[HN Gopher] Steve Jobs: Let's force Amazon to use our payment sy...
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Steve Jobs: Let's force Amazon to use our payment system (2010)
Author : ece
Score : 252 points
Date : 2021-09-15 18:06 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| ignoramous wrote:
| _Philip Schiller: Let 's force Amazon to use our payment system
| (2010)_
|
| ftfy
| hitekker wrote:
| The second screenshot shows Steve saying "force them to use our
| far superior payment system" and the fourth one is him ordering
| his subordinate to make it so.
| Hamuko wrote:
| That part about the superior payment system cracks me up when
| we recently had this:
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/09/02/each-twitter-super-
| foll...
|
| > _The App Store does not allow for multiple instances of the
| same subscription, leading other platforms such as YouTube
| and Twitch to get around this by effectively allowing users
| to buy a sub-token that can be directed toward a specific
| creator._
| Invictus0 wrote:
| The title comes from the second image.
| TradingPlaces wrote:
| This email is Mecha Jobs
| ydnaclementine wrote:
| Want to do a mini PSA that you should (probably) read Steve Jobs'
| biography if you haven't, it makes posts like this much, much
| more interesting when you have a fuller background.
|
| I wasn't a Steve Jobs fan so I never read it till recently. Still
| not a huge fan, but you can still see the tendrils of his
| influence that still affect today's world (adobe flash EOL last
| year, this stuff by not allowing you to buy books on the
| kindle/amazon app on iphone, continuing to control hardware and
| software experience). And you can see how it's gone (4 different
| ipads, etc)
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I'm not an Apple fanboy, but Jobs deserves all the credit that
| goes his way for killing Flash.
|
| It was a great product, but Macromedia / Adobe demonstrated
| subsequently that they were in no way a security-responsible
| long-term maintainer.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| I'm going to disagree that Jobs killed Flash. It's more like
| Adobe neglected and abused the Flash platform, and as part of
| that, they failed to actually get it working on mobile.
|
| Remember, Apple actually begged Adobe to get build a version
| of Flash Player that wouldn't burn iPhone users' batteries.
| They did the same thing when the iPad came out. They knew not
| having Flash was a weakness. Adobe utterly failed to "get"
| mobile and shipped plugin builds that were about as buggy as
| the desktop version was.
|
| Getting Flash to work on iPhone would have taken a huge
| commitment of resources on Adobe's part, similar to how Apple
| spent lots of time and money getting Safari/WebKit to render
| mobile sites correctly. It's not impossible, it's just
| something that you need executive-level buy in on. Google
| thought Jobs was bluffing and decided to allow Flash on
| Android; and it was so terrible that Adobe dropped it a year
| later.
|
| As an example of what Adobe's _real_ priorities were; two
| years after "Thoughts on Flash" Adobe decided to gate off
| certain Flash APIs behind a revenue sharing agreement so they
| could charge Unity developers to cross-compile to SWF. No,
| really, that happened. Adobe conjured up a whole licensing
| scheme and everything for it, because they wanted to make
| sure someone was there to pay for AS4 development. The thing
| about platforms is that their value is in the money that the
| platform owner _leaves on the table_. The more that you claim
| for yourself, either by charging more fees or neglecting
| maintenance, the less reason there is to _use_ the platform.
|
| I genuinely feel Apple may be unlearning this lesson.
| jldugger wrote:
| >The thing about platforms is that their value is in the
| money that the platform owner leaves on the table. The more
| that you claim for yourself, either by charging more fees
| or neglecting maintenance, the less reason there is to use
| the platform.
|
| In other venues, I've seen this described as "becoming 50
| percent richer by being 10 percent less greedy."
| ethbr0 wrote:
| 90s Microsoft realized this, which is how Windows became
| Windows (making developers and partners lots and lots of
| money).
|
| And how 90s Apple decomposed, and only really turned it
| around by creating enough demand via consumer device
| market share that developers _had_ to come back.
| fortran77 wrote:
| But Jobs didn't kill it because of "security." He didn't like
| it because it allowed another way for people to write
| "applications" that could run on his phone, and a related
| issue of it being bad for battery life.
| mrkramer wrote:
| How many bugs Flash had? Hundreds? Thousands? Anybody knows?
| bell-cot wrote:
| From a quick CVE search, less than 1,200 bugs (
| https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-
| bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=adobe+flash ).
|
| For practical purposes, ~Aleph-nought.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Over 300 Flash bugs were discovered (and fixed) in 2015
| alone:
|
| https://www.gsmarena.com/over_300_flash_bugs_were_discove
| red...
| bityard wrote:
| Jobs deserves credit for a lot of the way things went in the
| computing world but I don't think "killing flash" is one of
| them. Apple and Flash only (publicly) crossed paths when the
| iPhone was released in 2007. Even then, Flash was widely
| disliked by users for a bunch of very good reasons:
|
| * It was yet another thing to install. (Most non-tech-savvy
| users didn't know how to install a web browser, let alone a
| browser-specific plugin.) I was an "expert" computer user and
| I still had trouble getting it to work quite often.
|
| * Flash apps were very resource-hungry on the slow machines
| at the time. Not quite as bad as Java, but still pretty bad.
| You had to wait for them to load, and when they consumed an
| outsize amount of CPU and memory compared to the value
| delivered.
|
| * A lot of enterprise software started getting written in
| Flash (vSphere 6, anyone?). I feel bad for every IT
| department that had to put up with this. Of course, before
| and alongside that it was Java.
|
| * The Flash runtime was a huge source of computer-pwning
| exploits. "Click to play" flash was a good idea but about a
| decade too late to make any difference.
|
| No, Flash was never particularly well-liked by ANYONE except
| animators, web video game companies, and web ad companies. It
| was going to die eventually. Even if we were to accept "Jobs
| killed Flash" as true, that would make it one of his _least_
| successful endeavors since Flash only went EOL this year, 14
| years later!
