16 ms·

How Apple is Breaking The Law With The App Store

91 points by bdfh42 17y ago

lutorm 17y ago
Sounds a lot like the Magnuson-Moss act. From Wikipedia: "Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty.[2] This is commonly referred to as the "tie-in sales" provisions[3], and is frequently mentioned in the context of third-party computer parts, such as memory and hard drives."
- stcredzero 17y ago
  However, there are reasons outside of branding to require an unbroken iPhone 3.2 OS to be on the device. The OS is obviously necessary for the proper functioning of the iPad. Apple doesn't test the iPad with Cydia and various modifications available through jailbreaking. What's more, they are demonstrably less stable. I know this for a fact, because I have a jailbroken iPhone OS device. Another tack: I am thinking of writing an App which would enable DRM for the user (as opposed to DRM against the user) so that people could share pictures and documents, and be assured that the shared copy is erased at a certain point in time and never present in an unencrypted form, except in RAM at the time the data is being used. This would work fine on non-jailbroken iPads. (Not strong enough for espoinage work, but enough to establish a CYA audit trail with corporate documents with an NDA.) Unfortunately, there can be no expectation of this working for jailbroken devices. (I'm also going to put in the FAQ, that this is not a safe way to share pictures and assure they won't wind up on the Internet. The iPad's screen is high resolution and people can just photograph it.)
  - lutorm 17y ago
    It's up to me as the owner to determine what "proper functioning" means. Clearly you can't ask Apple to fix it if it's crashing because it's jailbroken. But if the display fails, that's not reasonably caused by running another OS.
    - stcredzero 17y ago
      The parts I listed in another thread that I thought could be "broken" by software: the radio, flash RAM, and the battery. And the 1st one wouldn't be physically affected, but wouldn't work correctly. Everything else, AFAIK, Apple should honor the warranty on. The flash RAM and the li-ion battery can actually be physically harmed by incorrectly functioning software!
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        > The flash RAM and the li-ion battery can actually be physically harmed by incorrectly functioning software! Long ago, there was a computer that had its databus wired up in such a way that reading from a '0' location in the ROM eventually fried the processor. They saved on a single buffer chip that would have avoided this and the design was 'fixed' in the next release. Software should not ever be able to 'damage' hardware beyond slightly accelerated wear, such as when ordering a harddrive to repeatedly seek across the whole drive and so on. Tricks like that should not result in stuff burning up or dying, if it does that is just bad design. The wear on the flash ram is just whatever it would be if you packed that number of writes in to a much longer amount of time and the li-ion battery discharge would simply mean that you get the same number of cycles but over a shorter life-span. That doesn't count as 'physical harm', after all, then normal use also causes 'physical harm', it just takes longer.
        protomyth 17y ago
        If your old enough, you remember software that could damage the monitor on the IBM PC.
        jacquesm 17y ago
        Yes, another nice example of bad hardware design. The reason that happened was because they didn't have a 'safe range' on the frequency that drove the CRT, driving it too slow would burn up one of the coils in the high voltage circuitry that drives the coils to do the deflection. Never monitors have been designed to shut down when presented with an out-of-range synch signal, and digital ones will display a message to that effect.
  - ggruschow 17y ago
    3rd party hardware can screw things up every bit as much as 3rd party software.
- illumin8 17y ago
  I'm not sure why Apple gets so much hate for this. I can think of at least 3 other companies that do exactly the same thing and have done for years: - Microsoft - Xbox and Xbox360 - Sony - PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP - Nintendo - NES, SNES, GC, Wii, DS Why should Apple be treated any differently than any game console manufacturer? Every one of those game console manufacturers void your warranty if you mod them. Every one of them restricts which development tools you can use to develop on them, and has very stringent application approval processes. Why is it that Apple all of a sudden deserves special anti-trust attention? Is it because they developed a game console that also happens to be a phone? Or maybe it's because they developed the first phone that doesn't suck.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    Modding a console requires physically changing the hardware. I think it's reasonable to void the warranty if there's a good chance the customer accidentally broke it while trying to physically change its function. The situation with the iPhone/iPad is different because it's just a wipe of the software; no physical modding.
    - illumin8 17y ago
      Not true. There are many software only mods for consoles available.
      - scott_s 17y ago
        And do these software mods also void the warranty? I know you're no longer allowed to use such things as XBox Live (which I think is a legitimate way to prevent cheating).
        illumin8 17y ago
        Yes.
        krschultz 17y ago
rauljara 17y ago
