Former iTunes Engineer Tells Court He Worked To Block Competitors

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Former iTunes Engineer Tells Court He Worked To Block Competitors

Posted by timothy on Saturday December 13, 2014 @06:46AM from the our-way-or-the-error-message-way dept.

loftarasa (1066016) writes Yesterday, former engineer Rob Schultz unwillingly testified in court against Apple that he worked on project 'Candy' which 'intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients' from 2006 to 2007. In his opinion, the work of his team contributed to create 'market dominance' for the iPod. Apple argues, and Schultz agrees, that its intentions were to improve iTunes, not curb competition.

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So much for his career by ShieldW0lf · 2014-12-13 06:54 · Score: 5, Funny

He'll never be employed to engage in shady illegal practices after throwing his employer under the bus like this.
It's a good day.

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-1 Uncomfortable Truth
1. Re:So much for his career by Bogtha · 2014-12-13 07:21 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  How is he throwing them under the bus? This isn't something they contest. They have already told the court they did this, because they were contractually obliged to do so by the record labels. All he's doing is supporting their version of events.
  
  --
  Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
2. Re:So much for his career by kae77 · 2014-12-13 07:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  "Yesterday, former engineer Rob Schultz ***unwillingly*** testified in court against Apple"
  I hardly doubt that a future employer would hold him accountable for telling the truth under oath.
3. Re:So much for his career by gnupun · 2014-12-13 08:18 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  shady illegal practices after throwing his employer under the bus like this.
  How is blocking competitors from your platform shady or illegal? Does Windows support running Linux apps? No. If Real wanted to sell music, it should've built its own music player like the ipod and also an itunes equivalent. Why and how does it get the right to sell music on apple's music platform (itunes/ipod)?
4. Re:So much for his career by serviscope_minor · 2014-12-13 08:25 · Score: 2
  
  Does Windows support running Linux apps? No.
  Windows does not acively support it (that's not the issue), but it certainly does not BLOCK it either:
  http://www.colinux.org/
  Cygwin
  MingW
  And then there's various VMs and so on.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
5. Re:So much for his career by Charliemopps · 2014-12-13 08:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  How is he throwing them under the bus? This isn't something they contest. They have already told the court they did this, because they were contractually obliged to do so by the record labels. All he's doing is supporting their version of events.
  I'm sure they fought tooth and nail to try and give their competition a fair chance to compete. Those evil record companies, forcing Apple to be anti-competitive when, before this, Apple was a model for fair business practices right? lol
6. Re:So much for his career by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-13 09:07 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I like the word monoploy better than monopoly. Makes it more intentional.
7. Re:So much for his career by jbolden · 2014-12-13 09:49 · Score: 2
  
  Apple was in the hardware business. The music component was a minor issue, it simplified the experience. I don't know that Apple would have cared much if people bought iPods with other services. The same way that Apple doesn't care much if I run MS-Word and not Pages on my OSX machine.
8. Re:So much for his career by Bob9113 · 2014-12-13 10:18 · Score: 2
  
  I hardly doubt that a future employer would hold him accountable for telling the truth under oath.
  Was that intentional, Freudian slip, or mistake? I mean, I concur 100% -- there is no doubt in my mind that the most successful US companies strongly favor a willingness to lie under oauth -- but then I've worked on Madison Ave and my brother worked on Wall Street, so I've seen the sausage get made.
  
  --
  Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
9. Re:So much for his career by MrHanky · 2014-12-13 10:41 · Score: 2
  
  Funny how whenever Apple is into shady anti-competitive practices, it's always someone else's fault.
10. Re:So much for his career by Darinbob · 2014-12-13 12:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  "We only engaged in immoral activities because the alternative was less profitable. So you can see that we had no choice but to comply."
11. Re: So much for his career by Karlt1 · 2014-12-13 12:08 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Steve Jobs posted the following to the home page of Apple back in 2007 when everyone was clamoring for Apple to license FairPlay....
  "If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music."
12. Re: So much for his career by artlu · 2014-12-13 12:40 · Score: 2
  
  Yes but will he be charged with a federal crime? Doubtful even though he knew what he was doing. I didn't have criminal intent. My Story
  
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  -------
  artlu.net
13. Re:So much for his career by MrL0G1C · 2014-12-13 23:25 · Score: 2
  
  https://www.apple.com/support/...
  
