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Opinion: Apple’s software bugs may be overplayed, but they do still need faster fixes

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No one will be surprised to hear that I greatly prefer Apple’s platform to those of competitors. I’ve often argued that if you want a single ecosystem where everything Just Works across devices, Apple still has a significant lead, even if other platforms are gaining ground.

But that doesn’t mean I think Apple’s own platform is perfect. There are reliability issues that mean the platform doesn’t always live up to that Just Works ideal, and there are annoyingly persistent bugs which the company doesn’t seem in any hurry to fix.

In a podcast interview on Friday, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi argued that while all software has bugs, the sheer number of users means that complaints are “amplified,” making them appear more prevalent than they are in reality. There may be some truth in this – at least on the iOS side – but I’d argue that Apple allows known bugs to persist through too many platform and app releases …


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Apple’s ‘break-even’ iTunes business now estimated to make $2B a year

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Asymco’s Horace Dediu has estimated that Apple’s iTunes business, initially intended only to cover its costs as a way of driving hardware sales, now earns the company annual profits of a cool $2 billion.

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What started as just a music store now sells music, video, books, iOS software, and Mac software. Revenues have grown five-fold in 7 years, with total sales approaching $5 billion a quarter and notching up an estimated 23 billion transactions a year.


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