“App Store Monopoly” Discussion

Not Apple. Greedy company doesn’t want to pay 30% for selling on the biggest marketplace.

Not Apple. Greedy company doesn’t want to pay 30% for selling on the biggest marketplace.

5 Likes

Should apple get 30% for every purchase made via safari on iOS?

Sure. Basecamp, that gigantic greedy trillion dollar company, that doesn’t actually want Apple’s help to sell their service but need to provide their users’ with an app. Like every single company does.

And while Amazon aren’t minnows, there obviously isn’t 30% to give to Apple on the sale of a book where there are various other parties that have to be paid. It’s literally unviable.

Epic, is a special case where they don’t actually have any marginal costs and do just want more gravy for themselves.

Regardless, the end result is a shitty experience on Apple’s ecosystem, which they are implicitly endorsing through their rules and regulations.

1 Like

We’ve been waiting 13 years so far.

I’m happy for the EU to come in at this point and address Apple’s anticompetitive behaviour.

3 Likes

Amazon keeps anywhere between 65% and 30% of the royalties on any Kindle book sold. To get the highest royalty (the publisher gets 70%) a number of criteria have to be met, and Amazon charge for each download at a rate of 15/cent per MB.

In contrast, Apple charge a flat fee of 30% regardless for the iBook Store, with all costs included. Not such a terrible deal in comparison.

2 Likes

2 posts were split to a new topic: The @Coral-Crew tag

I think you’re talking about Kindle published books but not sure.

I was referring to “normal” books, which are now generally sold on the wholesale model as a result of Apple’s illegal collusion with publishers to raise ebook prices.

I’m confused that you may believe there are no switching costs involved in moving between platforms.

1 Like

I guess a trend has started

From the original article: “To support small businesses and creators, Facebook will not collect any fees from paid online events for at least the next year”. Reading this, you realise that what Facebook offers here is not a free service overall (marketing, payment and live video), they just do not want to take a fee for now. So even if the Android version is “free” now (because they use Facebook Pay, presumably), soon they will take a cut.

How is that different than Apple?

Have people just lost their mind when they heard Apple reached a market cap of $2 trillion?

Facebook? A company with immense integrity if there ever were one. :clown_face:

2 Likes

This is an excellent article which sums up the current issues.

I am not that young anymore but even I am now tempted to consider a switch to Android so I wouldn’t have to upgrade my console. And the Fold 2 looks like it could actually replace my iPhone and iPad

1 Like

Issues like this, if they continue to fester and multiply are the sort of things that would drive me away from a platform.

Apple’s platforms are still right now, far more appealing to me than the alternatives, so this alone is not something that would prompt me to consider leaving. I can already stream my Xbox games to my Apple devices via OneCast, so long as they’re already installed on my Xbox, and I can settle with that despite being hugely disappointed that xCloud streaming will be missing, and I very much hope it can come to iOS sooner, rather than later, because a time will come when I get fed up of missing out and be tempted to see what’s out there for me on Android.

Do any android manufacturers match Apple in terms of software support longevity? Or in their approach to security and privacy? Or offer that ‘it just works’ experience?

I’ve tried galaxy devices, 1+, and pixel devices, and been unsatisfied with all of them, so those are non-starters for me.

2 Likes

Not anywhere close on the first two. The third is more opinion but not really in my experience. Pixels aren’t as bad.

The Xbox thing I can kinda see, they want their platform to be secure without adult content. Netflix doesn’t have porn does it? So that isn’t the same.

But Microsoft will moderate the content surely? So it will be fine. Facebook I have less faith in.

This can just be something Apple decide on a case by case basis.

“Will you moderate all content to make sure it’s suitable for everyone? “Yes” “Okay, join our store”

It’s no different to what they will be doing for the next release when you can replace the standard apps. You’ll be able to choose Chrome or Firefox for your browser but DodgyBrowser that pretends to be one but it’s actually a game filled with crap won’t get through.

Apple love to boast about how much they give back to developers, give more back and be on the right side of this.

Side loading can GTFO though.

2 Likes

Not porn, but they do have plenty of raunchy NC-17 movies. You can watch Blue is the Warmest Colour, to take one example. And Nymphomaniac, for another. And apparently there was even a Tiktok trend around Gaspar Noe’s Love

Gotta be kidding :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Found someone on reddit about this.

"Samsung offers 5 years of security updates now with flagships and A series devices.

They offer 3 years of OS updates, 4 years of security updates (after your last OS update you get monthly security updates) and a 5th year of quarterly updates (in total 4 security updates for that year).
"

Increasing the longevity of software support is great, but that seems incredibly convoluted. And 3 years is pants compared to the standard 5/6+ years of software upgrades iPhones consistently get, and that’s not including older devices that continue to receive important security patches for another year or two beyond that.

To put it into perspective. The recently released £419 (£569 for 256GB) iPhone SE will still receive the latest iOS version in 2025. Meanwhile the new just released flagship £849 galaxy note 20 will stop receiving the latest software version upgrades in 2023, and will stop receiving security updates before even the iPhone SE stops receiving new software versions with new features. I imagine Samsung’s iPhone SE equivalent will have even less longevity.

That’s just not a reasonable alternative for me. The trade off certainly isn’t worth it to me just for one app. Especially when I factor in that I’d lose Dark Sky as well, which is my favourite app.

I probably should have also asked how the resale value on android devices holds up over time too. The high resale value of iPhones offsets some of the costs of upgrading, which makes upgrading cheaper.

4 Likes

This is what makes iPhone actually more cost effective for me usually. Upgrading annually/biannually by buying outright and selling my old phone means I get a decent discount and end up spending less.

I ventured to the S10 5G and regretted it. Sold it but for a fraction of the cost of the original phone. It was a world apart for resale value.

4 Likes

Well shittttttttttttt