An Amazon Ad Prompted Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller To Block In-App Purchases of Kindle Books On iOS (9to5mac.com) 108
According to a collection of internal emails recently released by lawmakers, as part of the House Judiciary Committee's antirust probe into Apple, a series of Amazon advertisements prompted Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller to block in-app purchases of Kindle books on iOS. 9to5Mac reports: As it stands today, the Kindle app for iPhone and iPad does not allow users to purchase ebooks directly. Users can read the ebooks they've already purchased, but to buy new ones, they have to use Safari. This is Amazon's way of avoiding giving Apple a 30% cut of ebook purchases, which would be required if Amazon sold ebooks directly within the Kindle app itself. What's important to remember is that this sort of arrangement wasn't always the case. Up until early 2011, you could buy Kindle ebooks directly in the Kindle app on iOS. As first uncovered by the Verge, two sets of emails included in the internal documents include conversations between Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, and other Apple executives regarding this situation.
In one email, Schiller explained that Apple initially made an exception for Amazon because "users would be buying books on a Kindle device and later accessing them on iPhone." As Apple sold more iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, however, Schiller thought it was time to drop this exception. In fact, what actually prompted Schiller to reinvestigate this situation, according to the emails, is that Amazon ran a series of advertisements on how you could still access your Kindle books if you switched from iPhone to Android or vice versa. [...] These conversations were taking place as Apple was also planning to announce new App Store policies for subscriptions. In his response, Jobs said that Apple could say Amazon "must use our payment system for everything" and say the change was triggered by the new newspapers and magazines subscription policies. "If they want to compare us to Android, let's force them to use our far superior payment system," Jobs wrote.
"It's time for them to use our payment mechanism or bow out," Jobs said in a separate email. In response to an email from Cue, Jobs also emphasized that iBooks would be the only bookstore on iOS devices: "I think this is all pretty simple -- iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things."
In one email, Schiller explained that Apple initially made an exception for Amazon because "users would be buying books on a Kindle device and later accessing them on iPhone." As Apple sold more iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, however, Schiller thought it was time to drop this exception. In fact, what actually prompted Schiller to reinvestigate this situation, according to the emails, is that Amazon ran a series of advertisements on how you could still access your Kindle books if you switched from iPhone to Android or vice versa. [...] These conversations were taking place as Apple was also planning to announce new App Store policies for subscriptions. In his response, Jobs said that Apple could say Amazon "must use our payment system for everything" and say the change was triggered by the new newspapers and magazines subscription policies. "If they want to compare us to Android, let's force them to use our far superior payment system," Jobs wrote.
"It's time for them to use our payment mechanism or bow out," Jobs said in a separate email. In response to an email from Cue, Jobs also emphasized that iBooks would be the only bookstore on iOS devices: "I think this is all pretty simple -- iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices. We need to hold our heads high. One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things."
Good ol' Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Good ol' Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
The last post makes a poor comparison to Bradbury and now you do the same with Orwell. Is it in vogue to compare things we do not like to dystopian novels we clearly have not read?
Woosh... (Score:5, Informative)
The last post makes a poor comparison to Bradbury and now you do the same with Orwell. Is it in vogue to compare things we do not like to dystopian novels we clearly have not read?
I think the post is cleverly referencing Apple's iconic commercial, aired during the 1984 superbowl, which uses Orwell imagery. In case you missed it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Thatl learn them (Score:2)
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That is hardly a good reference to 1984.
I think we have plenty of examples with social platforms removing people, videos and comments they disagree with.
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Not really. Orwellian would be if the government was doing it across all of society. A privately-owned outfit kicking some asshat off is completely normal, and has been since before and after the country was founded.
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Pretty sure it's a reference to the apple commercial where Apple claimed that 1984 won't be like "1984" because of the macintosh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
In which case, it is a good reference. In other words, apple chose 2011 as the year that they wanted to lock you in.
That's Fahrenheit 451 in a nutshell, folks. (Score:1)
And that's the reason I trust none of these f*ckers.
And you shouldn't either.
