kirklennon
@kirklennon@kbin.social
- Comment on Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead" 5 months ago:
They’ve used the same segments for a long time and presumably maintain them for consistency, so I think it really just tells us that they used to sell very little there. India, in particular, has been a large growth market for Apple in the past couple of years, but is still just thrown in with “Europe.”
- Comment on Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead" 5 months ago:
The EU is only one chunk of Apple’s “Europe” segment, which is defined as “European countries, as well as India, the Middle East and Africa.”
- Comment on Is This the End of Plastic? Visa's New Technology Could Replace Physical Cards 5 months ago:
Seems like you're Canadian. America doesn't have limits on tap to pay.
- Comment on Is This the End of Plastic? Visa's New Technology Could Replace Physical Cards 5 months ago:
“The industry is at a pivotal point - new technologies like Gen AI are rapidly shifting how we shop and manage our finances,” said Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Visa.
This is so cringey. I get that investors are randomly throwing cash at companies that talk up "generative AI," but it has nothing to do with anything they announced. Is it impossible to just be content with ridiculously sophisticated algorithms? Did someone hold a gun up to these people and demand they spit out some drivel that uses the buzzwords du jour?
Also, the headline feature was solved a decade ago when Apple Pay was released (and no, not by the janky predecessors of Apple Pay but specifically with the launch of Apple Pay, which everything was then changed to replicate). One device that can hold an entire wallet of cards and I can choose what to use right when I pay? Wow! So new.
- Comment on Apple introduces M4 chip 6 months ago:
The "bento box" graphic during the presentation yesterday said AV1. From the press release:
The Media Engine of M4 is the most advanced to come to iPad. In addition to supporting the most popular video codecs, like H.264, HEVC, and ProRes, it brings hardware acceleration for AV1 to iPad for the first time. This provides more power-efficient playback of high-resolution video experiences from streaming services.
- Comment on Apple iPhone sales decline 10% in first three months of 2024 6 months ago:
The main reason sales fell this year compared to the year-ago quarter is because the quarter before that Apple wasn't able to keep up with iPhone 14 demand leading to shortages and depleted channel inventory. The following quarter they were able to meet demand and replenish the sales channel leading a boosted year-ago quarter that was $5 billion bigger than it really should have been. Apple didn't have the same production shortages for the 15 launch. It makes this quarter they just reported look like a big decline but that's not really the whole story.
- Comment on ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say 6 months ago:
I think it's a privately-owned, profit-focused endeavor that is nevertheless beholden to the Chinese government and which the government wants to take as much advantage of as possible. Deep down, I'm certain that their sole goal is to make as much money for themselves as they possibly can. If they also need to exfiltrate some data and send it to the CCP, that's just a necessary business expense.
- Comment on ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say 6 months ago:
This means absolutely nothing. How much of their advertising revenue comes from the US.
To quote the article again, "The U.S. accounted for about 25% of TikTok overall revenues last year, said a separate source with direct knowledge." Honestly, I think that makes the case for shutting it down even stronger. TikTok isn't in some growth-at-all-costs phase in the US. It's likely near its peak potential userbase. If they haven't been able to make it profitable by now, that doesn't bode well for it ever becoming significantly profitable. Absent the legal issues, they think it's still worth at least trying, but as it stands, it's just a lot of money in and, just as quickly, out, with nothing to show for it at the end of the day.
- Comment on ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say 6 months ago:
TikTok's daily active users in the U.S. is also just about 5% of ByteDance's DAUs worldwide, said one of the sources.
So much drama in the US over this but it's apparently merely a money-losing afterthought for its owner.
- Comment on Apple loses top phonemaker spot to Samsung as iPhone shipments drop, research company says 6 months ago:
You ignore that it’s physically impossible to put a flagship performance in an under 5 inch format.
Not even slightly.
The battery alone scales with size. The camera is a physically space occupying bunch of glass and sensors, that even the ultra size phones have to put them in awkward bulges outside the phone main body to deliver the kind of qualety demanded by users.
The obvious solution is to make the body of the phone very slightly thicker. Thinness is more important in a bigger phone to shave off some of the overall bulk and make it easier to hold but when the area of the phone is smaller, you can easily make it thicker, with the added advantage of making the camera bulge less ridiculous. I’m reluctant to even call it a tradeoff because you’re not really giving anything up. This would have been a legitimately comparable phone, but they never made it so there’s no direct sales comparison in the market. There is no hard data, only inferences.
- Comment on Apple loses top phonemaker spot to Samsung as iPhone shipments drop, research company says 6 months ago:
The smaller phones were not comparable models. They were a lower-tier product with fewer features. This contrasts with the regular and Plus/Max versions where it's very much position as the same phone in two sizes.
- Comment on Apple loses top phonemaker spot to Samsung as iPhone shipments drop, research company says 6 months ago:
That’s not true. Apple sold a mini version for several generations and consistently the mini was always the worst performing version sales wise.
