He says that the question is 'where is this going?' - I think that's been pretty clear now for years.
The Apple App Store exists to provide additional value to owning an iPhone, which in turn directly makes Apple money, which is what Apple's in business to do.
Google don't care what you promote in their app store because they're not making money selling devices. Android only matters to them as a means of increasing take-up of the mobile web, and as a way of displaying more adverts. You can promote the iPhone in an Android app because Google don't lose out if you switch - they're displaying adverts on websites regardless of the mobile operating system.
Apple, on the other hand, do lose out and so don't want you to hear about the latest Android phones.
I can see the philosophical arguments against Apple's position and for openness, but I have a hard time seeing any business arguments against Apple's position. And ultimately, if Apple's control of their platform offends you then you should protest in the most effective way possible: by not buying their device in the first place.
The business argument would have been "you can't maintain majority market share with such tight fisted control of the app store, approval process, choice of carrier, etc". But that was really an argument that applied 1+ years ago before iphone lost momentum to android. At this point, I don't think there's a way for the iphone to win against android.
Talk of 'winning' or 'losing' is foolish - this isn't a game with pre-set victory conditions.
Apple, a single device manufacturer, will inevitably not sell as many units as the combined Android device manufacturers. It's like comparing the output of Smart to the output of Ford.
Apple don't need - and never had, anyway - a majority market share in order to turn a significant profit on selling devices. (And they are turning a significant profit - a quick Google shows Apple were reporting quarterly profits up 70% a couple of months ago.)
I actually don't look at this through the narrow lens of an Apple shareholder. Who wins--iphone or android--matters a great deal for the future of the smartphone ecosystem. I have no doubt that Apple can turn a nice profit while controlling 5-10% market share just like in the PC market.
To me though, that doesn't matter. What matters is that the dominant smartphone platform will be available on many devices from many carriers and will be reasonably open.
Talking about 'winning' or 'losing' is STILL foolish, even from the broader viewpoint.
No one product will win. Some products will fail. This is as true for smartphones as it is for games consoles, cars, and soft drinks.
People do this all the time, and it's so needlessly divisive and tribalist. When the current generation of games consoles came out (as with every generation before) there was raging debates over which one would 'win' - and look, they're all selling, all have games, and all are popular. Sometimes an individual product or company will fail (Sega, in the games console market), but you very rarely really see a single dominant 'winner'.
Windows was a clear dominant 'winner' for a long time. Still is, even though it's becoming less relevant.
I agree that identifying with a side or a company is usually counter-productive, but having a strong preference for a specific technology to 'win' for practical or ideological reasons seems fair.
Market share determines what platforms people choose to develop for. "Winning" and "losing" is why I don't recommend the Palm Pre to anyone. It matters, and all other things being equal, I want to own a phone that runs the "winning" platform.
I propose that you don't get 'winning' platforms, just 'losing' ones. (Windows aside, that is - I think that's an anomaly that hasn't been and won't be repeated.)
Arguing for any particular platform 'to lose', if it's not clearly already lost, is just baiting. Arguing for a platform 'to win', when it's already shown that it's not lost, is about the same.
Advising avoiding a platform that's lost is a different matter - I wouldn't recommend the Palm Pre, the Sega Dreamcast, or the Atari ST.
You have pretty much all of the pro-Apple talking points covered in your various posts in this discussion. I urge you not to simply accept them because you read them elsewhere, however, because they're largely baseless.
That's a slightly better attempt at dismissing what I've said than going 'stupid Apple fanboi', but it amounts to the same thing.
Do you honestly think the idea that there will be no single 'winner' or 'loser' in the smartphone market is baseless? What brings you to this conclusion?
If you're thinking in terms of the desktop PC market, where Windows is the clear winner, that's an anomaly and I don't think you're going to see it repeated in any consumer device market.
But if you've sound reasoning for why anything I've said is incorrect, please let me know. I'm not a blind Apple fanboi, and I don't think that Apple's devices are automatically the best choice. (After an increasingly frustrating experience with my iPhone, I'm living with it only long enough for Nokia to start releasing MeeGo devices.)
I don't read any of those sites, except occasionally when linked from HN.
The closest I come is sometimes catching up on macrumors when I'm bored.
What you're seeing in my comments is not mindless repetition of someone else's talking point, it's my own opinion derived from my experience with both Apple and the mobile phone industry.
That aside, I'm not sure I've really said anything 'pro-Apple' at all. What I said was that this isn't anything new and that Apple's behaviour makes sense given their business model. I've also dismissed the idea that Apple ever had a majority of the market (surely that would be ANTI-Apple, to so much as imply that other people might also make decent phones!) and tried to argue against mindless polarisation.