EOM
Re: That's Fahrenheit 451 in a nutshell, folks. (Score:2)
I dont feel sorry for either of them, but I having a hard time drawing your Fahrenheit 451 parallel. How is this preventing the actual reading of books or promoting book burning? This is more about the beyond ridiculous 30% commissions Apple wants on the sales price, not the profits. And I used to think Catholicism was greedy with their 10% Tithing. Imaging Paypal taking 30% instead of 4% of your payments? Fuck those guys.
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let's force them to use our far superior payment system
Far superior to Amazon's payment system? Yeah, good luck with that.
Just an FYI, Catholics don't tithe. That's for the fundies and Mormons.
Re: That's Fahrenheit 451 in a nutshell, folks. (Score:3)
It sounds like you have not read that book. Apple may deserve criticism for this but your comparison is odd.
Re: That's Fahrenheit 451 in a nutshell, folks. (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually all 'ebooks' comparisons fit, especially those tith a copynprotection scheme as part of them. If I can't buy a book and absolutely own the atoms it is contained on, it is 'subject to change' any time the powers that be deem to revise it. Thats the crux of both 1984 and Farenheit 451.
Re: That's Fahrenheit 451 in a nutshell, folks. (Score:2)
Considering how many time people claim the book is about censorship, I don't believe reading the book is generally helpful to know what it's about.
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Apple killed the golden goose.
If they had any sense they would have negotiated a lower rate. Initially, they were interested in market share, but once they were in a dominant position they pushed for profits.
Amazon just did not budge and mostly due to profit margins being very thin.
At the end of the day, you can open a web browser on your phone and visit Amazon to make an e-book purchase.
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You've clearly missed the core message in Fahrenheit 451.
All tech companies need a swift kick in the butt (Score:5, Insightful)
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They're a bunch of anticompetitive bastards.
They are free to choose their business model and nobody forced you to buy their phones.
All you then want is to force them to use your standards, when they have decided to force you to use theirs. So you're really just upset, because you're weren't the one in charge of their decision. That's all this is.
There are then many people like you everyday at the super market, who are being cheeky and use the market's parking space for free parking, but don't actually go shopping there. Yet does the market need to ma
Re: All tech companies need a swift kick in the bu (Score:2, Insightful)
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If there is such a large number of customers willing to pay for a third option, that creates a market opportunity to create this alternative and make bank. Of course, if the number of those customers is not that great, and/or they are not willing to pay for it, then it will never happen. Remember that the lower the number of customers, the higher the price has to be for that alternative phone and its add-ons to match all the options the other 90% have. Welcome to democracy of a free market, where the majori
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They are free to choose their business model
They are free to choose their business model, so long as it is not illegal. If I want to run a business whose model is selling murder for profit, that's obviously illegal because murder is illegal. But a business model which depends on anticompetitive behavior is also illegal, even if that's less obvious.
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It's not illegal for Burger King to refuse to sell McDonald's food.
How is this different with Apple?
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It's not illegal for Burger King to refuse to sell McDonald's food.
Burger King doesn't sell anyone else's completed food products. They buy ingredients, assemble them into food products, and sell those products. They are not a platform, they are a straightforward retail business.
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You can take any other shop or market if you want. You still don't get to buy all the products in the world in every shop.
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You can take any other shop or market if you want. You still don't get to buy all the products in the world in every shop.
That is completely, utterly, and totally irrelevant to the current discussion.
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Why? Because it completely upset your argument?
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It's not, because the post that all these replies are children of, actually said:
They must be forced to use open protocols and open standards only. Which phone you buy should not in any way decide which store you can use.
Under the conditions that satisfy that statement, Apple would be forced to distribute third-party Android apps to Android devices, because "which phone you buy" (the Android device) "should not in any way decide which store you can use". This scheme would represent a massive cost to Apple because they are not getting any profits from any part of this relationship unless it's a paid-for application.
As it turns out, knee-jerk re
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They must be forced to use open protocols and open standards only. Which phone you buy should not in any way decide which store you can use.
Under the conditions that satisfy that statement, Apple would be forced to distribute third-party Android apps to Android devices
No, it obviously would not. It would only be forced to permit you to use other distribution channels.
As it turns out, knee-jerk reactionary statements can have lasting and idiotic unintended consequences.
Yeah. I'm forever going to think you're a dumbass.
