Says who? Apple makes the products that they want to offer for sale. So far, it seems like they are doing a darn good job of meeting users’ needs. If you don’t like what they offer, don’t buy it. I don’t know how much simpler it can be.
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Says me. That’s who. 
The comment was in respect to Apple only needing to meet the needs of folks other than me, and that I am not a “primary user” to which I call BS. Apple needs to meet the needs of all their customers, including ‘power users’.
Nowhere did I say they did not, or that I didn’t like what they offer. But I did note how I thought that they could do better.
Again, blind allegiance and acceptance is not a requirement of using any company’s products.
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IANAL, but I believe Apple has a legal requirement to maximize shareholder value and if they did not defend the apps store revenue streams to the best of their ability they would be providing grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.
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I will happily chime-in, I’ve been thinking about addressing this topic here, anyway. I can’t do it right now, but will ASAP.
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We all could do better. We’ve all had customers that thought we could do better.
You (and others) seem to want to tell Apple how to run their business not how “they could do better” with the software and devices that they currently sell. It seems that you want Apple to change their business model.
As long as their customers continue to reward Apple by making them one of the top companies in the world, Apple will have good reason to avoid changing the practices that got them here.
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As can Apple. Thus my point.
Cheers.
You are probably not their primary customer. As @karlnyhus said, their primary customer is someone who doesn’t know tech, doesn’t want to know tech and wants a phone that is easy and safe to use. That doesn’t seem to fit your profile.
As previously mentioned, a company has a vision of what their product and market strategy is. If they find that there is a market for their vision, they are rewarded, i.e. Apple. If not, they go away.
I have had enough of the Microsoft and Google experience, to where I can do a lot of tinkering, but now I don’t want to. I am knowingly giving up flexibilty for other benefits.
An analogy is: a restaurant decides to specialize in chicken. They do great, have a lot of customers, have a dominant market share. However certain customers say they should start selling beef menu items, because that is what they want. An they want the government to make the restaurant to carry beef products. Makes no sense.
And regarding the commission Apple charges, how does that compare to what Google, Epic, Steam and others charge?
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That seems fair considering they want to tell us how to use our phones 
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Back to the original post, I feel the same frustration when the arguments revolved around “Apple has plenty of money” so they should do X, Y, or Z. Yes, they make a lot of profit, but they also have a global business to run with tons of employees and none of us know their product roadmap where they might be predicting down years. And like it or not since they are publicly traded, the must continue to grow somehow (we can certainly have a discussion on why this type of “shortermerism” as I’ve heard it called recently is bad).
But for people to say Apple doesn’t need any more money just falls flat for me. It’s all scale. I don’t tell podcasters they don’t need anymore money because their businesses buy new Macs or the newest toy every year. It’s not my place or business.
I do understand there’s more nuance here as there is only seemingly one other place to go and that makes people nervous. But it’s complicated, in my humble opinion.
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Bad analogy, it is more like the way third rate food assembly ‘restaurants’ stiff staff on tips: unknown and unseen by customers. It might give them a market edge but it isn’t right or even fair and uncompetitive and economically harmful especially if others aren’t doing the same.
It is a race to the bottom and market forces aren’t everything, or even everything we care about regarding a product. Nobody can investigate or understand every feature of the products we use and Government and regulation does have a role in keeping things fair. Or should have, you wouldn’t think so in today’s climate. Myself I care about the apps I use as much as the hardware these days. More so really.
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There, fixed that for you.
Your analogy might work if the restaurant also prevented any other restaurants from opening. And as @TudorEynon suggests, lowered the wages of the workers by 30%, while preventing them from working elsewhere.
Chicken restaurants … this discussion has gone off the rails now hasn’t it.
Cheers.
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Ha, funny enough, truth is stranger than fiction.
Local chinese eateries recently replaced “sweet and sour pork”, which is my favorite and an UK standard Friday night dish, with the same thing but chicken subsituted, almost for sure cost cutting without passing the cost on. Choice? not really they all seem to have done the same thing. So there is nowhere to go for sweet and sour pork, even at a higher price.
There is a suspicion that the competition among local eateries is mostly fake and they are all sourced from the same places. I won’t over comment and make what might be slanders. However, oddly the analogy by Nick, in reality, is anyway not quite on target as one might think.
As a former Android user, I can tell you that you have to get past scary warnings and actively affirm that you want to take this risk. Apple will almost certainly make them even scarier. Most ordinary users are going to freak out and click the “back to safety” button.
I used to believe that unrestrained markets always produce optimal outcomes, but I’ve seen too much of the real world to think that any longer. It’s clear that Apple has leveraged its dominance in the duopoly to engage in rent seeking and anticompetitive behavior, and it’s in the public interest to open up competition in the market for apps, services, and payments on a platform that controls half the US smartphone and even more of the tablet market.
It would be different if there were 4 or 5 viable smartphone platforms to choose from, but there are only two, and they collude tacitly and overtly to maintain that dominance. It’s like concentration in the oil and steel industries during the robber baron era.
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Largely identical. It’s not like Apple is taking 30% and Steam is taking 5%.
The issue here isn’t really about the amount of money as much as it’s about (a) who gets to decide what apps get in, (b) on what terms apps are let in, and (c) who gets to make the money from the sales that go through the store.
Yep. Also they analogy is wrong in the aspect of being the only way to install a game on a computer. I do not have a problem with Apple ruling as they please in the App Store.
But not allowing side-loading and/or alternative stores feels like rent seeking. As an example I would point out game streaming services like GeForce Now which are currently only available as a web app. I fail to see a way the ban on these benefits the consumer.
That said, I would probably get the vast majority of apps I use directly through the App Store even if there are alternatives.
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Apparently Apple may have a countermove
WSJ: Apple Plans New Fees and Restrictions for Downloads Outside App Store
Read about that on DF. I think this is not really what the EU was aiming for. Seems to be a good move to antagonise regulators even more. I like how John Gruner put it here.
That is a myth, both in the US and UK
Do public companies need maximise shareholder value by law?.
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Good thing I’m neither a lawyer nor do I play one the internet.
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