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Their stance makes perfect sense. The App Store is not a commons, it is the private property of Apple, in which they curate the works of others at their conveni
by nmrm2 11y ago
Their stance makes perfect sense. The App Store is not a commons, it is the private property of Apple, in which they curate the works of others at their convenience. But unlike a book store or a music store, they can closely associate what they stock with the brand becaues the "App" medium is so new.
It's pretty similar to a local coffee shop maintaining a few book cases for customers to borrow or buy, but being pretty strict about what books can be put in their selection.
Ultimately, I suspect they are more controlling about apps than about books or music because apps are (or were) a new medium that, for both financial and marketing reasons, they wanted to think about differently. Apple probably feared (and/or hoped) that Apps would have a more intimate connection to their brand than e.g., the tracks in iTunes.
(edit: 1. Not saying I agree; 2. this post is a descriptive conjecture about why/how Apple treats apps differently, not an advocacy that they continue to do so. Jeesh.)
- Mithaldu 11y agoYour simile is completely off. It's not like a local coffee shop with book cases, it's like a (fictitious) company that has a monopoly on stocking the book cases in all coffee shops nation-wide. Your cellphone is the coffee shop.
- nmrm2 11y agoOkay, fine. The coffee shop is Starbucks. The simile is only stronger in that case. The local coffee shop might be OK stocking some Marxist rags or hard core Libertarian texts or whatever the owner likes. Meanwhile, Starbucks only stocks the inoffensive books. Thus, the masses go to Starbucks because they want a cup of coffee from a nice normal person, and don't want to have to listen to a bunch of Marxists talk down to them while waiting in line or (perceive that they are being) condescended to by a Barista. The book case simile is fictional, but Starbucks appropriating only the completely inoffensive parts of the canonical local coffee shop is a perfect parallel example.
- justizin 11y agobuy a different cell phone.
- falcolas 11y agoThe stance doesn't make sense because it prevents a particular type of symbol in media they sell - it doesn't make sense because they treat Books, Music and Movies as somehow different - perhaps they consider it a higher form of art - from Games and Apps.
- nmrm2 11y agoAgain, the issue isn't whether games are Art. The issue is that Apple wants a closer association/connection between their brand and the contents of the App Store, and they can get that association with Apps in a way that would be impossible with music or books. People already consumed music and books before the iPhone, but curated Apps were an entirely new thing. Something like "Want a huge catalog of high-quality Apps curated by a company with good taste? Get an iPhone." It makes sense because IT WORKED. People DO associate certain high-quality Apps with the iPhone, even when those apps are made available on Android at some point. Just because you (or I) disagree with it doesn't mean it's not a policy that makes good sense. It gave a huge boost their their product's reputation...
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago>People DO associate certain high-quality Apps with the iPhone [Citation needed]
- nmrm2 11y agoI can't give you hard data. But anecdotally, most people I know who own an iPhone and aren't Apple devouts chose it because "the software is better". I assume the typical consumer lumps Apps in with OS, because I doubt they are making purchasing decisions based upon the quality of the OS kernel or the quality of the background processes...
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoAcoording to statistics like this [1], smartphone users are highly likely to stay with whatever they are used to. Thus it follows that their impression that "the software is better" is based on outdated information. [1]. http://images.techhive.com/images/idge/imported/article/ctw/2014/03/31/apple_is_beating_up_samsung-100388425-orig.png http://images.techhive.com/images/idge/imported/article/ctw/...