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It's your hardware, but the OS belongs to Apple. You only license the OS, they can do whatever they want with it the same as Windows. If you don't like what their OS does you can install some other OS. Oops, nope, unless you''re able to get past the boot locker on what you only thought was your hardware.
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When you buy a house, do you let the seller choose which of your guests they like and which must leave if they don't pay a fee?
Yes. I am for example not allowed to let planes land here. Nor am I allowed to spill chemicals or just dump my waste where ever I want.
But apparently you can, yes?
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Not sure if you're being cynical, but yes. You cannot escape the government or just the rules of your local district. They literally have their own police ...
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So now you are advocating that Apple be forced to distribute other company's software to other company's phones, where they aren't involved at all?
That makes just about as much sense as Apple demanding their 30% taste of all sales, whether they are involved or not.
greed (Score:2)
A 30% cut made it worth it to bypass their scheme.
All these decisions are based on profit, you can trust that.
They are professionals (Score:2)
They don't work for free.
Do you?
Re: They are professionals (Score:3)
Same goes for the mob.
Re:They are professionals (Score:5, Informative)
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The credit card transaction fees are not their only costs, they have the entire infrastructure of the store to support and whether one thinks it's "fair" or not the paid apps subsidize the free apps.
And then you don't think it's reasonable for them to want some profit out of the mix? Do you expect retail stores to sell manufacturer products and only mark them up by the 3% required for payment processing?
And to the complaint of well Apple has their own competing versions, that is the same as just about ever
Re:They are professionals (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, they have the extra infrastucture of 'the store' to pay for. So require Amazon to give Apple 30% of the price of the only thing hosted at Apple, the Kindle App itself. Which Amazon prices at free.
All other 'contact' with a server or infrastructure to buy books or subscriptions only touches Amazon's server. Apple can fuck right off on charging a percentage for that. Amazon should be allowed to set up their own payment system. Guess what? They're pretty good at that.
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If I buy, for example a flashlight using my Visa card, I am not then forced to buy all of the batteries I put in it using Visa.
I also don't have to buy the flashlight through the auto dealership even though I will be keeping it in the glovebox. (There's your obligatory car analogy :)
If Apple doesn't want to incur the costs of running the App Store for free apps, they could always allow side loading.
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Visa/Mastercard/Amex monopoly only charges about 3% 30% is pretty abusive. And I'm saying this as a pretty wealthy guy who has made a LOT of money off Apple stock. So if you like Apple, please buy more hardware and apps!
Visa/MC also don't provide you with a platform to sell your apps, free developer tools or access to a large base of potential customers. Whether 30%is too high is open too debate, but developers get a lot more from the App Store than they would if it was just a payment processor and didn't provide all the added things that make up the App Store and its ecosystem.
To put it in perspective, in the old distributor model, a developer was lucky to get 30% and if they self published they ran the risk of having u
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Developer tools aren't free, you have to pay Apple $99 remember.
Actually, you don't pay unless you want access to the app store and some more advanced capabilities. The main tool kit is free. https://developer.apple.com/de... [apple.com]
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Visa/MC also don't provide you with a platform to sell your apps, free developer tools or access to a large base of potential customers.
Free developer tools are a dime a dozen. Visa and MC don't force you into using a specific platform to sell your apps. Visa and MC absolutely do offer access to a large base of potential customers, those who will only pay with Visa or MC. So that's at least half bullshit.
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Visa/MC also don't provide you with a platform to sell your apps, free developer tools or access to a large base of potential customers.
Free developer tools are a dime a dozen. Visa and MC don't force you into using a specific platform to sell your apps.
Visa and MC absolutely do offer access to a large base of potential customers, those who will only pay with Visa or MC. So that's at least half bullshit.
Your being disingenuous. Apple offers access to a specific customer base that is already a user of the platform, something Visa and MC don't; you have no way of knowing if a V.MC cardholder is a potential customer. With an app store you knopw you are reaching a customer base that already owns the device.
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Visa/MC also don't require people to only buy things using Visa/MC (though it sometimes seems like they're trying).
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In the old days of paper books GP would have had a point. Not sure if he was actually referring to those days though.
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In the old days of paper books GP would have had a point. Not sure if he was actually referring to those days though.
