Per Apple’s rules, app developers are not allowed to explain the App Store rules and pricing models within their apps, leaving customers in the dark - a form of censorship, to be sure.
> The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9) as are available to services or hardware provided by the gatekeeper. Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services.
Pretty much, plus to independent developers who wish to use the IPA installation off the web feature. (The Article speaks about "features", not just APIs)
Remember that it says "free of charge". 50 cents/install past 1M installs is not free of charge now is it?
I can't understand the cost basis for that fee that apple is imposing. If I install an thrid party app from a third party store to my phone, it wouldn't cost apple anything. Even the bandwidth cost to download is from the third party store. In this transaction, actually Apple will be the unrelated "third party"that has nothing to do with that transaction.
So isn't this fee just an extortion attempt?
Strictly speaking, it costs Apple nothing to run third-party software on your device. The closest thing to a compulsory fee is whatever Apple has to pay for the notarization process (which is pennies on the dollar).
> So isn't this fee just an extortion attempt?
That's up to the courts to decide, but Apple certainly hasn't painted themselves a favorable picture. When Dutch regulators tried pressing them to include alternative payment services, Apple continued demanding 27% of those transactions. Their disrespectful and obstinate behavior in the Netherlands is what made the DMA such an urgent act in the first place.
So all this will be well-worth keeping an eye on. The iPhone already turns record-breaking profits off hardware sales alone, it will be difficult for Apple to argue they're inherently deserving of taxing aftermarket transactions. At this point, "0%" is starting to seem like the only logical software fee for iOS.
There is no cost basis. It's just another way to making the point that, if you do anything serious on their platform, you owe Apple some serious cash. Extortion is a strong word, I prefer the more objective "parasitical rent-seeking".
I found this notable because it's the first time I've received a push notification in the U.S. about an earthquake, which I received about 10 seconds before the shaking started.
Notifications are rare because you need to be far enough from the epicenter that the difference between the speed of the earthquake (speed of sound in rock) and the speed of the notification (speed of light through the internet) is great enough to matter.
But at the same time you can't be too far from the epicenter or the shaking where you are will be negligible and the alert pointless.
Most earthquakes are too small to have a significant ring around them where notification makes sense.
This reminds me of a question I’ve had for a while, and have not been able to formulate it well enough to do any searching for an answer on my own (total layman here).
Do we have any hypotheses of what the matter inside a black hole might be like? I mean “hypotheses” in a strict sense; I do not mean “a good/definitive answer”
To oversimplify a bit: white dwarves are supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and if such pressure is exceeded by gravity then e.g. a neutron star can form. Neutron stars are supported by neutron degeneracy pressure, and if such pressure is exceeded by gravity then a black hole can form.
For each of those “steps” we have an idea of what the matter within must be like to support/exceed such pressures. Are there any hypotheses for what the matter might be like after such known pressures are exceeded and a black hole is formed?
Degeneracy pressure comes from the Pauli exclusion principle.
There is no limit to how high this pressure can go, as there are always higher energy states to occupy. (Except that for electrons at a high enough energy state, they will disappear by fusing with protons.)
For neutrons, there is no such disappearing effect, so the degeneracy pressure can keep on increasing. So how can this pressure ever be "overcome by gravity"?
Apparently at some point the degeneracy pressure itself starts to contribute significantly to spacetime curvature. This increases gravitational pressure, which compresses the neutrons, which increases the degeneracy pressure, which increases curvature, etc. No balance is possible anymore and collapse happens.
Presumably this process of ever increasing neutron degeneracy pressure continues within the black hole until unknown physics come into play.
