11 ms·

It's a bit tricky. I agree with most comments here that Apple is in the right to control what appear in the description and metadata. Not just from a competitiv

by d0m 11y ago

It's a bit tricky. I agree with most comments here that Apple is in the right to control what appear in the description and metadata. Not just from a competitive standpoint but in a way to make the it better for the user experience. That being said, in the Pebble case, I think it makes the user experience worst for the user. I.e. if I have a pebble watch and am looking for an iphone app that play well with it, I'd want to see the name in the description/meta-data. I think it's different than saying "Also on Android" because this is a totally different device. I.e. saying it's on another smartphone doesn't add value to the description, but saying it supports some hardware device does. It seems like Apple is doing that as a way to kill competition and promote their own watch, which is fair from a business standpoint. But as a user, I don't like that approach of forcing everything into the Apple ecosystem. I got tired of that 2 years ago and switched to android, haven't looked back since.

mey 11y ago
Under US law, it would be anti-competitive to use market control to stifle competition. I agree on your point about android, but you should be able to see what the software supports. Of course a court would need to decide, IANAL etc
- loumf 11y ago
  Apple doesn't have control of the smart phone (or phone) market. Having control of the iPhone market is not considered monopolistic.
  - bontoJR 11y ago
    > Having control of the iPhone market is not considered monopolistic. ...and in an hypothetical lawsuit this will just turn in favor of Apple.
  - hub_ 11y ago
    But they do have exclusive control of the distribution channels of apps for iOS. That's a monopoly.
    - mc32 11y ago
      That's a monopoly but it's not an economy monopoly. You have a monopoly over where you live, but that's not an economic monopoly. Monopoly is not a magic word. The FTC has very strict standards for when something is considered a monopoly. It's not the same as the general definition.
    - enraged_camel 11y ago
      Well, sure, they have control over their own platform. Monopolies are about markets though, and Apple is hardly a monopoly in the smart device app market.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    "Control" is not the relevant test, market power is, and the prime test for market power is having the ability within some (even small) range to increase prices (or possibly more generally increase price-to-feature mix) without sales moving to competitors. Its not an easy test to apply, and its possible for more than one player in the same general market (e.g., smartphones) to have market power, or for a player that isn't absolutely dominant -- or even the #1 seller -- in a market to have market power in that market. Without having done any kind of structured data gathering and analysis, my intuitive impression is that it is not all that unlikely that a finding of market power for Apple in the smartphone market could be supported, and that therefore anticompetitive leveraging of its position in that market to build a stronger market position in the smart watch market could be an antitrust violation.
  - bjt 11y ago
    In antitrust cases, much of the game is in delineating the bounds of the relevant market. Apple would argue for it being really wide, as you have done. One of the other comments here argues for it being "the market for iOS apps", which is far narrower, and seems way too narrow to me. If Apple built the device, and the OS, and the marketplace, of course they're going to have a monopoly there. Just like Walmart has a monopoly on things sold at Walmart. A definition of the market that seems sensible to me would be the "mobile device apps" market. There, Apple is one of two players with any significant market share. It's not a monopoly, but it's probably enough "market power", in the antitrust sense, to draw scrutiny from regulators.
    - Touche 11y ago
      > Just like Walmart has a monopoly on things sold at Walmart. No, not just like it. Walmart does not exclusively sell goods that require a Walmart product to use. That distinction makes the comparison not very similar at all.
    - duncanawoods 11y ago
      IMHO the trade-off for creating anti-consumer walled gardens should be that you define the market in which you are subject for anti-trust cases. If you have set yourself up as the sole gatekeeper for selling apps in your walled garden, you accept legal responsibility in that role to maintain a level playing field. If you don't like it, don't put up the walls and compete at being the best flower in open parkland.
