Apple Should Align Its Corporate Behavior with Its Stated Values
More so than any other tech giant (Google’s fading “Don’t be evil” slogan notwithstanding), Apple has built its brand over the years around being a good corporate citizen. Apple has long espoused a commitment to user experience, privacy, environmental stewardship, and social responsibility, touting its attention to detail in product design, its sustainability efforts, and its focus on accessibility.
Apple’s version of “Don’t be evil” is “Leave the world better than we found it.” Tim Cook opened the most recent earnings call with “We are as dedicated as ever to the innovation and ingenuity that will enrich our customers’ lives and help us leave the world better than we found it.” Apple also promotes this theme among its developers—the Apple Stories page in the company’s Newsroom features stories about “creators, developers, and innovators leaving the world better than they found it.”
App Store Policy Disconnect
The problem lies in the contradiction between Apple’s publicly stated values and the corporate behavior exposed in the April 2025 ruling from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Epic v. Apple antitrust lawsuit. Although Apple largely prevailed in the original case back in September 2021, the court took exception to Apple’s anti-steering policies (see “Judge Rules for Apple over Epic Games, Strikes Down App Store Anti-Steering Policies,” 13 September 2021).
Under the original App Store policies, developers were required to process all in-app purchases through Apple and pay a 30% fee, with no option to direct users to external payment systems or even mention their existence. (Apple dropped the fee to 15% for small developers who earn less than $1 million per year and for the second and subsequent years of subscriptions; see “Developers v. Apple: Outlining Complaints about the App Store,” 13 August 2020.) In the initial ruling, Gonzalez Rogers issued an injunction requiring Apple to allow linking to external payment systems.
Reluctant Compliance
Apple complied in the most grudging manner possible, instituting significant limitations on how the links were displayed, making developers apply for specific entitlements, and requiring a 27% (12% for small developers) fee anyway. Since credit card fees alone make it impossible to process a payment for less than 3%, there was no financial benefit to sidestepping Apple’s in-app purchase system. Only a handful of developers did—the latest ruling notes that, as of May 2024, just 34 of 136,000 App Store developers applied for the external payment program.
In the most recent injunction, Gonzalez Rogers found Apple to be in willful violation of the 2021 injunction, closing with:
This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases
This time, Apple’s compliance took the form of new App Store rules that allow linking to external payment systems without any entitlements or restrictions. Well-known developers like Spotify, Kindle, and Patreon quickly issued updates featuring such links, and payment processor Stripe provided instructions for iOS developers.
However, Apple also promptly filed an emergency motion for a partial stay pending appeal, so the case will move to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which may or may not agree that Gonzalez Rogers overstepped by forcing Apple to eliminate all fees.
The Costs of Prioritizing Profit over Partnerships
The problem here isn’t just recalcitrant legal compliance. It’s one thing for Apple to exert tight control over the App Store ecosystem in ways that legitimately serve users, such as by detecting and rejecting malicious apps. However, it’s difficult to see how users benefit when Apple charges high fees and restricts how developers can communicate. Those are just a few of the complaints developers have with the App Store, many of whom feel trapped in a system that prioritizes Apple’s profits over collaborative partnership.
That tension is increasingly undermining Apple’s reputation. In the eyes of many developers and a growing number of users, the same company that claims to be a champion of creativity and innovation is behaving more like a Gilded Age robber baron. Those roles aren’t always mutually exclusive—Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt combined monopolistic business practices with genuine social contributions—but with the kind of profits Apple is pulling in, the disconnect between the company’s narrative and its behavior is unnecessary and unhelpful.
To be clear, Apple is not obligated to be generous—it’s a business, not a charity. But by treating developers as resources to be exploited, Apple risks tarnishing its positive contributions to society. More concretely, sales could suffer if Apple’s public reputation becomes that of a sullen bully that has to be forced by the courts to behave reasonably. As the precipitous drop in Tesla sales has shown, consumers can react negatively to corporate behavior even when it’s completely separate from an otherwise desirable product.
A Better Path Forward
Apple’s resistance to adhering to the spirit of the original injunction backfired. Instead of cutting its 30% fee to 27% for those using external payment systems, had Apple dropped it to 10%, developers would have had a real choice between paying more for Apple’s frictionless transactions or paying less and doing more work for a more complex user experience. Epic’s appeal would have had far less of a leg to stand on, and Apple would have faced competitive pressure to encourage further improvements.
Although this most recent injunction is entirely self-inflicted, I don’t think Apple should be forced to allow developers to use external payment systems for free. Apple does provide real value to developers with its development tools, operating system APIs, and the App Store itself, and it’s reasonable for Apple to benefit from creating and maintaining that ecosystem. But not to the tune of 30%, which I’ve always considered ridiculous—over a decade ago, our payment processing fees for Take Control were less than 10% for a full-fledged ecommerce solution. If Apple is lucky, the appeals court will agree and allow a reasonable percentage.
In “Staying the Course After 35 Years of TidBITS” (18 April 2025), I wrote:
I encourage you to align your actions with your values in a way that feels right to you. When the path forward seems unclear, I believe we can best contribute by modeling the behavior we want to see in the world. How we conduct business on an everyday basis matters.
I’m disappointed in Apple’s behavior throughout the Epic case. Rather than come off as truculent and money-grubbing, Apple could have extended the culture of excellence and care that’s so evident in its hardware and interface design to the people who make the apps that power its devices.
Much of the appeal of the Apple ecosystem stems from the creative and innovative work of tens of thousands of developers who create apps for audiences that Apple doesn’t even know exist. Apple itself will say just that at WWDC in less than a month. But will it start treating developers as valued partners who are essential to the ecosystem?
Apple is one of the most profitable companies in history. It can afford to be better, and I would argue that any short-term reduction in profit would more than pay off in the long run. If Apple truly wants to leave the world better than it found it, now is the time to align its behavior toward developers with the rest of the company’s stated values.
Could not agree more. Your points are but only a few that could be made in this subject (ie. Right To Repair, etc.)
My feelings about Apple have gone from seeing them as a company and platform that was truly innovative, inclusive and permitted greater creative freedom (in a sense). They employed useful, powerful software designs, promoted and mostly adhered to standards.
In recent years I have seen incredible talent be ignored or even driven out of Apple (not to say there are not talented, brilliant people still there). Apple continuously performs the Big Corporation dance of PR spin while doing almost the opposite behind the scenes. It reminds me of Facebook, Google and numerous others who paved the path.
Now it seems Apple is wholly focused on locking people into their system and presenting the illusion of choice while wringing every cent out of their customers on products/services that may not deliver or be supported.
Ethics, morals, future of human existence be damned.
I used to love the company and what it created. Now I find myself disappointed on an almost weekly (if not daily) basis. It makes me genuinely sad.
I, too, was shocked and disappointed by Apple’s response to the injunction. Until then, I thought a lot of Apple’s decisions were justifiable, or at least could be rationalized, but that struck me as juvenile and petty.
There are costs not just for developers. My younger son started writing software in middle school and he’s done some pretty innovative things since. He wrote a couple of simple iOS apps back in the day, but decided that the barriers to publishing any apps for iOS were more than he was willing to tackle. He has focused on FOSS software since and – as far as I know – hasn’t considered doing anything for iOS. How many other talented developers with innovative ideas just skip the iOS space altogether? We may never know.
