Bad PR Forces Apple To Reconsider Banning Mark Fiore's App 241
cmiller173 writes with word from Wired that "After bad press over banning Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Mark Fiore's app from the app store, Apple has asked him to re-submit the entry."
Wrong article? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wrong article? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:App Stores Dept. of Corrections? (Score:1, Informative)
Apple doesn't have a monopoly on integrated software downloads and purchases for smartphones, it would be impossible for them to have this without having a monopoly on the smartphone market.
Can you link me to that other app store where I can buy applications for a non-jailbroken iphone?
Told Ya (Score:3, Informative)
And here's [slashdot.org] the proof
I wouldn't do it (Score:4, Informative)
Fuck Apple. I'd go with the google app store and call it a day.
Re:Wrong article? (Score:1, Informative)
You're an idiot. The joke "layer 8 error" refers to human error, since there are only 7 layers in the 7-layer model.
Re:Wrong article? (Score:3, Informative)
meh. (Score:4, Informative)
Apple's remarkable hostility to competion (Score:4, Informative)
Actually free software stands in contradiction to "Every manufacturer has the monopoly on his own products." because free software means users have the freedom (permission) to develop competing products based on the free software they run. Hardware manufacturers are beginning to appear which allow one to develop competing products in much the same way. Apple's restrictions in their iPhone API license agreement are unusually hostile to distributing applications Apple does not approve of (see section 7.3 [eff.org] which says rejected iPhone applications can't be distributed anywhere else). The thing to note about Fiore's second bite at the Apple (so to speak) is that Fiore has an audience large enough to complain. Others who would use their freedom of speech (permission) by "ridiculing public figures" won't get a second chance because nobody will chat up their misfortune at choosing to deal with such an arbitrary power [eff.org].
Re:App Stores Dept. of Corrections? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, not exactly [arstechnica.com]
Re:App Stores Dept. of Corrections? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, in terms of dollars Apple does have a pretty strong monopoly on mobile application sales. Yeah, Android is closing the gap in terms of amount of apps Apple still completely dominates in terms of revenue. So much so that in 2009 99.4% of all the dollars spent mobile application purchases went through apples store. http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-for-994-of-mobile-app-sales-in-2009.ars [arstechnica.com]
Re:App Stores Dept. of Corrections? (Score:5, Informative)
Taking a step back from smart phones, and considering something more general, such as wifi-enabled portable entertainment devices, it's possible that Apple could have an undue influence on such a market.
"Undue influence" doesn't just mean "a lot of influence". It means influence that they haven't earned or are not allowed (i.e., it's not due them). Aside from the fact that there are plenty of WiFi-enabled portable entertainment devices, Apple hasn't used underhanded tactics against the market. They just sold more because people wanted them, not because Apple did anything to limit the consumers' choices. In other words, they earned their influence, and they earned with fair and square. Unlike the situation MS found itself in with its Windows monopoly (which in and of itself wasn't illegal), that they used to unduly influence the browser market (which was illegal) and create an IE monopoly.
Now, if Apple has undue influence on this market, are they abusing that influence by restricting these devices to run only those applications that they approve and allow into iTunes?
Just like MS, Sony and Nintendo do on their consoles. The notion of "undue influence" becomes rather absurd when you are applying it to their own products. It should be standard that a company would have total influence over their own products (within regulations, such as safety and emissions regulations on cars and FCC regulations on radio transmissions).
If somehow Apple had a portable computer monopoly, and they used that monopoly to destroy the Android Market (for example), then there might be a case. But they don't have a portable computer monopoly. Not by a long shot. And the Android Market isn't directly targeted by the App Store, because they are not interchangeable the way browsers are. You, by definition, cannot buy iPhone apps on the Android Market any more than you can buy Android apps at the App Store.
Re:Now if only they would change their policy (Score:1, Informative)
The "applications" in the apple store are mostly junk, or not really real applications. E.g. there are tons of e-books, comics and audiobooks that are listed as a separate applications. Yes, in the apple world you don't have an application and load files into it, you get to bundle them together as a single entity. You can do the same elsewhere of course, but I think you need to be enclosed in the apple mindset to see what crap that is.
Don't forget all of the apple toys require you to use itunes to install applications and content. Mounting them as USB drives was killed years ago.
Apple reconsidered to stop scaring news media. (Score:4, Informative)
Both Apple and news media organizations (press/newspapers, radio, television, etc.) were interested in the possibilities of the iPad (and other similar devices) as a news consumption device. This is especially true for newspapers that have been suffering due to falling revenue, especially from classifieds because of Craig's List and eBay, and a public less interested in reading news on dead trees.
But Apple's censorship of a Pulitzer winning cartoonist send chills down the spines of all of the news media organizations, since they suddenly realize how vulnerable their content is to the arbitrary and inconsistent censorship whims of companies like Apple, Amazon, Sony, etc. which have total control over the applications and media on their devices.
Imagine if Sony blocked all news publications on its Sony's Reader Store which have published accident and recall information about Toyotas in order not to harm or offend a fellow Japanese companies. Imagine if this was 60 years ago and each electronics company only sold TV's which would only receive programming from their affiliated stations.
Apple hoped that by allowing Mark Fiorre's app, they could do damage control, but I think that it is too late, since this incident really drove home how bad the censorship situation is with these locked down platforms.
At the end of the day, consumers pressure is not enough to be able to force companies to open up their platforms. In the growing mobile phone, media players, e-reader, and game console markets, not one of the major platforms is fully open for the consumer and are full of DRM that restricts options and allow censorship. (Yes that includes Google Android devices which are being locked down by many carriers!)
Governments need to step in and force all hardware and operating system manufactories and distributers to have an application and data distribution and execution model that is fully open to all. If you buy the device, it should be yours to do with as you see fit, as long as it does not interfere with others.