  --
  Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Wait, what? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-13 06:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

'intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients' [...] to improve iTunes, not curb competition.
In what universe does this statement make sense?
1. Re:Wait, what? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-13 07:01 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  A white universe with rounded corners.
2. Re:Wait, what? by teg · 2014-12-13 07:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  'intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients' [...] to improve iTunes, not curb competition.
  In what universe does this statement make sense?
  In the universe where you have DRM, being able to circumvent it is a defect and/or security hole. So why is someone fixing it a surprise?
3. Re: Wait, what? by kenh · 2014-12-13 08:07 · Score: 2
  
  It isn't impossible to defend, why, just imagine how much more stable & reliable Windows would be if they blocked other software companies from accessing the Registry in Windows.
  It is a perfectly defensible position, supported by every product manufacturer that puts either of the following warnings on their product:
  "No user-serviceable parts inside"
  "warranty void if seal broken"
  
  --
  Ken
4. Re:Wait, what? by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-13 10:17 · Score: 2
  
  Real were not circumventing DRM. They ADDED iPod compatible DRM to the music they were selling, to keep the record labels happy. Apple didn't want Real to be able to sell iPod compatible DRM infested music.
  It has nothing to do with circumventing DRM. Anyone with an audio cable could already do that.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
5. Re:Wait, what? by quantaman · 2014-12-13 10:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  'intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients' [...] to improve iTunes, not curb competition.
  In what universe does this statement make sense?
  In the Apple universe sadly enough.
  I'm one of the rare people who finds Linux (and popular Linux Desktop Environments) to be much more user friendly than OS X. The reason for this is fairly simple, I can easily make my Linux boxes work and interact the way I want, but with Apple... not so much.
  I think that's integral to the Apple philosophy of the walled garden. They figure out what they want the product to do, they figure out the workflows, then they build the product so that the given workflow works really well and seamlessly. If you want to do something a little different it's not great, but it works. If you want to do something real different like play oggs or use a different client then there's a very simple solution, don't bother.
  I don't think the aim is necessarily anti-competitive, I think they're just trying to protect their walled garden. If Realplayer has a buggy client that screws up syncing that's Realplayer's problem, if they have a buggy client that screws up the sync to the iPod that's suddenly Apple's problem. If you want to understand why all the Apple fanboys go around bragging that Apple just works it's because Apple doesn't let them do any of the things that don't work.
  
  --
  I stole this Sig
6. Re:Wait, what? by UnknowingFool · 2014-12-13 10:48 · Score: 2
  
  The reason for this is fairly simple, I can easily make my Linux boxes work and interact the way I want, but with Apple... not so much.
  For someone who uses Linux and OS X, I spend a lot of time using command line in OS X. I have no problems using Unix commands. Some of the options vary with OS X but most of the commands are the same. How is it different for you?
  
  I think that's integral to the Apple philosophy of the walled garden. They figure out what they want the product to do, they figure out the workflows, then they build the product so that the given workflow works really well and seamlessly. If you want to do something a little different it's not great, but it works. If you want to do something real different like play oggs or use a different client then there's a very simple solution, don't bother.
  Maybe for the iOS products not their computers.
  
  I don't think the aim is necessarily anti-competitive, I think they're just trying to protect their walled garden. If Realplayer has a buggy client that screws up syncing that's Realplayer's problem, if they have a buggy client that screws up the sync to the iPod that's suddenly Apple's problem. If you want to understand why all the Apple fanboys go around bragging that Apple just works it's because Apple doesn't let them do any of the things that don't work.
  Because Apple never promised their customers that they would play RealPlayer's Harmony music. They promised they could play MP3s which are the standard, AAC which is the successor to MP3 and at the time FairPlay which was AAC with their DRM. Nowhere did they promise PlaysForSure or Harmony (AAC with RealPlayer's DRM).
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
7. Re:Wait, what? by mrchaotica · 2014-12-13 10:58 · Score: 2
  
  Oh right, it's that special definition of "corrupt" that means "it still works perfectly, but we can tell some other company modified it."
  
  --
  "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
8. Re: Wait, what? by cheesybagel · 2014-12-13 12:18 · Score: 2
  
  The perfect address for a company that survives on using circular logic.
9. Re:Wait, what? by GrahamCox · 2014-12-13 18:39 · Score: 2
  
  If a shitty 3rd party device can't use iTunes, then the consumer may fault Apple for their bad experience
  
  Way back when iTunes was just a reskinned SoundJam, it supported an architecture for supporting arbitrary devices, alongside the visualizer API. The visualizers are still supported and even got some improvements a few years ago, but the device support was dumped very early on, version 3.0 perhaps.
  
  I know this because I wanted to make a plug-in for iTunes that supported one of the early cassette player adapter devices (forget the name, but it was a solid-state music player in a cassette form factor that would work in a standard deck). I got it roughly working just as iTunes got revved and the device API was scotched. It was annoying but as a hobby project not something I was expecting to build a business on. Asking around Apple devs, even then (this was before the iTunes store launched) the consensus was that iTunes was only going to support the iPod from then on, no 3rd party devices, and for precisely the reason stated. The anti-competitive nature wasn't really expressed, and at that time the Mac and the iPod were extremely minority players in the marketplace so it wasn't really seen as anti-competitive. By the time the iPod and the iTunes store started to become huge, everyone had forgotten that iTunes had ever supported a devices plug-in API.
10. Re:Wait, what? by teg · 2014-12-13 20:33 · Score: 2
  
