4 ms·

People want to do whatever they please on iPhone, but also expect Apple to create all the appropriate interfaces to accommodate them basically for free.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>basically for free iPhone costs ~$1000, with the highest profit margins on hardware plus AppStore out of any phone maker = for free lol. Is this astroturfing HN loves to provide Apple for free? Apple fans will go out of their way to white knightly defend a trillion dollar company who can easily afford do implement any regulatory challenge, gaslighting you for having the audacity to hold Apple accountable to a high standards, as if they're some broke 3 person start-up scraping behind the couch cushions for money, when Apple is absolutely minted with the GDP of an entire country.
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Ever heard of averages? The iPhone 15 starts ar MSRP 950 Euros in the EU or close to 1000 USD. And the Pro base model starts at 1200 Euros and the Pro Max base model starts at 1440 Euros, 20% and 40% more than my Original estimation. There's also the cheaper models you can buy. What's your point with this? Or do you just enjoy taking things super literally and spinning them into strawmen?
    - nickthegreek 3y ago
      Make whatever excuses you want for posting misinformation. I am simply stating that your facts are wrong. I didnt build the strawman, you did when you used the cost of the iphone for the basis of your post and that cost was inaccurate.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >Make whatever excuses you want for posting misinformation By misinformation you mean using logic and pricing information directly from Apple's German store? The one misinformed is you my friend. Please get help. The iPhone doesn't have a single fixed price but comes in many varieties at many price points, many well above 1000 bucks some below. I just picked an average price that seemed reasonable and not super high. Please stop breaking HN rules with your comments.
- HL33tibCe7 3y ago
  On the contrary, in my experience it’s far more common that Apple haters will go out of their way to hate when it’s completely unreasonable. I can think of many such occasions in recent history.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    But what's your argument/counter-argument for this? Why is Apple right and apple "haters" wrong? Because otherwise your comment is just another "hail Apple, fuck their critics for hating my favorite company".
- LazarWolf_ 3y ago
  Design your own phone much?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Did you?
- charcircuit 3y ago
  the os updates are
  - lxgr 3y ago
    Then maybe they should charge a subscription fee for them if it's otherwise uneconomical to keep providing them. iOS updates used to be paid in the past (due to Sarbanes-Oxley in the US)!
    - Crosseye_Jack 3y ago
      Here in the UK, updates for the first iPhone were free, but (in the beginning) the major updates for the iPod touch used to be paid for. (Unless you downloaded the update file from Apple's CDN directly and manually updated your iPod Touch via iTunes, not that I ever did that as that would be very naughty ;-))
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    They're included in the initial purchase price and the cut apple takes from customers' appstore purchases. Nothing is free.
- jwagenet 3y ago
  The customer buys the hardware and the developer pays for a license to use api, sdk or whatever to access platform features. Game consoles, windows, processors. Yea maybe you can write your own stuff, but if you want access to those features, someone has to pay somewhere (no, I don’t think the hardware fee covers those costs). Software has got to be the only space where people think development time costs nothing and everything should be free. And I don’t get why people who don’t like the Apple way care so much. There’s an alternative that’s more open. Go build your utopia there, if the lack of barriers makes it so easy.
  - tokenizedtoast 3y ago
    do you think that ~25% fees on every in app transaction ( Total is 30% but 3% is used for credit card transactions.) is maybe too much to cover these software development costs? A counter to this would be game store sites like Steam have in 30% fees but steam doesn't have a monopoly on the games store. Apple has a monopoly on the app store. Apple has been taking a lot of actions within the last year against the developer community: 1) Retaliations in the anti-competitive lawsuits against Apple in US (surrounding fees) : * You must request an entitlement now from apple to link to an external payment provider in app. You must still give apple a 27% even if you use external payments. * If Apple feels a lack of compliance with the entitlement program they have the right to look through financial books and bill for if they think their cut was missed. 2) Retaliations in the anti-competitive lawsuits against Apple in EU (surrounding fees) : * PWAs. PWAs were starting to become a form of protest for developer to get around Apple's closed source system. PWAs don't utilize Apple's SDKs. Sure Apple may have some points surrounding the technical inefficiencies surrounding PWAs but it is suspicious that these rules have taken place during these lawsuits. 3) Beeper * Everything going on with Beeper enforces the point that Apples wants to have a stranglehold on their monopoly Optional 4) The insane markup of the Vision Pro relative to competitors. Making it difficult for devs to test new products. All of these exemplify Apple's use of their monopoly on the individuals who support their ecosystem (developers). There is strong consumer demand for Apple so their is a strong incentive to develop with Apple. Being an early-stage founder myself I am finding it very difficult to convince myself that developing on Apple for proving product market fit is the way to go. These rules are hurting the smaller developer teams who can't afford to pay these fees and can't pay for a compliance guy in the beginning to look over Apple specific polices. PWAs being canceled is just another example of Apple over-using their power to hurt the little guy.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
robhlt 3y ago
Apple has already done that for decades with macOS and its predecessors. The OS and its programming interfaces were always just included with the hardware purchase. Occasionally they would charge for a major OS upgrade, which Apple could always bring back if they can't survive without the app store tax revenue.
- jwagenet 3y ago
  I’ve never used macOS or previous, but I recall early OSX updates cost money, like Windows, and the dev tools also had a fee.
  - dagmx 3y ago
    That was largely due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act?wpr... New features had to be paid for due to accounting requirements.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>basically for free iPhone costs ~$1000, with the highest profit margins on hardware plus AppStore out of any phone maker = for free lol. Is this astroturfing HN loves to provide Apple for free? Apple fans will go out of their way to white knightly defend a trillion dollar company who can easily afford do implement any regulatory challenge, gaslighting you for having the audacity to hold Apple accountable to a high standards, as if they're some broke 3 person start-up scraping behind the couch cushions for money, when Apple is absolutely minted with the GDP of an entire country.

