Some of them are great but then I remember when I was floating around research labs some grad students would cry and tell you not to do what they were doing because its miserable. But then life has many fun horrors does it not?
Their astronomers and engineers at NAOJ are wonderful. They built (and paid for) the Atacama Compact Array, which forms the center of the ALMA radio-telescope and is part of the Event Horizon Telescope.
They’ve unkilled it last I heard. I got an email a few months ago from Chevrolet saying they decided to keep making Bolts due to their popularity, and to keep an eye out for the next model in 2024 or 2025 (can’t remember which year).
Tim Sweeney could lead by example and remove Unreal royalty fees and make his app store free for all. There's no freedom fighter here. Just another greedy troll.
> Tim Sweeney could lead by example and remove Unreal royalty fees and make his app store free for all. There's no freedom fighter here. Just another greedy troll. -zyang
Unreal Engine is free up to $1 million revenue and 5% after that.
Now everyone's diving straight into the "full AGI by 2025" hole. Which, to be fair, would solve the "full self-driving" problem as a pure side-effect, I guess.
Low-latency multi-modal LLMs with constrained outputs can outperform most specialized prev-gen networks, so this may actually work out independent of achieving AGI!
I believe Musk once admitted on camera that ~"full self driving basically requires AGI." If anyone could help me identify that video, I would appreciate it.
> I believe Musk once admitted on camera that ~"full self driving basically requires AGI." If anyone could help me identify that video, I would appreciate it.
I think it makes sense if consider the fact it “solves an actual problem”, would have a massive adoption rate and has a massive market, and the potential value of developing a product like that is easily in the 100 Billions if not Trillions
Short answer - usually individual app developers, even of Google’s size, need the platform (iOS) more than the platform needs them. This means Apple has historically driven hard bargains with even the most popular apps. Now Apple is launching a new platform (visionOS) the 3 most popular in their categories - YouTube, Netflix and Spotify decided that visionOS needs them more than they need visionOS. For now.
It’s possible they might use this leverage to negotiate better terms on iOS. For example, Netflix would like to offer in app subscriptions and to keep more the revenue without sharing with Apple.
If Apple sells millions of visionOS devices then that gives Apple more leverage and these 3 might come crawling back.
Tons of respect for Ben Thompson, but reason for not shipping visionOS apps (or allowing your iPad app to work on them) for these big co's is literally a matter of "Bang for your buck":
> Building a new app from scratch makes zero sense for the size of the install base. Only reason to ever do that would be to get some love back from Apple in the form of features and attention (which, for YouTube / Netflix / Spotify are hardly necessary)
> Allowing YOUR iPad app to function on visionOS means that your customers will hold YOU responsible for its functioning. At the size of customer base of these companies, that's a bunch of risk for no reward
> When your users use a browser that promises 'regular access to all websites' (built by Apple) to access your service, the responsibility for that experience lies with the browser builder, not you
There's 100% no negotiation over fees happening with individual developers, regardless of how big they are, regardless of what type of support for a platform they promise Apple, as that's exactly what has gotten Apple and Google in hot water with regulators worldwide.
Ben worded it well in the article:
"It’s certainly possible that I’m reading too much into these absences" < Yes
> For example, Netflix would like to offer in app subscriptions and to keep more the revenue without sharing with Apple.
Netflix already has that option[0] at a 15% commission rate, but they snubbed their nose.
Allegedly because they didn’t want to play nice with the TV app, like other streamers do.
Personally I think it’s that (and the potential loss of data) + them just wanting to pay $0.
The YouTube Music app blocks you from navigating to a different song at the same time as playing a track if it decides that the track is primarily aimed at under 18s (such as the theme from a retro cartoon).
It's UI might charitably be described as a total catastrophe.
Well compare that to Spotify which can only show videos full screen in one orientation and needs to be force stopped constantly because podcasts block a lot.
Also, I never encountered the problem you complain about.
I don’t know if that’s still true. The Music app is still sluggish, Notes has poor UX, almost every built-in app has a better third-party replacement. It has been downhill since iOS 7.
And in all 3 cases, the Google equivalents are worse. History shows they’ll probably just be replaced with a different product to solve the same problem which will be worse in its own ways.
