Except this has never, ever been done to anything but malware. Not even apps that flagrantly and blatantly violated the store rules and got taken down are removed from end user devices. Not even apps which were pulled down for patent or copyright infringement.
It isn't going to happen.
Until such time as the killswitch is abused, this remains a slippery slope argument with no basis in reality.
If you're worried about your apps, back up the IPA's. You kept your //e floppies around somewhere, didn't you? Is the problem that once apps are removed from the appstore, you can't redownload them? Can you buy Oregon Trail for the original Apple 2 officially anymore?
Unless you think that Apple is immune to injunction, the mere existence of the capability to remove apps from customers' devices is a sort of attractive nuisance. Now, it could be that precedent will be established that removing infringing or other undesirable content or applications from third-party computers is not permissible. Until that precedent exists, though, the risk seems high that precedent will go the other way.
There is precedent. Not in a legal way, but in the judgement of the public. Amazon remote erased an eBook in 2009, ironically "1984", from Kindle devices because the publisher didn't have the copyright and the real copyright holder demanded it from Amazon. It was a PR nightmare! CEO Jeff Bezos had to offer a public apology to mitigate this mistake. I don't expect a big company will make this mistake again.
Google first pushed the killswitch on an App in March 2011, a trojan malware for Android, and nobody really complained. Apple on the other hand never triggered the killswitch to date. They also don't have magic powers. Make a backup the iOS device and in the unlikely event the App isn't working on a future OS update or Tim Cook is getting insane, just install the backup again.
There is precedent. Not in a legal way, but in the judgement of the public.
You say that you don't think that a big company will pull apps or content again, and then you provide an example of the same behavior from a big company (Google), where public outcry was limited.
The Amazon incident was why I said "or content" in my original comment. It's already happened more than once, as you note, and some cases prompted outcry and were reversed, and some did not and were not. But more importantly, none of these were cases where a court ordered the company to do this, and it matters far less (to Apple, Amazon, or Google) what the public thinks about an action that they were forced to do by law. They'll just shrug and provide the injunction.
Any application that requires making a backup and restoring after every killswitch usage is not going to continue to have a customer base, and therefore there will be few or no updates, and that will be that. It doesn't matter that it's technically possible to get around the problem, if having to do so reduces your audience by 95 percent.
This is already a PR nightmare for Prentke Romich and Semantic Compaction. They've shown that they don't care about public opinion (or at least broader public opinion). They have a duopoly on their (very niche) market and are going to do whatever it takes to defend it. It's absolutely possible that their next legal move will be to ask Apple to proactively remove the app from iPads and to file for an injunction if Apple does not do so voluntarily.
The capability to remove apps from customer's devices has always existed in desktops since the internet, even for those you keep in CDs, as long as you are connected and receiving OS updates.
It is technically possible, doesn't mean it has been done (or maybe it has, Apple issued a patch a few weeks ago to remove malware on OSX?). OS updates could install anything onto your machine, including a tool that removes/blocks whatever it wants.
It is technically possible for me to write and distribute a virus that erases anything but GPL-licensed software from the disk of any computer it infects, sends all your money to the FSF, and turns your computer off at 8pm every night to ensure you get a good night's sleep.
However, both of these scenarios aren't happening in the real world.
Until such time as the killswitch is abused, this remains a slippery slope argument with no basis in reality.
The trouble isn’t just this particular killswitch. As jaysonelliot was suggesting, the really insidious problem is the general trend that even when you think you’re buying a permanent copy of a knowledge work, you are often not getting what you think you’re paying for any more. I’m not sure which is worse, the dubious business models or the fact that the simplest of commercial transactions on-line routinely comes with absurd amounts of legalese attached, but neither is a welcome development IMHO.
I’ve never personally been the victim of an app store revocation, because I saw that one coming and won’t spend my money on unsafe purchases like that. But I’ve certainly seen the damage of phone-home activation, after the boot drive of my main workstation failed. Two pieces of high-end professional software, both legally purchased on physical media by my own company (each at a four-figure price), were at risk from this. It took weeks of chasing the software companies to get the licensing/activation concerns resolved, during which time one piece of software was unusable and the other was reportedly at risk of shutting down any time. It even turned out that both of those companies had completely screwed up the registration and thought my company’s licence keys were registered to someone else, and we really did get to the point of my sending them photographs of original invoices/packaging/serial numbers in one case.
In my country, hacking into someone’s computer and causing that level of damage would surely be a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act. I believe that remote blocking of legitimately installed software by, for example, phone home activation/DRM schemes or post-sale deletion by an app store should also be considered an offence. After all, the end result is much the same. I’ve never had the chance to ask a lawyer why it isn’t (or maybe it is, perhaps even under the same legislation, but for whatever reason the culprits aren’t being prosecuted). And if it can be a criminal offence in various jurisdictions to circumvent technical measures in order to do otherwise perfectly legal things with a copyrighted work you’ve bought (OK, “licensed”, but while I appreciate the need for lawyers to be precise, we all know how most people are going to understand the transaction), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make it an offence to abuse such technical measures from the other side as well. Maybe we should have some sort of safe harbour provision to protect companies who genuinely make an innocent mistake but correct it immediately on notification, but the basic principle that abusing remote deactivation is illegal seems only fair.
>I think Orwell might have something to say about that.
Note that we're talking about Apple, not Amazon. And I doubt that it will ever happen on Amazon again either, after the PR drubbing they took after doing it the first time.
And your other anecdotes are well and good, but show me where this has happened with Apple. We're talking apps, not books.
Except this has never, ever been done to anything but malware. Not even apps that flagrantly and blatantly violated the store rules and got taken down are removed from end user devices. Not even apps which were pulled down for patent or copyright infringement.
It isn't going to happen.
Until such time as the killswitch is abused, this remains a slippery slope argument with no basis in reality.
If you're worried about your apps, back up the IPA's. You kept your //e floppies around somewhere, didn't you? Is the problem that once apps are removed from the appstore, you can't redownload them? Can you buy Oregon Trail for the original Apple 2 officially anymore?