Clearly most Slashdot users prefer more choices over someone making choices on their behalf when it comes to computing. That's because we're computer geeks. The average person, however, is getting real benefits from having a group of experts with more control over the device on their behalf. They also get real negative consequences, such as some applications they want never making it to the device they use and less ability to migrate devices without losing one's investment in apps.
Okay, we know all that already, right? So now we come to what people are doing about it. Half the venders are ignoring the benefits Apple has provided, secure in the knowledge that Apple's innovation will lose in the market. Half of them are emulating Apple, betting Apple is right. What none of them are doing, that I've seen, is innovating. Is there really no way to create a system that provides both the benefits of their "curated computing" while not bringing about the drawbacks? Can't someone build a central marketplace for apps that are vetted, and hosted by any and all comers? Can't a phone or series of phones be built where there is a guarantee that the apps will be portable between those phones and have been vetted for security and performance concerns so the user can make informed decisions? I've long advocated that the average desktop user doesn't have the information they need or the OS level control they need to effectively know what apps to run and how much to trust those apps. I've long advocated that the only way to get proper unbiased information is to build into the OS a way to get greylists of what apps are trusted from multiple sources, weigh them, and then take good, automated action on behalf of the user while providing them the details they need. It's easier to put all this power into the hands of one company, but then you end up having to trust a single party (be it Apple or MS). So who's going out making a better solution? Come on Google, I'm looking at you.
Using an app store should be a process of getting data from many parties. "Three out of four of your security feeds say the battery performance of this app is unacceptable and should be avoided". "Warning: this app only works on this phone and has no vendor promise to allow you to support other AndroidCert phones going forward. Be sure to take this into account." "Warning: this app is rated as malicious by two of your four security feeds. You will need to change your app settings to download it. This is not recommended." In addition, devices should be doing the right thing in the background, sandboxing apps and severely restricting ones that have not been vetted... maybe even refusing to run unsigned apps by default.
It is not impossible to create a decentralized app store using data and servers from a variety of companies... a personalized store that only shows users the apps that meet their security, performance, and compatibility requirements; or at very least makes the needed data available to the end user. People complain about the Apple iPhone App Store, but complaining is not really very useful. Who's making something better? Who's making something that is going to take hard work, but which will make a store that gives users all the benefits of Apple's store and freedom besides?
My guess would be Apple's response would be to fork or support programs like GIMP and Inkscape and throw developers at them and overhaul their UI's to Apple's standards.
I'd like to think that, but Apple isn't much for supporting OSS user space apps. They tend to acquire existing closed products and then throw money and developers into bringing them up to speed. They'd be more likely to buy Pixelmator or Corel or Lineform.
Apple has a knack for making professional creative tools.
Your point is a good one, but I'd point out Apple acquired both the products you mention and reworked them. I'd love to see Apple acquire a few Adobe competitors and make some good competition for them though. Adobe has a nasty habit of letting products sit with little or no development until there is an outside threat.
Indeed. If the gestapo has a gun to my head and I start railing about how such practices are unfair, it's very much self-serving, but the argument itself is also very much correct. And before anyone chimes in, no I'm not comparing Apple to Nazi Germany. I'm just magnifying the scale of something to make it easier to see.
Well you are comparing them, but it doesn't have to be inflammatory. It can just be a comparison. So in this comparison Apple is forcing you to what?
Buy their phone? - no there are many choices of phones.
Use iPhone OS on their hardware? - no you can install Android or some other OS on an iPhone.
Use the iPhone App Store? - no you can just ignore it and not install apps, or jailbreak it and install the apps you want on iPhone OS, or install another OS and use a different app store.
So I'm a little stumped as to what Apple is forcing you to do and how they're doing it. I mean if you want to use the iPhone with Apple's App Store service then you have to use what they offer via that service, but that's true of pretty much any service. So all I can conclude is that Apple is forcing you to not force them to offer what you want in their store. It sounds a lot more analogous to the Gestapo telling you to bugger off when you tell them which people you want them to shoot.
and the fact that it can't is solely due to Apple's need to make sure they get paid for every app their stupid devices can run.
I'm sorry but that's a pretty idiotic assertion. Apple allows for free apps and hosts them. They charge very little for developer licenses and if you add up the cost of all the Mac and licenses sold it's even by very generous standards less than 1% of what they're making in profit selling iPhones. Claiming it's about getting paid for apps is clueless nonsense.
The fact that you can't CHOOSE to install Flash and you can't CHOOSE to use another, more powerful browser, on the other hand - that I care about.
Sure you can. Apple sells a phone with an OS and with application services. Don't like the application services, jailbreak it. Don't like the OS, there's a port of Android. Where's the problem?
THAT'S an asshole, anti-competitive move.
No, that's a calculated COMPETITIVE move. I don't know where you people get this anti-competitive nonsense. The iPhone has been literally driving innovation in the market by providing competition. When has the smartphone market evolved faster or had fiercer competition? Don't like the iPhone, buy something else. There are several strong competitors to choose from.
Imagine if, along with bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, Microsoft FORBID anyone from running any other browser on their OS at all, and required EVERY app to be approved by Microsoft before it could be allowed to run.
Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop OS's and so is forbidden from tying that market to others. But MS does exactly that on the XBox and for that matter Nintendo doesn't let you install other browsers on the Wii.
Apple's doing EXACTLY THAT.
Apple is requiring Microsoft to approve every app before it's allowed to run on Windows? Apparently you don't know what "exactly" means either.
It's a fucking computer. I should be able to use whatever language I want and whatever libraries I want to target it.
You can. Go ahead and sell your own Linux based OS for it, your own app store for that OS, and your own apps i the store. Knock yourself out. Just don't expect to tell Apple what apps they have to carry in their app store any more than they can tell you what you have to sell in yours.
As long as something can create code that the computer can run, who the fuck is Apple to say whether or not I'm allowed to write software using it?!
No one, and you're free to do exactly that. You are not, however, free to tell Apple they MUST carry your app in their store.
Android has been far easier for me to work with the the iPhone OS.
Ahh, but has it been easier for you to develop apps and sell them on it? How many versions of your Android apps do you make for how many resolutions?
Maybe your[sic] an idiot...
I'm not normally a grammar nazi, but if you're going to call someone an idiot maybe you should learn to spell all the words in that sentence fragment to avoid looking comical?
I prefer not being locked to the Apple store.
That is, perhaps, admirable.
" But there's also plenty of other factors, including the point that people purchasing iPhones mostly do so because they WANT to run apps."
AS does anyone with a smart phone, it's the point.
Not really. According to research by various business technology publications, only about half of iPhone users ever buy an application and only about one in five of Android users ever buy one.
