
Apple Has Removed Airfoil Speakers Touch From The iOS App Store - protomyth
http://rogueamoeba.com/utm/2012/05/24/apple-has-removed-airfoil-speakers-touch-from-the-ios-app-store/
======
lukifer
This is the great irony of a free market: that it includes the creation of
closed, private markets which are decidedly un-free. (Apple's the biggest jerk
about it, but there are many others, such as the game console manufacturers,
or Amazon's app store). And as evidenced by the App Store's enormous success,
the market does not inherently select in favor of open markets versus closed
ones.

Apple of the 2010s is much more deserving of DoJ investigation than 1990s
Microsoft ever was. And if I had my druthers, ecosystem monopoles of this type
would be blatantly illegal, and manufacturers would be obligated to include
jailbreak capability in every single device. (Not holding my breath.)

~~~
Pewpewarrows
People tend to conveniently forget that it's the consumers in an economy who
define a monopoly. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. If a monopoly
occurs because the majority of consumers are giving that product/service their
money, then it must be deserving of it. If enough people are dissatisfied with
the quality, they'll turn to new business, and the monopoly will cease to
exist.

The market has and will continue to regulate itself without legislative
interference. I see no reason for the government to get involved with Apple's
private marketplace.

Edit: I'll put it this way: You don't like Apple's closed market because they
can define arbitrary rules that makes it hard to compete. How is that any
different than a Government defining arbitrary rules on the national
marketplace?

~~~
cooldeal
> If enough people are dissatisfied with the quality, they'll turn to new
> business, and the monopoly will cease to exist.

Wish it were so simple, but the problem is the ecosystem. A new business will
not start out with 500K apps and developers won't develop apps till a platform
has a lot of users, a chicken-and-egg problem. Users don't like buying devices
with only a few apps available. Looks at WebOS, it was a good platform but
died.

This is not even mentioning the real costs of switching, like not having
access to already purchased apps and content because they're locked
down(music, movie, ebook purchases).

It was a big problem with Windows in the 90s, you had to get a Windows
computer to run software needed to be compatible with others.

~~~
nraynaud
Wait, when Apple started the iPhone they had no 3rd party application, people
begged them to allow that. They got to that number from zero. They are not
preventing anyone to create a phone so compelling that everybody is asking for
a SDK. moreover hundreds of mobile allowed 3rd party apps before the iPhone
was there(I remember those cheesy java apps). They sold a very expensive phone
that had less feature than the others and everybody wanted one. I don't know
exactly what more proof we can get than the market is free than that. It was
more expensive and had less feature than the other. The only extra stuff was
Steve Jobs, sorry but the marked for that was destroyed a few month ago.

~~~
MBCook
Remember, when Apple started, the market basically didn't exist. Not many
people had smartphones. The programs available for, say, Windows CE, had costs
of $10-$20 at the low end. Feature phones had games, but they were often $5+.
On a feature phone, if you replaced it with a new model you may have lost
whatever you purchased.

I distinctly remember one of my Sprint feature phones having a version of
Tetris (or some similar complexity of game) for $3 _a month_.

It was the rise of Apple's mobile app store that made apps an important factor
in which phone to buy. Before the iPhone app store, what percent of users in
the US spent $10 a year to buy phone apps? What percent do now?

Ignoring the fact I love my iPhone, I would be hesitant to go to another
plstform because of all the games I'd have to either give up or re-buy.

~~~
astrodust
It's hard to remember that when Apple started the RIM BlackBerry was the
undisputed Ph.D. of the smartphone market compared to the relatively high-
school smart challengers of Danger and Palm.

Palm had an app store first and it was amazing for its time. It's an
interesting case study to deconstruct how they could botch such an amazing
product so thoroughly. They even missed the tablet bandwagon completely.

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js4all
I suspect that this app uses Apples's leaked key for airplay encryption. In
that case I would understand the rejection. I can't wait for the official
explanation.

