141–150 of 361 posts
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I would argue that the success of the entire Android ecosystem is because users are unhappy living inside of Apple's clenched fist. It's not like people buy Android because the UX is better. You can't even claim it's because of AT&T anymore.
I would argue it's because they've become the default freebie phone.
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[I have a zillion snarky type replies that itch to be free, but we'll keep that monster in the box today.] "Way to far" is an interesting characterization. Apple has rules about their playground, they like their rules, they make Apple very profitable. So the question becomes can Google leverage this liability to increase the penetration or market share of Android tablets? Once these tactics hurt Apple in the market t…
I think parent was speaking as a consumer, not moralizing about it. In the eyes of the law or economics, of course this is completely reasonable, it is absolutely Apple's right to do this. But the consumer experience is horrible, something parent is probably not used to from Apple.
Didn't IBM lose the case where they said you can only run IBM software on IBM 360s?
IANAL but it sure would be nice for someone that is to speak up on why many of these old cases don't apply.
Is it that it is legal, Apple just doesn't have to feature it in their store? Phone companies were forced to allow 3rd party phones on their network. So where/are mobile companies as far as I know. Car companies are require to honor car warranties even if you change out the car stereo AFAIK.
Is there some reason similar rules don't apply to Apple (and Nintendo, and Sony, and Microsoft)?
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Unfortunately, Google is probably not capable of exploiting these mini-resentments and I don't think anybody else is either. I'd love to hear more about that. This is my reasoning on why I think there is an opportunity there: Lets say (patent issues not withstanding), you created an exact clone of the iPad and iOS and sold it at the same price but without the 30% 'apple tax' on purchases. It seems reasonable to assum…
>so it would get more apps, and the platform would outsell Apple's iPad with its constraints. Apple has that covered. You cannot make your services cheaper on other platforms. You have to charge atleast what you charge iOS users for the same service. This is to prevent the success of alternative app stores that will take only 20% or 5% cut. The new ecosystem won't take off because the existing developers cannot affor…
1. Don't work for Apple. This one is really the easiest to implement, there's more then enough fine alternatives in the Valley.
2. Don't develop for Apple. Unfortunately, not really an option for most mobile developers. So, the next best thing is "don't develop just for Apple". Make sure that if your customers want to switch, your app is available on other platforms.
3. Don't buy from Apple. Again, not really an option for developers because of #2 (and that's also another example of walled garden - you have to have a Mac to develop for iOS).
One place where government regulation might be needed is to help create secondary market for apps. If I have many dollars worth of apps (or, say, books) and no way to sell them, this is obviously a big barrier to switch. I'd like to see a law requiring companies that sell digital goods to provide a way to transfer those goods to other users.
While here, let's remember who'll control the dev certificate validity for Gatekeeper on OS X 10.8. Will we end up with cases where people break arbitrary yet-to-be-defined terms and boom, their standalone app no longer works on a default OS X install?
Unlikely. We already have one example where Apple is enforcing the “no malware” rule and that’s the App Store. On the App Store, Apple reserves itself the right to not only remove apps from the store (which Apple has done often and we know a lot about) but also to actually remotely pull apps from users’ devices. Apple claims they will only actually remotely pull apps if said apps are malware. That’s the exact same ru…
[Citation Needed]
This has gone way too far. The other day I downloaded the Google Play Books app. I started it up, signed in.. and nothing. No prompt to go buy books online, no hint at what the app does... just a blank screen. It's completely scummy. You can buy Apple's iCloud storage upgrade from within the OS, and now you can't even LINK to a place where you could link to a place where if you click the right link you could buy Drop…
[I have a zillion snarky type replies that itch to be free, but we'll keep that monster in the box today.] "Way to far" is an interesting characterization. Apple has rules about their playground, they like their rules, they make Apple very profitable. So the question becomes can Google leverage this liability to increase the penetration or market share of Android tablets? Once these tactics hurt Apple in the market t…
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It is hard to name any proprietary product platform, from cars to KitchenAid mixers, which would not run afoul of this common nerdly definition of "antitrust". In reality, the presence of very viable substitutes in the market for the iPhone (to wit: Android) probably moots the argument here. To go further with this argument, you will need to venture beyond Wikipedia summaries.