"Many of those Android sales are cheap or free generic phones bought by people who just want a phone."
Most people, consider that kind of versatility a good thing in an OS.
Versatility is good, but it also means the potential sales of apps on Android are less per unit than with iPhones. The previous poster's point being, that you can't say X people buy iPhones every month and X people buy Android phones that same month therefor applications should sell about the same on both.
"The size of the market for iPhone apps is the total number of apps sold by all app developers."
no. the market is the people who may buy an app. i.e. people who can run them. the number of apple devices. no one without an apple device will buy them.
You are incorrect. In business terms a market is (quoting Merriam Webster) "a demand for a particular commodity or service". That is to say, the number of people looking to buy an application, not the number of people that could buy an application because they have the hardware.
The market for shoes is people who need shoes, not the total number of available shoes.
The market for shoes is judged by how many shoes are sold a month, not by how many people might or could buy shoes. The grandparent poster is correct that the number of sales is the normal measure of the size of a market.
The market for shoes is people who need shoes, not the total number of available shoes.
No, the market for shoes is the umber of people who can buy shoes. People who can't afford shoes because supply is limited are not counted.
Hey, good luck selling your app, but don't go spouting off about crap you don't know.
Good day Mister Pot, may I introduce you to Squire Kettle... why you both seem to share the same coloration!
Walmart has limited physical space, the app store does not.
Irrelevant. Walmart does not sell items they don't like. It has nothing to do with shelf space.
Further, Apple prevents you from getting software anywhere else.
No, it doesn't. You can jailbreak it and install software from anywhere or run Web apps. Most people don't jailbreak them, but anyone can install a different OS on the hardware and use any store they want.
Ford shouldn't be allowed to force you to buy gas from Exxon...
But Ford isn't forced to carry any particular brand of Gas at Ford gas stations.
Apple shouldn't be allowed to force you to buy software from them (in both cases the "forcing" is a contingent requirement for purchasing a product)
You don't have to buy anything from the app store to buy an iPhone. It is not contingent.
The user should have control over their device.
They do. You can install any OS you want on it. They don't, however, have control of services Apple offers.
Running down the batteries is the user's prerogative... it's their battery and their electricity that powers the phone.
So install Android on it and drain the battery all you want, there's a port. Of course you probably think Google should be forced to carry malware in the Android Market too, since it should be up to the end user of hardware what a company offers in their store.
No, that's stupid. Viruses run in spite of what the user wants.
You're the one proposing the stupid new law. It has to be up to the user to decide what runs, not software from some company. Or would you like to reword your proposed new law? It sounds like crap to me though.
Because it's not a matter of "certain technologies". Adobe wrote a piece of software that you can run any technologically conformant[sic] file in. Apple will not allow you to run any technically conformant[sic] file (i.e. a swf player) on their OS.
So? Realmedia made software that can run any technologically conforming file in it. Does that mean Walmart should be forced to sell RealMedia software? Why should a vendor have the "right" to force others to include their software or runtime in their store?
What about forcing people who make hardware not to restrict what software you can use with it when there is no technological reason to do so?
That's pretty vague. Who's to say what's a technological reason? It drains the batteries too fast is a technological reason. And why should we create this new law? What problem does it solve? That vendors aren't being forced to sell crappy software from Adobe in their stores? And wouldn't such a law pretty much make antivirus software illegal since the only purpose is to stop software that technologically can run?
Now that you know I'm not partial to either company, why should Apple be able to block Adobe's media platform out of their hardware?
Why should Adobe be able to force Apple to offer certain apps on Apple's provided App store service?
Isn't this just like Microsoft bundling IE with Windows, leaving other browsers at a huge disadvantage?
No. Tying is only illegal and only undermines the free market when one of the markets being bundled has overwhelming influence in that market; otherwise competition works just fine to solve the problem (if it is one for consumers).
Isn't this worse because Adobe isn't even getting a chance to gain iPad customers?
No, because Adobe is not guaranteed the right to access any particular set of customers of any other device. Adobe doesn't get the chance to target GE Microwave users either. Apple doesn't get the chance to target Adobe Framemaker customers because Adobe doesn't offer a Mac version anymore. Neither company has a right to force the other to conform in a way to get access to those customers. Adobe can write apps for the iPhone just like anyone else, They can write App tools to make HTML5 apps just like anyone else. They have no legal or ethical right to anything more on Apple's service offering.
This is also companies deciding how their customers use their product, and that is bad.
Nope. Apple users can use their phones however they want. They don't even have to use Apple's app store. They can jailbreak it or install a different OS on their phone if they want. If they choose to use Apple's service, then they can.
It may not be illegal, but it is very bad and I really wish this community would get past their fanboi-ism and on to the actual topic.
I don't care for my phone to be as locked down as the iPhone and I'm enough of a security geek to be confident I can secure a different phone and vet apps properly. So I probably won't buy an iPhone because I don't care for it. That doesn't mean I think we should toss the laws out the window and let Adobe force Apple to conform to their desires in Apple's own offerings. If you don't like it, but an Android already. There's no monopoly on smartphones forcing you to buy an iPhone. How is that "fanboi-ism"?
If Apple gets away with this then they will set a sort of precedence.
I think the precedent is well established. Playstation, Atari, Steam, Barnes and Noble... pretty much any store whether a brick and mortar operation or online service can decide to stock whatever products they feel like and are not forced to carry others. Devices can be set up to work with a store, like XBox live. The iPhone App store is no different from a legal or ethical perspective.
It could start a trend where any hardware company could block a software company from their product, or the other way around, or with any combination of industries/products.
Well, technically it has to be a hardware/software/service company, since they have to offer all three vertically integrated in order to do this, but yeah, when a company offers all three they sure can lock out anyone they want... unless the customer replaces those locked in components (which the provider cannot stop for the most part).
Capitalism is great and all *cough* but the quest for a higher bottom line seems to remove all morals and justice from business and Apple's behavior represents just one of many slippery slopes.
Capitalism is great in that it takes the existing lack of morals, self interest, and greed and channels that into a mechanism that results in more innovation and lower prices for people. If you don't like the iPhone offering, nothing is stopping you from buying a different phone and using a more open app store. Write to Apple and tell them why you made the choice, and maybe they will decide the business case favors a more open approach. P.S. The "slippery slope" is the name of a common logical fallacy. As such it makes for a less convincing argument than you might think.
Maybe for some that is true, but for others they are but sheep. Of course, those are the ones wondering why the website doesn't load correctly and don't even realize it's because Apple dictated that they cannot view it.
Tomato. Tomato.
Apple didn't dictate they can't view it. Apple and the site creator together dictated it, by Apple not supporting Flash and by the Web page creator not using open standard HTML. Guess which one I think it would be better for myself and the industry as a whole to change?
