Microsoft must do this!
They dont dare. They know that if they even try a move like that, Apple will bring them to their knees by demanding 30% of each Zune music store purchase.
Mwa-ha-ha.
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DoJ Claims Apple Implemented In-App Purchase Rules to 'Retaliate Against Amazon'
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They dont dare. They know that if they even try a move like that, Apple will bring them to their knees by demanding 30% of each Zune music store purchase.
Mwa-ha-ha.
You'd better tell my Kindle that it isn't allowed to read all of those epub files I emailed to it (which Amazon converts and adds to your account for free).
Then I turn on the FREE for LIFE 3G on my Kindle, and they download in the background.
Yeah, completely relevant to this conversation...
For some reason you consider this bad. Why wouldn't we let them? A strategy like that would fail miserably in the market unless it provided other incentives that benefited the consumer.
Which would be illegal collusion. The DOJ would step in just like they did in the eBook market.
And yet you are the one arguing against a free market.
I detect a rather large dose of naiveté in the above statement....
You do? How was Amazon harmed? What were their damages? How were ebook consumers harmed? What was their damage? You seem to be swallowing the DOJ/Amazon spin whole.
Apple had about $2B cash at the time. MS bought $150M stock. The claim that MS money saved Apple is baloney.
Kindle Books and the subscription to SkyDrive are products in Apple's store? Those are some amazing gymnastics you're doing there.
The fact that you can connect to the Internet and type tells me you have sufficient intelligence to know how utterly ridiculous your argument is.
Matt
Stop this madness! You don't understand the difference at all. In a physical store, you occupy land space, that space you're occupying costs money, it incur taxes, it has costs with water, cleaning, electricity, heating, etcetera. In that case you must pay because the costs are real. In this case, once you open Amazon's app, Amazon is the one hosting the content, distributing it, using their own payment infrastructure, etc. It doesn't cost Apple a single penny! Amazon has to pay for a development account every year in order to distribute their free app, apart from this, Amazon shouldn't have to pay a dime to Apple because Apple is not providing ANYTHING at all to Amazon. Apple locks the phone so that only apps within their own store can be downloaded. If Apple has an issue with businesses PAYING for a development account and offering apps on Apple's store so Apple can claim to have the biggest selection of Apps, then they should unlock the system so Amazon can offer a download link to the app similar to what happens in Android. Stop saying that Apple has the right to any money in this case because they don't. Amazon is hosting all the content offered in the app and they made it clear that they want to handle the payment system, so let them or if Apple insists in handling the payments they should do it for free, because they are forcing the other side for something that the other side can do.
Why can't you understand that this is not the issue here?
The issue is that Apple colluded with the publishers to set minimum prices in order to prevent other stores from competing with iBooks on price.
This resulted in higher ebook prices and it removed the incentive fro consumers to shop around (as all prices became the same).
Apple did not want to compete on price, so they rigged the market and screwed both the consumers and the small ebook sellers.
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Would you mind elaborating?
How are they forcing you? Like with a gun to your head? I consider myself a savvy consumer and will certainly shop around for the best price. In fact, I've never bought an iBook before and will rarely purchase movies through iTunes because I can get them cheaper from Amazon.com and still watch them on my iOS.
You painted a pretty sad picture of the poor consumer that is "forced" to believe there are no alternatives. To that I say hogwash. It's not Apple's or any other company's responsibility to advertise their competitor's products or prices. In a free market system the onus is on the consumer to know what is out there and decide what might be better for them.
The Quicktime lawsuit was one i completely forgot about too. Wasn't the BIG ONE on the table, but one of many.
Apple had been suing mIcrosoft unseccesfully for years because of "windows" and the use of a GUI.
if you look at Apple patents, especially the ones that Apple is Suing Samsung over, they are still trying to use some of those patents today. the amazing thing about some of them is, they've never won a single case on those patents. Even against Microsoft.
either way (now we're offtopic), Microsoft effectively DID save apple. Whether or not Microsoft's motivation was benevolent or just a wise business decision to avoid lengthy expensive court costs is probably between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. What the purchase and bailout did do is instill confidence in Apple systems once again. At the time, (for those too young or can't remember), Apple was only a PC vendor with their own Proprietary hardware and software, that was completely incompatible with 98% of the rest of the market. And that measily little percent they had was shrinking everyday because of the lack of tools. The Die hards were still die hards claiming that Apple was the ONLY platform for media work (they did have fantastic tools too). But the rest of the world had given them up for dead. Having the cash injection of 150 million when you are a company bleeding millions helps. Having Microsoft take a vested interest in the health of Apple meant investors and industry users saw that there was going to be future support for the Mac platform and popular and required tools such as Office would be coming to their platform.