Please explain what this is.
My apologies. Clearly I’m too deep into it.
FOSS = free and open source software
There are a lot of FOSS products for macOS, fewer for iOS because of the barriers, but it’s mostly concentrated in the Linux space.
Regretfully, I have to agree with Adam’s every point, and I’m speaking as a retiree who owes a preponderance of my nest egg to a tiny but but well-timed early investment in Apple stock while working for a small Apple developer. I was using an Apple ][e at the time… I sold most of my Apple stock when I grew too concerned with the potential for disaster related to Apple’s ever-expanding reliance on the good graces of the Chinese oligarchy, but still expect more from Cook & co. than we are getting. Come on, Tim- show some spine! It’s not ALL about money, or shouldn’t be…
And they do. Every time they sell an iPhone and rake in 35+% profit, that is where they benefit from iOS and the App Store ecosystem.
Developers make the App Store what it is, they make it valuable and they through their apps create the “ecosystem”. If you’re a supposedly well-meaning behemoth like Apple, you don’t go squeeze the very people creating the system that allows you to charge $1k for a cell phone others only get to charge $600 for.
I don’t have an objection to the ballpark 10% @ace suggests. But this shallow narrative of “Apple must be allowed to make a profit” to justify their continued juicing of developers must end.
Apple already makes an insane amount of money from iPhones (which is legitimate when they as a hardware company make great kit) and then again when they charge for iCloud (which iPhone customers likely need because 5GB in 2025 frankly sucks). And they make even more when they then sell those iPhone buyers all their other “services”. Point is, they make plenty without milking their developers — exhibit A would be their market cap or their recent earnings call.
Claiming that on top of all of that profit they should also be free to extort their devs to their liking is just unchecked greed. Even as a stockholder, I’m glad a federal judge has called them on this BS and not minced words when it came to their contempt and obstructionism. I would have liked to see Apple as eager to follow US federal court rulings as they are when it comes to kowtowing to the Chinese communist dictatorship.
I agree and to me it seems that it really started accelerating down this path after 2011.
Odd, I don’t remember you calling this behavior “disappointing” in the past. And claiming that it was "exposed in the April 2025 ruling” is obviously not right, as you have clearly known how they responded “in the most grudging manner possible” for a long time. Maybe I just missed your previous articles calling out Apple for this disappointing behavior, but from my memory it seems like you reserved judgment until the judge decided against Apple.
It’s not free to use an external payment system. You pay the other company. The competitor to Apple. What you’re saying is that Apple should be allowed to charge developers at every step of the way to making money themselves. First they must buy an Apple computer to build the app and at least one iPhone and probably iPad for testing. Then they must pay a developer fee. Then they must pay a percentage of their own profits to Apple. What percentage of TidBits’ profits get paid to Apple?
At the start of the app store, 30% was perfectly reasonable, because most software was distributed on physical media in retail stores - where there are several layers of near-100% markup. Between the cuts taken by the retailer, wholesaler and publisher, an author would receive far far less than 70% of the retail price.
So Apple charging 30% was a great deal. Then.
But today, where most software is distributed electronically, and there are many different distribution channels charging a wide variety of prices, it’s no longer so easy to make that claim.
Just some thoughts from an old Capitalist…
• Developers ARE a resource to be exploited. When they are conscripted and forced to produce, we’ll talk again.
• A corporation has no more “social responsibility” than anyone else. They are free to promote, ignore or suppress any aspect of the society in which they operate within the constraints of applicable law.
• Apple should tell the European Union to hang their fines and mandates in their collective ear. Apple could afford the $ hit. Their stockholders wouldn’t like it but they are free to liquidate their holdings in protest.
• Michael Jordan was once asked why so few know his political bent. He replied, “Republicans also buy shoes.”
TidBITS’ “profits”? What are you smoking?
The only point of yours I have an issue with is the idea that companies have no more social responsibility than anyone else. While this is technically true, it is equally true that corporations have no less social responsibility than anyone else. Being part of a society confers rights and benefits, but also demands responsibilities to the rest of society in exchange. TANSTAAFL isn’t just about money.
The fact that “classic” capitalism has openly and gratuitously rejected social responsibility for a very long time has no bearing on whether doing so was good for either business or society. Many modern companies now recognize that actively bearing social responsibility is good for both business and society, and their bottom lines reflect that.
Capitalism beyond small-scale barter requires civilization. Civilization creates society. The stability of civilization depends upon the stability of society, and vice versa. Business cannot thrive without either, and thereby it owes a debt to the civilization and society that has enabled its existence.
I don’t think Apple’s App Store developer fees are beyond the pale — when competitors like Google (30% fees on Google Play Store app sales and in-app purchases), Microsoft (12% platform fee for software sales on- or off-platform, 30% commission on Xbox Store digital game sales), Sony (30% platform fee on PlayStation Store digital sales), and Nintendo (30% fee for hosting games on Nintendo eShop) do the same. Alternative app stores like Amazon’s, Samsung’s, and others charge developers roughly the equivalent fees — and developers pay licensing fees to Microsoft, Sony, etc., even when their software is sold off a GameStop shelf.
When any of these platforms support alternate PSPs at all, it’s outside the EU
I have yet to hear anyone explain satisfactorily why Apple alone should be subject to this court order, or why a response to the court order that follows the industry standard was such an egregious violation, or even unfair — and I won’t be surprised if Apple wins its appeal.
When the App Store was first conceived, it was a different world. The Apple purchase system and 70% commission was genius. It made buying on mobile simple, safe, and easy. Keep in mind that prior to that most mobile purchases were either added to your cellular bill via your provider (who took a huge commission), or you were kicked out to a website where you handed over your credit card info to some stranger. That was a lot of hassle. App sales would have never taken off it that’s how we had to process payments.
Back then Apple was justly concerned that without strict rules developers would try to do an end-run around their purchase system. This was especially true when they added in-app purchasing. That changed the game. Before that developers didn’t have a problem giving Apple 30% because the Store brought them the customer. With in-app purchases, the developer already had the customer: it was repeat business, and with each transaction giving Apple a 30% cut, it started to hurt.
Then came free apps. If you recall, when in-app purchases first started, they could only be used in paid apps. Free apps were totally free with no subsequent charges. Apple didn’t want to get into the bait-and-switch thing.
But in a race to the bottom, eventually every app became free and would monetize via ads or in-app purchase add-ons. And once that happened, resentment of Apple’s cut began.
Apple’s problem is they haven’t changed. They still see themselves as entitled to that cut. They do deserve something for creating the Store, the APIs, the dev tools, the purchase system, etc. But 30% of all purchases forever from a free download is a bit much.
In-App should have been 10% at the start. It wasn’t, and Apple had to create draconian rules to stop developers from sending customers to the web to do their own processing. If it had been 10% no one would have bothered.
I still think Apple’s in-app purchase system is amazing. I vastly prefer it to the hassle of setting up an account on a site and giving them my credit card. (In the same way, I will often go buy a company’s products on Amazon instead of their own website, simply because I already have an Amazon account and buying there is easy.) I think if Apple competed on a level-playing field, in-app would win. Most users still wouldn’t use a website even if the cost was cheaper.