What an exceptionally well argued point. I particularly like the author's argument, because the only behavior that apple would have to change would be its warranty policy; it wouldn't force apple to tear down it's walled garden, apple just couldn't void your warranty if you chose to leave it.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  I think it's reasonable to have Apple to honor its warranty on the hardware if you can restore your jailbroken device to its standard configuration. Unlike running a car with 3rd party components, there are almost no effects on hardware that caused by running 3rd party software. The two exceptions I know about being flash memory and the battery. Software can have a direct effect on these. I would accept a waiver of warranty on these two components for running non-Apple tested jailbroken software. Oh wait, the baseband has a direct bearing on the functioning of the 3G or mobile telephony hardware. Hmmm. I guess we'd have to waive the hardware warranty on that part too for jailbreaks.
  - lutorm 17y ago
    This has been addressed for car parts. If you use aftermarket parts and your car breaks, they can't void the warranty unless they can show that it was reasonably caused by the non-standard part. For example, if you "chip" your car and then blow a head gasket, they can justifiably argue that this was caused by running the engine at higher power. If the catalytic converter or the suspension breaks, they can't. So if they can establish a case that the radio broke because the jailbroken software ran it at too high power or whatnot, then they might have a case. If it just fails, on the other hand, I don't think they can.
    - stcredzero 17y ago
      I'm not thinking of the radio breaking, but it might well work improperly due to software. This would render a phone unusable. (Can we have a warranty on AT&T?) In the case of flash RAM or the battery: software can clearly break those.
rimantas 17y ago
Hint: you won't find the answer in the post. Just some speculation based on (wierd, IMHO) assumption: This is problematic because if there were no fear of voiding warranty, undoubtedly many customers would jailbreak their iPhone, There would be alternate markets for iPhone software, and there would be a truly competitive marketplace. Are apps in Cydia all coded in Flash, or Haskel? What does he mean by "truly competitive"? Is it all because of the warranty clause, really? You can put mp3 on your iPod from any source without voiding the warranty. Does not hurt ITMS a bit.
- 4chan4ever 17y ago
  It's not a weird assumption, it's a completely relevant assumption. Currently, if you want to build iPhone software using anything other than the approved Apple stack, jail-breaking is required by fiat. You have no option. It means the iPhone market isn't truly competitive; the "best" development environments and practices aren't allowed to bubble to the top; instead we're constrained to the Apple backwater (and it IS a backwater; trust me when I say Apple should be so lucky to have something like Haskell or Flash or .NET running on their shitty hardware). Btw, an MP3 is a data file, not a piece of software. Not an App.
JunkDNA 17y ago
The one issue I see with this line of reasoning is that Apple might make a convincing argument that with a jailbroken phone, users could somehow disable the hardware protection software that prevents the phone from being damaged when used in excessive heat. I'm not fully up to speed on what other protection mechanisms they have built into the phone (and whether or not you can override them by jailbreaking), but I wonder if that isn't one of the main reasons they would have this clause in there to begin with.
- confuzatron 17y ago
  Yes, that excuse occurred to me too. Obviously not the real reason for the rule, but arguably a plausible enough excuse.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    More than just an excuse. Software has been an integral part of heat management in devices for over a decade. Also, the li-ion battery and the flash RAM could be physically damaged by incorrectly functioning software.
ErrantX 17y ago
The problem with this line of reasoning is that Jailbreaking does remove a lot of protection built into the phone. I am guessing Apple could successfully (and probably legitimately) argue that jailbreaking has to void warranty - because any damage resulting from installing jailbroken apps is not their responsibility. Say a virus targets jailbroken phones and rips into/destroys the hard drive. Is it reasonable to expect to be Apple responsible for replacing these phones under warranty? If jailbreaking didn't void your warranty would more people do it? I suspect not a huge amount more. Also; while this is well argued it is essentially wrangling a legal point - this kind of thing ends up getting stuck in court for years being decided.
- iamcalledrob 17y ago
  If hardware is properly designed, then software should not be able to break it. It would be exceptionally difficult to write software that manages to physically damage a hard drive. The only thing I could think of would be constantly writing to the SSD, using up the write cycles, but that's a long shot too.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    I notice others are talking about hardware; and, yes, you have a point. But by damage I meant all sorts of things - corrupted backups, viruses, inability to restore the phone. Etc.
  - butterfi 17y ago
    Woz would like to speak to you about his Prius.
nessence 17y ago
Does warranty case law supersede DMCA? Nope, didn't think so. Blame IP law, and blame the DMCA, but don't blame Apple for being diligent.
- hank777 17y ago
  actually the courts have explicitly said that the DMCA can't be used to prevent interoperability. This is a well known case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chamberlain_Group,_Inc._v._Skylink_Technologies,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chamberlain_Group,_Inc._v._....
iamcalledrob 17y ago
