Hasn't seemed to hit the stock price.
Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
81–90 of 130 posts
Re: Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main way they're different is that people have always expected consoles to be walled gardens. They have expected the same things of phones, but because the developer of this phone is Apple, they thought that the model would be more similar to the way desktop applications are developed. The only significant difference is one of expectations.
AFAIK, console makers require developers to use their SDKs, but they don't care about what happens before that point in the pipeline. What Apple did was more like forcing 3D models to be created exclusively with Maya.
but they don't care about what happens before that point in the pipeline.
They most certainly do. The difference is in their point of control. Console makers exercise far more control over who is allowed to develop for their platform, and that control extends to who is allowed to develop middleware. They may or may not have restrictions on programming languages, but they do more generally exercise a degree of control over the tools you're allowed to use. It's difficult to know exactly what is and isn't allowed, as it's all under NDA, but there are certainly some shared motives.
The Xbox 360™ Tools and Middleware Program licenses professional developers of games software tools and games middleware applications to obtain full Xbox 360 Development Kits and to distribute Xbox 360 code to approved Xbox 360 developers and publishers. -- http://www.xbox.com/en-US/dev/tools.htm
3rd Party Tools, QA/Testing, and Localization companies can also apply for Authorized Status using the same Application. You will need to select the appropriate category from the drop-down box in the Application. -- http://www.warioworld.com/apply/
Under this license program, licensees will be entitled to 1) access to development environment and technical information of "PLAYSTATION®3" which is the same as development environment and technical information that licensed game title developers have access to, 2) develop tools and/or middleware to be used in the game title development for "PLAYSTATION®3", and 3) directly provide licensed game title developers with such tools and/or middleware. -- http://www.tmstation.scei.co.jp/ps3/info_e.html
Re: Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are Apple preventing you from buying the ever more popular Android phones? Or Web OS phones? You, a member of the market, buy the phone with the features you want. If you don't like Apple products, or the app store they provide, buy one of the many hundreds of alternative smartphones, many of which have large adoption.
"How are Apple preventing you from buying the ever more popular Android phones?" They aren't and I have. Right now, however, the biggest momentum that the iP(hone|ad) has is the app market, and the fact that a lot of large organizations have special support for its walled garden. 3.3.1 is Apple's way of trying to ensure that it is a specially cultivated walled garden, and that it's more likely that "there's an app fo…
it's a bit bizarre that so many fail to grasp that
Have you considered the possibility that it is not so clear and obvious as you think?
Re: Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
"They're making choices based on what they think is best for their platform, and letting the market chose." The former is absolutely true. The latter is absolutely not. Hence why the government is looking into it. Apple's actions are completely inexcusable and borderline illegal. It is only by incredible bravado and arrogance that they could have ever thought that 3.3.1 would be acceptable. They could have accomplish…
You're missing the bit where Apple isn't by any means the only phone manufacturer around.
See the Eastman Kodak case: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US...
Re: Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK, console makers require developers to use their SDKs, but they don't care about what happens before that point in the pipeline. What Apple did was more like forcing 3D models to be created exclusively with Maya.
but they don't care about what happens before that point in the pipeline. They most certainly do. The difference is in their point of control. Console makers exercise far more control over who is allowed to develop for their platform, and that control extends to who is allowed to develop middleware. They may or may not have restrictions on programming languages, but they do more generally exercise a degree of control…
>> but they don't care about what happens before that point in the pipeline.
> They most certainly do.
MS/Sony/Nintendo don't require licenses from all the middleware people. However, SOME of the middleware people will ostensibly want to test on the platform, so will buy the product from MS/Sony/Nintendo. If they do not wish to do so, they need not, then the end licensor of those third party toolkits/whatevers, can still use it.
What Apple is doing is 1 step more: They say you can ONLY use tools made in a certain way. MS/Sony/Nintendo do not limit that.
