As noted in another article on Gigaom, most often the policy statements are vague and these are often interpreted differently based on what Apple wants to do. http://gigaom.com/apple/jobs-new-in-app-subscription-rules-just-for-publishers/

Coming back to what Apple really wanted to do here, following is my understanding.

1. They see Tablet as the next big thing and as front runner it’s a massive source of revenue for them. Unlike iPhone, iPad is a great device to consume content, thus attracting lot more ‘Content Publishers’ than it did for iPod/iPhone.

2. What they don’t want is, a publisher uses the App store to publish a free/cheap App and only share 30% of that proceed to Apple, while make huge amount of money by selling subscription that’s consumed through these Apps/the Platform. They want a piece of that business.

What Apple will consider as fair or compliant to their guideline is almost anybody’s guess. Once again from the Gigaom piece it appears that readability was classified as a ‘publisher’ while it’s purely a software component [SaaS?] that allows ‘easier’ readability of content on cluttered web pages.

There’s been speculations about regulatory actions on this, however I don’t believe that’s going to happen any time soon. Apple has played difficult in past as well, but that hardly ever resulted in such actions. It’s the flexibility they have by writing vague policies and having different interpretation depending on the case.

Whether this will continue/succeed and not drive away content publishers to other platforms is to be seen. iPhone started with the idea of Web Only Apps and later allowed native Apps when they came under pressure. Something similar might happen here as well, but I doubt that. Like RIM, iPhone/iPad always will always hold a large share in the market share, thus forcing people to go after that X% of the market catering to people who only chose to buy a iDevice and consume content using that.

MS and Sony used to make losses in XBox and PS3 they sold, while made profit in the games that were sold for these devices. Now Apple wants to make profit from iDevices and also make profit from what’s sold/consumed through that.

Thinking of posting an interpretation of what Apple meant in their press release.

If Apple now prohibits vendors from offering different subscription plans, that’s imho worse: they’d not only be telling content providers how to price their products, but also what products they can or cannot sell. I can’t imagine too many people agreeing, and it’ll probably end up in the hands of regulators.

But on the other hand, I realise I’m just speculating. Apple could very well turn around tomorrow and say, guys, we’re going to do the right thing here. It’s just that the Cupertino Cone of Silence(tm) doesn’t play very well when you’re the second-most valuable company in the world, and certainly the most powerful tech company around. People will read the worst into your intentions.

If I’m reading this right you’re proposing what amounts to a “premium” subscription that includes iOS devices, at a 30% increase? If I’m not mistaken, and I definitely could be, Apple prohibits raising the price. You can offer an electronic version of the subscription but it has to be the same price as the traditional subscription. Maybe having two plans gets around it?

This all seems pretty confusing. If you read the comments in the Think Vitamin article there seems to be quite a bit of confusion, and argument, over what in-app purchase really means. Some claim it’s ok to have in-app subscription services other than Apples’, but that seems highly unlikely.

Google is good at building technology, but they haven’t been very successful at productising much of it. Their DNA is delivering services online. Going from that to delivering shrink-wrapped software is a long way and will require “making the elephant dance”. They don’t have much experience in “high touch” businesses. For all their public posturing about openness the level secrecy they maintain when you try to do business with them is mind boggling. Google as a company has a serious fear of commitment, which is why they slap the beta tag on products that are very mature so that they can hide behind it if something were to go wrong. So, I don’t think anyone should keep their eyes peeled for a credible alternative to come from the Google stable.

Now, having said that it does make sense for Google to do an OS even if it does not have any decent chance of competing with Windows.

This is kind of a dance that Microsoft and Google are doing that eventually becomes advantageous for the consumer. Every dollar that Google throws at Chrome will force Microsoft to stay on its toes about Windows, which prevents it from pouring attention on Bing. Microsoft in a way does the same with Bing. It is a win win for everybody involved. Kind of like a nuclear deterrent that keeps peace.

Ultimately, both these companies are pioneers who invented entire industries single-handedly. They should be smart enough to know that they can learn a lot from each other and both of them can learn from Apple. Whoever drops their ego first and decides that they need to hire a top honcho from the other side and give them a mandate to create what they done for their rival will emerge a winner.

The Atheros drivers are open source. So are the Intel display drivers. In the case of the display drivers, they even worked in Ubuntu 8.10. Canonical basically said, right, let’s ship even though we have a nasty regression that affects one of the most common display cards out there. You don’t see too many responsible software vendors do that.

That looks like such an ignorant comment. Try installing Windows on a machine it’s not built for, without the drivers, without co-operation from hardware manufacturers. You’ve been so brainwashed by the Microsoft Kool Aid you can’t think straight.