    - JadeNB 11y ago
      > If Apple built the device, and the OS, and the marketplace, of course they're going to have a monopoly there. Just like Walmart has a monopoly on things sold at Walmart. I'm not sure that this is as innocent as it might sound. Walmart exercises plenty of market power, unethically if not illegally, to make sure that it has a monopoly on some of the things it sells. (By way of comparison, would you expect that, say, Target of course has a monopoly on things sold there? Maybe you would, and I've misunderstood your language.)
  - mcguire 11y ago
    Apple does have their own smart watch, though, and seems to be using their influence over the iPhone market to pressure the auxiliary device market. I'm not a lawyer, but isn't that roughly compatible to the Microsoft/Netscape situation?
    - Touche 11y ago
      It's compatible with what they did in the eBook market which drove up prices for eBooks and killed off some eBook businesses.
      - huxley 11y ago
        Which businesses were these? I thought the plaintiff was Amazon.
        Touche 11y ago
        In the case, yes. There were ebook markets that had to shutdown as a result of the 20% in-app rule.
- fluidcruft 11y ago
  I disagree about Android. It's helpful to know whether some particular app you're purchasing is going to lock you into one platform or the other. Why should you have to leave the app store to investigate? What's the point of suppressing interoperability? Companies should be rewarded for interop efforts, not punished for it.
  - pbreit 11y ago
    Nah. The pebble complements an iPhone whereas android replaces.
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      The Pebble replaces an Apple Watch, however.
      - kedean 11y ago
        An important point is that its the other way around, Apple Watch replaces the Pebble.
      - morganvachon 11y ago
        Exactly. And while I do think this is a shitty thing of Apple to do, I can't help but feel some Schadenfreude as well, given Pebble's treatment of Microsoft[1]. I'm also wondering if this kind of thing will happen to app developers who support other watch/band manufacturers on multiple platforms? There are a lot of fitness bands out there with multi-platform support. [1]Microsoft took on the bulk of the financial and research hurdles in bringing Pebble support to Windows Phone, but the Pebble CEO said more or less "fuck you, I hate Microsoft because reasons" and shuttered the deal: http://www.windowscentral.com/pebble-microsoft-and-what-could-have-been-windows-phone http://www.windowscentral.com/pebble-microsoft-and-what-coul...
        pbreit 11y ago
        My guess is this article is either false or Apple re-examines to allow "watch" mentions on iOS app store pages.
baldfat 11y ago
This is something that Apple has done, which is what is best for itself first and the user second. Now almost every company in the world does this but it does feel stronger in Apple's case due to it's walled garden approach. Can Apple do this? Not if it was deemed a monopoly. The numbers don't show it as such. Should it act this way? This one non-Apple user hacker that doesn't feel the devices fit me personally and doesn't like the actions of the company for the past 35 years, says no. Consumers seem to say yes by their desire to support and purchase their devices. This means more manufacturers and designers won't necessarily want to make them for iOS possibly. I don't think this would concern Apple. It is also hard to not follow the money that is available in the iOS world. So further straining in the developer with Apple relationships continue.
rrss1122 11y ago
"It seems like Apple is doing that as a way to kill competition and promote their own watch, which is fair from a business standpoint." It's nowhere near fair. It's extremely anticompetitive. This is the kind of behavior that gets a company in trouble with the FTC.
- exelius 11y ago
  It's also ultimately shitty for consumers, which will drive people away from Apple's products. Microsoft pulled this shit for years with MS Office, and it opened the door for Google. This behavior may get them in trouble with the FTC, but it's also not likely to be very popular in the market. I get if they want a "premium" experience with the Apple Watch, but they shouldn't block other devices. The Apple Watch should be able to win on its own merits; the wearables space is still small enough that IMO any competition should be welcomed as it drives the whole market forward.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    That assumes an informed consumer, and what we are discussing is actually Apple's attempt to restrict consumer information.