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Java and Flash are great comparisons, as web / applet Java
| is pretty much the same market.
|
| My point being that Java felt like they were stewarding a
| platform seriously (admittedly, mostly towards enterprise
| priorities).
|
| Whereas Flash felt like they were saying yes to whatever
| their designer customers asked, and worrying about the
| details later.
|
| And IE is just being deprecated in many places. 14 years to
| EOL is a snap of the fingers on enterprise timescales.
| lupire wrote:
| ? Java applets failed faster than Flash.
| yarcob wrote:
| Poor performance on Mac was also an issue. Web browsers on
| the Mac were held back by the fact that Adobes plugin was
| extremely slow on the Mac, and Adobe didn't care. Apple could
| write the fastest web browser in the world, but it wouldn't
| matter if Flash on the Mac had only a fraction of the
| performance of the Windows version.
|
| It was a very smart move to not enable that dependency on the
| iPhone.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Ironically, that fastest web browser engine now determines
| the fates of apps on Apple's platform. At least, it
| prevents the building of alternative browsers like an iOS
| Firefox Gecko browser.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I think his hands were somewhat tied on the iPhone honestly
| - flash apps were borderline unusable on the flagship
| Android headsets of the day. You had to install an
| alternate browser, the apps were designed for mouse-
| keyboard input rather than touchscreens, they were non-
| responsive, they lagged with the Qualcomm chips, and they
| absolutely ravaged your battery.
|
| It's no wonder Steve Jobs just decided not to straight up
| not the tech. The security concerns were just a convenient
| scapegoat.
| dwild wrote:
| > It was a great product, but Macromedia / Adobe demonstrated
| subsequently that they were in no way a security-responsible
| long-term maintainer.
|
| The amount of zero-days zero-click remote code execution that
| came out of iOS on the past few months...
|
| Zerodium had to stop buying zero-days for iOS last year, as
| they had too many of them.
|
| I means I won't say that Adobe did a great job on security,
| just that it wasn't a good justification to kill the whole
| product.
|
| Flash didn't get taken down because of security issue, but
| because of Jobs manipulative tactics.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Flash just could not run well on power-constrained
| environments. Folks were allowed to run it on Android, but
| it sucked.
|
| Flash was not killed, it committed suicide. All Jobs did
| was keep the death throes off iOS.
| 0x456 wrote:
| A contrarian might ask "How many bugs were there in the HTML5
| APIs that replaced it?" Probably fewer considering HTML5 is
| an open/modern code base? Some high profile ones in Audio
| though...
| shrimpx wrote:
| I spent half a day watching multiple Jobs interviews on YouTube
| and there is an interesting effect across these interviews: the
| interviewers sound dated in their assumptions, while Jobs
| sounds fresh and contemporary. Even though these interviews
| were 20-30 years ago.
|
| One example is when Steve is being grilled about buying a
| "search engine company" called "Siri" and the surrounding
| rumors being certain that Apple obviously bought this search
| company to go to war with Google. Steve laughed and said
| "that's not a search company, it's an AI company."
| justapassenger wrote:
| TBH, I wouldn't call Siri a search company nor an AI company.
| They were (and still are, a decade later) mediocre at both.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Amazon's Alex is way ahead of Siri and Cortana. It's as if
| Apple doesn't really care about Siri anymore. I don't know
| if they see the market for this as dead and they're
| purposely not putting more resources in it, or if they just
| can't compete here.
| mountainb wrote:
| It's barely acceptable voice recognition product hooked
| into a shitty Ask Jeeves that has barely improved since it
| was introduced.
| cruano wrote:
| Ah yes, I also don't think of walmart as a retailer because
| I don't like it
| smoldesu wrote:
| In my experience, Siri has basically only provided my
| results from another search engine, WolframAlpha, or an
| API I'm not allowed to see/use. If that's artificial
| intelligence, then I'm Issac Asimov.
| justapassenger wrote:
| It's not about liking it. It's about having abilities to
| support your value proposition.
| addicted wrote:
| They were ahead of the pack when Apple bought them. Then
| Apple spent a year or so making them remove and reduce
| their functionality and then release a gimped version that
| was nonetheless integrated into the OS.
| lozaning wrote:
| Then the siri founders started another company, which was
| then bought by samsung and eventually released as Bixby.
| aborsy wrote:
| Can you send the link?
| [deleted]
| markstos wrote:
| What's the issue with four iPad models? iPads practically _are_
| the tablet market. Is four options too many?
|
| There were dozens of different Android tablets at the peak.
| That didn't go well for any of the Android tablet vendors.
| jeromegv wrote:
| I follow Apple news a lot and still get confused with the
| differences between each iPads nowadays. iPad Pro.. iPad
| Air.. iPad "normal". iPad mini is the only one easy to
| understand. Some models support Apple Pencil 1st gen... some
| models support Apple Pencil 2nd gen. WHYYYYYY? It should all
| be the same.
|
| Which iPad support the smart keyboard? What about the "magic"
| keyboard?
| dmitriid wrote:
| They are now doing the same thing with iPhones. 12 and 12
| Pro were identical phones. 13 and 13 Pro are identical
| phones. Yes, there are differences in cameras, but that's
| really about as far as the difference goes.
| MBCook wrote:
| In general it makes a lot of sense to me, but I do find it
| very odd that they're still using the first-gen pencil all
| these years later.
|
| And because it charges by lightning, that means the devices
| that support it have to have lightning and can't move to
| USB-C.
|
| I don't know if it's cheaper to implement than the second-
| gen (that's my guess). But for some reason it lives on.
| cjohansson wrote:
| You just need to update your hardware from time to time,
| not because the software needs it really, just because
| Apple needs to keep cash flowing in. I use the same apps on
| my iPhone 12 that I did on my iPhone 6, the only reason I
| upgrade is because Apple won't let me update the software
| without buying their new uneccessary hardware
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| It wouldn't be so bad if they were better described. OK so
| there's the "iPad" and "iPad Pro", I guess I can figure that
| out, the Pro probably has better specs.
|
| Then there's the "mini", which implies smaller, but is it a
| mini iPad or a mini iPad Pro? It turns out that it used to be
| a mini iPad, but today it is a mini iPad Pro. That's
| confusing.
