So what we're moving towards a more general discussion of antitrust law and what it should or should not restrict. Personally, I think capitalism is an incredibly powerful and useful way to harness self interest and real world motivations to benefit society. Abusing a dominant position in a market to gain in another market, undermines this process. When a monopoly is not being leveraged, however, the market does a good job of solving the problem on it's own.
You argue that what Apple is doing is anti-competitive, but I see it as very competitive. People choose to buy an iPhone or a Droid or a Blackberry or one of many other options. Apple's actions with what they install on their phone in the way of application support frameworks; are a determining factor for consumers. While that factor is bundled together with all the other aspects of their phone, I don't think bundling when one of the markets is not monopolized undermines the process, and most economists and the people who wrote our antitrust law have the same opinion. There's certainly a case to be made that it does undermine free trade, but I haven't been convinced and I don't now how we'd address such a vague topic legally in any case. Feel free to present any argument as to why you think it does.
Yes, my mistake in discussing with a lawyer/lawyer-esque.:)
I'm not a lawyer, just read to much.
When you rewrite the rules halfway through the game in the way Apple has, then there is a sense of fairness that is violated, and it will be up to the investigators to determine if that violation of fairness rises to the level requiring further action.
Companies rewrite the rules all the time, for services they offer. For investigators to get involved there has to be a crime. We are a country that has rule by law, rather than rule by the arbitrary decisions of those in power. I just don't see what law anyone thinks Apple violated. This is a separate argument from whether or not Apple's actions should be illegal. I don't think anyone favors allowing the government to implement and retroactively punish people for things that were not crimes when they were committed.
I was furthermore saying, whether it in fact turns out to be found as illegal or not, that shining the light through the inquiry may have benefits regardless of the outcome, by raising awareness, bad publicity, etc.
I don't think this is the government's job either. I don't support the government going after pornographers not breaking the law in order to bring bad PR and the same applies in this case. If it isn't illegal the government could work to making it so, or leave it alone.
I doubt many educated people actually subscribe to the idea that we have 'too much antitrust' regulation, besides a pro-forma lip service as paid spokespeople to the industries most likely to be found monopolistic.
Actually, I think our antitrust law is just fine the way it is. Our problem is we don't actually enforce the laws and let companies get away with breaking the law. Microsoft, for example, has not been prosecuted in the US for obvious violations of antitrust law, including ones they have been convicted of in other countries with very similar laws.
Thinking that competition will somehow always get to the 'right' or a 'good' solution when artificial barriers are being placed in its path, assumes that we are actually in a free market, and that information exchange is perfect.
This is a bit hyperbolic. The free market does not need to be perfect, just functioning. You can't just say that there are artificial barriers preventing competition in this case. You have to call them out and show how they're preventing competition. Why do you think Apple's decision to not include Flash on iPhones will not effect whether or not customers buy iPhones and why do you think that is created by an artificial barrier rather
Now the anti-trust investigations are into Apple's abusive market practices, the ones that come to mind immediately are banning an application just because it mentions a competitor or changing the established rules to block the release of an application
Umm, and what antitrust law do you think this is violating?
These are the actions of an abusive company, the fact that they have such great influence over Digital Media Players and media distribution means that they should be investigated.
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? By analogy, a man is stopped for loitering. Records show he used to own a firearm, even though none is found on him. Should he be investigated for the crime of carrying a concealed weapon? Just because someone may or may not have a power that comes with legal responsibility does not mean they should be investigated for unrelated actions. Antitrust law prohibits a company from leveraging overwhelming market share, but if that market is not involved, they have no legal responsibility.
If you bothered to actually read my post instead of posting a knee-jerk Apple defence you would have figured that one out.
I read you post, but it seems to be assertions from a person who doesn't actually know what they're talking about. I asked for specifics in my last post. Here's what you need for a coherent argument that Apple is violating antitrust law:
Market monopolized
How that marekt is illegally being leveraged
How Android market share for mobile OS's effects this
Please no more vague claims of some unnamed crime. Put up or shut up.
Market share has absolutely nothing to do with vertical monopolies, which is what Apple has.
I think you're misusing the term. "Vertical monopoly" is a legal term which refers to a company that has gained dominant market share in a given market through the use of vertical integration. Apple is a vertical integrator at this point, not a vertical monopoly.
... that's what they should be nailed on if an anti-monopoly investigation goes through.
You probably need to research antitrust law more thoroughly. Being a monopoly, for example, is not illegal. Abusing a monopoly in certain ways is illegal. So far, no one has even proposed a credible theory as to what they think Apple is doing that is illegal, and several expert on the subject have been asking.
And at the end of the day, just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean it is good.
No, but neither does it mean it is bad. There are reasons why we write our laws the way we do. Firing a gun into a target is usually legal while firing a gun into your postal worker is not. This isn't an arbitrary distinction and saying "just because shooting a gun into a target isn't illegal doesn't mean it is good" does not really advance a cogent argument as to whether or not it should be.
The fact is that if Microsoft was doing some of the things Apple was doing, people would be up in arms and having fits.
Maybe, maybe not, but then most people don't understand why we have antitrust laws or how they protect our economy and benefit citizenry.
While they technically may not be illegal for Apple to do, it doesn't mean they are ok or good for consumers, or even good for Apple in the long term.
No, but we have competition in the market to sort that out. Antitrust is about making sure that competition can work and is not undermined. Apple choosing not to allow Flash on their phones, may be one of the factors driving the growth of Android phones, or maybe not. Either way, the market is deciding so it's fine in my book.
The point of a lot of this is to make very clear to Apple the bridges it is burning with this, with the loss of developer good will, and making specious arguments about HTML5 which aren't true (it is the FUTURE...but the future is not now).
Maybe so, and maybe it will drive developers Apple wants/needs away. Or maybe not. We'll see eventually.
Again, this isn't about Flash. It is about Apple dictating what language the code is written in.
I think you've wandered a long ways away from the antitrust topic I mentioned as well as the main point of the article being Android sales.
Apple could have banned just Flash, or relegated 3rd party toolkits to a separate section of the AppStore, or made big warnings before running/installing, or actually banned apps on merit rather than the tools used.
Not more than a month ago people were complaining most vocally that Apple did not make clear enough to developers what apps would and would not be accepted until the developers had already invested in making them. Maybe Apple listened and wrote these guidelines to be strict so that problem would be mitigated. But Apple wants to do more than ban bad apps. They want to make sure apps don't stagnate and fail to take advantage of whatever cool features Apple adds because the developers are reliant upon a third party to implement them in the toolkit first. How can Apple out compete a rival phone maker if developers are all using a cross platform toolkit that does not allow them to use whatever Apple adds to the iPhone until most other phones implement the same?