If you want to talk about something that's influenced by American politics, talk about people who believe that everything is split down into distinct 'winners' and 'losers' with no subtlety at all. From my limited exposure to American politics (The Daily Show, our reporting of your news, and American friends (mostly left-wing) and family (mostly right-wing)) that 'us or them' seems to be perhaps the defining feature of American politics right now.
But now I'm really digressing.
[Edit: my comment might look a little random now. Originally the comment I was replying to had references to pro-Mac bloggers and implied that I was simply repeating their ideas in an 'echo chamber' effect, and compared it to political discourse being led the same way.]
Everyone should pay attention because this is an almost textbook case of a disguised "begging the question."
We shouldn't listen to the points the OP made because he read them elsewhere and they are largely baseless. Why are they largely baseless? Because he read them elsewhere and they are largely baseless.
The conclusion is assumed in the argument itself therefore the "argument" really isn't an argument at all.
The points the OP makes are the same points that are repeated again on every god damn story relating to Android or Apple, They aren't baseless, and probably had merit the first hundred thousand times they were argued over, however at this point they're just boring. Every single discussion on global warming or left versus right or socialized health care is overwhelmingly dominated by the same rote repetition, and it's unfortunate when that tactic infects technology discussions.
It's just noise. It's people trying to toss in the standard grenades to attempt to get some sort of points for their team.
Talking point "debates" could be had by robots. They're just noise on the web.
The business argument would have been "you can't maintain majority market share with such tight fisted control of the app store, approval process, choice of carrier, etc".
Choice of carrier is a serious issue. The other things? Not so much. The vast majority of iPhone users neither know nor care about the App Store approval process, and there's a more-than-sufficient number of happy developers out there to keep the App Store humming indefinitely.
Market share again… Tell me, what's the point of market share? See there: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/30/iphone-4-of-market-50...
Apple won't ever have 100% or 80% percent of industry profits, so going after market share would only mean decreasing margin. I doubt they want that.
Now, another argument is "developer go where market share is". Again, market share of the devices, or market share of profits made from apps?
And there is another question of developing for the zoo of phones instead of
4 models, of which only most recent matter most.
"At this point, I don't think there's a way for the iphone to win against android."
Winning and losing could be defined by a variety of metrics (app sales, cross-marketing success of other devices, content-sales, etc.), but surely Apple could take a large step towards expanding their presence by opening up their devices to every carrier. Make the iPhone available on Verizon, Sprint, TMobile, and AT&T ... and commoditize the price of the handset and I think you'll see a renewed fight for the "winner".
Google has as much of an incentive to control the mobile OS experience as Apple. Both realize that controlling the mobile OS experience will enable them to present more of their mobile services to users, thus increasing revenue over time. Banning an app solely based on the fact that it features a competitor's product is an anti-competitive measure which should be denounced and discouraged.
I don't think Google have any incentive to control the mobile OS experience, and they largely don't and are incapable of doing it anyway.
It doesn't matter if people are going to Google's ad-supported services via Android, iOS, Symbian, or Blackberry (or others) - and as long as at least some of these platforms have a focus on the end user experience it creates attention for mobile services which Google will benefit from.
People will see things like Google Maps on an iPhone and try it on their own phone, even if they're not using an iOS device.
And even if Google wanted to control the user experience in the same way as Apple, they simply can't: Android's open nature means that the networks and device manufacturers are free to screw around with it in any way they please, up to and including pushing their own partner's online products over Google's.
Mobile phone networks have a very long tradition of cutting off their nose to spite their face, and Android's openness unfortunately can give them a bigger knife.
Google has as much ability to dictate their App marketplace as Apple. They've strayed away from such practices because they realize the dictation of applications begins to devolve into a very bigotry-riddled process which ultimately hinders development and innovation. Google could suffer greatly if one day Apple decides to ban or suppress their apps within the App Store due to competitive reasons.
Android devices don't even have to include the Google app marketplace. A manufacturer or network can put their own marketplace on the device instead, which makes it pretty much like every pre-iOS smartphone platform (at least in that regard).
I don't think that any single manufacturer has the leverage to tell the networks to stay out of the device OS and just be dumb bit transporters. I suppose Nokia could do it, but the idea's pretty unthinkable for those guys.
Maybe, but they still raise a vaild point. If i want to read about windows 7 on my mac apple can't stop but i'm also not just going to sell the mac because I read an article.
This is a pretty epic display of insecurity on Apple's part.
