It's perfectly fine to have a a curated app store by default, it's not OK when it's the only option. Especially when your as big as Apple is.
If you are critical of Apple's 'dictatorship', how can you be comfortable with the idea that the government is going to wield its power any better? You can choose not to do business with Apple. Try that with the government.
We aren't talking about public safety, fraudulent behavior, or monopolistic advantage here. You can even utilize Apple's hardware and ditch their curated ecosystem if you want (jail break your phone). Nobody is going to stop you.
Running to a lawyer and the courts when you don't like the product offerings of a private company is absurd.
Which is so unlike the legal regime that backs up that "private" entity when it uses government granted privilege to keep competitors at bay (such as with patents and insane copyright legislation).
I would be perfectly fine with having their own little private ecosystem where they pull the rug out from under developers -- if they would stop trying to undermine those trying to compete with it via lawsuits, for that would just mean that they would ultimately learn their lesson. But when the government stands behind their tyranny over developers, they never learn.
[1] If the patent system is good/evil/broken/whatever is a separate argument. And if the patent system is the problem you fix the patent system, not something else that isn't related to it.
No, I said if the free market were in force (as opposed to the protection racket that is the patent system), then THAT would teach Apple a lesson.
I made no remark about whether there should be strings attached to government privilege, but certainly it's reasonable that if someone is profiting unjustly from government handouts (e.g. patents), then they shouldn't have carte blanche.
They already do. In the US we call those dictatorial edicts regulations, and they specify how many business operations are to be done or impose restrictions on how things can be done.
Laws against putting sawdust in meat? dictating the business operations of a private entity. restrictions on how pure gasoline must be to be used in a car? dictating the business operations of a private entity. Laws restricting the reasons a business can fire someone or refuse to hire them? dictating the business operations of a private entity. I could keep going, but I think I've made my point here.
> If you are critical of Apple's 'dictatorship', how can you be comfortable with the idea that the government is going to wield its power any better?
Because in the us the government is not a dictatorship.
> You can choose not to do business with Apple. Try that with the government.
I believe that is called immigration.
> We aren't talking about public safety, fraudulent behavior, or monopolistic advantage here.
The government is not restricted to making laws abut just those things. Article 1, sections 8 through 10 of the Constitution define what the government can and can't make laws about.
> Running to a lawyer and the courts when you don't like the product offerings of a private company is absurd.
I think you are mischaracterizing what is happening here. I think it is more correct to say that what is happening is that people are running to a lawyer and the courts when a private company is trying to control how you use their product (and possibly making changes to how it works/what it does) after you have purchased it.
I was responding to the notion that Apple's decision to only support a curated app store should be 'fixed' by the government because it is in some unexplained way 'illegal'.
You are introducing a lot of other issues that I wasn't trying to address.
If you don't like Apple's curated ecosystem: use Apple's Enterprise Program to distribute unreviewed apps or jail break your phone or switch to Android or switch to a Windows smartphone or start your own company and compete against all of them or don't use a smartphone or ...
These are all preferable to supporting the idea that there is something illegal going on that has to be remedied by a lawsuit.
I disagree. I think, if the control were introduced slowly enough and with the right justifications ("security" and "convenience" spring to mind) many users would welcome iOS level restrictions on their general purpose computing hardware. Indeed, we're already seeing Apple move in this direction with its increasingly strict restrictions on App Store purchases in OSX.
I hate to be as alarmist as Stallman and co., but I do think the ship has sailed on this one. The only way to guarantee that your device is open is to run an open operating system on it. If this were an Android app instead of an iPad, then the developers could have asked users to install a different app. store (like Amazon's app store) or even offered the .apk for the users to install themselves. It would have been less convenient than installing from Google Play, but it wouldn't have been nearly as difficult as with iOS.
If microsoft did that, There would have been no browser, No hacker news and you wouldn't have had opportunity to post that comment.
So yes, I agree with you. If Microsoft had been allowed to proceed down that path, it's conceivable that Hacker News wouldn't be around, or would exist in a different form. Now Apple is going down the path that was trod earlier by Microsoft. Yet the Justice Department today is silent.
> Why is it tolerated in iOS?
It's like if I buy all the real-estate in New York City, then force all businesses to pay me 30% of there revenues if they want operate there, and forbid any business that competes with one of mine.
No one holds a gun to your head to buy an iPhone/iPod/iPad. There are alternatives to these devices, some with more freedom, some with less.
I wish just as much as the next computer geek to be able to side-load any app into my iOS devices, but millions of zombie machines and a slew of critical private information harvesters are way more detrimental (and even more in your phone which may become your credit card and whatnot). I honestly sleep much better now that I know my relatives won't download, install and execute some random app, since they conveniently have all they could wish for right in the App Store, reviewed and signed. It's not an invincible fortress, but it's way safer and more secure for them than a full-open (or even half-open) situation.
Do you think the farmers make more than 70% of the retail price you pay for food in a supermarket? At an eatery? Do you think that book authors (before or after the internet) get more than 70% of the retail price of each book?
In selling things, the creation of the thing is important, yes. But so is getting it to customers and changing over the money (distribution and retail channel).
I, for one, am glad of the situation. No sideloading means less piracy.
http://www.theolympian.com/2010/04/18/1209941/kid-writes-iph...
And you don't need a relatively new Mac, just a Core 2 Duo Intel or newer (I have a 3 year old MBP and can sign/develop for iOS 6 beta seed 1).
And it requires absolutely zero technical knowledge: You just drag and drop an .ipa file, and sync with iTunes.
Xcode is free.
So, only your first argument ($99/year, for 100 devices) is actually correct.
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I hate being forced to defend Apple in a case that I don't agree with what they did, but your very poor criticism made me to correct you. I'm sure you understand that it's nothing personal, and doesn't mean I agree with what Apple did.
Only if we allow you blowing off the "need a Mac" requirement to equal zero dollars...
It's kinda a decent sized hole in your argument.
However if I were to play smart I'd say I didn't have any argument and was just refuting my parent's :)