The "mini" lineup was never truly comparable to the flagship product. The specific deficiencies varied with the year but they were all missing an entire camera, and cameras are one of the single most important features of an iPhone.
The mini phones were significantly and arbitrarily gimped to mark them as a distinctly (and quite visibly) lower tier phone.
- Comment on Apple loses top phonemaker spot to Samsung as iPhone shipments drop, research company says 6 months ago:
No, that's precisely my point: they don't because no major phone manufacturer has simultaneously sold both a large and compact flagship. And when there are legitimately comparable models in different sizes, the smaller size fairly reliably sells better.
- Comment on Apple loses top phonemaker spot to Samsung as iPhone shipments drop, research company says 6 months ago:
No one big releases a small phone because no one buys them.
Except we don't have any good data to say why. Do people buy a bigger flagship over a smaller model that has older technology? Yes, but the only thing we can say with confidence from that is that people want the latest technology. The closest comparison we can make is Apple's Max/Plus and non-Max/Plus versions, which offer essentially the same model in two sizes. The smaller size consistently sells better. It's also cheaper. Does it sell better because it's smaller or because it's cheaper? Probably both, actually. But as long as nobody offers a small flagship (since Apple stopped making them entirely and switched to larger flagships), nobody can say for sure how well they'd sell.
- Comment on Using your phone to pay is convenient, but it can also mean you spend more 7 months ago:
The phone has advantages in that it’s more secure (because you’re not giving the merchant your real card number so when they inevitably have a hack, you don’t need to get your card replaced), and that you can carry multiple cards without taking up any extra space. Also, most people are playing on their phones while they wait to check out so it’s already in their hand.
- Comment on How does employing a rapist not constitute an unsafe work environment for female employees? 8 months ago:
I know that you can’t fire someone just for being a sex offender unless it directly interferes with work duties (in the US)
You can definitely fire someone for being a sex offender in the US. Outside of a few exceptions that probably don't apply in your case, you can also fire someone for being an accused sex offender.
- Comment on Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power — government now requiring commercial miners to report energy consumption 8 months ago:
CBDC is blockchain based, i.e cryptocurrency.
A CBDC can be blockchain based, but almost none actually will be. China's isn't. Japan's CBDC is not. In the US, the Federal Reserve is still in early stages but I'm confident it won't use blockchain either.
- Comment on Apple’s biggest critics are big mad about the new 27 percent App Store tax 9 months ago:
I'm not sure if you're aware, but games consoles are a completely different market with completely different laws and standards governing them. Game consoles are not general purpose devices. They are closed platforms where you gotta sign lengthy NDAs and pay thousands just to get yourself a fucking dev kit.
iPhones are a closed platform. Ditto for iPad and Apple Vision Pro. They are essentially an app console. They have never been sold to consumers or presented to developers as anything else. For what it’s worth, almost all of the in-app revenue at the center of this discussion is gaming revenue. Everything else is a rounding error.
- Comment on Apple’s biggest critics are big mad about the new 27 percent App Store tax 9 months ago:
No, we are discussing services not sold through their store and not using their payment provider. That is literally the topic of the post.
This is about purchases of virtual goods made by users of the app either directly in the app (30% combined commission and payment processing fees), or who click a link in the app to make the purchase using an external payment provider (27% commission). In all cases, these are sales originating from within the app.
- Comment on Apple’s biggest critics are big mad about the new 27 percent App Store tax 9 months ago:
You also forget they also charge 30% for anything sold through their store.
That’s literally what we’re discussing.
Not for services they aren't providing, it isn't.
Third-party console game developers paid money to the console maker even for physical sales.
Again, these are for services that are being provided. Apple is charging people to not use their own payment service.
The payment service is 3%; the commission is the other 27%. That’s what a commission is. It’s for access to the market.
- Comment on [deleted] 9 months ago:
That’s why it would need to be a small piece of a greater set of information. Imagine a person walking through an office and into a stairwell. If you know the person is there, and you know the stairwell is darker than the office, you could infer the appropriate location of the person in the building
That has nothing to do with the technique described in the article. It's also still quite a stretch. Holding up a piece of paper and casting a shadow on the ambient light sensor will also make it appear darker. Are they in the stairwell or is Bob from accounting stopping by to tell a "funny" anecdote and blocking the afternoon sun? If you've managed to compromise a device enough to access sensor data, you're not bothering trying to make sketchy assumptions based on the light sensor.
- Comment on [deleted] 9 months ago:
Nobody is going to use it against you, but a state actor could use it against a specific target like a politician or military to develop a more accurate assessment of information they already have been collecting.
I read the whole article and I think even that is a ludicrous stretch. In order to get a vague image of your hand it requires either several minutes of projecting a precise black and white bright checkered pattern on the screen, or over an hour of subtly embedding varied brightness in a video. The checkered pattern represents a best/worst case scenario for this kind of attack, and even that is completely impractical for anything in the real world. This is literally zero risk for everybody. Forever.