I was. The AC clearly has no clue how the old distro system worked.
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You think they need 30% for doing 4/5th of sweet fuck all?
Re: They are professionals (Score:2)
Credit cards only charge businesses that rate. What they charge the consumer, on the other hand. . . In any other age they would be charged with usury.
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Credit cards only charge businesses that rate. What they charge the consumer, on the other hand
...is nothing, provided you pay your bill every month.
They only charge the consumer for living beyond their means.
If you want to be angry at someone about how much people get paid, it's not CC processors.
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I know what you're saying is true, but I've never understood the logic of it. If I have enough money to pay of at the end of every month, then I don't need a card.
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If I have enough money to pay of at the end of every month, then I don't need a card.
These days that's true, because everyone's bank card can be used at POS. Obviously the CC processor is hoping you will live beyond your means. That's why they keep increasing credit limits for people who keep paying off their card within the month. I'm not saying they're not predatory, I'm saying that you can use their product in a way that costs you nothing personally/directly. In fact, it will probably make you money as compared to not using it, because most cards have reward programs. Though that money i
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On the other hand, I *can* see using a cheap, small-limit card to simply build or rebuild ones FICA score. Usually if I borrow -AT ALL- its going to be a large amount (car, house) and those things are certainly subject to credit scrutiny.
Factor in though, that inflation (real inflation) has far far outpaced wages for the last few decades, and basically half the country is living beyond their means. Which half? The half that is making less than 50k/yr.
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Credit cards only charge businesses that rate. What they charge the consumer, on the other hand. . . In any other age they would be charged with usury.
Our average credit card use is fairly low, with huge charges infrequently for vacations, Christmas, or home renovations. But since we always pay the balance off every month, we havent paid a cent in interest or fees in nearly 20 years. Paying outrageous interest is usually (not always) a choice made by the individual in exchange for living beyond their means, a strategy that usually works out poorly.
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"Visa/Mastercard/Amex monopoly only charges about 3% 30% is pretty abusive."
Well, Visa doesn't check if your money has a virus, a Trojan, malicious code, surveillance and whatnot.
People who don't like it can use Android, it's not like there was a monopoly.
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Rarely, but no, I do not wish for it.
Apple's reasoning is refreshingly honest and fair when compared to others in the business. They have a model, they stick to it and they ensure everyone gets treated the same.
It's companies like Amazon, who try to get across on Apple's devices without paying the ferrymen. Amazon's success is practically based on cutting out middlemen. Of course they'll try to do it anywhere they can.
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Shouldn't Apple be paying Amazon then. For letting Apple use their kindle books?
You probably think it's also refreshingly honest that Trump has already said the 2020 election doesn't count because it's too fraudulent.
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Shouldn't Apple be paying Amazon then. For letting Apple use their kindle books?
Why? That's not my or Apple's decision to make but that of Amazon, isn't it?
Re: They are professionals (Score:2)
Shouldn't both companies allow consumers to enter into a financial agreement with either of them without the other becoming involved?
Re:They are professionals (Score:4, Insightful)
"iBooks is going to be the only bookstore on iOS devices [...] which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things" may be honest, but it is far from refreshingly fair.
Or Schiller's decision to block users from buying Kindle books on Apple devices because Amazon advertised that users would not be locked into Apple's walled garden -- very transparent, but absolutely anti-competitive.
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Apple needs to make money like every business. Apple then takes money from the buyers of their phones as well as the stores. This is more fair than you know. Or would you as a buyer of their phones rather have all the costs and so the stores have none?
Re:They are professionals (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple needs to make money like every business.
Many businesses manage to make money without their business model being fundamentally illegal. They are competitive, rather than anticompetitive.
Apple then takes money from the buyers of their phones as well as the stores. This is more fair than you know.
That's not the unfair part. You don't understand the argument.
Or would you as a buyer of their phones rather have all the costs and so the stores have none?
Your logical fallacy there is the false dichotomy.
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Burger King and McDonald's sell Coke. Pizza Hut sells Pepsi. There is nothing illegal about it.
Apple then doesn't strictly refuse Amazon. They only want Amazon to pay the same fees for using their distribution service as everybody else.