- sspiff 11y ago
  Exactly. Business isn't a no-holds-barred anything goes anarchy. It's not because we have some free trade that there are no rules what so ever. Abusing a stranglehold or monopoly will eventually draw the ire of regulators. Just ask Microsoft or the EU. What is and isn't OK is something that will probably be decided in court. I hope this kind of anti-competitive measures do get some kind of regulation in the app-stores/ecosystems space that large mobile players have crafted over the past few years, because they could easily stiffle competition from their current dominant positions.
  - runjake 11y ago
    Apple doesn't need to ask Microsoft. Apple being convicted monopolists, they are no stranger to litigation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#Antitrust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#Antitrus...
marincounty 11y ago
"I got tired of that 2 years ago and switched to android, haven't looked back since." And you just made my decision easier.
- 91bananas 11y ago
  Meh. Android has come a long way, the Google flavor of it is the most well thought out and put together experience... But all in all, the experience sucks compared to iOS coupled with an iPhone. There are a lot of neat little widgets and gestures that come with Android, but the phones aren't as good. The software is no where near as good. I made the switch, I came crawling back to iOS.
  - Bahamut 11y ago
    I find that it depends on the person - I loathe Apple's restrictiveness in general, including the sometimes poor UX (no back button on the phone is extremely annoying and I have to make extra taps in out of the way places instead of quickly hitting back, as one example, or the mindboggling restrictiveness to manually created 30 second snippets for ringtones instead of allowing me to just use my mp3s, or the horrific text selection/editing on the phone). My experience with both has me missing Android overall, the only reasons I am on an iPhone currently is for mobile development and because I am on a legacy family plan on Verizon combined with Verizon Android phones being polluted with garbage software & being more locked down than their counterparts on other providers. Some prefer Apple's curation of the experience though. Some don't like configuring their devices to their liking and want an out of the box ready experience, even if it means sacrificing on some UX.
    - tdkl 11y ago
      > including the sometimes poor UX (no back button on the phone is extremely annoying and I have to make extra taps in out of the way places instead of quickly hitting back You never tried the swipe from the edge for back ?
      - 11y ago
bencollier49 11y ago
"It seems like Apple is doing that as a way to kill competition and promote their own watch, which is fair from a business standpoint." Google are currently being taken to the cleaners by the EU for something wholly analogous to this. I can imagine the chaps in Brussels rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of getting their hands on all the dodgy offshore cash that Apple have got piled up in Dublin.
- realityking 11y ago
  The thing is Apple's share of the phone market in the EU isn't all that great (I gather it's less than 25%). Meanwhile Google has > 80% of the EU search market. You can't exploit a monopoly if you don't have one to begin with.
  - thomholwerda 11y ago
    It's about time the idea of "monopoly" is extended beyond mere market share. With the amount of mobile profits Apple is raking in (70%? 80%?) I'd argue that they have FAR more market power in mobile than all the other players combined.
    - ddingus 11y ago
      No, I think share is primary here. If they had dominant share, and this behavior and massive profit? Yeah, that's borked up for sure and people are being over exploited. But they don't have that dominant share, meaning their path is a clear choice, and it's clearly competing with others who operate differently. The thing is, Apple sells a managed experience. Apple also adds a lot of value, and they ask for that in their pricing, and the managed experience means they can command high margins for the whole solution. As much as people don't like that, it's a perfectly viable market offering. That it's not getting dominant share means the other ways of doing things are competing nicely. As for who makes money and who does not, that's a business problem. The general