The Anti-trust issue is with Apples abusive business practices. The Monopoly part is Apples stranglehold on the MP3 player and digital music distribution services.
Apple doesn't seem to have monopoly influence on mp3 players, especially due to the convergence of the mp3 player and cell phone markets. Apple might have monopoly influence on digital music distribution, but it is borderline and untested in court. For it to be an antitrust issue, however, Apple needs to be leveraging that market share in some illegal way and I sure don't see how Flash on the iPhone figures in.
By your reasoning I can conclude that Microsoft is not a monopoly because the Zune and Bing have tiny market shares in their respective markets.
Are you being obtuse? I spoke only about antitrust abuse, not monopoly status. Trying to claim that I said Apple does not have monopoly influence in any market is disingenuous or just incorrect. How, exactly, does anyone think Apple is leveraging monopoly influence in a market, what market, and how does it matter if Android phones have more market share with regard to whether or not Apple's actions are legal. Please be specific, none of this vague insinuation.
Price fixing, tying, refusal to deal, dumping, etc. are all anti-competitive activities that can and are regulated without the perpetrator being a monopolist.
That's sort of true, depending upon if you consider a cartel of companies to be a monopoly. Price fixing and tying are terms that requires either monopoly influence (e.g. Microsoft) or the collusion of a cartel (e.g. RIAA) in a market. You can't do the former without it and the latter is not problematic if you don't have dominance in a market. Refusal to deal is the same case in the US, but not in all countries. Dumping on the other hand does not require monopoly influence in the US and varies widely in countries around the world (and is an issue for the WTO as well). I don't think any of these apply in this case however; certainly not in the US which is why lawyers, economists and pundits are all wondering what the deal is.
I think people misunderstand that 'antitrust' law really is another name for 'competition' law, and that any anti-competitive behavior may be regulated whether there is a monopoly or not.
Competition law is an area of law that encompasses more than antitrust law. Antitrust law is a term mostly used in the US (and lumped into competition law in Europe), but which applies to any sort of cartel or individual company with overwhelming dominance in a market. Not much antitrust law can really apply to Apple's rules for iPhone developers as noted by several lawyers expert on the subject after the news reported Adobe was filing a complaint. See antitrust expert Hillard Sterling's comments, as an example.
but companies could face anti-trust action even if they don't own a monopoly over a product or service. (Confirm/Deny?)
In order for antitrust law to apply a company or cartel of companies needs to have sufficiently large influence in a given market. Now there are some other competition laws that apply to smaller market share, but for the most part, no you have to be dominant in a market (usually 70% is considered a guideline) for antitrust laws to apply. Several legal experts chimed in with the same when the whole issue hit the news and they were quoted by the business news, but since it was not entertaining enough they were quickly drowned out by the speculation of the clueless in the tech news.
So Apple having 20% of the market and being behind RIM and Android is different from an antitrust perspective than Apple having 20% of the market behind RIM and a bunch of other companies that share an OS? Do the people making these comments even think they make any sense? Apple can argue it isn't dominant if it's #3 for phones sold with a given OS (having little to do with the markets that define antitrust law) and it can't argue it isn't dominant if it is #2 in the market for smartphone sales? Insanity!
Right, so why haven't they pushed to donate the H.264 patents?
Why would they? How does donating the patents to umm, something, sell more Apple devices?
You also realize Webkit is a fork of Konqueror, right?
Actually it's a fork of KHTML, which is part of Konquerer, but Apple rewrote huge amounts of it. They also wrote and released the javascript engine. Both the javascript and a lot of the recent work on the engine to support HTML5 has been by Apple, with Google doing probably about the same level of work on the HTML engine, but using their own javascript engine.
And Apple is one of many companies who contribute code to it.
True, but they're the ones who took the KHTML code and established all the infrastructure to make it useful for major companies to collaborate on it. Back in the the day the Konquerer folks ran it as an open source project, but had no idea how to handle real contributions from a significant number of commercial organizations. Apple is also as big of a contributor as any other company.
Others include Microsoft, Google and Adobe.
The founders were Apple, Opera, and mozilla. Google joined later. As far as I know Adobe and MS have never joined, although MS was invited.
I can't imagine you sitting here arguing that Adobe is pushing HTML5 with the evidence they contribute to Webkit and are on the WG.
What code has Adobe contributed? How have they helped advance the standard. Can you provide a citation that they are contributing to WHATWG.
If you think Apple is somehow leading a charge on HTML5 in any financially significant way, you're blind.
Really? I'd say with Google, Apple is one of the biggest financial supporters of HTML5, not to mention spending a lot of money convincing companies to move to it instead of just supporting Flash.
Yes, they make more revenue from devices. No, they dont make an "insignificant" amount of revenue from the app store.
Compared to devices, and when considering a business plan that is going to promote one at the expense of the other... yeah it is insignificant. You'd have to be a moron to hinder iPhone sales to try to eke out a bit of cash on apps.
You basically also said that the profit margin is low on apps but neglected to mention the profit margin from devices.
Actually I only talked about revenue, not margins.
Web services are already in place and were developed pre-HTML5 with javascript.
Because Apple isn't building and rebuilding Web services? And they didn't just dump a pile of money into HTML5 dev tools for Web services. I'm sure they're not reworking Lala and iTMS or any other services.
Again, you're arguing that HTML5 somehow enables the selling of devices more than the app store, which is just some kind of insane rose-colored tunnel vision.
No, I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that dependence upon Flash limits Apple's ability to push the device forward, secure the device, and increase the performance of the device because it is entirely reliant upon another company's code. You're the one arguing Apple's motivation for banning Flash was related to selling apps.
Sigh. They haven't added any security by blocking native apps compiled from Flash.
They don't allow native apps compiled from Flash because of performance reasons and because they don't want their platform limited by the tools of other vendors. They improve security greatly by not allowing Flash to run from the Web.
Also how much you wanna bet Safari will be equally crashy with canvas and HTML5 video?
It has it now and is not. And even if it were, then Apple can fix it instead of having to try to convince Adobe to do so, when Adobe has
Sure, try "coding" a 3D game in CSS and Javascript and see how that works out for you.
