From what I last read iOS user outnumber macOS users by 10-1. In short there are well over 1 billion iOS users. So the scale of support is quite different from the Mac and like Windows it would be a juice target for malware hackers.
As someone who tries to use language precisely, I would like to make a quick but pertinent point.
These words are not identical or interchangeable: criticism, complaining, whining. Each has its own meaning.
This is obvious exaggeration, to the point of being false.
This is called an article of faith.
My guess is that the primary concern of the current executives at Apple is in making as much money as possible, not in improving its products. This is true of most companies in the world and, letâs face it, most people. I want money, too. I like it, too. But itâs not the number one arbiter of every decision I make and every action I take. I prefer moderation to fanaticism and obsessiveness.
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Let us look at the App store as a substitute for the retail store.
- many companies if not all PAY to be on the shelf of the store and the more visible the location the higher the price.
- The product must give the store a profit based on the selling price of the product. Counting on the type of product the store gets a higher or lower percentage. Also the markup (the multiple the retail customer is charged ex. for a quart of milk the multiple many be x1.5 meaning that if the store pays $1.00 for the the container the the retail customer pay 1.3x that amount or $1.30. the reason for the low multiple is that you will buy milk about one a week so it goes off the shelf quickly. the other extreme is a pair of prescription glasses. Because you will by a pair maybe once every 2-4 years the multiple can be from 5-3X the higher multiple being for lower cost frames so let us take the same $1.00at the low end, not even close to real #'s , so the lower cost frame would be $1.00 x5 or $5.00for a higher priced frame let us say $3.00 x 3 giving a price of $9.00. these difference are caused by the fact the higher price item will be on the shelf longer or people will pay a premium for a name brand. there is also the cost maintaining the stock on the shelf longer.
But the App store doesnât do this it charges the same cost to the end user 30% no matter the price meaning that the profit it get is determined by the price the manufactures charge. It is not a tax, with all of the negative connotations of that term, but merely the charge to the manufacturer of maintaining a place that people feel secure in buying their products from.
We donât call the profit the Amazon, Walmart, Target, B&N, Adorama etc charge a TAX because it is not. It the way that sites make their profits to maintain there business.
In addition Apple tries to makes sure that all of the programs have no security problems for the purchaser, They donât always succeed but they try. That is more then most if not all retail stores do.
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No, itâs based on evidence. I watch what Apple does and they keep adding features to the App Store, like appeals process I mentioned. In the past theyâve made review times faster and improved the user interface and presentation of the store. Theyâre not done by a long shot, but theyâre still working, slowly but surely.
Why canât they do both? I see it as more of a tick-tock syndrome, where for a time they focus on certain money issues, then back on products. For instance, a few years ago the stock was dreadfully undervalued as Wall Street focused exclusively on iPhone sales and Apple began making noise about their services business. Now that has taken the focus on Wall Street has realized that 1B iOS users means a steady stream of revenue for Apple regardless of if iPhone sales are up or down a hair and the company is worth $2.2T.
Recently Apple (finally) fixed their laptop keyboard issues with a return to a better design. It took too long, but maybe they were distracted by other more pressing issues (laptop sales are a drop in the revenue bucket compared to iPhone sales, so not the highest priority).
This is 100% true, and this is not like Apple is skimming vigorish off of bets or loans like bookies do. And Tencent, who owns 40% of Epic Games, recently reduced the % they charge in their App Store from 40% to 30%. They also have the option not to develop or update an iOS or Mac version of any of their games if they object to the charge so much. Itâs not like they were unaware of the 30% when they decided to develop Fortnight; there wasnât any whining about it at the time.
I still suspect the real issue behind all this is about how the upcoming iOS 14 privacy controls will significantly decimate Fortnightâs even more lucrative ad sales and sponsorship revenues. Persistent tracking is not an issue that consumers will be up in arms to prevent, but they are scoring points with crocodile tears by whining about excessive vig.