At least that was true at one point. I’m not sure if it is any more. There’s a backlash now that Apple is greedy and everyone knows about the commissions Apple takes on purchases. If they’d started it out the right way with customers being able to choose app dev’s website or in-app, Apple would have won. Now, I think some customers would go to the web just to avoid Apple. Web purchasing has gotten easier, too. Things like Stripe and Shopify and Amazon Pay mean you can easily checkout without an account.
I’m sure Apple’s legal team is pushing for them to win this court case. It’s possible they will. On a technical level they have the right. No one forces Walmart to post signs in their store that items are cheaper on Amazon. And Walmart definitely wouldn’t allow a product box on their shelf to proclaim, “Buy this for 20% less on Amazon!” That is what Apple is being forced to do. The Store is their shelf space and allowing developers to advertise cheaper prices elsewhere is outrageous.
However, what is the cost of “winning” this case? Already we are seeing the ability to buy Kindle books from within the Kindle app (the inability I’ve never been able to explain to my mom). If Apple wins, will Apple force developers to roll back these changes and shut the web purchase doors? Consumers won’t like that.
It would be far better if Apple would just redesign the Store to suit the current reality. Cut all commissions to 10% and compete fairly with web purchases and watch people stay with Apple and use their in-app purchases. This would appease regulators, too. If Apple does anything else, it will drive customers and developers away. Getting 10% is better than nothing. As they’re always saying on Shark Tank, 5% of a watermelon is better than 50% of a grape.
Is this a free market argument? Let’s say a developer chooses to create an iOS application but (free market!) bypass the Apple App Store and distribute their application with code that allows users to install it on their devices, what happens? Well, if they persist, then government agents can show up WITH GUNS and fine them half a million dollars and put them in prison for five years (Digital Millenium Copyright Act, Section 1201).
Apple’s monopoly on iOS application distribution – indeed, their monopolistic market share for smartphones – isn’t a result of free market forces but rather the direct result of government intervention that distorts those markets. To show up after the fact and say “but Apple can charge whatever they want because… FREE MARKET!!” is a double standard at best.
Nah. That analogy oversimplifies and misrepresents the situation. Apple isn’t a physical retailer like Walmart — it’s a platform provider, more akin to a landlord renting digital space. Developers aren’t asking Apple to list their products for free while sending customers elsewhere to pay. They’re asking for the option to point users to an external checkout, especially when Apple takes up to 30% of revenue on in-app purchases.
A better analogy would be if a mall landlord required every store to give them a 30% cut of every sale made anywhere, even if the customer just found the product at the store and later bought it directly from the brand’s website. That’s not about fairness, it’s monopolistic behavior. Especially here in the US where Apple is basically 58% of the smartphone market with only a single other serious competitor (who incidentally, in Apple’s wake, uses the same abusive system).
This most recent ruling is about giving developers more freedom, encouraging competition, and giving consumers more choice. Apple still benefits from hosting the app on the App Store, but it shouldn’t control how every dollar flows after that. They can make their generous profits on iPhone sales, and iCloud, Music, TV, etc. Not by milking devs.
A friend wants to make a general uninstaller app. He applied for the special entitlement that is needed for such an app and he was denied the entitlement without any reason given. There isn’t even the possibility to appeal. He has been a developer for 40 years now. This is what Apple is now.
Changing corporate culture is hard. I don’t think this will happen with the current set of C-Suite. Like all of them. And they need some more hits from the courts. Also bribery is not a misdemeanor so that Timmy should be out anyways.
As I have said many times, greed is a cancer that is destroying human society bit by bit. Regrettably, Apple is not immune to the effects of this terrible pestilence.
I am a little tired of the complaints by developers. They are price takers and not price setters because they depend on Apple distribution infrastructure and end use devices. Most would not exist but for Apple and its pipelines. They are freeloaders.
I don’t bother trolling through the Apple app store any more because most of the apps on sale are basic, derivative, unimagative and repetitive. These days, few developers and their apps have any class or distinction. It would be good if Apple could cleanse the app store of bottom feeders. That said, it would be good if Apple could lift the quality of its own application software.
But Apple has handled these issues with its app store in such a hamfisted way that leaves one to think that an improvement in the quality of its people handling these matters is long overdue. Apple should have been steadily reducing its fee over the years because such a move has been long warranted from a business as well as legal strategy.
It is bemusing that US judges are as ‘socialist’ as those EU bureaucrats.
In terms of being a good corporate citizen, Apple’s good citizenship only extends to the US; it never donates to charities and causes outside the US despite earning profits in the ROW.
I have the minority view. I think that Apple created the iPhone, iOS, and the App Store, and should be allowed to run it the way they want. Perhaps they should lower their 30% cut, but I don’t think that they should be forced to by courts.
There’s justification for the no-steering rule. Apple doesn’t charge for apps that are free to download in the App Store. If it were not for the no-steering rule, any app could just be free in the App Store, and then direct user to pay for it elsewhere – and then Apple wouldn’t get their cut. Which again, you may argue the merits of whether Apple deserves a cut, but it’s Apple’s store and they make the rules.
What developers such as Epic want is like if I walked into a Walmart or Target and put a bunch of my products on their shelves, with notes that say “Just take, walk out of the store, and pay me for it directly at www.stiff-walmart.com.”
No. Apple always gets their cut.
That free app developer you mention needed to buy a Mac in order to develop iOS apps. That’s where Apple gets their first cut.
Then that free app dev needs to pay Apple $99/year every year for the privilege of gifting the App Store with their work, the free app. That’s another cut Apple gets.
There is a vast amount of expensive infrastructure and development that goes into the public APIs and documentation developers need, the Xcode development environment, the App Store itself (massive data centers that require huge ongoing expenses), hundreds or thousands of developer-focused employees, credit card fees, international tax calculations, and much more. Paying $99 per year and buying a device or two doesn’t begin to address the per-developer cost of all that work.
Long ago, being a developer was a far more expensive proposition, requiring developer accounts that cost thousands of dollars per year, and WWDC was similarly expensive. I think it’s good that Apple has vastly lowered the cost of entry, so you don’t have to be rich to become a developer, but it does affect the business model.
As others have said, the App Store is anything but a free market. It’s a highly controlled market, with all the advantages and disadvantages inherent in that.
I don’t think anybody is arguing that. The point was to refute the incorrect to claim that “Apple wouldn’t get a cut”. They clearly do get a cut and they will continue to do so.
Now if that cut is sufficient to cover their App Store cost or if it should be, is an entirely different question.
I will state that if devs stopped developing for the App Store, the ecosystem would likely collapse and iPhone would have no future. Hence, these days (not historically, but now certainly), it is not unreasonable to consider that Apple providing tools for iOS development and running a market place for curation and distribution is simply their marketing expense to ensure that devs keep developing so their ecosystem stays attractive and healthy. Sales of iOS devices in 2024 garnered Apple ~$90B in profit — I’d argue such marketing expense is thus quite well spent money.
But that’s not what Apple does. Apple has never made a dime off my Netflix subscription, for instance, which I established decades before the App Store existed.
With the “external linking” privileges Apple established (that the judge ruled against) Apple did want to take a cut of any external purchases for one week after the customer left the app, but that is a customer that was discovered via the app (i.e. the customer saw the product at the mall and the mall owner wants a cut even if the customer bought the item elsewhere). Similar, but much more limited than what you’re describing.
(I also think Apple’s plan was nuts, but it wasn’t meant to be a valid system. It was meant to cause so much friction no developer would use it, and it worked.)