If US consumer law was stronger, these things wouldn't even need to be debated. In the UK the manufacturer's warranty is a nice bonus, but we have a legal right from the _retailer_ the item was bought from to a repair/replacement/refund. If the act of you jailbreaking the phone caused it to stop functioning, you'd have no claim. But if the issue is a hardware issue, and the phone happens to be jailbroken, the retailer would still have their obligations. You haven't damaged the hardware, it's broken, you have a right to a repair. UK consumer law also dictates that any product you buy should last for a reasonable length of time, which can be up to 6 years. I think it'd be reasonable to expect luxury electronics to last several years. So the 1 year warranty? Sure, Apple can give you it, but it's in addition to your consumer rights, which it can't change.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
doron 17y ago
Of course they can limit the grounds for Jail Breaking, if they allow side loading of applications without the app store.
DenisM 17y ago
Ok, so this guy really has no clue about antitrust law, so why even write about "How Apple is Breaking The Law With The App Store"? According to Sherman's Act, restrain of trade is only illegal when it can serve to create or further a monopoly. You and I can agree to never deal with particular Joe Shmoe, but as long as Joe has plenty of other choices in his life it's ok. The crucial point in defining monopoly is defining "the market". Apple is nowhere close to monopoly in cell phones, so it's not possible no nail them from restrain of trade in e.g. accessories using Sherman's act. Magnuson-Moss act is another story, though (the same act makes illegal for car manufacturer to void warranty if you use alien spare parts in repairing your car). It gets a lot more interesting if you consider digital download music to be it's own market - a clear near-monopoly and any anti-competitive tactics will serve "to create or further a monopoly". Now would the court decide that "digital music download" is a separate market from "plain old music retailing"? This question is impossible to answer without litigation. Similarly, "application software for mobile phones" may or may not be a separate market from "plain old computer software". Apple is a near-monopoly in the first and a blip on the radar in the second. Another interesting area is "mobile internet access" - Apple is a near-monopoly in that "market" as well.
- eagleal 17y ago
  Look at this from this angle: I have an iPhone 3 or 4/iPad. I can't use any of the existing apps in the appstore to take my notes (my notes have a very specific and complex structure). I want to build an app that (tweaks) the OS so that I have the possibility of starting taking notes right from the home screen (with all the structure I require for them), or by vocal commands. I don't want to go from the appstore (I don't want to sell/distribute it) or buy a developer subscription, and I don't have a Mac platform to develop from. I want to use an industry standard (wide use on multiple-markets) and open language (not a commercial one). Can I built my app, on the device I just purchased? Under this definition, Apple is actually a monopoly (and they're not in the phone market, they're in the smartphone one). They lock me out of every process they take, and I'm their customer (and if a developer, a business customer). EDIT: As a response to those who claim that the antitrust case should apply to Wii/Xbox/PS/etc (and I'm okay with that, but): iPhone/iPad are computers/devices that enable personal productivity, and it's a different story since different uses are involved.
racketman4 17y ago
This guy is neither an economist nor a lawyer, why should I listen to him?
- yxhuvud 17y ago
  Why do you think you should listen to economists?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - racketman4 16y ago
    "Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services."
psyklic 17y ago
Why isn't this as simple as: If you don't like Apple's policies, then buy a different phone next time? There are comparable Android-based phones ... I still don't see a legitimate reason why people want to hang on to their iPhones so badly, in light of this policy. Sure, the App Store has some good apps, but obviously they don't have everything wanted since everyone wants to jailbreak ...
joshwa 17y ago
A few different ways the DOJ could approach the anti-competitive issues: 1. Section 3.3.1 enforces monopoly in app development tools (GM won't allow parts made using CNC milling, only hand-milled parts) 2. App Store policies enforce monopoly over 175k+ apps/$1 billion+ iPhone App market (can only buy 3rd-party parts for your car at a GM dealership, and nowhere else) 3. Apple approval needed to get on devices (GM has to approve all parts before they go in your car) 4. Apple takes 30% of developer revenues (non-OEM part manufacturers have to pay GM to sell parts for your car) 5. Using a payment mechanism other than iTunes is prohibited - e.g. a free app that you pay for with paypal (can only use GMAC credit card to pay for your car parts) 6. Apple doesn't approve applications that compete with Apple's apps - "duplicate existing functionality" (can't put aftermarket rims on your car) 7. Installation of non-Apple-Approved software voids warranty (installing a 3rd-party part voids entire warranty) (Many of these claims could, and should, apply equally to game console manufacturers. The homebrew scene just lacks a public profile like Adobe, a public enemy like Steve Jobs, and attorneys.) Not sure if this is a valid legal heuristic, but as an exercise, imagine what would happen should each of these restrictions be lifted. Would there be many entrants into that market? Would innovation and value creation result? The answer is unequivocally yes.