purpose market offerings tend to race to the bottom quickly. Margins are thin, share high. Apple doesn't want to do that, instead offering a different vision, and it's high margins are worth it. Nobody is trapped with Apple. They have lots of alternatives to choose from. That means people like Apple, and will pay for the value Apple adds too. Capitalizing the company like that means they have funded not only the current products, but the development and means for future ones. And Apple makes good products that target some very specific niches. Other players can and should add value and start asking for it like Apple has for a very long time now. Heck, they started that with the Apple ][ computer. Given it's overall capability, it was priced pretty high relative to others, but it was also a very high value package. That machine ran from what? late 70's to mid 90's? Worth it. Share matters. Apple has made a business doing niche, high value, high margin products. They get to do that. They are not a monopoly, and that's why they get to do that.
Brakenshire 11y ago
> it's different than saying "Also on Android" because this is a totally different device. I.e. saying it's on another smartphone doesn't add value to the description I disagree even with that. If an app runs on other platforms, that means you can use it yourself on other devices you may have lying around, or recommend it to others, which allows you to collaborate in using it socially (actual social features or just discussing how to use it, and so on). Few household and friend groups will be entirely on one platform or another. It also gives you the option of moving to that platform in future. That is useful to many customers. It's obvious that the reason those kind of notices are prevented is to stifle competition.
higherpurpose 11y ago
> saying it's on another smartphone doesn't add value to the description Except for all the cross-platform IM apps out there where it does add value. People want to know whether their friends could also use a certain app so they can talk to each other.
Touche 11y ago
> I think it's different than saying "Also on Android" because this is a totally different device. I.e. saying it's on another smartphone doesn't add value to the description, but saying it supports some hardware device does. Cross-platform is the exact value-prop for a great number of apps. Apple doesn't like this because it exposes one of their own apps' weaknesses.
tdkl 11y ago
> I don't like that approach of forcing everything into the Apple ecosystem. I got tired of that 2 years ago and switched to android So you rather switched to a system where there's a Google Services component that sends your location every 60 seconds (unless device is set to "GPS only") and gets updated without your control ? That's bold.
- tapoxi 11y ago
  Apple devices also record your location history and send it to Apple. It's to build a wifi location database.
  - tdkl 11y ago
    There's an option for opting out, without hindering the geolocation.
    - tapoxi 11y ago
      According to Apple, this data is gathered when location services is on, see "Crowd-sourced Wi-Fi and cellular Location Services" https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033
dragonwriter 11y ago
> I think it's different than saying "Also on Android" because this is a totally different device. I.e. saying it's on another smartphone doesn't add value to the description Being less restrictive on the users future smartphone choices if they want to keep using the app is, for osme users, a valuable fact about a product.
jsz0 11y ago
> I'd want to see the name in the description/meta-data. I would much rather go to a web site that specialized in covering Pebble apps. The rankings, reviews and comments would be more relevant to my interests. Even simply doing a web search can provide this type of information. Why does the AppStore need to be cluttered with it? 5 years ago the AppStore was like a Walmart or Target -- big store with lots of items for sale but not so big that you can't walk around and find what you want. Today the AppStore is more like a big mega mall. If you know what type of item you want it's a waste of time to just randomly walk around browsing hoping to stumble on to it.
yellowapple 11y ago
s/right/wrong/ s/fair/unfair/ I really hope those were typos, because if this is a deliberate attempt by Apple to silence competition in the marketplace it manages, then this is almost certainly unethical from a business standpoint. It would be equivalent to Amazon banning Roku or Apple TV or Chromecast sales right after announcing the Fire TV.