Insecurity: different issue entirely, though I generally agree. Mobile platforms are an extremely active battleground right now, though.
Not sure what the valid point would be. "Where this is going"? It's not going anywhere. A similar rule exists in the Mac App Store guidelines... both of which merely mean you can't cite other OSes in the app store. The app can internally / on their site advertise that they're also on Windows, just not in the store. It's not a very surprising requirement, as it's a locked-to-a-single-OS store, and it's easy to get around if your app has any purpose aside from advertising the competition.
Putting the magazine as an app on the store would be nigh-impossible, because you couldn't mention its primary purpose, but it'd likely get by with no issue if such a thing were achieved without being misleading.
Mobile platforms are an extremely active battleground right now, though.
The mind boggles that we're in a situation where arguments like this are put forward. No offence to you specifically Groxx, but... I feel like Apple has exiled us all to crazy land.
What, you mean because for the first time ever we actually have not one, but two decent, modern operating systems for consumer-marketed phones? Both of which make applications (a HUGE source of revenue for Apple) simple to develop and simple to buy? Palm's WebOS never really took off strongly, and Blackberries are... blackberries. Good in some ways, bad in others, and full of zero competition in their market.
Judging from the wikipedia disambiguation page, he is probably referring to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, although I always thought they were more into AK-47s than into cell phones. (Cue dramatic orchestral music while an PLO commando rips into an apple store, throwing iPads into the air as shooting targets, or whaterver imagery the GP wanted to convey...)
But yeah, I concurr, gratuitous use of arcane TLAs can be annoying.
I know hating on the apple is all the rage these days, but that is like walking into the Coke company store and bitching because they won't let you sell Pepsi tee shirts there.
That metaphor would make sense only if the only place you could by Coke was at the Coke company store. I'm fairly sure there are lots of places that sell both Pepsi tee shirts as well as Coke products.
Let us side load apps, and we'll stop bitching about Apple store practices.
There are lots of places that only sell one, too. Restaurants frequently sell only one or the other, in large part due to anticompetitive agreements when making the sales contracts.
I think the point is something Apple-sanctioned. Most people want to be able to put apps on their phone without violating terms of service agreements..
I think it would actually be fine if they didn't sanction it, and had it violate the warranty (at least), but allowed it (and hid the setting somewhere).
I think Google censoring search results because they linked to competitors such as Bing and DuckDuckGo would be a closer analogy. The dictation of applications based on the information they contain is the underlying issue here.
Except in this analogy, the Pepsi store would gladly sell Coke products. Let's drop the analogies and call it like it is. This is a company being overly protective of their store. It may be within their rights, but I don't think we should be defending a company for not allowing software on its product cause the app dares to focus on a competitor.
The iTunes App Store is a very valuable and powerful marketing, publishing, sales, and distribution resource. It was created by Apple to attract 3rd party developers to the iPhone, with the ultimate goal of selling more devices to more users. They succeeded wildly.
Apple would not and cannot prevent you from reading an Android magazine on your iPhone, but they are under no obligation to publish, market, distribute, and sell anyone's content, especially one dedicated solely to a competing product.
If someone wants to sell an Android magazine to iPhone users they're going to have to publish, market, and distribute it themselves, over the web, just like they would have to if the App Store didn't exist. Why would anyone expect to use Apple's marketing resources to advertise a competing product? Well, they wouldn't. But it does make for a nice publicity stunt, apparently.
Placement in the App Store isn't a right, it's a privilege, just like any other store.
Your argument would be completely correct if the App Store were not the sole means of distribution of native software to iOS devices.
Because the App Store is the sole means of said distribution, the validity of your argument becomes much murkier.
In my opinion, Apple should enhance the permissions system and allow the installation of software from other sources. The App Store would still reign supreme, generate revenue, et cetera and users would largely continue to be protected from malicious software. This sort of discussion would be moot as a result and your argument would stand.
> Apple should enhance the permissions system and allow the
> installation of software from other sources.
Arguably, Apple already provides this. It's called WebKit.
More to the point, Apple could have forced all 3rd-party software to run in a virtual machine, like Microsoft, and Google, and Palm, and RIM. They could then provide graduated API access, make their app review process a hell of a lot simpler, and eliminate the review process altogether for software distributed outside of the App Store.
Instead, they allow 3rd-party apps to run on the bare metal as full-fledged OS X applications. There are advantages and disadvantages to that approach, but it's very hard to argue that they made the wrong choice given how things have turned out. Everything else is academic.
Justifying the sole control of UIKit application distribution based on the fact that either WebKit exists or that UIKit is not implemented within a VM is illogical and irrelevant.
