Interesting. I never checked size of games unless there is a warning that I cant download more than 50mb over cellular. Only factors for me are ratings & price.
ROI is not the complete issue here. The fact is 2048 is a clone(or inspiration) of Threes. 2048 is gaining more popularity and some people think that it is a better game. Also, the originality lines are getting blurred.
Inventing a new game is a creative exercise. I see it like writing a book. iPhone development took years. This reminds me of all the evidence that is pouring from Apple these days on the conference rooms, sketches, mockups etc.
when I heard Facebook's paper, I immediately thought about FiftyThree's paper app. They have been around for over year and they certainly built a good brand name around "Paper" from an "App" perspective. I just wish Facebook came up with a different name.
It would be interesting to see a HN poll on this. It seems to me that HN is mostly pro-Google/Android, anti-Apple, anti-MSFT, anti-FB and anti-Twitter.
Walmart is quickly catching up on technology. It acquired bunch of startups recently and opened walmart labs in the valley. Their website also improved quite a bit in terms of recommendations and other services. I think they are improving quite a bit in this regard.
I'm sure other cash rich companies can mimic amazon strategy. Apple,google, microsoft, samsung certainly can. That is not good for industry though. Startups will have unbelievably tough time competing with Amazon. I cant remember any startup in recent times that ventured into ebook sales. Innvoation from other startups in ebooks creation, consumption is hard to come by, when amazon is playing a lossleader strategy forever.
Apple is absolutely wrong with Most Favored clause. Even if they did not conspire with publishers directly, publishers effectively had the same opportunity and re-did their contracts with Amazon.
The most concerning thing is that current law is granting amazon an unequivocal monopoly status. Lossleader strategy is employed to the extreme by amazon. Laws need to address that. At some point Amazon will raise prices. Current situation is essentially a loss for consumers and publishing industry.
Though lock-in is not the strategy, it created the same effect. Not sure why, Google routinely gets a pass for these kind of things. The one true open (its a bit debatable as well) software they did was Android and that is pretty much it. They've taken bunch of unpopular decisions in recent history that affected developers/users. Maps pricing change, Google reader, decent Api support for G+, etc.
Search is the main feature that I find it extremely helpful with GReader. I usually search for something in my GReader, before going to the web search. This should be at the top of priority list.
Essentially, google's strategy seems to be that, anytime users finds a way to access content from non-google application, google will either acquire that app or build a competitor. Google is trying to become the web .
This is absolutely a ridiculous practice. I cant recall any other tech blog who follows this. Even big time news publications like Nytimes etc, wont do this. I unsubscribed to their RSS feed, just for this one particular reason alone.
The only negative sentiment surrounding $AAPL is the uncertainty surrounding Steve Jobs health. Fred Wilson (as stated on his blog)dumped the apple stock stating this as the main reason. I think it is time for Apple to come clean and appoint a successor.
My recommendation is to establish the %age markup based on file sizes, since that would be the basis for infrastructure costs such as storage and bandwidth.
30% is definitely high. I understand 30% has become a buzzword these days, but in reality it cuts a lot into merchants' margins. You may want to research on current digital goods market sites such as e-junkie, payloadz etc. Most seem to have a combination of monthly pricing and a "low" per transaction fee. Monthly fee certainly going to be a barrier for casual merchants.
I can see myself using such a web based IDE. However, I dont know what I'm buying at compilr. There is no demo of the product. How it works? a video presentation or screenshot presentation is needed on home page.
It is possible that their QA involves checking whether an app uses prohibited API or whether it crashes the system or hogs memory etc. It is obviously a high level QA. Just search and see how many "task killer" apps available on Android device.
Also, I think if this app-review process is not beneficial to users, I dont think they would have started this in the first place. Sure, it is an issue to thousands of developers, but it is beneficial to millions of users.
Business related motives could be a big reason as well. But, who is not?