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Former iTunes Engineer Tells Court He Worked To Block Competitors

Posted by timothy on 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.

6 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. So much for his career by ShieldW0lf · · 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.

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    1. Re:So much for his career by Darinbob · · 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."

  2. Wait, what? by Anonymous Coward · · 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?

  3. Not incompatible by Todd+Knarr · · 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.

  4. Really? by wiredlogic · · 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.
  5. Windows doesn't stop it by Sycraft-fu · · 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."