This is the great irony of a free market: that it includes the creation of closed, private markets which are decidedly un-free. (Apple's the biggest jerk about it, but there are many others, such as the game console manufacturers, or Amazon's app store). And as evidenced by the App Store's enormous success, the market does not inherently select in favor of open markets versus closed ones.
Apple of the 2010s is much more deserving of DoJ investigation than 1990s Microsoft ever was. And if I had my druthers, ecosystem monopoles of this type would be blatantly illegal, and manufacturers would be obligated to include jailbreak capability in every single device. (Not holding my breath.)
People tend to conveniently forget that it's the consumers in an economy who define a monopoly. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. If a monopoly occurs because the majority of consumers are giving that product/service their money, then it must be deserving of it. If enough people are dissatisfied with the quality, they'll turn to new business, and the monopoly will cease to exist.
The market has and will continue to regulate itself without legislative interference. I see no reason for the government to get involved with Apple's private marketplace.
Edit: I'll put it this way: You don't like Apple's closed market because they can define arbitrary rules that makes it hard to compete. How is that any different than a Government defining arbitrary rules on the national marketplace?
I must disagree. Except in a few cases, monopolies cause problems with deincentivization of innovation, uncompetitive behaviour, poorer outcomes for consumers and often higher prices than there would be otherwise were there a competitor.
Apple are beginning to show all these signs. I would suggest that given enough instances of incidents like these that the US DOJ would be within their rights to start another anti-trust case.
> Except in a few cases, monopolies cause problems with deincentivization of innovation, uncompetitive behaviour, poorer outcomes for consumers and often higher prices than there would be otherwise were there a competitor.
I think you'll only find this is the case with government-granted monopoly.
Government-granted monopolies (US post office, some energy utilities, many transportation companies and so on) have little incentive to innovate and generally deliver poor service to consumers.
But how can you argue this about Apple? They're incredible innovators, they deliver great products that consumers love and the prices of those products generally fall over time.
> I think you'll only find this is the case with government-granted monopoly.
That's demonstrably wrong; e.g., once Microsoft had a monopoly on the browser market (somewhere around IE5-IE6), they stopped innovating, whereas before that point (IE2-IE5) they made great efforts to innovate.
> But how can you argue this about Apple? They're incredible innovators, they deliver great products that consumers love and the prices of those products generally fall over time.
That's true. Despite what many people in this thread feel, Apple does not have a monopoly in any market: Macs are ~15% of all PCs. iphones aren't event 30% of the phone smartphone market.
What Apple did manage to do is dominate the lucrative parts of most markets -- but that doesn't make them a monopoly more than it makes Louis Vutton a monopoly on lucrative handbags.
Its important to note that many government granted monopolies are created to provide important services to all areas, not just those that are profitable.
For example, USPS delivers mail to all addresses. Competitors use USPS to deliver to remote locations.
They have their problems of course, but they also have their share of burdens competitors don't.
But how can you argue this about Apple? They're incredible innovators, they deliver great products that consumers love and the prices of those products generally fall over time.
While Apple may be incredible innovators, they have also setup a marketplace to allow others to innovate. This marketplace is the only place you can get software from (I don't speak for jailbroken phones, which void the warranty). As the ones controlling and participating in the marketplace, they have an extremely unfair advantage if they prevent others from selling products Apple also want to sell.
This is anti-competitive, and the reason I believe they need to be careful before someone tries to put together an Anti-Trust case for them to answer.
> If a monopoly occurs because the majority of consumers are giving that product/service their money, then it must be deserving of it.
"Deserving" is subjective, and that attitude doesn't seem far from "might makes right". Beta was better than VHS (or so I hear), but the consumers went where the content was, and the better format lost.
> I see no reason for the government to get involved with Apple's private marketplace.
Except it already is involved: the government issues currency and defends copyrights and patents, all backed by (heavily abstracted) violence. In fact, remove the threat of prosecuting NDAs alone, and I guarantee that Apple as we know it would collapse within a year.
> How is that any different than a Government defining arbitrary rules on the national marketplace?
In theory, the rules are not arbitrary, but driven by democratic processes. In practice, such rules might as well be arbitrary, if not openly hostile, and I will stipulate this as unfixable (for now).
But we already have marketplace rules all over the place, whether by law or by convention: don't false advertise, don't market poison as candy, etc. I don't see why "you're not allowed to encrypt everything so you're the only game in town" can't be one of them. Moreover, I don't see a difference between a tyrannical Apple and a tyrannical government, except in details and scale, and I'm not willing to settle for either.
For the record: I am typing this on a MacBook Pro. I think curtailing Apple's monopolistic tendencies would be not only be good for users and the ecosystem, but in the long run, good for Apple itself. For instance: if users are allowed to side-load any old app, they can curate their App Store to their heart's content, including only the best of the best, and regular users would be more satisfied their experience as a result.
they might be more satisfied, but use it less, and provide less revenue. "highly satisfied" users of a system that is optional to use will most likely provide less revenue than a system people are forced to use, but provides less overall satisfaction to the users.
I'd also say that the GP's statement isn't wholly true.
Inorganic growth is a different road to monopoly power. Vertical integration, another. As is abuse of existing monopoly power to gain a monopoly in a different market (see Internet Explorer).
The consumer isn't accountable for the actions of a monopoly. The main problem is that the monopoly becomes less accountable as a whole.
You're right in that there's nothing inherently wrong with a monopoly. There's only things wrong with how you got it, and more importantly, how you use it. When you use collusion to build one (or a cartel), that's a problem. When you start using it to preclude people from turning to an alternative, that's a problem.
Right now Apple is the dominant player in the mobile phone space, but it's definitely not a monopoly, and AFAICT they aren't really doing anything that is preventing competitors from entering the market. iCloud is a step in that direction, but it's not very good right now so we'll have to wait and see. Android basically lets Apple do whatever they want, and is the credible competitor that Microsoft was lacking.
Where Apple was a monopoly was in mp3 players, and where they were abusing it was with their DRM, by also having the dominant music store, and not allowing other devices to get music from it, or to let other stores sell DRM music for the iPod. They removed it, and I don't think it had anything to do with consumers, it was simply an anti-trust target that was growing larger by the day. They were smart and fixed that.
