The penalty being hefted by truly popular free apps, this seems clearly aimed at protecting Apple’s investment into their own free apps, such as: Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Garageband,
Why? Because if you affect one aspect of Apple’s carefully crafted business model, you touch many more.
For instance, the fact that there’s no good free calculator on the iPad is bonkers. Why is it bonkers? Did Apple go “oopsie, we never got around to finishing the iPad calculator app.” for years? No. It’s a calculated decision.
Another example, why did Apple never have a weather app for the iPad UNTIL they bought out their best competition, which happened to be web-based?
Apple factors in everything. Will X push more sales of Y product or Z service? Will the fact that this feature is randomly not present in this set of devices help sell more mac/iPad/iPhone?
Apple loses more than the face-value (which is a lot) of their App store control. They lose a portion of control over their less-tangible business model.
If this wasn’t the case, they’d still be selling iPods.
> For instance, the fact that there’s no good free calculator on the iPad is bonkers. Why is it bonkers? Did Apple go “oopsie, we never got around to finishing the iPad calculator app.” for years? No. It’s a calculated decision.
Why? Because if you affect one aspect of Apple’s carefully crafted business model, you touch many more.
For instance, the fact that there’s no good free calculator on the iPad is bonkers. Why is it bonkers? Did Apple go “oopsie, we never got around to finishing the iPad calculator app.” for years? No. It’s a calculated decision.
Another example, why did Apple never have a weather app for the iPad UNTIL they bought out their best competition, which happened to be web-based?
Apple factors in everything. Will X push more sales of Y product or Z service? Will the fact that this feature is randomly not present in this set of devices help sell more mac/iPad/iPhone?
Apple loses more than the face-value (which is a lot) of their App store control. They lose a portion of control over their less-tangible business model.
If this wasn’t the case, they’d still be selling iPods.