91 points by bdfh42 17y ago

Sounds a lot like the Magnuson-Moss act. From Wikipedia: "Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty.[2] This is commonly referred to as the "tie-in sales" provisions[3], and is frequently mentioned in the context of third-party computer parts, such as memory and hard drives."

stcredzero 17y ago
However, there are reasons outside of branding to require an unbroken iPhone 3.2 OS to be on the device. The OS is obviously necessary for the proper functioning of the iPad. Apple doesn't test the iPad with Cydia and various modifications available through jailbreaking. What's more, they are demonstrably less stable. I know this for a fact, because I have a jailbroken iPhone OS device. Another tack: I am thinking of writing an App which would enable DRM for the user (as opposed to DRM against the user) so that people could share pictures and documents, and be assured that the shared copy is erased at a certain point in time and never present in an unencrypted form, except in RAM at the time the data is being used. This would work fine on non-jailbroken iPads. (Not strong enough for espoinage work, but enough to establish a CYA audit trail with corporate documents with an NDA.) Unfortunately, there can be no expectation of this working for jailbroken devices. (I'm also going to put in the FAQ, that this is not a safe way to share pictures and assure they won't wind up on the Internet. The iPad's screen is high resolution and people can just photograph it.)
- lutorm 17y ago
  It's up to me as the owner to determine what "proper functioning" means. Clearly you can't ask Apple to fix it if it's crashing because it's jailbroken. But if the display fails, that's not reasonably caused by running another OS.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    The parts I listed in another thread that I thought could be "broken" by software: the radio, flash RAM, and the battery. And the 1st one wouldn't be physically affected, but wouldn't work correctly. Everything else, AFAIK, Apple should honor the warranty on. The flash RAM and the li-ion battery can actually be physically harmed by incorrectly functioning software!
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      > The flash RAM and the li-ion battery can actually be physically harmed by incorrectly functioning software! Long ago, there was a computer that had its databus wired up in such a way that reading from a '0' location in the ROM eventually fried the processor. They saved on a single buffer chip that would have avoided this and the design was 'fixed' in the next release. Software should not ever be able to 'damage' hardware beyond slightly accelerated wear, such as when ordering a harddrive to repeatedly seek across the whole drive and so on. Tricks like that should not result in stuff burning up or dying, if it does that is just bad design. The wear on the flash ram is just whatever it would be if you packed that number of writes in to a much longer amount of time and the li-ion battery discharge would simply mean that you get the same number of cycles but over a shorter life-span. That doesn't count as 'physical harm', after all, then normal use also causes 'physical harm', it just takes longer.
      - protomyth 17y ago
        If your old enough, you remember software that could damage the monitor on the IBM PC.
        jacquesm 17y ago
        Yes, another nice example of bad hardware design. The reason that happened was because they didn't have a 'safe range' on the frequency that drove the CRT, driving it too slow would burn up one of the coils in the high voltage circuitry that drives the coils to do the deflection. Never monitors have been designed to shut down when presented with an out-of-range synch signal, and digital ones will display a message to that effect.
- ggruschow 17y ago
  3rd party hardware can screw things up every bit as much as 3rd party software.
illumin8 17y ago