"Where Apple was a monopoly was in mp3 players, and where they were abusing it was with their DRM.... They removed it, and I don't think it had anything to do with consumers, it was simply an anti-trust target that was growing larger by the day."
You seem to have gotten the history wrong. DRM on itunes was mandated by the music companies. After a very public push from Steve Jobs, the music companies tested DRM free with Amazon and after that they gave Apple the green light.
DRM may have been mandated, but Apple's refusal to license FairPlay to other manufacturers, and refusal to allow the iPod to support any other DRM, was not.
Jobs' spinning this into a victory for the little guy rather than an anti-trust dodge is just another example of his PR prowess.
I don't see why I should be required to license my IP to anyone, let alone companies that may compete with me. I also don't see how a product I design would need to support a format that is licensed by a competitor and is something I'd have to pay money for.
You want content for your iPod, you can purchase it from iTunes, which will be DRM'ed according to the music industry, or you can purchase your music on a CD and rip it to MP3 and transfer it to your iPod that way.
There is no rule that any company should be required to license their IP, nor is there a rule that a company should be required to purchase a license to someone else's IP.
"There is no rule that any company should be required to license their IP"
...unless you're a monopoly. That's the point of anti-trust laws, that they are special cases. When you're using dominance in one market to maintain dominance in another, they change the rules to stop you, unless you stop yourselves as Apple did.
Apple has a dominance in iOS, since it is their OS, but they don't have a monopoly in the world since only about 30% of mobile devices are iOS devices.
Thus no special case required. When iTunes was around there were other options for purchasing music, hence no monopoly.
> If a monopoly occurs because the majority of consumers are giving that product/service their money, then it must be deserving of it.
Why exactly? The argument works if you make it circular (they deserve it because they get it), but so what?
It's not like consumers always do whats best for them, especially in the long run. Even if if the consumer did what was best for him or herself, that might not be what's best for everyone.
Honestly, I don't get where this seemingly naive faith, that everything will just take care of it self, comes from. Personally I can't see any evidence of that.
Yes, you can choose from multiple options. Android, Meego, Boot2Gecko (soon). Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iOS, Bada, etc.
So: some people choose Apple for its advantages, and others choose Android for its advantages. As a matter of fact, openness was the whole purpose of Android, way back when the G1 was released. Android is an incredible success story for open source cooperating with commercial interests and gaining huge public mind share.
> If enough people are dissatisfied with the quality, they'll turn to new business, and the monopoly will cease to exist.
Wish it were so simple, but the problem is the ecosystem. A new business will not start out with 500K apps and developers won't develop apps till a platform has a lot of users, a chicken-and-egg problem. Users don't like buying devices with only a few apps available. Looks at WebOS, it was a good platform but died.
This is not even mentioning the real costs of switching, like not having access to already purchased apps and content because they're locked down(music, movie, ebook purchases).
It was a big problem with Windows in the 90s, you had to get a Windows computer to run software needed to be compatible with others.
Wait, when Apple started the iPhone they had no 3rd party application, people begged them to allow that. They got to that number from zero. They are not preventing anyone to create a phone so compelling that everybody is asking for a SDK. moreover hundreds of mobile allowed 3rd party apps before the iPhone was there(I remember those cheesy java apps). They sold a very expensive phone that had less feature than the others and everybody wanted one. I don't know exactly what more proof we can get than the market is free than that. It was more expensive and had less feature than the other. The only extra stuff was Steve Jobs, sorry but the marked for that was destroyed a few month ago.
Remember, when Apple started, the market basically didn't exist. Not many people had smartphones. The programs available for, say, Windows CE, had costs of $10-$20 at the low end. Feature phones had games, but they were often $5+. On a feature phone, if you replaced it with a new model you may have lost whatever you purchased.
I distinctly remember one of my Sprint feature phones having a version of Tetris (or some similar complexity of game) for $3 a month.
It was the rise of Apple's mobile app store that made apps an important factor in which phone to buy. Before the iPhone app store, what percent of users in the US spent $10 a year to buy phone apps? What percent do now?
Ignoring the fact I love my iPhone, I would be hesitant to go to another plstform because of all the games I'd have to either give up or re-buy.
It's hard to remember that when Apple started the RIM BlackBerry was the undisputed Ph.D. of the smartphone market compared to the relatively high-school smart challengers of Danger and Palm.
Palm had an app store first and it was amazing for its time. It's an interesting case study to deconstruct how they could botch such an amazing product so thoroughly. They even missed the tablet bandwagon completely.
Those are just reasons Apple is more attractive to consumers than the competition is. Nobody said competing has to be easy, or even possible for everyone.
Free competition is not a guarantee that anyone will be able to outperform incumbents; it only means that if you do (as defined by consumers) you won't be held back by regulations/legal monopolies.
Granted, it would take an enormous effort to start a new company that competes against Apple, but one could do it.
But just because it takes an enormous effort that doesn't nullify the fact that consumers would indeed turn to other products if Apple products failed to satisfy.
I think a big issue to consider is that people are very satisfied with the quality of Apple's products at this point.
If somehow the government decided that people could only buy Apple products, then we'd have monopoly, and then we should be angry.
Apple is in a very strong position, they have an amazing product that people will literally line up to buy. What they don't have is a lock on the market, though, and they know it. They either innovate, keep pushing themselves, or they'll end up steamrollered by someone else.
Remember that in 1995 people did line up to buy Windows 95 and while future launches weren't met with as much fanfare, people would actively seek out computers with Windows on it and had no time for side-show attractions like MacOS or Linux.
Amazing how that can come collapsing down just because of a few mis-steps. You have Vista, you have a near decade of focusing aggressively on the server market and leaving the consumer side to twist in the wind, neglecting their important and dominant Internet Explorer product for the better part of six years.
In other words, Apple is just one Steve Ballmer away from total irrelevance.
The company best situated to take down Apple doesn't exist yet, not in the form it will ultimately be. Maybe Samsung will finally go beyond emulating and will build their own platform that resonates with consumers as well as they'd have you believe in the marketing... Maybe Microsoft will hire new leadership and straighten out the train-wreck that Windows Phone 7 is...
