case would apply in another, which is called collateral estoppel or res judicata (which is what permits the enforcement of judgments across states, for example). The answer is likely no, primarily because German and US patent and injunction law are different, and the facts of the case may be different.