|
| And also there's an "iPad Air" - what the hell is that? The
| name implies it is thinner? Lighter? But it's not either of
| those things. I have no idea.
|
| The iPhones are just as bad, today you can buy an iPhone 13,
| 12, _and_ 11. And there's also an "SE" which doesn't have a
| number and I have absolutely no idea why it's different.
|
| Jobs would be turning in his grave.
| Thlom wrote:
| For most people, just buy the cheapest one with the form
| factor you like the best. Unless there's something the
| other models have that you need/really want. I moved from a
| iPhone 8 to iPhone 12 earlier this year. 12 has faceId
| instead of touchID and a better camera, but that's really
| the only difference I notice. I'm not even sure I like
| faceId better than touchID.
|
| But yeah, it sucks.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| > Jobs would be turning in his grave.
|
| Jobs originated the multiple model strategy at Apple by
| filling out a wide variety of iPod SKUs. He also originated
| the idea to keep older iPhones in production to fill out
| lower price points.
|
| It's funny how often "Jobs would never allow this" comments
| refer to things he actually did. And of course Apple's
| market performance in the phone and tablet space is
| obvious.
| askonomm wrote:
| Not sure what's so hard to figure out about the iPhone.
| Bigger number means newer. SE means budget. If you visited
| the homepage even for just 1 second, you'd already know as
| it says so in the very beginning of the page
| (https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/).
|
| But, if Apple is so bad at naming things, show me one
| android phone maker that does it better (and has as many
| products, it's easy to name things if you only have 1
| product).
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Everyone else being worse is not an excuse for you not to
| be better.
|
| Edit: For some reason I can't reply to the following
| comment so I will reply here:
|
| I didn't realize that constantly striving for improvement
| would be controversial? Yes, I do believe that everyone
| should always be striving for improvement. For me that
| might even be the closest possible thing to "the meaning
| of life".
|
| Without wanting to sound too much like a Star Trek
| episode, if we are not constantly trying to better
| ourselves, what is the point of anything?
| askonomm wrote:
| And so we should complain about everything and everyone
| then? Surely we can think of SOMETHING to always improve,
| right? Therefore everyone and everything must always be
| better!
|
| That's a pretty toxic approach to things. That's like
| saying I as a person should always strive to be better,
| and it's not okay being who or what I am right now.
|
| Edit update regarding above edit: My point was merely
| that always complaining is imo why so much negativity
| exists in the world. Nobody is happy with anything.
| Always something wrong / X Y Z doesn't satisfy me / Apple
| has a new HR person whose face I don't like so I will
| leave the whole ecosystem now / Touch ID sucks / Face ID
| sucks / Apple sucks.
|
| I realize HN folk LOOOOVE complaining, and not being
| happy with anything, and perhaps that is an inherent
| feature of start-up founders, but would it kill you once
| think "You know what, this is alright!"?
| [deleted]
| michaelmarion wrote:
| They really need to unify the design language across all
| mobile devices. You need to have one iThing that is
| available the following sizes:
|
| XS -- 6.1" (iPhone) S -- 6.8" (iPhone Max) M -- 8.3" (iPad
| Mini) L -- 11" (iPad) XL -- 12.9" (Big iPad)
|
| That's it. Same design language, same thing. Pick your
| screen size, storage amount, whether you want cellular or
| just Wi-Fi, and color, and you're good.
|
| This completely unifies everything--iPads, iPod Touches,
| and iPhones. You could even do a second Pro line alongside
| this.
|
| I'm sure there are manufacturing difficulties involved
| here, in addition to having a single chipset that conforms
| to each size, but this should be getting a bit easier as
| they move into the M-series architecture. Or you just keep
| the A-series in the XS and S models and put an M-series
| chip in the iPad mini eventually.
| wp381640 wrote:
| I was on the site yesterday looking at the watch - the
| array of options is also confusing
| ecshafer wrote:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/276635/market-share-
| held...
|
| What are you talking about? Apple is at 30% market share for
| tablets. That is a far cry from dominating the market.
| gumby wrote:
| I have hardly seen an android tablet in the last five
| years, except in POS systems or some other industrial
| equipment.
|
| I've seen iPads even in "android homes". But I think most
| tablets are used in the home and I don't go into a lot of
| peoples' houses, much less see tablet when I'm visiting, so
| there may be a vast dark pool of personally-owned android
| tablets.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Steve was famous for brutally streamlining Apple's product
| offerings, and making it stupidly easy to understand the
| differences between product tiers.
|
| I don't necessarily think four iPad offerings is too many,
| but I don't think Steve would've ever found it acceptable. He
| loved debuting with a single product, then adding a cheaper
| "mini," then eventually creating a holy trinity
| (mini/regular/pro), and leaving it that way forever.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| The complexity of Apple's product offerings is not that
| new. iPod consisted of a bunch of random variants over the
| years (Shuffle, Mini, Nano, Color, etc.) and people were
| complaining about conflicting product features back in the
| day (Now it's USB-C vs. Lightning, back then it was
| Firewire vs. USB).
| duxup wrote:
| IMO Flash was as big a mess as Steve said it was at the time
| and it was already time to move on from it. It was mess even on
| the desktop (if my browser crashed, it was almost always
| flash). Adobe let it get that way and there it was.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| If you want really revealing information read the redacted
| security clearance investigation.
|
| https://cdn.muckrock.com/foia_documents/Jobs.pdf
| bob229 wrote:
| It's way past time to break up big tech
| guiomie wrote:
| This twitter account is awesome! I thought this email between
| Steve Jobs and Adobe CEO was hilarious, the CEO of Adobe refers
| to his employee as 'population'.
|
| https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1407016788240576512
| pixiemaster wrote:
| Are C-Level Execs really down to that kind of operational detail
| level (watching a single Ad, etc)?
| cheeze wrote:
| It sounds like he saw the ad on TV. Seems pretty normal to me?
| wefarrell wrote:
| The FTC has been asleep at the wheel with tech companies in the
| 21st century and consumers have suffered as a result. Apple's
| locking consumers into their platform, Google's steering traffic
| towards its sites, Amazon's forcing its merchants to give them
| preferential treatment. These companies have too much power and
| we need a government who's willing to take bold steps to curb
| them.