As much as Apple is doing a great job, it's frustrating when there really isn't any competition. We need a market where there are two or three very good choices.
Like Xbox 360 or PS3 or Wii where each have their merits. What will the world be like if that's reduced to just one?
> Apple of the 2010s is much more deserving of DoJ investigation than 1990s Microsoft ever was.
Not only that. Google, Twitter, Facebook et al are in the same situation. I am always arguing that with Microsoft you can reverse engineer their software. No more support for DOS? you can find a way to have a working application. You can't reverse engineer the cloud.
Maybe Apple has a monopoly; maybe it doesn't. Regardless, what Apple is doing is _wrong_ and needs to be stopped. There are more antisocial business practices than are dreamt of in the Sherman Antitrust Act.
I'll second this. Apple's doing causes a great deal of harm to small businesses that basically only live on its platform. That is a monopoly to these small businesses. I don't see why MS is punished like hell in the 90s for bundling IE only, but apple lives comfortably now.
The only solution is iOS platform must allow third party appstore, must allow third party browsers(not wrappers). Otherwise, shit will happen again tomorrow.
MS got punished for bundling IE because they provided it for free and Netscape at the time cost money. They also bundled IE with an OS that was installed by 90% of the computer using population thereby effectively shutting out competitors.
Apple doesn't have 90% of the market. If the users are unhappy or developers are unhappy there are plenty of alternatives. Sure you can't develop for iOS anymore, but if Windows didn't have 90% market share Netscape might have been able to stay in business simply by selling to customers running Solaris and Mac OS and then MS wouldn't have been raked over the coals because of bundling their browser.
think about this, apple not only provide browser for free (perfectly ok for me tho), but also shut off any possible competition, because only webkit can have JIT.
I totally get it that this is not antitrust issue by law since their market share is not over 50% yet, however for indie devs live on this platform, it means 100%.
Why does it not make it right? What exactly is wrong with what Apple is doing? Apple can do as it wishes, its the consumers that are voting with their feet/wallets.
Problem easily solved. Build your apps for Android first. You can make almost as much money on Android, and you can be secure knowing they won't pull this kind of garbage on you. Free markets are great.
Here's another radical idea, build apps that don't rely on reverse engineering a proprietary protocol from the company that runs the store you want to sell your shit in.
Well said. Law and policy are not holy scripture, and we should be unafraid to re-examine them from first principles, be it patent law, anti-trust, or even the Constitution itself.
Those are strong words without a lot of strong arguments or facts behind them.
I'm curious what exactly is Apple accused of doing that is so much worse then what every other store in the world does?
What should Apple be stopped from doing? Making awesome devices people want? Making APIs for developers? Having standards for their store?
Do we want Apple to never remove an App after approval? Are we ok with higher fees for developers to pay for more/better app screeners and a higher bar to clear for initial approval for everyone?
Apple should be stopped from creating an artificial barrier towards people selling apps to consumers without Apple's approval. There's no reason they couldn't separate the store APIs from the App Store itself, allowing the creation of third-party stores and direct sales. This would allow them to curate more, they way they do with the Mac App Store.
And for the record: Apple is merely the most obnoxious offender. I would happily apply to the same standard to Amazon, Nintendo, etc.
Go develop your app and sell it on the Cydia App Store.
It's possible and Apple is clearly allowing it to exist. That doesn't mean Apple has to make it easy for you to switch over to it or support it in any way.
Apple's triennial opposition to the jailbreaking DMCA exception makes it clear that they want jailbreaking (and Cydia with it) to be illegal. They kick companies do anything with Cydia out of their app store (IIRC, Toyota ran into this). They are harsh with jailbreaking and warranties and have released at least one update that bricked jailbroken phones, possibly intentionally. Apple's behavior doesn't say they're allowing Cydia to exist, it says there are limits to the tools they can use to shut it down.
Apple certainly did not "purposely" or even knowing release an update that bricked jailbroken devices: te incident you are referring to was caused by a baseband upgrade that relied on some things that had been screwed up by the popular unlock at the time (not even the jailbreak). The unlock was fixed (and subsequent unlocks have not taken similar risks) and Apple seriously scrambled to release a second upgrade that fixed those devices.)
(And yes: "scrambled" is the right word for their reaction; in addition to them having large numbers of sad customers, it is actually /illegal/ in many major countries to pull the shenanigans you seem to believe Apple had a part in, and a class-action lawsuit was immediately put together by people who refused to believe it was just a mistake.)
As for your assertion that they kick companies that do things with Cydia around, that is absurd: major applications like uStream and Qik have either been cross-listed in both markets or launched on jailbroken devices first; Tapululous even has been on stage with Jobs, and they are the reason many users jailbroke on iPhoneOS 1.x.
Meanwhile, Apple actually did /not/ file opposition to the DCMA exemption this year: in fact, at the hearings (which I attended and even answered a question at), it was specifically brought up how none of the players with actual skin in te game (such as Apple or manufacturers of Android devices) care enough to participate this year.
Finally, Apple certainly won't help you with software issues (or even certain classes of hardware issues) of you are currently jailbroken, but they could easily blacklist your warranty, and yet they simply don't: I have never heard of someone being denied service by Apple unless they both refuse to restore their device (to see if jailbreaking caused the problem).
So, while I don't actually agree with the person you are responding to (that Apple actively allows the process), your post is sufficiently full of lies and FUD that you are not adding anything useful to the conversation by having responded. :(
"Apple should be stopped from creating an artificial barrier towards people selling apps to consumers without Apple's approval. "
Here's how the free market really works:
(1) Apple makes a device at great capital investment and because of this
(2) Apple gets to decides how that device works, what it works with, which apps it can run, where users can get those from etc. Then
(3) consumers can assign whatever weight they want to the constraints Apple has built into the device and then they buy the device or not.
(4) developers can assign whatever weight they want to the ornerousness of the terms Apple has set vs the size of the potential market and then determine if they want to develop for that platform or not.
As it turns out in the case of iOS the devices have been very popular with users and developers. If Apple's terms were too ornerous and draconian we might expect that no one would be developing for iOS or no one would be buying the iphone.
