Apple has recently begun to reopen many of its stores, in the belief that the worst of the coronavirus may have passed.
But surely things will have changed. No retail experience is the same anymore. Few life experiences are.
So I ventured to a recently reopened store to see whether it remained quintessentially Apple, or whether it reflected our new, more difficult realities.
Today, Apple’s stance seems to be that if they just hold the line on a few key provisions of the App Store rules, companies will build their business models around the Apple's revenue cut in the same way companies built their business models around the costs of brick-and-mortar retail in the pre-Internet days. Apple seems to firmly believe that its ambitious goal state can be achieved with something close to the current set of App Store rules.
This belief is not supported by the evidence.
As a developer, who has put up with this for over a decade now, I’m only asking one thing. Please consider how many of us feel this way, and how bad this will be for developers and eventually, customers, if Apple keeps being allowed to move the goal posts further and further without us pushing back.
The best part of the App Store, years ago, from this developer’s point of view, was that it was easy to charge money for an app. No need to set up a system — just choose the price, and Apple takes care of everything. So easy!
But these days, in almost all cases, you’d be ill-advised to charge up front for your app.
Computers have helped change the way we listen to music. Apple’s iOS ecosystem has taken it a notch higher, it has changed the way one can learn music. NaadSadhana is an example of this, unfolding in Pune.
Sandeep Ranade has devoted his life to computer science and classical music in equal parts. He finds it difficult to choose one over another. In the process he came up with an app that’s unique. Describing NaadSadhana as an app to train in classical music would be an oversimplification. The way it uses the swaramandal is unique and so is its AI-driven tabla player.