The year is coming to an end and the holidays are just around the corner. Since this is an extra busy time for this beast with horns (ever tried packing packages with hooves?), let’s take a look at a few stories that caught the eye of the Macalope this week.
First, our good friends at Samsung (disclaimer: no friends, no good) sure talk a lot about Apple, don’t they? You really get “I feel sorry for you”/”I’m not thinking about you at all.” energy from this relationship. Again they run an ad mentioning Apple, and again because they don’t sell a foldable phone. Which is definitely something users are clamoring for, because it folds?
The Macalope doesn’t really know what the benefit should be. Samsung is running this ad in the US because sales are down, so talk is all they have left. Indeed, Apple’s US share continues to rise year on year while Android’s continues to fall. Earlier this year, Apple took a more than 50 percent stake in the US
But, you say, Macalope, haven’t you been saying for a long time that market share isn’t as important as profit sharing? Indeed, thanks for bringing it up, imaginary reader who has been paying attention for 10 years instead of surfing Instagram while eating Fiddle Faddle and drinking copious amounts of Hi-C. The thing is, Apple controlled a whopping 78 percent of the premium phone market.
At least Samsung is trying something different. Xiaomi, voted the “most likely death of the iPhone” by senior high school seniors, apparently wouldn’t know how to design phones at all if the iPhone didn’t exist.
There goes that Macalope again, you say, claiming Apple can do no wrong. Wow, why suddenly so cheeky, imaginary reader? Just try to remember who made you. You are a creature of the Macalope’s own invention, and he can undo you as easily as he made you.
Hi! Where are you going?! Come back here!
Man, the Macalope shouldn’t make imaginary readers so fast. Now he will never find him again.
IDG
Anyway, could it be a coincidence that shortly after meeting Tim Cook at Apple headquarters, Elon Musk took a page from Apple’s App Store book and banned it from linking to competing social media platforms? The meeting was ostensibly designed to bridge the gap that was created between the artist formerly known as the world’s richest man and the artist currently known as the world’s richest company.
Of course, Apple is known for not allowing developers to post links to alternative ways to pay for their apps in the apps themselves. Does Tim Cook drop pearls of wisdom? No, it’s just a coincidence. Likely.
In any case, Twitter has now apparently reversed the rule, as not everyone can get away with saying it’s their way or the information superhighway.
Finally, a French court fined Apple $1 million for “abusive app store practices.” We will! That will show them! About a minute and a half. Because based on Apple’s sales in the prior quarter, that’s how long it will take the company to make $1 million — a minute and a half.
It’s almost as if this fine and the fine previously imposed by the Netherlands were meant to sound big to the likes of you or the Macalope, but are laughably small to a company like Apple.
To be almost like that.