There's no reason one can't. A lot of the nice tools aren't there yet, but HTML5 has decent support for 3D graphics.
HTML5 does not specify any device-specific APIs - you have no clue what you are talking about.
Umm, you can use HTML5 applications to call on the needed APIs though and Apple does expose a great deal of the hardware to Webkit.
WebOS? What? Did Apple somehow allow WebOS to be installed in iPhone?
Your argument was that HTML5 apps are too limited to be useful. I pointed out WebOS where all apps are that way. This is called a "counter-example". Do you need me to repeat that for you a few times?
Also, Apple may just open source the iPhone OS at some point in the future - so there's nothing preventing us from calling it open source right now then.
Well, significant parts of it are open source right now, but again you can't claim Apple is going to do something in the future as the basis for your argument unless you have some support for that hypothesis. If all you have is speculation, your comments are worthless.
On the other hand, If the temperature goes up, or down, if there is more rain, or less rain, more hurricanes, or less hurricanes, glaciers get bigger or smaller, see ice expands or contracts, droughts or floods, it's all evidence for global warming!
And this is your very understandable misconception. The press often claims such things are evidence of global warming, but do you see any scientific models predicting these things? All the climactic models I've seen make predictions about general trends over the course of many years, not specific temperatures at specific places at a specific time, nor glacier size in a given year. If you think that's what global warming models predict, you must be looking at very different models than I.
In the end, the people who have to believe in global warming are the Chinese and the Indian governments and they don't believe it.
That's a different issue. Many people in the government might believe, but they also might not act on that for any number of reasons. It doesn't change what is true and that we need to face reality and do what we can, be that completely stopping trade with China until they do comply with pollution controls, or implementing carbon sequestration to compensate for the carbon being emitted.
Competitive advantage is that "iApps" work only on iPhones and iPods and iPads. Flash apps would work on any device with the flash support.
You can code an iApp in HTML5 using CSS and javascript and it will work on iPhones and anything else. You can even use a toolkit and put them in the app store. The difference is no company external to Apple controls what apps can do.
HTML5 "apps" are not really in the same ballpark. They don't get things like push notifications and cannot take advantage of the SDK APIs Apple provides for their devices. They are basically glorified mobile web pages, nothing else.
They don't have access to all the same APIs, but they do have access to many. Web apps certainly are up and coming and WebOS based phones run entirely using them.
However, Apple likes control. They want to make sure that doesn't happen (prevent other app stores and cross platform web apps).
Do you have an evidence to back up that statement?
Sure - can an average iPhone owner install 3rd party apps that have not been pre-approved by Apple on their iPhones/iPods/iPads
Claiming that because Apple does not allow native apps to be distributed by other companies, is not an argument that they will prevent third parties from implementing it in the future. It's a non sequitur.
You can label it as you like and we can discuss the philosophical meanings of labels all week. But the fact remains that they want to make devices, and have full control of the software on those devices. Adobe Flash would open a possible door of jeopardizing that level of control.
Apple acts in their best financial interests not in some abstract desire for control when that does not bring them more profit. You seem to be assigning motives that are oversimplified because you don't understand how they profit or why they make the decisions they do.
That's what speed cameras are for, to keep everyone compliant and going at the same speed...
The question is, why do you believe speed cameras keep everyone going at the same speed? There have been a few, very obviously unscientific studies of the data, but I've not seen a single reasonable study of the issue that claims that is the case. From my own personal observations, it seems to cause more rapid variation of speed as people slow down then speed up for cameras. So why would a reasonable person believe they reduce accidents?
"fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong."
I thought the goal was to prove something right?
No, not at all. Science works by proposing hypothesis, which become theories and eventually well tested theories. The process by which this happens is experimentation that would falsify the theory. Every time an experiment fails to falsify the theory, the theory gains credibility. So science is all about conducting experiments designed to disprove theories (like the prevailing global warming theory).
You can not prove something wrong unless something is proven right first.
The scientific method never proves anything right. It implies a theory is right (inductive evidence if you took logic) based upon empirical tests (deductive).
...that means your right would be a fallacy, right? or am I wrong?
Nope, informal logic like science isn't about proofs it's about competing theories gathering support via a formalized logical methodology. Logic dictates that we should believe and act in accordance with the most supported theory at any given time, while still continuing to conduct additional experiments which could, at any point, change what that most supported theory is or require modification of it. The strength of a theory is based upon its ability to make useful predictions, that when tested don't "prove it wrong".
Sorry, you already lost me. The WSJ lost all credibility when they were bought by Fox and the nature of their articles began to change dramatically. You see, Fox is the corporate "news" that went to court to assert their right to fire journalists in their employ who refused to lie to viewers and sign agreements to not talk about public health risks posed by a drug company that was a large advertiser. To be clear, Fox was correct, they do have that right... but they also now have ZERO credibility as a news organization and even less when expressing their "opinions" about how controversial topics are portrayed.
IE still makes up the majority of browser use and it doesn't run html5. It does run flash.
First, MS is implementing HTML5 in IE to some extent. They want to get away from Flash as much as anyone. Second, Flash runs via plug-in in IE and HTML5 can do the same with Chrome Frame.Not as many users will have it installed right away, mind you, but that will likely change as more and more sites start using HTML5 and as Google pushes Chrome Frame more aggressively as a way to allow their Web apps to be more functional.
How can a lower speed limit make conditions less safe?
From a formal study (Report No. FHWA-RD-92-084 U.S. Department of Transportation Research, Development, and Technology - Federal Highway Administration):
" Unrealistic limits increase accident risks for persons who attempt to comply with limit by driving slower or faster than the majority of road users, Unreasonably low limits significantly decrease driver compliance and give road users such as person not familiar with the road and pedestrians, a false indication of actual traffic speeds."
and:
"Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent. "
With HTML5 Apple ultimately controls the browser and how it works.
To some extent. If they deviate too far from the standards implemented by others, they lose compatibility with things like Google's apps and how other browsers render the same sites. Since Apple doesn't have such a huge portion of the market, sites are unlikely to code specifically for Apple devices unless they can be compatible with other devices as well.
Adobe could very easily make their own "app store" where they can sell cross-platform apps that work on iPhone, Nokia Symbian and MeeGo/Maemo, Android and Blackberry phones, as well as netbooks, tablets, computers, etc.. If that were to happen, Apple would lose control, and potentially their competitive advantage.
