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This is egregious and deeply disturbing behavior from Apple. At this point it feels wrong to own an iPhone. I'm at a loss for words describing what Tim and thei

by 015a 3y ago

This is egregious and deeply disturbing behavior from Apple. At this point it feels wrong to own an iPhone. I'm at a loss for words describing what Tim and their leadership team has done to this company that I used to admire so much.

api 3y ago
They're addicted to bad revenue here. Once they started with the App Store revenue and especially taking a cut on all transactions, they were locked in. It's a public company so number must always go up. If number doesn't go up, executives are gone and replaced with people who will make number go up. That means it's impossible for them to back out of the App Store revenue channel. They'll have to be forced out by government action, in which case they can write it off as unavoidable and appease the shareholders and maybe not be replaced. The basic principle here is that when a company takes on a revenue stream, it becomes addicted to it and it's incredibly difficult to give that revenue stream up even if it's destructive to other aspects of the company or brand. This is very closely related to the innovators' dilemma. In fact that might be seen a special case of the same failure mode. If Apple ever goes really into advertising, that'll really be the end of them as a good brand. Advertising revenue destroys everything it touches. It's possible that they could recover from this debacle but a pivot into ads is the end.
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  They already have an ads business, fwiw.
  - AJ007 3y ago
    And ads is the one line of business that is growing. All of the privacy and app tracking restrictions conveniently relate to them having all of the tracking data and third parties not having it. Your data is "private", to everyone except Apple. This is the reason Apple is violently opposing any software coming from sources they don't control. The way the DMA was written is a convoluted joke. It could have been a lot simpler: hardware device makers shouldn't be able to block third party software. A more extreme case could prevent companies over a certain size from manufacturing hardware and the operating system.
    - elevatedastalt 3y ago
      Then Apple would simply say they are not blocking third party software from their hardware (iPhones), they are just blocking it from running on their software (iOS). Making a law is inherently a messy job, if you think you can replace a 100 page document with 100 words, there's a good chance you are overlooking a lot of complexity.
- chongli 3y ago
  The issue for Apple is that their hardware business is slowing down due to market saturation. Their recent attempt at growth into a new hardware market (Vision Pro) seems like a huge dud. Their last successful new product was the Watch which at about 100 million sales in total is only half of a single year’s iPhone sales (and likely less profitable). So where do they go from here?
  - api 3y ago
    They've tried becoming a bank (or banking reseller at least) with Apple Card which now has savings accounts and such. They're also apparently doing some AI work that could be interesting. But yeah, this is the real issue. Number must always go up and mobile is a saturated market now. They should do more acquisitions. Buy Anthropic for starters. Absolute no brainer. Make Claude the new Siri and roll out powerful on-device models too.
    - imglorp 3y ago
      More acquisitions? Why? They're already a $3 trillion company. As parent comments say, they have saturated the market, maxed out the app store at the expense of good will, and are engaged in a duopoly spiral with Alphabet. How long will "number go up"? Until the planet is piled up to space in paperclips?
  - layer8 3y ago
    They may have to realize that unlimited growth is simply not possible.
    - hn_version_0023 3y ago
      It works for cancer, at least until the patient dies.
    - madeofpalk 3y ago
      Can't sell more iPhones - only option is casino games for children!
  - 3y ago
- elevatedastalt 3y ago
  Dunno why you are being downvoted. Regardless of what one thinks of Apple charging 30% tax on their dominion, the fact that it's now become a sort of dependency is correct. Governments have the same problem. Once you start taxing, it becomes hard to give up the revenue stream.
Eric_WVGG 3y ago
I just don't understand what Apple expects out of the situation at this point. What's the best-case scenario here, that the EU will say "yeah that checks out" and let Apple have their way after all? This is going to backfire horribly.
- pulse7 3y ago
  Apple just prepared the ground for the next billion dollar EU fine...
  - codedokode 3y ago
    Maybe US govt will protect Apple?
    - dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
      Maybe. But it feels like the sentence is formulated in a wrong way in this context, it should be, "Maybe US govt will help Apple to continue to screw its customers".
- notaustinpowers 3y ago
  The only thing I can think of is that Apple is trying to do whatever it can to continue to generate income from developers to make sure its quarterly reports look good until it has another plan. In 2023, they processed $89.3bn in IAP, a 2.8% increase from 2022. Their top-grossing app was TikTok with $1.9bn in IAP. At a 30% split that's $520m to Apple. And that's just from one app that doesn't really push IAP as egregiously as games like Fortnite. I think Apple is trying to ensure a new product cough Apple Vision Pro cough to offset losses from the alternative app stores. They know the EU won't ever allow them to do what they're currently doing to "comply" with the DMA. But all they have to do is stonewall long enough to Vision Pro or some new service/product/etc to replace the revenue lost from the DMA. A company failing to meet revenue goals due to governmental compliance? No investor wants to take that sort of gamble, their stock would take a massive hit.
oldpersonintx 3y ago
[dead]
jmole 3y ago
Couldn't agree more. I think the iPhone 15 Pro may be my last iPhone. Apple's entire reaction to the DMA has left an incredibly bad taste in my mouth. I used to think these were my devices, but Apple has been making it crystal clear lately that they consider them to be their devices. "We own the customer" is the new mantra of Apple. Maybe it was always that way, with the iPod and iTunes, etc. Thankfully I've never felt that way when using a Mac.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  What you gonna use tho? I've been degoogling and pooling most of services like email to iCloud for a while now. Should I just get rid of smartphone altogether?
  - burningChrome 3y ago
    There are other options. I switched last year to a slightly older Android phone running Graphene OS and have been using that but have realized there are drawbacks to doing that. Depending on what carrier you have, you can also check out some of the other Chinese imports that are competing well with Samsung and Apple. A lot of people I know are just using a personal cloud storage with their phones and just offloading their stuff there which is pretty easy to set up. Hell, even Microsoft OneDrive is easy to set up syncing with. iCloud is just one solution for backup and storage these days.
- burningChrome 3y ago
  >> but Apple has been making it crystal clear lately that they consider them to be their devices. This is a great point. The thing that sucks is the market is down to two main phone companies - Apple and Samsung. Unless you're on a carrier where some of the import phones like Xiomi or ZTE work, we're all stuck between two companies who increasingly are abusing their positions in the market because they can. Apple seems not to care any more about customer sentiment and does things more so for the bottom line than anything else right now. I guess that's what we should've expected when the guy who ran the supply side of the company with an iron fist gets promoted to CEO.
Zambyte 3y ago
The fact that Apple (the 3rd party in the interaction between you and the developer) has a say at all in what people do with their computers at all is already egregious. I couldn't imagine letting someone else control my computers like that.
- ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
  It's enough of an issue where I honestly don't understand how a single user on a site called 'hacker'news could be okay with it. Imagine if you couldn't run software of your choosing on Windows either. And the only way to publish an app on Windows was to agree to give Microsoft 30% of everything. That's the exact behavior your enabling by using Apple products.
  - zarzavat 3y ago
    The thing is, we all have laptops within our vicinity most of the time. The people who are really affected by these policies are the normal people who don’t own computers. For many people their phone is their one and only computing device. Especially for kids, if I had grown up with only an iPhone I doubt I would have become a programmer.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
redder23 3y ago
No offense but if this is what broke the camel's back for you then you seem like live in a different planet.

