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No there isn’t. I’ve said this a million times before, but usually just downvoted: this is about reducing support costs, not increasing revenue from lock-in. Th

No there isn’t. I’ve said this a million times before, but usually just downvoted: this is about reducing support costs, not increasing revenue from lock-in. This is not a theory, I’ve sat in meetings at Cupertino and been told first hand. Support is very expensive. Say what you want about Apple, but they provide absolutely stellar support, especially with the stupidly inexpensive Apple Care insurance. This is only cost effective if they can make reasonable predictions about how their devices will behave in any given scenario. Interfacing Apple hardware with non-certified (MFi, BLE, etc) third party hardware has a non-trivial risk of unpredictability high support costs, either from excessive Apple Care claims, customer support communications, or just overloading the Genius Bar. Reducing support cost could easily explain the motivation of the entire walled garden if they are sufficiently high.

pbhjpbhj 11mo ago
They couldn't just write (and make people aware at point of sale, ofc) 'no support for using devices with non-Apple Computers products' into Apple Care. They had to purposely break compatibility?
bubblethink 11mo ago
That's tautological. Everything that is not supported is so because supporting it has a cost. The question is what is the cost? It seems quite obvious that the marginal revenue from airpods would be overshadowed by the revenue of getting a user in the ecosystem.
- fingerlocks 11mo ago
  Customer support costs are higher at Apple than its competitors, because they provide a better support experience. This is not a tautology, it’s one of their core value propositions
- rangestransform 11mo ago
  Having to test the AirPods with more standards compliant devices, having to waste time to tell customers to fuck off if their phone/laptop/toaster is not standards compliant, having to waste engineering time to investigate non compliant aliexpress phones/laptops/toasters, wasting time to implement additional functionality for Apple customers because it has to go into the spec first
  - bubblethink 11mo ago
    Yes, all that is a part of the cost equation, which points to the same thing, namely, that $200-$300 widgets are not worth selling to the general public; they would rather sell them to a customer who will spend a lot more in the ecosystem. Same as razors and blades or consoles and games.

pbhjpbhj 11mo ago

They couldn't just write (and make people aware at point of sale, ofc) 'no support for using devices with non-Apple Computers products' into Apple Care. They had to purposely break compatibility?

bubblethink 11mo ago

That's tautological. Everything that is not supported is so because supporting it has a cost. The question is what is the cost? It seems quite obvious that the marginal revenue from airpods would be overshadowed by the revenue of getting a user in the ecosystem.

fingerlocks 11mo ago
Customer support costs are higher at Apple than its competitors, because they provide a better support experience. This is not a tautology, it’s one of their core value propositions
rangestransform 11mo ago
Having to test the AirPods with more standards compliant devices, having to waste time to tell customers to fuck off if their phone/laptop/toaster is not standards compliant, having to waste engineering time to investigate non compliant aliexpress phones/laptops/toasters, wasting time to implement additional functionality for Apple customers because it has to go into the spec first
- bubblethink 11mo ago
  Yes, all that is a part of the cost equation, which points to the same thing, namely, that $200-$300 widgets are not worth selling to the general public; they would rather sell them to a customer who will spend a lot more in the ecosystem. Same as razors and blades or consoles and games.