If anything it's Amazon who is anti-competitive by cheating. Amazon has been destroying countless small businesses. They even copied products only to sell these themselves. And yet it is legal.
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Burger King and McDonald's sell Coke. Pizza Hut sells Pepsi. There is nothing illegal about it.
Fast food restaurants are not platforms. They buy and sell products, not access to markets. They are fundamentally different, and as such, not valid examples.
Apple then doesn't strictly refuse Amazon. They only want Amazon to pay the same fees for using their distribution service as everybody else.
Yes, their policies are anticompetitive against everyone. They harm corporations and customers alike.
If anything it's Amazon who is anti-competitive by cheating. Amazon has been destroying countless small businesses. They even copied products only to sell these themselves. And yet it is legal.
Some of Amazon's activities are arguably illegal, like dumping. And if they are party to NDAs and then used relevant information to produce products, that's illegal. If they copied a product which wasn't protected by copyright or patent, that's legal. A
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Fast food restaurants are not platforms.
They are, just as much as any other reseller. Fast food restaurants even carry the Coca Cola or Pepsi banner to show their support for a brand in their window. That's not unfair or illegal at all. It doesn't mean everyone should now be allowed to hang up their logo in every window.
Amazon itself has got rules for their market place and you cannot just demand to have it your way.
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Fast food restaurants are not platforms.
They are, just as much as any other reseller.
No. Not all resellers are alike. If they are reselling a service, that's one thing. If they are reselling a product, that's another thing. And if they are buying products and combining them to make different products, that's yet another thing.
Amazon itself has got rules for their market place and you cannot just demand to have it your way.
I can't, but we can. That's how government works.
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If they are reselling a service, that's one thing. If they are reselling a product, that's another thing. And if they are buying products and combining them to make different products, that's yet another thing.
To you everything is a thing, isn't it? But it's not about things, it's about people. Things don't have rights, only people do.
Apple would be more at risk of getting sued by other companies for allowing Amazon to cheat on Apple's market place. So they stopped it and thus it is now just for everyone who uses Apple products.
The law isn't about making it fair, but it's about making it just. Competition can certainly be unfair.
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That's not how this works. Believe me, one way or the other, the costs get passed on to you, the customer. Apple charges Amazon 30%, Amazon adds that on to what they charge you.
Next step, Apple decides it "isn't fair" that people have to pay more to have the ebook on their iPhone and demands that it be the same price as everywhere else. Amazon either fights it out or spreads that 30% cut to Apple over other customers that don't own Apple products or even like Apple.
Visa/MC have frequently played that gambit
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That's not how this works
And yet it does.
You cannot walk into a Ford dealership and demand they sell you a Lada, because you think not doing so would be illegal.
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Your 'analogy' has nothing to do with the current discussion. Nobody's trying to make Apple sell an Android.
Amazon is trying to make Apple not at all involved in the selling of ebooks.
This would be more like Ford going to the Lada dealership and demanding a 30% cut of all sales.
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This would be more like Ford going to the Lada dealership and demanding a 30% cut of all sales.
And Lada can agree or disagree. If they agree to the terms the they do get to sell their cars over Ford dealerships.
Re: They are professionals (Score:3)
The scummy thing about Apple though is they market the iPhone as a device to sell to consumers when in fact it is a service charge delivery platform.
They present themselves as a device company when they haven't actually been that for years. They are a content middle-man. In a world in which content providers can easily sell direct to consumers.
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Jobs was such a scumbag. (Score:2, Troll)
I'm so glad he's in Hell.
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He role-played as Satan his entire life (the clever challanger of the status quo and rules of society) so it's entirely appropriate that he went to Hell on his death. Though its not really for us to imagine where he ended up. From a humanistic point of view he lived in Hell most of his life. So many are trapped there.
Re: Jobs was such a scumbag. (Score:3)
Jobs wasn't an iconoclast. He was an asshole. Apple has barely had an original idea. They're simply a state of the art technology assembler.
Apple (Score:4, Interesting)
I spent 6 years in my current job, trying to tell people what dealing with Apple was like. They still wanted them for the "status symbol" aspect. I took it on the chin... I'm the IT guy, if that's what you want, I'll manage it for you, but if our fleet becomes just Apple, I have little interest in the job.