Subjective, but I use both Android and iOS daily. Interesting byproduct of Android being the favorite of those obsessed with customization is that the stock apps are almost universally bad because everyone just replaces them with different niche alternatives.
Has it ever been the case that the built-in apps are the best in their category? Should it be the case? Apple's strategy seems to be to make a simple offering that appeals to most people, and to leave the advanced/special/power features to third-party developers. I think that's a pretty healthy arrangement, though I bet many devs would prefer Apple not offer defaults in some categories at all.
To be fair the clock app is a lot better since they introduced the sleep schedule, but I used to have a separate alarm app, and still use Sleepytime to calculate wake up times.
On the other hand, I have to imagine that to some extent YouTube is making maintaining their apps across multiple platforms harder than it has to be.
The app is almost entirely made up of tableviews/collection views/recycler views, save for the video player… really not rocket science. If YouTube’s public API were more capable I’m positive that third party devs would have no issue maintaining their YouTube apps across N platforms simply because they wouldn’t be overcomplicating them like Google is theirs.
I don't think the Youtube product managers really care enough about Vision Pro to prioritise making an app for it. That doesn't mean they strategically disgree with the product and actively wish to hamper it.
Indepedently of Vision Pro, I think they just might not be that enthusastic about third party youtube apps.
Maybe it was a UX bug that hampers the experience to the point that where the website is a better experience, and they felt that a bad app would hurt the brand more than no app.
Under the standard EULA, Unreal Engine is free to use for learning, and for developing internal projects; it also enables you to distribute many commercial projects without paying any fees to Epic Games, including custom projects delivered to clients, linear content (such as films and television shows) and any product that earns no revenue or whose revenue falls below the royalty threshold. A 5% royalty is due only if you are distributing an off-the-shelf product that incorporates Unreal Engine code (such as a game) and the lifetime gross revenue from that product exceeds $1 million USD; in this case, the first $1 million remains royalty-exempt.
No it doesn't. Not unless you opt into the new agreement, which a free app would have zero reason to do so, as the whole reason would be to pay reduced commission, which is irrelevant.
> ... the whole reason would be to pay reduced commission
Citation needed. I use F-Droid not because I want the devs of the apps I install from there to be free of the Google Play Tax. I use it so I can be free of Google Play.
An app that wants to be free fro the Google play ecosystem can do so without paying Google. An app that wants to be free from the App Store needs to pay Apple, or set up a company as a non-profit.
You see the parallels and why "I-Droid" won't be a sustainable store?
Epic/Unreal doesn't also own 50% of the PC hardware market making tens of billions at high margins where only Unreal made Games are allowed and other game engines are banned.
I'm guessing they mean the app store on the iPhone, that being the only option.
The iPhone itself has been consistently superior to its competition across its history (although obviously not always best at everything). And I say that as an Android fan.
>So why do developers get the choice but not the consumer?
because you can't just push a button and port Fortnite to Linux. Or maybe you can, but expect a lot of bugs that will ultiamtely be negative PR for Fortnite instead of a boon for consumers. What benefit does this give consumers?
Besides, this metaphor doesn't work. You do not have to play, pay, nor install fortnite to do anything except play fortnite. With this ruling, you need IOS to do anything involving making an IOS app, even if you do not need the app store. I don't see the use in being charged for hardware and dev licenses and ALSO be charged per install because your free app chose not to be on the app store.
The choice is in the technology you use when you build an application for a user. You don't get a choice what platform you build your apps for, you already have your customers, and they already have their phones. If you're a business for which the technology provided by Apple is not a key part of the product, then you're being forced to pay for technology you're trying your hardest not to use but are obligated to by policy.
If I build a Flutter app for checking bus times, what am I paying Apple for? I'm already deliberately avoiding their badly documented frameworks. Apple don't own the buses, they don't own the internet, they should not be claiming ownership of the users phones.
I think the context of iOS is safely implied here. To say you have the option of going Android is as relevant as giving the option of doing a mobile app; Sure it is an option but out of the context of the discussion.
You have no choice if you want to serve IOS users, even if you do not need the app store to sell your product. The #1 questino for any IOS/Android exclusive app is "are you making an Andoid/IOS version"? And saying no because Google/Apple won't let you isn't a resolution that satisfies any party.