I'm not sure why Apple gets so much hate for this. I can think of at least 3 other companies that do exactly the same thing and have done for years: - Microsoft - Xbox and Xbox360 - Sony - PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP - Nintendo - NES, SNES, GC, Wii, DS Why should Apple be treated any differently than any game console manufacturer? Every one of those game console manufacturers void your warranty if you mod them. Every one of them restricts which development tools you can use to develop on them, and has very stringent application approval processes. Why is it that Apple all of a sudden deserves special anti-trust attention? Is it because they developed a game console that also happens to be a phone? Or maybe it's because they developed the first phone that doesn't suck.
- scott_s 17y ago
  Modding a console requires physically changing the hardware. I think it's reasonable to void the warranty if there's a good chance the customer accidentally broke it while trying to physically change its function. The situation with the iPhone/iPad is different because it's just a wipe of the software; no physical modding.
  - illumin8 17y ago
    Not true. There are many software only mods for consoles available.
    - scott_s 17y ago
      And do these software mods also void the warranty? I know you're no longer allowed to use such things as XBox Live (which I think is a legitimate way to prevent cheating).
      - illumin8 17y ago
        Yes.
        krschultz 17y ago

rauljara 17y ago

What an exceptionally well argued point. I particularly like the author's argument, because the only behavior that apple would have to change would be its warranty policy; it wouldn't force apple to tear down it's walled garden, apple just couldn't void your warranty if you chose to leave it.

stcredzero 17y ago
I think it's reasonable to have Apple to honor its warranty on the hardware if you can restore your jailbroken device to its standard configuration. Unlike running a car with 3rd party components, there are almost no effects on hardware that caused by running 3rd party software. The two exceptions I know about being flash memory and the battery. Software can have a direct effect on these. I would accept a waiver of warranty on these two components for running non-Apple tested jailbroken software. Oh wait, the baseband has a direct bearing on the functioning of the 3G or mobile telephony hardware. Hmmm. I guess we'd have to waive the hardware warranty on that part too for jailbreaks.
- lutorm 17y ago
  This has been addressed for car parts. If you use aftermarket parts and your car breaks, they can't void the warranty unless they can show that it was reasonably caused by the non-standard part. For example, if you "chip" your car and then blow a head gasket, they can justifiably argue that this was caused by running the engine at higher power. If the catalytic converter or the suspension breaks, they can't. So if they can establish a case that the radio broke because the jailbroken software ran it at too high power or whatnot, then they might have a case. If it just fails, on the other hand, I don't think they can.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    I'm not thinking of the radio breaking, but it might well work improperly due to software. This would render a phone unusable. (Can we have a warranty on AT&T?) In the case of flash RAM or the battery: software can clearly break those.

rimantas 17y ago

Hint: you won't find the answer in the post. Just some speculation based on (wierd, IMHO) assumption: This is problematic because if there were no fear of voiding warranty, undoubtedly many customers would jailbreak their iPhone, There would be alternate markets for iPhone software, and there would be a truly competitive marketplace. Are apps in Cydia all coded in Flash, or Haskel? What does he mean by "truly competitive"? Is it all because of the warranty clause, really? You can put mp3 on your iPod from any source without voiding the warranty. Does not hurt ITMS a bit.

