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Comment by davidedicillo | Hacker News Reader

Apple is far from having a monopoly, as the Android users and Apple hater keep reminding us. Microsoft at the time I think had 90% of the market or something ridiculous like that. Amazon is free to take its app to the other 100 tables presented at CES.

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I can't wait until the day competition from Android will force Apple to be less arrogant and abusive but we both know that day has not yet arrived. Apple has 99% of tablet market and probably ~50% of smartphone market.

The important figure is that it's 85 million devices as of April last year (http://www.tipb.com/2010/04/08/50-million-iphones-sold-35-mi...).

Do you actually argue that it's ok for Apple to forbid competitors like Adobe, Mozilla, Sony or Amazon from having the same access to 85 million (and growing) users of iPhone/iPad as Apple has? Is it a function of market share?

The cause => effect in those situations is simple. Those who have enough market share to impose abusive terms, do. Whether it is Microsoft with Windows, Apple with iOS or telco companies collecting outrageous fees, they do it because they can. A 90% market share is not necessary.

In all cases it limits competition and as an end result hurts users who pay higher prices and don't get to use innovations that the gatekeeper doesn't like.

Apple has 17.25% of smartphone market share.

http://www.asymco.com/2011/02/01/the-iphone-share-17-25-of-s...

It sounds like you're suggesting that successful companies should help their less successful competitors rather than competing.

You mean like how Microsoft helps Apple by allowing iTunes to run on Windows and allow purchases?

Maybe Apple should block purchases on Amazon.com on Safari on the iDevices and demand a 30% cut. After all, isn't it helping Amazon?

The point is that the iPhone becomes more valuable because of the apps. For example, the iPhone would be more attractive to owners of Sony and other ebook readers if the app was approved.

I think Microsoft should stop helping it's competitor Google by allowing it to work on Windows machines. They should just pre-install a redirect from google.com to bing.com in the hosts file.

You mean...

No.

I mean that the above comment seems to be suggesting that a company that reaches a certain level of success (e.g. Apple's user base) is in the wrong if it doesn't share that success on equal terms with any competitor that would like it. As if reaching that level of success were just a matter of chance and not, y'know...competition. That would be saying that your reward for creating a wildly successful product is to be held back from doing so again.

Since you seem to traffic in absurd examples, try this: Why don't all of these companies just merge into one big company? That way nobody gets blocked out of anything and everybody gets to share the wealth.

>I mean that the above comment seems to be suggesting that a company that reaches a certain level of success (e.g. Apple's user base) is in the wrong if it doesn't share that success on equal terms with any competitor that would like it. As if reaching that level of success were just a matter of chance and not, y'know...competition. That would be saying that your reward for creating a wildly successful product is to be held back from doing so again

All of what you wrote makes sense for a single market. But here things are different. Apple makes phones. Amazon sells ebooks. The conflict of interest started when Apple started selling ebooks and now is ready to devalue it's phone to get leverage in the ebook space. i.e They're leveraging their smartphone marketshare to gather steam in the ebook space. Remind you of MS and Netscape? Pretty similar except for the Windows monopoly part.

Didn't exactly that happen with Microsoft with Windows and Office?

>your reward for creating a wildly successful product is to be held back from doing so again

Err, how would Apple be held back from creating a killer ebook app and succeeding by the merits of it rather than sitting around and charging a tax on all the ebook purchases on iDevices? How does this benefit the user?

So you mean creating a successful product by beating competition in one market should allow one to automatically make another successful product in another by riding roughshod over the competition leveraging the earlier success beyond just using the profit as capital?

So, do you think Microsoft shouldn't have been punished for bundling IE(it was actually better than Netscape at that point) with Windows ? They didn't even ban Netscape or attempt to tax it, they just bundled their browser with a very successful OS which is not a matter of chance but, y'know...competition.

Yes - I think it totally and completely and wonderfully fine for Apple to forbid competitors from having access to their tablet.

Apple needs to focus on one thing, and one thing alone - user experience. Unless they have a some clear monopolistic position, and attempt to leverage that into a new market - they are also well within their legal rights.

If Apple loses sight of the user experience, and if they screw up my Amazon reading experience (I've read north of 20 books on my iPad - so this _directly affects me) - my next tablet will not be an iPad - I like the amazon reading platform - and I'll go see what Android, or, hell, WP7 tablets look like. Apple doesn't need to care about Amazon, or Sony - they need to care about me.

Apple should feel free to abuse the heck out of their competitors, as long as it does so in a legal way and doesn't impact their users.

I note that Amazon hasn't been too generous allowing me to access the Apple or Barnes and Nobles E-Books on my Kindle? I find it strange that nobody is complaining about that lockhold. I don't even have the option.

You okay with that ex-post facto? I mean, I bought said tablet knowing I could buy and read my kindle library on it....

umm you bought it and agreed to a fairly open ended license agreement from Apple. That's based on Apple's credibility, which is their responsibility to maintain and your responsibility to judge.

You don't agree to licenses, they're given.

