The issue isn't that apple made jailbreaking harder, its that apple shouldn't be the sole controller of what apps people can install on their phone. For example, if you have a company with millions of users and Apple decides you are a threat to their business, (or whatever reason they make up), they can ban your apps from the store, (e.g. Epic Games). This is monopolistic behavior. If apple were to allow third party store options, (without jailbreaking required), there wouldn't be an issue. The root issue isn't jailbreaking, (that's still possible and required to install non-store apps), but rather the requirement that ONLY store apps can be installed in the first place.
That would be a completely legitimate argument except that people buy their devices with the understanding that APple is the sole controller of what they can install. It's not monopolistic behavior because Apple doesn't have a monopoly. Apple makes the devices, they are 100% legally allowed to only allow apps from their own App Store and that precedent has already been set. The only unique thing in this lawsuit is that Cydia is claiming to be a competitor to the App Store and I firmly believe that it'll be tossed because Cydia's entire existence is predicated on a process that, at the time it was operating, is illegal and violates the DMCA. I don't necessarily think Cydia is bad and people should be able to jailbreak their devices if they want but that can't be used as the basis for a lawsuit that alleges monopolistic behavior or even anti-trust.
Jailbreaking absolutely does not violate the DMCA, nor is it illegal. Circumvention that isn't related to copyright infringement is not covered under the DMCA, and jailbreaking mobile devices has been ruled explicitly exempt on those grounds:
I'm not spreading FUD. That decision was made in 2018. At the time of Cydia's release, in 2008, it was a violation of the DMCA. You can't apply a ruling that happened 10 years later to argue that.
It was not made in 2018, that's just the latest renewal of the ruling (which was originally made in 2010). Apple's attempts to make it illegal were denied at the time too, because even without the ruling it fairly obviously falls under exemption.
The ruling also just makes it explicit, the DMCA already doesn't cover things like jailbreaking because they don't relate to copyright, and do relate to the user enabling interoperability of their device with legally obtained software (17 U.S. Code § 1201 (f)). These rulings are not proclamations in contrast with the law, they are bound by it and must be valid interpretations of it. Apple's attempts to classify it otherwise were a clear attempt to abuse copyright law and were rejected as illegitimate.
You clearly do not know what you are talking about.
The Copyright Office didn't construct an exemption out of whole cloth - they cannot do that, and they'd be overruled by Congress if they did. It's a recognition of the underlying fact that the DMCA does not cover TPMs that do not control access to a copyrighted work. The actual text of the law says that.
Not only was it not illegal as the other commenters have mentioned, I believe Jay specifically went to the exemption discussions for it with Cydia as then example of why it should be legal. And this isn't what's being argued here regardless.
Before the decision, jailbreaking was not considered a violation of the DMCA. Apple sued and lost trying to make it one. So your premise that Cydia was somehow in violation of DMCA at the time is completely false.
Do "people" really have that understanding? I'd posit that that vast majority of Apple's userbase has given zero consideration to the issue at all.
I suggest that if presented the choice of
When you buy a phone would you rather ...
A. that the maker of the phone has total and final control over what apps are available for you to install via it's own store.
B. that the maker of the phone has a store pre-installed for you to install apps from, but you have the the choice to install apps from other 3rd party stores or directly yourself
I'm pretty sure if put in that type of context most people would choose B. But they are never given that choice. The choice they get is over the maker of the device, Apple and option A or an Android based device that has some variation of B.
That's not true though, Apple does make the devices, but the user owns them, and therefore has the legal right to install whatever they wish. Apple does not have control over this, as evidenced by the legality ruling of jailbreaking.
>Apple makes the devices, they are 100% legally allowed to only allow apps from their own App Store and that precedent has already been set.
This is false. As proven time and time again, the Device Owner has full legal control after purchase.
It is monopolistic behavior due to the scope of the control from Apple. The devices are the owner's property, and it is monopolistic for them to implement software/policies/hardware blocks, that prevent users from using the devices as they see fit.
