Anticompetitive actions? Microsoft got in trouble for bundling IE. Why wouldn't Apple get in trouble for actively prohibiting competing browsers?
This is Europe, after all, not the US. The average consumer actually has some rights over there. (In the US, we basically have "if it blows up and ruins your face, Apple has to buy you a band-aid" and "you have the right to not buy it".)
Microsoft got in trouble for bundling IE. Why wouldn't Apple get in trouble for actively prohibiting competing browsers?
Microsoft got in trouble for using IE to strengthen their Windows monopoly - it wasn't too long ago that if you want to online banking, etc, you had to use IE and ActiveX which meant you had to use Windows.
Apple has no such monopoly, even in the smartphone space where Finland's Nokia has several times the marketshare of the iPhone.
Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the internal market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market in so far as it may affect trade between Member States.
Such abuse may, in particular, consist in:
(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions;
(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers;
(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;
(d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts.
I'm not sure how you can be so confident that the regulators will conclude that Apple doesn't have a monopoly if investigated by regulators.
This can be far from obvious. In the Microsoft case, it was decided that the operating system market is distinct from the web browser market. This conclusion is decidedly non-intuitive, since what does and does not make up a modern operating system is largely arbitrary, as anyone who has used a modular system knows.
What's to stop the EC deciding that the iTunes Store is distinct from the phone and MP3 player market? To me, it seems that the distinction between hardware and retail being different markets is much more clear than the line between where an OS ends and where software starts.
The terminal point of this logic suggests that the EU is also going to rule that we can develop arbitrary applications for our cable set-top boxes, for Cisco switches, and for automotive engine computers.
Isn't it intuitive that browsers, which for the most part are available for several different operating systems, is a separate market from the operating system itself? Seem like two different markets to me. Of course, on the iPhone there is so far no browser market, but that would be the exception, no?
X.Org is available on several different operating systems too, but I assume you don't think that Microsoft should have been prevented from shipping a GUI with their OS.
I'll take a dollar for every time it has to be explained that government action on "monopoly" doesn't require 100% of a market (and that "market" is a vague concept). I think I'd come out ahead.
I'd prefer the latter ("you have the right to not buy it") to the government interfering in the internal operations of Apple. If I didn't like how Apple was taking so long to decide on Opera Mini, I would have a world of alternatives. I could use an Android phone, use a Nokia phone, get a cheap flip phone, make my own phone, not use a phone at all. Apple does not have the obligation to approve every last web browser that developers submit, and I'm fine with that, so I've decided to use their phone.
Why? If I don't think that "government interfering in the internal operations of some company" is generally bad and morally wrong (and I don't [1]), is there any other reason to think this? Is there any objective reason why should the European governments let Apple do anything it likes at the expense of the European companies and customers? (This is not necessarily the case, but it's close.) I'm not saying that you are wrong and I don't think that some government should "interfere" in this case, but I'd like to know your reasons why it should not. Just curious.
[1] I don't even think that we're speaking about "internal operations", there are numerous external companies and customers involved, how is that an "internal operation"?
Are you asking in the very general sense? Of course there are reasons, both "moral" and practical.
One important one is that when courts and politicians get involved, manoeuvring in the system is more important then manoeuvring in the market. This becomes the central focus of managers. Managers without talent or experience in this area give way to managers that are.
Remember, this is not just a matter of flipping a switch. The case against Microsoft took years. During that time, the beginning of the PC revolution, the most important thing the most important company could do was win a court case and preserve a public image.
This is damage that happens so long as the system stays clean. Another problem with this sort of action is that it creates terrible incentive for corruption. Fortunes can be won or lost depending on a political decision. The owners of those fortunes will try to influence the process.
On the flip side, it isn't obvious that there is much return to this sort of "intervention." Microsoft & IBM, the two great monopolies of the computer industry both failed to do much harm. The both were clearly affected by competition. The markets stayed competitive. New products appeared. Innovation happened. They made high profits (MS still has great profits), but no obvious damage happened.
To see this at work look at telcos and other infrastructure owning companies around the world, where government intervention is usually highest. Look at the CEOs of these companies. These are guys who know how to oil the system, not lay copper wire and certainly not how to answer a customer service call. It is not uncommon for corruption to be present. Many countries have telcos owned by members of a political elite.
I wasn't trying to be so general, and wanted to talk mostly about Apple and Appstore :-) But thank you, it's a good answer. Anyway, I think that while market will usually find a workable solution, we cannot expect it to ever find the best one (well, and especially socially responsible one, whatever it means :-)). Of course, regulation, even in the best interests, can fail badly and make things much much worse. Still, I think it would be better for us all if Apple was forced to make iPhone development more open, and the risks of doing so are not so great. But I agree that those risks could be seen as a good reason to avoid it. After all, we can live quite happily even with closed iPhone (or no iPhone at all :-)).