by d0m 11y ago

mey 11y ago

Under US law, it would be anti-competitive to use market control to stifle competition. I agree on your point about android, but you should be able to see what the software supports. Of course a court would need to decide, IANAL etc

loumf 11y ago
Apple doesn't have control of the smart phone (or phone) market. Having control of the iPhone market is not considered monopolistic.
- bontoJR 11y ago
  > Having control of the iPhone market is not considered monopolistic. ...and in an hypothetical lawsuit this will just turn in favor of Apple.
- hub_ 11y ago
  But they do have exclusive control of the distribution channels of apps for iOS. That's a monopoly.
  - mc32 11y ago
    That's a monopoly but it's not an economy monopoly. You have a monopoly over where you live, but that's not an economic monopoly. Monopoly is not a magic word. The FTC has very strict standards for when something is considered a monopoly. It's not the same as the general definition.
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    Well, sure, they have control over their own platform. Monopolies are about markets though, and Apple is hardly a monopoly in the smart device app market.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  "Control" is not the relevant test, market power is, and the prime test for market power is having the ability within some (even small) range to increase prices (or possibly more generally increase price-to-feature mix) without sales moving to competitors. Its not an easy test to apply, and its possible for more than one player in the same general market (e.g., smartphones) to have market power, or for a player that isn't absolutely dominant -- or even the #1 seller -- in a market to have market power in that market. Without having done any kind of structured data gathering and analysis, my intuitive impression is that it is not all that unlikely that a finding of market power for Apple in the smartphone market could be supported, and that therefore anticompetitive leveraging of its position in that market to build a stronger market position in the smart watch market could be an antitrust violation.
- bjt 11y ago
  In antitrust cases, much of the game is in delineating the bounds of the relevant market. Apple would argue for it being really wide, as you have done. One of the other comments here argues for it being "the market for iOS apps", which is far narrower, and seems way too narrow to me. If Apple built the device, and the OS, and the marketplace, of course they're going to have a monopoly there. Just like Walmart has a monopoly on things sold at Walmart. A definition of the market that seems sensible to me would be the "mobile device apps" market. There, Apple is one of two players with any significant market share. It's not a monopoly, but it's probably enough "market power", in the antitrust sense, to draw scrutiny from regulators.
  - Touche 11y ago
    > Just like Walmart has a monopoly on things sold at Walmart. No, not just like it. Walmart does not exclusively sell goods that require a Walmart product to use. That distinction makes the comparison not very similar at all.
  - duncanawoods 11y ago
    IMHO the trade-off for creating anti-consumer walled gardens should be that you define the market in which you are subject for anti-trust cases. If you have set yourself up as the sole gatekeeper for selling apps in your walled garden, you accept legal responsibility in that role to maintain a level playing field. If you don't like it, don't put up the walls and compete at being the best flower in open parkland.
  - JadeNB 11y ago
    > If Apple built the device, and the OS, and the marketplace, of course they're going to have a monopoly there. Just like Walmart has a monopoly on things sold at Walmart. I'm not sure that this is as innocent as it might sound. Walmart exercises plenty of market power, unethically if not illegally, to make sure that it has a monopoly on some of the things it sells. (By way of comparison, would you expect that, say, Target of course has a monopoly on things sold there? Maybe you would, and I've misunderstood your language.)
- mcguire 11y ago
  Apple does have their own smart watch, though, and seems to be using their influence over the iPhone market to pressure the auxiliary device market. I'm not a lawyer, but isn't that roughly compatible to the Microsoft/Netscape situation?
  - Touche 11y ago
    It's compatible with what they did in the eBook market which drove up prices for eBooks and killed off some eBook businesses.
    - huxley 11y ago
      Which businesses were these? I thought the plaintiff was Amazon.
      - Touche 11y ago
        In the case, yes. There were ebook markets that had to shutdown as a result of the 20% in-app rule.
fluidcruft 11y ago
I disagree about Android. It's helpful to know whether some particular app you're purchasing is going to lock you into one platform or the other. Why should you have to leave the app store to investigate? What's the point of suppressing interoperability? Companies should be rewarded for interop efforts, not punished for it.
- pbreit 11y ago
  Nah. The pebble complements an iPhone whereas android replaces.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    The Pebble replaces an Apple Watch, however.
    - kedean 11y ago
      An important point is that its the other way around, Apple Watch replaces the Pebble.
    - morganvachon 11y ago
      Exactly. And while I do think this is a shitty thing of Apple to do, I can't help but feel some Schadenfreude as well, given Pebble's treatment of Microsoft[1]. I'm also wondering if this kind of thing will happen to app developers who support other watch/band manufacturers on multiple platforms? There are a lot of fitness bands out there with multi-platform support. [1]Microsoft took on the bulk of the financial and research hurdles in bringing Pebble support to Windows Phone, but the Pebble CEO said more or less "fuck you, I hate Microsoft because reasons" and shuttered the deal: http://www.windowscentral.com/pebble-microsoft-and-what-could-have-been-windows-phone http://www.windowscentral.com/pebble-microsoft-and-what-coul...
      - pbreit 11y ago
        My guess is this article is either false or Apple re-examines to allow "watch" mentions on iOS app store pages.

baldfat 11y ago

This is something that Apple has done, which is what is best for itself first and the user second. Now almost every company in the world does this but it does feel stronger in Apple's case due to it's walled garden approach. Can Apple do this? Not if it was deemed a monopoly. The numbers don't show it as such. Should it act this way? This one non-Apple user hacker that doesn't feel the devices fit me personally and doesn't like the actions of the company for the past 35 years, says no. Consumers seem to say yes by their desire to support and purchase their devices. This means more manufacturers and designers won't necessarily want to make them for iOS possibly. I don't think this would concern Apple. It is also hard to not follow the money that is available in the iOS world. So further straining in the developer with Apple relationships continue.