by 015a 3y ago

api 3y ago

They're addicted to bad revenue here. Once they started with the App Store revenue and especially taking a cut on all transactions, they were locked in. It's a public company so number must always go up. If number doesn't go up, executives are gone and replaced with people who will make number go up. That means it's impossible for them to back out of the App Store revenue channel. They'll have to be forced out by government action, in which case they can write it off as unavoidable and appease the shareholders and maybe not be replaced. The basic principle here is that when a company takes on a revenue stream, it becomes addicted to it and it's incredibly difficult to give that revenue stream up even if it's destructive to other aspects of the company or brand. This is very closely related to the innovators' dilemma. In fact that might be seen a special case of the same failure mode. If Apple ever goes really into advertising, that'll really be the end of them as a good brand. Advertising revenue destroys everything it touches. It's possible that they could recover from this debacle but a pivot into ads is the end.

disgruntledphd2 3y ago
They already have an ads business, fwiw.
- AJ007 3y ago
  And ads is the one line of business that is growing. All of the privacy and app tracking restrictions conveniently relate to them having all of the tracking data and third parties not having it. Your data is "private", to everyone except Apple. This is the reason Apple is violently opposing any software coming from sources they don't control. The way the DMA was written is a convoluted joke. It could have been a lot simpler: hardware device makers shouldn't be able to block third party software. A more extreme case could prevent companies over a certain size from manufacturing hardware and the operating system.
  - elevatedastalt 3y ago
    Then Apple would simply say they are not blocking third party software from their hardware (iPhones), they are just blocking it from running on their software (iOS). Making a law is inherently a messy job, if you think you can replace a 100 page document with 100 words, there's a good chance you are overlooking a lot of complexity.
chongli 3y ago
The issue for Apple is that their hardware business is slowing down due to market saturation. Their recent attempt at growth into a new hardware market (Vision Pro) seems like a huge dud. Their last successful new product was the Watch which at about 100 million sales in total is only half of a single year’s iPhone sales (and likely less profitable). So where do they go from here?
- api 3y ago
  They've tried becoming a bank (or banking reseller at least) with Apple Card which now has savings accounts and such. They're also apparently doing some AI work that could be interesting. But yeah, this is the real issue. Number must always go up and mobile is a saturated market now. They should do more acquisitions. Buy Anthropic for starters. Absolute no brainer. Make Claude the new Siri and roll out powerful on-device models too.
  - imglorp 3y ago
    More acquisitions? Why? They're already a $3 trillion company. As parent comments say, they have saturated the market, maxed out the app store at the expense of good will, and are engaged in a duopoly spiral with Alphabet. How long will "number go up"? Until the planet is piled up to space in paperclips?
- layer8 3y ago
  They may have to realize that unlimited growth is simply not possible.
  - hn_version_0023 3y ago
    It works for cancer, at least until the patient dies.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    Can't sell more iPhones - only option is casino games for children!
- 3y ago
elevatedastalt 3y ago
Dunno why you are being downvoted. Regardless of what one thinks of Apple charging 30% tax on their dominion, the fact that it's now become a sort of dependency is correct. Governments have the same problem. Once you start taxing, it becomes hard to give up the revenue stream.