And that’s exactly why Apple deserves a cut…they’re paying for the store. 30% is too much…but 0% is too little.
Since Google and MS do essentially the same thing…it’s either legal or illegal for all of them and Apple should not be singled out. Most users and devs would probably happily pay 10% to eliminate the hassle and cost of running their own payment system.
Apple from the beginning always believed it knew best – that often led it to great achievements (especially under Jobs). It’s also gotten it into trouble at times (“You’re holding it the wrong way”) and this is a pretty classic example. Trying to play silly games with a judge is almost always going to get one into deep water very quickly and it seems to have here (especially the Apple exec who may have perjured themselves).
Having said that, these conversations about Apple as bad actor frequently (and do so here) elide the interests of consumers and developers, with the interests of the latter being taken to be the interests of both groups. That seems to me to be badly wrong. I’m a consumer and I don’t care if developers feel trapped in Apple’s ecosystem. I don’t care if they have to pay a cut of their revenues to Apple for access to the store. I don’t care if Apple’s vetting process for apps is sometimes arbitrary and slow-moving. My sense – from things like brand favorability ratings and rebuy preferences – is that the vast majority of consumers similarly don’t care.
I do care that the App Store has made installing software incredibly easy. I do care that software prices have dropped massively since the App Store premiered. I do care that there is a (if imperfect) safety check on the apps I can download.
I care about things that affect me as a consumer; I’d rather not be recruited against my will into a technical and legal discussion between Apple and its developers.
I’d suggest that Apple already includes its corporate behavior in its marketing whenever it trumpets its greenhouse gas reductions or uses of recyclable materials. That’s fine, but if Apple wants consumers to think more highly of the company because of these actions, it’s appropriate to point out that consumers should also consider that the company is acting like a bully in its relationship with developers and like a spoiled child in its dealings with the courts.
And I do so with the hope, likely futile, that Apple will clean up its behavior so that marketing itself as a good corporate citizen would be accurate across the board.
The “not getting drafted into an argument” point applies as much to Apple as it does to developers.
@glennf echoes some of what I’m saying over at Six Colors.
@John_Gruber also covered this from a similar perspective at Daring Fireball.
I agree completely, but the one aspect of this controversy that does affect me as consumer is in buying digital media. Amazon, for example, can’t offer Kindle books via in-app purchasing if there’s a 30% Apple commission involved as that would consume Amazon’s entire profit (Amazon is the middle-man to the publisher and only takes a 30% cut they’ve have to give to Apple).
Now that Amazon can legally direct kindle users to buy Kindle books on the web, it makes getting books much easier (though not as easy as using iOS In-App purchasing).
But even this is changing, though only on a case-by-case agreement: I recently was able to buy an Audible audiobook with In-App purchasing, so Apple and Amazon have negotiated some kind of a deal where Apple takes a smaller cut. I haven’t seen that in the Kindle App yet, but maybe that’s coming.
I’m sure the developers (or their employers) care, because they set the prices and Apple takes a cut from there.
Most users, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. They pay a price for a product and don’t care who gets what percentage of that price.
When I buy a pack of toilet paper at a retail store, I don’t care how much of that cost goes to the store, vs. the manufacturer’s profit margin vs. the salaries of the employees working in the factory. I simply look for the best price.
Not surprised to be aligned in thought here! I didn’t like the “27% solution” they had come up with, but I was surprised about how bad I felt after reading what they did in private (according to the judge’s order). Big sea change for us all.
Sure, and I agree that that affects me as a consumer. But viewing it without the prism of “Apple’s failing to make the world better!” turns it into a minor annoyance rather than an earth-shaking revelation about the immorality of the six-colored pomme.
I have a 2018 Honda Accord. Honda decided – probably for financial reasons – not to have an HVAC vent in the back seat area, which means when someone is back there, you have to crank the heat / cold up to massive levels for their comfort. This causes the front seat occupants some problems. They are being blasted either by hot or cold air on its way to the back. It’s quite annoying and I wish Honda hadn’t done it that way. I do not, however, think it worth an anguished and lengthy conversation over many web sites about how Honda is Turning Evil.
Another bit from Daring Fireball on treating developers as partners, not suppliers.
Apple doesn’t provide those things so the App developers can make money. They provide those things so that apps will exist for their devices. Otherwise nobody would buy an iPhone. It’s absurd to claim that Developers somehow “owe" Apple for providing those things.
Indeed.
Great article.
At the iPhone announcement, Apple said nothing about third-party apps, and at WWDC in June 2007, Steve Jobs was pushing Web apps.
Who knows if Apple had a different plan than Jobs said all along, but there was developer outcry at the time, and it took until October for the company to reverse course and announce an SDK.
And that was after Apple sold 1 million iPhones in 74 days, which was huge at the time. So it’s not at all clear that native apps and an App Store were necessary for the success of the iPhone. Obviously, the App Store changed things tremendously, but it was only one of the ways things could have gone.
We’re not talking about 2007. We’re talking about 2025. Android exists. Smartphones are a category.
True or false, Apple cannot continue selling iPhones without providing developers tools to write apps?
And for that matter, true or false, Apple added native app tooling for developers so that it could sell more iPhones?
Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Back in the “old days”, Apple sold developer tools (compilers, IDEs, documentation, etc.). As did everybody else. And there were third-party developer tools for those who didn’t like Apple’s tools. Many here will be familiar with terms like MPW, Lightspeed/THINK C and Code Warrior - the major commercial developer kits at the time.
At some point in the 90’s and early 2000’s, with the rise of major open source projects, including Linux and its development tools like the GCC compiler suite, users started using free development tools. Initially on various Unix/Linux platforms, and later on everything else as different teams ported those tools to other platforms.
By the time Mac OS X was released, everybody, including Apple was using these free tools (initially GCC, later Clang) with custom tools (IDEs, UI editors, etc) built around them.
By that point, there was really no option but to give away the developer tools for free, because most developers had gotten used to free availability of high quality tools. Apple knew that if they would charge money for the developer tools, most developers would simply use third-party tools, which (rightly or wrongly) Apple assumed would be of inferior quality.
By the time iOS came around, the die was cast and Apple would never consider charging for developer tools and docments.
Apple would lose most of the market if they started blocking third-party software. But I don’t think that’s the same as if they would resume charging money for developer tools.
As long as there is suitable documentation, there will be third-party developer tools, and therefore there will be third-party apps developed with those tools.
Of course, many developers may decide to leave the platform on principle. But it’s all moot, because it isn’t going to happen. The entire software industry worldwide relies on free developer tools and that isn’t going to change any time soon.
But I’m pretty sure you literally cannot do what used to be possible: use third-party tools to build the software. I’ve read enough developers complaining about being forced to buy a Mac in order to release software on iOS, that I’m pretty sure it’s true.
I’m sure this is more due to the fact that Apple is giving away a high quality development suite, so there is no viable business case for a third party to develop a competing suite.
Xcode has several integrations for code signing and submitting content to the App Store, and it may require reverse-engineering a few things in order to do it through a different mechanism, but ultimately everything boils down to an ARM64 compiler, system headers and shared libraries.
As for having to buy a Mac, that’s probably more because you need the system headers and shared libraries - which nobody can redistribute without violating Apple’s copyrights.
