Mac Apps For A Retina Display: Where To Find Them, And What To Look For
Geoffrey Goetz, GigaOM
So because I have a US IP address I can no longer update my Swedish apps? I took the advice and called Apple Support. A lady informed me that because I didn’t have active AppleCare for my Macs there was nothing they could do. She offered me to by a one-time pass for $49 or a three year plan for $249. Paying $49 to help Apple debug their DRM? WTF!
Maybe we’ll pay this theoretical “extra $20” in patent-license fees for our smartphone up front, a surcharge less than any carrier in the U.S. will charge to “activate” it, because it’s a drop in the bucket relative to the $2,000-over-two-years contract. In that case, this discussion is moot.Or that extra $20 is significant, we won’t pay it, and the manufacturers will find a way to save $20 somewhere else to remain competitive and continue selling us their products that are so close to the iPhone that they run into these patents.
If the verdict stands, then the costs of the judgment will be reflected in the cost of mobile devices. Furthermore, other manufacturers will feel the need to buy Apple’s official permission to build useful phones, passing down the possible $20-per-handset fee.And it’s possible that the next great phone, the one that shames the iPhone the same way that the iPhone buried the Blackberry, will never make it to market. Designing and selling an advanced smartphone just became a dangerous business.
At least in this part of the world, buying from the Mac App Store isn’t a preference. It’s the only way. There are very few apps on my Mac that haven’t been bought from the App Store, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Of the three paths open to tech companies in the wake of the iPhone—ignore Apple, out-innovate Apple, or copy Apple—Samsung’s decision has fared best. Yes, Samsung’s copying was amateurish and panicky, and now it will have to pay for its indiscretions. But the costs of patent infringement will fall far short of what Samsung gained by aping Apple. Over the last few years, thanks to its brilliant mimicry, Samsung became a global force in the smartphone business. This verdict will do little to roll back that success.
There were 700 questions, remember, and one thing is plain, that the jury didn't take the time to avoid inconsistencies, one of which resulted in the jury casually throwing numbers around, like $2 million dollars for a nonfringement.
I'm writing this post after the fourth group of Starbucks patrons have made the connection that Samsung is now the same as Apple. They don't know the details, they don't really care, what they know is Apple is saying that Samsung is the same as Apple ... and with one simple Google Search, you get prices that are basically half for what seems to be the same products -- for nearly everything.
Why? It only cost $1 billion to become the #2 most profitable mobile company. Remember how much Microsoft paid for Skype? $8 billion. So, for 1/8th of a Skype Samsung took RIM's place and kicked HTC's behind.
After digging deeper in these top grossing apps, you can see they consist of nearly every free to play genre there is… Social games, click games, gambling games, turn based games, card games, etc but all of these have two things in common: They each have lots of in app purchases and they encourage the user to buy stuff (a call to action).