Apple taking steps towards the dark side, hatred, anger
Some months ago I was questioning if Apple was becoming evil (Is Apple becoming evil?), and at least with some parts, it seems to me it’s steadily steaming towards that direction. In the end I quoted a somewhat famous movie:
“You either die as a hero or live long enough to see yourself to become the villain“
In case you’ve been living in a barrel (on under a rock, respectively) the last few weeks, here’s a brief collection of what’s going on at the moment
Chapter One: App refund policy
If you remember the road, that Apple has been going down with OS X, where they kept taking features from most popular OS X utilities and integrating them into their OS (good example would be dashboard widgets), making the original app obsolete. So, against this road taken, it’s not hard to imagine a situation where Apple is taking some popular apps and integrating their functionality to their iPhone OS. However, the behavior itself is quite everyday business in software world but the situation changes when you look at Apples contribution back to the community. Practically zero. Then you look how insanely aggressively the silver apple has been defending any of it’s IP against anyone, the situation gets bad to worse. Practically this would mean that they just keep taking IP from small developers, not giving anything back to the community and, in worst case scenario, going after the same small developer. Though, this is just nitpicking, and rather just a minor sidetrack.
Couple of days ago, this all took a step towards the dark side: Apple is expecting the developers to pay full refunds in the case any app is removed from the App Store (as Gizmodo reports). This would mean that even if magically you would end up saving all the money that you got from your app sales, you would still end up owing money. How? Remember how Apple takes 30% off from the transactions? That would be the part you’d end up owing since they are expecting you to cough up the full refund, while Apple is keeping it’s part of the sales. Sound like a bad deal yet?
So, imagine yourself as an iPhone developer who got new app out there and it’s making money. Some months later Apple comes up with iPhone OS update which has the exact same functionality, which in Apples books would be a reason enough (not like they need one, see next chapter) to remove your app from the store. Boomf! Within less than a second you went from having a successful career in iPhone development, to a guy who clearly doesn’t have enough money if the refunds start rolling in.
Chapter Two: The rules of App Store
If you were wondering why I was stating that Apple doesn’t really need reasons for pulling applications from the store, here’s what’s been happening lately.
Every now and then, for the past year or so, we’ve been hearing weird stories how Apple doesn’t seem to have any clear lines what applications are getting into the App Store, and which ones not. Some applications seem to get into the store while applications with the same exact functionality just bounce off from a wall. Not to mention, applications which clearly shouldn’t have made it to the store at the first place, namely porn, just slipped past with ease (Wired). Quite a development, specially if you think they already banned an eBook reader (and released it later on; Wired) which didn’t contain any pornographic material at all, instead they concluded that it could be used to download Kama Sutra. Anyone else think there is something really wrong in here?
The latest shitstorm poured on Apple when Google came up with a service called Google Voice (Wikipedia). Initially their application was approved to App Store by Phil Schiller himself (Apple’s senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing and the guy who takes the stage when Steve is not around) but then later on it was rejected anyways (as Sean Kovacs, one of the GV developers, Twitters), and following the rejection, every other unofficial GV apps were also removed. The reason for the removal is already classic in App Store world, duplication of functionality, which is quite redundant, unless Apple plans to release it’s own, integrated GV application.
People are also speculating that AT&T would have behind the ban but that seems quite unlikely. First of all, AT&T has said numerous times that it doesn’t have any power over the App Store approval process, which is also quite natural since there are lot more carriers involved with iPhone than just AT&T. What’s more, AT&T allows Google Voice applications on their Blackberries. It is of course possible (even though remote) that, while AT&T have no power over the process, they might have asked Apple to remove the application but why would the guys in Cupertino apply on such pleads is another matter. Rather than it looks more and more like Apple is just trying protect the revenue model, no matter what it takes.
The worst thing about all of this is that such behavior is starting to seriously hinder innovation. Innovation that Apple once was known of, and now it seems that it’s becoming just a dead weight in the game of innovations. Gladly FCC is already on top of this and has sent letters to Apple, Google and AT&T asking them to describe the events (Engadget) that led to the shitstorm in question. Next weeks should hopefully bring some answers.
Bonus Chapter: Gagging orders
Like the bad spin on the issues above isn’t enough, a father in UK has disclosed a gagging order Apple is shoving down the throats of ”exploding iPod” victims. The company is denying any refunds for the blown up iPods and instead is replacing the product only if the customer signs an agreement which prevents them saying anything about the incident, to anyone. If they should to do so, Apple would have a right to sue them on that instant. Makes one wonder how much of these incidents there actually are out there…
Read the full story from TimesOnline