If Adobe is serious, they should take the position that if Apple is not allowing Flash development for its platforms then it follows that Apple no longer wants such development platforms running on its Macs, and as long as Flash content is not supported on iPhone or iPad then ongoing support and releases will not be available for the entire Creative Suite (of which Flash is a part) on OSX as of the current release.
See there are several problems with this oft touted but poorly reasoned idea. First, Macs are about half their CS sales according to estimates. So what do you think will happen to the first version of CS that doesn't support the Mac? What percentage of Mac using developers will just hold off and not switch OS's to upgrade? Say 50%? Well that's about 25% of Adobe's revenue down the crapper. Guess who's getting a new CEO?
The next problem is legal. Does Adobe have monopoly influence on the professional photography editing software market? 70%? Gee, that means Adobe just violated antitrust law by leveraging their photoshop business to promote their Flash business (something Adobe has gone to great pains to keep from going to court in the past). If they lose, guess who's getting a new CEO? How do you think the board would feel about Photoshop being spun off into it's own company as part of the suit?
Then there's the whole Apple response issue. As soon as Adobe makes such a demand, guess who's buying up some photo editing competitors with their piles of ready cash? When Adobe slacked off on Mac versions of their video editing software, Apple bought a few companies and entered the market themselves, at half the price point for the same feature set. They took half Adobe's market that time and permanently lost Adobe half the profit on the rest due to pressure to lower prices and compete. So even if Apple relented and let Adobe have Flash on the iPhone, there's no way Apple would not follow through with a Adobe CS competitor to make sure Adobe did not have the power to pressure them going forward. Say "bye" to half your profits forever Adobe as suddenly you have not only MS but Apple pulling together well funded competing products and consolidating all your disparate and poorly funded competitors into powerhouses bent on keeping you from being problematic.
Given all of that, do you really think Adobe executives want to threaten that kind of action against Apple? Is that a good business move? Adobe will bitch and moan, but they are unlikely to commit themselves to all out war against someone who keeps the keys to half their customer base.
If Apple can exclude a specific product why can't Adobe?
Well, maybe they can, and maybe doing so is illegal depending upon how much market share Adobe has... but it sure doesn't seem like a bright move.
While it would be nice if Apple's motivation was to protect the lives of innocent people, I have serious doubts about that hypothesis. I'm sure security and stability are concerns, but I think the biggest concern is simply being able to profit by having a phone that advances more rapidly than other platforms and whose applications keep pace because there is no opportunity for a popular tool vendor to hold back adoption of new technologies by app developers.
Dear god, these two need to shut the hell up about each other already. Neither is as open as it claims itself to be, and neither is as bad as the other claims it to be.
I don't recall Apple ever claiming to be open. They do say they want to support the open Web by promoting HTML5 standards over proprietary formats, but that's it. In fact, for being such a large OSS contributor, Apple is pretty quiet about that part of their business.
Don't I have the right to dictate to adobe that it should play.mp4 files for the sake of openness?
Then dictate with Flowplayer, a shim between your web page and.mp4 video.
Why should I do that? If I want to provide content in.mp4 files surely I can force Adobe to play them in Flash player. And as I said earlier, I should be able to force them to play Ogg files as well.
The trouble is that Apple is using the developer license agreement to ban shims between other platforms and iPhone OS APIs.
It's a product Apple supplies and a service they supply on the device. Adobe has as much right to force Apple to support technologies in their closed product as I do to force Adobe. If Adobe want's software made with their tools to work on the iPhone a shim is available, that being HTML5 and tools to package them as apps (like phonegap), which Apple has already agreed to support going forward. Surely Adobe has no objection unless they really just want to push a closed format to lock people into their own products.
Flash Player already lets.swf files play.mp4 video;
Only inside a.swf container. It won't play foo.mp4. It could but it doesn't. Don't I have the right to dictate to adobe that it should play.mp4 files for the sake of openness?
Your analogy is horrible. When installing Flash means you can no longer install an mp4 player, let me know.
How is the analogy wrong? Apple has a closed product they sell that includes certain technologies. Adobe has a closed product they sell that includes certain technologies. If Adobe can tell Apple they have to include technologies in the iPhone services they provide, why can't I tell Adobe what technologies they need to include? It's the same bloody thing.
To say nothing of the fact that vector-based graphics and scripting (with embedded video) is a different beast from compressed video is a different beast from compressed audio.
So? A Motorola razr is different from an iPhone. If you don't like the iPhone, you can buy a different fricking phone rather than forcing the person who makes a phone that doesn't do what you want to include specific features.
If they really want to make a stament just don't release Photoshop and their other apps for Mac. Sure this will cost them quite a bit of money but for a part it can hurt a lot of professional Mac users and lure them back to Windows...
So if you were CEO of Adobe would you risk your job by losing big on Adobe CS sales as many, many Mac users don't bother upgrading for that version? Remember Macs are about 50% of your sales by most estimates. And given that Adobe may well have monopoly influence on the professional photo editor market, (Apple does not on the smartphone or smartphone app markets) they could well be opening themselves up to a criminal antitrust suit. A good way to keep them from abusing the Photoshop market share would be to spin it off into a separate company. Assuming you escaped on the antitrust front, what would Apple's reaction be? Do you think Apple would come out with an Apple branded competitor to CS? They've done it before in response to lack of up to date OS X versions of apps. As CEO, would you really think this is a reasonable risk in order to try to bolster your Flash lock-in? Last time they did so, they took half Adobe's market share while forcing Adobe to slash the prices of some of their expensive video software.
...or let them release Linux versions of their products...
That would, of course, not be a problem for Apple at all. Anything that hinders the Windows lock-in brings Apple benefit because in the OS space they are winning not on lock-in but competing on features.
Yeah, and we all know how committed Adobe is to user choice, which is exactly why in addition to ".swf" format I'm sure your Flash player plug-ins will start playing.ogg files and.mp4 files as well, because your customers deserve to be free to use your product to open whatever files they want, not just the file types you support... right?
As to your question, IF apple decided to withhold it's touch patents is purely hypothetical. I would imagine such cases would be invested as anti-competitive as they would be using unfair market advantage.
That's the whole point of patents. You invest in inventing something and in return a patent grants you an exclusive monopoly to that technology for a limited time. The idea is to motivate investment in innovation. Apple withholding multitouch is the patent system working as intended. Apple licensing it inequitably to others would be a problem if they were to go that route.
I don't think any of the companies involved have refused outright to license their technologies, but I believe the suite from Apple claims that Nokia was demanding more money from Apple than from other vendors, which is the basis of the lawsuit.
