Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results

Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by joshstrange on Thursday November 01, 2018 @05:01PM (#18358394)

You've got to remember that cost of phone is far from the only cost. There are non-monetary costs such as loss of iMessage, Game Center (JK JK no one care about that), Apple Pay, etc. And then there are the actual costs, I've spent just shy of $3K since 2008 on Apple digital "stuff" (so iOS apps, Mac Apps, Subscriptions, IAP, etc) and while I'd estimate there is about $1k or so of actual residual value in those purchases (as in apps/subscriptions I still use daily and would buy again tomorrow if they went away) it's still not anything to sneeze at. While not all of that is iOS (Most of it is, my iOS apps/IAP/Subscriptions total alone is $2.4K) it is all part of locking me into the system.

Here is my breakdown (I pulled these number out of my Apple Data Export):

    iOS and tvOS Apps: $1087
    In-App Subscriptions: $380
    iCloud Storage Subscriptions: $251
    In-App Purchases: $520
    Mac Apps: $560
    iTunes Match Subscriptions: $150
    Apple Music Subscriptions: $0
    Books: $6
    Movie Rentals: $9
    Songs: $5

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by chadlavi on Thursday November 01, 2018 @05:22PM (#18358597)

iMessage is a surprisingly good platform lock-in for the mac, too. I didn't realize how much of my normal Messages/SMS happens on my computer until I tried to switch to linux. No more "let me just text this link to someone..." or "ha ha, let me share this meme with my friend" without it.

I mean you COULD, but then you have to go convince your friends to use $alternateMEssenger instead of their phone's built-in SMS app.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by joshstrange on Thursday November 01, 2018 @05:41PM (#18358743)

iMessage is the greatest long con that isn't a con of all time. You don't know how great it is until you talk to someone that isn't on iMessage or you lose access to it. It just slowly sneaks into your life until you think it just IS text messaging. Never bought into iMessage "apps" or sticker packs but I love things like typing indicators/read receipts/etc.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by tinus_hn on Thursday November 01, 2018 @07:16PM (#18359342)

I don’t understand the group features at all though. Do people really have groups of friends in which noone has an Android phone?

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by joshstrange on Thursday November 01, 2018 @07:22PM (#18359384)

In smaller or very similar groups yes. I have a group iMessage with 11 friends in it but even so for group messages I normally use FB messenger, a surprising good product, so android/ios is equal.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by ryanwaggoner on Thursday November 01, 2018 @07:56PM (#18359573)

Out of 40-50 family and friends that I text regularly, maybe 3 are on Android.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by hunta2097 on Thursday November 01, 2018 @08:29PM (#18359776)

Certainly in Europe WhatsApp fills that gap. There isn't much point solely using iMessage when at least 50% of your friends have Android phones.

The web version is fast and functional too.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by graeme on Thursday November 01, 2018 @08:36PM (#18359813)

Does the web version keep login credentials well? I tried the desktop app, but it was taking an insane amount of storage for some reason.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by hunta2097 on Thursday November 01, 2018 @08:39PM (#18359831)

You login with a QR code from your phone.

I don't think WhatsApp even has accounts - just phone numbers.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by graeme on Thursday November 01, 2018 @08:48PM (#18359866)

Oh I know. I meant whether the login stays persistent or whether you have to scan repeatedly on the web version. On the desktop app you can once and it lasts months.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by cromwellian on Thursday November 01, 2018 @06:36PM (#18359086)

I have an iPhone and almost never use it. I use FB messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, and Discord for 99% of my contacts.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by spronkey on Thursday November 08, 2018 @01:28AM (#18404665)

To me, iMessage on the Mac is almost a sad indictment of just how little progress has been made in computing in the last 2 decades.

It's a feature that was obvious back when we were all using Nokia 3310s. Connect phone and computer as one thing. Call and message from either. Heck, calling from your computer was an obvious feature-to-be back in the monochrome screen days!

It's ridiculous that a) Apple is the only company that has this right now, and b) it took them so long to get there in the first place.

What the hell is everyone doing!?

