August 21st, 2009 at 7:26 PM

Does anyone find this degree of intrusion into the legitimate business decisions of a company to be unsettling?  I recognize that the FCC has jurisdiction over the airwaves, but that shouldn’t give them a carte blanche authorization to conduct investigations over which applications one company decides to place on its cellphones.

August 21st, 2009 at 9:31 PM

I just can’t help but wonder what took Apple SO LONG to come up with this explanation?  It makes me think that the answer is less than true, or that they are incompetent in their decision making and marketing processes.

August 22nd, 2009 at 11:18 AM

This is a tough one.  While there is clearly some merit to the idea that customers can choose their experience, Apple clearly has the right to determine the user experience that their products, the products that carry its trademarks, offer in the marketplace.  At least this will be true when Apple’s licenses and criteria for selecting apps for the App Store rest on the rights granted to Apple pursuant to the Trademark, Copyright, and Patent Acts.  Copyright would protect against copying or modifying Apple’s software; patent, including software patents, would prevent other from making a device that infringes on Apple’s patent rights, and trademark, in particular, would allow Apple to prohibit the alteration of its devices in ways that alter its devices so that they no longer represent what Apple presents to its customers and is willing to stand for and stand behind.

Therefore, for any application that infringes on Apple’s rights pursuant to copyright and/or patent or that engages in such wholesale alteration any of Apple’s devices, which in this case the iPhone, such that it has a different character than what Apple put in the marketplace, Apple has, I think, a good argument for refusing to allow that application on the iPhone and/or the App Store. 

Those seeking a fundamentally different experience than what Apple’s trademark represents should perhaps consider a different phone.

August 23rd, 2009 at 11:50 AM

Apple always puts itself between its customers and developers but in ways that both developers and customers have apparently found to be of great benefit.  Apple always designs custom, integrated solutions for all of its devices and services.  Apple’s customers have loved that and do continue to love that.  They love it for the elegance, simplicity, reliability, and intuitive operation of Apple’s products.  As for developers, they get platforms with excellent development tools and a coherent and limited set of platforms that have uniform specs and quality, which dramatically lowers the costs, while increasing the speed, of development.  For those customer that want not to have Apple in the middle, there is Windows or Linux.  But for Apple’s customers, they love Apple being in the middle, as the sales numbers show, and those numbers show that those who prefer Apple being in the middle is rapidly growing, because Apple being in the middle benefits them with superior products and services.  This is true for a growing number of customers and developers.  For the others, they aren’t in Apple’s target markets, so we can only wish them well in their adventures with Linux and Windows.

The point is well taken that, because of the proliferation of apps on the App Store, Apple needs to do something to separate the wheat from the chaff at the App Store.  But of problems, that, as I am sure every other OEM of smartphones would agree, is a good problem to have.  However, it is a problem.  It is a problem that can be solved, and I am sure Apple is addressing it.

Apple going into the network business is a non-starter.  First, entry into that business is vastly expensive, so expensive in fact that even Apple couldn’t take it on without taking on an amount of debt that would destroy Apple if the venture failed. 

Second, the network business is fundamentally inconsistent with Apple’s business as a marker of network devices.  Those, who own networks, do everything that they can to maximize the return on their ten of billions in investment, which means that they do whatever they can get away with to hobble devices so that their customers have to depend on the network to communicate and for services.  Device makers, like Apple, on the other hand, strive to incorporate features in their products that give greater choices and lower prices for network services, because this is what their customers want and love in their smartphones and other devices.  (Remember that Verizon rejected the iPhone for, among other reasons, Apple’s insistence on including WiFi, which, at that time, Verizon did permit in any of the phones on its network.)  So you would have one major part of the company, the network side, constantly trying to restrain develop on the device side, Macs, iPods, and iPhones, that threatened its revenue stream.  Such a conflict would lead to either to mediocre devices or the risk of unsustainable loss of profits on your vastly expensive network or both.  That kind of conflict, mainframes v. PCs, nearly destroyed IBM, and it would not fail to seriously damage Apple.

Third, Apple on its current business has higher margins than the cell carrier, so there is no reason why Apple would wish to enter the network business at the expense of its current businesses.

The signing app idea seems attractive, but it can be defeated, and isn’t the reason why Apple has difficulty with other network carriers.  Network carries and Apple fight over branding (Apple adamantly refuses to let a carrier put the carrier’s brand on its products and services); over the app store (China’s largest cell carrier and Apple finally couldn’t get to a deal because, among other things, Apple would not relinquish control of the App Store);  subsidy on the iPhone (The iPhone is the best and most popular smartphone in the world.  It’s a game changer for which Apple demands a commensurate subsidy); and whether or not the carrier will get any exclusive on distribution of the iPhone (Apple is generally against providing an exclusive, while, where there is a dominant carrier, it wants an exclusive).  Signing application has nothing to do with forgoing, which are all business considerations.

Singing also only works when, as is the case with Apple, you control the distribution database, i.e., the App Store.  If there are other app stores that can install apps on the iPhone, your security is only as strong as the weakest app store.  In such a scheme, Apple would be blamed for security breaches that it had no ability to control.  That’s a fool’s bargain.

August 23rd, 2009 at 4:52 PM

I cannot believe this is an issue.
It is their product. They every right to control it.
Protecting the user experience protects their brand. Its a policy/practice that serves Apple well.
I think their reviewers and the review process are amazing!
A superhuman effort. Can you imagine that workload?
60,000 apps available, millions of iphones, billions of downloads…
I think there are few people out there (developers and users) who are quite happy with the process and the product.
Taking control away from them will only undermine innovation and quality.
To the chronic malcontents -if you don’t like the game, don’t play.

August 23rd, 2009 at 11:26 PM

Look, one day soon, we’re not going to be buying cell minutes. We’ll just buy a data contract on an IP-derivative network.

I like the idea but I can’t agree with the soon part. Cell phone companies have us by<insert risque simile here> and they won’t give it up without a long, protracted and bloody fight. They broke up Ma-Bell and it didn’t work; 20-something years later it’s back and stronger than ever and surrounded by fraternal brother companies. The political power the cell companies weald means that there won’t be legislative or regulatory action to open up the system and reduce costs to the consumers. There isn’t really competition; the principals ‘complete’ with a nudge-nudge-wink toward each other. Lastly, it’s irrelevant in Apple has a higher Market Cap than Verizon. if Apple or Google, or MS tried to seriously compete in that market, they would face the combined might of the entrenched companies meaning a long costly fight that they would likely lose. Apple and the rest are smarter than to try that. As Nemo said;

That is why both Google and Apple passed on getting into the network business, when they each decided not to bid on the 700 MHz spectrum

As far as letting the carriers control the signature database, IMO that would be a step in the wrong direction. It would give more power to the cell companies at a time when they have too much power and have shown that they have no qualms about using it to screw the customers repeatedly.

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/08/21/att.needs.data.on.sphones/

The first step that Apple should work on is freeing itself from AT&T. Not that are any worse than the other companies, it’s just that right now they have the iPhone monopoly. Once the iPhone is available on any and all carriers, then there might be some semblance of real competition.

But I’m not holding my breath.