Developers Looking to Set Up Alternatives To Apple's App Store 192
TechDirt is reporting that in response to the frustrations with Apple's app store dictatorship, a few developers are looking to set up their own alternative app stores. Alternate app stores would only work on jailbroken phones, making their adoption scope limited, so the question is whether Apple will go after these start ups on the legal battlefield. "Apple, which collects a 30% commission from sellers on its store, doesn't break out the site's revenue. Brokerage firm Piper Jaffray estimates the site generated about $150 million in sales last year and projects total sales will grow to $800 million this year. Apple did not respond to requests for comment. But it has said in the past that with the iPhone it was trying to strike a balance between a closed device like the iPod and an open device like the PC."
Anti-competitive behavior? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely a case could be made against Apple's anti-competitive behaviour?
In Australia, what Apple is doing is against the law, under our anti-third-line forcing legislation.
Striking a balance (Score:5, Insightful)
"the iPhone ... was trying to strike a balance between a closed device like the iPod and an open device like the PC"
The correct "balance" between open and closed is *open*.
NO. NOT NOW. NOT EVER. I'M COMING FOR ALL OF YOU! (Score:1, Insightful)
Why jail-break an iPhone and use software that isn't signed by Apple on the AT&T network in violation of your contract when you can just buy a competitive device?
What part of "I'm carrying a unique serial number that's pinging its current GPS location to AT&T and Apple every few seconds" do you not understand? You break their contract, maybe they start going through your photos, call logs and other private information...
Why do companies always do this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:NO. NOT NOW. NOT EVER. I'M COMING FOR ALL OF YO (Score:2, Insightful)
What part of "I'm carrying a unique serial number that's pinging its current GPS location to AT&T and Apple every few seconds" do you not understand? You break their contract, maybe they start going through your photos, call logs and other private information...
How do you know that won't happen either way?
Re:Striking a balance (Score:1, Insightful)
What? That makes no sense as an argument here.
No, you shouldn't be able to do that. But what you should be able to do (and what these guys are trying to do) is setting up a clothing tailoring store and telling customers "Hey, if you have clothes from Macy's we can tailor them for you!"
Perfectly legal, so far as I know.
Re:Striking a balance (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr BadAnalogyGuy, is that you?
You can buy any truck you want.
But if you buy a Ford, you have to by Exxon Gas only, and you can only carry people and things in your truck which have been approved by Ford, and you can only use Ford parts, and you can only use Ford windshield washer fluid, and the radio will only tune in the Ford Station.
If you put any item not approved by Ford and sold by Ford in the truckbed your warranty is void and you committed a DCMA violation.
Monopoly's in the Market Power (Score:3, Insightful)
eBay was not the only online auction system on the Internet
While this is true, there's a much stronger argument that eBay has monopoly-like market power when it comes to online auctions than exists for the iPhone.
If you want a phone or PDA or convergence device, there's nothing about the *market* that would compel you to buy an iPhone. If you need to auction something online, there are definitely pretty powerful market reasons to go for eBay. It doesn't really matter much if Apple suddenly forbids all third-party apps of any kind and changes all their phones so you have to shake them in order to dial or something equally silly. There's enough competition that the market will route away from their products soon enough. eBay... not so much.
There's really only one place Apple's had anything close to monopoly power, and that's if you wanted to buy or sell music online, which is why you heard labels complaining a few years ago when they realized the DRM they'd insisted on was accidentally giving Apple tremendous power as a retailer. Given that the barrier to entry into the online music marketplace is actually pretty low (dealing with the labels over ownership issues is probably the most difficult part) that's not even a particularly strong complaint.
Apple's desire for control is sometimes a major pain, but it's not a monopoly.
Old news.... move along... (Score:5, Insightful)
but in the meantime, one can just jailbreak the iPhone
Bundling does NOT automatically mean monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
In US law, for any company to be a monopoly, it has to be the only player in the market, or have a dominant market share in the US market. Microsoft owns 90% of the desktop operating system market. That's a monopoly. Apple isn't even the #1 phone manufacturer in the US yet. It's getting there, but not yet. It's far from dominant in the cell phone industry.
