BitDepthFeatured

The United States vs Apple

3 Mins read

Above: It doesn’t seem that long ago that Wired magazine was calling for prayer for Apple and Michael Dell advised Apple’s board to sell the company and give the shareholders back their money.

BitDepth#1452 for April 01, 2024

On March 21, the Anti-Trust Division of the US State Department filed an 88 page complaint against Apple, alleging that the company was engaged in anti-competitive actions to the detriment of the public.

The complaint notes – without irony – that it was an antitrust case against Microsoft that made it possible for Apple to distribute its iTunes software, then necessary to communicate with its iPod music player, on the Windows operating system, steering the company, then routinely described as “beleaguered,” back to profitability.

Today, the sheer scale of Apple’s profitability since introducing the iPhone is now a concern for the State Department.

Apple, once on the verge of bankruptcy, is now the second most profitable company in the world, earning profits of US$99.8 billion in 2023 behind Saudi Aramco who made $151 billion. Apple operates with sizeable margins across all its product lines and has a robust hold on the mid to upscale market for smartphones.

The iPhone may be the company’s flagship, earning 52 per cent of the company’s revenue, but it’s Apple’s second largest money spinner that seems to have drawn the attention of the US government.

Apple’s services, including AppleTV, Apple Music and Apple Pay, account for 22 per cent of the company’s revenue and it’s drawing the lion’s share of the concern articulated in the 88 page document.

To be fair, Apple has been pretty heavy-handed in protecting its moneymakers, ejecting Epic Games and its hit game Fortnite from its App Store because the gaming company wanted to establish its own payment systems within the game, bypassing Apple’s restrictions and 30 per cent fee.

That fee has long been a sticking point with developers along with Apple’s insistence that software on their app store must adhere to more strict programming guidelines.

Here’s where some personal experience factors in. I’ve long been a fan and supporter of special purpose, single task tools that zero in effectively on computing problems.

The State Department’s legal complaint against Apple’s business practices.

I’ve spent a small fortune, or to be more accurate, an unholy number of tiny payments to small shop, individual developers who create software I find particularly useful over the last 30 years.

Only a few of the more adventurous of these developers are present on the company’s app store and many must jump through coding hoops when Apple changes the programming interfaces in its operating system.

For a user with less of a taste for the wild side of software programming, Apple’s online software store does offer a range of special purpose small apps in a curated environment that safeguards anyone downloading software there.

Some developers create a sanctified version of their software that passes app store scrutiny while offering a more capable, but edgier version that’s usually available directly on their website without the 30 per cent fee that Apple levies.

More user experience. At the end of 2023, after more than 12 years of using an Android phone with a Macintosh computing system, I got an iPhone again.

That decade of experience navigating a mixed computing environment meant making some careful choices around software that worked on multiple platforms, but there is unquestionably something compelling about living entirely inside Apple’s walled garden.

Phone calls, for instance, ring everywhere. On the laptop, on the iPad on the iPhone. Hell, even on the watch. There’s software that made that happen on a Mac and an Android device, but it was pretty expensive for just that added convenience.

Apple’s spirited protection of and continuous improvement to its intimate binding of hardware and software is key to its profitability. The company earns more than 70 per cent of its revenue from a combination of iPhone sales and services designed to enhance it.

Google, by comparison, earns 57 per cent of its revenue from search and another ten per cent from YouTube.

Sixty per cent of Microsoft’s revenue comes from cloud products for the office and server operations with Windows pulling in another ten per cent.

Amazon earns 42 per cent of its revenue from its online stores and another 22 per cent from third party sellers who do business on that platform.

Facebook earns 98 per cent of its revenue from advertising on its platform.

It should come as no surprise that each of these companies vigorously defends the jewels of their crown and each has earned some level of scrutiny from the state department which views these successes as potential monopolies in their sectors, though it also hints at the cumulative nature of avalanche technology successes.

More open software environments benefit all users, as the state department’s complaint argues, but Apple’s software ecosystem isn’t as closed as the complaint insists, though this action may encourage some welcome loosening of its unnecessarily exclusionary restrictions and shake some percentage points loose for its developers.

The state of Caribbean digital transformation

The state of Caribbean digital transformation

Despite 87 per cent believing that digital will disrupt their industry, 87 per cent acknowledged that they don't have the right leaders
Read More
The WordPress War

The WordPress War

WPEngine and the websites of its customers were blocked from the WordPress log-in system theme and plug-in updates and other background processes that enable a Wordpress website.
Read More
A budget of concrete and asphalt

A budget of concrete and asphalt

Four years after Hassel Bacchus took up the pioneering role of Digital Transformation Minister, the 2025 budget could not identify any completed transformation project that's positively affected citizens.
Read More
Arima’s first step toward becoming a smart city

Arima’s first step toward becoming a smart city

The public WiFi was officially activated on September 28 at the hospital, and it's fast. A local ping registered 250 megabits of download speed and 126 for upload.
Read More
Now hear this!

