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Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

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Re: Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

#331
post #277
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's compatible with what they did in the eBook market which drove up prices for eBooks and killed off some eBook businesses.

Which businesses were these? I thought the plaintiff was Amazon.

In the case, yes. There were ebook markets that had to shutdown as a result of the 20% in-app rule.

Re: Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

#332

The Runkeeper app explicitly mentions Pebble Support, and was released on the 20th of April. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/runkeeper-gps-running-walk/i... I'm going to wait a little before passing judgement on this. Could just be a bad review/er. I do feel sorry for these devs though, running to 'the press' is something Apple passive-aggressively warns you not to do. Their future app-approval life could be quite un…

> running to 'the press' is something Apple passive-aggressively warns you not to do. Can you elaborate on this? What language do they use?

It’s in the App Store Review Guidelines introduction: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

“If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps.”

Re: Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

#333
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It seems like Apple is doing that as a way to kill competition and promote their own watch, which is fair from a business standpoint." It's nowhere near fair. It's extremely anticompetitive. This is the kind of behavior that gets a company in trouble with the FTC.

I will never understand how "competitive" and "anticompetitive" came to be used interchangeably.

Cutting your prices is competitive. Cutting your competitor's throat is anti-competitive.

Re: Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

#335
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It seems like Apple is doing that as a way to kill competition and promote their own watch, which is fair from a business standpoint." It's nowhere near fair. It's extremely anticompetitive. This is the kind of behavior that gets a company in trouble with the FTC.

I will never understand how "competitive" and "anticompetitive" came to be used interchangeably.

A great point. Perhaps because if "competitive behavior" means striving to win in a competition, and "anti-competitive behavior" means breaking the rules of the competition, hoping to win unfairly, then the former will tend to transform into the latter?

Re: Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

#336
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, looks to me like they're just controlling what they're allowing others to display directly on their platform. You can still support Pebble, you can still advertise that you support Pebble, you just have to advertise that on a different platform than Apple's. Sounds reasonable, if a bit inconvenient.

Assuming the rules were consistently enforced: Users find apps for their iPhone on the App Store. There are no other app stores for the iPhone. Users do not visit an app's web page before they install it. Users will not find anything when they search the app store for e.g. "navigation app with pebble support". Users will not see Pebble support listed as a feature when they compare two apps. Developers know from the a…

> Users will not find anything when they search the app store for e.g. "navigation app with pebble support".

You can search Google.

Re: Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

#337
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is my understanding. For example, Microsoft got in trouble for pre-installing IE on Windows because they had monopoly in the OS market. If they didn't have that monopoly, they would not have been penalized.

Pre installing a browser is not an anti competitive practice.

It can be, if the company that does it has a monopoly in the market of operating systems, which would give that company an unfair advantage in the market of browsers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.

Re: Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

#338
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Apple doesn't have anywhere near a monopoly on smart phones, so being anti-competitive is completely legal

Monopoly is a smokescreen word. Antitrust is not about monopoly, it is about abuse of market position. If your company has 10% of the market, and the rest has 1% each, you can still be slapped for antitrust if you start using that position as leverage in a different market. ianal, btw...

What are examples of companies being penalized for antitrust while not being a monopoly (or part of an oligopoly)?

Re: Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It seems like Apple is doing that as a way to kill competition and promote their own watch, which is fair from a business standpoint." It's nowhere near fair. It's extremely anticompetitive. This is the kind of behavior that gets a company in trouble with the FTC.

This is the kind of behavior that gets a company in trouble with the FTC. Indeed but Apple is aware that the FTC isn't likely to punish them enough that the behavior will be a net negative. If only the Federal Government would be as serious about "Sending a message" on antitrust as they are about low-mid level drug dealers, this kind of thing would be a lot more rare.

>Indeed but Apple is aware that the FTC isn't likely to punish them enough that the behavior will be a net negative.

That makes it correct game theory, Apple has to do it because every other company does it. So it's necessary, but that doesn't make it fair.

So apparently the FTC won't punish them enough for it to be a net negative. Oh well, I guess that's it then. No one else has responsibility, right?

Wrong!

We have responsibility. The good news is, you don't have to work hard at it. If you want to punish apple for this, just stop buying their shit. It's actually easier than not doing it!

Re: Apple now rejecting apps with Pebble Smartwatch support

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You start up movie theater. You sell ads to marketing companies for before the movie. One of those ads is pushing a competing movie theater. Are you really saying you would allow it to run just so that you can 'help the consumer'? Businesses are in competition... that's how the market works.

I understand that is how that the market works. It may not be a "problem" in people's current understanding of the law, but I certainly think a problem is being exposed here. I am arguing that Apple has created something different with the AppStore; a privileged sub-market. Because the burden of changing markets is heavily in Apple's favor they should, as a large public company, be required to serve the public good a…

I can understand what you mean, but isn't the consumer's best interest sort of... subjective?

Apple has obviously gone to great lengths to make their walled garden a reliable and safe place for consumers who have chosen to buy their products. If you talked to Tim Cook or Jony Ive, I bet they would make a case that the best thing for consumers is to be entirely invested in the Apple ecosystem. After all, it DOES give you the most consistent experience.

So if you look at it from that perspective, who's right is it to go into a company and say, "No, that's not what's best for the consumer!" Obviously people like what they are getting, otherwise they would be defecting to Android in droves. Contrary to what some people are saying here, they DO have a choice.

Thinking through it logically, I just can't see any scenario where a company, no matter how large, should be forced to push a competitor's products.

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