OSX on armv6 or v7 is secure enough to not warrant the use of a virtual machine. Virtual memory and memory protection were not commonly found in mobile pre-iPhone, making the choice of the JVM or dalvik in 2003, when Android was founded, or earlier in the case of RIM, convenient.
Regardless, the review process as it stands provides little in the way of additional security, a fact that further weakens your vague argument. Static analysis can only go so far. The status quo is about desire for revenue, not supposed "technical realities". All I am proposing is that allowing apps from other sources would have little effect on either.
Call me when Apple ever allows fully native 3rd-party software on the Mac.
Android has allowed native code through the NDK since 1.6. Now, you have to use it in conjunction with the SDK and thus some of your code will have to be in Java, but the main reason I can see to get down to the "bare metal" anyway would be for performance critical algorithms.
Because it's the sole means of distribution, but they're not significantly the biggest / only fish in the pond, it falls solidly in allowable-anti-competitive-behavior land. Anti-competitive, certainly, but there are plenty of other phones out there.
If you want an iPhone, you want an iPhone and everything that goes with it, and this is one of those things. Opening it up would be nice, I doubt anyone would disagree with that, but it's fully within their interest, ability, and right to restrict it. Maybe not best interest, but it's their decision to make.
There's no slippery slope here. From day one apple has been crystal clear that this was _their_ platform, and that everyone on it had to play by their rules. When you buy an iOS device, it's not your device, it remains their device. Can't deal with that? Don't buy it!
Now, apple _is_ going somewhere with OS X. They're starting to lock it down. Lion will still be open enough from what I gather, but they're gradually changing the rules of what tweaking you'll be able to do with your mac. I don't like that, so I see a possibility of a return to linux for me.
I think there's something rather juvenile about pointing out that every well-meaning rule or law based system has its hazy areas, gray zones, and ambiguities. The developer here is ostensibly exercising deliberate provocation.
I'd much rather wait until a well-meaning, well-intended app, one that is attempting to be useful to a regular person, is rejected for unreasonable reasons and get outraged about that. This meanwhile is clearly a bid for attention.
Somebody who is deliberately provoking Apple for reasons "uphill" from more insidious reasons is wasting our time. In my opinion most slippery slope arguments are just bad arguments used to make something look much worse than it is.
Provocation is forcing someone to do something they didn't want to. Nothing of the sort happened here. Apple are the ones who decided to sell cars with the hood welded shut. They weren't provoked into rejecting this app, they decided that long ago.
How do you know this was his clear intention? Everyone is going to have a different opinion on what a "well-meaning, well-intended app" is and restricting certain apps based on what one considers "well-meaning" is a very myopic and inconsiderate view to have.
This argument doesn't fly because you are making "well-meaning" out to be more ambiguous and subject to disagreement than it actually is. All of us exercise judgment every day about well-meaningness when we excuse people for bumping into us, saying something they didn't intend, misunderstanding an unfamiliar rule or custom. It's what we do without thinking twice.
You though, like many, many, others, are getting caught up in the subjective nature of exercising judgment and would like to see a list of necessary and sufficient conditions that is followed logically and to a t, something like a mathematics that has right and wrong and no in between. Unfortunately these things don't exist. If you look at how government and academia played out we have a judiciary systems and admissions systems that, yeah, have a few well-meaning people exercising judgment about slew of important topics that affect lots of people. It's either that or anarchy.
There is subjectivity about a lot if concepts, laws, and institutions we don't have a choice but to share. The presence of subjectivity is not grounds for eliminating that institution.
I am not saying Apple should eliminate its curating process altogether, but rather that it shouldn't dictate the existence of an application solely based on competitive conflicts it has with the information within it. It is clearly an action of insecurity and selfishness on Apple's part. I could also argue that constraining and dictating information based on one's views can also lead to anarchy.
The Apple App Store exists to provide additional value to owning an iPhone, which in turn directly makes Apple money, which is what Apple's in business to do.
Google don't care what you promote in their app store because they're not making money selling devices. Android only matters to them as a means of increasing take-up of the mobile web, and as a way of displaying more adverts. You can promote the iPhone in an Android app because Google don't lose out if you switch - they're displaying adverts on websites regardless of the mobile operating system.
Apple, on the other hand, do lose out and so don't want you to hear about the latest Android phones.
I can see the philosophical arguments against Apple's position and for openness, but I have a hard time seeing any business arguments against Apple's position. And ultimately, if Apple's control of their platform offends you then you should protest in the most effective way possible: by not buying their device in the first place.