Actually, Apple refused to license their patent as part of the payment instead of all of it. Nokia refused to license their patent for the same cost it did to others, but required Apple to also give up their patents as well.
If that is true, I would imagine that existing law would handle such situations (anticompetitive).
Competition law does not really apply for the most part, at least not in the traditional sense. It's not illegal to gain and use a monopoly for profit via patents.
Rather than allow blackmail situations, why not simply put a time limit on the length of time that they can file lawsuits for patent violations in the past? If they fail to exercise that right within a reasonable amount of time, then they loose the right to sue for damages for past infringement? Is that too simple a solution?
How does that address the issue with Apple or Nokia? They both asserted their rights in a timely fashion, when someone violated the patent. Rather the problem as I see it is that Nokia had patents on technologies, and the whole industry was built up upon those patents, including infrastructure vital to our national security and basic utilities (face it cell phone service is a basic utility now necessary for doing business and individual safety). If Nokia refuses to license their patents to some companies or uses those patents to prevent companies from doing business except on their terms, it hurts innovation. Why would any company dump R&D into innovations in cell phones if Nokia is just going to demand they let Nokia use the patents just to get into the game? And so innovation is no longer profitable.
What are the features that Apple, or the other companies, say are being infringed?
In the case of Apple, they have patents on the multi-touch interface and the other companies did not license that interface before implementing it.
In the case of Nokia, they are part of a consortium that holds basic patents on cell phone technology including antenna configurations and cell tower switching algorithms necessary to build any cell phone that uses existing towers.
You can sum the case up as, both companies are infringing patents. Nokia says Apple's patents aren't as valuable but went ahead and infringed them anyway. Apple says Nokia is treating them unfairly by demanding more money and license to Apple's patents when they charges less to other phone makers, so they made their iPhone anyway infringing patents and will go to court to only have to pay the same as everyone else. And it is now obvious even to a child that our patent system and the practice of implementing patented non-licensed technologies in basic and necessary infrastructure is completely messed up and needs to be re-legislated by people who give a damn about what is best for the people and not big companies.
Interesting. Rule of law is not necessarily related to freedom.
Not necessarily, perhaps, perhaps not. Are you truly free if you live in a benevolent dictatorship where someone has the legal ability to arbitrarily enforce decisions upon you not encoded into law?
Some of the most unfree regimes in European history had almost perfect rule of law.
Can you give an example? Most of the unfree regimes in European history I can think of had laws applied to some, but not all, arbitrarily based upon the whims of those in power. I can't think of any where there were actually laws enforced equally as required for a "rule by law" instead of "rule by man" situation.
What is freedom of the press in one country is a crime in a different one.
Well sort of. In Belize you can freely tell everyone how you murdered someone in the US... but that doesn't mean they have more freedom of speech, just no extradition treaty for crimes committed elsewhere.
I don't recall theft being mentioned in the original article.
I don't recall that it was, but that's no reason to think this was not a theft. Can you think of a more plausible way they "acquired" the device?
Instead of exposing themselves to corporate controlled police action again they decided to export the phone to a free country before publishing their victory.
Instead of exposing themselves to rule by law again they decided to export the phone to a lawless country before publishing their theft.
Again, capitalism can mean many different things, and what we have now is far from the textbook ideal.
I didn't realize there is a textbook ideal capitalism. Isn't that sort of like textbook ideal temperature? Economics recognizes capitalism as one of several elements vital to a stable, modern economy. So I'm not sure what you mean by ideal capitalism. Perhaps you're referring to what might be called "extreme" capitalism, where capitalism is unchecked by socialism and the economy is unstable and collapsing?
But Apple is creating artificial barriers to interchangeability.
So what? So does Bic with their razors. So does Nintendo with their video games. Why do you think those barriers are uncompetitive when people have several other choices of smart phones, including ones with larger shares of the market?
Legality/illegality is besides the point. Avoiding criminality is not the bar we should aim for in our dealings with others. (Hence my argument that the antitrust laws we have do the absolute least they could...) Something doesn't have to be illegal to be regulated.
I disagree. The government 's job is to follow the law and prevent illegal actions. Unless they are specifically granted the legal authority to regulate something, they have no business spending my tax dollars on it. Avoiding criminality should be all it takes to keep the government from interfering with your business operations. Especially in this day and age where the government is not even doing that much with regard to many, many large companies that are routinely violating the law.
That is the issue. This action by Apple is pretty new in the history of things: Never has a large computer maker said that you have to use its own dev tools, and that no other dev tools can be used in the process, even if you do use their tools.
What are you talking about? Large computer appliance makers have done this for ages for software they offer through a service to end users. Ever tried shipping a DS game that didn't use Nintendo's tools? If Apple is the one suppling the application store, they have every legal right to place whatever criteria they want on those making applications (with a few specific exceptions).
And again, if it is not in fact illegal, then the only option is to try and educate and provide information to people so they at least have the full knowledge that their choices are being artificially restricted at Apple's whims, and what that might potentially mean for them down the road.
Not the government's job!!! Certainly not with my tax dollars.
Except, that this analogy is opposite. You are conflating government restrictions on freedom expression, with the government investigating impediments to freedom of expression.
I don't think you understand freedom of expression. It applies only to the government not to private companies. A publisher deciding not to publish your book is not a barrier to freedom of expression. You're free to express, Apple is free to express only what they want. You have no right to express yourself via any private venue forcibly taking the resources to do so from another.
What you missed in my comment was the commonality, that of the government going after and harassing companies for doing things people in the government did not like, despite those actions being perfectly legal. That is a direct threat to the principal of rule by law.
And no, I don't not feel that the government should value Apple's freedom of expression equally given the relative individual imbalance of power in the relationship between consumers and producers.
So using the same principals you think publishers should be forced to publish any crap book someone wants them to? And book stores should have to carry them because book publishers and stores have more power than authors? Is t
I've got to say, I don't see a ton of value in Mandriva as a business acquisition. They have some sales deals mostly in France and Brazil, but not enough to really make much in the way of revenue. Their distro is solid, but not really ahead of Ubuntu in any meaningful way. Their only real value as I see it, is the developer expertise. The business people seem to be pretty clueless and disorganized. I'm not sure it makes a lot of business sense to buy Mandriva for their distribution if you're looking to get into (or are already in) the desktop Linux business. Developers in the community tend to target the leaders, so they will always be at a disadvantage to bigger distros. What does buying Mandriva and using it on appliances or netbooks get you versus hiring people and going with Ubuntu or even ChromeOS? Both Canonical and Google seem willing and eager to partner. This just leaves the question in my mind of what another fragment of the Linux distro pie brings as a business asset. Maybe Canonical or Google or Redhat could buy them for the developers and mothball Mandriva while merging it with their own distro. That would make sense as a way to branch into the markets in those countries and get functional developer teams.
