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Duplicates a native service

Surly it can't be legal for Apple to potentially reject an app on such grounds?! and on that subject where is the talkative Google search update?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/building-search-engin...

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They can legally do whatever they want. They've pulled apps before for the same rule. It's part of playing in Apple's ecosystem. As a developer you always take the risk that Apple will decide to wield the ban-hammer, and you basically have no recourse.

Just like Microsoft could legally do what they wanted on windows vis-a-vis Netscape and IE.

They couldn’t because they were a monopoly.

Apple is so far from being a monopoly, it’s not even funny.

Microsoft controlled 94% of the computers on earth. What percentage of smartphones does Apple control?

Microsoft was a monopoly, Apple is not.

Doesn't mean I like their policies, but the situations aren't comparable.

Those aren't even remotely analogous. Nobody required Microsoft to sell Netscape. Microsoft got slapped for using its monopoly in Operating Systems to pressure third parties into not signing agreements to ship Netscape on their products.

The fundamental thing that's lacking here is that third-party coercion. The government is never going to force any company to carry and sell products they don't want to carry and sell.

How to understand this in 3 easy steps:

1) Build a product. Any product, doesn't matter.

2) Walk into Wal-Mart and demand that they sell it.

3) Watch them laugh you out of the store.

Stores aren't under any obligation whatsoever to sell something just because you, or I, or Google, wants to sell it in them.

That's because Walmart is not a marketplace like ebay. An app store is a marketplace with terms and conditions, any one that meets those terms should be allowed to list their app.

"should" be allowed OR is it "may" be allowed (if apple pleases).

Empirically, the iOS App Store is not a marketplace like ebay, either.

No, you'd like the App Store to be a marketplace, but the way it's operated since its inception clearly demonstrates that Apple, as is their right, runs it as a curated store.

> Surly it's not legal for Apple to potentially reject an app on such grounds?

Of course it is. The only ways for it to be illegal would be 1. if it infringed on freedom of speech (no way that's going to hold) or 2. an antitrust action (which would require Apple to be a monopoly)

I don't believe Apple has any responsibility to provide freedom of speech within their closed ecosystem.

Yep, typically freedom of speech applies to government censorship. A private party can shut you out of their system as they have no responsibility to provide you with a platform. "Freedom of speech" is so often a misused/misunderstood concept.

Hence "no way that's going to hold"

Apple are already being investigated in a number of ongoing cases by the FTC, DOJ and ITC for their App Store practices[1].

I really doubt they would have the balls to block Google Maps with so much spotlight on them already.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-11/ftc-said-to-prepare...

I'm not a lawyer, or even that educated, but I would be highly surprised if Apple couldn't do whatever they wanted with their own app store.

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