Services are super high margin (twice that of hardware), growing quickly year over year, and now make up a big fraction of Apple's overall revenue. Sadly, I think, the days of Apple having the incentives and motivations associated with being primarily a hardware company are well past us—we're at the stage where hardware and OS product decisions reflect a need to drive services revenue, rather than simply making something great that people want to buy.

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madeofpalk 20 hours ago | parent [-]

App Store revenue is essentially infinite margin. Selling gambling games to children is essentially free money for them.

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_aavaa_ 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

*skimming off the top from gambling games for children.

They don’t even have to put in the effort of making it.

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fukka42 19 hours ago | parent [-]

They're the ones selling the gambling games. They didn't create them, but they do sell them.

	▲	jonbiggums22 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They also ban many types of apps so they can't even claim it's a free market that they don't want to/can't control.

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betaby 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> gambling games to children

Essentially the same as giving alcohol to kids at home. That's the parents fault first and foremost.

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oarsinsync 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Essentially the same as giving alcohol to kids at home.

Is it? A bottle of vodka, rum, wine, beer, is very obviously what it is.

A lot of these gambling games are disguised as games, that just happen to have elements that are heavily disguised to not be obviously and immediately shown to be gambling.

You and I both know what loot boxes are, but does everyone? There's nothing obviously gambling about a loot box, until you dig into it.

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betaby 17 hours ago | parent [-]

I mean, kids can't buy smartphones and data plans and have a credit cards for that gamblings sites. Their parents must have given they them. Make no mistake - gambling is bad for the society. That doesn't mean parents can be absent. And especially in that case, parents are complicit.

	▲	x______________ an hour ago \| parent [-]
		>I mean, kids can't buy smartphones and data plans and have a credit cards for that gamblings sites. Have you never searched for a credit card detail generator? Browsed the dark web for stolen card details? Used e-sims? A common misconception that people have is that age is not a limiting barrier to a great mind and doesn't require enabling by others to achieve the goals they set out.

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kalleboo 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apple doesn't agree, one reason they ban pornography in the App Store is to protect children so clearly they see that as their role.

	▲	betaby 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		But not gambling apparently. The original article is about the third-party stores, which is essentially removes the Apples's veto.

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otabdeveloper4 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, because alcohol sales are regulated.

iPhones are not, and in fact your child will eventually need a smartphone for legitimate reasons. Currently isn't not possible to buy a smartphone that can be used legitimately but doesn't come bundled with gambling and pornography.