If you are interested in rule of law, it's pretty risky. You need to decide who has the power to decide what a company can and can't do. In this case, the only way to do that is with fairly arbitrary power and that is bad for rule of law.
They would need to be able to scrutinise then change Apple's appstore approval process/policy and make sure that it is indeed being followed. Apart from affecting their macro policies, this precludes that Apple's ability to decide arbitrarily which is pretty important to what they are trying to do. If you do take a more general/macro view, which I think you need to, you need to take into account how this affects Apple's behaviour and the general effect on the market.
The idea that apps need to be babysat and approved is controversial, but worth testing. This is what APple is doing right now, in the market. They are testing a hypothesis: 'An authoritarian marketplace will result in better apps and a better user experience.' Other hypothesis such as: 'some babaysitting is good but we should let people opt out and install whatever they want' will also probably be tested.
I find your position to be tenable at best, what is and is not an addictive food additive? What recreational drugs are and are not good for the public health? All these are arbitrary decisions too.
I doubt you would suggest the US should get rid of the FDA. It is not such a jump to conclude that if drug companies must be watched for practices which damage consumers, why not a retail firm? The line America has drawn for regulation is just as arbitrary as the one European countries do, Europe is just a bit more suspicious of laissez-faire capitalism than America.
And I highly doubt they are baby sitting this app because of quality.
First, I am not American and have no special feelings for their position. I'm not trying to prove a metaphysical point either.
To put all this in context, I was responding to a comment that could be paraphrased 'Most of us agree what Apple is doing sucks, European (Commission?) should make them do it differently. The only reasons not to are some hazy moral theories I don't believe in.' I was talking about some of the practical reasons not to, the costs. One of those is rule of law.
Food, medicine, narcotics, etc. all these regimes also require relatively arbitrary regulatory powers too. That is also not good for rule of law. We make tradeoffs. Purer, direct democracy for stronger institutions. Rule of law of regulations. Laws for liberty. Each of these has a cost. Sometimes it's worth it.
Maybe regulating the appstore is a good idea. I don't think so. I'm trying to argue that the costs typical to this kind of a decision are high hear while the gains are low, perhaps nonexistent.
BTW, I don't think that Thingie was being unreasonable either. Like he says, the current reality is that it is not that crucial to find the best way of getting iphone apps.
I don't agree that iPhone development isn't open. There are free tools and free documentation readily available, albeit not for all platforms. This is of course no different than many other developer environments, such as the tools for Windows 7 Phone will be.
So open would mean "if Apple was forced to lower the demands on the applications submitted to the app store" in this case, I guess? To which I would say, "Quite the contrary." I think Apple should enforce higher requirements when it comes to human interface guidelines, for instance. But it's of course a process that's evolving, and it will take some time to get it right.
One could argue that the demands put on the Apps in the App store is increasing competition, since it encourages developers not wanting to be subjected to them to develop for alternate platforms. I just hope the courts will see it that way, if it comes to it.
Well, this is the problem with any sort of empirical answers to economics questions. That said, we see some strong signals here. If you agree with some or all of them, it is an indication:
- Both IBM & MS do not feel as intimidating today as they did at their peek.
- Technology moved forward in ways that made their monopolies less important.
- Innovation in competing products happened
- Innovation within these companies happened.
- There was fast paced borrowing of concepts from competing products
- Prices decreased
Out of all of these, the first is IMO the important one. MS' position in 96 didn't guarantee its position in the future. Generations in technology are relatively fast and create opportunities to break monopolies. Even if it is bad (I agree that this is up for discussion), you can just wait it out.
Compare this to telephone lines or rail roads and it seems like software, even if it is a platform, is not in as much danger.
Companies are just extensions of the rights/properties of individuals. You might as well ask whether the it's morally bad for the government to insist JK Rowling use/promote other authors' characters in her novels.
I'm probably wrong but I thought Microsoft got in trouble for that because of their market position? There's plenty of other phones for Opera to run it's browser on.
That "50 million iPhones sold" from the event was a world wide number wasn't it?
You are wrong. Market position isn't a bad thing. Monopolies aren't illegal in the US. However, the actions you perform can be, and this is what MS did. It wasn't it's position, but how it used that position to stop competitors.
Riiiight. I guess that makes sense if one disregards the fact that the iPhone OS is by no means a standard in the cell phone arena. There is plenty of competition out there, unlike there was for x86, which would be a pillar for an antitrust suit.
I have developer friends who have submitted their apps on the App Store and had it approved within a week.
It may be just because this is a way more complicated app or Apple is set to reject it but just trying to figure out how to defend themselves against whatever outrage that will happen.
I wonder how much resources (time and money) Opera spent on this. This is why I think the App Store is such a risky bet if your app takes months to make or it's something that has never been done before.