I suspect a third party could make a developer suite running on a Mac. You can already compile your own copy of GCC (via MacPorts, for example) and use that to build apps. If you’re trying to make an app that uses a lot of Mac-specific system services, you’ll be making your life a lot more difficult than necessary, but it should work.
On the other hand, if you’re trying to make a cross-building suite, to compile a Mac app from a Linux or Windows PC, that’s a different story. You can compile the ARM64 code, and you can even get a Swift language compiler, but you won’t have the Mac system headers and libraries available. Someone would have to perform a clean room design project to generate them without stepping on Apple’s copyrights. And continue to update them with each macOS update. Technically possible, but so much work that I doubt anybody would ever make a serious attempt.
You can use third-party tools to make iOS apps. I write about Xojo, which is a cross-platform development environment that supports Mac, Windows, Linux, Web, iOS, and Android. The tool itself has some limitations (it’s always improving), but that’s not on Apple.
However, you do need access to a Mac for signing the app for submission and distribution. With Xojo you can develop for iOS on other platforms, but the signing process has to be done on a Mac. Apple’s required signing tools only run on the Mac, which can make things a little more convoluted. (It’s basically fine for hobby work or the occasional need, but serious developers should have a Mac.)
We’re talking about iOS not MacOS apps.
My understanding is that it is impossible to sign the app to submit it to the App Store without a Mac. It’s not about the processor and so forth.
Actually, I think you could make an argument that Apple should PAY developers for their downloads. It’s great software that makes people buy the hardware, just like it always has been.
And yet that doesn’t actually seem to be true, given the mediocre nature of Apple’s own apps on iOS. In fact, it seems that great hardware is what sells, not great software.
In fact, given how terrible a lot of dominant software has been, I’m not sure you can defend that argument in any situation.
I’d say Apple would have to carefully and thoughtfully design such a program because it could easily be taken over by the same tactics, created by online advertising, that have made a lot of the Web a wasteland: content/app mills, influencers with conflicts of interest, click/download bots, search engine optimization, and spammers.
The compiler and linker were free because macOS is Unix based, and used the gcc compiler before switching to clang.
But on Windows, Microsoft’s development tools are still not free. Real Windows programmers use Visual Studio, which costs between $100 and $500 per month. Visual Studio Code won’t cut it, because that’s just an IDE over some compiler.
No…Apple isn’t owed by the devs for those things. However…they do cost Apple money and allow the devs to sell apps and make money. That makes it perfectly acceptable for Apple to make a commission from the devs. 30% is probably too high…but 0% is definitely too low.
Apple must balance their desire for a percentage with how much the store and developer tools cost them because Apple exists to make profits…we call that capitalism.
Completely agree. Though I understand that Tim Cook and the Board of Directors have a fiscal responsibility to shareholders, the Apple under Steve Jobs used to do that while also earning respect as an innovative company that values its customers and behaves responsibly. In my opinion, the corporate profit-over-people mentality has severely dinged the company’s reputation among many of its customers.
While I understand there are a lot of costs behind the scenes for something like the Apple Store, they are the ones who promoted and benefited tremendously from its existence, making them the powerhouse company they are now.
I do not have a lot of sympathy for mega-corporations that put their customers in a vice-grip of restrictions and then whine to the Press, Congress or the courts about how misunderstood they are and need special exemptions.
This particular point has been confirmed in numerous examples, such as developers having their apps removed from sale (taken down) with no reasoning or communication, or “reasons” that later prove to be automated processes in response to reports/claims that did not have any degree of investigation on Apple’s part. Those who do not have wealthy or celebrity friends often do not get help or answers.
Reminds me of Facebook.
Another example that comes to mind is internal email showing Apple executives seeming to exert personal directives against apps that happen to annoy them or do not make Apple enough revenue. One email from a previous legal case about the Apple Store had an exec angrily demanding employees pull an app that appeared on a weekly list and never allow it to show up again (sadly, the old link for this story is broken).
This was even before Apple instituted the requirements that apps be “maintained” or be pulled.
Those cases are out of how many? If the number of incorrect removals is a high percentage of the overall numbers, it’s one thing. If the number of incorrect removals is a low percentage, then it’s another. Apple says it rejected 1.7 million apps in 2023. Given that scale, I have to believe that there are always going to be incorrect rejections and (as a consumer) I’m willing to accept that side effect in the interest of greater security and protection. I like Apple’s vice grip. The interests of consumers and developers are not the same.
There’s interesting research that shows that Apple’s in-app purchase outperforms external payment systems when users are given an option. To my mind, that’s an indication that Apple would still do pretty well even with allowing external payments (as it does now) and competing on merit.
It’s a symptom of an old malady made much worse by our current technological environment.
There long has been a huge mismatch (usually) between the seemingly arbitrary and anonymous power of large organizations and the individuals they claim to serve.
In today’s tech world, even with an emphasis on “services”, the only things that seem incapable of scaling are actual service and support. We’ll see if AI helps or hurts in that world.
I agree with that. I think Apple offers a very nice system with obvious advantages. They may not want to (or be able to) do everything, but for the use case they cater to, they get it done very well. I think that is enough of a compelling proposition that they should have nothing to worry about. Let others take a crack at it. If anything, they can cover those fringe cases Apple doesn’t want to do. But for the stuff Apple already does, I’d wager for the vast majority of users their offering is sufficiently good, trustworthy, and convenient, people won’t even think about getting their stuff elsewhere. Apple doesn’t need to bar competitors, they and their existing system will do just fine even when facing a whole bunch of Sweeneys out there.
I recall reading a column back in the day where the writer suggested the relative success of Microsoft/Windows vs. Apple/Macintosh was because Microsoft behaved like an upstart company, catering to the needs of developers and customers, while Apple tended to take a monopolist’s take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Someone on the forum linked to a video where Steve Jobs felt Apple lost because it focused on profits rather than making great products. Those two takes complement each other.
After Jobs returned to Apple, he focused the company on again making great products, and we got the iPod and iPhone. Since his death, however, it feels to me like Apple’s primary focus shifted back to maximizing profits. Gruber linked to a blog post by John Siracusa expressing the same thoughts better than I can.
Apple and developers need each other. I just don’t understand why Apple thinks having an adversarial relationship with developers is a good thing.
Apple’s request for the injunction to be put on hold during the appeal was rejected.
Apple started sliding downhill and putting profit over the customer experience when Tim Cook took over. Money should be a tool to be used for good instead of a goal to continue to make even more.
Since he took over there seems to be a lack of serious creative innovation. Instead, it is incremental updates on existing technology. Most if not all of Apple’s base current products were either in production, testing, or on the drawing board when Steve Jobs was still alive.
I often remark to others that in my opinion, Tim Cooke is the John Scully of the 21 Century who is now making a reported 72 million dollars a year and uses the Apple corporate jet to go between corporate headquarters and his new $10 Million home in the LA area, tax deductible under the claim he needs to travel by private jet for security reasons. The Apple corporate jet is one of the fastest corporate jets in existence, almost reaching the speed of sound, which may indicate it is likey one of the most expensive.
Agree. That is pretty much what I was saying when I said it started after 2011. I was meaning after Steve passed away and wasn’t around to stop it.