But itâs not. Particularly in the Mac world, essentially no software has been sold in a retail store in many years. Heck, Macs havenât even had optical drives since 2011-2012, so even if you could find software in a retail store, youâd have no way to install it without downloading it anyway.
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Well perhaps a good time to say that this week saw the arrival of my first set of boxed software in what must be fifteen years.
Antidote states on their site that you can download and pay them directly or you can buy from a reseller and it will be cheaper. So I checked on Amazon and sure enough it was 60% of the cost. Thing is they ship you a box, with a printed manual (in FrenchâŚ), and yes⌠a download code to enter.
And we all got a kick, given these times, of me unpacking a box and saying âhey, the antidote is here.â
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Wow, thatâs not something Iâve seen in decades either. I would question the economics of producing a box and 224-page manual and selling it for a lot less than they could get directly. I have to assume they feel like theyâre getting sufficient distribution to make it worthwhile, but given that theyâre distributing mostly near Montreal and in France, I suspect that someone at the company has connections with the FNAC chain in France (nearly all the locations there) and something equivalent in Canada. The fact that they say you need to check for availability before visiting says to me that many resellers may not actually stock it.
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I respectfully disagree with your economic analysis, and donât even understand what you mean by âno marginal costsâ for âdigital goods.â A game that provides entertainment and enjoyment â which is where this all started â is in ever more ways indistinguishable from a movie/video experience, as creators try to develop as much interactive experience as possible. I would argue that there s no business model close to a mobile device platform that allows access to a variety of media, interactive and otherwise, and a theater ownerâs selling tickets to movies.
My point is that movie theaters have a significant overhead in rent, salaries, and maintenance, among much else. Movie ticket prices build in those costs.
Software sold online has essentially no extra costs. You can sell 1000 copies for the same investment as selling 10 copies. Increase your sales to 10,000 or 100,000 copies and your costs may go up, but only slightly. Storage and bandwidth costs are infinitesimal on a per-copy basis.
Thatâs why I suggested that theyâre entirely different business models.
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A very interesting development in Russia re: Apple and Googleâs App Store commissions:
Letâs see how this plays out.
Itâs a quite a bit different from retail stores, or what are called brick and mortar stores.
Itâs a store that doesnât exist physically, selling products you canât hold in your hands. The products arenât static. They change, get updated. The prices change. You might pay for the product several times due to updates or the creepy subscription model. Thereâs usually no instruction manual. You donât know where it was built or who built it or how. You canât fix it on your own. Itâs not property in the traditional sense. A Canadian at 1Password told me the program isnât my property because Iâm only buying a license to use it, not the actual product. It can be altered by people outside your home via your computer. It can be broken by OS updates and other means. Or rendered obsolete. Some programs spy on you and send information back to the mothership.
Not something my Estwing hammer does, as far as I know.
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I just stumbled upon something interestingâŚSony, who also takes a 30% cut of their App Store purchases, recently acquired a stake in Epic Games, though itâs a small stake of about $253,000,000. Epic Games did not mention the Sony or any of the Tencent/WeChat App Stores (of which they own 40%) in the antitrust lawsuit:
Epic Games just singled out two companies that do not own any of their stock. It sounds even more like a pure PR play to me. It wouldnât be wise for them to bite the hands of the people who feed them.
I just stumbled upon an interesting new development:
Apple has updated its App Store guidelines. Probably the most interesting thing is that game streaming services are technically allowed, but only if each individual game is available in the App Store.
This is very interesting. It gives some insight into Appleâs motivation. They donât seem to be concerned about the concept of streaming, but with the nature of the games that might be streamed.
Which makes sense, given the fact that they censor the App Store itself based on similar criteria, but it still begs the question about why they donât do this for all other Internet-hosted services (including web pages). I guess they figure the backlash over mandating Net Nanny would be too great, but people wonât complain too much if they apply it to video games.
Iâm curious, do they also refuse to stream certain movies because of e.g. violence? Or sell certain explicit books? Or is the ânanny thingâ restricted to App Store?
Thereâs no pornography available in the store, so, yes, they refuse to stream certain movies.
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