At a very high level, Apple wants to be the sole payment processor within its App Store for two reasons — trust and revenue. The company wants its customers to feel confident buying and subscribing to digital goods while getting a piece of the revenue for bringing those customers to the makers of those goods. […]
Author Archives: Jack Wellborn
If you are one of my few readers then you’re probably already aware that Epic Games is suing both Apple and Google, claiming the the former “is able to extract a supra-competitive 30% tax on purchases of paid apps” while the latter similarly “imposes a supra- competitive commission of 30% on the price of apps […]
I am very excited for Jason Snell’s “20 Macs for 2020”, a retrospective that covers what he considers to be the twenty most notable Macs. The very subject of the podcast got me asking myself, which of the many Macs that I’ve used in the last 30 years would I consider the most notable to […]
Today Apple announced that Macs will transition from Intel’s x86 based processors to their own ARM based Apple Silicon. This will be the Mac’s third processor transition and as always the question is “can they pull it off?” This old Mac users is cautiously optimistic because my experience with the first two went relatively well. […]
Over the weekend I decided to do some maintenance on my low-grade gaming PC, including running Windows Update. I wasn’t sure what to expect given Microsoft released a major update to Windows 10 last week and the prior issues I’ve had with Windows updates on this PC. Several Windows Updates later and I am still […]
There’s been a lot of criticism of Apple these days, which as led some to reconsider Windows. Not surprisingly, I’m on bearish on the notion and not just because I prefers Macs. I also use Windows on a gaming PC, and my experience has been middling at best. That said, I know my use of […]
Tasked with doing a training presentation, I decided to forgo Google Slides (which is ubiquitous at my company) to give Apple’s Keynote a try for the first time in awhile. The whole experience was delightful. What’s wrong with Google Slides? Google Slides feels like presentation software made by a spreadsheet people. That’s not necessarily a […]
Anyone who pays any attention at all to Apple is familiar with the company’s cyclical nature. In late spring, they have their big conference wherein they announce major updates to most, if not all of their various platforms. Apple then tells the world that these new versions will be available to the public in early […]
There have been two approaches in bringing touch computing to the masses. The first approach, largely championed by Microsoft, has been to add touch to historically cursor driven desktop operating systems. The second, pioneered by Apple, has been to build touch-first user experiences. My main criticism of the added-on touch in Windows is that user […]
Earlier this month John Siracusa co-wrote and released Front and Center. Its sole purpose is to make windows in modern macOS1 behave more like they did in classic Mac OS (System 1 to Mac OS 9). In his announcement of Front and Center, John succinctly describes the difference: In classic, when you click on a […]