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tl;dr

On businesses that can't afford 30%: Too bad, Apple wants to be the middleman

On price matching: Apple won't budge because their competitors (e.g. Amazon) insist on price matching

On the 30% slice itself: Apple is proposing that publishers (et al) will make more money at 70% than they'd make at 95% with someone else's business model

On (anti-)competitiveness: Apple is the only one which allows its competitors to have apps on its devices

Summary: iOS is a closed, controlled console system - more akin to Playstation or Xbox than to Mac OS X or Windows



What I do not understand is why no-one is complaining about Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 as a closed system but about Apples iOS line.

WHY is Apple bad for closing a system but Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are not? I really do not understand that.

WHY on earth has a cellphone to be open as a OpenSource project? Is there a reason for that? (Android has open sources but no-one can commit changes. It's all in Googles hands what comes into the next Android version which doesn't fit with OpenSource at all)

WHY is taking a 30% cut bad for all developers and Apps? (Jobs said that the 30% cut is not for SASS Apps but only for Newspaper Apps, right?)

Please give me some answers I'm starting to don't understand these discussions lately.


A console is a very different biest from a mobile communication device, of which openness and interoperability is hugely advantegous to society.

Thus the line apple is toeing here is a dangerous one.

I wouldn't make the same argument for iPods, iPads or Macs.




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