That depends upon what you think their competitive advantage is. Companies can code HTML5 apps right now and put together their own store, offering the same app in both Apple's store, their own store, and as a regular Web app. Apple isn't doing anything to stop them.
However, Apple likes control. They want to make sure that doesn't happen.
Do you have an evidence to back up that statement? It sounds like pure speculation.
Apple is NOT just a hardware company - it never was, and there are no indications it aims to be in the future.
Apple is a device company for the most part. They provide hardware, software, and services that work together and sell it as a nice package. They make their money selling the devices though and many of the services are run at near break even rates in order to promote the sales of the devices. Apple makes very little on the iTunes and App stores, compared to what they make selling Macs and iPhones.
They are "pushing" HTML5 in part so they can ditch Adobe.
Well, so they can ditch Flash as being a blocker for their platform. They aren't ditching Adobe as a developer of software for their platforms. I for one am pretty happy they're pushing to get rid of a proprietary platform and replace ti with an open standard. Adobe plays hardball in pushing their closed platforms and it takes someone with leverage to push back effectively.
By being one of the authors of the spec, by implementing it in their browser and contributing to Webkit so it is implemented in other browsers, by refusing to implement Flash or Silverlight so Web developers that want to reach many of Apple's users are forced to use HTML5, and by widely touting HTML5 in the press until many developers and business people are familiar with the term and associate it with the direction of technology.
Just because Steve posts his open letter doesn't mean he gives a flying fsck about something that makes him no money.
Ah, but it does make him money when he builds Web services on top of it. More importantly, it prevents others from being a roadblock to him making money by selling Macs, iPods, iPhones, and iPads. People buy more Apple devices if those devices are secure, and Macs are more secure and less crashy if they don't have to deal with Flash.
It's like you're saying the app store doesnt make them enough money to matter but HTML5 with it's 0 revenue is what matters.
The app store makes them very little money in comparison to selling devices, but it indirectly motivates those sales of devices. It's like saying good television doesn't make Samsung any money, but it motivates people to buy their televisions so they care about it.
This argument would hold some weight if you could sell HTML5 apps in the app store.
Umm, you can and many developers do and Apple has specifically stated dev kits like Phonegap, created for this purpose continue to be acceptable even with the new developer agreement.
You dont think Apple is making significant money from the app store? How about 30% of every app sold in a several hundred million dollar business.
Which, assuming Apple has very, very low costs and hasn't been selling any music or video, still only amounts to about 6% of their revenue (absurdly optimistic ideas), compared to the 40% or so of their revenue coming from sales of iPhones, iPads, and IPod Touch devices. Apple runs the app store at slightly more than break even prices, as Jobs has publicly stated to shareholders, so unless you think he's violating SEC rules and jeopardizing his company over a few percent of revenue, you just don't know what you're talking about.
Absolutely, but every few days another prominent site announces they're moving away from it, or simply does so. That is largely thanks to Apple and while don't own or plan to own an iPhone, I'm very glad they have the power to make that happen and are using it. Their best interests (as was the case for DRM on music) happen to align with the best interests of consumers in the industry and it benefits us all.
Well, it is a straw man now, but Apple fans have in the past claimed that Apple invented a number of things that they didn't invent.
First, who cares what some unnamed person has claimed in the past? Second, how does that make your argument relevant to the conversation we're having any more than if I mention some people associated with closed source software in the past have also turned out to be child molesters?
Uh, you don't create apps with HTML. It's not possible.
Quick cll the press!!! all those HTML and javascript Web apps don't exist! it's all a scam!
Flash is highly useful for this because it can do a lot more than most web friendly languages.
Flash is useful because it has better supported creation tools and more install base right now, not because it is inherently better. Any technology that relies upon a single developer to provide a closed source component is flawed and needs to be worked around so we can have competitive development going forward without one company holding up progress.
sh is better suited for. Like interactivity, animation, transitions, eye-candy, platform games, etc.
I don't see how Flash is better suited for any of those than HTML5, only how the tools available to developers are better for a subset of those applications of it.
Plus with the IDE that does programming, drawing, animation, image manipulation, and video, there is nothing that compares.
I agree with this, but that is the only point on which I agree. When and if better tools for creating HTML5 compliant applications are created, Flash will be inferior in every way and we need to work to make sure we don't get stuck with that inferior solution.
No, they support HTML5 because it isn't used yet, and otherwise it would be too obvious that they want you only to use paid apps.
Umm, they have free apps they provide hosting for in the App store. Also, HTML5 is in use as per the article earlier today, YouTube, and dozens of other companies. Your argument that they will somehow stop support for HTML5 once it gains more market share is simply speculation supported by nothing at all. You provide no coherent motivation for Apple nor evidence that it will happen.
A lot of people consider the iPad crippled because you can only install approved apps on it. The refusal to allow flash is just a side effect of that.
True, lot of people think that so they buy a different phone and go on with their lives. A few people, however, seem to think they have some sort of inherent right to use both the phone they want, but should be able to force the manufacturer of the phone to customize the phone to their specifications with regard to software and services.
...particularly when the reasons for disallowing a common technology are that their corporate dictator just has a grudge against a particular technology.
It's called business. I used to make expensive security appliances for installation on people's networks. Our clients had no inherent right to dictate to us that we have to install a given OS or software package on our appliances and if they re-imaged them to have different software, we had no obligation to provide support or services to those machines. We didn't make a Windows version of our appliance because we didn't want to be dependent upon Microsoft who could dictate to us what improvements we could make on our appliances. That's a business decision. Apple doesn't want Adobe to be able to dictate to them how secure their phones are or how Web apps perform on them, or if they can provide given features to Web apps. It makes sense to me. Maybe I won't buy an iPhone because I want more flexibility, but unless Apple has monopoly influence, I don't see why I should be able to force them to do something else.
If Steve Jobs decides next week that audio-only songs are simply not useful and that from now on only songs with videos can be used on the device, then your are forced to bend over and take it, because you've already signed control of your device over to a technological caretaker.
Were you intending this to be a strawman or a slippery slope logical fallacy?
It's the antithesis to the democratic way of life - namely that the people should be free to make their own choices
That Apple should be free to make their own choices or is freedom you being able to tell others what to do? You're free not to buy an iPhone. Apple is free to make the iPhone however they want. That's not the antithesis of freedom. I might mention, democracy and freedom are not the same thing. Democracies do not imply freedom. There are very, very few democratically run companies as it is an unusual business model that takes a lot of cooperation to get started and most investment capital is concentrated.