4chan4ever 17y ago
It's not a weird assumption, it's a completely relevant assumption. Currently, if you want to build iPhone software using anything other than the approved Apple stack, jail-breaking is required by fiat. You have no option. It means the iPhone market isn't truly competitive; the "best" development environments and practices aren't allowed to bubble to the top; instead we're constrained to the Apple backwater (and it IS a backwater; trust me when I say Apple should be so lucky to have something like Haskell or Flash or .NET running on their shitty hardware). Btw, an MP3 is a data file, not a piece of software. Not an App.

JunkDNA 17y ago

The one issue I see with this line of reasoning is that Apple might make a convincing argument that with a jailbroken phone, users could somehow disable the hardware protection software that prevents the phone from being damaged when used in excessive heat. I'm not fully up to speed on what other protection mechanisms they have built into the phone (and whether or not you can override them by jailbreaking), but I wonder if that isn't one of the main reasons they would have this clause in there to begin with.

confuzatron 17y ago
Yes, that excuse occurred to me too. Obviously not the real reason for the rule, but arguably a plausible enough excuse.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  More than just an excuse. Software has been an integral part of heat management in devices for over a decade. Also, the li-ion battery and the flash RAM could be physically damaged by incorrectly functioning software.

ErrantX 17y ago

The problem with this line of reasoning is that Jailbreaking does remove a lot of protection built into the phone. I am guessing Apple could successfully (and probably legitimately) argue that jailbreaking has to void warranty - because any damage resulting from installing jailbroken apps is not their responsibility. Say a virus targets jailbroken phones and rips into/destroys the hard drive. Is it reasonable to expect to be Apple responsible for replacing these phones under warranty? If jailbreaking didn't void your warranty would more people do it? I suspect not a huge amount more. Also; while this is well argued it is essentially wrangling a legal point - this kind of thing ends up getting stuck in court for years being decided.

iamcalledrob 17y ago
If hardware is properly designed, then software should not be able to break it. It would be exceptionally difficult to write software that manages to physically damage a hard drive. The only thing I could think of would be constantly writing to the SSD, using up the write cycles, but that's a long shot too.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  I notice others are talking about hardware; and, yes, you have a point. But by damage I meant all sorts of things - corrupted backups, viruses, inability to restore the phone. Etc.
- butterfi 17y ago
  Woz would like to speak to you about his Prius.

nessence 17y ago

Does warranty case law supersede DMCA? Nope, didn't think so. Blame IP law, and blame the DMCA, but don't blame Apple for being diligent.

hank777 17y ago
actually the courts have explicitly said that the DMCA can't be used to prevent interoperability. This is a well known case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chamberlain_Group,_Inc._v._Skylink_Technologies,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chamberlain_Group,_Inc._v._....

iamcalledrob 17y ago

If US consumer law was stronger, these things wouldn't even need to be debated. In the UK the manufacturer's warranty is a nice bonus, but we have a legal right from the _retailer_ the item was bought from to a repair/replacement/refund. If the act of you jailbreaking the phone caused it to stop functioning, you'd have no claim. But if the issue is a hardware issue, and the phone happens to be jailbroken, the retailer would still have their obligations. You haven't damaged the hardware, it's broken, you have a right to a repair. UK consumer law also dictates that any product you buy should last for a reasonable length of time, which can be up to 6 years. I think it'd be reasonable to expect luxury electronics to last several years. So the 1 year warranty? Sure, Apple can give you it, but it's in addition to your consumer rights, which it can't change.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

doron 17y ago

Of course they can limit the grounds for Jail Breaking, if they allow side loading of applications without the app store.