| m463 wrote:
| Personally I would like to reign in all the smaller tech
| companies. Every device you buy nowadays requires a smartphone
| app, and they insert themselves into the equation, while doing
| a data grab.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I agree, but none of this happening until we curb lobbying and
| reform campaign finance laws.
| ece wrote:
| Completely agree here. If you think the acquisitions have been
| the problem, splitting up those parts makes sense, primarily
| for Facebook, and possibly certain Amazon/Google/Apple
| acquisitions too. I think a separate Instagram, Waze, even
| Youtube, and PA Semi would all be successful on their own
| currently.
|
| The other common problematic trait I'd say is some form of bad,
| lack of or preferential moderation with search results,
| misinformation, products, and apps. I think regulation like
| "American Innovation and Choice Online Act[1]" handles this
| well. If you want to be specific about Apple/Google, the
| OAMA[2] is good too IMO.
|
| [1]
| https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/...
|
| [2]
| https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/8.11.21%20-%...
| bmitc wrote:
| I fully agree but the implication is that the government is
| still in control. However, it's these companies that are in
| control. They have people (i.e., politicians, lobbyists,
| judges, and other appointments) embedded into the government to
| do their bidding. America has been obsessed with communism and
| socialism infiltrating America all the while corporations have
| been infiltrating to get us to the current state of affairs,
| that of a corporatocracy.
|
| I honestly feel that capitalism and the love of the corporation
| is leading the slow death of the U.S. The only way to fix
| things is to completely remove conflicts of interests and self-
| benefits and actually enforce such rules, in addition to
| setting term limits and other such things. However, the people
| that need to pass such laws are the ones who currently benefit,
| so it's not gonna happen.
|
| It's rather unbelievable that I, as a minion, have been
| previously strictly held to gifts less than a certain amount
| (literally a couple of tens of dollars) and reports of stock
| holdings, but yet, former head lawyers of corporations can be
| appointed to now oversee those corporations. It's mind boggling
| how anyone thinks that could possibly work for anyone except
| the corporations.
| llampx wrote:
| Sometime after 9/11, the US realized that it was in their best
| interest to have American tech juggernauts, and if they
| hamstrung their own tech companies with antitrust and anti-
| competition laws, other countries (China) would not.
|
| That was the end of antitrust enforcement on a larger scale for
| US companies.
| refenestrator wrote:
| That's a backwards projection. In the early 2000s we were
| still blithely confident that China would just slot into a
| world order dominated by us. The end of history and all that.
|
| The record was that the Bush administration came in and
| immediately dropped the MS antitrust case because they were
| 'pro-business'. I suspect GWB genuinely believed in all this.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| This is not a good look for Apple but par for the course for a
| ruthless company.
|
| As an aside, it's totally different seeing "Sent from my iPhone"
| when it's Steve Jobs sending it from his iPhone.
| draw_down wrote:
| It's truly insane to me how often the charge of "not a good
| look" gets leveled at Apple's policies. There was a piece here
| about the Epic/Apple thing that concluded with those exact
| words recently. Like, imagine saying that to any business
| person as a reason why they shouldn't continue to do something
| that's making them a bunch of money. You might as well invoke
| the boogeyman.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| One of the interesting things to come out of the Fortnight
| trial was that Nintendo and Sony did not allow you to spend
| V-Bucks bought off of their platform (where they didn't take a
| cut), while Apple allowed it.
|
| So there are more ruthless companies out there.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Console manufacturers are way more ruthless than even that.
| Sony locked your entire Fortnite account if you logged into
| it on PS4; and wouldn't let you even play with Xbox players.
| Even now, if you sell a cross-play game on PS4, and too many
| people buy microtransactions on Xbox, you owe Sony money.
| echelon wrote:
| Apple is a ruthless company.
|
| We should stop personifying them and idolizing the products
| they make. Look at the chess moves. They're a monster.
|
| It should terrify you that some of the best products on the
| market are owned by a company that wants to extract as much as
| it can from the rest of us. They're no different from Oracle,
| just with good products. It's a winning strategy, and they're
| now positioned to sink their claws deeper.
|
| They've decimated the competition leaving you with a device
| that costs too much, isn't repairable, doesn't run untaxed
| software, and spies on you. The next moves will lock you down
| even harder.
|
| Like seriously people. We're empowering "I have no mouth and
| want to scream". We're making it come true.
|
| An Orwellian, Stallman-killing nightmare. The anti-web. In a
| posh, glossy finish.
| czzr wrote:
| Unlike Google and Facebook, say, Apple doesn't have a strong
| network effect lock-in. If they stop making the best products
| they're much easier to switch away from.
|
| They have some weak network effects with iMessage (in some
| markets) and convenience around iPhotos, but nothing serious.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Socially it's limited to iMessage and FaceTime, but I'd say
| the lock-in if you own a watch, MacBook, AirPods, and /or
| iPad is very strong. There's no other company that offers
| that level of integration across your devices.
| josho wrote:
| > Look at the chess moves. They're a monster.
|
| Brilliantly said. In the early days of MP3s I ripped all my
| CDs and refused to get that content locked into Microsoft's
| platform as I wanted control. Today I find myself so deeply
| tied to Apple's platform that I don't think I can get out _.
|
| I think we need the government to step in and require open
| APIs when a company is vertically integrated to allow
| competition in. E.g. you built the phone and the cloud
| service. Fine every cloud service app on the phone has to
| support an API that allows me to use the phone with a
| different vendor's cloud service. And we have precedent for
| this too, e.g. at one point I could only buy a landline phone
| from Bell, the gov. came along and told ATT they had to allow
| other companies to provide landline phones that would run on
| Bell's network.
|
| _My photos library is larger than disk space, so if I wanted
| to export photos out of the cloud I'd probably have to do it
| manually in stages. And I've lost my original MP3s somewhere
| along the line. Yikes.
| hossbeast wrote:
| I recently dug out my CDs and ripped them to my PC. Even
| bought some new ones, of music I can listen to anytime
| online with my subscription service.
|
| Aside from the nostalgia, I have appreciated the ability to
| listen with any program I wish, and listening while offline
| has happened a few times. I don't know how long I'll
| continue buying physical media but I'm liking it for now
| geniium wrote:
| Ouch, that sounds true and hurt
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Outside the USA , apple is not that much of a big deal. But
| it s interesting how disproportionately influential They
| became, because of their appeal to developers and
| technologists and their bubble
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It's been amazing how fast they can burn so much goodwill.
|
| Up until recently I was on the verge of switching from Pixel to
| iPhone. There's no way in hell I'm switching now.
| granzymes wrote:
| An email chain from 2010 has an impact on what phone you want
| to buy?