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly most Slashdot users prefer more choices over someone making choices on their behalf when it comes to computing. That's because we're computer geeks. The average person, however, is getting real benefits from having a group of experts with more control over the device on their behalf. They also get real negative consequences, such as some applications they want never making it to the device they use and less ability to migrate devices without losing one's investment in apps.
Okay, we know all that already, right? So now we come to what people are doing about it. Half the venders are ignoring the benefits Apple has provided, secure in the knowledge that Apple's innovation will lose in the market. Half of them are emulating Apple, betting Apple is right. What none of them are doing, that I've seen, is innovating. Is there really no way to create a system that provides both the benefits of their "curated computing" while not bringing about the drawbacks? Can't someone build a central marketplace for apps that are vetted, and hosted by any and all comers? Can't a phone or series of phones be built where there is a guarantee that the apps will be portable between those phones and have been vetted for security and performance concerns so the user can make informed decisions? I've long advocated that the average desktop user doesn't have the information they need or the OS level control they need to effectively know what apps to run and how much to trust those apps. I've long advocated that the only way to get proper unbiased information is to build into the OS a way to get greylists of what apps are trusted from multiple sources, weigh them, and then take good, automated action on behalf of the user while providing them the details they need. It's easier to put all this power into the hands of one company, but then you end up having to trust a single party (be it Apple or MS). So who's going out making a better solution? Come on Google, I'm looking at you.
Using an app store should be a process of getting data from many parties. "Three out of four of your security feeds say the battery performance of this app is unacceptable and should be avoided". "Warning: this app only works on this phone and has no vendor promise to allow you to support other AndroidCert phones going forward. Be sure to take this into account." "Warning: this app is rated as malicious by two of your four security feeds. You will need to change your app settings to download it. This is not recommended." In addition, devices should be doing the right thing in the background, sandboxing apps and severely restricting ones that have not been vetted... maybe even refusing to run unsigned apps by default.
It is not impossible to create a decentralized app store using data and servers from a variety of companies... a personalized store that only shows users the apps that meet their security, performance, and compatibility requirements; or at very least makes the needed data available to the end user. People complain about the Apple iPhone App Store, but complaining is not really very useful. Who's making something better? Who's making something that is going to take hard work, but which will make a store that gives users all the benefits of Apple's store and freedom besides?
My guess would be Apple's response would be to fork or support programs like GIMP and Inkscape and throw developers at them and overhaul their UI's to Apple's standards.
I'd like to think that, but Apple isn't much for supporting OSS user space apps. They tend to acquire existing closed products and then throw money and developers into bringing them up to speed. They'd be more likely to buy Pixelmator or Corel or Lineform.
Apple has a knack for making professional creative tools.
Your point is a good one, but I'd point out Apple acquired both the products you mention and reworked them. I'd love to see Apple acquire a few Adobe competitors and make some good competition for them though. Adobe has a nasty habit of letting products sit with little or no development until there is an outside threat.
Indeed. If the gestapo has a gun to my head and I start railing about how such practices are unfair, it's very much self-serving, but the argument itself is also very much correct. And before anyone chimes in, no I'm not comparing Apple to Nazi Germany. I'm just magnifying the scale of something to make it easier to see.
Well you are comparing them, but it doesn't have to be inflammatory. It can just be a comparison. So in this comparison Apple is forcing you to what?
So I'm a little stumped as to what Apple is forcing you to do and how they're doing it. I mean if you want to use the iPhone with Apple's App Store service then you have to use what they offer via that service, but that's true of pretty much any service. So all I can conclude is that Apple is forcing you to not force them to offer what you want in their store. It sounds a lot more analogous to the Gestapo telling you to bugger off when you tell them which people you want them to shoot.
and the fact that it can't is solely due to Apple's need to make sure they get paid for every app their stupid devices can run.
I'm sorry but that's a pretty idiotic assertion. Apple allows for free apps and hosts them. They charge very little for developer licenses and if you add up the cost of all the Mac and licenses sold it's even by very generous standards less than 1% of what they're making in profit selling iPhones. Claiming it's about getting paid for apps is clueless nonsense.
The fact that you can't CHOOSE to install Flash and you can't CHOOSE to use another, more powerful browser, on the other hand - that I care about.
Sure you can. Apple sells a phone with an OS and with application services. Don't like the application services, jailbreak it. Don't like the OS, there's a port of Android. Where's the problem?
THAT'S an asshole, anti-competitive move.
No, that's a calculated COMPETITIVE move. I don't know where you people get this anti-competitive nonsense. The iPhone has been literally driving innovation in the market by providing competition. When has the smartphone market evolved faster or had fiercer competition? Don't like the iPhone, buy something else. There are several strong competitors to choose from.
Imagine if, along with bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, Microsoft FORBID anyone from running any other browser on their OS at all, and required EVERY app to be approved by Microsoft before it could be allowed to run.
Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop OS's and so is forbidden from tying that market to others. But MS does exactly that on the XBox and for that matter Nintendo doesn't let you install other browsers on the Wii.
Apple's doing EXACTLY THAT.
Apple is requiring Microsoft to approve every app before it's allowed to run on Windows? Apparently you don't know what "exactly" means either.
It's a fucking computer. I should be able to use whatever language I want and whatever libraries I want to target it.
You can. Go ahead and sell your own Linux based OS for it, your own app store for that OS, and your own apps i the store. Knock yourself out. Just don't expect to tell Apple what apps they have to carry in their app store any more than they can tell you what you have to sell in yours.
As long as something can create code that the computer can run, who the fuck is Apple to say whether or not I'm allowed to write software using it?!
No one, and you're free to do exactly that. You are not, however, free to tell Apple they MUST carry your app in their store.
Android has been far easier for me to work with the the iPhone OS.
Ahh, but has it been easier for you to develop apps and sell them on it? How many versions of your Android apps do you make for how many resolutions?
Maybe your[sic] an idiot...
I'm not normally a grammar nazi, but if you're going to call someone an idiot maybe you should learn to spell all the words in that sentence fragment to avoid looking comical?
I prefer not being locked to the Apple store.
That is, perhaps, admirable.
" But there's also plenty of other factors, including the point that people purchasing iPhones mostly do so because they WANT to run apps."
AS does anyone with a smart phone, it's the point.
Not really. According to research by various business technology publications, only about half of iPhone users ever buy an application and only about one in five of Android users ever buy one.
"Many of those Android sales are cheap or free generic phones bought by people who just want a phone."
Most people, consider that kind of versatility a good thing in an OS.