DenisM 17y ago

Ok, so this guy really has no clue about antitrust law, so why even write about "How Apple is Breaking The Law With The App Store"? According to Sherman's Act, restrain of trade is only illegal when it can serve to create or further a monopoly. You and I can agree to never deal with particular Joe Shmoe, but as long as Joe has plenty of other choices in his life it's ok. The crucial point in defining monopoly is defining "the market". Apple is nowhere close to monopoly in cell phones, so it's not possible no nail them from restrain of trade in e.g. accessories using Sherman's act. Magnuson-Moss act is another story, though (the same act makes illegal for car manufacturer to void warranty if you use alien spare parts in repairing your car). It gets a lot more interesting if you consider digital download music to be it's own market - a clear near-monopoly and any anti-competitive tactics will serve "to create or further a monopoly". Now would the court decide that "digital music download" is a separate market from "plain old music retailing"? This question is impossible to answer without litigation. Similarly, "application software for mobile phones" may or may not be a separate market from "plain old computer software". Apple is a near-monopoly in the first and a blip on the radar in the second. Another interesting area is "mobile internet access" - Apple is a near-monopoly in that "market" as well.

eagleal 17y ago
Look at this from this angle: I have an iPhone 3 or 4/iPad. I can't use any of the existing apps in the appstore to take my notes (my notes have a very specific and complex structure). I want to build an app that (tweaks) the OS so that I have the possibility of starting taking notes right from the home screen (with all the structure I require for them), or by vocal commands. I don't want to go from the appstore (I don't want to sell/distribute it) or buy a developer subscription, and I don't have a Mac platform to develop from. I want to use an industry standard (wide use on multiple-markets) and open language (not a commercial one). Can I built my app, on the device I just purchased? Under this definition, Apple is actually a monopoly (and they're not in the phone market, they're in the smartphone one). They lock me out of every process they take, and I'm their customer (and if a developer, a business customer). EDIT: As a response to those who claim that the antitrust case should apply to Wii/Xbox/PS/etc (and I'm okay with that, but): iPhone/iPad are computers/devices that enable personal productivity, and it's a different story since different uses are involved.

racketman4 17y ago

This guy is neither an economist nor a lawyer, why should I listen to him?

yxhuvud 17y ago
Why do you think you should listen to economists?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- racketman4 16y ago
  "Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services."

psyklic 17y ago

Why isn't this as simple as: If you don't like Apple's policies, then buy a different phone next time? There are comparable Android-based phones ... I still don't see a legitimate reason why people want to hang on to their iPhones so badly, in light of this policy. Sure, the App Store has some good apps, but obviously they don't have everything wanted since everyone wants to jailbreak ...

joshwa 17y ago

A few different ways the DOJ could approach the anti-competitive issues: 1. Section 3.3.1 enforces monopoly in app development tools (GM won't allow parts made using CNC milling, only hand-milled parts) 2. App Store policies enforce monopoly over 175k+ apps/$1 billion+ iPhone App market (can only buy 3rd-party parts for your car at a GM dealership, and nowhere else) 3. Apple approval needed to get on devices (GM has to approve all parts before they go in your car) 4. Apple takes 30% of developer revenues (non-OEM part manufacturers have to pay GM to sell parts for your car) 5. Using a payment mechanism other than iTunes is prohibited - e.g. a free app that you pay for with paypal (can only use GMAC credit card to pay for your car parts) 6. Apple doesn't approve applications that compete with Apple's apps - "duplicate existing functionality" (can't put aftermarket rims on your car) 7. Installation of non-Apple-Approved software voids warranty (installing a 3rd-party part voids entire warranty) (Many of these claims could, and should, apply equally to game console manufacturers. The homebrew scene just lacks a public profile like Adobe, a public enemy like Steve Jobs, and attorneys.) Not sure if this is a valid legal heuristic, but as an exercise, imagine what would happen should each of these restrictions be lifted. Would there be many entrants into that market? Would innovation and value creation result? The answer is unequivocally yes.