If you are a monopoly, you can't "bundle" basically, because that means you are using your leverage in one market to take advantage of another. If you aren't a monopoly, then it's up to the market to decide if the bundle you created is a buoy for greater sales, or an anchor that sinks you to the bottom. Microsoft has tied IE to it's OS. It used it's OS dominance to edge out Netscape and not allow anyone to preinstall it on PCs, and edge AOL off PC desktops in preinstalls and forced them to put MSN installs on them instead. That's anticompetitive, because AOL and netscape (no matter how they sucked at the time) could not compete by going to a PC manufacture and offering a better deal. That's not the sole reason for their collapse, but by denying consumers choice, you damaged both these company's businesses.
There are no US laws that explicitly state that bundling is across the board illegal. There are no US laws that state bundling itself is a monopoly practice. There are laws that state bundling is illegal for true monopolies. Once you lesser Slashdot peons who don't understand antitrust law get that thru your thick heads, the sooner the elite of this site will allow you to join our ranks, and be allowed to use the abbreviation /.er and be cool like us ;)
Re:Striking a balance (Score:1, Insightful)
Apple wants to regulate the quality of third-party software for their platform. So, you're wrong--the correct balance is between. However, your post plays into typical goofy Slashdotter ideals and so will achieve an instant +5.
Moreover why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
One has to ask what the market sector is here since it is inconvenient for both developers and users. And it seems to me it is, perhaps obviously, only going to be people who have to have contracts with companies that don't use iphones.
That is to say, as a user there is the problem that I can't update my iphone easily. Each time I try there's a high likelihood my jailbreak will bust. And it's also possible my non-apple approved applications will also break. So there's no assured path forward when there is a pressing need to update the phone comes along. even trivial issues could become strong motivations to update: for example perhaps I need a new verison of quiktime to view some new content I want to see.
And for developers. Well why bother when there is the android market beckoning. Surely that market is going to swamp the jailbroken iphone market shortly.
So my feeling is that this ecosystem is going to shrink not grow with time as android takes over and apple issues enough annoying needful updates.
Re:Striking a balance (Score:4, Insightful)
I call bullshit. There are plenty of apps available from the appstore that I think most people would agree are of extremely low quality. Apple wants to profit off of every piece of software that is made for the iphone, hence the app-store etc. They will continue to do this until developers lose interest because of more flexible devices with higher market shares. Until then, they will stand behind this quality argument which is clearly a load of wet poop.
you can peel my goofy Slashdotter ideals out of my cold dead hands.
Re:Striking a balance (Score:4, Insightful)
The correct "balance" between open and closed is *open*.
Except when it isn't. "Open" means diddly squat to most users. "Open" platforms that become suitably popular result in applications like punch-the-monkey downloads and pseudo-useful malware.
Yes, *nix has an intrinsically better security model. Yes, OSX shares most of that security model. Yes, *nix derivatives are going to be more resistant to automated virus attacks and the like due to their open nature and simpler (read: understandable) security models.
But all systems, Unix, OSX, Windows, and BeOS share a common vulnerability: the end user. PEBKAC*. No security model will insulate systems against their owners, though Microsoft shows signs of wanting to go that direction, so does Apple.
Just like moderated forums (like Slashdot) work to filter out the crappola, so too can a pseudo-open environment such as Apple's app store - they want to weed out the stuff that's likely to piss anybody off, provide only good-quality softwares that won't hork their systems, and also BTW compete with them.
All in all, it's not a bad idea. It's not for everyone, and if you want the freedom to install punch-the-monkey applications, you sure can. In a sense, my "open" Fedora laptop exists in a balance between closed and free: I basically don't install applications that aren't found in a yum repo that I trust. I don't install stuff from tarballs. I don't dicker with binary files. I could, but I won't. Even when the door is as open as possible, I still prefer the safety provided by a vendor, so for me, I've chosen a more "closed" route.
Not everyone wants to be a computer weenie, and it's OK that Apple recognizes this fact!
* Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.
Now imagine... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Apple will destroy them financially by tying everything up in court."
Now imagine if they took those resources and used them to get in front of the developer requests for iPhone/iPod. They would build a better system for developers and users and would easily win competing on the merits of what they sell rather than an attempt to stifle what I think is legitimate competition.
Re:Legal Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Dont worry, they'll find one. Copyright and Intellectual Property are two of the leading contenders. Remember the "look and feel" lawsuits.
If there really is as much money as they say in this, Apple wants all of it.
Re:Legal Issues (Score:1, Insightful)
If you can't hit the ball, don't step up to the plate.
Fuckwit.