Take a simplistic example, Keurig. Keurig tried to prevent users from using any other coffee pod besides theirs. There is precedent to these monopoly lawsuits.
>has the legal right to install whatever they wish
Absolutely. But people buy the devices knowing that that's not an option. It's not like Apple locked down these devices and changed them after people bought them. You can absolutely jailbreak your device and put whatever you want on it and I fully support that. That doesn't make Apple's behavior monopolistic or an anti-trust violation.
Your Keurig example isn't relatable or similar at all since Keurig both did have a monopoly on single-use coffee pods and that was the single purpose of the device. An optional App Store is not the same thing at all.
>But people buy the devices knowing that that's not an option.
A manufacturer cannot dictate the consumer's options regarding the owned devices, even though they have it in their terms and conditions. Apple is currently being gobsmacked by right to repair claims under this very principle.
What you are saying is that such business model, where a company creates a computing device, sells the device, and then continue to own the customer funnel for software experiences on top of the device is illegal. If this sets a precedent, and does become the new "interpretation" for anti-monopoly laws, it would also make console business model or Amazon Kindle business model illegal. I could also make the same argument for any kind of "platform" like business. Essentially, when an entity sales one category of products, it cannot use this product's platform effect to control the sale of another category of products. What about leveraging bundling and network effect? For example, Apple Watch only works with iPhone. A person bought Apple Watch a year ago cannot buy a Android phone a year later and have the Apple Watch work as advertised when he/she first bought it. This would also be illegal under this precedent. I think this is a positive thing. But it does invalidate a lot of business model's tech companies are using right now and the higher valuations software/platform companies currently getting. It would also results in fundamental re-calculation of margins and business model for a lot of companies. Might lead to decreased valuations and revenue. This would negatively impact the shareholders, employees and company, who are also stakeholders in this discussion.
And you also cannot look at this law from an ideology perspective, you need to look at the practical affects as well. Going forward, companies will also spent energy to design how their product will interoperate with other products especially those from competitors. For example, if iOS is going to have third party App Stores, it has to be designed in the OS. It cannot be an afterthought. Comparing iOS and Android, you realize when Google built Android it actually has to spent the time and the energy to design the system that enables Android's flexibility and "multiple App Store and install any app package" system. Google has also to spend energy to maintain and support the system every year since Android's release. I know that there are instances where Google want to make changes to Android to better support their own use cases but is not able to because Google has to support these flexibility points. If you look at a from angle of "how much benefit do I get from a fixed amount of effort", flexibility and interoperability becomes significant features. I think a lot of people underestimate just how much effort it is to design, engineer, test and maintain interoperability. From a business perspective, they need to think do I spend the time to engineer and maintain systems to enable interoperability? Or to enable my business use case and enable me to make more money? By changing the law interpretation, the law is making the decision for the business. It's forcing the business to say "hey you have to spend time to build things that might end up benefiting your competitors, and perhaps you don't have time to build this feature that would benefit your bottom line instead ". Not sure where your political spectrum lies, but this definitely doesn't sit well with political conservatism that advocates for less government control over private affairs.
Again, ideally this new interpretation will be good, but I feel there will be a lot of resistance for this "reform" to go forward.
btw, if Apple is going to allow other stores and ISVs to offer users application packages to download and install freely like it is on Windows, any company of significant size is going to start bypass Apple's stores and asking users download Exe's or their own app launchers. Want to play Fortnite, download Epic store and Epic game launcher. Want to use Facebook and play Oculus games? Download Facebook store. Want to use Lightroom, download Adobe CC store. It will change the Apple's user experience, which is part of brand and product proposition. I know some people actually buy Apple because of this user experience. So is it okay for government to dictate such user experience is not allowed anymore? The private entity wants to design this kind of user experience, is it ideologically okay for the government to say "you cannot design a product this way anymore"? Maybe private entity should be able to design a product anyway they see fit, and let the market decide. Look at before there is a market for closed sourced developer tools and software. Now, there is no market for you if you don't open source your developer tools. People rather write apps for open source dbs and frameworks than some companies proprietary stuff. This is an example of market demanding openness and interoperability and making the producers change their behavior.
