

Apple bans Android magazine app - rooshdi
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/26/apple-bans-android-magazine-app/

======
semanticist
He says that the question is 'where is this going?' - I think that's been
pretty clear now for years.

The Apple App Store exists to provide additional value to owning an iPhone,
which in turn directly makes Apple money, which is what Apple's in business to
do.

Google don't care what you promote in their app store because they're not
making money selling devices. Android only matters to them as a means of
increasing take-up of the mobile web, and as a way of displaying more adverts.
You can promote the iPhone in an Android app because Google don't lose out if
you switch - they're displaying adverts on websites regardless of the mobile
operating system.

Apple, on the other hand, do lose out and so don't want you to hear about the
latest Android phones.

I can see the philosophical arguments against Apple's position and for
openness, but I have a hard time seeing any business arguments against Apple's
position. And ultimately, if Apple's control of their platform offends you
then you should protest in the most effective way possible: by not buying
their device in the first place.

~~~
btmorex
The business argument would have been "you can't maintain majority market
share with such tight fisted control of the app store, approval process,
choice of carrier, etc". But that was really an argument that applied 1+ years
ago before iphone lost momentum to android. At this point, I don't think
there's a way for the iphone to win against android.

~~~
semanticist
Talk of 'winning' or 'losing' is foolish - this isn't a game with pre-set
victory conditions.

Apple, a single device manufacturer, will inevitably not sell as many units as
the combined Android device manufacturers. It's like comparing the output of
Smart to the output of Ford.

Apple don't need - and never had, anyway - a majority market share in order to
turn a significant profit on selling devices. (And they are turning a
significant profit - a quick Google shows Apple were reporting quarterly
profits up 70% a couple of months ago.)

~~~
ergo98
You have pretty much all of the pro-Apple talking points covered in your
various posts in this discussion. I urge you not to simply accept them because
you read them elsewhere, however, because they're largely baseless.

~~~
semanticist
That's a slightly better attempt at dismissing what I've said than going
'stupid Apple fanboi', but it amounts to the same thing.

Do you honestly think the idea that there will be no single 'winner' or
'loser' in the smartphone market is baseless? What brings you to this
conclusion?

If you're thinking in terms of the desktop PC market, where Windows is the
clear winner, that's an anomaly and I don't think you're going to see it
repeated in any consumer device market.

But if you've sound reasoning for why anything I've said is incorrect, please
let me know. I'm not a blind Apple fanboi, and I don't think that Apple's
devices are automatically the best choice. (After an increasingly frustrating
experience with my iPhone, I'm living with it only long enough for Nokia to
start releasing MeeGo devices.)

~~~
ergo98
Hey I'm not trying to insult you. I'm being serious.

~~~
semanticist
I don't read any of those sites, except occasionally when linked from HN.

The closest I come is sometimes catching up on macrumors when I'm bored.

What you're seeing in my comments is not mindless repetition of someone else's
talking point, it's my own opinion derived from my experience with both Apple
and the mobile phone industry.

That aside, I'm not sure I've really said anything 'pro-Apple' at all. What I
said was that this isn't anything new and that Apple's behaviour makes sense
given their business model. I've also dismissed the idea that Apple ever had a
majority of the market (surely that would be ANTI-Apple, to so much as imply
that other people might also make decent phones!) and tried to argue against
mindless polarisation.

If you want to talk about something that's influenced by American politics,
talk about people who believe that everything is split down into distinct
'winners' and 'losers' with no subtlety at all. From my limited exposure to
American politics (The Daily Show, our reporting of your news, and American
friends (mostly left-wing) and family (mostly right-wing)) that 'us or them'
seems to be perhaps the defining feature of American politics right now.

But now I'm really digressing.

[Edit: my comment might look a little random now. Originally the comment I was
replying to had references to pro-Mac bloggers and implied that I was simply
repeating their ideas in an 'echo chamber' effect, and compared it to
political discourse being led the same way.]

------
Groxx
Oh come on, like _that's_ a surprise:

    
    
      3. Metadata (name, descriptions, ratings, rankings, etc)
      3.1 Apps with metadata that mentions the name of any other mobile platform will be rejected
    

This deserves a "duh". Honestly, what were they expecting?