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| They probably mean the last month of shitty behavior that's
| been getting public attention........
| tablespoon wrote:
| > An email chain from 2010 has an impact on what phone you
| want to buy?
|
| Why shouldn't it? It could reveal their true colors in
| starker terms than one has seen before. It's one thing to
| know, abstractly, that they're an amoral self-serving
| entity. It's quite another to see it demonstrated so
| openly.
| esalman wrote:
| I had fascination for Apple products until I tried to use
| Xcode for some development. That was back in 2010. I never
| tried again or bought an Apple product since. The idea of
| tying users down into a walled garden and control their
| behaviors through not only software but also hardware that
| they pay for doesn't sit well with me and this is not how
| technology should progress.
| johnnypangs wrote:
| How much better is Google? Sure you can buy kindle books on
| android but they have done many a shady practice. There is
| always pinephone :)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I can sideload apps and install custom ROMs. They aren't
| perfect but in terms of freedom they're far better.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Google is no more morally good than Apple, but at least
| pixels run android and are cheaper than iphones. That's
| basically why I have a pixel: I have no interest in an
| iphone (though I admit their cameras are outstanding)
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Google is no more morally good than Apple, but at least
| pixels run android and are cheaper than iphones. That's
| basically why I have a pixel: I have no interest in an
| iphone (though I admit their cameras are outstanding)
|
| Honestly, the main reason I chose and prefer Android is
| that it's possible to side-load apps. Originally that was
| because I planned to develop some dumb apps for personal
| use and didn't want to deal with any corporate
| bureaucracy. I never did that, but I have no interest in
| losing the capability.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| On iOS you can side-load apps that you build and sign
| yourself, even without the $99/year membership.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| Nothing stops you from developing and installing your own
| apps on your own iPhone with Xcode. AFAIK you don't even
| need to pay for a developer license. You only have to pay
| if you want to distribute the app to others.
| mikeryan wrote:
| It's very important to note that Apple isn't doing something
| special to Amazon. They're removing an exception that Amazon
| enjoyed that others did not.
|
| It's not that bad a look.
| zchrykng wrote:
| They should have gone the other direction. There is zero good
| arguments for why Apple deserves 30% of gross transactions
| for ebooks, music, movies, etc that are merely purchased on
| their customer's phones.
| purple_ferret wrote:
| It's amazing how 'crude' Jobs was. Perfect for chopping through
| the early 2000's technology frontier, but one has to wonder if
| he'd flounder in the modern environment.
| duxup wrote:
| His history indicates Steve was pretty flexible in his POV too
| over time too. Opinionated for sure, but adaptable.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I don't understand this series of emails. Schiller is saying he
| noticed that Amazon ran an ad where someone bought books on iOS
| and then read them on an Android. Jobs' response is "let's force
| Amazon to use our payment system". But weren't they already using
| it in this case? How does Jobs' point follow from Schiller's
| example?
|
| Schiller then brings up how there's a complementary ad in which
| an Android user buys books, then reads them on iOS. Jobs' point
| would make sense if that was the original example, but it wasn't
| brought up until after he'd responded. Weird. Maybe he was
| psychic? (j/k)
|
| Another thing that doesn't make sense is Schiller's
| recommendation to ask Amazon to "get in compliance with the
| rules". It sounds like they were in compliance with the rules,
| because an exception had been made for them. It seems (from those
| emails only) like the issue was that Apple made an exception for
| Amazon they no longer wanted to abide by.
| AnssiH wrote:
| > But weren't they already using it in this case?
|
| No, Amazon never used Apple's payment system for books.
| paxys wrote:
| Apple made an exception for Amazon (to not have to use IAP for
| books purchased in the Kindle app).
|
| Amazon released an ad showing how easy it was to move books
| between iOS and Android.
|
| Apple didn't like this ad, so revoked the original exception.
|
| Amazon removed the ability to purchase books from the Kindle
| app.
|
| End result - experience is shittier for all users, but Apple
| gets a fraction of a percent more platform lock-in.
| bink wrote:
| It went both ways too. When Amazon got pissed at Apple they
| blocked Apple TVs from being sold on Amazon.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Thank you, but my question was more about the connection
| between email 1 and email 2 in that chain. Unless you're
| saying that Apple had already revoked the exception by the
| time these emails were sent?
| VenTatsu wrote:
| When the Apple App Store first came out there was no in app
| purchases. Amazon already had a payment infrastructure so
| when they released the free Kindle app on iOS it used the
| Amazon payment system. Apple later added in app purchases
| and changed the contract terms (as the were allowed to do)
| to require all apps to only use the App Store for IAP, they
| allowed Kindle to remain unchanged. The exception as just
| not forcing Amazon to change their app.
|
| It was allowed under the old rules, then the rules changed,
| then the Amazon ad these emails were referencing game out.
| So at the point of these email the Kindle app was out of
| compliance with the App Store rules, but Apple was allowing
| it as an exception because they viewed it as a promotion of
| Apple products. This ad changed their view and now though
| that the Kindle app on iOS was a promotion of how easy it
| was to move to Android.
| chrischen wrote:
| Phil made it sound like he didn't like the ad, but the reason
| for the removal of the exception was that Amazon was
| advertising that people could buy books from their phones,
| clearly promoting the phone-first use case.
|
| If you have any business understanding that you should
| understand that no business is a charity: neither Amazon nor
| Apple. Any money left on the table is just free money for the
| shareholders of another company.