We had a couple of hundred devices at one point. But the problems had already started. Management of any significant item was a bitch. The phones and tablets simply aren't set up for multi-user use, it's that simple. One account, one device.
They compensated, tried to carry on. There were all kinds of problems, all kinds of costs, all kids of tie-in.
It was only after a few years when a major incident where they stopped our company making more than one iTunes account a day reared its head. We'd had trouble before, and you could phone up and after much faffing, they'd reluctantly open up sign-ups for you so you could create new users, and so on. But it would be fleeting and difficult to get, passed through a dozen "departments" all over the world (I used to ask them while waiting... Singapore, Ireland, the US, all within one phone call).
But now they wouldn't do that at all. You were limited, that was it. Don't create that number of accounts. Basically meant that new-hires were without devices for days because we couldn't issue them an account, and if we shared accounts, the devices would fill up in minutes because everyone wanted to sync to iCloud storage. And you couldn't centrally-manage the settings, and couldn't enforce them once they were set, so it just descended into chaos.
The clincher came when I phoned to complain that we couldn't use the devices in that state. Their complaints procedure was non-existent. Bounced between countries and departments, explaining from scratch every time, "what's the serial number of the device"... you want me to reel off 400+ affected serial numbers? They're all the same problem, mate. In the end, we wrote a recorded letter of complaint. Their EU headquarters was in Ireland. The letter went unacknowledged.
Months later, we got a phone call from "The Head of Written Complaints" (he told me that was his job title). He refused to file a complaint. Refused to acknowledge the complaint. Refused to reply to the complaint. Refused to give his name. When I asked for that refusal in writing (because it's illegal not to respond to some statutory elements that I'd included in my complaint request), he refused. The Head of Written Complaints "doesn't give written responses". I asked if Apple couldn't afford a printer with the profits from the GBP100,000+ of Apple equipment we had.
They never formalised any response at all, and had no resolution to our problems. I presented this to our top-bods. They instantly cut business with Apple. You cannot deal with a company not complying with their most basic legal obligations.
We got rid of every piece of Apple hardware within a year, and never bought another.
The "I told you so" was written on my face for months. This was after lots of minor incidents like: A member of staff bought a Macbook for themselves, and insisted we buy Photoshop for it for her. There was a kerfuffle because they didn't want to get into licensing it, but it was eventually decided we buy one copy for her, but if it was lost, it was gone (because of the activation, it wasn't tied to her account, it was tied to the machine).
Literally the next week, she the Macbook stopped working. "No problem, take it to the Apple Store" I said. We did not do Apple repairs, they're a fecking nightmare. And I was echoing what every Apple user tells me about how that's all they need do, and what they pay extra for. Which is good, because I refused to repair Apple devices if that's what they had.
And like *EVERY* Apple user I know who's ever said that, she took it to the store, they told her to buy a new one. That was it. That was the fix. That was the resolution. That lost the software we'
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> they stopped our company making more than one iTunes account a day reared its head.
Sounds weird to say your company had to create an iTunes account in order to do business.
I do like some of Apples privacy polices vs. Google, but they have their share of crap I don't like. I do our company intranet/web based billing system and Safari sucks. Everyone has iPhones, so when I'm asked to do something, I get to tell them it won't work on an iPhone because Safari doesn't support that. Haha.
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Sounds weird to say your company had to create an iTunes account in order to do business.
Other Apple hardware depended on iTunes, like iPhones. (ISTR they've changed that up, now iPhones depend on different Apple software? I haven't used a Mac in a while and have never owned an iPhone, and hopefully never will.)
A bit confused (Score:4, Insightful)
I am a bit confused, I mean I would never buy an Apple device myself (since I find them too restrictive and too expensive, and they do indeed tell you to buy a new device when it breaks due to their fault!!), but some of the issues you describe seem too weird. Like your company not able to setup more than one itunes account per day? You mean you could not setup more than a new idevice as a new user per day? How is that possible, was your company specifically restricted for some reason? I know several companies that set up multiple devices in a day (no, not using a single account obviously)...