If it weren't for this investment of time and money, Apple would have very likely gone bankrupt, And Microsoft would have very likely picked the carcass clean for patents and tech they could salvage and monopolize on.
No spin, just the facts, ma'am:
Before Apple colluded with the publishers, Updike's Rabbit Run was available for $5.99 from a few independent sellers and for less than $8 from Amazon.
Running a comparison search used to bring up a large variety of prices from a large variety of sellers.
After Apple colluded with the publishers, Rabbit Run is $11.99.
Running a comparison search brings up exactly the same price, $11.99 everywhere.
So, while Amazon may or may not have been harmed, consumers certainly were.
You're joking, don't you?
You're not really comparing in app purchases with Amazon store don't you?
By the way, Kobo app in the Amazon Appstore uses its payment system, try again
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Bezos is smart. All that lobbying money was well spent. He knows you can't beat the crooked politicos and played ball with them. If Apple had spent as much on lobbying (aka bribes) as Amazon they wouldn't be in all this trouble with the DOJ right now.
I love how this is still an argument. As if it's something that the DOJ just forgot to mention during the trial despite it's oh so obvious illegality to some people.They are forcing me to buy from them if I want a better experience, that I could have somewhere else if they were not forcing other companies to use their system. Besides having a better experience from the competitor, I could also pay less, but Apple is forcing the competitor to give 30% to Apple and the cost will be passed on to me. Do you honestly purchase a device with the intention of making your life more difficult? Because this is what you're suggesting people to do. Amazon showed that they can give the user an easy way to purchase content, but Apple is blocking Amazon from doing that, for absolutely no reason other than greed. Nowhere I talked about advertising, so stop distorting my words to try to make your argument better than mine. You're anti-consumer, clearly. You think it's cool that a company can force another company from providing a superior AND cheaper product "just because". Most people are getting ripped off, being forced to buy from Apple if they want a good and easy experience, OR being made to go through complicated steps to buy from the competitor. Apple knows that the competitor can provide a cheaper and easier way to purchase material, and instead of lowering their prices they block the competitor from doing what they can to provide the user a good experience, because they know that the user will always choose the easier way. So Apple is a jerk, because Amazon has their own system which is easy to use, but Apple is blocking it for absolutely NO REASON and people like you are defending this foolishness.
That is actually untrue;
according to Apple Financial statements (viewable online http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1047469-97-6960&CIK=320193)
1997
Places Apples Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments......... $ 1,45Billion (which yes, is good)
Total Assets at 4.5B
Total loss on 1997
1.04 Billion.
Their liquid cash and equivelant was going in < 2 years at that point.
Was their 2nd full year in a row running a loss (850 million the year before)
By 1998, After the investment from Microsoft, Due to investor and market confidence by the deal, Saw Apple's profit increase to 300million for 1998. With 2.3 Billion in "cash equivelence". This also included a major overhaul of the company from top to bottom with lots of layoffs and corporate restructuring (see the 1998 financials to see a more detailed description).
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Do you not realize how ridiculous that statement is? If you want a better experience, you usually have to pay a premium. (i.e. first class vs. coach, floor seats vs. nosebleeds). If Apple is providing a more simple, easy way to pay for something through their own system shouldn't they be allowed to charge a premium for it? That's pretty anti-free market to demand they give you a better experience at no additional charge.
What happens if the decision is reversed in appeals ? Will the DoJ award Apple money based on loses Apple suffers due to the DoJ ? I'm only asking since it seems most penalties are not actually accessed until all the appeals are exhausted.
Then you agree that Apple deserves a cut when someone buys through the eBay app or when someone buy an airplane ticket through the airline app, don't you?
Forcing? This rant reads as if you are unaware other retailers take a cut of each sale as well. That's how they make money.
Absolutely NO REASON... other than they want to make more money. You know, like most companies.
How it is Apple system better or easier than the Amazon, Google or B&N in this case?
What does "deserves" have to do with anything? They have the right to negotiate fees from the developers that they choose to do business with. It has nothing to do with what they deserve.