The morning coffee is chased by crocs
The United States has some problems at their southern border. Illegal immigrants trying to sneak across is old news — but now the Mexican drug trade is getting bigger and more violent. Policing of the border is requiring more resources as a result. Over on the northern border, they are also cracking down. Why? Because “we need to be sensitive to is the very real feelings among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border“.
Imagine the police come over to your place to search it for signs of drug trafficking. “Why are you searching my home?”, you might ask them. “One of your neighbours is trafficking drugs,” they reply. “To make sure we don’t offend anybody, we’re also going to waste time searching your home too.”
Not really a good or intelligent use of law enforcement is it? But apparently it is US policy. On the other hand, I think this means that we have finally found the real reasoning behind the invasion of Iraq.
More photoshop expertise like this is on display at Village of Joy.
You may ask yourself “how fast can I swim”? CNN asks how fast you can swim … when being chased by a crocodile. Apparently this is how they train swimmers in Australia. You may not want to sign up for swimming lessons there.
Apple has introduced a bizarre refund policy for their Application Store. Under the new rules, application developers would be responsible for refunding the full cost of applications to customers, while Apple would keep its 30% cut. In short, it means that on a $1 application, the developer would lose 30 cents if it were returned for a refund.
This seems strange to me — Windows and Blackberry are setting up their own versions of the Application Store, so Apple is soon going to have some real competition for the products the application developers are creating. By creating this policy, Apple is endangering their superior market position as application developers will want to find out the return rate before submitting an iPhone version of an application. This can be done via the Windows and Blackberry application stores …
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Of course, the difference when you’re talking about blackberry and MS app stores is that unlike the iphone app store, there are plenty of other places to get apps for blackberries and windows phones. Apple at least for the present has a monopoly on iphone apps through the store, which is why I presume they feel they can get away with this behaviour.
@curgoth
Apple might have a monopoly on iPhone applications, but they do not have a monopoly on smart phones.
Were I an application developer, I would first make Windows and Blackberry versions. I would measure the return rate. And then I would mark up the cost of the Apple version of my application in order to compensate for the losses I would make on the returns.
Hence, applications on the iPhone will come out later, and be more expensive. Blackberries and Windows phones would be less expensive (app-wise) and more cutting edge.
I really do think that Apple is destroying their huge head-start and advantage in the casual-smart-phone market in return for a relatively small amount of money up front.