Now hear this!

Budget headsets will effectively dampen ambient sounds, but tend to be an all or nothing solution.
Read More
A taxing time for all

A taxing time for all

Tax collection began using the least customer-friendly interface imaginable, lines outside a government building.
Read More
Mobile devices, a war of increments

Mobile devices, a war of increments

Mixing and matching the two rival ecosystems is essentially impossible, so it's the utility of the products combined that makes the biggest difference.
Read More
Why cash is king in Trinidad and Tobago

Why cash is king in Trinidad and Tobago

In 2017, 16 per cent of users owned a credit card, a figure that dropped to 15 per cent by 2023.
Read More
I shopped at Temu!

I shopped at Temu!

Temu is great fun to explore and offers many bargains but product quality can be wildly variable.
Read More
What’s needed to make e-Governance happen?

What’s needed to make e-Governance happen?

“If we look at successful governments that have achieved a certain level in of success in these programs, some things stand out."
Read More
Changing the education conversation

Changing the education conversation

There are local schools that aspire to continuous improvement and others that struggle to make it through a working day without bloodshed.
Read More
Practical steps to reducing cybersecurity risks

Practical steps to reducing cybersecurity risks

The process, to be effective, must be ongoing and managed to ensure that vendors meet required standards.
Read More
The consequences of careless code

The consequences of careless code

The cruel reality of Crowdstrike is that it wasn't a cybersecurity attack. It was a quality of service lapse and the incident puts IT professionals in an odd space.
Read More
What leaders are doing to enable digital transformation

What leaders are doing to enable digital transformation

If people in your organisation are coming to you, telling you we need to change these things, you really should listen.
Read More
Apple’s photography workflow

Apple’s photography workflow

Every Apple device has a Photos database and every image that's taken with a mobile iOS device or imported into the desktop Photos app gets added to it.
Read More
An apathy of cybersecurity concerns

An apathy of cybersecurity concerns

It's weird when a definitive statement about the importance of cybersecurity comes from the people who broke into your digital house.
Read More
Putting data to work to improve perception

Putting data to work to improve perception

When it comes to the data, the numbers are there, but it also has to work alongside your goals.
Read More
The state of TT broadband, 2024

The state of TT broadband, 2024

In 2022, mobile internet penetration it had risen to 62.9 per 100 citizens, almost twice the penetration rate of fixed wireless.
Read More
Apple’s plan for device domination

Apple’s plan for device domination

Siri, at 13, gets an upgrade with Apple Intelligence, promising a significant upgrade on Siri’s smarts in a small language model that functions on device.
Read More
Adobe’s terms of disservice

Adobe’s terms of disservice

The activation servers for Adobe's CS, CS2 and CS3 products were shut down between 2013 and 2017. In May last year, Adobe stopped its customer support from deactivating perpetual licenses...
Read More
The state of Caribbean digital transformation The state of Caribbean digital transformation
The WordPress War The WordPress War
A budget of concrete and asphalt A budget of concrete and asphalt
Arima’s first step toward becoming a smart city Arima’s first step toward becoming a...
Now hear this! Now hear this!
A taxing time for all A taxing time for all
Mobile devices, a war of increments Mobile devices, a war of increments
Why cash is king in Trinidad and Tobago Why cash is king in Trinidad...
I shopped at Temu! I shopped at Temu!
What’s needed to make e-Governance happen? What’s needed to make e-Governance happen?
Changing the education conversation Changing the education conversation
Practical steps to reducing cybersecurity risks Practical steps to reducing cybersecurity risks
The consequences of careless code The consequences of careless code
What leaders are doing to enable digital transformation What leaders are doing to enable...
Apple’s photography workflow Apple’s photography workflow
An apathy of cybersecurity concerns An apathy of cybersecurity concerns
Putting data to work to improve perception Putting data to work to improve...
The state of TT broadband, 2024 The state of TT broadband, 2024
Apple’s plan for device domination Apple’s plan for device domination
Adobe’s terms of disservice Adobe’s terms of disservice

🤞 Get connected!

A once weekly email notification of new stories on TechNewsTT. Just that. No spam.

Possible UI Glitch. Click top right corner to dismiss 👉

Get Connected!

A once weekly email notification of new stories on TechNewsTT.

Just that. No spam.

Related posts
BitDepthFeatured

Mobile devices, a war of increments

3 Mins read
Mixing and matching the two rival ecosystems is essentially impossible, so it’s the utility of the products combined that makes the biggest difference.
BitDepthFeatured

I shopped at Temu!

4 Mins read
Temu is great fun to explore and offers many bargains but product quality can be wildly variable.
Press Releases

Samsung announces US$7 billion profit attributable to AI chips

1 Mins read
This extraordinary growth is primarily attributed to the surging demand for high-end chips essential for powering AI applications.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
×
BitDepthFeatured

Android vs iOS: Smartphone software integration compared

0
Share your perspective in the comments!x
()
x