Having dealt with Apple, this letter exposes the infuriating position I sense they have.
I believe they feel entitled to do whatever they want on iOS because they created it. That they have first dibs on any product or service on the platform, and that if they allow you on the platform you should reward them through money (dev fees and revenue cuts) for the privilege they are extending to you on top of the product you paid for (not unlike ISPs who wanted to charge Netflix in addition to their customers). And they don’t particularly care about the impact to their users because they feel their users should be grateful for the UX and quality of their hardware/OS.
They’ve told us we should be thankful for the customers they bring to us as a developer.
It reminds me of rich people who feel like they earned everything they have themselves and don’t realize they depend on the people and ecosystem they exist in.
It’s arrogant and infuriating. Apple somehow seems to have consistently acted this way for decades. And they seem to undervalue the body of software iOS is built on top of and the ecosystem of apps that makes their platform sticky.
They’ve always pushed their own, often walled garden, solutions. And it was annoying but their prerogative... until they gained market manipulating power on the computing platform of the decade.
I believe they feel entitled to do whatever they want on iOS because they created it. That they have first dibs on any product or service on the platform, and that if they allow you on the platform you should reward them through money (dev fees and revenue cuts) for the privilege they are extending to you on top of the product you paid for (not unlike ISPs who wanted to charge Netflix in addition to their customers). And they don’t particularly care about the impact to their users because they feel their users should be grateful for the UX and quality of their hardware/OS.
They’ve told us we should be thankful for the customers they bring to us as a developer.
It reminds me of rich people who feel like they earned everything they have themselves and don’t realize they depend on the people and ecosystem they exist in.
It’s arrogant and infuriating. Apple somehow seems to have consistently acted this way for decades. And they seem to undervalue the body of software iOS is built on top of and the ecosystem of apps that makes their platform sticky.
They’ve always pushed their own, often walled garden, solutions. And it was annoying but their prerogative... until they gained market manipulating power on the computing platform of the decade.