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> Nowhere near... You're right, Apple is significantly worse. Microsoft went out of it's way to make sure that competitors applications didn't work (DOS isn't

> Nowhere near... You're right, Apple is significantly worse. Microsoft went out of it's way to make sure that competitors applications didn't work (DOS isn't done until Lotus 123 won't run). This sparked a development arms race wasting hundreds of hours of development time working around intentional compatibility bugs. On the other hand, Apple sometimes just doesn't let your software run at all. No matter what. Because fuck you, that's why. Your company plays by Apple's rules and tithes to Apple or it dies on iOS. Oh, and Apple reserves the right to kill your compay's sales on iOS for any time, any reason, including stealing all your ideas and competing with you.

blumkvist 11y ago
It's about market share and global impact. It might sound like double standard to you, but denying your awesome new airbnb for dogs app is not quite the same as denying Java.
- atomicfiredoll 11y ago
  > It's about market share and global impact There's not some kind of, "the impact has to be as large as when company X did it" rule. Apple now has enough market share, especially in mobile, that the global impact is troubling.
  - blumkvist 11y ago
    I don't know what rules you're talking about here. The OP says that Apple has worse practices than MSFT. I say that's not true. Denying computing technology on which business, governments, factories, powerplants, etc. run is FAR worse than denying (objectively) useless apps. When has Apple hindered a break-through technology? PS: I'm a massive fan of Microsoft marketing and strategy and have owned a grand total of 1 Apple products in my life - an iphone 4. Just fyi.
    - bzbarsky 11y ago
      > When has Apple hindered a break-through technology? Contemporary example: it's impossible (as in, disallowed by Apple's policies) to install a web browser with a rendering engine written in a memory-safe language on your iDevice.
      - CHY872 11y ago
        I'm not super concerned about that. In particular, no such browser exists, so it's largely a semantic argument. Furthermore, there are inherent security risks; so it's easier to just lock it down until there is actually a problem. The bigger problem is that you can't implement a JIT on iOS, because you can't take a writeable page and make it executable. This is a clear security positive for iOS, but does preclude writing a decent javascript runtime.
        bzbarsky 11y ago
        > In particular, no such browser exists Such a rendering engine does exist (Servo), and one can build a browser around it (and that will in fact happen). Just not on iDevices. > The bigger problem is that you can't implement a JIT on iOS You're not allowed to implement an interpreter either, if the code that you're interpreting is downloaded from the internet.
        CHY872 11y ago
        Not quite. I did consider Servo, but it's hardly ready for use in the wild. It'd fall foul of many iOS guidelines, not just the 'no browser' one. It'd also fall foul of the 'only C, C++, Objective-C, Swift' guideline, for example. I didn't know the second point, but it's clearly there for the same reason; it's an easy way to stop apps from including new functionality and bypassing the review process.
        bzbarsky 11y ago
        Sure, I understand why they have the interpreter rule in place. It just blocks legitimate apps and reduces competition with Apple's products, which is what blumkvist is asking for an example of. And I wasn't talking specifically about their "no browser" or "no interpreter" guideline, just the sum total of requirements they have for iOS apps. The actual details of which exact requirement block useful things are not that important for purposes of addressing blumkvist's original question, which was how Apple's policies are more restrictive than those of Microsoft 20 years ago in ways that block objectively useful things.
  - zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
    > Apple now has enough market share, especially in mobile Not really. Depending on the country, the iPhone has between 10 and 20% market share and they are shrinking month after month. Android is on its way to becoming a monopoly, for sure.
    - blumkvist 11y ago
      Where do you get your data? https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/screen-shot-2015-02-04-at-08-21-34.png https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/screen-shot-2015... -Kantar
    - pdkl95 11y ago
      This story isn't about the "mobile smartphone" market - it is about Apple abusing their control of those phones to restrict the "iOS Apps" market. These are separate markets. Customers that want to buy software for their Apple-branded general purpose computers cannot buy Android apps, so there is no overlap between the markets. Software developers may choose to participate in both, but that means the have to create two separate products. What matters is is if the customer can switch their business, and not the size of the respective markets which is what those iPhone market share numbers indicate.
- freehunter 11y ago
  Which Apple does both of, so...?
- kbenson 11y ago
  You are mistaking monopoly for anti-competitive behavior. It's possible to exhibit anti-competitive behavior without being a monopoly.
  - blumkvist 11y ago
    Uuuh, yeah... ompanies are competing for the same clients, of course they would exhibit anti-competitive behavior. This is problem only if said company has market dominance, because then the anti-competitive measures affect all the market. Guys, do you dream of unicorns and fart rainbows all day? WTF?
    - kbenson 11y ago
      The original statement was "Apple's anti competitive behavior puts Microsoft of the 90s to shame." It was specifically about the behavior or apple, not the result on the market. If you want to make an argument that Apples anticompetitive behavior is not as bad as Microsoft's behavior in the 90's, feel free, but whether either of them have or had a monopoly is irrelevant when comparing behavior.

