2025 marked a record-breaking year for Apple services
apple.com
apple.com
Last quarter, gross margins on "Services" revenue were 75%. The App Store is almost pure profit, with relatively little investment.
See also: https://www.apple.com/app-store/ "Every week, nearly 500 dedicated experts around the world review over 130K apps." Astonishingly, Apple appears to be bragging about these numbers, but if you do the math, 500 reviewers working 40 hours per week doing nothing except reviewing apps—no training, no meetings, no breaks, etc.—must spend an average of less than 10 minutes on each submission, to review the app and the App Store metadata (text, screenshots, etc.) for conformance with all guidelines, not only safety but also, more importantly to Apple, it seems, ensuring that the app doesn't somehow avoid giving Apple its cut of revenue. Not to mention that the salary of 500 reviewers is basically a drop in the bucket compared to App Store revenue.
The Samsung Galaxy Store has a smaller selection and is locked to Samsung devices only, so it seems like a poor choice in comparison.
Less than 10 minutes
> less with updates
How do you know?
This should read as "to ensure the App Store remains a walled garden not letting their users to own devices they paid fat money for"
The page does say, "100% of apps are automatically screened for known malware," but that's also true of Mac app notarization, which costs the developer only the $99 per year developer program fee.
SaaS typically expects 80% gross margin, so Apple is not out of line here.
Total R&D for the entire corporation was $9 billion compared to $29 billion just in Services revenue. How much of that R&D do you think the crApp Store needs, compared to the hardware and the operating systems? https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2025-q4/FY25_Q4_Consol...
> SaaS typically expects 80% gross margin, so Apple is not out of line here.
App Store is essentially an online retailer (or consignment store), not SaaS. Apple is selling software written by other developers.
You mean during the interview process?
In any case, 29 per hour sounds... extreme.
Just before seeing this headline, I was wondering how aware the C suite is of the volume of blog posts about major (statistically provable) regressions in their design. The one about the substantially smaller clic targets for resizing windows on MacOS was only to stories above.
Silly me. Of course they aren’t aware of the true scope. They’re too busy feeling great about their new services record.
Apple has a broader market appeal and penetration today than it has ever had. Your proposal _may have_ been true in the 90s, and in the early 2000s.
I am still yet to be able to update Tailscale in over a year because it needs some kernel extension update and a notification shows up for me to confirm it, I click on it, nothing happens. I go to System Preferences and it isn't in the silly place that they put it in.
Close to zero thought goes into what they do.
`xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine </path/to/file>`
This is for app quarantine (who'd guess) when apps are newly downloaded or unsigned. Look up the command for more info.
There was some chatter here the other day (within the last week, I believe) about overcoming some bug or another that prevents MacOS from prompting when permissions are needed.
The solution was modifying an SQLite db on disk. I don't believe the change is documented where the public can verify the whole thing, but I think at least one person verified that it worked for them after the OP. The OP (or replying party) sounded reasonably knowledgeable about why this would work, fwiw. I'd follow their steps if I had the same issue and I wouldn't be nervous.
I think the second is more likely. Apparently, permissions in Sys Settings are pretty bad. I'm fortunate not to have had this affect me and my many devices that surely run that workflow.
I think the future (whether we like it or not) is a single general computing device (thin client, true laptop replacement) that can fit in one’s pockets, communicate and cast to terminals, and help power a set of wearables like glasses.
That’s going to take a level of vertical integration that Apple is best positioned to do.
With improved cellular and possibly future satellite connectivity I feel that this would also be more of a thin client than a local first device, since companies want that recurring cloud subscription revenue over a single lump sum.
It's hard for me to think of a worse future for computing.
"Citizen, you are not wearing your computer-glasses, I'll need to look up your citizen-score manually. Please come with me to detention."
"Yes, it's as the doctor says, myopia is unavoidable these days, now that computer-glasses are state mandated."
"Officer, here is every single person who traversed the crime scene +/- 30 hours of the crime."
"Social media addiction spirals out of control as users can no longer even remove notifications from their field of view."
"Malware causes car crashes pop-ups obscure drivers."
"After she broke up with me, her computer-glasses rendered me invisible to her field of view."
"My computer-glasses were hacked and the attackers live-streamed me having sex with my wife."
Sure, Apple can and will do it, but hardly anyone has an iPhone in, say, India or is willing to shell out this much for a phone.
This business model will be largely restricted to developed countries where Apple has an established presence. Other companies either can't or are unwilling to go in Apple's footsteps.
So what is on the network? Copyrighted content: easier to stream that, and easier rights control. Connection: it’s not like your friends and family can be “on device.” Cold storage AKA backups. Geo data. Live data.
I can imagine Larry David pointing his finger up and saying "Big numbers. BIG numbers!"
Don't get me wrong, most people (including myself) love their hardware. The software's fine, except they've eroded a lot of trust in the past year.
And most of their services are "eh it's fine. it works" - iCloud, Photos, Music, all that stuff is fine, it meets the standard, it works, it provides privacy, all good, steady things. We're generally satisfied customers.
But the elephant in the room is that Apple has almost nothing to show 3 years into the biggest change in the tech world since the internet. And they could've spent this time deeply integrating it into iOS and truly making these devices feel magical again.
And you can see how much Nadella changed everything. There is such a thing as stagnating, but isn't always related to printing money.
If it is "The year in which people that use Apple Music used more Apple Music than in the years before" than it does not sound astounding.
I don't think I've ever heard listenership in that same context though, so they might have just made that up. haha
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_circulation#:~:text=to%2...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audience_measurement#:~:text=t...
> while Apple Music reached all-time highs in both listenership and new subscribers.
I'm assuming listenership is total subscribers.
It doesn't need to be "astounding". But it is significant, given the competition from Spotify and YouTube and other streaming services. When you're not the most popular service, it's genuinely a challenge to be on the growing side of things rather than the shrinking side or stagnant side.
Spotify is the market leader with 31.5%.
Apple Music is #3 at 12%.
https://sqmagazine.co.uk/music-streaming-statistics/
I've deleted the Apple Music app from my iPhone, so you can definitely remove it there.
Like saying 100% of iOS users use their Apple settings app.
I know it, because it's bundled in my subscription. Did you know Apple doesn't support other vendors for native backup and so you need ICloud?
There are no alternative Settings apps. But you can certainly use Spotify like I do and many others.
What does it being bundled with a bundle you chose to subscribe to have to do with anything? You can subscribe to iCloud without Apple Music if you want. It's cheaper.
I am, however, a user of many of their other services. In particular, I really love iCloud's email aliases and such. Great added benefit. My only real complaint with Apple is having ads in News+. If I am paying, take out the ads please.
Edit: AdGuard DNS profiles are amazing for removing ads from apps, but seriously, I shouldn't need to do that when paying for a "premium" experience.