And we all know how eager Apple is to sue people, yet the Cydia store is still around. I think that this is a demonstration that Apple doesn’t have the type of monopoly described in the OP.
Yes, exactly. And that wouldn’t be anti-competitive behavior, either: it would just cause people to say “I think I’ll buy someone else’s cereal, who doesn’t have the restrictions I don’t like.”
Atari is what this thread made me think of. At first, all the games for the Atari VCS/2600 were made and sold by Atari itself, but then other companies (like Activision) started producing games for the Atari. According to the Wikipedia article (in a sentence flagged “citation needed”), “Atari Inc. attempted to block third-party development for the 2600 in court but failed.”
I think the general question that the OP has is, does a company that produces/sells a particular device have the right to prevent other companies from producing/selling software for that device?
Imagine for a moment the uproar that would ensue if Microsoft did not allow any Windows applications not sold in their (imaginary) WinStore to be installed on a Windows machine. What’s the problem, folks? There is still Linux and Apple. Plenty of competition, right?
For some reason, when it comes to PCs we would consider this unthinkable, but somehow accept it for smartphones.
The analogy is imperfect, because Microsoft is not in the hardware business. A “Windows machine” is actually manufactured and sold by someone other than Microsoft.
For the 3rd time, you don’t need to have a monopoly to act anti-competitively.
For the 4th time, I don’t think “anti-competitively” means what you seem to think it means. I certainly don’t define “anti-competitively” as “giving an advantage to your competitors”, but you seem to.
It all comes down to quality control, according to them. I don’t know if the argument is based in any legal precedent or not, but no cites I can find by readingabout the case indicate they ever said “we should be able to act anti-competitively because we want to”.
They said things like:
and
And I’m sure Microsoft cited the user experience during the Internet Explorer anti trust case. That is why I gave that, admittedly flippant, remark. Apple’s justification for anti-competitive behavior is, apparently, that they think it provides the best user experience. That doesn’t seem to be a winning argument to me.
The judge agrees with you, he denied the motion and allowed the suit to continue. He did strike some portions of the original suit but left plenty that still includes anti-trust violations to be decided by another judge.
What about Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo consoles? You can’t sell any software for those machines without giving the hardware manufacturers a cut. Part of the shelf price is their take. And just like Apple all online sales take place through a proprietary network. Or take sat-navs, can you get authorised updates to your Tom-Tom without their approval?
That gets more to the basis of the bigger argument they make as opposed to the one case of iTunes/ipod that is under litigation. They have a proprietary machine, whether we are talking about their personal computers, music players, cell phones, or whatever. Third-party developers write software to run on their proprietary hardware but they argue that the download, delivery, support, documentation - the entire ‘user experience’ - belongs to them if they choose to manage it. In other words they also would believe they have the right to tell Adobe, Microsoft, etc. that in order to sell Photoshop or Office for the Mac OS, they need to allow Apple to quality test it, provide it from the Apple web site, and allow Apple to handle the entire ‘user experience’ of downloading, installing, and getting it to work properly if they felt that was required to ensure their hardware customers get the user experience they intended. They don’t, ostensibly, because those vendors assure quality sufficiently in their view to serve their hardware customers needs. In other markets though, like music downloads and cell phone applications, they argue that the available third party options don’t offer the user experience they intended for their hardware customers so they have the right to manage or control that market because the ‘market’ is a novel use of their proprietary product and the software as a whole. Listening to an mp3 file is easy for anyone to do with many hardware and software options available. Listening to an Apple iTunes Song, on an Apple iPod Music Player, was a user experience that Apple decided to provide exclusively. It included not only the hardware, software, and licensed music, but the overall ‘experience’ of browsing, selecting, purchasing, downloading, and installing that music to their hardware. And then getting it to play properly if they have any problems through their own customer support. Time will tell how the current complaint is decided. That will probably guide their future strategy for other similar complaints.
My understanding is that you technically can sell software on those machines without being approved by the hardware company. I think the stick those companies use are the software development kits. Since these are custom operating systems, you need to have the SDK to develop for them. Thus, the console companies can get their cut this way. Theoretically you could reverse engineer the APIs to write your own software, but that would be an expensive and difficult process.
I don’t have any cites offhand but here’s an example of an Xbox publishing license.
You’ll see the publisher can’t
Distribute electronically without Microsofts permission
Distribute outside of agreed territories without Microsofts permission
Include any extra hardware/software in a bundle without…
Reproduce the physical DVD’s themselves yadda yadda yadda
There could be other licenses out there that are more flexible, but you would think a publisher like Activision would have it as favourable as possible. I still stand by my claim that you can’t buy software online except through the hardware manufacturers own delivery service. I will throw in a provider “unless your machine is chipped/modded in some way”. This though is equivalent to jailbreaking your iphone, and as was pointed out earlier there is a site that allows you to purchase apps for those.
See this part of the contract:
As I said in my post, that is the stick Microsoft has. No developers kit = no ability to make a game. You might argue that the distribution of the developer kit license is anti-competitive behavior, but that isn’t the same activity Apple engages in.
For downloaded software it’s exactly the same. You need an SDK from the manufacturer. You have to submit the finished product to them for testing. You can only offer it for sale electronically in the ways that they permit, which in both cases is the manufacturers proprietary network (Xbox Live v iTunes).
The one difference is sale of physical copies. Even then, you can’t just churn out a load of copies yourself and flog them at a car boot sale. Microsoft has to agree to all reproduction of the software.
treis, did you ever address this or did I miss it?
I’m not holding up these practices as the height of free market behavior. I am just pointing out that they aren’t exactly the same situation as the iDevices.
There is nothing wrong with a device being difficult to interface with. The problem is when you are specifically modifying software for the sole purpose of blocking access to other developers.
If Apple modifies something to improve the product, and that happens to break other stores fine.
If they modify something to block access to other stores, that is not fine. It’s pretty clear that this is what is happening.
I think Apple should allow anybody to put anything on their iDevices and just void the warranty if people put non-approved software on it. That way Apple can still maintain the integrity of their devices and people can still put crapware on it if they want.
The Xbox licensing agreement is something that both parties enter into. I can legally develop for the Xbox, if I can write to the API without a dev kit. My problem without agreeing to the license, though, is that I won’t be able to generate signed code.
In fact, it’s the exact same issue with Xbox and Apple.