rrss1122 11y ago

"It seems like Apple is doing that as a way to kill competition and promote their own watch, which is fair from a business standpoint." It's nowhere near fair. It's extremely anticompetitive. This is the kind of behavior that gets a company in trouble with the FTC.

exelius 11y ago
It's also ultimately shitty for consumers, which will drive people away from Apple's products. Microsoft pulled this shit for years with MS Office, and it opened the door for Google. This behavior may get them in trouble with the FTC, but it's also not likely to be very popular in the market. I get if they want a "premium" experience with the Apple Watch, but they shouldn't block other devices. The Apple Watch should be able to win on its own merits; the wearables space is still small enough that IMO any competition should be welcomed as it drives the whole market forward.
- kbenson 11y ago
  That assumes an informed consumer, and what we are discussing is actually Apple's attempt to restrict consumer information.
sspiff 11y ago
Exactly. Business isn't a no-holds-barred anything goes anarchy. It's not because we have some free trade that there are no rules what so ever. Abusing a stranglehold or monopoly will eventually draw the ire of regulators. Just ask Microsoft or the EU. What is and isn't OK is something that will probably be decided in court. I hope this kind of anti-competitive measures do get some kind of regulation in the app-stores/ecosystems space that large mobile players have crafted over the past few years, because they could easily stiffle competition from their current dominant positions.
- runjake 11y ago
  Apple doesn't need to ask Microsoft. Apple being convicted monopolists, they are no stranger to litigation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#Antitrust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#Antitrus...

marincounty 11y ago

"I got tired of that 2 years ago and switched to android, haven't looked back since." And you just made my decision easier.

91bananas 11y ago
Meh. Android has come a long way, the Google flavor of it is the most well thought out and put together experience... But all in all, the experience sucks compared to iOS coupled with an iPhone. There are a lot of neat little widgets and gestures that come with Android, but the phones aren't as good. The software is no where near as good. I made the switch, I came crawling back to iOS.
- Bahamut 11y ago
  I find that it depends on the person - I loathe Apple's restrictiveness in general, including the sometimes poor UX (no back button on the phone is extremely annoying and I have to make extra taps in out of the way places instead of quickly hitting back, as one example, or the mindboggling restrictiveness to manually created 30 second snippets for ringtones instead of allowing me to just use my mp3s, or the horrific text selection/editing on the phone). My experience with both has me missing Android overall, the only reasons I am on an iPhone currently is for mobile development and because I am on a legacy family plan on Verizon combined with Verizon Android phones being polluted with garbage software & being more locked down than their counterparts on other providers. Some prefer Apple's curation of the experience though. Some don't like configuring their devices to their liking and want an out of the box ready experience, even if it means sacrificing on some UX.
  - tdkl 11y ago
    > including the sometimes poor UX (no back button on the phone is extremely annoying and I have to make extra taps in out of the way places instead of quickly hitting back You never tried the swipe from the edge for back ?
    - 11y ago

bencollier49 11y ago

"It seems like Apple is doing that as a way to kill competition and promote their own watch, which is fair from a business standpoint." Google are currently being taken to the cleaners by the EU for something wholly analogous to this. I can imagine the chaps in Brussels rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of getting their hands on all the dodgy offshore cash that Apple have got piled up in Dublin.