This is again how the free market works.
"There's no reason they couldn't separate the store APIs from the App Store itself, allowing the creation of third-party stores and direct sales. "
There's also no reason they couldn't give all their money to sponsor poor children in developing countries.
There's reasons they shouldn't do either of these seemingly noble things though.
While this is how the free market works, ironically Apple have implemented the very opposite of the free market. Those who develop apps have also expended capital. If their app is suddenly yanked from the market then you can no longer claim that you are working in a perfect free market.
Incidentally, I disagree with you but I still had to think through my points. I am very surprised that you have been voted down. I upvoted you, I hope some other folks do too - your POV is actually quite germaine to this debate and I appreciate that you have expressed it!
I agree they're being dicks(even though we have famously never received a straight-story from Rogue Amoeba), but this is not anti-trust/anti-competitive or monopolistic.
To get into the hot water that Microsoft did, you need to have a monopoly on an open market, which requires that there is no reasonable choice in the market. Android proves every day that there is indeed choice - and it's actually cheaper and easier to get involved with Android. Android is 56% of the market in comparison to iOS's 23% market share. iOS is only a revenue leader, which is like saying DM Chrysler has a monopoly on rich people.
Secondly the monopolistic abuses need to influence situations that would normally be out of their control. Anyone can choose to stop selling Brand X in their own store for example, it doesn't matter how popular the store is/or how much revenue they earn.
Once those are satisfied they need to do things which leverage their position to trample competition. E.g. Microsoft deliberately changed the function of their APIs to make quicktime unstable. Microsoft deliberately fragmented Java with their own flavour to stifle Sun and the cross platform movement, Microsoft deliberately enforced a web browser on their users as a way to prevent Netscape innovating the web-app scene. Microsoft deliberately forced vendors to sell Windows-only systems by threatening them with severe price hikes if they packaged OS/2.
That is anticompetitive, and they were excellent at it. Apple always wanted a curated store and have deliberately structured their store for this reason.
My comparison to Microsoft may be a bad analogy: while they did act anti-competitively, it's different than what Apple is doing now. As bad as Windows lock-in was, they never set themselves up as the only store in town, and they were seldom hostile to developers building a business on their platform (if anything, it was the opposite).
I know Apple doesn't hold even the majority of the market, and they won't be king forever, as the MS story demonstrates. What concerns me is that they're defining the new norm (the Windows 8 store follows heavily in their footsteps). If the next OS vendor to take the crown successfully practices the same "our way or the highway" approach, it will be bad for the marketplace, consumers, and society.
Maybe it's a self-correcting problem. But make no mistake: it is a problem.
I generally follow and agree with the gist of your point, it's bad business to shut down people who have invested money into your ecosystem or something that helps sell your product. Fortunately market forces correct this, which is why there has been a trend for developers (especially smaller ones) to switch to Android, or boycott iOS outright. (E.g. If you have budget for one implementation of a title that may be risk rejection by Apple, then you'd naturally choose to develop for Android first, or exclusively.)
However the comparison statements given are off the mark, such as this one regarding Microsoft:
>they were seldom hostile to developers building a business on their platform (if anything, it was the opposite).
Noting my examples from the above comment - Microsoft were entirely hostile to software titles which could compete or create competition for Microsoft's products, or fields they were interested in owning. This isn't a matter of speculation, it was tested in court and proven as fact. Microsoft's deliberate interference were found to have damaged (in many cases permanently) the competitors that they targeted. Of all the 'evil' stuff that Apple/Google/Oracle/etc have done, it does not even compare with what Microsoft did, heck the halloween document alone is trove of a corporation acting evil.
In the strict legal sense, Apple is not a monopoly. However, they do have a monopoly on iOS app distribution. While they're not the only game in town for users, they are for developers (who will go where the users go).
We would all cry foul if the government shut down your business because it conflicts with interests of state. Why should we not also cry foul for a corporation to de-facto shut down your business because it violates their interests?
I'm not sure that Apple has violated any existing laws (IANAL). But even so, I think the rules need re-thinking when we talk about not just technical platforms, but their marriage to business platforms.
At the end of the day, it makes little difference to Rogue Amoeba whether they were shut down by government tyranny or by corporate whim: it matters that they were shut down at all, and we all suffer for the economic output which they (and others) are unable to create for themselves and society. It's antithetical to the very purpose of capitalism.
"We would all cry foul if the government shut down your business because it conflicts with interests of state."
This is a bit of a straw man. If your business is disposing of toxic waste or printing dollars or forming a private army then no, we will not all cry foul if the government comes in and shuts down your business.
"Why should we not also cry foul for a corporation to de-facto shut down your business because it violates their interests?"
Maybe because that business signed up for it? If I operate a hot dog stand at Yankee Stadium and Yankee Stadium decides to close I guess I'm out of business?
"At the end of the day, it makes little difference to Rogue Amoeba whether they were shut down by government tyranny or by corporate whim: it matters that they were shut down at all, and we all suffer for the economic output which they (and others) are unable to create for themselves and society. It's antithetical to the to very purpose of capitalism."
I'm not sure how you've turned RA's app removal into a bad soliloquy from an Ayn Rand novel but what you're actually suggesting here is a massive intrusion into private markets by the government... the Law of Unintended Consequences is a bitch like that. If Apple doesn't stock my new app we get to sue them? If Macy's doesn't stock my new line of clothes do we get to sue them too? Methinks where this train of thought goes is not "the very purpose of capitalism" that you're seeking...
> If your business is disposing of toxic waste or printing dollars or forming a private army then no, we will not all cry foul.
Of course. And if RA was selling something illegal or dangerous, we'd be fine with Apple removing it; that goes without saying.
The purpose of capitalism is creating wealth via trade. I can still sell hot dogs at places other than Yankee Stadium; however, Rogue Amoeba cannot take their software and sell it elsewhere. Yes, in theory they could make a new Android app from scratch, but (a) their work on the iOS app is still lost, and (b) they permanently lose access to the customer base, which is different than merely losing one sales venue of many.