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So what we're moving towards a more general discussion of antitrust law and what it should or should not restrict. Personally, I think capitalism is an incredibly powerful and useful way to harness self interest and real world motivations to benefit society. Abusing a dominant position in a market to gain in another market, undermines this process. When a monopoly is not being leveraged, however, the market does a good job of solving the problem on it's own.
You argue that what Apple is doing is anti-competitive, but I see it as very competitive. People choose to buy an iPhone or a Droid or a Blackberry or one of many other options. Apple's actions with what they install on their phone in the way of application support frameworks; are a determining factor for consumers. While that factor is bundled together with all the other aspects of their phone, I don't think bundling when one of the markets is not monopolized undermines the process, and most economists and the people who wrote our antitrust law have the same opinion. There's certainly a case to be made that it does undermine free trade, but I haven't been convinced and I don't now how we'd address such a vague topic legally in any case. Feel free to present any argument as to why you think it does.
Yes, my mistake in discussing with a lawyer/lawyer-esque. :)
I'm not a lawyer, just read to much.
When you rewrite the rules halfway through the game in the way Apple has, then there is a sense of fairness that is violated, and it will be up to the investigators to determine if that violation of fairness rises to the level requiring further action.
Companies rewrite the rules all the time, for services they offer. For investigators to get involved there has to be a crime. We are a country that has rule by law, rather than rule by the arbitrary decisions of those in power. I just don't see what law anyone thinks Apple violated. This is a separate argument from whether or not Apple's actions should be illegal. I don't think anyone favors allowing the government to implement and retroactively punish people for things that were not crimes when they were committed.
I was furthermore saying, whether it in fact turns out to be found as illegal or not, that shining the light through the inquiry may have benefits regardless of the outcome, by raising awareness, bad publicity, etc.
I don't think this is the government's job either. I don't support the government going after pornographers not breaking the law in order to bring bad PR and the same applies in this case. If it isn't illegal the government could work to making it so, or leave it alone.
I doubt many educated people actually subscribe to the idea that we have 'too much antitrust' regulation, besides a pro-forma lip service as paid spokespeople to the industries most likely to be found monopolistic.
Actually, I think our antitrust law is just fine the way it is. Our problem is we don't actually enforce the laws and let companies get away with breaking the law. Microsoft, for example, has not been prosecuted in the US for obvious violations of antitrust law, including ones they have been convicted of in other countries with very similar laws.
Thinking that competition will somehow always get to the 'right' or a 'good' solution when artificial barriers are being placed in its path, assumes that we are actually in a free market, and that information exchange is perfect.
This is a bit hyperbolic. The free market does not need to be perfect, just functioning. You can't just say that there are artificial barriers preventing competition in this case. You have to call them out and show how they're preventing competition. Why do you think Apple's decision to not include Flash on iPhones will not effect whether or not customers buy iPhones and why do you think that is created by an artificial barrier rather
Now the anti-trust investigations are into Apple's abusive market practices, the ones that come to mind immediately are banning an application just because it mentions a competitor or changing the established rules to block the release of an application
Umm, and what antitrust law do you think this is violating?
These are the actions of an abusive company, the fact that they have such great influence over Digital Media Players and media distribution means that they should be investigated.
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? By analogy, a man is stopped for loitering. Records show he used to own a firearm, even though none is found on him. Should he be investigated for the crime of carrying a concealed weapon? Just because someone may or may not have a power that comes with legal responsibility does not mean they should be investigated for unrelated actions. Antitrust law prohibits a company from leveraging overwhelming market share, but if that market is not involved, they have no legal responsibility.
If you bothered to actually read my post instead of posting a knee-jerk Apple defence you would have figured that one out.
I read you post, but it seems to be assertions from a person who doesn't actually know what they're talking about. I asked for specifics in my last post. Here's what you need for a coherent argument that Apple is violating antitrust law:
Please no more vague claims of some unnamed crime. Put up or shut up.
Market share has absolutely nothing to do with vertical monopolies, which is what Apple has.
I think you're misusing the term. "Vertical monopoly" is a legal term which refers to a company that has gained dominant market share in a given market through the use of vertical integration. Apple is a vertical integrator at this point, not a vertical monopoly.
... that's what they should be nailed on if an anti-monopoly investigation goes through.
You probably need to research antitrust law more thoroughly. Being a monopoly, for example, is not illegal. Abusing a monopoly in certain ways is illegal. So far, no one has even proposed a credible theory as to what they think Apple is doing that is illegal, and several expert on the subject have been asking.
And at the end of the day, just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean it is good.
No, but neither does it mean it is bad. There are reasons why we write our laws the way we do. Firing a gun into a target is usually legal while firing a gun into your postal worker is not. This isn't an arbitrary distinction and saying "just because shooting a gun into a target isn't illegal doesn't mean it is good" does not really advance a cogent argument as to whether or not it should be.
The fact is that if Microsoft was doing some of the things Apple was doing, people would be up in arms and having fits.
Maybe, maybe not, but then most people don't understand why we have antitrust laws or how they protect our economy and benefit citizenry.
While they technically may not be illegal for Apple to do, it doesn't mean they are ok or good for consumers, or even good for Apple in the long term.
No, but we have competition in the market to sort that out. Antitrust is about making sure that competition can work and is not undermined. Apple choosing not to allow Flash on their phones, may be one of the factors driving the growth of Android phones, or maybe not. Either way, the market is deciding so it's fine in my book.
The point of a lot of this is to make very clear to Apple the bridges it is burning with this, with the loss of developer good will, and making specious arguments about HTML5 which aren't true (it is the FUTURE...but the future is not now).
Maybe so, and maybe it will drive developers Apple wants/needs away. Or maybe not. We'll see eventually.
Again, this isn't about Flash. It is about Apple dictating what language the code is written in.
I think you've wandered a long ways away from the antitrust topic I mentioned as well as the main point of the article being Android sales.
Apple could have banned just Flash, or relegated 3rd party toolkits to a separate section of the AppStore, or made big warnings before running/installing, or actually banned apps on merit rather than the tools used.
Not more than a month ago people were complaining most vocally that Apple did not make clear enough to developers what apps would and would not be accepted until the developers had already invested in making them. Maybe Apple listened and wrote these guidelines to be strict so that problem would be mitigated. But Apple wants to do more than ban bad apps. They want to make sure apps don't stagnate and fail to take advantage of whatever cool features Apple adds because the developers are reliant upon a third party to implement them in the toolkit first. How can Apple out compete a rival phone maker if developers are all using a cross platform toolkit that does not allow them to use whatever Apple adds to the iPhone until most other phones implement the same?