realityking 11y ago
The thing is Apple's share of the phone market in the EU isn't all that great (I gather it's less than 25%). Meanwhile Google has > 80% of the EU search market. You can't exploit a monopoly if you don't have one to begin with.
- thomholwerda 11y ago
  It's about time the idea of "monopoly" is extended beyond mere market share. With the amount of mobile profits Apple is raking in (70%? 80%?) I'd argue that they have FAR more market power in mobile than all the other players combined.
  - ddingus 11y ago
    No, I think share is primary here. If they had dominant share, and this behavior and massive profit? Yeah, that's borked up for sure and people are being over exploited. But they don't have that dominant share, meaning their path is a clear choice, and it's clearly competing with others who operate differently. The thing is, Apple sells a managed experience. Apple also adds a lot of value, and they ask for that in their pricing, and the managed experience means they can command high margins for the whole solution. As much as people don't like that, it's a perfectly viable market offering. That it's not getting dominant share means the other ways of doing things are competing nicely. As for who makes money and who does not, that's a business problem. The general purpose market offerings tend to race to the bottom quickly. Margins are thin, share high. Apple doesn't want to do that, instead offering a different vision, and it's high margins are worth it. Nobody is trapped with Apple. They have lots of alternatives to choose from. That means people like Apple, and will pay for the value Apple adds too. Capitalizing the company like that means they have funded not only the current products, but the development and means for future ones. And Apple makes good products that target some very specific niches. Other players can and should add value and start asking for it like Apple has for a very long time now. Heck, they started that with the Apple ][ computer. Given it's overall capability, it was priced pretty high relative to others, but it was also a very high value package. That machine ran from what? late 70's to mid 90's? Worth it. Share matters. Apple has made a business doing niche, high value, high margin products. They get to do that. They are not a monopoly, and that's why they get to do that.

Brakenshire 11y ago

> it's different than saying "Also on Android" because this is a totally different device. I.e. saying it's on another smartphone doesn't add value to the description I disagree even with that. If an app runs on other platforms, that means you can use it yourself on other devices you may have lying around, or recommend it to others, which allows you to collaborate in using it socially (actual social features or just discussing how to use it, and so on). Few household and friend groups will be entirely on one platform or another. It also gives you the option of moving to that platform in future. That is useful to many customers. It's obvious that the reason those kind of notices are prevented is to stifle competition.

higherpurpose 11y ago

> saying it's on another smartphone doesn't add value to the description Except for all the cross-platform IM apps out there where it does add value. People want to know whether their friends could also use a certain app so they can talk to each other.

Touche 11y ago

> I think it's different than saying "Also on Android" because this is a totally different device. I.e. saying it's on another smartphone doesn't add value to the description, but saying it supports some hardware device does. Cross-platform is the exact value-prop for a great number of apps. Apple doesn't like this because it exposes one of their own apps' weaknesses.

tdkl 11y ago

> I don't like that approach of forcing everything into the Apple ecosystem. I got tired of that 2 years ago and switched to android So you rather switched to a system where there's a Google Services component that sends your location every 60 seconds (unless device is set to "GPS only") and gets updated without your control ? That's bold.

tapoxi 11y ago
Apple devices also record your location history and send it to Apple. It's to build a wifi location database.
- tdkl 11y ago
  There's an option for opting out, without hindering the geolocation.
  - tapoxi 11y ago
    According to Apple, this data is gathered when location services is on, see "Crowd-sourced Wi-Fi and cellular Location Services" https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203033

dragonwriter 11y ago

> I think it's different than saying "Also on Android" because this is a totally different device. I.e. saying it's on another smartphone doesn't add value to the description Being less restrictive on the users future smartphone choices if they want to keep using the app is, for osme users, a valuable fact about a product.

jsz0 11y ago

> I'd want to see the name in the description/meta-data. I would much rather go to a web site that specialized in covering Pebble apps. The rankings, reviews and comments would be more relevant to my interests. Even simply doing a web search can provide this type of information. Why does the AppStore need to be cluttered with it? 5 years ago the AppStore was like a Walmart or Target -- big store with lots of items for sale but not so big that you can't walk around and find what you want. Today the AppStore is more like a big mega mall. If you know what type of item you want it's a waste of time to just randomly walk around browsing hoping to stumble on to it.

yellowapple 11y ago

s/right/wrong/ s/fair/unfair/ I really hope those were typos, because if this is a deliberate attempt by Apple to silence competition in the marketplace it manages, then this is almost certainly unethical from a business standpoint. It would be equivalent to Amazon banning Roku or Apple TV or Chromecast sales right after announcing the Fire TV.