This strikes me as flamebait-generation and little else.

~~~
te_chris
Maybe, but they still raise a vaild point. If i want to read about windows 7
on my mac apple can't stop but i'm also not just going to sell the mac because
I read an article.

This is a pretty epic display of insecurity on Apple's part.

~~~
Groxx
Insecurity: different issue entirely, though I generally agree. Mobile
platforms are an _extremely_ active battleground right now, though.

Not sure what the valid point would be. "Where this is going"? It's not going
anywhere. A similar rule exists in the Mac App Store guidelines... both of
which merely mean you can't cite other OSes _in the app store_. The app can
internally / on their site advertise that they're also on Windows, just not in
the store. It's not a very surprising requirement, as it's a locked-to-a-
single-OS store, and it's easy to get around if your app has any purpose aside
from advertising the competition.

Putting the magazine as an app on the store would be nigh-impossible, because
you couldn't mention its primary purpose, but it'd likely get by with no issue
if such a thing were achieved without being misleading.

~~~
confuzatron
_Mobile platforms are an extremely active battleground right now, though._

The mind boggles that we're in a situation where arguments like this are put
forward. No offence to you specifically Groxx, but... I feel like Apple has
exiled us all to crazy land.

~~~
Groxx
What, you mean because for the first time _ever_ we actually have not one, but
_two_ decent, modern operating systems for consumer-marketed phones? Both of
which make applications (a HUGE source of revenue for Apple) simple to develop
and simple to buy? Palm's WebOS never really took off strongly, and
Blackberries are... blackberries. Good in some ways, bad in others, and full
of zero competition in their market.

------
billmcneale
This gives us a good idea of what an Apple monopoly would look like. Suddenly,
Microsoft's monopoly doesn't look that evil, does it?

Thanks Google and thanks Android for giving us an alternative.

------
angrycoder
I know hating on the apple is all the rage these days, but that is like
walking into the Coke company store and bitching because they won't let you
sell Pepsi tee shirts there.

~~~
bryanlarsen
That metaphor would make sense only if the only place you could by Coke was at
the Coke company store. I'm fairly sure there are lots of places that sell
both Pepsi tee shirts as well as Coke products.

Let us side load apps, and we'll stop bitching about Apple store practices.

~~~
Xuzz
<http://cydia.saurik.com/>

~~~
jawee
I think the point is something Apple-sanctioned. Most people want to be able
to put apps on their phone without violating terms of service agreements..

~~~
Groxx
You think they actually _read_ those things?

~~~
jawee
Jailbreaking still requires work and is a potential risk to the working state
of your device, even if Apple didn't disallow it.

------
thought_alarm
The iTunes App Store is a very valuable and powerful marketing, publishing,
sales, and distribution resource. It was created by Apple to attract 3rd party
developers to the iPhone, with the ultimate goal of selling more devices to
more users. They succeeded wildly.

Apple would not and cannot prevent you from reading an Android magazine on
your iPhone, but they are under no obligation to publish, market, distribute,
and sell anyone's content, especially one dedicated solely to a competing
product.

If someone wants to sell an Android magazine to iPhone users they're going to
have to publish, market, and distribute it themselves, over the web, just like
they would have to if the App Store didn't exist. Why would anyone expect to
use Apple's marketing resources to advertise a competing product? Well, they
wouldn't. But it does make for a nice publicity stunt, apparently.

Placement in the App Store isn't a right, it's a privilege, just like any
other store.

~~~
tewks
Your argument would be completely correct if the App Store were not the sole
means of distribution of native software to iOS devices.

Because the App Store is the sole means of said distribution, the validity of
your argument becomes much murkier.

In my opinion, Apple should enhance the permissions system and allow the
installation of software from other sources. The App Store would still reign
supreme, generate revenue, et cetera and users would largely continue to be
protected from malicious software. This sort of discussion would be moot as a
result and your argument would stand.

~~~
thought_alarm

        > Apple should enhance the permissions system and allow the 
        > installation of software from other sources.
    

Arguably, Apple already provides this. It's called WebKit.

More to the point, Apple could have forced all 3rd-party software to run in a
virtual machine, like Microsoft, and Google, and Palm, and RIM. They could
then provide graduated API access, make their app review process a hell of a
lot simpler, and eliminate the review process altogether for software
distributed outside of the App Store.

Instead, they allow 3rd-party apps to run on the bare metal as full-fledged OS
X applications. There are advantages and disadvantages to that approach, but
it's very hard to argue that they made the wrong choice given how things have
turned out. Everything else is academic.