blumkvist 11y ago

It's about market share and global impact. It might sound like double standard to you, but denying your awesome new airbnb for dogs app is not quite the same as denying Java.

atomicfiredoll 11y ago
> It's about market share and global impact There's not some kind of, "the impact has to be as large as when company X did it" rule. Apple now has enough market share, especially in mobile, that the global impact is troubling.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  I don't know what rules you're talking about here. The OP says that Apple has worse practices than MSFT. I say that's not true. Denying computing technology on which business, governments, factories, powerplants, etc. run is FAR worse than denying (objectively) useless apps. When has Apple hindered a break-through technology? PS: I'm a massive fan of Microsoft marketing and strategy and have owned a grand total of 1 Apple products in my life - an iphone 4. Just fyi.
  - bzbarsky 11y ago
    > When has Apple hindered a break-through technology? Contemporary example: it's impossible (as in, disallowed by Apple's policies) to install a web browser with a rendering engine written in a memory-safe language on your iDevice.
    - CHY872 11y ago
      I'm not super concerned about that. In particular, no such browser exists, so it's largely a semantic argument. Furthermore, there are inherent security risks; so it's easier to just lock it down until there is actually a problem. The bigger problem is that you can't implement a JIT on iOS, because you can't take a writeable page and make it executable. This is a clear security positive for iOS, but does preclude writing a decent javascript runtime.
      - bzbarsky 11y ago
        > In particular, no such browser exists Such a rendering engine does exist (Servo), and one can build a browser around it (and that will in fact happen). Just not on iDevices. > The bigger problem is that you can't implement a JIT on iOS You're not allowed to implement an interpreter either, if the code that you're interpreting is downloaded from the internet.
        CHY872 11y ago
        Not quite. I did consider Servo, but it's hardly ready for use in the wild. It'd fall foul of many iOS guidelines, not just the 'no browser' one. It'd also fall foul of the 'only C, C++, Objective-C, Swift' guideline, for example. I didn't know the second point, but it's clearly there for the same reason; it's an easy way to stop apps from including new functionality and bypassing the review process.
        bzbarsky 11y ago
        Sure, I understand why they have the interpreter rule in place. It just blocks legitimate apps and reduces competition with Apple's products, which is what blumkvist is asking for an example of. And I wasn't talking specifically about their "no browser" or "no interpreter" guideline, just the sum total of requirements they have for iOS apps. The actual details of which exact requirement block useful things are not that important for purposes of addressing blumkvist's original question, which was how Apple's policies are more restrictive than those of Microsoft 20 years ago in ways that block objectively useful things.
- zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
  > Apple now has enough market share, especially in mobile Not really. Depending on the country, the iPhone has between 10 and 20% market share and they are shrinking month after month. Android is on its way to becoming a monopoly, for sure.
  - blumkvist 11y ago
    Where do you get your data? https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/screen-shot-2015-02-04-at-08-21-34.png https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/screen-shot-2015... -Kantar
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    This story isn't about the "mobile smartphone" market - it is about Apple abusing their control of those phones to restrict the "iOS Apps" market. These are separate markets. Customers that want to buy software for their Apple-branded general purpose computers cannot buy Android apps, so there is no overlap between the markets. Software developers may choose to participate in both, but that means the have to create two separate products. What matters is is if the customer can switch their business, and not the size of the respective markets which is what those iPhone market share numbers indicate.
freehunter 11y ago
Which Apple does both of, so...?
kbenson 11y ago
You are mistaking monopoly for anti-competitive behavior. It's possible to exhibit anti-competitive behavior without being a monopoly.
- blumkvist 11y ago
  Uuuh, yeah... ompanies are competing for the same clients, of course they would exhibit anti-competitive behavior. This is problem only if said company has market dominance, because then the anti-competitive measures affect all the market. Guys, do you dream of unicorns and fart rainbows all day? WTF?
  - kbenson 11y ago
    The original statement was "Apple's anti competitive behavior puts Microsoft of the 90s to shame." It was specifically about the behavior or apple, not the result on the market. If you want to make an argument that Apples anticompetitive behavior is not as bad as Microsoft's behavior in the 90's, feel free, but whether either of them have or had a monopoly is irrelevant when comparing behavior.