~~~
lucian1900
Even if that is the case, I'd say needing a central key for AirPlay is
unethical in the first place since it unnecessarily locks out third parties.

~~~
jacquesm
Funny how nobody else seems to notice this. That key is there for a reason,
and one of those reasons apparently is anti-competitive behavior.

Keys and other mechanisms like it are not usually used to increase customer
service but to increase vendor lock-in and control of those users. It's all
about creating a captive audience.

~~~
js4all
It is part of the DRM scheme. DRM requires end-to-end encryption to be
effective. In this case it has nothing to do with a vendor lock-in. Using DRM
is part of the deal with media partners and not Apple's decision.

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tobiasbischoff
Dude reverse-engineers Airport Express - steals secret encryption key from
ROM. Other dudes use this illegal acquired key to make an app that replicates
the function of the original device & submit that to the AppStore of exact
that vendor of the device. Somehow it gets thru, now they yank it & anyone
really wonders about it?

~~~
btrask
It's not illegal. For precendent, see Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static
Control Components, Inc. from 2004. Basically, the DMCA does not protect
encryption designed purely for vendor lock-in. The Wikipedia has a good
overview:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_Int%27l_v._Static_Cont...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_Int%27l_v._Static_Control_Components)

Edit: And more broadly, reverse engineering is not a crime.

~~~
tobiasbischoff
one could discuss if this encryption is for vendor lock in or for preventing
someone from dumping the raw-data stream of DRM'emd material. remember the
time the airport expresses and airplay for music came to market all music
files in the store had fairplay DRM.

and while it might not be illegal in all countries, it's clearly against
apples terms of use.

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api
People get angry about this, but if they do they don't understand what iOS is.

iOS is a console platform.

Developing for iOS is a bit like developing for XBox, Nintendo, etc. It is a
fundamentally different platform from Windows, Linux, and MacOS.

~~~
PythonDeveloper
Please.. help me agree with you by naming one game that was on XBOX for YEARS,
which was subsequently removed from XBOX because it was too similar to an
upcoming, unreleased feature?

~~~
itg
The issue here is they used the encryption keys from the leaked ROM.

However, Apple should do a better job communicating that.

~~~
guelo
How do you know this but the app developer does not?

~~~
Steko
Assuming RA included this key and they probably suspect this is the reason but
it stands to reason that they can still play dumb and say they haven't been
told why the app was yanked.

note: followed lloeki's link above into the comments and there's this from
RA's Paul Kefasis (italics mine)...

"There should be no legal issues here whatsoever.

Airfoil Speakers on the Mac and PC has had this receiving functionality for
years now, and now it’s on the iOS platform as well. _Airfoil Speakers is a
clean-room implementation of the AirPlay protocol._ Further, as you note,
Apple approved the app after review. So, we don’t anticipate any issues here."

~~~
jonhendry
I'm not sure how being a "clean-room implementation" of the protocol helps if
part of the functionality requires a non-clean-room copy of Apple's key.

I mean, unless the app is doing a brute-force crack of the key on first run.
Which it most likely isn't.

~~~
Dylan16807
I don't understand what could be wrong with using the key. It's a random
string; it's not something that was created by the labor of Apple.

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roc
Doesn't Apple have some boilerplate that specifically disallows peer-to-peer
content transfer in iOS apps? Streaming-only may edge around the language, but
may still run afoul of the intent.

I think it may be premature to blame this on Apple removing a competitor to
make way for a first-party feature. I think their content partners are just
extremely sensitive about this issue and these clauses and their enforcement
are just a price Apple is currently willing to pay to keep them happy.

