4 ms·

I honestly can't see how you think it's ok for apple to try and lock people into developing for the iphone. If that's what you really believe then please explai

I honestly can't see how you think it's ok for apple to try and lock people into developing for the iphone. If that's what you really believe then please explain why you think that's ok, especially that in their segment they are by far and away the market leader. The only devices comparable at the moment are android, and with a quick search iphone have slightly more than 80% of the market. >An "effective monopoly" is not measured by market share alone, it's measured by barriers to entry. One such barrier to entry is the lack of cross-platform applications. Another is Apples patent portfolio. Another is metcalfes law and how it relates to revenue of application developers, and their willingness to switch. Why would developers develop for symbian when they can make a killing on iphone applications (either writing for hire or selling)? 80% share, huge barriers to entry. Are you sure there isn't a monopoly?

corruption 16y ago
Replying to my own post I know :) Remember Apple are attacking this market in multiple directions: The have the ipod touch, iphone and ipad. Most applications written for them run across all devices. They are using a cunning take on cross-product economies of scale to further distance themselves from the competition due to lower costs and market saturation (ipod touch now outselling iphone for example). An ipX in every pocket? That's the dream. Taking this into account we now have an 88% market share. So apple have larger economies of scale which can drive profit high while keeping prices low.
raganwald 16y ago
You ask a good question. My understanding is that 80+% market share is not a barrier to entry even when there are strong incentives for developers to develop for iPhone. The barrier to developing for other platforms will come down to the question of whether banning Flash apps and/or compiling Flash to Objective C effectively monopolizing applications. I personally do not think so, but I am not a jurur. As long as Apple permits the time-honored method of writing an application in C with #ifdef iPhone sprinkled throughout, there is no obstacle to writing one application that compiles for two or more platforms. What they are trying to prohibit is writing one program that compiles for one platform (Flash) which happens to run on two or more mobile operating systems. They are not raising barriers to developing applications on multiple platforms, they are raising barriers to creating a new application platform that commoditizes their hardware by turning it into a rendering device on equal footing with its competition. The difference between #ifdef and writing for Flash may seem small, but it comes down to information hiding. Flash insulates the developer from Apple's API. A FLash developer is free to know nothing about an iPhone or Android or anything else. He is a Flash developer. If Flash doesn't support some feature like detecting when the phone is shaken, the Flash developer may be blissfully unaware A #ifdef programmer learns two or more platform APIs. Such a programmer is an iPhone developer. Even if they consciously try to avoid using features that are not present on all the platforms they target, they are probably aware of them and how much better their iPhone app could be if it used them. I appreciate that you hold an opinion that Apple should be legally barred from trying to force people writing applications that happen to run on iPhone from being iPhone developers in the sense I describe, but I certainly can't fault them for trying.
- corruption 16y ago
  If I were apple I would do exactly the same thing :)
mbreese 16y ago
> lock people into developing for the iphone You're saying that Apple is preventing you from developing for Android?
- raganwald 16y ago
  In fairness to the person questioning my post, while Apple does not prevent it absolutely, there is a question of degree. I am writing a Go game for "mobile computers." When I set out to do so, I had a variety of options available to me, and I selected web application as best for my purposes. Apple is absolutely reducing the number of options for developing applications on multiple platforms available to the developer. Clearly there are still some left, so no they are not preventing it but in some sense they are hampering it. That may not be enough to be considered anti-competitive, and they may not have a monopoly, but I certainly appreciate that developers may not like it. But not liking something doesn't mean it's wrong or illegal. If Apple starts bundling a Go application with iPhone I won't like that either!
  - mbreese 16y ago
    >I certainly appreciate that developers may not like it. But not liking something doesn't mean it's wrong or illegal. This is what I think is lost by so many here and elsewhere. I personally don't like the licensing change, but I don't think it's illegal or immoral. That's the attitude that I can't stand. The argument shouldn't be "They can't do that!", it should be "they shouldn't do that, it's dumb". I'm not sure that it is in the best interest of Apple in the long term to limit the toolkits developers can use. But those are the terms of playing ball with Apple. I suspect that most developers will just abide by the new rules, but Apple is setting itself up to miss out on some apps because of it. I think they just calculated that they have enough critical mass to not care.
catch23 16y ago
80% of the market? Where does that come from? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone RIM's blackberry still has more market share than Apple.
- corruption 16y ago
  Is the ipod touch a smartphone?

