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Comment by orijing | Hacker News Reader

Do you think Apple's walled approach to iOS apps and content on iOS platforms is more honorable than Microsoft's open development initiative? (i.e. letting anyone write Windows applications).

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.

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"Do you think Apple's walled approach to iOS apps and content on iOS platforms is more honorable than Microsoft's open development initiative? (i.e. letting anyone write Windows applications)."

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).

Sorry, that was a bad comparison. I just wanted to compare Apple's most popular platform to Microsoft's. But you're right, the circumstances are different. Apples and Oranges, I know.

Definitely what Microsoft participated in has been much shadier. I'm not sure it can be reasonably argued otherwise.

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

... you can get apple hardware without paying for OSX?

Please stop trolling. Microsoft did a ton of shady things. For instance: Colluding with SCO to spread Linux IP FUD [1]; suing Lindows around the world, even“ex parte,” and getting a ruling from some a Dutch judge that every day someone could download Lindows from the Netherlands, Lindows owed MSFT an additional 100,000€ for trademark violation [2]; the whole Java Embrace, Extend, Extinguish thing; forcing OEMs to not ship PCs with Linux installed if they wanted standard OEM discounts on Windows; the whole federally-convicted-of-antitrust bit; etc.

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 was not trolling. I had a fundamental disagreement and wanted to understand where he was coming from.

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 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.

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.

Microsoft is using the same "walled approach" in Windows Phone 7.

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.

How is the "walled garden" anti-competitive. It doesn't stop anyone from writing applications for android, WebOS, etc. Apple is selling a hardware experience. We have a choice, use IOS devices with the walled garden experience, or use an alternative like Android or WebOS devices. Furthermore, "honor" has nothing to do with the ability to write apps for a platform without paying a fee. This is not similar to Microsoft's anti-competitive practices in the past.

Just like any browser could run on the Mac or Linux, and ignore Windows if they preferred. Or Dell could sell Linux machines, and not Windows if they didn't want to.

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.

>How is the "walled garden" anti-competitive. It doesn't stop anyone from writing applications for android, WebOS, etc

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.

Also remember Apple having to back pedal from developers even generating code from non-sanctioned languages. It was the first time in history, that I recall, where a vendor not only specified a language, but also specified how code for that language was generated.

I agree with you there, that was pretty ridiculous when I first saw they were attempting to do that. I will say though, I don't believe that was necessarily to force people to buy macs to develop. I think that by keeping people on the same toolchain, using the predetermined API's and LLVM, they could make major enhancements without having to worry about all the 3rd-party apps still working.

You can use any browser engine you want on OS X. The point of comparison obviously has to be Windows Mobile 7, not Windows 7.

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.

Controlling the ecosystem it created is not anti-competitive. There seems to be confusion over not being able to distribute apps on Apple's platform, and not being able to compete against apple.

Um, "whatever Microsoft did" was so shady it's illegal. Apple may be heavy-handed in how they manage their platform, but they don't do anything to prevent consumers from using competing platforms.

They both make dick moves every day and get soundly rewarded for doing so.

Which implies that most consumers don't consider them to be dick moves.

Or that most consumers don't have a choice in the matter (especially in regards to MS - I don't have a laptop running Windows & Office because I like Windows & Office).

That's the question, isn't it? If the user feels like they don't have a choice (and especially if it's because any potential choice has been intentionally squelched by the reigning monopolist), then it starts to seem dickish. There are plenty of alternative mobile platforms and thus it's rare to see people complain that they're forced into using an iPhone.

(raises hand) I complained about having to use an iPhone - mostly because of AT&T though. Thankfully, both Verizon moved in and I moved on from that job.

There are so many possible disconnections between the individual purchasing decisions of customers and the moves, dick or otherwise, which large businesses make, that I don't see how there is warrant to connect the one as a passing of any sort of judgement on the other at all.

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.

Human beings deserve uncrippled tools, so I consider Apple's iOS appliances to be unworthy of us. But their customers are at least willingly buying into that dystopia, unlike Microsoft customers who were usually confronted with vendors who couldn't dare to sell you a box with a competing operating system even when asked.

Well, you could always buy a Mac.

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.

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