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Apple's Services revenue hit 10 billion per quarter in the last earnings report, and it's growing steadily. Yeah, it doesn't compare to hardware sales, but I do

Apple's Services revenue hit 10 billion per quarter in the last earnings report, and it's growing steadily. Yeah, it doesn't compare to hardware sales, but I don't think it can be called a minor insignificant stream any more, can it?

setr 8y ago
What does services actually consist of? From [1], it looks like the major components are the app store, iTunes/Music (purchases, I assume) and the iCloud? I'm not seeing the data dependency that would incentivize Apple to look to Google for advice, at least not in this category. The closest might be recommendation systems, but afaik even Netflix only collects from its own information pools, and the main chunk of it is probably for their custom shows; Amazon definitely doesn't track that much data about their users, because their recommendation system might actually be useful if it did. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Apple_Inc._services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Apple_Inc._services
- aeontech 8y ago
  Sure, I am not disagreeing with you. Just pointing out that Apple is making data services work as a revenue stream just fine, without the privacy invasion. Your comment read a little bit like it was implying that Apple's privacy stance is only realistic because they are not making money on services, and if they were making money on services, they would start invading privacy.
  - kiriakasis 8y ago
    Here there is a big difference still, their services are a marketfront. This is a lot different from Youtube for example. Also keeping an internal profile of registered user is very different from squeezing every cent of advertising out all available user data
- truncate 8y ago
  Amazon I think tracks whatever it can. Whenever I visit a product, even if I didn't buy it the product (or something similar) will show up as "Continue shopping ...", and not very later as ads on my Facebook feed. It almost creeps me out (I use quite a few filters on uBlock), considering there is no visible facebook "Like" button on Amazon. Not sure how it works, but whatever I see on Amazon shows up as ads on Facebook.

setr 8y ago

What does services actually consist of? From [1], it looks like the major components are the app store, iTunes/Music (purchases, I assume) and the iCloud? I'm not seeing the data dependency that would incentivize Apple to look to Google for advice, at least not in this category. The closest might be recommendation systems, but afaik even Netflix only collects from its own information pools, and the main chunk of it is probably for their custom shows; Amazon definitely doesn't track that much data about their users, because their recommendation system might actually be useful if it did. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Apple_Inc._services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Apple_Inc._services

aeontech 8y ago
Sure, I am not disagreeing with you. Just pointing out that Apple is making data services work as a revenue stream just fine, without the privacy invasion. Your comment read a little bit like it was implying that Apple's privacy stance is only realistic because they are not making money on services, and if they were making money on services, they would start invading privacy.
- kiriakasis 8y ago
  Here there is a big difference still, their services are a marketfront. This is a lot different from Youtube for example. Also keeping an internal profile of registered user is very different from squeezing every cent of advertising out all available user data
truncate 8y ago
Amazon I think tracks whatever it can. Whenever I visit a product, even if I didn't buy it the product (or something similar) will show up as "Continue shopping ...", and not very later as ads on my Facebook feed. It almost creeps me out (I use quite a few filters on uBlock), considering there is no visible facebook "Like" button on Amazon. Not sure how it works, but whatever I see on Amazon shows up as ads on Facebook.