When Apple began setting rules for the App Store, “30 percent was just kind of a no-brainer,” said Mr. Shoemaker, who joined the company in early 2009. “It was, ‘Of course that’s what we’re going to use.’ Nobody questioned it.”
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Indeed, many companies now protesting Apple’s fee seem willing to pay something, just not 30 percent.
Facebook on Friday took a shot at Apple, saying the company will only be able to pay small businesses a portion of sales from a new paid online events feature as a result of the iOS App Store's policies.
"We asked Apple to reduce its 30% App Store tax or allow us to offer Facebook Pay so we could absorb all costs for businesses struggling during COVID-19," said Fidji Simo, the head of the Facebook app in a blog post. "Unfortunately, they dismissed both our requests and SMBs will only be paid 70% of their hard-earned revenue."
At this critical juncture for the company, we wanted to take the opportunity to analyze the complaints against Apple regarding how it runs the App Store. We’ve spent a long time observing and considering these issues, and you may agree or disagree with our evaluation and conclusions. As we are neither regulators nor Apple executives, the decisions are ultimately not up to us. We merely want to lay out the issues and offer suggestions on how Apple can improve, for the sake of users, developers, and even the long-term viability of the company itself.
As someone who has run multiple online training classes and has worked predominantly at home since 1997, I leveraged my knowledge to help build a good learning environment and technology base to support our children, while my wife, who doesn’t currently have a job, took the lead on organizing the house and handling the day-to-day technical support. School is already up and running here in Phoenix, and here is our advice for making the best out of a challenging situation.
So instead of waiting and hoping, or waiting even longer for second-generation Apple Silicon, you can get a Mac today that you know has improved performance.
If you’ve been holding off from purchasing a Magic Keyboard because of its price point, the Folio Touch is a solid alternative.
It’s going to take a while before I get used to seeing these “Weekly Update” notifications and not gasp every time they pop up on screen, even if delivering good news. Everybody’s already permanently on edge about this ongoing pandemic. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a better way to go about this.
The challenge for Netflix, Amazon, Apple and the rest is figuring out what collections of products we love — and at what price — and which we’ll grow to hate. There is a fine line between feeling like we’re getting a steal, and feeling like we’re getting ripped off. The cable TV bosses didn’t think that we would resent their bundles, until we did.
Somehow, I am reminded of the cliché: be careful what you wish for.
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Thanks for reading.