It's ironic that you indict me for parroting Ayn Rand when I thought I was doing just the opposite. :) Libertarians like to think that tyranny is only created by governments. I take the broader view that concentrated private power will always emerge, like the T-1000 that never dies, taking whatever form is convenient, be it state, company, church, or something else entirely, and we must be constantly vigilant to rebalance power when it crosses a certain anti-social threshold.
Might there be unintended consequences to intervening? Of course. But there can also be unintended consequences to inaction as well. Even if government intervention isn't the right solution, it doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to the problem, which is not limited to Apple, and which is likelier to spread than die on its own (refer to the overlapping problem of DRM lock-in).
Microsoft in the 1990s controlled the only mass-market desktop operating system and there was a very real concern that they were going to take over every operating system, period, something they might've accomplished if Windows NT gained even more traction in the server space.
Apple is still a niche player. They just happen to absolutely own the most profitable end of the market and leave the majority, over 80% of it, to the rest. They're only a monopoly in a subset of the market. Nobody is going to cry because you only have one choice for an expensive product when there's hundreds of choices in the low end of the market.
> Apple of the 2010s is much more deserving of DoJ investigation than 1990s Microsoft ever was.
Except Apple is nowhere even close to a monopoly in any of the markets it participates in. Also, if you're including console manufacturers and gaming then Apple is nowhere close to the biggest jerk. Getting a game listed in Steam, WiiWare, PSN or XBLA is more expensive and way more of a crapshoot than getting your iOS app listed in the App Store.
In my comparison, WiiWare is guilty, and Steam is not. If WiiWare kicks me out because they think I'm a jerk, I have no recourse: their store, their console, their rules. If Steam does the same, I'm free to sell a PC game on my own website, or whatever other stores there are.
Perhaps we need a new term beside "monopoly". Obviously it's not a monopoly to consumers. Rather, they are the sole gatekeeper to thousands of businesses. The closest analogy I can see is company towns, or as many others have said, plantations.
I do know what it is; I was speaking broadly, not intending the strict legal definition. And I'm aware that Apple may not be guilty of violating existing anti-trust laws. However, that doesn't mean Apple hasn't violated their spirit or intent, and if so, I believe those laws need rethinking.
Maybe the ecosystem just isn't big enough yet. Too much of the market is still not yet using Apple's products.
Maybe when Apple reaches Microsoft-level penetration, and of course that is their goal (Exhbit A: Apple pricing trends), you might get your druthers.
It really should not be necessary to "jailbreak" a device in the first instance. The user should be able to easily install their own choice of software on the hardware they have paid for: e.g., applications, OS, bootloader and BIOS. If you want to install Apple's software, you can. If you do not want to install their software, you can install something else. Simple.
The user should be able to easily install their own choice of software on the hardware they have paid for: e.g., applications, OS, bootloader and BIOS.
Why should they? You don't get to easily put any ingredient of your choice in packaged food, or any instrument of your choice in finished songs, or any cloth of your choice in premade clothing, or any engine you like in a car.
You can mix packaged food with whatever you want. You can choose to eat only the left half of your TV dinner. In short, once it's yours, you can do what you like.
You can take a song and remix it to your heart's content. That is, unless the song contains DRM which prevents you from extracting the raw audio data. This is something most people around here frown upon rather strongly.
Nothing prevents me from taking pre-made clothing and using it in ways the manufacturer didn't envision and doesn't desire. I can use store-bought pants to make rope or filter water or anything I wish.
As for putting any engine you like in a car, I don't know where that came from. Of course you can put any engine you like in a car, as long as you have the resources and the skills.
Nobody is saying Apple must explicitly support third-party stuff like this. They shouldn't go out of their way for it. All we want is for them to stop going out of their way to prevent it.
It's not just a matter of Apple not inviting third-party OSes and bootloaders. The problem is that Apple locks down the platform using digital signatures so that the only way to use anything but an Apple OS or bootloader is to find and exploit a bug in Apple's lockdown code. There is no similar situation in the world of packaged food, music (except for DRM, which is generally considered bad), clothing, or cars.
That's because computing is a new thing in human history. There isn't anything quite like it. But there is matter, and matter is sold with lots of disparate bits built into one product all the time. Things which could be reconfigured by a skilled person, but it's widely accepted that people don't/can't/shouldn't do that.
Your arguments are similarly broken. You can mix your iOS device with any pair of glasses, 3.5mm audio device, wifi AP, or cover, or choose to use only part of it. You can't have a TV dinner without the gravy browning and you can't get an iOS device without the Apple firmware.
The problem is that Apple locks down the platform using digital signatures so that the only way to use anything but an Apple OS or bootloader is to find and exploit a bug in Apple's lockdown code.
And one of the reasons they do that is so they can provide a curated, malware free, beginner-unbreakable, trustable-updating, partly-sandboxed-app experience for their paying customers.
You have complained about my analogies, but you haven't said why "they should" do that, just that "you want them to".
Apple can easily provide the curated experience without locking the device down. Sideloading can be available while still off by default.
The reason Apple has the App Store and restricts distribution channels is to provide a good experience. The reason Apple locks down the platform so hard that the only way even an expert can customize the OS is to exploit bugs is to retain control of the platform, nothing to do with a good experience for users.
As for why they should do it, it's because I want them to, and because I think the walled garden approach is frighteningly dangerous for computing in general. Everybody is following suit. In a couple of decades it's not inconceivable that it will be impossible to publish any software without permission from a big corporation.
It's pretty likely that the moment sideloading is "available but off by default" is the moment phishing messages take off seriously. "Just go to settings, then enable sideloading!". Most people won't know what it means, but will use it if told to.
That's not something I can cite peer reviewed evidence for, but from the number of people with unwanted toolbars and junkware on desktops, it seems likely.
So I disagree that it has "nothing to do with a good experience for users".
the walled garden approach is frighteningly dangerous for computing in general.
It has made something widely regarded as the best non-technical computing experience of the decade. It's not 'frighteningly dangerous' while there are still lots of ways to get computation you want done, done. (Albeit not as slickly).
Sideloaded apps could still be sandboxed. It is the sandboxing which helps against malware, not the App Store approval process (which is not at all thorough and not equipped to detect malware at all).