For those claiming that Apple has lost its ability to innovate, I think that taking on cpu behemoth Intel - with its clumsy CISC architecture and corporate arrogance - and decisively beating them in the most important metric - performance per watt - was an extremely impressive feat. It started with the A4 and the year over year improvement of these ARM RISC chips that the brilliant chip designers at Apple created and if this is not innovation, I don’t know what is. Innovative design is also exhibited in the Vision Pro whose life is not over despite the pundits claiming otherwise. This is what excites me about Apple: basic brilliant hardware engineering that is far more important in my opinion than trendy things like AI.
That seems to me to be a bad rap on Cook. No one is Steve Jobs, but since Cook took over, Apple has pioneered the Watch, the Pencil, AirPods, AirTags, the Apple Polishing Cloth*, and the Apple Vision Pro. Those all strike me as pretty innovative. He also switched CPU architectures in way that saved Apple from Intel’s crash and burn. Those weren’t all successful (true of Jobs as well) but they do show someone who’s not just putting out slightly iterated versions of older products.
Steve Jobs’ corporate jet was one of the most expensive as well, and Apple gave it to him as a gift – but still continuing to pay operating expenses for its flying.
Note that Cook’s base salary is $3 million and the rest stock options or bonuses tied to performance. That’s exactly the structure that Jobs used (though Jobs, famously, took $1 in salary).
*Joke – though Jobs innovated with Apple Socks.
Fun fact: any Airbus or Boeing jet you or I fly on these days will “almost reach the speed of sound”. It is very typical these days to see IAS set to somewhere around Mach 0.82 (so within ~20% of the speed of sound) and up to 0.89 on large long-haul. And the airframe itself can go higher yet. That’s just the way modern jets with swept wings reach their high efficiencies. Does not indicate anything particularly swanky.
Funner fact: on flights in strong jet stream conditions these days your IFE can show your speed as appearing beyond the speed of sound (somewhere around 1200 km/h or 750 mph, depending on exact temp, pressure, humidity). When that happens, you are not actually traveling supersonic though. It’s just that the IFE displays speed over ground while speed in air is still well below but your aircraft is getting a strong push from aft due to prevailing winds. It’s the speed in air that governs the dynamics, so just because your speed over ground is super high doesn’t mean you’re traveling beyond the sound barrier. Still fun to see though.
100% agree with this. If anybody needs convincing that Apple can still innovate, they just need to look at the hardware. Apple has been absolutely killing it in Mac hardware. Nobody else can deliver as powerful and sleek a package right now as they can and those few that claim to have a good competing offer are usually hiding some massive compromise in one area or another they absolutely do not want to talk about.
I will say though that there seems to be a rift between hardware and software sides of the house. If Apple’s software were as reliable, well thought out, and polished as their Mac hardware, we’d be in a much better place.
I’d also be willing to concede that their hardware strength is not universal: while Mac and Apple silicon is absolutely killing it, iPhone IMHO has become by and large stagnant and, in fact, is these days not rarely playing catch-up with several substantially more aggressive handsets from others.
Your are current about the base salary but in total compensating it is now up to almost 75 million.
Apple Silicon was an extension of existing technology. It also comes with issues such as RAM cannot be added and if the chip fails or memory fails the entire motherboard or computer needs replacement. Currently other chip manufactures are also offering similar processors. Not only that, it in my opinion is not a true innovation. It is still a processor and history shows that since their introduction as technologies improve so do the processors. Just because they were first and had the resources to create an Apple Silicon processor does not rate in my book as true innovation, but just technological advancement. The downside of Apple Silicon are the millions of people not left out in the cold with Intel processors with perfectly functioning hardware powerful enough to run the current and much of the future updates if it was written to include Intel support.
It is my understanding from what I have read that the Apple corporate jet is perhaps the fastest private jet in production and is rated to fly at Mach .95
Uh, yes, and Steve Jobs pulled in $647 million in compensation in 2006 (on his $1 salary), while he was flying around in his Gulfstream jet.
So was/did Intel when Jobs switched to it.
It is my understanding that all the products you mentioned, other than perhaps the Apple Polishing Cloth which I assume is meant to be humorous, were on the drawing board, it testing phase, or conceived of when Steve Jobs was alive.
But the desktops like mine came with plugin processors and RAM that were both upgradeable and the Pro machines came with plugin GPU’s separate from the mother board which could be swapped out or repaired. This is unlike current Pro’s that require replacement of the motherboard or a new machine for upgrades despite a base price of $8,000. Steve Jobs also did not use the GulfStream for commuting to his home as it was primary used for business and marketing.
The reason for using non-replaceable ram has been discussed in several former threads. Briefly, it allows for the extreme memory bandwidth in the M-series Macs due to much shorter electrical paths than with socketed ram. I strongly support the performance advantages of this over the slight convenience of replaceable ram. The same holds for on-chip GPUs and unified memory.
While we are on the topic of CPU innovations, I think we can mention the use of two different core types - efficiency and performance - as a significant energy saving feature in portable devices. Particularly in laptops, I believe that Apple was first, though the competition seems to be (poorly) copying this.
Correct me if I am wrong, but with all the hype about AI, wasn’t Apple the first to have a neural processor (for machine learning and AI) in its phones and computers? (The A11 in 2017).
I’m an Apple shareholder and a shareholder in other publicly-held, multinational companies. Information about top-level compensation is readily available in annual reports and shareholder meeting proxy statements. Apple’s senior executive travel policies are the same as every other peer company. I’d say if anybody is to blame for the expenses of corporate aircraft and other perquisites, it is Boards of Directors because they approve pay packages and, most important, are supposed to represent the voice of the shareholder.
Having said that, I don’t want people like Tim Cook, Mary Barra, Carol Tomé or Jamie Dimon spending their time doing stuff like waiting in TSA security lines, trying to get a check-in kiosk to reprint a boarding pass, or looking for a place to buy a burrito before their flight boards. They all have much higher-value things to do for both employees and shareholders.
I’d actually enjoy seeing that. Chances are it wouldn’t take more than a few weeks and all this stuff would get better, faster, and whole lot less of a pain.
Half the security kabuki would be vanished if Fortune 500 execs and Congresspeople would have to go through the same rigmarole as the rest of us plebs. 
The earliest of the products I mentioned was released four years after Tim Cook took over as CEO. The latest came 13 years afterwards. If you’ve got evidence that Steve Jobs had a fully conceived idea of the Vision Pro before he died, I’d love to see it. Otherwise, Tim Cook gets credit.
And If we’re doing “previous art,” then I would point out that all in one computers existed before the iMac, digital music players before the iPod, cell phones before the iPhone, and company-branded clothing before Apple Socks. So, apparently Steve Jobs doesn’t innovate, either.
(Yes, the polishing cloth was a joke, given that I included an asterisk that said “Joke.”)
Steve Jobs used the Gulfstream for family vacations – in fact, he insisted on the top-end Gulfstream because it had the range to take his family to Hawaii regularly.
And to Sibey: Why should those with extreme wealth or celebrities have special privileges over the rest of us? After all other than their financial status or public awareness they are normal humans with the same needs, adversities, and feelings as the rest of us. What makes them so special that they deserve special treatment that the rest of us do not?