The Anti-trust issue is with Apples abusive business practices. The Monopoly part is Apples stranglehold on the MP3 player and digital music distribution services.
Apple doesn't seem to have monopoly influence on mp3 players, especially due to the convergence of the mp3 player and cell phone markets. Apple might have monopoly influence on digital music distribution, but it is borderline and untested in court. For it to be an antitrust issue, however, Apple needs to be leveraging that market share in some illegal way and I sure don't see how Flash on the iPhone figures in.
By your reasoning I can conclude that Microsoft is not a monopoly because the Zune and Bing have tiny market shares in their respective markets.
Are you being obtuse? I spoke only about antitrust abuse, not monopoly status. Trying to claim that I said Apple does not have monopoly influence in any market is disingenuous or just incorrect. How, exactly, does anyone think Apple is leveraging monopoly influence in a market, what market, and how does it matter if Android phones have more market share with regard to whether or not Apple's actions are legal. Please be specific, none of this vague insinuation.
Price fixing, tying, refusal to deal, dumping, etc. are all anti-competitive activities that can and are regulated without the perpetrator being a monopolist.
That's sort of true, depending upon if you consider a cartel of companies to be a monopoly. Price fixing and tying are terms that requires either monopoly influence (e.g. Microsoft) or the collusion of a cartel (e.g. RIAA) in a market. You can't do the former without it and the latter is not problematic if you don't have dominance in a market. Refusal to deal is the same case in the US, but not in all countries. Dumping on the other hand does not require monopoly influence in the US and varies widely in countries around the world (and is an issue for the WTO as well). I don't think any of these apply in this case however; certainly not in the US which is why lawyers, economists and pundits are all wondering what the deal is.
I think people misunderstand that 'antitrust' law really is another name for 'competition' law, and that any anti-competitive behavior may be regulated whether there is a monopoly or not.
Competition law is an area of law that encompasses more than antitrust law. Antitrust law is a term mostly used in the US (and lumped into competition law in Europe), but which applies to any sort of cartel or individual company with overwhelming dominance in a market. Not much antitrust law can really apply to Apple's rules for iPhone developers as noted by several lawyers expert on the subject after the news reported Adobe was filing a complaint. See antitrust expert Hillard Sterling's comments, as an example.
but companies could face anti-trust action even if they don't own a monopoly over a product or service. (Confirm/Deny?)
In order for antitrust law to apply a company or cartel of companies needs to have sufficiently large influence in a given market. Now there are some other competition laws that apply to smaller market share, but for the most part, no you have to be dominant in a market (usually 70% is considered a guideline) for antitrust laws to apply. Several legal experts chimed in with the same when the whole issue hit the news and they were quoted by the business news, but since it was not entertaining enough they were quickly drowned out by the speculation of the clueless in the tech news.
So Apple having 20% of the market and being behind RIM and Android is different from an antitrust perspective than Apple having 20% of the market behind RIM and a bunch of other companies that share an OS? Do the people making these comments even think they make any sense? Apple can argue it isn't dominant if it's #3 for phones sold with a given OS (having little to do with the markets that define antitrust law) and it can't argue it isn't dominant if it is #2 in the market for smartphone sales? Insanity!
Right, so why haven't they pushed to donate the H.264 patents?
Why would they? How does donating the patents to umm, something, sell more Apple devices?
You also realize Webkit is a fork of Konqueror, right?
Actually it's a fork of KHTML, which is part of Konquerer, but Apple rewrote huge amounts of it. They also wrote and released the javascript engine. Both the javascript and a lot of the recent work on the engine to support HTML5 has been by Apple, with Google doing probably about the same level of work on the HTML engine, but using their own javascript engine.
And Apple is one of many companies who contribute code to it.
True, but they're the ones who took the KHTML code and established all the infrastructure to make it useful for major companies to collaborate on it. Back in the the day the Konquerer folks ran it as an open source project, but had no idea how to handle real contributions from a significant number of commercial organizations. Apple is also as big of a contributor as any other company.
Others include Microsoft, Google and Adobe.
The founders were Apple, Opera, and mozilla. Google joined later. As far as I know Adobe and MS have never joined, although MS was invited.
I can't imagine you sitting here arguing that Adobe is pushing HTML5 with the evidence they contribute to Webkit and are on the WG.
What code has Adobe contributed? How have they helped advance the standard. Can you provide a citation that they are contributing to WHATWG.
If you think Apple is somehow leading a charge on HTML5 in any financially significant way, you're blind.
Really? I'd say with Google, Apple is one of the biggest financial supporters of HTML5, not to mention spending a lot of money convincing companies to move to it instead of just supporting Flash.
Yes, they make more revenue from devices. No, they dont make an "insignificant" amount of revenue from the app store.
Compared to devices, and when considering a business plan that is going to promote one at the expense of the other... yeah it is insignificant. You'd have to be a moron to hinder iPhone sales to try to eke out a bit of cash on apps.
You basically also said that the profit margin is low on apps but neglected to mention the profit margin from devices.
Actually I only talked about revenue, not margins.
Web services are already in place and were developed pre-HTML5 with javascript.
Because Apple isn't building and rebuilding Web services? And they didn't just dump a pile of money into HTML5 dev tools for Web services. I'm sure they're not reworking Lala and iTMS or any other services.
Again, you're arguing that HTML5 somehow enables the selling of devices more than the app store, which is just some kind of insane rose-colored tunnel vision.
No, I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that dependence upon Flash limits Apple's ability to push the device forward, secure the device, and increase the performance of the device because it is entirely reliant upon another company's code. You're the one arguing Apple's motivation for banning Flash was related to selling apps.
Sigh. They haven't added any security by blocking native apps compiled from Flash.
They don't allow native apps compiled from Flash because of performance reasons and because they don't want their platform limited by the tools of other vendors. They improve security greatly by not allowing Flash to run from the Web.
Also how much you wanna bet Safari will be equally crashy with canvas and HTML5 video?
It has it now and is not. And even if it were, then Apple can fix it instead of having to try to convince Adobe to do so, when Adobe has
Sure, try "coding" a 3D game in CSS and Javascript and see how that works out for you.
There's no reason one can't. A lot of the nice tools aren't there yet, but HTML5 has decent support for 3D graphics.