|
| They made the point that Apple devices were more popular than
| Kindle, implying that Amazon was basically using Apple
| devices for lead-gen for book sales without paying Apple
| their cut. Their original deal was that Kindle was supposed
| to be a device where you bought the books, and you could just
| read them through the phone app as a convenience. Since the
| primary use case shifted they began enforcing that fee.
|
| This seems to be a consistent app store policy, however it's
| been spun over the years.
| lol1lol wrote:
| lawl
| ajaimk wrote:
| These seem like reasonable arguments. An exception was made and
| times are changing.
| tvanderb wrote:
| I really don't understand why it's such a big deal Apple wants to
| restrict people to use their payment system. It's their platform
| and they're a private company. Can't they just do whatever they
| want?
| exit wrote:
| in general then, do you think anti-monopoly & consumer
| protection regulatory efforts should be thrown out?
| advisedwang wrote:
| Because it's bad for consumers. We will end up paying more for
| these services if we allow these kinds of practices to
| continue. We will lose the ability to keep content we have
| bought if we move between services or don't want to keep up
| paying subscriptions.
|
| Being a private company doesn't mean you just get to do
| whatever you want.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Just out of curiosity, would you also say it's within Apple's
| rights to tax a portion of all transactions on the phone,
| including:
|
| 1. purchases of physical goods on the Amazon app
|
| 2. food deliveries on Doordash
|
| 3. money transfers initiated through the Chase banking app?
|
| If in future years all commerce moves to devices, Apple and
| Google have a duopoly, and they decide to tax the entire
| economy, is there any limiting principle? Or do they just get
| to take some % of GDP as profits? Is that a fair price for the
| contribution to society of getting to market first with
| smartphones and building a moat?
|
| If there is a limit, then we should figure out what it is.
| shoto_io wrote:
| Why shouldn't they? It's their platform. People could just
| not code apps for the iPhone and consumers could use other
| devices. Couldn't they?
| rurp wrote:
| There are some pretty big differences between a free and
| diverse marketplace vs a duopoly with a massive moat.
|
| "Just buy from someone else" works great for buying
| furniture or socks, not so much for home electricity or
| smart phones.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| > It's their platform.
|
| And it's the user's phone, which they should be free to use
| however they see fit. Even if that means installing
| software from places other than Apple's store.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| How far down this rabbit hole are you willing to go?
|
| Can the electric company ask for a 30% cut on anything you
| buy using their electrons? People would just build their
| own distribution lines to the electric company down the
| road if they didn't like it.
|
| How about your landlord charging a 30% cut if you want to
| take your amazon package inside his house? Don't like it,
| go build your own home.
| czzr wrote:
| For the landlord example - sure, if for some bizarre
| reason a tenant would agree to that. Presumably no one
| would, and so the landlord would lose out and stop.
| yholio wrote:
| It's all fun and games until a single mega real estate
| corporation owns 80% of all housing stock. In real estate
| that can't happen, in tech it can.
| wwtrv wrote:
| Simple as long as there is more than one power company
| for you to choose from and they are not colluding to fix
| their prices, the power company is free to ask for
| whatever they want. This is not a problem that can occur
| in a competitive market, though.
|
| Would not buying an Apple device put you in a similar
| position as having no access to electricity? Can you not
| buy a different and phone that allows you to freely
| install any software you want too without having to pay
| 30% to any third party?
| zchrykng wrote:
| Don't forget the company that made your car, the company
| that supplied gas for that car, the company that built
| the refrigerator that keeps your food cold, etc when you
| go get groceries. I think that comes to 90+% going to
| other companies.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Thinking that consumers and developers will collectively
| torpedo both android and Apple by supporting some unheard
| of 3rd mobile OS made by a benevolent company is a fantasy
| at this point. Just like saying, if consumers and towns
| don't like Bell telephone they can just run their own phone
| lines all over the country couldn't they?
| shoto_io wrote:
| Well it's not. Remember when Apple started? Nokia was big
| back then. There were a lot of other options. Yet here we
| are complaining.
| majormunky wrote:
| Credit card companies do this right now, except the money
| transfer one (maybe there do there also?)
| oaiey wrote:
| I have in real life a choice to pay cash.
|
| Also they carry an actual risk unlike Apple.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Credit cards are also not actually that expensive for
| merchants. I think the average transaction fees for
| MasterCard and Visa are in the 1.3% to 2.6% range, which
| is quite far from 30% in my mind.
|
| Obviously, one would cry out how cash has no baked-in
| transaction fee, but cash is definitely not free. While a
| credit card payment will transfer cleanly into a bank
| account with a clear trail, cash must be handled, stored,
| counted, kept safe, transferred and so on. All that time
| counting change at the counter isn't free either.
| wwtrv wrote:
| Out of curiosity, do you think it's fair that I have to pay a
| share of the the item price when selling items on Amazon?
| What right does Doordash have to tax my restaurant just
| because I want to accept order using their app?
|
| If, not at what point should we start regulating their
| prices? When they control 20%, 30%, 50% of their respective
| markets?
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| This is an important question. Vaguely, I think the answer
| is that companies should be able to earn profit
| proportional to the value they provide, and not for their
| market power. If companies are investing to improve their
| products and operational efficiency, it makes sense to for
| that to be rewarded by profits. If they've found some way
| to establish a moat and own the market so that new
| competitors can't get rewarded for their own improvements,
| there's a problem. Capitalism is the best system around to
| drive people to build and invent and we shouldn't let it
| get twisted into stagnant feudalism.
| VenTatsu wrote:
| The opposite question is also important. Should the mobile
| network my phone is on get a share of all transactions made
| from my phone? Should my home ISP get a share from
| purchases made on my home computer? Or the hardware vendor?
| Or the OS vendor?
|
| The reason Apple gets to ask for a cut of all transactions
| made on my phone is because they are in a position to
| control those transactions, not because it's right for them
| to ask for that cut. They can remove any app that tries to
| bypass their cut, as was recently ruled in their case
| against Epic Games.
|
| Like wise Doordash has control, if you want them to pay a
| driver to carry your food from the restaurant to your home,
| then they get a cut.