I can still read my Kindle Books on my iPad. I will be pissed off like you wouldn't believe if that ever changes, as I spend 10-15 hours a week reading on it. Pissed off enough that I would actually consider not picking up the iPad2, yes.

I think there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of users exactly like me. Apple isn't stupid - they'll come to some kind of agreement with Amazon that extracts their pound of flesh out of Amazon without impacting (or, heck, perhaps _improving_) my user experience.

I'm fine with that - they made a great tablet, they should be able to profit all they can.

Just don't screw with _my_ experience.

Oh I agree. Apple knows if they don't, tons of us are buying a kindle, not an iPad 2. I almost just bought a kindle upon reading this.

Apple may not have a monopoly on the raw number of physical devices in the world (except tablets), but aren't they "winning" from a profits perspective? Isn't that what Gruber has celebrated for years: that Apple makes more money selling one phone than any other company on Earth? That they're beating Microsoft and Google at the only game that matters to a corporation, the bottom line? But since the global market share of iOS devices is less than 50% + 1, Apple can do absolutely anything they want?

Sorry for all the questions. But Apple can't have it both ways: either they're a plucky underdog fighting tooth and nail against the big boys, or they're in a dominant position and have some responsibility that comes with leadership. Specifically, not jerking around other companies with fickle, frequent policy changes.

There is no "responsibility that comes with leadership." There is fiduciary responsibility, which they are doing a good job with (which may include "jerking other companies around"), regardless of market position. There is responsibility to your customers, because no company can survive without that (which also may include "jerking other companies around"). But if there isn't clear monopolistic behavior, there is no responsibility to other companies.

Apple may have 90%[1] of the mindshare in the market, but they can't use that position to keep somebody else from entering the market and they can't use their position to control another market.

I want to be able to read books using the Kindle app. I will be pissed if I can't. It will make me seriously consider whether to get an iPad or an Android tablet when they get good enough (since that will be my primary reading platform at that point). But Apple has every right to do that. They aren't keeping Amazon from entering the electronic book market in any way, and I can find dozens of devices roughly equivalent to my iPhone that I can read those Amazon books on.

Kicking ass does not a monopoly make.

[1] Yes, I made this number up, but I think it is a reasonable approximation of something you could never quantify, anyway.

Scary scenario: Lets say Apple and MS get to 50% share each on desktops/laptops. Won't that mean they could do whatever abuse they want to without scrutiny just because none of them is a monopoly?

>But you can’t say it’s surprising that the rules are evolving toward more money for Apple while improving the experience for users — that’s win-win from Apple’s perspective.

How is it an improvement to be unable to read the books you've already bought or movies you have already rented on the iDevices?

Even Microsoft didn't pull such shit for Netflix on the Xbox 360. And the consoles are subsidized for a big loss which was to be made up by purchases by the customers.

Apple makes a profit on every iDevice sold, every iApp sold, through iAds and on the $99/year developer fee. No wonder they're literally swimming in cash but still pull such new shit for even more control and money. If Microsoft did something like this with Windows, they would have more money than what the US has in circulation, which is probably where Apple is heading.

At some point the industry is going to tell Apple to get lost and stop supporting the iDevices which is going to hurt Apple, which coupled with Android's rise might push Apple into a niche like on the desktop.

>Apple makes a profit on every iDevice sold, every iApp sold, through iAds and on the $99/year developer fee.

What evidence do you have to support the allegation that Apple makes a profit on every App sold?

Firstly, there's the cost of having the application tested, approved, uploaded and categorised. There's also the cost of hosting the app as well as the credit card processing fees. Users have the right to re-download any app they've purchased in the past. What about a 99c app that weighs in at 2GB? Does Apple really make a profit after credit card processing fees and bandwidth costs?

As for the $99/year developer fee, there are costs involved in providing support, moderating forums, and approving applications.

You mean it cost millions to approve and sell Angry Birds? Bandwidth is pretty cheap these days and most apps are quite small.

>As for the $99/year developer fee, there are costs involved in providing support, moderating forums, and approving applications

I am sure Xcode costs a lot to develop etc. But Apple still gives it away to developers and has free documentation, examples, forums etc. Why?

You're excluding the benefit of the Apps which make the iPhone more valuable to the users and are a big reason that people buy iPhones. No wonder Jobs like to tout the 300k+ app number every chance he gets.

My assumption has always been the primary reason for the $99 cost is the code signing, similar to buying an SSL cert. There may also be a bit of a filter-function involved: if you aren't willing to spend $99, they don't want you in the playground.

Honestly, I really doubt they are making much money on developer tools (unlike, say, Microsoft). Remember, you only need to pay the $99 to publish (not to develop) and only one person per company has to pay it, so of those 300k+ apps, the actual number of developer subscriptions is a lot lower.

>My assumption has always been the primary reason for the $99 cost is the code signing.

It costs so much to run a program to sign a binary file with your private key? Am I missing something here?

>similar to buying an SSL cert

These people must be having a lot of cash to burn through then. http://www.startssl.com/?app=1

Apple may not make money on developer tools wrt software, but they certainly sell plenty of macs to developers as a requirement to develop for their platform.

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