Except that Apple is definitely looking to change the port with the iPhone 5.

Apple requires the publishers do a 30/70 split if they want to be on iBooks... Apple also requires that publishers do the same 30/70 split with any competitors.

So, that's why they give away XCode (and a zillion tutorials, examples, etc.) for FREE?

It's not free anymore.

there is nothing stopping anyone from having a webstore too

Except you must charge the same on the webstore as you do in-app.. and you are NOT allowed a webstore if you don't have in-app purchases.

That means that the only way we can make any money at all is to ramp our price up to substantially higher than the recommended retail

You can't even do that.. Apple forbids you from charging more than anyone else.

So you have to charge the same amount as Apple does in iBooks.. but Apple gets 30% of your income.

Color me Naieve, but when did Apple charge software developers in the 80's and 90's for Mac development?

From the very beginning.

When the Mac first came out, you had to buy a Lisa and Lisa Workshop to do Mac development.
Then MPW came out a few years later, and you no longer had to buy a Lisa.. but MPW was *not* free until after XCode came out.

Basically, until XCode, it costs thousands of dollars to develop for the macintosh.

You have anything from *this* century?

Where's the Internet Explorer for Mac?

It got dropped when Apple started bundling Safari.

It's a bit like using a steering wheel lock in your car. It's not that they can't be defeated, it's just that there's no point wasting time trying to defeat it when there are plenty of cars without one.

Depends on the lock you're talking about. If you're talking about the lock built-in to pretty much every steering wheel, then fine. If you're talking about The Club, then bad analogy.

Thieves actually target cars that use The Club because they don't have to carry an incriminating pry-bar around to break the built-in steering wheel lock.

and yet we still hear that Apple "barely breaks even on the iTunes Store".

Not even Linux gives you free cloud storage.

I agree with the rest of your post, except this. Ubuntu One gives me 2gigs free cloud storage.

Netflix streaming-only accounts are $8/mo, or 5 euros.

It's not that he doesn't have a home key.. it's that on a mac, home jumps to the top of the page, instead of the beginning of the line. End works the same way.

Except the YCombinator forums ripped him a new one.

Here's a great comment by someone who actually interviewed with them:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2371549

> Apple allow free apps in their store.

Apple still gets money for that. $99/year to host a free app. If you stop paying the $99/year, Apple removes the app from the store.