|
| The difference between Doordash and Apple is that Apple
| forbade anyone with an app in the app store from even
| telling people that they could pay for a purchase outside
| the app. For a time the Kindle app would send you to a
| checkout page in Safari, but Apple forced them to remove
| that. The comparison would be that any restaurant that
| worked with Doordash being forced to remove mention that
| they do pickup orders, if you don't want dine in then you
| must order with Doordash, even if that technically isnt't
| true.
|
| To me there is no magic percent where these behaviors
| should or should not be allowed or regulated. To me it's
| more about the pattern of 'soft' extortion. "You get value
| from our platform so we deserve a cut of what you make",
| sounds a bit too much like "You sure do have a nice app
| there with some dedicated users, it sure would be bad if
| something happened to it..."
|
| I don't know that I would pay for and read a tenth as many
| books as I do if I didn't always have the Kindle app in my
| pocket. On the other hand if Apple ever removed the Kindle
| app I'd have a strong reason to switch to Android. Both
| gain value from the other. Apple insentience to always get
| the better of that trade seems counter productive.
| can16358p wrote:
| I totally agree with you personally, but unfortunately the
| antitrust law doesn't work that way. It's your company and
| you've put years and millions (if not billions) hours of human
| work and created a system, and others start having rights on
| something that you've created privately. But unfortunately this
| is the case and telling this simple fact gets you downvoted to
| otherside of Earth on HN.
| oaiey wrote:
| The same arguments is true for apps. You put years in effort
| and then someone steals a significant part of your revenue.
|
| Apps follow the AppStore law. Apple follows US law. And the
| later includes some social aspects like Anti-Trust laws,
| consumer rights, etc.
|
| Companies exist in a nation. A nation serves its citizens. So
| when a company is treating the citizens bad, a nation has all
| the rights to enforce whatever is needed. Hence antitrust
| laws.
| can16358p wrote:
| Apple didn't treat anyone bad. They had the rules set up
| day 1, and there is always the option to switch to Android
| (both from a user or dev perspective). It's a private
| company, their store, their rules, which has roughly been
| always the same. And I'm saying this as an iOS developer.
| When I develop something I'm fully aware of what can be
| copied, what is allowed, what payment methods can be used
| etc upfront, and I accept the rules and don't try to change
| a private company's own platform's rules.
| nanidin wrote:
| > You put years in effort and then someone steals a
| significant part of your revenue
|
| This seems a bit disingenuous. A more accurate take might
| be that you sign up for the Apple developer program, and in
| doing so agree to the terms of service including the cut
| that Apple will take from each sale. Then you begin working
| on the app, then you release the app, then Apple keeps the
| cut that was contractually agreed upon. There is no
| stealing, and anyone that puts in years of effort into an
| app is surely aware of the cut Apple takes before making
| that effort.
| Hamuko wrote:
| " _It 's their X and they're a private company. Can't they just
| do whatever they want?_" sounds like a really shitty world to
| live in.
|
| Imagine if your ISP could tax your data at different rates
| depending on where it originated from because "it's their
| copper and they're a private company", or if Nokia could charge
| Apple $1000 per device sold because "it's their patents and
| they're a private company". The latter example of course would
| have made it completely impossible for the iPhone to ever exist
| since Nokia could've just priced them beyond all reason.
| czzr wrote:
| Nokia can charge $1000, but then no one would license their
| patents - so they charge a price the market will bear, that
| maximises their profit.
|
| Obviously the market can bear 30% for Apple. And this is
| actually unsurprising because the number used to be more like
| 50% when software was sold in physical stores.
|
| You're free to think that's too much, of course, and refuse
| to pay it.
| pulse7 wrote:
| Apple operates within a country ("platform") and most follow
| the laws of the country ("platform rules"). Country laws are
| protecting consumers. So Apple can't do with their platform
| whatever they want... They could do so on a ship in the middle
| of the ocean - where no country laws apply - but then they
| wouldn't have so many customers there...
| oaiey wrote:
| They are not a "private company" in that sense. With their user
| segment, they form a market and the app store establishes a
| "legal" system. Basically their users are citizen of a Apple
| nation and whoever wants to make business with them, has to
| follow the "legal system".
|
| Consider the free market system (as the economic system of the
| western world), where you have choice between offerings, then
| the Apple ecosystem is the exact opposite.
| tengbretson wrote:
| Yeah! If they don't like it then maybe they should make their
| own smartphone.
|
| Wait.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| The problem is that developers and companies are obliged to
| accept these practices because they control 50% of peoples'
| devices. It's not just a "private company" any longer, it has
| become a public infrastructure.
| dheera wrote:
| They charge a 30% cut of payments and they just want their
| money.
| bilekas wrote:
| I believe they can.. but there's a fair use issue, I'm not sure
| if you can create a market and then just corner it.
|
| There was a recent supreme Court ruling I believe that
| suggested Apple have to allow other payment options. But they
| are free to kick off whoever they want..
| bilekas wrote:
| That's interesting. But I don't understand exactly why it would
| violate their TOS by accessing a library of books.
|
| Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on
| Android and then accessed on an iPhone? Thus bypassing the apple
| payment option? If that is the case it seems like a bit of a
| stretch.
| Hamuko wrote:
| As far as I understand it, it was possible to buy ebooks in the
| Kindle app around 2010 and they decided that it was no longer
| going to fly.
|
| I don't actually understand what their intention was beyond a
| show of strength. If you pull the Kindle app, iPhones and iPads
| are now a worse platform for ebooks, and if you remove the
| ability to buy ebooks in the app, it just gives iPhone and iPad
| users a worse user experience. And obviously, as they stated
| themselves, Amazon was never going to actually adopt the 30%
| cut payment system.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Pure conjecture on my part, but iBooks was probably thought
| to be competitive with the kindle and they thought that ebook
| customers could be served by their own platforms just as
| well, no large loss and lots of potential upside for apple.
| paxys wrote:
| The violation was being able to buy books from the Kindle
| iPhone app without using IAP.