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by setr on Thursday November 01, 2018 @05:21PM (#18358583)

What are you buying for iOS and In-App? I've only spent maybe $100 in total on iOS apps, across a good five years

I think my only MacOS app expenditure was parallel and daisy disk.

My Apple costs is almost purely hardware

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by joshstrange on Thursday November 01, 2018 @05:39PM (#18358729)

I'm not going to lie, I'm not proud of my IAP total. I am perfectly fine with purchasing level packs in games or full unlocks in apps but about half of that IAP was shit like gems/coins/etc that I spent on various games before I got that under control. As for iOS apps I have a couple of $20-$30 apps that really ratcheted up the total but I test out a lot of apps/games and while that number is large we are talking about ~$100/yr on apps which I am personally OK with.

If you would like I could get more specific on which apps/games.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by setr on Friday November 02, 2018 @12:41PM (#18364463)

Sure; I’m mostly fine with ponying up... my biggest issue is I don’t see much out there even worth paying (especially with my macbook; most things seem to have an equivalent or better OSS alternative, especially if you’re not constrained to the gui [where OSS is usually ugly as sin]). Even in games, the only mobile game I’ve ever thought to pick up was King of Dragon Pass, and that was just because I already knew it’d work well on a phone

As long as that budget isn’t comprised of a single photoshop license, I’m interested to know what you’ve thought was worth grabbing.

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Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results by joshstrange on Friday November 02, 2018 @04:58PM (#18366686)

Here are some quick stats I spit out:

  Paid vs Free apps:
  Mac: 57 Paid vs 33 Free
  iOS: 310 Paid vs 227 Free

  Stats:
  ╔══════════╤═══════╤════════╤═══════╤═════════════════╗
  ║ Platform │ Mean  │ Median │ Mode  │ Range           ║
  ╟──────────┼───────┼────────┼───────┼─────────────────╢
  ║ Mac      │ $9.83 │ $4.99  │ $4.99 │ $0.99 -> $59.99 ║
  ╟──────────┼───────┼────────┼───────┼─────────────────╢
  ║ iOS      │ $3.51 │ $2.99  │ $0.99 │ $0.99 -> $59.99 ║
  ╚══════════╧═══════╧════════╧═══════╧═════════════════╝

I need to clean up my output for "By Seller" because right now it looks like this:

  Totals By Seller:
  Apple Inc.: $493.05 (iOS Apps: $21.6, Mac Apps: $70.96)
  Supercell Oy: $252.7 (IAP: $252.7)
  Evernote: $147.96 (Subscriptions: $147.96)
  Panic, Inc.: $87.95 (iOS Apps: $37.96, Mac Apps: $49.99)
  Hindsight Labs LLC: $67.94 (iOS Apps: $17.96, Mac Apps: $49.98)
  Assembla, Inc.: $59.99 (Mac Apps: $59.99)
  American Honda Motor Co., Inc (Acura): $59.99 (iOS Apps: $59.99)
  Strong Fitness Ltd.: $54.89 (Subscriptions: $54.89)
  ...

Which is not super useful unless you know that name of the company behind the app. I need to re-write my code to at least put a list of the app names at the end or something. For reference, in order the apps are:

  Apple Inc = Mac OS's
  Supercell Oy = Clash Royale (Not proud of this number at all)
  Evernote = Evernote (duh)
  Panic, Inc = iOS: Prompt, Prompt 2, Coda, Transmit, Status Board | Mac:  Coda 2 (I own most all their mac apps as well but didn't buy through the store)
  Hindsight Labs LLC = Paprika 2 and 3 (for iPad/iPhone/Mac) (recipe app,  hands down the best one out there, trust me)
  Assembla, Inc = Cornerstone (svn program)
  American Honda Motor Co., Inc = Acura Link (WASTE OF MONEY, I should have fought this charge)
  Strong Fitness Ltd = Strong (iOS Workout tracker, I think it was like $5-$6/mo)

I need to also have my code print out top purchases by price (ignoring seller). I can pull out more if you would like.

Edit: As you can tell the Apple Inc line is wrong, it looks like it's not pulling in the "special" categories they created for iCloud stuff, I'll fix that later.

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