What is the product? Is it the hardware? Or the software? Are you saying they are one product, not two?
We've been through this countless times. Microsoft and the OEM's. Apple and their locked down hardware. Consumers are not fools. They know the difference between a software company and a hardware company.
Does your packaged food come with silverware?
Do your finished songs come with an mp3 player?
Does your premade clothing come with laundry detergent?
I find these type of comparsions (e.g. of computers and software to food, music, clothing) very strange. We are talking about cheap, programmable consumer electronics. And then we are having an argument over whether the consumer should have the ability to program them. It is absurd.
Should Honda be obliged to support installing custom engine control software? Overwriting the radio firmware? Reprogramming the odometer?
Should GE obligated to support installing new firmware on your dishwasher?
There's a long history of integrated devices. It may be the case that consumers know the difference between hardware and software. It's also the case, though, that they often do not care, and don't want to see with the difference.
What is the product? Is it the hardware? Or the software? Are you saying they are one product, not two?
Yes I'm saying they are one product not two. They are made as one product, advertised as one product, sold as one thing for one price, supported as one product. Where do you get the idea that they could reasonably be thought of as two products?
We are talking about cheap, programmable consumer electronics. And then we are having an argument over whether the consumer should have the ability to program them. It is absurd.
No we aren't. We are talking about dozens of components, both software and hardware, put together into one product which is not sold as "programmable electronics" anymore than a dishwasher is sold as "reconfigurable matter". It's a nonsense idea that you want to be the case but you haven't justified why it "should" be the case at all.
I suspect that this app uses Apples's leaked key for airplay encryption. In that case I would understand the rejection. I can't wait for the official explanation.
Funny how nobody else seems to notice this. That key is there for a reason, and one of those reasons apparently is anti-competitive behavior.
Keys and other mechanisms like it are not usually used to increase customer service but to increase vendor lock-in and control of those users. It's all about creating a captive audience.
It is part of the DRM scheme. DRM requires end-to-end encryption to be effective. In this case it has nothing to do with a vendor lock-in. Using DRM is part of the deal with media partners and not Apple's decision.
What Gruber actually said about this is, "I can’t imagine what Apple would object to with this app, or why they wouldn’t provide Rogue Amoeba with a precise explanation before removing the app."
Although I imagine if it was some company he didn't see favorably, he would probably go for your explanation rather than the one he actually posted for this.
I just realized that Rogue Amoeba isn't just a random company making iOS and Mac apps. They aren't even just a random company that Gruber likes. Rogue Amoeba is a past sponsor of Daring Fireball, including being the debut sponsor of the Daring Fireball RSS feed [1].
Given that, I'd be surprised if he'd said anything else. That doesn't mean what Gruber said here is wrong (I don't think it is), but that is important context nevertheless.
Dude reverse-engineers Airport Express - steals secret encryption key from ROM. Other dudes use this illegal acquired key to make an app that replicates the function of the original device & submit that to the AppStore of exact that vendor of the device. Somehow it gets thru, now they yank it & anyone really wonders about it?
It's not illegal. For precendent, see Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc. from 2004. Basically, the DMCA does not protect encryption designed purely for vendor lock-in. The Wikipedia has a good overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_Int%27l_v._Static_Cont...
Edit: And more broadly, reverse engineering is not a crime.
one could discuss if this encryption is for vendor lock in or for preventing someone from dumping the raw-data stream of DRM'emd material. remember the time the airport expresses and airplay for music came to market all music files in the store had fairplay DRM.
and while it might not be illegal in all countries, it's clearly against apples terms of use.
That just means consoles and console makers are also horrible: it does not exonerate Apple in the least.
The main difference is that I (and most of HN) don't have to deal with consoles as developers and probably not even as users. On the other hand, I bet there are a ton of mobile developers and that almost everyone has a smart phone of some sort. So that's why there's more outrage over Apple's detrimental behavior than the console makers'.
Please.. help me agree with you by naming one game that was on XBOX for YEARS, which was subsequently removed from XBOX because it was too similar to an upcoming, unreleased feature?
What is sure is that they include the key. From [0]:
> The other major feature in Airfoil Speakers is the new Enhanced Audio Receiving option. With an inexpensive in-app purchase, your iOS device becomes a full-fledged mobile AirPlay receiver!
This is only possible with the leaked AirPort ROM private key. As soon as I saw the title on HN I thought that was the most likely cause of the removal. Occam's razor and all. Including the Apple private key in Airfoil Speakers Touch was, if not stupid, at least a very bold move from Rogue Amoeba.
Assuming RA included this key and they probably suspect this is the reason but it stands to reason that they can still play dumb and say they haven't been told why the app was yanked.
note: followed lloeki's link above into the comments and there's this from RA's Paul Kefasis (italics mine)...
"There should be no legal issues here whatsoever.
Airfoil Speakers on the Mac and PC has had this receiving functionality for years now, and now it’s on the iOS platform as well. Airfoil Speakers is a clean-room implementation of the AirPlay protocol. Further, as you note, Apple approved the app after review. So, we don’t anticipate any issues here."
It's not a matter of playing dumb. It would be foolish to simply assume that the rejection is due to a particular thing when Apple doesn't say what it is. They haven't been told, that's the truth, and why would they say anything else?
The fact that Apple has shitty quality control in their initial approval process so that they more often have to remove apps subsequently to approval doesn't mean that in the big picture it's at least as permissive (if not far more so) than other console development arrangements.
Doesn't Apple have some boilerplate that specifically disallows peer-to-peer content transfer in iOS apps? Streaming-only may edge around the language, but may still run afoul of the intent.
I think it may be premature to blame this on Apple removing a competitor to make way for a first-party feature. I think their content partners are just extremely sensitive about this issue and these clauses and their enforcement are just a price Apple is currently willing to pay to keep them happy.
See also: wifi hotspot functionality and provider desire to charge for tethering.
Apple has a history of copying some apps, i.e. Instapaper etc, but they don't have a history of removing them afterwards. There could be plenty of perfectly reasonable reasons for this. I'd wait until actually finding out why before accusing them of anticompetitive behavior.