  Real were not circumventing DRM. They ADDED iPod compatible DRM to the music they were selling, to keep the record labels happy. Apple didn't want Real to be able to sell iPod compatible DRM infested music.
  It has nothing to do with circumventing DRM. Anyone with an audio cable could already do that.
  Being able to do that without being licensed and thus having the proper keys and procedures would be a defect in the iPod software. If Real just wanted to put the music on the iPod, the iPod always support non-DRMed formats (mp3, AAC).
Not incompatible by Todd+Knarr · 2014-12-13 07:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

Apple argues, and Schultz agrees, that its intentions were to improve iTunes, not curb competition.
I'd note that the two alternatives aren't incompatible. It's entirely possible to intend to improve iTunes while also determining that the best way to improve it is to block all competitors from accessing it (doing that would, among other things, eliminate bugs due to incorrect accesses and malformed music files and remove an inconsistent user experience due to badly-written software from other vendors). After all, when AT&T was banning all other vendors from connecting equipment to it's phone network it was only intending to protect the network from damage due to incorrectly-designed equipment (or at least so it's testimony went). In neither case do intentions alter the end result.
1. Re:Not incompatible by peragrin · 2014-12-13 07:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Not only that but apple has already testified they were contractedly obligated to fix those holes.
  Lastly competitors used hacks and bugs in fair play to provide compatibility. By blocking competitors he was bug fixing too.
  Lastly why didn't Microsoft's play for sure work with non Microsoft products?
  
  --
  i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Wait, what? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-13 07:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

The logic is that when you only have to support your devices, it's easier to provide a better experience. If a shitty 3rd party device can't use iTunes, then the consumer may fault Apple for their bad experience. It's easier for Apple to say "only Apple devices".
I don't agree with Apple, but that's their logic.
Really? by wiredlogic · 2014-12-13 08:04 · Score: 5, Funny

...its intentions were to improve iTunes
Then why is iTunes such a cruddy pile of shit?

--
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
1. Re:Really? by Jeremi · 2014-12-13 14:09 · Score: 2
  
  Windows has nothing to do with it. No other music management program pegs the CPU while syncing media over USB. This is purely the fault of Apple programmers not caring or not knowing how to program for Windows.
  You don't give Apple programmers enough credit -- the USB transfer routine includes a surreptitious Bitcoin mining thread. That's how Apple builds up its cash reserves.
  
  --
  
  I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Windows doesn't stop it by Sycraft-fu · 2014-12-13 09:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

There's a big difference between not going out of your way to support something and going out of your way to prevent it. Windows doesn't have a native POSIX interface (it used to have a basic one) but you can add one if you like. It can be done higher level via something like Cygwin, or it can be done directly in the executive just like the Win32/64 APIs. There is nothing stopping you from adding it, they don't care.
Same deal with DirectX and OpenGL. A Windows GPU driver has to provide DirectX support. It is just part of the WDDM driver. Windows provides no OpenGL acceleration, and no software emulation. However you can provide your own OpenGL driver if you wish, and Intel, nVidia, and AMD all elect to do so. Windows does nothing to stop this and they work great (if the company writes a good driver). Indeed you could develop your own graphic API and implement that, if you wished.
There's a big difference between saying "We aren't going to do any work to support your stuff," and saying "We are going to work to make sure your stuff can't be supported."
1. Re:Windows doesn't stop it by t551 · 2014-12-13 10:39 · Score: 2
  
  Cygwin is explicity not a Linux emulator. It's a POSIX compatibility layer --- a posix-compatible shell, GNU coreutils, and a dll that implements the POSIX C interface.
Because Apple has no fucks to give about Windows by Sycraft-fu · 2014-12-13 09:15 · Score: 2

You discover Apple software sucks way less on OS-X. The fanboys will tell you this is evidence of how much better OS-X is, of course, but the real reason is Apple doesn't do a good job on their ports. They really half-ass their Windows ports so they end up not being good software. It is possibly something to try and make OS-X look better but more likely simply laziness and a lack of good Windows developers.
Re:Because Apple has no fucks to give about Window by alcmena · 2014-12-13 09:24 · Score: 2

I don't know... I find that iTunes pretty much sucks regardless of OS. In fact, I've actually found that the Home Sharing feature is more reliable from Apple TVs when iTunes is running on Windows than it is when iTunes is running on OSX.
Re:Because Apple has no fucks to give about Window by drinkypoo · 2014-12-13 09:28 · Score: 2

iTunes is also shit on OSX, it's just not shit in as many ways. It is, however, shit in many of the same ways.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2014-12-13 11:12 · Score: 2

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Re:Good to Be A Software "Engineer" by mrchaotica · 2014-12-13 11:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

Built any bridges recently for which the budget was cut halfway, you were forced to use chocolate fudge instead of cement, the location was switched every two weeks and the timescales halved, and delivered a working bridge nonetheless?
You know why REAL engineers don't have to deal with that shit? It's because the project can't get built until we put our stamp on the plans! Management's demands get a whole lot more reasonable when they can't replace you with some dumbfuck yes-man.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz