For me, it's more interesting that Apple did this without a lot of the shady business & licensing practices that Microsoft engages in.
Edit: Before downvoting me, take a look at my comment history. I'm not your typical Apple fan/Microsoft basher.
Edit: Before downvoting me, take a look at my comment history. I'm not your typical Apple fan/Microsoft basher.
None of this sounds the least bit shady to you?
To me, their decision to prevent iOS apps from getting content outside of its walled garden (and bypass the 30% fee) is much more anti-competitive than whatever Microsoft did.
I don't know if anyone downvoted you (I didn't). I just wanted to hear your opinion. I'd like to hear what you mean by 'shady', and what in particular about Microsoft makes it shadier.
For instance, a customer can love the output of a supply chain, and abhor some part (or the implications of some part) of that supply chain. This isn't at all like a thermometer measuring temperature here.
The point is that Apple and MS both used the fact that vendors need them to make money (and while competitors for both exist, competitors yielded less likely return), and leveraged that position.
Microsoft got a lot of flak for just shipping IE with the OS, whereas Apple doesn't even allow alternate browser engines such as Firefox and Chrome on iOS.
Couple that with some capricious and silly rejecting or stonewalling of apps such as Google Voice and an Android magazine apps and I feel Apple is worse than Microsoft in asserting control over the ecosystem.
Oh, and Microsoft got flak because they were behaving in an anticompetitive way. Shipping your OS with only ine browser engine is usually no problem and only in very specific instances illegal.
I can make an OS X application and market it, distribute it in any way I wish. I can even use Apple's IDE, libraries, and compiler tools.
Why are you comparing that to the device OS (which by the way, Microsoft also implements a similarly restricted approach for in their Windows Phone Marketplace).
And I for one LOVE the walled garden as it provides me with demonstrably higher-quality, malware-free apps that don’t just rip off someone else’s IP/icon haphazardly the way most Android apps seem to do. The walled garden does NOT prevent end users from installing web apps to the home screen, sans Apple approval. It is also NOT anticompetitive, unless you know something no one else does.
[1]: http://news.cnet.com/2100-7344_3-5172426.html?tag=nefd_lede
[2]: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Microsoft-Kee... and http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2004/03/62644 and more generically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=465335
I am sure that you're happy that Google was left hanging for a year and that an Android app was banned from the App Store. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373502,00.asp
And there are a whole ton of low quality apps in the iOS app store as well.
Additionally, whether some anti-competitive action benefits you in the short term is irrelevant because it often does. (For example, Microsoft "Bundling" IE led you to have free browsers) They are anti-competitive because companies are sacrificing short term potential to wall off their competitors, hence "walled garden."
And Apple is using the same "open development initiative" approach in OS X.
I'm curious as to why you feel that "(Apple's walled garden approach) is much more anti-competitive than whatever Microsoft did" when Microsoft is pursuing the same approach in the same space.
It's just a question of the degree of lock-in. And Apple is a master of lock-in: purchased apps for iOS and Mac OS X don't work anywhere else, FairPlay prevents movies purchased from iTunes from working elsewhere, AirTunes is locked via DRM to iTunes, things like MagSafe are protected with patents to maintain their profit margins, and so on.
Everything from forcing hardware vendors to bundle their OS to forcing Internet Explorer installs to the infamous Halloween documents to their covert dealings with SCO & everyone else over Linux and patents.
Surprisingly, it still seems pretty hard to get the hardware I want without paying for a Windows OS I:
1.) Won't use, because I'd throw Linux on it. 2.) Don't need, because I already have several valid Windows licenses which are unused.
But yes, certainly some of Apple's walled garden/30% actions are alarming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_antitrust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
Um... you are wrong. These companies are all suing each other, and Apple is known for creating patents for every little thing they do in iOS.