See also: wifi hotspot functionality and provider desire to charge for
tethering.

~~~
smackfu
I don't think it's in the current guidelines (it's not in the Oct 2010 one).
Someone with a developer account can check.

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clarky07
Apple has a history of copying some apps, i.e. Instapaper etc, but they don't
have a history of removing them afterwards. There could be plenty of perfectly
reasonable reasons for this. I'd wait until actually finding out why before
accusing them of anticompetitive behavior.

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ChrisLTD
The worst part is the lack of information from Apple. If Rogue Amoeba knew
what rule their app violated they could be retooling it now. Instead they are
in the dark and losing money.

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DigitalSea
They remove the and app and oh, what a coincidence iOS 6 has the exact same
functionality baked into it. This is one of the issues with the whole closed
market thing, Apple can no longer come up original phone features, so they
take ideas from popular apps and bake it into their iOS, remove the app they
took "inspiration" from and people clap and pat them on the back for being so
innovative and introducing a revolutionary new feature.

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droithomme
This function will obviously be in the next release, and it's slightly harder
for Apple to sell forced upgrades if there is a well designed, intuitive,
independent product that maintains backwards compatibility. Therefore the
rational MBA type business decision is to leverage the monopoly access to
application installation that Apple maintains, and use it to destroy products
that threaten even an iota of revenue, no matter what the collateral damage
will be.

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chj
Only an APP STRIKE can stop this.

After all it is the developers that make the App Store prosperous, now they
take advantage of the established platform and act like ass hole to the
developers. I don't see they will change the behavior if we do nothing but
complain.

~~~
fpgeek
You're absolutely right that indie developers need to do more than complain if
they want Apple to take them seriously. Nevertheless, Apple has formidable
tools at their disposal to fight back: ejecting ringleaders, interfering with
coordinated action involving their app store (e.g. staggering suspended sales
so they didn't all happen on a strike day), ranking penalties and so on.

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thought_alarm
Assuming that this functionality is about to become part of AirPlay, what
would you have Apple do?

Do you have Apple continue to sell this app even though it's about to become a
free feature of the OS? Or does Apple not implement this rather logical
extension to their existing AirPlay feature simply because someone already
wrote a utility to do the same?

Both those options are rather lousy for Apple's customers.

Any developer who writes a utility to implement some missing feature of the OS
understands that their feature probably won't be missing forever.

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
How is allowing the app to exist a lousy experience for their customers? There
is no harm in allowing competing versions of the same feature, especially if
the other version was there first and people were using it.

I can see rejecting new apps that duplicate existing functionality, but
proactively un-approving and pulling apps that implement a feature that might
exist later?

~~~
thought_alarm
You purchase this app, then the next day Apple announces the same feature
built in to the OS. You don't feel ripped off?

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
Nope, I thought it was worth $1 the day before and I would still think it is a
nice feature. I'd blame Apple for that for being so opaque or for not
including it in the first place. The developer is not the problem in my eyes
-- they just made an awesome feature for my phone.

Perhaps most customers have a different stance than I do, though.

~~~
thought_alarm
Well, Apple's saving you the dollar. You can be angry at them for that or not,
but it's easy for me to see why they're doing it.

------
beedogs
Apple keeps giving me reasons to jailbreak my phone.

~~~
chj
Tons of reasons to actually switch me to android.

~~~
beedogs
I'd do that, except work bought and paid for my current phone, so I'm stuck
with an iPhone for now. I've been too lame to even jailbreak it because of
that.

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PythonDeveloper
This is _exactly_ what I've been talking about wrt App development on Apple.
If Apple likes your product, and they _steal_ your features for their OS or
apps, they kick you out so they don't have any competition.

IMHO, it's a real douchebag business decision, and anyone with a popular
unique app should always expect Apple to screw you over with no notice and
have a contingency plan in the works.

~~~
bluthru
So which is it, software patents are good and this is "stealing", or software
patents are bad and this is inevitable?

~~~
ConstantineXVI
"Stealing" features is one thing, taking advantage of your control over a
particular market to shut out the "competition" you "stole" said features from
isn't justifiable in any way (IMHO).

~~~
anigbrowl
Hey, it's Apple's marketplace - private property and all that. Nobody has a
right to sell there.

Now, I also think this is a dick move, but it's because of dick moves like
this that the patent and copyright systems exist in the first place, and why I
think they need to be reformed rather than abandoned.

~~~
samineru
I wish that we could rely on the companies that are increasingly controlling
semi-public commons like social networks and software repositories to have
some integrity and respect for the roles that they are playing in this regard.