HTML5 does not specify any device-specific APIs - you have no clue what you are talking about.
Umm, you can use HTML5 applications to call on the needed APIs though and Apple does expose a great deal of the hardware to Webkit.
WebOS? What? Did Apple somehow allow WebOS to be installed in iPhone?
Your argument was that HTML5 apps are too limited to be useful. I pointed out WebOS where all apps are that way. This is called a "counter-example". Do you need me to repeat that for you a few times?
Also, Apple may just open source the iPhone OS at some point in the future - so there's nothing preventing us from calling it open source right now then.
Well, significant parts of it are open source right now, but again you can't claim Apple is going to do something in the future as the basis for your argument unless you have some support for that hypothesis. If all you have is speculation, your comments are worthless.
On the other hand, If the temperature goes up, or down, if there is more rain, or less rain, more hurricanes, or less hurricanes, glaciers get bigger or smaller, see ice expands or contracts, droughts or floods, it's all evidence for global warming!
And this is your very understandable misconception. The press often claims such things are evidence of global warming, but do you see any scientific models predicting these things? All the climactic models I've seen make predictions about general trends over the course of many years, not specific temperatures at specific places at a specific time, nor glacier size in a given year. If you think that's what global warming models predict, you must be looking at very different models than I.
In the end, the people who have to believe in global warming are the Chinese and the Indian governments and they don't believe it.
That's a different issue. Many people in the government might believe, but they also might not act on that for any number of reasons. It doesn't change what is true and that we need to face reality and do what we can, be that completely stopping trade with China until they do comply with pollution controls, or implementing carbon sequestration to compensate for the carbon being emitted.
Competitive advantage is that "iApps" work only on iPhones and iPods and iPads. Flash apps would work on any device with the flash support.
You can code an iApp in HTML5 using CSS and javascript and it will work on iPhones and anything else. You can even use a toolkit and put them in the app store. The difference is no company external to Apple controls what apps can do.
HTML5 "apps" are not really in the same ballpark. They don't get things like push notifications and cannot take advantage of the SDK APIs Apple provides for their devices. They are basically glorified mobile web pages, nothing else.
They don't have access to all the same APIs, but they do have access to many. Web apps certainly are up and coming and WebOS based phones run entirely using them.
However, Apple likes control. They want to make sure that doesn't happen (prevent other app stores and cross platform web apps).
Do you have an evidence to back up that statement?
Sure - can an average iPhone owner install 3rd party apps that have not been pre-approved by Apple on their iPhones/iPods/iPads
Claiming that because Apple does not allow native apps to be distributed by other companies, is not an argument that they will prevent third parties from implementing it in the future. It's a non sequitur.
You can label it as you like and we can discuss the philosophical meanings of labels all week. But the fact remains that they want to make devices, and have full control of the software on those devices. Adobe Flash would open a possible door of jeopardizing that level of control.
Apple acts in their best financial interests not in some abstract desire for control when that does not bring them more profit. You seem to be assigning motives that are oversimplified because you don't understand how they profit or why they make the decisions they do.
That's what speed cameras are for, to keep everyone compliant and going at the same speed...
The question is, why do you believe speed cameras keep everyone going at the same speed? There have been a few, very obviously unscientific studies of the data, but I've not seen a single reasonable study of the issue that claims that is the case. From my own personal observations, it seems to cause more rapid variation of speed as people slow down then speed up for cameras. So why would a reasonable person believe they reduce accidents?
"fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong."
I thought the goal was to prove something right?
No, not at all. Science works by proposing hypothesis, which become theories and eventually well tested theories. The process by which this happens is experimentation that would falsify the theory. Every time an experiment fails to falsify the theory, the theory gains credibility. So science is all about conducting experiments designed to disprove theories (like the prevailing global warming theory).
You can not prove something wrong unless something is proven right first.
The scientific method never proves anything right. It implies a theory is right (inductive evidence if you took logic) based upon empirical tests (deductive).
...that means your right would be a fallacy, right? or am I wrong?
Nope, informal logic like science isn't about proofs it's about competing theories gathering support via a formalized logical methodology. Logic dictates that we should believe and act in accordance with the most supported theory at any given time, while still continuing to conduct additional experiments which could, at any point, change what that most supported theory is or require modification of it. The strength of a theory is based upon its ability to make useful predictions, that when tested don't "prove it wrong".
Here's how the Wall Street Journal...
Sorry, you already lost me. The WSJ lost all credibility when they were bought by Fox and the nature of their articles began to change dramatically. You see, Fox is the corporate "news" that went to court to assert their right to fire journalists in their employ who refused to lie to viewers and sign agreements to not talk about public health risks posed by a drug company that was a large advertiser. To be clear, Fox was correct, they do have that right... but they also now have ZERO credibility as a news organization and even less when expressing their "opinions" about how controversial topics are portrayed.
IE still makes up the majority of browser use and it doesn't run html5. It does run flash.
First, MS is implementing HTML5 in IE to some extent. They want to get away from Flash as much as anyone. Second, Flash runs via plug-in in IE and HTML5 can do the same with Chrome Frame.Not as many users will have it installed right away, mind you, but that will likely change as more and more sites start using HTML5 and as Google pushes Chrome Frame more aggressively as a way to allow their Web apps to be more functional.
How can a lower speed limit make conditions less safe?
From a formal study (Report No. FHWA-RD-92-084 U.S. Department of Transportation Research, Development, and Technology - Federal Highway Administration):
" Unrealistic limits increase accident risks for persons who attempt to comply with limit by driving slower or faster than the majority of road users, Unreasonably low limits significantly decrease driver compliance and give road users such as person not familiar with the road and pedestrians, a false indication of actual traffic speeds."
and:
"Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent. "
With HTML5 Apple ultimately controls the browser and how it works.
To some extent. If they deviate too far from the standards implemented by others, they lose compatibility with things like Google's apps and how other browsers render the same sites. Since Apple doesn't have such a huge portion of the market, sites are unlikely to code specifically for Apple devices unless they can be compatible with other devices as well.
Adobe could very easily make their own "app store" where they can sell cross-platform apps that work on iPhone, Nokia Symbian and MeeGo/Maemo, Android and Blackberry phones, as well as netbooks, tablets, computers, etc.. If that were to happen, Apple would lose control, and potentially their competitive advantage.
That depends upon what you think their competitive advantage is. Companies can code HTML5 apps right now and put together their own store, offering the same app in both Apple's store, their own store, and as a regular Web app. Apple isn't doing anything to stop them.
