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Comment by boardwaalk | Hacker News Reader

> Because in 10 years, what currently exists as the only option on iPad and iPhone will be the only option on MacBooks too. There is a reason why the last WWDC was all about making the iPad feel more like MacOS and making parts of MacOS feel like iPadOS.

This is pure supposition and reasoning with a UI feature that you have to explicitly turn on that helps you manage windows in way that's more like a traditional desktop than ever for the iPad than it is like a tablet for macOS is quite a stretch.

You could have said the same about other features that iOS/macOS got and it would have been just as unconvincing too: Screen Time, Control Center, Focus, Share Play, anything for Messages or Safari, etc.

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Look at the profit charts for IAP/software sales on iOS vs MacOS then imagine you are an exec who has no reason to have any love for the concept of computing and ask yourself "Why is MacOS so unprofitable?"

Fortnite runs on iOS and Fortnite runs on Mac, imagine you're an exec looking at that chart and asking yourself why Fortnite is so unprofitable on Mac and why it's financing whole Apple departments on iOS.

It's hard to imagine any sane executive wouldn't be working towards the future I'm describing. Only an individual with extreme passion to the concept of free computing would do anything else.

Target market. Is MacOS a viable target market for Fortnite? Even if you do wish to play competitive games on MacOS... Using the same hardware, the performance has been shown to be worse, in every comparison I've been able to find.

While I think this discussion is moot, as you're claiming this is a reason to start charging for IAP in MacOS apps and Epic has decided not to release new Fortnite seasons on MacOS, because of their beef on iOS, you're also talking about a specialized and high profile game, where most IAP are targetted at mobile specific games. Just look at the backlash that Diablo Immortal is receiving right now. Non-mobile gamers complete reject the style of monetization in mobile games.

Again, is this something you actually believe is true? Apple execs are looking to monetize their desktop OS as a mobile OS? Microsoft is already very carefully trying to do this and it's being pretty unsuccessful. There's a lot of rejection for this aspect of Windows 11. Remains to be seen where it's going to be in 5 years, but for now, I don't think this is where desktop OS's are going.

Back to the real meat of the article, Apple is both doing it's customers a service and a disservice at the same time. What is the solution to that? Let 3rd party app stores on, so that we can go back to no protection against tracking and a store full of garbage? (looking at you, Google Play)

Replace Fortnite with any profitable app that is available on both platforms. What the app is isn’t relevant, the fact one one platform them get a 30% cut and the other platform they don’t is all that matters.

Yea Microsoft has tried to do it but Apple will succeed and the announcement will be “The New MacBook, shipping with the worlds most loved OS with the largest number of apps, iOS”

s/sane/greedy

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