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Bad PR Forces Apple To Reconsider Banning Mark Fiore's App
cmiller173 writes with word from Wired that "After bad press over banning Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Mark Fiore's app from the app store, Apple has asked him to re-submit the entry."
Er... the first link is to an article headlined "Satellites key to keeping aircraft away from Iceland's volcanic cloud." I guess it's a bit much to expect Slashdot editors to actually check the links in a summary, huh?
A programmer is a machine for turning pizza into code.
Taking a step back from smart phones, and considering something more general, such as wifi-enabled portable entertainment devices, it's possible that Apple could have an undue influence on such a market.
"Undue influence" doesn't just mean "a lot of influence". It means influence that they haven't earned or are not allowed (i.e., it's not due them). Aside from the fact that there are plenty of WiFi-enabled portable entertainment devices, Apple hasn't used underhanded tactics against the market. They just sold more because people wanted them, not because Apple did anything to limit the consumers' choices. In other words, they earned their influence, and they earned with fair and square. Unlike the situation MS found itself in with its Windows monopoly (which in and of itself wasn't illegal), that they used to unduly influence the browser market (which was illegal) and create an IE monopoly.
Now, if Apple has undue influence on this market, are they abusing that influence by restricting these devices to run only those applications that they approve and allow into iTunes?
Just like MS, Sony and Nintendo do on their consoles. The notion of "undue influence" becomes rather absurd when you are applying it to their own products. It should be standard that a company would have total influence over their own products (within regulations, such as safety and emissions regulations on cars and FCC regulations on radio transmissions).
If somehow Apple had a portable computer monopoly, and they used that monopoly to destroy the Android Market (for example), then there might be a case. But they don't have a portable computer monopoly. Not by a long shot. And the Android Market isn't directly targeted by the App Store, because they are not interchangeable the way browsers are. You, by definition, cannot buy iPhone apps on the Android Market any more than you can buy Android apps at the App Store.