I've had an (iPad) app approved in hours & then an iPad update fixing critical bugs for the same app blocked for one week. It's still a crapshoot. If you go into 'extended review', I suggest retracting the binary & submitting again, hoping that you get a different reviewer. Joy!
Our first app was approved within hours, but that was within the first two months of the App Store. Still, we've generally had very fast turn around on our apps.
Even if you installed this Opera app, you'd still be seeing Safari/Webkit a lot - since, unlike a standard computer, you won't be able to set a new default browser.
No, no, you've completely misunderstood the situation. Apple haven't actually rejected Google Voice. They've just not approved it yet, but will make a decision any year now.
And yet there are plenty of third-party browsers in the app store...
(The major difference is that the browsers in the store today use the included WebKit, while Opera Mini has its own rendering engine that relies on Opera's server-side proxy.)
I highly doubt this will be approved. There is no way Apple is letting a third party come and play on their turf in the mobile browser market. Not to mention this would mean Apple would not have full control of who the default search provider is.
If you view this in the context of a shopping mall, then its certainly their property, and within their rights to choose who can have a presence within their property. That's how I think Apple views the Appstore.
There is a distinction between the physical hardware that you purchased, and the electronic services that you access using the device. The argument of whether you should be able to install any app you want is another matter.
This comparison doesn't work. For starters, shopping carts are free, given to you for your own convenience. Furthermore, you don't need a shopping cart to use the mall.
Interesting preview video on that site. I'm amazed that with Safari to copy from they still made the mistake of keeping a bar at the top with the current page to waste my precious screen real estate.
A web browser is probably one of the more complicated apps you could write, though. If Apple insists on thoroughly examining what an app is doing, this ought to take awhile.
And if what Opera submitted was a web browser the review might be done by now... as it is, Opera submitted a proxy viewer which displays a rendering of a webpage as processed by Opera's servers.
Good luck examining that... it's a security nightmare.
Unfortunately for Opera, some of what their "browser" does is within their own servers. So, Apple can never have complete visibility into what the application (service) does.
Aren't a huge number of apps just like that. What does a twitter app do except communicate with a server outside their control? Even the Google maps application is just a viewer for some server-side data.
The difference is that a huge portion of the smarts that goes into rendering the page happens off-device. Opera isn't a typical web browser. My understanding is that its more like webex or something that pushes most of the work to a server.
I think this might be dead in the water to begin with. Apples new TOS state that their new OS is only allowed to run C/C++/Objective C and Javascript as interpreted by Safari.
So it would seem that Opera won't be allowed to interpret Javascript, making it pretty useless as a general purpose browser.
Opera Mini is not a general purpose browser (what you're thinking of is Opera Mobile)
Opera Mini takes a different approach to web browsing. The pages are rendered in some kind of image format on Opera's proxy servers and then sent in compressed format to the browser. So load times are probably better, but it probably works well only with static web pages. And not web apps.
So there shouldn't really be any reason for it to be rejected. At least not on the grounds that its running an interpreter or higher level language framework.
No... server side would be fine. But there's no way Opera could be running page Javascript on the server. Javascript is too tightly integrated with the browser. For example, you can't implement a page element "hover" event via server-side code.
This isn't related to the grandparent's post but on other platforms Opera Mini does only support a limited amount of Javascript and it runs on their servers.
Opera Mini has limited support for JavaScript. Before the page is sent to the mobile device, its onLoad events are fired and all scripts are allowed a maximum of two seconds to execute. The setInterval and setTimeout functions are disabled, so scripts designed to wait a certain amount of time before executing will not execute at all.
After the scripts have finished or the timeout is reached, all scripts are stopped and the page is compressed and sent to the mobile device. Once on the device, only a handful of events are allowed to trigger scripts: onUnload, onSubmit, onChange, onClick
Well! I wasn't aware of that. So it sounds like the TOS issue is not a problem for them.
Unfortunately, it also means it's a completely crippled browser. Why anyone would WANT to use it instead of something fully functional (like Safari) is beyond me. The days of squinting at tiny mobile versions of websites on a 2x1 cell phone screen are behind us, and good riddance. It would appear that Opera Mini is already obsolete on the iPhone due to its very architecture.
Obviously you haven't used it! It is definitely meant for content consumption, not general interactivity with more complex web apps. What it does it does very well and does it blazingly fast!
Opera mini does a good job of reducing the number of bytes that need to be sent to the phone to render a page. That is very useful for those times when you have a very slow connection or, perhaps more importantly, when you are paying per byte.
Granted neither of these cases are exactly everyday occurrences for your average iPhone owner, but for those people who find themselves in the above situation, having something like Opera mini to fall back on would be very handy.
Is this supposed to be a shocker? My submitted prediction is still 66 days out, even though I think an answer of never is still very likely. Though I'm just betting on Opera cutting features to get an approved app.
There were complaints before that approval of apps seemed forever so that might be one of the reasons but considering they made revisions to their OS policy then they might not approve it at all.