As for the Vison Pro it was DOA much like the Apple car but before its release. AI for Apple is in intensive care. As far as other products, much like the mouse there were poorly designed existing products that were at little interest at the time but Jobs saw promise in them and totally redesigned them into useful products that people would actually buy and released them with minimal serios bugs. If Class 1 or 2 bugs were found they were fixed in weeks. Under Cook it took 4 years for Apple to fix an macOS bug that crashed my computer when it shut down, Contacts has not worked correctly for years when adding new contacts as it would lock up and still is not fixed. Mail has all kinds of usability issues. AI was released before it was ready for general usage and will not be ready according to Apple for close to another year. Most Apple hardware is still unrepairable by the typical user. For the Magic Pad and Magic Keypad when the battery dies you have to throw the entire unit into the trash and buy a new one. With the Magic Keyboard the texture of the keyboard wears off in a few years likely due to the use of a cheaper plastic that can’t properly stand up to such usage. However Apple seems happy about all of this as it generates profits. Who else publicly states that their hardware has a 5 year lifespan then you are supposed to get rid of it and buy a new one? How does that coalesce with being environmentally friendly as Apple prophetizes it to be?
I still am under the opinion that Cook is the John Scully of the 21st Century.
This will be my last posting on this topic as there are pluses and minuses to most everyone comments and we could discuss this topic to death with it never being totally agreed on and not resulting in any useful outcome. I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion has has the right to express it but I see no useful or constructive outcome in me expressing mine on this topic, as it is becoming a time consuming without leading to any conclusion.
So I am done. QED
For me, Tim has brought to fruition what Steve set up. Many said that Steve’s greatest product was Apple itself including giving the nod to Tim. In my College when the iPhone was launched, I met the entire Computing team having coffee all laughing at it. By the time the iPad was launched they may all have MacBooks running windows, but still laughed at the iPad. Time passed and now… well… who cares what the Wintel world thinks? Steve and Tim did that.
That said, it feels too early to view computing as essentially settled, with improvements and use cases to be explored. Apple, as a product, has not sewn it up. They are one of the few companies who can take big bold decisions, but I’ve a sense that the ecosystem which is one of their pillars will restrict that.
Is there a breakthrough thinker working away out there? Apple’s approach to acquisition seems a tad smothering, things disappear in there.
Why are you holding Tim Cook accountable for that but not Steve Jobs?
Maybe, but it is still innovative, which is what we’re discussing.
Steve Jobs’ Apple had some wowsers on the bug/unreliability side as well, from the iTunes update that deleted people’s music to the PowerBook that caught fire. “You’re holding it wrong” has become iconic because of the sheer tone deafness of Jobs’ response to the bad placement of the iPhone 4 antenna. Apple Maps was started under Jobs (though released under Cook) and it still isn’t great.
Again, Tim Cook isn’t Steve Jobs, but let’s give him credit where it’s due and let’s not rose-tint Jobs’ time at Apple.
In phones, I think you’re right.
In computers, sort-of. PCs have been doing ML processing using GPUs (especially NVidia GPUs) for quite some time before Apple introduced their neural engine. Apple may have been the first to put an NPU (neural processing unit) on the same package as the CPU, but it would not be correct to say that they were the first to include ML acceleration hardware in a computer.
And in many cases, a corporate jet is a cost saving. Years ago, one of my employers had two main offices - one in a major US city and one in London. Given the large amount of executive travel between the two offices at the time, it was more cost effective to lease a small business jet for regular flights (I think 3 round-trips per week) between the two cities than to fly commercially (and be subject to seat availability and schedules).
And since company executives rarely used every seat, there was a corporate policy that any employee needing to fly between those two cities was supposed to book one of those seats instead of a normal commercial flight. Sadly, I never had a chance to take advantage of that opportunity.
Even smartphones. Phones based on PalmOS (including models from Handspring, Samsung and others. See Wikipedia) were very popular at the time. As were Blackberries, phones running Windows Mobile, Symbian and other platforms. (See Wikipedia).
Of course, Apple brought the concept into the mainstream. Before the iPhone, most people considered smartphones too expensive and/or too awkward for people that didn’t have a specific need for it.
Since the person who posted that has declared they have ended their participation in this thread, I’m going to guess that it is a combination of human traits: confirmation bias, representative bias, political orientation, and fond feelings, affected by selective memory, for (possibly better for the poster?) times past.
Just want to add that most companies also require personal use of corporate aircraft to be reimbursed. Unfortunately, it is impossible for investors to find out how stringently these rules are enforced.
I’ll quibble with that point, even after acknowledging your view on “previous art”. Of all the significant products that Apple has released in the last few years, VP probably is among the least innovative, at least as a complete product. I used Silicon Graphics virtual reality systems in the late 90s/early 2000s, and I don’t think there are any major VR/UX ideas in the Vision Pro that weren’t already present in some form in SGI’s virtual reality systems or 3D user interface pilots 25 years ago.
Essentially all of the innovation in the Vision Pro springs from innovation in generic components, like batteries, display tech, and cpus, not the VP idea itself. In other words, hardware capabilities have caught up to the application vision, but the vision has been widely discussed across the industry for decades. Even with much better hardware delivered at 1/10th to 1/100th the cost of what SGI was charging 20 years ago, Vision Pro is fundamentally a boring product after the first hour or so of playing with it. Come to think of it, that’s what a lot of people felt about the SGI stuff, too.
To give Apple its due, Apple Silicon truly is innovative. Sure, some of its principles go back quite far in computer science, but it should be remembered that most companies pursuing alternatives to x86/x64 architectures long ago abandoned the field, including Intel itself. The conventional wisdom was that it was nearly impossible to assemble the deep expertise and critical mass to design new, general purpose chips, whether RISC, CISC, or hybrid, to compete with x86/x64 from both technical and business standpoints. Even IBM couldn’t pour enough resources into the POWER architecture to make it more than a niche processor, never mind the combined forces of Intel and HP working on the Itanium. And then came Apple…
@josehill
I take your points but I think we’re wandering into a situation where nothing is really innovative. Certainly, everything Steve Jobs created had some kind of precursor.
I’d even say that from the very beginning of Apple, it has had improving on other companies’ products embedded in its DNA. From hobbyist computers, through PCs, MP3 players, and mobile phones, to Bluetooth earbuds, Apple has excelled at making consumer electronics better and (usually) more satisfying to use.
One should never minimize the amount of work that’s usually required to make a concept (even someone else’s) usable and popular.
Apple didn’t invent the GUI - that was mostly the work of researchers at SRI and Xerox PARC. But Apple managed to make the concepts usable without extensive training, and implementable on (relatively) inexpensive hardware.
Having spent a little bit of time working on Xerox’s “Viewpoint” workstation (the successor to the Star document-preparation workstation, based on the GUI concepts of the Alto), I can say that Apple’s original Mac OS was far easier to learn and use, even though a Mac Plus (I never used an older model) had a tiny fraction of a Viewpoint workstation’s processing power.
Was that original Mac OS “innovative”? I would think so. Even if they weren’t the first to build the concept of a window-based GUI, they were the first to publish it in a form that normal people (not just corporations) could buy and use.
Agree with a lot of the points above, sometimes what is new is in the application and effects of the technology in a wider world. The iPhone being a case in point.
Similarly to @josehill above, every time I try VR, first was in 1989 or 1990 in London, I have had enough after a short period of time. It’s just not going to see widespread application. AR however will, if Apple manage to crack that one.
IBM made a corporate decision to abandon the PowerPC platform. But that’s primarily due to their decision to abandon personal/desktop computing altogether, focusing on servers.