Your argument would be more effective without the unnecessary ad hominem. i.e.: > In reality, the presence of very viable substitutes in the market for the iPhone (to wit: Android) probably moots the argument here.
I can not be the only one thinking there is an antitrust issue here? I would guess the book thing means Apple is under quite a bit of scrutiny. While I'm not involved in mobile, I've had similar experiences for over half a decade dealing with the banal, highly questionable, and non-uniformly enforced rules Google imposes on its own advertisers. Some of the stuff is bad enough it makes you think it would fall under RI…
1) Research antitrust. It doesn't mean what you think it means. 2) Apple has done nothing different than has been done before. It is an existing in app purchasing rule.
I suspect it would take only a few small additional variables to trigger an anti-trust issue when it comes to forcing payment forcing. What those could be, I don't know. Agreements involving a payment processor? The point is its a small step away. What they are doing now is extremely anti competitive and it would not require much to push things over the edge.
The original post indicates that a link in an app had another link in it for something that users could initiate a purchase through. What would happen if Google forced all indexed sites to go through Google Checkout and on non-compliance wiped all references and sites that linked to other payment processors from their search results? That wouldn't fly. Is the only difference that this is Apple's App Store and Apple is not a monopoly?
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In light of your recent rantings about "nerds"[1] and the law, it's hard to see your post as anything other than a continuation of your angry attacks on anyone who dares speak on the subject of the laws governing our hypothetically-democratic society. Your authoritarianism has degenerated into simple mockery. Even when you are right (which I think you largely are on this matter), you no longer contribute anything of…
You’re missing the point of tptacek’s criticism. He’s not trying to mock nerds, but rather to point out that their mental model of how the law works is woefully mismatched to how the law actually works, with a great deal of resulting whining and handwringing that could be avoided if they bothered to learn and think a bit about it. That I’ve seen, there’s been very little anger or ranting coming from his direction, an…
I only wish I could convey such attitude through text intentionally.
EDIT (posted after jacobolus' reply):
When I first came here, I was annoyed at the entire HN attitude of "a better discussion board". Good clean discussion is great, but at the time it seemed too dismissive of the great conversation that happens elsewhere on the web; too arrogant if you will. Furthermore, I saw that attitude as a sort of challenge: could I game the system and be just helpful enough some of the time to allow myself to be an utter asshole the rest of the time without getting banned?
You see, somebody who is an asshole some of the time and useful the rest of the time is not a valuable community member. Even if most of the time is spent being useful that is still not a person that you want in your community; in short, the karma system is broken. Of course HN isn't quite as broken as a pure karma system would be, hellbanning still kicks in for people with positive karma, but it is broken nevertheless. It's pretty easy to keep individual comments at positive or at least neutral karma by picking your topic correctly, which gets you around (to my knowledge) all but manual banning. (I suspect an improved banning system would involve flagging people for manual inspection after they have too many comments with large amounts of up and down voting. I can't speak for the false positive rate of such a system except to say that my honest productive comments rarely seemed to swing)
But I'm done now. tptacek does a better job of what I wanted to do than I think I ever could.
I think I'm past due on closing this account anyway. I'm out; apologies for any grief I've caused. I probably owe a good number of you a beer.
What Apple is doing seems to be completely legal and completely disgusting (and not at all new). Given that there's no ground for legal action, here are a few things we, developers, can do: 1. Don't work for Apple . This one is really the easiest to implement, there's more then enough fine alternatives in the Valley. 2. Don't develop for Apple . Unfortunately, not really an option for most mobile developers. So, the…