The worst part is the lack of information from Apple. If Rogue Amoeba knew what rule their app violated they could be retooling it now. Instead they are in the dark and losing money.
They remove the and app and oh, what a coincidence iOS 6 has the exact same functionality baked into it. This is one of the issues with the whole closed market thing, Apple can no longer come up original phone features, so they take ideas from popular apps and bake it into their iOS, remove the app they took "inspiration" from and people clap and pat them on the back for being so innovative and introducing a revolutionary new feature.
This function will obviously be in the next release, and it's slightly harder for Apple to sell forced upgrades if there is a well designed, intuitive, independent product that maintains backwards compatibility. Therefore the rational MBA type business decision is to leverage the monopoly access to application installation that Apple maintains, and use it to destroy products that threaten even an iota of revenue, no matter what the collateral damage will be.
After all it is the developers that make the App Store prosperous, now they take advantage of the established platform and act like ass hole to the developers. I don't see they will change the behavior if we do nothing but complain.
You're absolutely right that indie developers need to do more than complain if they want Apple to take them seriously. Nevertheless, Apple has formidable tools at their disposal to fight back: ejecting ringleaders, interfering with coordinated action involving their app store (e.g. staggering suspended sales so they didn't all happen on a strike day), ranking penalties and so on.
Assuming that this functionality is about to become part of AirPlay, what would you have Apple do?
Do you have Apple continue to sell this app even though it's about to become a free feature of the OS? Or does Apple not implement this rather logical extension to their existing AirPlay feature simply because someone already wrote a utility to do the same?
Both those options are rather lousy for Apple's customers.
Any developer who writes a utility to implement some missing feature of the OS understands that their feature probably won't be missing forever.
How is allowing the app to exist a lousy experience for their customers? There is no harm in allowing competing versions of the same feature, especially if the other version was there first and people were using it.
I can see rejecting new apps that duplicate existing functionality, but proactively un-approving and pulling apps that implement a feature that might exist later?
You purchase this app, then the next day somebody else announces the same feature as a third-party app for free.
It's not Apple's concern whether people feel ripped off over third-party apps. They'll let you do all kinds of crazy things, like keep old versions on the store and still charge for them even after a new version comes out, or totally nerf a new version while allowing no way for people to downgrade.
Nope, I thought it was worth $1 the day before and I would still think it is a nice feature. I'd blame Apple for that for being so opaque or for not including it in the first place. The developer is not the problem in my eyes -- they just made an awesome feature for my phone.
Perhaps most customers have a different stance than I do, though.
I'd do that, except work bought and paid for my current phone, so I'm stuck with an iPhone for now. I've been too lame to even jailbreak it because of that.
This is exactly what I've been talking about wrt App development on Apple. If Apple likes your product, and they steal your features for their OS or apps, they kick you out so they don't have any competition.
IMHO, it's a real douchebag business decision, and anyone with a popular unique app should always expect Apple to screw you over with no notice and have a contingency plan in the works.
Your point is more than fair, but at this point, does anyone not know the deal with Apple (and Google and Microsoft for that matter?) All these companies are looking out for #1. If it becomes in their interests to screw you, look out. Apple: examples too numerous to mention. Microsoft: the whole world by delaying the internet for 6-10 years by killing off all alternate browsers then stopping any development. Everyone who purchased a computer basically ever by forcing manufacturers to always buy their OS no matter what they sold on the computer. Google: skyhook, google+, dropbox, etc.
Google may create a competitor but will not try to prevent you from doing your own thing. That is really the most you can hope for. You cannot honestly expect another company to not enter your business because you thought of it first (except if you have a patent of course).
But Google will not use any of its substantial infrastructure to prevent you from doing your own business. They will still list you in the search results, offer your software in the android store, allow you to buy ads, etc. This is very different from what is happening here.
One of the examples I gave, Skyhook, so clearly contradicts your entire post that I have to assume you're intentionally lying. Because that was exactly google preventing someone from executing their business essentially via blackmail. See also their negotiations with Yelp / scraping their results. Oh, and twitter results.
None of these are examples of Google shutting someone out of their channels. All of these companies can be found on google search and can offer apps on the android marketplace. And I am sure they can also advertise on adsense if they wanted to.
Twitter wanted Google to pay them hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to search tweets. Google was paying that money, but then Twitter wanted to increase the fee and Google refused. But again, if they wanted to have their tweets indexed by google on the same terms as everyone else (i.e., for free) they could.
Google told Motorola if they used Skyhook then their devices wouldn't be android compatible. [1] And from emails:
one email quotes an Android manager saying it was obvious to
phone manufacturers that "we are using compatibility as a club
to make them do things we want." [1]
I'm sure you can come up with some way this wasn't Google shutting someone out of their channels... but please. Because everyone involved believes that was the case:
Motorola flat-out told Skyhook that Android devices are "approved
essentially at Google's discretion," and that Moto couldn't afford
to risk its relationship with Google. Motorola also told Skyhook that
its carrier agreements require Google's apps be preloaded on its
phones, so Google's compatibility decision was doubly important --
if Motorola shipped software that didn't have Google's blessing (and
apps), it would immediately violate its contracts with carriers. [2]
So Motorola can't use Skyhook's software because google used their control over Motorola's ability to include other google apps to screw Skyhook. Now, the lawsuit will decide whether this was legal, but it sure as hell was "Google shutting someone out of their channels."
There's a difference between "We as a handset-manufacturer can't enter into a business relationship where we preload this on our phones, because we've got an extant business relationship with Google which would be threatened" and "users are not permitted to install this from the app store ever at all because we're locking them out to steal their business."
The story is a little bit more complex than that and Skyhook don't come out of it as well as it appears in your quote. I'm afraid I don't have any sources for you immediately as it was a while ago.
1. Skyhook didn't just want their stuff preinstalled, they wanted Google Maps taken out.
2. Google felt that the way Skyhook reported their ___location data (mixing WiFi/cell tower calculations and GPS data, IIRC) would have polluted their ___location database if they had tried to use it (the way they use the data gathered via Google Maps). Since getting that data is one of their few direct, tangible benefits from releasing Google Apps on an Android phone, it isn't terribly surprising that they'd be protective of it.