~~~
tewks
Justifying the sole control of UIKit application distribution based on the
fact that either WebKit exists or that UIKit is not implemented within a VM is
illogical and irrelevant.

~~~
thought_alarm
There are technical realities that you obviously don't understand.

Call me when Google, Microsoft, RIM, or Palm ever allow fully native 3rd-party
software.

~~~
tewks
OSX on armv6 or v7 is secure enough to not warrant the use of a virtual
machine. Virtual memory and memory protection were not commonly found in
mobile pre-iPhone, making the choice of the JVM or dalvik in 2003, when
Android was founded, or earlier in the case of RIM, convenient.

Regardless, the review process as it stands provides little in the way of
additional security, a fact that further weakens your vague argument. Static
analysis can only go so far. The status quo is about desire for revenue, not
supposed "technical realities". All I am proposing is that allowing apps from
other sources would have little effect on either.

Call me when Apple ever allows fully native 3rd-party software on the Mac.

------
Joeri
There's no slippery slope here. From day one apple has been crystal clear that
this was _their_ platform, and that everyone on it had to play by their rules.
When you buy an iOS device, it's not your device, it remains their device.
Can't deal with that? Don't buy it!

Now, apple _is_ going somewhere with OS X. They're starting to lock it down.
Lion will still be open enough from what I gather, but they're gradually
changing the rules of what tweaking you'll be able to do with your mac. I
don't like that, so I see a possibility of a return to linux for me.

~~~
Anechoic
_but they're gradually changing the rules of what tweaking you'll be able to
do with your mac_

How exactly?

------
Qz
Wait, there are Steve Jobs action figures?

~~~
sathyabhat
Not any more. [http://micgadget.com/9716/the-end-of-apple-ceo-action-
figure...](http://micgadget.com/9716/the-end-of-apple-ceo-action-figure/)

------
siculars
What kind of restrictions will the app store for the next os x release, lion,
have?

Yes, I realize it is in the ToS as Groxx pointed out but come on. This is just
getting ridiculous.

------
siglesias
I think there's something rather juvenile about pointing out that every well-
meaning rule or law based system has its hazy areas, gray zones, and
ambiguities. The developer here is ostensibly exercising deliberate
provocation.

I'd much rather wait until a well-meaning, well-intended app, one that is
attempting to be useful to a regular person, is rejected for unreasonable
reasons and get outraged about that. This meanwhile is clearly a bid for
attention.

Somebody who is deliberately provoking Apple for reasons "uphill" from more
insidious reasons is wasting our time. In my opinion most slippery slope
arguments are just bad arguments used to make something look much worse than
it is.

~~~
rooshdi
How do you know this was his clear intention? Everyone is going to have a
different opinion on what a "well-meaning, well-intended app" is and
restricting certain apps based on what one considers "well-meaning" is a very
myopic and inconsiderate view to have.

~~~
siglesias
This argument doesn't fly because you are making "well-meaning" out to be more
ambiguous and subject to disagreement than it actually is. All of us exercise
judgment every day about well-meaningness when we excuse people for bumping
into us, saying something they didn't intend, misunderstanding an unfamiliar
rule or custom. It's what we do without thinking twice.

You though, like many, many, others, are getting caught up in the subjective
nature of exercising judgment and would like to see a list of necessary and
sufficient conditions that is followed logically and to a t, something like a
mathematics that has right and wrong and no in between. Unfortunately these
things don't exist. If you look at how government and academia played out we
have a judiciary systems and admissions systems that, yeah, have a few well-
meaning people exercising judgment about slew of important topics that affect
lots of people. It's either that or anarchy.

There is subjectivity about a lot if concepts, laws, and institutions we don't
have a choice but to share. The presence of subjectivity is not grounds for
eliminating that institution.

~~~
rooshdi
I am not saying Apple should eliminate its curating process altogether, but
rather that it shouldn't dictate the existence of an application solely based
on competitive conflicts it has with the information within it. It is clearly
an action of insecurity and selfishness on Apple's part. I could also argue
that constraining and dictating information based on one's views can also lead
to anarchy.

------
confuzatron
Well, think about it this way: would you want your _children_ reading a
publication about Android?

Because hey - if you're cool with that, go ahead and get them an Android
phone.