And Photoshop accounts don't work like that. You don't "lose it". If you are talking about the old style where you could actually "buy" it, you could install it 2 times (having only the licence details), with no problem, for more times you needed to disable the license on an previous installation (or you could always ask for adobe for an exception if both your previously installed machines broke). Did your company manage to actually lose all the license details and proof of purchase? The newer style where you just "rent" the software is even simpler. I've never heard of any sort of PS license that is per machine one time only, lose it that's it?
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In my experience working with a ~15,000 employee organization there's some problems with managing licensing. Ask IT to manage the licenses and someone will invariably cave to a user begging or lying about software that they "had before the damn IT guy reimaged my computer", effectively stealing a license from another user or department. The other side involves sending the license directly to the user who will immediately forget it, store it in some wacky hierarchy of folders inside archives that they then
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Because the guy is full of shit. IBM buys tons of Apple devices and their lower support costs more than make up the price difference.
What are you talking about...? (Score:2)
Huh? What in the heck does this mean? What sort of business needs to create iTunes accounts?
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Once upon a time, an "iTunes account" was what an iCloud account is now: A precondition to doing various useful things with the device.
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Re: What are you talking about...? (Score:2)
K thanks Iâ(TM)ll let them know.
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The kind where the employees also have iPhones. You might think iTunes is just for music, but it used to also be needed to backup/restore your iPhone. That may or may not still be true.
There are pros and cons to IMacs (Score:1)
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As long as you're getting paid to it, it sounds like Apple devices are your gold mine, job security, and retirement fund all-in-one. Why complain then?
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Where I used to work at until the beginning of this year we had over 3000 Iphones. Around 4-5000 laptops. We never had any trouble. It's running BSD under the hood so it's not single user. We could control that Iphone remotely. Reset a password, wipe it, fix stuff.
Maybe where you worked they didn't buy the software and get the training to properly manage the equipment? Same with anything else. Don't get the tools and training, don't expect to run stuff properly.
New Standard For Digital Sales (Score:1)
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Ah.... you understand they already did that, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It turned out not to be commercially successful so they backpedaled, let everyone upgrade to an unlocked edition, and went on their way.
Now sure, that was just one edition of the OS. But the same thing is true of iOS: Anybody who's sufficiently motivated can shell out for an Apple Developers Program subscription and run whatever code they want, even apps from other people. Yet most people are fine with *not* doing that. Mayb
This is why paper is still better (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time an article like this comes up I am reminded why paper books are still superior to digital in almost every. With a real book, once I've bought it, it's mine. The proprietor cannot take it away from me.
With a real book, I can sell it, give it away, or loan it to someone without restriction.
With a real book, I never have to worry about my screen cracking.
With a real book, I'm not limited to buying from one seller and locked into their proprietary format.
With a real book, I don't have to worry if it's charged.
With a real book, it will be readable decades, or even centuries, later without having to worry about what software it uses.
With a real book, no one is tracking what I'm reading.
With a real book, I can pick it up and go to any page I want and read it to see if it's something I want to purchase.
With a real book, I can put it on a shelf with my collection of other books to enliven my place.
The only two advantages of digital are you can carry more books more conveniently and can readily enlarge the text if your sight is bad. And the second one isn't even that significant since there are several ways to accomplish the same thing with a real book.
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I used this about 30 years ago. A bunch of execs were going to South Africa. Still during apartheid and they were black men. So they took laptops. I had it all figured out. What do they do if scenarios. Then they asked - what if all that fails? In the front of the case I had a tablet of paper and a fresh set of pens/pencils. I said - the ultimate backup. Even had a pocket calculator. They laughed and thought that was hilarious. I said - hey, you'll be able to do what you need to do.
They never ended up havin
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With a real book, I have to wait for it to be shipped to me (probably from Amazon, anyways).
With a real book, I have to lug the damn thing around instead of relying on either the device that's always in my pocket, or on the 1cm-thick Kindle that I bring with me when I know I'll want to do some reading.
And with those two factors, most people decide that "a real book" isn't worth it for most of their purchases..
The fall (Score:1)
This is the deal breaker for buying iOS for me (Score:2)
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I wouldn't use Flash as a gleaming example of something amazing that Apple killed off for the fun of it. Flash was a giant dumpster fire that should have been killed off years before it was.