Versatility is good, but it also means the potential sales of apps on Android are less per unit than with iPhones. The previous poster's point being, that you can't say X people buy iPhones every month and X people buy Android phones that same month therefor applications should sell about the same on both.
"The size of the market for iPhone apps is the total number of apps sold by all app developers."
no. the market is the people who may buy an app. i.e. people who can run them. the number of apple devices. no one without an apple device will buy them.
You are incorrect. In business terms a market is (quoting Merriam Webster) "a demand for a particular commodity or service". That is to say, the number of people looking to buy an application, not the number of people that could buy an application because they have the hardware.
The market for shoes is people who need shoes, not the total number of available shoes.
The market for shoes is judged by how many shoes are sold a month, not by how many people might or could buy shoes. The grandparent poster is correct that the number of sales is the normal measure of the size of a market.
The market for shoes is people who need shoes, not the total number of available shoes.
No, the market for shoes is the umber of people who can buy shoes. People who can't afford shoes because supply is limited are not counted.
Hey, good luck selling your app, but don't go spouting off about crap you don't know.
Good day Mister Pot, may I introduce you to Squire Kettle... why you both seem to share the same coloration!
Walmart has limited physical space, the app store does not.
Irrelevant. Walmart does not sell items they don't like. It has nothing to do with shelf space.
Further, Apple prevents you from getting software anywhere else.
No, it doesn't. You can jailbreak it and install software from anywhere or run Web apps. Most people don't jailbreak them, but anyone can install a different OS on the hardware and use any store they want.
Ford shouldn't be allowed to force you to buy gas from Exxon...
But Ford isn't forced to carry any particular brand of Gas at Ford gas stations.
Apple shouldn't be allowed to force you to buy software from them (in both cases the "forcing" is a contingent requirement for purchasing a product)
You don't have to buy anything from the app store to buy an iPhone. It is not contingent.
The user should have control over their device.
They do. You can install any OS you want on it. They don't, however, have control of services Apple offers.
Running down the batteries is the user's prerogative... it's their battery and their electricity that powers the phone.
So install Android on it and drain the battery all you want, there's a port. Of course you probably think Google should be forced to carry malware in the Android Market too, since it should be up to the end user of hardware what a company offers in their store.
No, that's stupid. Viruses run in spite of what the user wants.
You're the one proposing the stupid new law. It has to be up to the user to decide what runs, not software from some company. Or would you like to reword your proposed new law? It sounds like crap to me though.
Because it's not a matter of "certain technologies". Adobe wrote a piece of software that you can run any technologically conformant[sic] file in. Apple will not allow you to run any technically conformant[sic] file (i.e. a swf player) on their OS.
So? Realmedia made software that can run any technologically conforming file in it. Does that mean Walmart should be forced to sell RealMedia software? Why should a vendor have the "right" to force others to include their software or runtime in their store?
What about forcing people who make hardware not to restrict what software you can use with it when there is no technological reason to do so?
That's pretty vague. Who's to say what's a technological reason? It drains the batteries too fast is a technological reason. And why should we create this new law? What problem does it solve? That vendors aren't being forced to sell crappy software from Adobe in their stores? And wouldn't such a law pretty much make antivirus software illegal since the only purpose is to stop software that technologically can run?
Now that you know I'm not partial to either company, why should Apple be able to block Adobe's media platform out of their hardware?
Why should Adobe be able to force Apple to offer certain apps on Apple's provided App store service?
Isn't this just like Microsoft bundling IE with Windows, leaving other browsers at a huge disadvantage?
No. Tying is only illegal and only undermines the free market when one of the markets being bundled has overwhelming influence in that market; otherwise competition works just fine to solve the problem (if it is one for consumers).
Isn't this worse because Adobe isn't even getting a chance to gain iPad customers?
No, because Adobe is not guaranteed the right to access any particular set of customers of any other device. Adobe doesn't get the chance to target GE Microwave users either. Apple doesn't get the chance to target Adobe Framemaker customers because Adobe doesn't offer a Mac version anymore. Neither company has a right to force the other to conform in a way to get access to those customers. Adobe can write apps for the iPhone just like anyone else, They can write App tools to make HTML5 apps just like anyone else. They have no legal or ethical right to anything more on Apple's service offering.
This is also companies deciding how their customers use their product, and that is bad.
Nope. Apple users can use their phones however they want. They don't even have to use Apple's app store. They can jailbreak it or install a different OS on their phone if they want. If they choose to use Apple's service, then they can.
It may not be illegal, but it is very bad and I really wish this community would get past their fanboi-ism and on to the actual topic.
I don't care for my phone to be as locked down as the iPhone and I'm enough of a security geek to be confident I can secure a different phone and vet apps properly. So I probably won't buy an iPhone because I don't care for it. That doesn't mean I think we should toss the laws out the window and let Adobe force Apple to conform to their desires in Apple's own offerings. If you don't like it, but an Android already. There's no monopoly on smartphones forcing you to buy an iPhone. How is that "fanboi-ism"?
If Apple gets away with this then they will set a sort of precedence.
I think the precedent is well established. Playstation, Atari, Steam, Barnes and Noble... pretty much any store whether a brick and mortar operation or online service can decide to stock whatever products they feel like and are not forced to carry others. Devices can be set up to work with a store, like XBox live. The iPhone App store is no different from a legal or ethical perspective.
It could start a trend where any hardware company could block a software company from their product, or the other way around, or with any combination of industries/products.
Well, technically it has to be a hardware/software/service company, since they have to offer all three vertically integrated in order to do this, but yeah, when a company offers all three they sure can lock out anyone they want... unless the customer replaces those locked in components (which the provider cannot stop for the most part).
Capitalism is great and all *cough* but the quest for a higher bottom line seems to remove all morals and justice from business and Apple's behavior represents just one of many slippery slopes.
Capitalism is great in that it takes the existing lack of morals, self interest, and greed and channels that into a mechanism that results in more innovation and lower prices for people. If you don't like the iPhone offering, nothing is stopping you from buying a different phone and using a more open app store. Write to Apple and tell them why you made the choice, and maybe they will decide the business case favors a more open approach. P.S. The "slippery slope" is the name of a common logical fallacy. As such it makes for a less convincing argument than you might think.
Maybe for some that is true, but for others they are but sheep. Of course, those are the ones wondering why the website doesn't load correctly and don't even realize it's because Apple dictated that they cannot view it.
Tomato. Tomato.
Apple didn't dictate they can't view it. Apple and the site creator together dictated it, by Apple not supporting Flash and by the Web page creator not using open standard HTML. Guess which one I think it would be better for myself and the industry as a whole to change?
