Funny enough, this is already a response to a tax. 174 capitalizes software and general unproven R&D as the default now… ruining the cash position of many businesses that “made taxable GAAP profits”
The rules of the game have changed. We were allowed to expense all employee compensation tied to software or R&D in the year in which we paid it. Now we can only expense a small fraction of that because we have to capitalize the expense. That means if you paid and developer $100 to develop a piece of software then sold subscriptions totaling $100 you now have a profit. The old model you have zero dollars in profit the new model says you have something like $80 in profit that you know have to pay taxes on… with what cash?
Yes, the best portable media player begot the best mobile phone. The best mobile phone begot the best general computing device - the general compute structure is emergent not core.
Think AirFryers and Convection Ovens - focused, small package, easy to use, etc vs…
Every time I try to type something in response it comes out overly verbose -
Basically think of what you want to achieve, it’s the intent. Then think what happens if it happened automatically, that’s the ideal context (why pills for losing weight is so enticing). Then actually try to solve the problem in tech in the best way, and then you’ll see that the intent drives what tech context is truly great - as in you’ll end up creating dedicated hardware and software; what’s happened is that this platform has become good enough for many use cases and everyone is looking for the next best “good enough” when this current generation of tech platforms was built for a specific intent very different from what’s next
Thankfully the dev process has improved to ~5seconds to hit a breakpoint on a real watch - which is the only way to work with live HealthKit/HKWorkout data.
Number of unit sales isn’t the measure of success for a new paradigm. Everyone knows this. The quality of ideas and the affordances to achieve human aims is what makes a success.
They need to go back and read the Newton’s postmortem. With every new detail about this devices release - it’s becoming clearer and clearer this device just is not ready.
I was excited iPad apps could be directly ported over to VisionPro - but now after hacking with it in XCode - it’s evident this device and its APIs have no idea that customer intent drives context.
This lack of customer awareness is so interesting because all the designers in WWDC videos outline context with great labor. They forget a space is only part of an intent, and an intent is not a click or scroll. Intents demand a certain context, not the other way around - they’re scratching at old scars of starting with technology first then working to some customer experience.
Everyone pulls up the SJ D3 interview to say VisionPro is what Steve would want - but just like everything he says, if you only quickly listen you miss the full history and intent -
he says something along the lines of “headphones are just as good as amazing audio systems, displays on your face need to get better before we can recreate the plasma tv experience” - only after a lot of reflection did I come to understand this means audio passive consumption and display passive consumption. The customer intent for a display on face context is to recreate watching a plasma tv - following this intent means you end up with something completely different than what is happening now (I think SOL has nailed this, but perhaps focused too niche on the use case). Only later do you pull forward interactivity - as in the delay between headphones and Siri, which is still lagging.
You and I both know the TV was not Apple's 'One more thing...' to such a cringy degree.
Preface: I've been in the VR/AR space a long time. I started a company with a friend around the launch of DK1 - we wanted to sell VR Computer Boxes. We had so many dumb but beautifully naive ideas.
I will only offer high level themes (although incomplete) that should hopefully explain why I take such issue with this release:
We already have the best vision system on the planet, 'our eyes'.
Spatial Computing in humans is not vision and audio alone - proprioception underlies all.
What you cover with a headset, you cannot faithfully recreate with cameras and software.
Use the brilliant chipset advantage to bring super 'low cost' computing embodiments to every corner of life - then integrate with devs
Ambient Computing is the next iteration of 'mac at the center of your digital life'
AirTags, Beacons, and AppClips don't get the corporate strategic attention they deserve
Apple Watch should be 'the wand' for life out in the real world, with AppClips, Beacons and such
This is not what got Apple to where it was. It was recognizing what we wanted to do to go further, individually and together, and amplified that with technology.
This literally amplifies your ass to the couch. I'm shocked. Stunned. And sad.
This is the first inverse of Apple. It's the first device that doesn't live with you on the journey... everything from "the throw it out the window macintosh," iPod, iPhone, Air, iPad... you name it, was about going with you where you went.
It's striking... This is a shift of epic proportions.
For purposes of this section, any amount paid or incurred in connection with the development of any software shall be treated as a research or experimental expenditure.
Cool - so I made a script that automates emails to outbound leads, does this mean my capital asset allocation is my full commission since it is the software by which I made the sale? So even my normal SGA is now a capital expense?
The law reads as this as a capital expense (anything to do with software [0]) - the IRS could use agency level logic to make it different, but all this exposes what’s wrong with the US.
What about chatGPT scripts? They too are connected to software and now a part of almost every workflow?
So does this effectively mean Apple charges 25.2% in the base case, and potentially teens-low twenties in low price point apps ($10 and below)? PayPal, BrainTree and others seem to also be in this range - so backing out market payment rates, the App Store is not as egregious?
The real news is Apple specifically took a non competitive stance — making the API available to third parties like Stripe - rather than building in house, leveraging Apple Card connections, or similar
Are you using Venmo for tips? I used to have an itch for digital tip jars, but never figured out the right set of features to really drive adoption...
This was well before Patreon, and PayPal was pretty much the only API game in town. Since then, I've felt like Venmo handles 9/10ths of the live performance problem (unleash the appreciation (money) locked in digital form).
> You want to know an unpopular opinion?? I love Objective-C and I think it is better—way better than Swift. And—if you have discipline, the preprocessor is excellent.
Very curious to the reasoning here. If you can get to the pointer level of Swift, you basically have obj-c without all the unnecessary syntax?
In my view, excessive syntax is a crutch to make the language parser's job easier, not making the thought to code job easier. Obj-C seems to suffer from the excessive syntax?
Not the subsidized subs