But the POWER architecture is quite alive and well. They just announced a suite of servers (meant for data centers) based on the new POWER 11 processor:
Interesting quotes from the article:
Power11 is designed to provide 99.9999% availability, which corresponds to under 40 seconds of downtime per year. Maintenance tasks such as patching don’t require administrators to take applications offline. When a Power11 server must be shut down to make changes, the onboard software can move the applications that it hosts to another machine and thereby avoid downtime.
… a cybersecurity technology called Cyber Vault. According to the company, it can encrypt customer data with a cryptography algorithm that can’t be broken by a quantum computer.
…
the technology is capable of detecting ransomware in under a minute. For added measure, it creates immutable copies of customer data that ransomware can’t delete or encrypt.
… IBM’s Spyre Accelerator. Previewed last year, it’s an artificial intelligence chip with 25.6 billion transistors that are organized into 32 cores and 14 miles of microscopic wiring. The processor is packaged into a PCIe card that can be plugged into servers to speed up inference workloads.
… the Power E1180, which takes up an entire data center rack. It can be equipped with up to 256 Power11 cores and 64 terabytes of DDR5 memory. The most affordable machine in the series, the Power S1122, feature a considerably smaller chassis that has room for up to 60 Power11 cores.
Really cool tech, but nothing anybody will ever have on their desktop.
Definitely cool, but definitely niche, even if it generates hundreds of millions in annual revenue.
I haven’t followed the POWER architecture in quite a while. I wonder if we’ll ever see a POWER11 workstation. I’m happy to see that Talos is still selling POWER9 systems.
It is also absurd for developers to think Apple owes them anything more than they’re already getting: a ready-made cash cow that didn’t exist at all until Apple invented it. Any developer who doesn’t like the terms of Apple’s developer agreement is perfectly free not to participate. I don’t understand where this attitude of “I’m entitled to this, and I’m entitled to that!” came from. It’s absurdly out of touch with reality.
Except that Apple enjoys a monopoly protected by statute in the US and most other nations. If I choose “not to participate,” and create an iOS app that I publish along with a non-App Store installer, I can be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and put in prison (17 U.S. Code § 1201). That hardly makes me feel “perfectly free” to exercise my choice. Apple gets to take advantage of a “free market” while potential competitors have to labor under centralized control that gives Apple and Google protected status.
It’s their store. I can’t just walk into a Walmart and put my products on their shelves and expect them to sell them for me. If I want to sell in their store, I have to agree to their terms. If I don’t like that, I can go elsewhere. I have no inherent “right” to sell my stuff at someone else’s store.
Which means you can’t create iOS apps (i.e. participate in the iOS app-making business), but them’s the breaks. In this world, we can’t have our cake and eat it too. If you want to play the game, you have to follow the rules; and if you don’t like the rules, then you don’t have to play the game. There are many injustices in this world that some people quite rightly feel compelled to challenge regardless of the consequences; but not being able to earn money in the Apple App Store on your own terms isn’t one of them imho.
Apple is not legally a monopoly in the United States (per the Epic court case decision, which is the main one I know of that’s actually weighed the question). It does not control the smartphone market (with about 60% marketshare in the US) and there are alternatives for both the customer and developers to go to if they don’t want to abide by Apple’s terms.
Apple isn’t a physical retailer like Walmart—it’s a platform provider, more akin to a landlord renting digital space. A better analogy would be that Apple is a mall landlord requiring every store to give them a 30% cut of every sale made anywhere, even if the customer just found the product at the store and later bought it directly from the brand’s website. That’s not about fairness—it’s monopolistic behavior.
If there are only two near identical malls left in town and goods can only be purchased at stores in said malls, you can be very sure regulators would tell those two mall landowners who they are allowed to refuse a lease and why.
All these arguments about people having a choice fall flat because there is no choice.
There are essentially two smartphone platforms that work roughly the same way and cost roughly the same.
You do not have the choice to leave one and develop for one of the say remaining dozen. You essentially have the choice to develop or not develop at all. This begs the question why 8 billion people the world over should be forced to submit to just two mega corps.
And if there is no more real competition left, then laws and regulation will have to tell the two sole platforms how it will be. Just like the utility I am forced to use to transmit my power is told how much they can charge and how they have to do business. Because I don’t have a real choice in the matter.
Those of you who are advocating or calling for choice are essentially asking for Apple and Google to be broken up into many competing baby corps like Ma Bell was in 1984. I’d claim there are no signs right now that that will likely happen, in addition to considerable doubt that such a breakup would even work or lead to the desired outcome.
How many platforms would be enough? 3? 4? 12? You’re using monopoly in a way that does not fit the legal definition of it in the United States. That’s perfectly reasonable (this is not a court room) but you should at least note that.
From the Epic decision:
“the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws. While the Court finds that Apple enjoys considerable market share of over 55% and extraordinarily high profit margins, these factors alone do not show antitrust conduct. Success is not illegal. The final trial record did not include evidence of other critical factors, such as barriers to entry and conduct decreasing output or decreasing innovation in the relevant market. The Court does not find that it is impossible; only that Epic Games failed in its burden to demonstrate Apple is an illegal monopolist.”
(Bolding mine)
Ultimately, not liking a particular situation does not make that situation illegal.
That is a complete misunderstanding of the DMCA.
It is illegal to circumvent encryption designed to prevent copyright violation. It is not illegal to side-load software into a device. And you don’t have to defeat any copyright protection scheme to side-load software.
Now, if you were to somehow get Apple’s private key and self-sign your app image to make it look like it came from Apple’s store, then that might violate the DMCA, but I don’t think anybody has ever done that.
Note that even Apple’s official statement about jailbreaking doesn’t say or imply it is illegal. They warn against it and say they may refuse support for a jailbroken device, but that’s all they say.
With one big difference. Android devices don’t lock you in to the Google Play store. Third-party app stores exist and have always existed for the Android platform. It only requires one change to a standard system setting to enable side-loading any software, including third-party app stores.
Years ago, when I was using an Android device, I frequently bought software from the Amazon app store. (Sadly, Amazon will be closing their store in August.)
I would agree with you, with respect to Apple. Their support for third-party app stores is the minimum mandated by law, which isn’t nearly as robust or useful as what has always existed for Android.
Just want to add that mall owners can write leases that do the same thing in effect. A typical store lease is structured around a base rent plus a percentage of sales. Both the rent and the percentage, as well as other lease terms, can reflect mall owner’s estimates of a business’ total sales revenue.
Another common practice is to require stores to lease space in both premier and secondary malls as a package. In many cases, the locations in secondary malls lose money or are barely profitable. So that’s another way mall owners can, in effect, take profits from online sales and sales made at other locations from retailers.
Then I share that “complete misunderstanding” with some very good company. Apple themselves have long taken the position that jailbreaking is anti-circumvention and thus illegal under the DMCA. The Librarian of Congress also, apparently, misunderstands as completely as I do, as they felt the need to grant an exemption to DMCA anti-circumvention rules for those who choose to jailbreak. If the Librarian of Congress doesn’t consider jailbreaks to be anti-circumvention, then why would they feel the need to grant an exemption?
Unfortunately, the exemption granted applies only to individuals who choose to jailbreak their own phones. Distributing jailbreaking tools (such as an installer for an otherwise perfectly-legal app distributed outside the App Store) can still be considered anti-circumvention and prosecuted under the DMCA.