If Adobe is serious, they should take the position that if Apple is not allowing Flash development for its platforms then it follows that Apple no longer wants such development platforms running on its Macs, and as long as Flash content is not supported on iPhone or iPad then ongoing support and releases will not be available for the entire Creative Suite (of which Flash is a part) on OSX as of the current release.
See there are several problems with this oft touted but poorly reasoned idea. First, Macs are about half their CS sales according to estimates. So what do you think will happen to the first version of CS that doesn't support the Mac? What percentage of Mac using developers will just hold off and not switch OS's to upgrade? Say 50%? Well that's about 25% of Adobe's revenue down the crapper. Guess who's getting a new CEO?
The next problem is legal. Does Adobe have monopoly influence on the professional photography editing software market? 70%? Gee, that means Adobe just violated antitrust law by leveraging their photoshop business to promote their Flash business (something Adobe has gone to great pains to keep from going to court in the past). If they lose, guess who's getting a new CEO? How do you think the board would feel about Photoshop being spun off into it's own company as part of the suit?
Then there's the whole Apple response issue. As soon as Adobe makes such a demand, guess who's buying up some photo editing competitors with their piles of ready cash? When Adobe slacked off on Mac versions of their video editing software, Apple bought a few companies and entered the market themselves, at half the price point for the same feature set. They took half Adobe's market that time and permanently lost Adobe half the profit on the rest due to pressure to lower prices and compete. So even if Apple relented and let Adobe have Flash on the iPhone, there's no way Apple would not follow through with a Adobe CS competitor to make sure Adobe did not have the power to pressure them going forward. Say "bye" to half your profits forever Adobe as suddenly you have not only MS but Apple pulling together well funded competing products and consolidating all your disparate and poorly funded competitors into powerhouses bent on keeping you from being problematic.
Given all of that, do you really think Adobe executives want to threaten that kind of action against Apple? Is that a good business move? Adobe will bitch and moan, but they are unlikely to commit themselves to all out war against someone who keeps the keys to half their customer base.
If Apple can exclude a specific product why can't Adobe?
Well, maybe they can, and maybe doing so is illegal depending upon how much market share Adobe has... but it sure doesn't seem like a bright move.
While it would be nice if Apple's motivation was to protect the lives of innocent people, I have serious doubts about that hypothesis. I'm sure security and stability are concerns, but I think the biggest concern is simply being able to profit by having a phone that advances more rapidly than other platforms and whose applications keep pace because there is no opportunity for a popular tool vendor to hold back adoption of new technologies by app developers.
Dear god, these two need to shut the hell up about each other already. Neither is as open as it claims itself to be, and neither is as bad as the other claims it to be.
I don't recall Apple ever claiming to be open. They do say they want to support the open Web by promoting HTML5 standards over proprietary formats, but that's it. In fact, for being such a large OSS contributor, Apple is pretty quiet about that part of their business.
Don't I have the right to dictate to adobe that it should play .mp4 files for the sake of openness?
Then dictate with Flowplayer, a shim between your web page and .mp4 video.
Why should I do that? If I want to provide content in .mp4 files surely I can force Adobe to play them in Flash player. And as I said earlier, I should be able to force them to play Ogg files as well.
The trouble is that Apple is using the developer license agreement to ban shims between other platforms and iPhone OS APIs.
It's a product Apple supplies and a service they supply on the device. Adobe has as much right to force Apple to support technologies in their closed product as I do to force Adobe. If Adobe want's software made with their tools to work on the iPhone a shim is available, that being HTML5 and tools to package them as apps (like phonegap), which Apple has already agreed to support going forward. Surely Adobe has no objection unless they really just want to push a closed format to lock people into their own products.
Flash Player already lets .swf files play .mp4 video;
Only inside a .swf container. It won't play foo.mp4. It could but it doesn't. Don't I have the right to dictate to adobe that it should play .mp4 files for the sake of openness?
Your analogy is horrible. When installing Flash means you can no longer install an mp4 player, let me know.
How is the analogy wrong? Apple has a closed product they sell that includes certain technologies. Adobe has a closed product they sell that includes certain technologies. If Adobe can tell Apple they have to include technologies in the iPhone services they provide, why can't I tell Adobe what technologies they need to include? It's the same bloody thing.
To say nothing of the fact that vector-based graphics and scripting (with embedded video) is a different beast from compressed video is a different beast from compressed audio.
So? A Motorola razr is different from an iPhone. If you don't like the iPhone, you can buy a different fricking phone rather than forcing the person who makes a phone that doesn't do what you want to include specific features.
If they really want to make a stament just don't release Photoshop and their other apps for Mac. Sure this will cost them quite a bit of money but for a part it can hurt a lot of professional Mac users and lure them back to Windows...
So if you were CEO of Adobe would you risk your job by losing big on Adobe CS sales as many, many Mac users don't bother upgrading for that version? Remember Macs are about 50% of your sales by most estimates. And given that Adobe may well have monopoly influence on the professional photo editor market, (Apple does not on the smartphone or smartphone app markets) they could well be opening themselves up to a criminal antitrust suit. A good way to keep them from abusing the Photoshop market share would be to spin it off into a separate company. Assuming you escaped on the antitrust front, what would Apple's reaction be? Do you think Apple would come out with an Apple branded competitor to CS? They've done it before in response to lack of up to date OS X versions of apps. As CEO, would you really think this is a reasonable risk in order to try to bolster your Flash lock-in? Last time they did so, they took half Adobe's market share while forcing Adobe to slash the prices of some of their expensive video software.
...or let them release Linux versions of their products...
That would, of course, not be a problem for Apple at all. Anything that hinders the Windows lock-in brings Apple benefit because in the OS space they are winning not on lock-in but competing on features.
Yeah, and we all know how committed Adobe is to user choice, which is exactly why in addition to ".swf" format I'm sure your Flash player plug-ins will start playing .ogg files and .mp4 files as well, because your customers deserve to be free to use your product to open whatever files they want, not just the file types you support... right?
As to your question, IF apple decided to withhold it's touch patents is purely hypothetical. I would imagine such cases would be invested as anti-competitive as they would be using unfair market advantage.
That's the whole point of patents. You invest in inventing something and in return a patent grants you an exclusive monopoly to that technology for a limited time. The idea is to motivate investment in innovation. Apple withholding multitouch is the patent system working as intended. Apple licensing it inequitably to others would be a problem if they were to go that route.
I don't think any of the companies involved have refused outright to license their technologies, but I believe the suite from Apple claims that Nokia was demanding more money from Apple than from other vendors, which is the basis of the lawsuit.
Actually, Apple refused to license their patent as part of the payment instead of all of it. Nokia refused to license their patent for the same cost it did to others, but required Apple to also give up their patents as well.