corruption 16y ago

Replying to my own post I know :) Remember Apple are attacking this market in multiple directions: The have the ipod touch, iphone and ipad. Most applications written for them run across all devices. They are using a cunning take on cross-product economies of scale to further distance themselves from the competition due to lower costs and market saturation (ipod touch now outselling iphone for example). An ipX in every pocket? That's the dream. Taking this into account we now have an 88% market share. So apple have larger economies of scale which can drive profit high while keeping prices low.

raganwald 16y ago

You ask a good question. My understanding is that 80+% market share is not a barrier to entry even when there are strong incentives for developers to develop for iPhone. The barrier to developing for other platforms will come down to the question of whether banning Flash apps and/or compiling Flash to Objective C effectively monopolizing applications. I personally do not think so, but I am not a jurur. As long as Apple permits the time-honored method of writing an application in C with #ifdef iPhone sprinkled throughout, there is no obstacle to writing one application that compiles for two or more platforms. What they are trying to prohibit is writing one program that compiles for one platform (Flash) which happens to run on two or more mobile operating systems. They are not raising barriers to developing applications on multiple platforms, they are raising barriers to creating a new application platform that commoditizes their hardware by turning it into a rendering device on equal footing with its competition. The difference between #ifdef and writing for Flash may seem small, but it comes down to information hiding. Flash insulates the developer from Apple's API. A FLash developer is free to know nothing about an iPhone or Android or anything else. He is a Flash developer. If Flash doesn't support some feature like detecting when the phone is shaken, the Flash developer may be blissfully unaware A #ifdef programmer learns two or more platform APIs. Such a programmer is an iPhone developer. Even if they consciously try to avoid using features that are not present on all the platforms they target, they are probably aware of them and how much better their iPhone app could be if it used them. I appreciate that you hold an opinion that Apple should be legally barred from trying to force people writing applications that happen to run on iPhone from being iPhone developers in the sense I describe, but I certainly can't fault them for trying.

corruption 16y ago
If I were apple I would do exactly the same thing :)

mbreese 16y ago

> lock people into developing for the iphone You're saying that Apple is preventing you from developing for Android?

raganwald 16y ago
In fairness to the person questioning my post, while Apple does not prevent it absolutely, there is a question of degree. I am writing a Go game for "mobile computers." When I set out to do so, I had a variety of options available to me, and I selected web application as best for my purposes. Apple is absolutely reducing the number of options for developing applications on multiple platforms available to the developer. Clearly there are still some left, so no they are not preventing it but in some sense they are hampering it. That may not be enough to be considered anti-competitive, and they may not have a monopoly, but I certainly appreciate that developers may not like it. But not liking something doesn't mean it's wrong or illegal. If Apple starts bundling a Go application with iPhone I won't like that either!
- mbreese 16y ago
  >I certainly appreciate that developers may not like it. But not liking something doesn't mean it's wrong or illegal. This is what I think is lost by so many here and elsewhere. I personally don't like the licensing change, but I don't think it's illegal or immoral. That's the attitude that I can't stand. The argument shouldn't be "They can't do that!", it should be "they shouldn't do that, it's dumb". I'm not sure that it is in the best interest of Apple in the long term to limit the toolkits developers can use. But those are the terms of playing ball with Apple. I suspect that most developers will just abide by the new rules, but Apple is setting itself up to miss out on some apps because of it. I think they just calculated that they have enough critical mass to not care.

catch23 16y ago

80% of the market? Where does that come from? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone RIM's blackberry still has more market share than Apple.

corruption 16y ago
Is the ipod touch a smartphone?