That's not true at all. Our contract just stated that Skyhook was the sole ___location provider for all apps. There was no restriction on whether they could ship Google Maps. The contract also said Motorola couldn't send our ___location data back to Google which they would use to build a competitive system on our back.
Google used their might to convince companies that they would be better off not using Shyhook. It is a hardball tactic, but it isn't comparable to Apple just yanking an app. Motorola could have told Google to eff off and used Shyhook. But as Motorola said, they can't afford to risk their relationship with Google. Subtle but important distinction.
Hopefully very few. I wrote that at the end of 2004, and it seems simpler to link to it than to repeat the same old, same old arguments all over again.
You're assuming you know why the app was pulled. Was it pulled because Apple's going to introduce a competing feature in iOS 6 and doesn't want the competition? Or was it pulled because the app is using the leaked AirPlay encryption key? Or was it pulled for some other unknown reason?
We don't know.
Frankly, I doubt Apple would give a damn about competition for a feature they plan to introduce in iOS 6. They don't care about other apps that reimplement iOS features, such as music players or (now) mail clients. Why give a damn about AirFoil?
Finally, unless you own, or no one owns, the platform on which you're developing, you're always at risk for something like this happening. This is nothing new, and it's definitely not behavior that's isolated to Apple.
What you're describing is the situation every time you develop on someone else's platform: Apple's, Microsoft's, Facebook's, everyone's.
If you're developing apps for a platform you want to be in one of two positions:
1. The app is secondary to whatever service you're providing (eg the Facebook app on iOS); or
2. You're developing games.
Everything else has to walk a fine line between failing and being successful enough that it gets absorbed into the platform.
Apple is just like everyone else in this regard. No platform owner is going to ignore something that they decide has become of critical importance to their platform. It's simply a fantasy to assume otherwise.
If you're not in one of those two categories you're basically hoping to be the lucky one who gets bought out (eg the official Twitter mobile client).
> What you're describing is the situation every time you develop on someone else's platform: Apple's, Microsoft's, Facebook's, everyone's.
Ah, so that's why FireFox and Chrome were banned from Windows. Oh wait they weren't.
Ah, so it must be why the Amazon Appstore for Android can't be installed on Android any more. Oh wait, it can, along with dozens of other app stores.
But it does explain why the Kindle app is crippled on Android so that Google Books can take prime position. Oh wait, it's not.
You have a point, but you try to use that point to gloss over the real issue here. On other platforms your product just has to be good enough to succeed (eg: Kindle app). On Apple's platform(s) it is not about being good, in fact the better your product is the more threatened it is by Apple's anticompetitive practices.
One may believe that it's unscrupulous to undercut another company and co-opt their ideas without believing that the software patent system is tenable or just. Similarly, I believe lying is generally unethical; but I certainly don't believe there should be a law against lying.
"Stealing" features is one thing, taking advantage of your control over a particular market to shut out the "competition" you "stole" said features from isn't justifiable in any way (IMHO).
Exactly. If Apple clones this thing and produces a better product, it's a good thing, because we all have better software to use. Likewise, if Microsoft were to produce a better browser than, say, Netscape, no one would complain.
When either company leverages its control over the market to exclude its competitors using mechanisms other than technical quality, that's a bad thing and needs to be condemned.
I'm waiting for the day when the App Store (et al) become classified as a "market", in the sense of "shutting competitors out of the market". On a desktop, Microsoft can't get away with making a browser (for example) and then locking out all other browsers. That's abuse of their monopoly position. Apple should be living up to the same standards in mobile.
I view mobile as more of a game console than a PC, but if Apple wants to insist that they're fully functional and "post-PC", they have to live by the same standards.
>I view mobile as more of a game console than a PC, but if Apple wants to insist that they're fully functional and "post-PC", they have to live by the same standards.
Apple does not insist the post-PC devices are fully functional. In fact, Jobs compared PCs to trucks and iOS devices to cars. By post-PC they imply that lockdown that comes with it.
Hey, it's Apple's marketplace - private property and all that. Nobody has a right to sell there.
Now, I also think this is a dick move, but it's because of dick moves like this that the patent and copyright systems exist in the first place, and why I think they need to be reformed rather than abandoned.
I wish that we could rely on the companies that are increasingly controlling semi-public commons like social networks and software repositories to have some integrity and respect for the roles that they are playing in this regard.
I don't think anyone is complaining about the theft of the feature here. It's the fact that Apple is leveraging its power as the ecosystem owner to harm the competition.
Everyone expects Apple to call the shots on their own app store to some extent, but it becomes unacceptable when well intentioned and heavily invested developers get screwed over by Apple making anticompetitive exceptions to their own, already volatile, set of rules.
This, however, has nothing to do with that: it's about consumer choice: making a better product and tempting people away with it is normal and healthy but abusing a lead in one market to prevent people from being able to make a choice in another is always bad.
This is the strongest criticism of Apple's app store policies: on the Mac if you get Karelia-ed that's not pleasant but it's a business risk you assume along with the possibility of any other large company entering the market. On iOS, Apple will preemptively kill your ability to sell a product before their competitor even ships, preventing your customers from even being able to decide that they prefer the app which ships with the OS.
It really just goes back to the concept of "barriers to entry". If Apple can reproduce your software easily, they will. They might even do it better than you. They'll only go out of their way to buy you anymore when you've implemented something like Siri that's actually difficult, or something like Logic that has a massive and lucrative installed base. If you implement something trivial, don't be surprised when your competitors reimplement it instead of giving you a millions-dollar signing bonus just for your ideas.
Good point. I guess the difference is those are apps they couldn't recreate themselves for cheaper than the purchase cost, whereas they used to buy trivial apps (MenuClock being a good example of that).
...which happened after Steve came back to Apple. Before that they bought software like MenuClock, the Hierarchical Apple Menu, WindowShade, Stickies, etc.
Apple of the 2010s is much more deserving of DoJ investigation than 1990s Microsoft ever was. And if I had my druthers, ecosystem monopoles of this type would be blatantly illegal, and manufacturers would be obligated to include jailbreak capability in every single device. (Not holding my breath.)