nickthegreek 3y ago
[flagged]
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Ever heard of averages? The iPhone 15 starts ar MSRP 950 Euros in the EU or close to 1000 USD. And the Pro base model starts at 1200 Euros and the Pro Max base model starts at 1440 Euros, 20% and 40% more than my Original estimation. There's also the cheaper models you can buy. What's your point with this? Or do you just enjoy taking things super literally and spinning them into strawmen?
  - nickthegreek 3y ago
    Make whatever excuses you want for posting misinformation. I am simply stating that your facts are wrong. I didnt build the strawman, you did when you used the cost of the iphone for the basis of your post and that cost was inaccurate.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >Make whatever excuses you want for posting misinformation By misinformation you mean using logic and pricing information directly from Apple's German store? The one misinformed is you my friend. Please get help. The iPhone doesn't have a single fixed price but comes in many varieties at many price points, many well above 1000 bucks some below. I just picked an average price that seemed reasonable and not super high. Please stop breaking HN rules with your comments.
HL33tibCe7 3y ago
On the contrary, in my experience it’s far more common that Apple haters will go out of their way to hate when it’s completely unreasonable. I can think of many such occasions in recent history.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  But what's your argument/counter-argument for this? Why is Apple right and apple "haters" wrong? Because otherwise your comment is just another "hail Apple, fuck their critics for hating my favorite company".
LazarWolf_ 3y ago
Design your own phone much?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Did you?
charcircuit 3y ago
the os updates are
- lxgr 3y ago
  Then maybe they should charge a subscription fee for them if it's otherwise uneconomical to keep providing them. iOS updates used to be paid in the past (due to Sarbanes-Oxley in the US)!
  - Crosseye_Jack 3y ago
    Here in the UK, updates for the first iPhone were free, but (in the beginning) the major updates for the iPod touch used to be paid for. (Unless you downloaded the update file from Apple's CDN directly and manually updated your iPod Touch via iTunes, not that I ever did that as that would be very naughty ;-))
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  They're included in the initial purchase price and the cut apple takes from customers' appstore purchases. Nothing is free.
jwagenet 3y ago
The customer buys the hardware and the developer pays for a license to use api, sdk or whatever to access platform features. Game consoles, windows, processors. Yea maybe you can write your own stuff, but if you want access to those features, someone has to pay somewhere (no, I don’t think the hardware fee covers those costs). Software has got to be the only space where people think development time costs nothing and everything should be free. And I don’t get why people who don’t like the Apple way care so much. There’s an alternative that’s more open. Go build your utopia there, if the lack of barriers makes it so easy.
- tokenizedtoast 3y ago
  do you think that ~25% fees on every in app transaction ( Total is 30% but 3% is used for credit card transactions.) is maybe too much to cover these software development costs? A counter to this would be game store sites like Steam have in 30% fees but steam doesn't have a monopoly on the games store. Apple has a monopoly on the app store. Apple has been taking a lot of actions within the last year against the developer community: 1) Retaliations in the anti-competitive lawsuits against Apple in US (surrounding fees) : * You must request an entitlement now from apple to link to an external payment provider in app. You must still give apple a 27% even if you use external payments. * If Apple feels a lack of compliance with the entitlement program they have the right to look through financial books and bill for if they think their cut was missed. 2) Retaliations in the anti-competitive lawsuits against Apple in EU (surrounding fees) : * PWAs. PWAs were starting to become a form of protest for developer to get around Apple's closed source system. PWAs don't utilize Apple's SDKs. Sure Apple may have some points surrounding the technical inefficiencies surrounding PWAs but it is suspicious that these rules have taken place during these lawsuits. 3) Beeper * Everything going on with Beeper enforces the point that Apples wants to have a stranglehold on their monopoly Optional 4) The insane markup of the Vision Pro relative to competitors. Making it difficult for devs to test new products. All of these exemplify Apple's use of their monopoly on the individuals who support their ecosystem (developers). There is strong consumer demand for Apple so their is a strong incentive to develop with Apple. Being an early-stage founder myself I am finding it very difficult to convince myself that developing on Apple for proving product market fit is the way to go. These rules are hurting the smaller developer teams who can't afford to pay these fees and can't pay for a compliance guy in the beginning to look over Apple specific polices. PWAs being canceled is just another example of Apple over-using their power to hurt the little guy.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

robhlt 3y ago

Apple has already done that for decades with macOS and its predecessors. The OS and its programming interfaces were always just included with the hardware purchase. Occasionally they would charge for a major OS upgrade, which Apple could always bring back if they can't survive without the app store tax revenue.

jwagenet 3y ago
I’ve never used macOS or previous, but I recall early OSX updates cost money, like Windows, and the dev tools also had a fee.
- dagmx 3y ago
  That was largely due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act?wpr... New features had to be paid for due to accounting requirements.