If that is true, I would imagine that existing law would handle such situations (anticompetitive).
Competition law does not really apply for the most part, at least not in the traditional sense. It's not illegal to gain and use a monopoly for profit via patents.
Rather than allow blackmail situations, why not simply put a time limit on the length of time that they can file lawsuits for patent violations in the past? If they fail to exercise that right within a reasonable amount of time, then they loose the right to sue for damages for past infringement? Is that too simple a solution?
How does that address the issue with Apple or Nokia? They both asserted their rights in a timely fashion, when someone violated the patent. Rather the problem as I see it is that Nokia had patents on technologies, and the whole industry was built up upon those patents, including infrastructure vital to our national security and basic utilities (face it cell phone service is a basic utility now necessary for doing business and individual safety). If Nokia refuses to license their patents to some companies or uses those patents to prevent companies from doing business except on their terms, it hurts innovation. Why would any company dump R&D into innovations in cell phones if Nokia is just going to demand they let Nokia use the patents just to get into the game? And so innovation is no longer profitable.
What are the features that Apple, or the other companies, say are being infringed?
In the case of Apple, they have patents on the multi-touch interface and the other companies did not license that interface before implementing it.
In the case of Nokia, they are part of a consortium that holds basic patents on cell phone technology including antenna configurations and cell tower switching algorithms necessary to build any cell phone that uses existing towers.
You can sum the case up as, both companies are infringing patents. Nokia says Apple's patents aren't as valuable but went ahead and infringed them anyway. Apple says Nokia is treating them unfairly by demanding more money and license to Apple's patents when they charges less to other phone makers, so they made their iPhone anyway infringing patents and will go to court to only have to pay the same as everyone else. And it is now obvious even to a child that our patent system and the practice of implementing patented non-licensed technologies in basic and necessary infrastructure is completely messed up and needs to be re-legislated by people who give a damn about what is best for the people and not big companies.
Interesting. Rule of law is not necessarily related to freedom.
Not necessarily, perhaps, perhaps not. Are you truly free if you live in a benevolent dictatorship where someone has the legal ability to arbitrarily enforce decisions upon you not encoded into law?
Some of the most unfree regimes in European history had almost perfect rule of law.
Can you give an example? Most of the unfree regimes in European history I can think of had laws applied to some, but not all, arbitrarily based upon the whims of those in power. I can't think of any where there were actually laws enforced equally as required for a "rule by law" instead of "rule by man" situation.
What is freedom of the press in one country is a crime in a different one.
Well sort of. In Belize you can freely tell everyone how you murdered someone in the US... but that doesn't mean they have more freedom of speech, just no extradition treaty for crimes committed elsewhere.
I don't recall theft being mentioned in the original article.
I don't recall that it was, but that's no reason to think this was not a theft. Can you think of a more plausible way they "acquired" the device?
Instead of exposing themselves to corporate controlled police action again they decided to export the phone to a free country before publishing their victory.
Instead of exposing themselves to rule by law again they decided to export the phone to a lawless country before publishing their theft.
Again, capitalism can mean many different things, and what we have now is far from the textbook ideal.
I didn't realize there is a textbook ideal capitalism. Isn't that sort of like textbook ideal temperature? Economics recognizes capitalism as one of several elements vital to a stable, modern economy. So I'm not sure what you mean by ideal capitalism. Perhaps you're referring to what might be called "extreme" capitalism, where capitalism is unchecked by socialism and the economy is unstable and collapsing?
But Apple is creating artificial barriers to interchangeability.
So what? So does Bic with their razors. So does Nintendo with their video games. Why do you think those barriers are uncompetitive when people have several other choices of smart phones, including ones with larger shares of the market?
Legality/illegality is besides the point. Avoiding criminality is not the bar we should aim for in our dealings with others. (Hence my argument that the antitrust laws we have do the absolute least they could...) Something doesn't have to be illegal to be regulated.
I disagree. The government 's job is to follow the law and prevent illegal actions. Unless they are specifically granted the legal authority to regulate something, they have no business spending my tax dollars on it. Avoiding criminality should be all it takes to keep the government from interfering with your business operations. Especially in this day and age where the government is not even doing that much with regard to many, many large companies that are routinely violating the law.
That is the issue. This action by Apple is pretty new in the history of things: Never has a large computer maker said that you have to use its own dev tools, and that no other dev tools can be used in the process, even if you do use their tools.
What are you talking about? Large computer appliance makers have done this for ages for software they offer through a service to end users. Ever tried shipping a DS game that didn't use Nintendo's tools? If Apple is the one suppling the application store, they have every legal right to place whatever criteria they want on those making applications (with a few specific exceptions).
And again, if it is not in fact illegal, then the only option is to try and educate and provide information to people so they at least have the full knowledge that their choices are being artificially restricted at Apple's whims, and what that might potentially mean for them down the road.
Not the government's job!!! Certainly not with my tax dollars.
Except, that this analogy is opposite. You are conflating government restrictions on freedom expression, with the government investigating impediments to freedom of expression.
I don't think you understand freedom of expression. It applies only to the government not to private companies. A publisher deciding not to publish your book is not a barrier to freedom of expression. You're free to express, Apple is free to express only what they want. You have no right to express yourself via any private venue forcibly taking the resources to do so from another.
What you missed in my comment was the commonality, that of the government going after and harassing companies for doing things people in the government did not like, despite those actions being perfectly legal. That is a direct threat to the principal of rule by law.
And no, I don't not feel that the government should value Apple's freedom of expression equally given the relative individual imbalance of power in the relationship between consumers and producers.
So using the same principals you think publishers should be forced to publish any crap book someone wants them to? And book stores should have to carry them because book publishers and stores have more power than authors? Is t
I've got to say, I don't see a ton of value in Mandriva as a business acquisition. They have some sales deals mostly in France and Brazil, but not enough to really make much in the way of revenue. Their distro is solid, but not really ahead of Ubuntu in any meaningful way. Their only real value as I see it, is the developer expertise. The business people seem to be pretty clueless and disorganized. I'm not sure it makes a lot of business sense to buy Mandriva for their distribution if you're looking to get into (or are already in) the desktop Linux business. Developers in the community tend to target the leaders, so they will always be at a disadvantage to bigger distros. What does buying Mandriva and using it on appliances or netbooks get you versus hiring people and going with Ubuntu or even ChromeOS? Both Canonical and Google seem willing and eager to partner. This just leaves the question in my mind of what another fragment of the Linux distro pie brings as a business asset. Maybe Canonical or Google or Redhat could buy them for the developers and mothball Mandriva while merging it with their own distro. That would make sense as a way to branch into the markets in those countries and get functional developer teams.