Elon Musk feuds with Apple, teases possible Tesla phone

It’s not even skewed, it’s just completely wrong. As others have already noted the rate of ICE vehicles catching fire each year is nowhere near 1.5%. It seems that “insurance deal site Auto Insurance EZ” is not actually the best source of peer-reviewed data on the subject after all.

7 Likes

Elementary School Lol GIF by ABC Network

9 Likes

AFAICT the claim is for the entire life of the car

… still doesn’t mean it’s true :confused:

1 Like

There are two quite different app store fees though. There’s the cut they take for selling apps, and then there’s the cut they take of stuff you sell inside the app.

In Apple’s case, if you buy anything at all within an app – apart from physical products and services – they take a cut. If you subscribed to Netflix through the app, or bought a Kindle book through the app, Apple would get 30%, and that’s why you can’t do either of those things. At least until recently, they wouldn’t even allow apps to tell users they could go to a website to buy stuff.

That’s the part that is really indefensible, and Apple are much worse than Google on that score. It’s shitty UX that I can’t buy books inside the iOS Kindle app, and it’s entirely Apple’s fault. This is one instance where they deserve all the bad PR they get.

2 Likes

It’s easy to circumvent, though. Twitter on mobile via a web browser in private mode is my main way of reading tweets.

1 Like

I sincerely hope he goes through with it. Nothing would make me happier than watching him hemorrhage money to squeak out a tenth of a percent market share.

4 Likes

It basically does - 15% under a million, 30% over

ETA: This was a move they made after Apple did the same under pressure from courts and regulators. Google also charges 30% on any ongoing subscription for the first year, then it drops to 15% after that (I think that is per subscribed user, but I am not sure)

2 Likes

Fixed!

ETA:

2 Likes

Apple is against free speech because they freely choose not to speak on a particular forum?

:thinking:

7 Likes

People yelling about free speech rarely mean your free speech. They’re talking about their free speech. And they don’t mean free in the sense that the government cannot arbitrarily declare one’s act of speaking a crime. They mean everyone else has to listen.

It’s a bit confusing at first, but it starts to get a familiar rhythm. Assuming you’ve spent time around toddlers.

16 Likes

Again, though: Google takes the same cut of in-app purchases, and requires you to do the payment processing through them just like Apple. The only difference is the stupid “can’t tell them about other ways to pay” rule, which is now largely gone.

I’m not trying to defend Apple here; I’m really confused as to why everyone seems determined to give Google (and Microsoft, and Samsung, and Amazon) a pass? For that matter Epic, the ones who made the Fortnight ad, used to take the same cut from their app store!

2 Likes

It’s weird how “free speech” means “you’re entitled to do business with me” to these people. How these supposed capitalists will espouse the virtues of free free markets until those markets are used against them. How government should let companies do what they want, until they don’t like what those companies are doing then it’s time for the government to put a stop to it. This inconsistency drives me mad.

7 Likes

just remember “freedom” means “i get my way”

11 Likes

It’s entirely consistent with GOP and “states’ rights”, where it means “states’ right to discriminate against, disenfranchise, and otherwise harass the Wrong Sort of People and nothing else”, or “support the troops!” where it means “spout platitudes about service and heroism as long as the troops support us and go die in our pointless wars without complaints or asking for any veterans’ services afterwards”.

5 Likes

I was under the mistaken impression that Google didn’t do this, and you could buy books within the Kindle app on Android. But I see that you’re right, it’s the same indefensible situation as on iOS. There was at some point a working Kindle for Android, but Google made them break it.

Reporting about Silicon Valley shitbaggery always focuses on Apple because advertising, and often this gives the impression Apple are the worst offenders, which can be extremely misleading (especially regarding privacy). In this case, Apple are the worst, but I take your point, because I fell into the same trap of letting Google off the hook.

3 Likes

Well…people have several times in the comments, but the article is about Elon and Apple so that is the thing most people are commenting on - Elon is currently not attacking Google, because he is extremely US-centric and possibly does not realize that people in other countries don’t use iPhones.

The Epic store was founded originally to compete with and call out Steam’s 30% fee and had always had a lower cut than the other major players - 15% across the board - it was never 30% so I have no idea what you are talking about there.

The Sony and Xbox stores have 30% too.

It is an industry standard that exists because Apple arbitrarily decided on 30%, so they do deserve more blame than anyone else. If they had landed on 10% (or whatever) then it is likely that would be the standard today. The 30% is ridiculous across the board.

2 Likes

Well, I have a strong feeling reality will be crashing in on Elon before he can even talk to partners about making a Tesla phone. He’s on the “gradually” part of “gradually, then all of a sudden”.

5 Likes

When you owe the bank a million, you have a problem. When you owe the bank several billion, the bank has a problem.

Somehow, I don’t think that’ll be true for Elon and his squishy assets.

1 Like

It will be interesting to find out. At this point it is excruciatingly obvious that Musk is coasting on the fact that he’s too big to fail – investors can’t cut off his credit, because that would admit that he is every bit as stupid as he’s always appeared to be, which in turn would show that investors have also been incompetent all along, which would yank back the curtain on all the other absurdly-valued tech companies.

It’s basically Downfall. Investors are fucked if they let Musk’s clown show continue, and fucked if they intervene. They can’t even hope to keep it out of the public eye, because Twitter is the most interesting thing in the whole wide world to journalists. I would not be surprised if people are making discreet inquiries about having him flat-out killed.

6 Likes