That doesn't make it anything short of disgusting -- it's worse than anything MS ever did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics
... or one of the many other companies that produced something that Microsoft decided would be better if it was bundled with the OS.
I'm not defending Apple here, but come on, be realistic.
You can still develop and sell a competing application, you'll just get less traction because people already get an application with similar functionality for free.
Apple has killed off a whole class of developer tools with this and stated that if you don't use the software they want, they'll revoke your license.
An equal analogy would be MS revoking the right to sell Windows software for anyone that refused to browse with Internet Explorer.
if all microsoft did was write a clone of stac's product and bundle it with the OS, then that would be questionable, but not too bad. But no, what Microsoft did was pretend they were interested in buying Stac, gained access to all their source code as part of their "due diligence," then "changed their minds" and created a nearly identical product "from scratch."
Stac was able to get the courts to agree that this was dirty pool, and it cost Microsoft over 80 million dollars.
I don't like Objective C either, but I don't take it that far.
What about this: "I will use my mobile operating system prestige to put your mobile company out of business if you don't assist me in putting a competitor of ours, Adobe, out of the mobile app business".
The word "monopoly" doesn't add much. People could develop for MacOS back then when Microsoft did that, but nobody used MacOS. Likewise, people can develop for Android now, but nobody uses android.
And we have a disagreement about what viable mobile platform means.
For example, "Gameloft sells 400 times more games on iPhone than it does on Android." http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/29757/gameloft-cutting-andro...
There isn't much of a mobile games market outside the iPhone. Unless you want to develop children games for the DS. And then you would need to wear a suit to sign a contract with Nintendo. And guess what, they don't sign more than X contracts a year, where X is a very low number. So you could be out of luck.
The point is that if the iPhone is the most lucrative platform now, it is not in the best interest of the developer to put their eggs in only one basket. And markets change. So they should create demand in parallel in other devices too.
But to port to other devices takes time and money, two scarce resources, as you now.
One way they could be less dependent on the iPhone with minimum investment is to use a compatibility layer like Unity. Unity already works on the Wii, and will work on the Android and Xbox soon, with windows phone probably not far away. But with the new rules, that is not a solution anymore.
Also, it is ironic that Unity will work on Xbox but not on the iPhone. Don't you think?
And I didn't say they have additional responsibilities to the market at all. I was just making the case that to limit choice of your partners (and, therefore, your consumers) to kill your competitors is evil. It is what Microsoft did with OEMs and it is what Apple is doing with developers.
Is is perfectly possible to kill a competitor without being evil. The best example is Facebook. I don't think Facebook would ban a developer for using a Google API or a compatibility layer that make games work in Myspace too. They even allow multiple payment platforms!
I think the reason for the vitriol on this particular issue is that Apple is doing something that computer geeks don't think is correct, and computer geeks can't handle it when people do things "wrong".
And the 2nd statement could be applied to the whole Opera sueing MS over browsers in the EU recently, or even the IE/Netscape thing back in the day.
Honestly I think it is more people don't like being told they have to waste time and money giving up projects/products they started and learning the tools Apple is arbitrarily forcing them to use. That is money out of people's pocket and you will find that pisses people off a lot more than anything else.
Acting anticompetitively to support a monopoly is what is against the law.
If the DOJ is up on Apple in 10 years, it'll be because their policies from today are so successful that they come to absolutely dominate the market.
Acting anticompetitively to support a monopoly is what is against the law.
If the DOJ is up on Apple in 10 years, it'll be because their policies from today are so successful that they come to absolutely dominate the market. In which case, it would have been practically actionable for them not to have served their shareholders by pursuing those policies.
But MS doesn't care how you compile, just as long as the bytecode checks out safe.
Please, keep in mind that if the successful product is effectively a monopoly, then this conduct is not only immoral. It's also illegal.
As long as Apple stays #1 in developer mindshare, all that will happen is some pissing and moaning (as we're seeing). It's way too expensive to stand on principle and jump ship for Android.
But Apple has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory before. If the day ever comes (again) when they desperately need loyal developers, this bit of contractual bushwhacking will be remembered.
Exactly.
In other words: no, you can not use it. It is verboten.
Imagine what would happen, if Microsoft had veto over Lotus 123, Ami Pro, Netscape, Apache, Mozilla, etc.
Perhaps for some values of "ever".
Now, seriously, this is a boneheaded, monopoly-exploiting, move.
If Apple wanted to one-up Microsoft, they would demand that every cell-phone operator that sells iPhones to drop all Android phones. On a second step, they would demand telcos to stop selling phones from manufacturers that offered Android-based phones.
That would be a truly Microsoftian move.