> If this sets a precedent, and does become the new "interpretation" for anti-monopoly laws, it would also make console business model or Amazon Kindle business model illegal.
It sounds like you think such a thing would be scandalous, but that's how it used to be. There was a time when game studios would just give Nintendo and Atari the middle finger and produce a cartridge that worked with their consoles anyway. Back in those days, the computers and consoles weren't restricted to only running software signed and approved by the manufacturer.
> It sounds like you think such a thing would be scandalous, but that's how it used to be. There was a time when game studios would just give Nintendo and Atari the middle finger and produce a cartridge that worked with their consoles anyway. Back in those days, the computers and consoles weren't restricted to only running software signed and approved by the manufacturer.
You're partially right.
In the case of Atari, there was no technical enforcement mechanism. Third parties figured out how to make their own cartridges, but lack of control on the market led to a glut of new games in 1982. That glut triggered rapid price reductions (as retailers were often stuck with unsold inventory that couldn't be returned to the publisher), which eventually cratered the entire business, shrinking it by about 97%.[0]
For Nintendo, they did have a technical protection mechanism present in the NES (the 10NES chip). They were allowed to enforce market restrictions based on the presence of the chip.[1]
I apologize I don't have time for an in-depth response, but a quick note is that you have some fallacies in your arguments:
>it would also make console business model or Amazon Kindle business model illegal.
My interpretation would not make console business illegal, but rather it would make limiting the product so that you are the only means of distribution illegal. I can currently side-load books onto my kindle without any sort of jailbreaking or modification. On my android phone I can download an .apk file and install it with no issues. The Google Play Store still makes fine profit, and the App Store would as well, even with competition. This most certainly would fall under the definition of a monopoly.
>For example, Apple Watch only works with iPhone. A person bought Apple Watch a year ago cannot buy a Android phone a year later and have the Apple Watch work as advertised when he/she first bought it.
You are comparing Apples to oranges. This is a lot different as a watch is hardware, not software. Plus we are talking about 1 apple software app vs another apple software app.
>For example, if iOS is going to have third party App Stores, it has to be designed in the OS.
No it doesn't really. It's not apple's responsibility to make it easy for third parties. If their apps do not work, it isn't apples responsibility to account for them. Furthermore, the OS can already handle "third party apps", it just has to be Jailbroken, or side-loaded via an MDM account. Any third party apps still have to use the internal SDK's of Apple in order to function.
> you realize when Google built Android it actually has to spent the time and the energy to design the system that enables Android's flexibility and "multiple App Store and install any app package" system.
Google did not build Android it was purchased by them in 2005. The system of installing any app is the same as installing google apps. The same with apple. There is no extra work that you're claiming, as they have to do this in order for the respective stores to work as well. This, and the comment above, are a different point that I was not making. This would be the case if Apple only allowed Apple software on their device, in which case I would not say this is a monopoly as there wouldn't be any competition for them on the iPhone. However, they do but they do not do this, so your point is moot.
>they need to think do I spend the time to engineer and maintain systems to enable interoperability?
This isn't a question of interoperability. These are all iOS apps. The question is simply the distribution source. I can make an app on my mac and load it directly onto my phone, but the only option I currently have for distribution is the App Store that Apple controls.
Right now they charge 15% of all my purchases. Would you change your opinion if they charged 50%? I guarantee that would put some people out of business. What if apple decided to charge me 15% but you 50%, which would be perfectly within their legal right? Would you agree then that the appstore is not a monopoly?
>btw, if Apple is going to allow other stores and ISVs to offer users application packages to download and install freely like it is on Windows, any company of significant size is going to start bypass Apple's stores and asking users download Exe's or their own app launchers.
Yes and why shouldn't they be able to do so? That's the whole point of the lawsuit, Apple is enforcing this to cut their competition, they are effectively proping up their own monopoly. They currently own the base product, the means of distribution, the means of access, and the means of repair, (although right to repair rulings are becoming far more common).
