If you woke up today thinking, «Wow, what a beautiful day to read Apple’s standard and little revealing justifications about your business», today is your lucky day. Apple recently published some answers to questions asked by the Judicial Committee of the United States House of Representatives, and in the process ended up shining a light (a dim light, but still a light) on some of its operations.
More precisely, the committee sent Apple last September a letter asking for clarification on a number of topics related to its business, such as repair policy, App Store guidelines and establishing standard applications on its systems. The letter is part of a larger investigation, applied to Apple and other technological giants, which seeks to investigate alleged practices anticompetitive or with characteristics monopolists.
Most of the answers are in Apple’s standard tone – yes, the one that promotes itself while revealing as little as possible, with a careful choice of words. At least at one point, however, we can get interesting information out of the document: the Apple no generates any profits from your repair services, at least since 2009.
Thus Apple responded by requesting the disclosure of total revenue generated from repair services since 2009:
For each year since 2009, the costs of providing repair services have exceeded the revenue generated by these repairs.
Laconic, yes – but revealing. Of course, Apple does not reveal here whether it is taking into account the revenue generated from the sale of AppleCare + nor whether such costs refer to all repairs carried out by the company or only those that are charged, outside the warranty. Still, it is important information for the committee to weigh its decision against some Apple practices – which is often criticized for not providing parts or features to unauthorized repair services (even with recent good changes).
Among other interesting points in the document, Apple also explained the reason for deciding to abandon Google Maps and create a own map service:
Apple believed it could create better maps. In addition, because of our commitment to privacy and security, in addition to our desire to keep as much information on the device as possible, we believe that offering our own maps, more integrated with the devices, would be beneficial to users’ privacy needs at the same time. a time when I would give them an exceptional experience.
It is also worth reading the company’s explanation for maintaining the Safari as the default iOS browser, without giving users the option to change this:
Safari is one of the applications that, in Apple’s view, define the user experience on iOS, with privacy and security features unparalleled in the industry. As stated in the answer to the first question, Safari is an “operating system app”, like the Phone, Camera and iMessage, which are designed to work together.
Expanding the subject, Apple also elaborated the reason for requiring that all browsers offered on the App Store use the WebKit, Safari’s rendering engine:
By requiring apps to use WebKit, Apple can quickly and precisely fix vulnerabilities that affect our entire user base and most effectively protect your privacy and security. In addition, allowing other rendering engines could put users at risk if developers abandon their apps or don’t fix a security breach quickly.
The entire document with responses from Apple can be read here. What do you think?
via 9to5Mac