Eric_WVGG 3y ago

I just don't understand what Apple expects out of the situation at this point. What's the best-case scenario here, that the EU will say "yeah that checks out" and let Apple have their way after all? This is going to backfire horribly.

pulse7 3y ago
Apple just prepared the ground for the next billion dollar EU fine...
- codedokode 3y ago
  Maybe US govt will protect Apple?
  - dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
    Maybe. But it feels like the sentence is formulated in a wrong way in this context, it should be, "Maybe US govt will help Apple to continue to screw its customers".
notaustinpowers 3y ago
The only thing I can think of is that Apple is trying to do whatever it can to continue to generate income from developers to make sure its quarterly reports look good until it has another plan. In 2023, they processed $89.3bn in IAP, a 2.8% increase from 2022. Their top-grossing app was TikTok with $1.9bn in IAP. At a 30% split that's $520m to Apple. And that's just from one app that doesn't really push IAP as egregiously as games like Fortnite. I think Apple is trying to ensure a new product cough Apple Vision Pro cough to offset losses from the alternative app stores. They know the EU won't ever allow them to do what they're currently doing to "comply" with the DMA. But all they have to do is stonewall long enough to Vision Pro or some new service/product/etc to replace the revenue lost from the DMA. A company failing to meet revenue goals due to governmental compliance? No investor wants to take that sort of gamble, their stock would take a massive hit.

oldpersonintx 3y ago

[dead]

jmole 3y ago

Couldn't agree more. I think the iPhone 15 Pro may be my last iPhone. Apple's entire reaction to the DMA has left an incredibly bad taste in my mouth. I used to think these were my devices, but Apple has been making it crystal clear lately that they consider them to be their devices. "We own the customer" is the new mantra of Apple. Maybe it was always that way, with the iPod and iTunes, etc. Thankfully I've never felt that way when using a Mac.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dzhiurgis 3y ago
What you gonna use tho? I've been degoogling and pooling most of services like email to iCloud for a while now. Should I just get rid of smartphone altogether?
- burningChrome 3y ago
  There are other options. I switched last year to a slightly older Android phone running Graphene OS and have been using that but have realized there are drawbacks to doing that. Depending on what carrier you have, you can also check out some of the other Chinese imports that are competing well with Samsung and Apple. A lot of people I know are just using a personal cloud storage with their phones and just offloading their stuff there which is pretty easy to set up. Hell, even Microsoft OneDrive is easy to set up syncing with. iCloud is just one solution for backup and storage these days.
burningChrome 3y ago
>> but Apple has been making it crystal clear lately that they consider them to be their devices. This is a great point. The thing that sucks is the market is down to two main phone companies - Apple and Samsung. Unless you're on a carrier where some of the import phones like Xiomi or ZTE work, we're all stuck between two companies who increasingly are abusing their positions in the market because they can. Apple seems not to care any more about customer sentiment and does things more so for the bottom line than anything else right now. I guess that's what we should've expected when the guy who ran the supply side of the company with an iron fist gets promoted to CEO.

Zambyte 3y ago

The fact that Apple (the 3rd party in the interaction between you and the developer) has a say at all in what people do with their computers at all is already egregious. I couldn't imagine letting someone else control my computers like that.

ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
It's enough of an issue where I honestly don't understand how a single user on a site called 'hacker'news could be okay with it. Imagine if you couldn't run software of your choosing on Windows either. And the only way to publish an app on Windows was to agree to give Microsoft 30% of everything. That's the exact behavior your enabling by using Apple products.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  The thing is, we all have laptops within our vicinity most of the time. The people who are really affected by these policies are the normal people who don’t own computers. For many people their phone is their one and only computing device. Especially for kids, if I had grown up with only an iPhone I doubt I would have become a programmer.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

redder23 3y ago

No offense but if this is what broke the camel's back for you then you seem like live in a different planet.