Re: Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you know something is substandard just because it's made with some other library / language ? Especially with an "yet to be created" library / language ? If you think "the market will figure this out" (which I think in itself is wrong) why don't we let the market figure out which language is better ? If the users don't like some products, they won't buy them. If all Cocoa touch apps make money and all the Flas…
It's a question of whether you want regulatory intervention preventing the possibility of there being "closed" systems in addition to there being "open" systems. If you prevent Apple from going their "closed" route, you lose the possibility of any benefits that might come from such a different model. When people say "let the market sort it out", they mean that if Apple's model puts out a significantly worse product t…
As long as Apple has the DMCA preventing a well functioning, commercial jailbreaking kit from being released with every model, I'm all in favor of them being pried wide open by the US government.
Once jailbroken phones are both legally allowed, easy to make, and required to be given all the same benefits non-jailbroken phones, they can make all the rules for their store they wish to.
Ex-post facto control of already purchased items is bupkis, bunk and any other old-fashioned word connoting completely illegitimate.
Re: Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem I see is that Apple feels poor apps (whatever that means) reflect poorly on it rather than just on the app makers themselves. This is new. On OS X a crappy app is just a crappy app. Nobody blames Apple, people blame the application developer. There has to be some argument made that on a small mobile device this distinction is warranted, but I haven't heard it yet.
Actually, it isn't a new behavior. Look at the history of Nintendo and the Atari 2600. Bad apps reflect on Apple, just as bad games reflected on Atari.
I meant it's new for Apple in relation to, say, OS X.
Re: Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
#88Prediction: this will be a complete farce and probably even impede market correction of the problem.
Also; I thought 3.3.1 wasn't in force yet? We still have no practical examples of where Apple will enforce this. Surely that is important before talking about action?
Re: Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
3.3.1 is a section of the Terms of Use of developers seeking to use Apple's distribution channel. Apple isn't trying to make middle-ware-built iPhone apps illegal . It just doesn't want them on the app store. An important distinction between the car/part and printer/ink analogies. Forcing Apple to repeal 3.3.1 doesn't allow offending software to be built and sold (as it already can be), it forces Apple to stock its s…
>> It just doesn't want them on the app store. Where else exactly could they go? >> Forcing Apple to repeal 3.3.1 doesn't allow offending software to be built and sold (as it already can be), it forces Apple to stock its shelves with it Those two things are the same, by Apple's design.
Cydia or the other jailbreak market (can't recall the name).
Those certainly aren't remotely equivalent options, but my point was just that 3.3.1 is about Terms of Use for the App Store, not an attempt to legally stifle an existing secondary market as with car parts and ink cartridges.
It's thus a qualitatively different situation.
More relevant precedent might be found by looking at other situations where service providers have added terms to limit allowed devices/tools.
Re: Antitrust inquiry into Apple over Section 3.3.1
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
This justification is one of the most astonishingly vapid ones around. I'm not quite sure how it keeps getting repeated as if it has credence, when technically it has no legs to stand on. The distinction Apple is making is that they have a temporary mindspace monopoly of the smartphone markets and they want to cement it in by forcing developers to help the Apple cause.
> I'm not quite sure how it keeps getting repeated as if it has credence, when technically it has no legs to stand on. So you've never encountered a standard/API/platform that perpetuates bugs, support for bad practices or misuse of old interfaces to avoid breaking legacy apps?
Good platforms get updated instantly and aren't using too many unofficial APIs. If something so awful happens on an upgrade that it breaks such a middle layer, it will also break many native apps which will also need upgrades.
Also, applications written for cross-platform development tools are higher-level and for complying with any new interfaces you may have it's just a matter of rewriting some bindings. In case the change is so radical that it needs architectural changes (like from Carbon to Cocoa), you can always force tool vendors to update their platforms by pulling out Carbon completely (how could they do that if some of their own apps are still on Carbon?)
In fact I would bet that applications on stuff like MonoTouch would've gotten upgraded from Carbon to Cocoa a lot faster than native apps were.
Really, you're setting up a strawman argument.