However, Apple likes control. They want to make sure that doesn't happen.
Do you have an evidence to back up that statement? It sounds like pure speculation.
Apple is NOT just a hardware company - it never was, and there are no indications it aims to be in the future.
Apple is a device company for the most part. They provide hardware, software, and services that work together and sell it as a nice package. They make their money selling the devices though and many of the services are run at near break even rates in order to promote the sales of the devices. Apple makes very little on the iTunes and App stores, compared to what they make selling Macs and iPhones.
They are "pushing" HTML5 in part so they can ditch Adobe.
Well, so they can ditch Flash as being a blocker for their platform. They aren't ditching Adobe as a developer of software for their platforms. I for one am pretty happy they're pushing to get rid of a proprietary platform and replace ti with an open standard. Adobe plays hardball in pushing their closed platforms and it takes someone with leverage to push back effectively.
How is Apple pushing HTML5?
By being one of the authors of the spec, by implementing it in their browser and contributing to Webkit so it is implemented in other browsers, by refusing to implement Flash or Silverlight so Web developers that want to reach many of Apple's users are forced to use HTML5, and by widely touting HTML5 in the press until many developers and business people are familiar with the term and associate it with the direction of technology.
Just because Steve posts his open letter doesn't mean he gives a flying fsck about something that makes him no money.
Ah, but it does make him money when he builds Web services on top of it. More importantly, it prevents others from being a roadblock to him making money by selling Macs, iPods, iPhones, and iPads. People buy more Apple devices if those devices are secure, and Macs are more secure and less crashy if they don't have to deal with Flash.
It's like you're saying the app store doesnt make them enough money to matter but HTML5 with it's 0 revenue is what matters.
The app store makes them very little money in comparison to selling devices, but it indirectly motivates those sales of devices. It's like saying good television doesn't make Samsung any money, but it motivates people to buy their televisions so they care about it.
This argument would hold some weight if you could sell HTML5 apps in the app store.
Umm, you can and many developers do and Apple has specifically stated dev kits like Phonegap, created for this purpose continue to be acceptable even with the new developer agreement.
You dont think Apple is making significant money from the app store? How about 30% of every app sold in a several hundred million dollar business.
Which, assuming Apple has very, very low costs and hasn't been selling any music or video, still only amounts to about 6% of their revenue (absurdly optimistic ideas), compared to the 40% or so of their revenue coming from sales of iPhones, iPads, and IPod Touch devices. Apple runs the app store at slightly more than break even prices, as Jobs has publicly stated to shareholders, so unless you think he's violating SEC rules and jeopardizing his company over a few percent of revenue, you just don't know what you're talking about.
Prominent sites ARE still using flash.
Absolutely, but every few days another prominent site announces they're moving away from it, or simply does so. That is largely thanks to Apple and while don't own or plan to own an iPhone, I'm very glad they have the power to make that happen and are using it. Their best interests (as was the case for DRM on music) happen to align with the best interests of consumers in the industry and it benefits us all.
Well, it is a straw man now, but Apple fans have in the past claimed that Apple invented a number of things that they didn't invent.
First, who cares what some unnamed person has claimed in the past? Second, how does that make your argument relevant to the conversation we're having any more than if I mention some people associated with closed source software in the past have also turned out to be child molesters?
Uh, you don't create apps with HTML. It's not possible.
Quick cll the press!!! all those HTML and javascript Web apps don't exist! it's all a scam!
Flash is highly useful for this because it can do a lot more than most web friendly languages.
Flash is useful because it has better supported creation tools and more install base right now, not because it is inherently better. Any technology that relies upon a single developer to provide a closed source component is flawed and needs to be worked around so we can have competitive development going forward without one company holding up progress.
sh is better suited for. Like interactivity, animation, transitions, eye-candy, platform games, etc.
I don't see how Flash is better suited for any of those than HTML5, only how the tools available to developers are better for a subset of those applications of it.
Plus with the IDE that does programming, drawing, animation, image manipulation, and video, there is nothing that compares.
I agree with this, but that is the only point on which I agree. When and if better tools for creating HTML5 compliant applications are created, Flash will be inferior in every way and we need to work to make sure we don't get stuck with that inferior solution.
No, they support HTML5 because it isn't used yet, and otherwise it would be too obvious that they want you only to use paid apps.
Umm, they have free apps they provide hosting for in the App store. Also, HTML5 is in use as per the article earlier today, YouTube, and dozens of other companies. Your argument that they will somehow stop support for HTML5 once it gains more market share is simply speculation supported by nothing at all. You provide no coherent motivation for Apple nor evidence that it will happen.
A lot of people consider the iPad crippled because you can only install approved apps on it. The refusal to allow flash is just a side effect of that.
True, lot of people think that so they buy a different phone and go on with their lives. A few people, however, seem to think they have some sort of inherent right to use both the phone they want, but should be able to force the manufacturer of the phone to customize the phone to their specifications with regard to software and services.
...particularly when the reasons for disallowing a common technology are that their corporate dictator just has a grudge against a particular technology.
It's called business. I used to make expensive security appliances for installation on people's networks. Our clients had no inherent right to dictate to us that we have to install a given OS or software package on our appliances and if they re-imaged them to have different software, we had no obligation to provide support or services to those machines. We didn't make a Windows version of our appliance because we didn't want to be dependent upon Microsoft who could dictate to us what improvements we could make on our appliances. That's a business decision. Apple doesn't want Adobe to be able to dictate to them how secure their phones are or how Web apps perform on them, or if they can provide given features to Web apps. It makes sense to me. Maybe I won't buy an iPhone because I want more flexibility, but unless Apple has monopoly influence, I don't see why I should be able to force them to do something else.
If Steve Jobs decides next week that audio-only songs are simply not useful and that from now on only songs with videos can be used on the device, then your are forced to bend over and take it, because you've already signed control of your device over to a technological caretaker.
Were you intending this to be a strawman or a slippery slope logical fallacy?
It's the antithesis to the democratic way of life - namely that the people should be free to make their own choices
That Apple should be free to make their own choices or is freedom you being able to tell others what to do? You're free not to buy an iPhone. Apple is free to make the iPhone however they want. That's not the antithesis of freedom. I might mention, democracy and freedom are not the same thing. Democracies do not imply freedom. There are very, very few democratically run companies as it is an unusual business model that takes a lot of cooperation to get started and most investment capital is concentrated.