|
| From what I can gather from that exchange, Apple originally
| approved the IAP exception for Kindle under the assumption that
| buying eBooks on iPhone would be a very rare use case. After
| that Apple launched the iPad and their own books app, making
| Kindle a much more direct competitor. So they made Amazon
| follow the standard rules, which led to them removing the
| ability to buy books from the Kindle app altogether.
| jasode wrote:
| _> Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on
| Android and then accessed on an iPhone?_
|
| No, you got that backwards. According the email screenshots,
| the above scenario you wrote was actually "ok" with Apple and
| they allowed an exception for not using Apple payments: mostly
| buy a bunch of books on a _non-Apple device_ and then later
| read them on the iPhone.
|
| But Phil and Steve are complaining because Amazon commercials
| are showing how to do the opposite: buy books first _on the
| iPhone_ to read elsewhere. Apple wants a cut of that because
| that bypasses the Apple Payments exception they had in mind.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| + Minor point
|
| Per the emails, that exception was originally granted because
| Amazon wanted users to be able to purchase books (into their
| Kindle account) on Kindles, but still be able to read them in
| Kindle-on-iOS.
|
| At the time, this apparently seemed reasonable to Apple.
|
| In the time between that and the email, Apple sold a ton of
| iPhones and iPads. Amazon did not sell an equal ton of
| Kindles.
|
| Consequently, Apple looked at the deal as "You're getting
| value, based on a device count parity that no longer exists.
| So when you spit in our eye in an advertisement, we're going
| to alter the terms of our deal."
| vishnugupta wrote:
| > Is it because they could be bought through the Kindle app on
| Android and then accessed on an iPhone?
|
| It's the other way round. Back then one could purchase books on
| Kindle iOS app going through Amazon's payment processor
| bypassing Apple's payment option. There was quite a big furore
| around this. After a few back and forth they reached a
| compromise of sorts where Amazon removed the book purchase flow
| from Kindle iOS app and Apple was OK with letting customers
| download and read books purchased _outside of_ Apple ecosystem
| (through Android for example).
|
| At one point, Apple took an extreme position of _only_ allowing
| books purchased through their payment option to be read on
| Kindle iOS app. This was obvious not acceptable to Amazon.
| [deleted]
| sorenjan wrote:
| Schiller comes across as needy and with a very low confidence in
| their own product. Some other company shows that their product
| works equally well on both Android and iPhone, and his response
| is that it's not fun to watch?
|
| Also, this should be shown to everyone that says they prefer the
| Apple ecosystem because "it just works". You really can't get
| more user hostile than this, where you care more about extracting
| money from transactions that you're not a part of than making
| life easier for your paying customers.
|
| Apple let Amazon sell books using their own payment system
| because Amazon sold a lot of books on their own Kindle platform
| that Apple wanted users to be able to read on iPhones, but as
| soon as Apple's platform was the biggest one they altered the
| deal to squeeze more money out of it. Like a monopoly would do.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Exactly, this was all about leverage, not about the user.
| azinman2 wrote:
| > his response is that it's not fun to watch
|
| I read that in reference to it being easy to switch from an
| iPhone to an Android device.
| post_break wrote:
| Don't forget Apple got caught red handed price fixing ebooks.
| moogleii wrote:
| That whole debacle was an interesting, if illegal, counter-
| attack against Amazon:
| https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/apple-claiming-v...
|
| The meat of it: "As Apple prepared to launch the iPad, it
| offered a deal to the six biggest publishers in the U.S. The
| publishers could set the retail prices of e-books sold by
| Apple, up to a cap of $14.99, and they would get seventy per
| cent of the sale price. But if any other retailer was selling a
| given e-book at a lower price than the one a publisher had set,
| Apple could match it."
|
| Contrast that with Amazon which could set the retail price
| freely "often at or even below the original wholesale price.
| Amazon didn't mind losing money on each sale, as long as the
| strategy helped sell Kindles and expand the e-book market."
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Don't forget Apple got caught red handed fixing engineers'
| salaries by colluding with Google.
| echelon wrote:
| Call Apple what it is.
|
| An evil, overpowered marketplace.
|
| Anti-stallman, anti-web, anti-computing freedom, anti-
| engineer, anti-privacy, spy panopticon.
|
| Poser.
| askonomm wrote:
| I wonder why HN folk are so bitter about Apple. Did you
| guys send your resume and they never got back to you or
| what's the reason? It seems just odd to me to hate on
| something to this level.
| echelon wrote:
| Apple is turning computing and ownership into renting and
| serfdom. Why don't you see that?
|
| The only reason I'd work for Apple is to send the
| horrific things they do to my representatives and the
| Department of Justice. Emails. Meeting notes. Admissions
| of anticompetitive behavior.
|
| Not a bad idea, but I think I'll have more impact
| elsewhere.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| > Apple is turning computing and ownership into renting
| and serfdom. Why don't you see that?
|
| Amazon, Google & Microsoft are just as guilty of this
| with their cloud platforms.
| echelon wrote:
| Eh, you kind of get it.
|
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Famgopoly
|
| They all need to be broken up in the areas where they use
| platform powers to ensnare, absorb, and destroy.
|
| Each of these companies could be _decent_ companies, but
| they 're allowed to abuse their positions and wreak havoc
| on multiple industries.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| No, they are not. Apple is going further and using good
| branding to avoid consumer backlash.
| pessimizer wrote:
| " _Just as guilty_ " is the opposite of a defense. You're
| literally in a thread condemning Apple for conspiring
| with Google _right now._ Who are are you attempting to
| convince of what by saying that Google is "just as
| guilty?"
| mcdoogal wrote:
| Until Apple is my only option for computing, I don't see
| how this is happening
| justapassenger wrote:
| > Anti-stallman
|
| Personality cult is never a good thing. It's equally not
| healthy to be obsessed with Stallman as it's with Jobs.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Yes, it's _believing in things_ that 's a problem, not
| what in particular you believe in.
| zsmi wrote:
| To be fair, there were a number of defendants in that law
| suit. And they're probably just the ones that got caught.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
|
| "The defendants are Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit,
| Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay, all high-technology companies with
| a principal place of business in the San Francisco-Silicon
| Valley area of California."
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