- Comment on Apple’s biggest critics are big mad about the new 27 percent App Store tax 9 months ago:
It's a commission for access to a lucrative market that Apple created. Apple gives away the developer tools and charges an extremely modest annual App Store fee, which also covers the review process and hosting. It's been common for platform creators to charge third-party developers in some capacity for many decades. Some do it by charging high costs for the developer tools, others by charging a commission based on sales. I don't think any strategy is necessarily better or worse than the other on a legal or moral basis; they're just business decisions. Previously Apple has combined the commission and payment processing costs into one fee. Apple made a business decision on what they wanted to offer developers on that platform and Epic wasn't satisfied with it. They got a court to agree on what is ultimately a minor technical point in how Apple's deal is packaged so Apple is offering an alternative that they don't want to but complies with the law. It's, ultimately, a worse deal for the developer. Developers don't have a right to demand that some arbitrary percentage is the right one. It's a business proposition: take it or leave it.
- Comment on [deleted] 9 months ago:
This seems like an entirely academic, theoretical technique with literally zero real world risk, and without any path forward to ever turn it into a practical attack.
- Comment on YouTube and Spotify Won’t Launch Apple Vision Pro Apps, Joining Netflix 9 months ago:
As a practical matter all they have to do is not proactively block their iPad apps from being available, which is the default.
Literally zero effort: Their iPad app is available for the Vision Pro and works perfectly fine.
Minor effort: Block the iPad app from being available.
Extra effort: make a specialized visionOS that takes advantage of additional hardware features. - Comment on Apple Watch imports banned in America - Patents issues! 9 months ago:
Why are they just outright stripping this feature instead of just paying the patent fee? (As in literally removing the chips, actually stripping it.)
They're not. Despite some misleading press coverage, Apple never remotely suggested they were removing any hardware. They're just going to start importing them without the "functionality." They're disabling it in the US via software while they go through the legal process. When it's all done, they can activate it for everyone.
As for why they're not paying, Apple's position is that their product does not infringe any patents, and this is not an outlandish position. Apple has already had most of Masimo's patent claims from a dozen total patents invalidated. The ITC ban is a result of a single patent still currently left standing that Apple believes should never have been issued and is working to have invalidated.
I think there's a very good chance Apple succeeds and Masimo is left with no relevant patents. If they go through everything and Masimo is still left with something, at that point Apple can negotiate with them on a reasonable fee, and they'll be doing so from a position of relative strength. Masimo was obviously hoping an ITC ban would cause Apple to blink and pay whatever Masimo wanted. Clearly that didn't happen and Apple would prefer go for total vindication.
- Comment on Don't expect iPhone apps to get cheaper now that you can pay for them outside of the App Store 9 months ago:
I won’t shed any tears for Amazon etc having to give Apple a huge chunk of cash
Amazon doesn't have to give Apple a huge chunk of cash though. Apps don't pay anything to Apple for real-world stuff being sold. Amazon pays nothing for the tens of billions of dollars purchased every year from iPhones. The only thing they pay Apple for is if someone uses the Prime Video app to buy or rent something or subscribe to Prime Video, but who does not already have an Amazon account (with saved card) that they're signed into. We're probably talking a number measured in the thousands of dollars. Uber, for example, pays Apple nothing other than their annual developer account fee (or fees, assuming they have multiple accounts).
this sounds like a way to frustrate small developers who don’t have a whole team to devote to their finances.
Nobody is going to actually use this program so there's no real world extra accounting cost. Previously Apple charged 30% for a combined payment handling and commission. A court determined they had to let developers handle their own payments so Apple complied and said the commission is 27%. It's invariably cheaper to just stick with Apple's 30%.
Everyone always wants more money. Developers would love to pay less; Apple would love to make more. The 30% max fee (in practice less for many developers) has been pretty successful for everyone involved. I think people can quibble over the "right" number, but I don't think it's wrong that there's a sales commission for access to a profitable platform.
- Comment on Don't expect iPhone apps to get cheaper now that you can pay for them outside of the App Store 9 months ago:
If you are a developer, what right does Apple have to seeing your finances for all purchases made in the app that they sold on their store?
It's a commission for sales that came from the app, meaning from Apple's platform, where they have roughly one billion above-average income users with a reputation for buying apps and subscriptions.
- Comment on Is there a difference between customers/consumers? 9 months ago:
Customers pay; consumers use. Sometimes they're the same, often they are not.
Ad-supported services: If you search for something on Google, you are a consumer. Google's customers are the companies paying for sponsored links at the top of your search results.
Kids toys (and other gifts): The kid in the sandbox playing with a Tonka truck is the consumer of the product but their parents (grandparents, etc.) are the customers.
"Enterprise" solutions: Corporate IT departments are usually the customer, though they may never use the product. Other employees are the consumer, but they had no choice in buying it so they're not the customer.
- Comment on Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines | Proton 10 months ago:
Amazon doesn't even pay a dividend. Do you think suppliers are just gifting their products to Amazon? Amazon is a pretty low-margin company on the whole.