Apple Does Something Microsoft Could Never Get Away With

7:25 pm EST April 8th, 2010 | Tech | 8 Comments

Apple’s latest edict on the type of software used to develop for the iPhone seems to me a step beyond any of the anti-competitive stuff Microsoft has ever done. Apple’s position in the consumer smartphone space is getting to such a dominant status that this type of practice ought to be completely frowned upon.

I’m an Apple fanboy, but Jesus.

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8 Responses to “Apple Does Something Microsoft Could Never Get Away With”

  1. mrak says:
    April 8, 2010 at 7:47 pm

    I’m an Apple fanboy, but Jesus.
    I’m finding myself thinking this a lot these days.

    The way Apple and Google do business these days, Microsoft isn’t looking like half the evil empire it used to.

  2. Rudy says:
    April 8, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    I’ve never understood why Jobs is perceived by so many as some swell guy.

  3. SteveCo says:
    April 8, 2010 at 8:59 pm

    The irony of Apple’s 1984 commercial is ever more striking.

  4. mike in dc says:
    April 8, 2010 at 10:16 pm

    Honestly, if Apple had won the hardware/software wars, the steps they’d take to protect their monopoly would make Microsoft look, well, soft.

  5. JWeidner says:
    April 9, 2010 at 1:12 am

    It’s not really a good comparison. Apple’s iPhone has nowhere near the market penetration that Microsoft’s IE had back in the day before the US and Europe brought their antitrust suits. Apple only holds 14.5% of the worldwide smartphone market and about 50% of the US market. At it’s peak IE commanded 95% of the browser market. Ninety frickin Five!

    Anyway, Apple hardly has a monopoly in the smartphone market. And they won’t obtain one as long as they’re locked to AT&T.

    That doesn’t make this move any less dickish, but it’s not even in the same ballpark as what Microsoft was able to do with IE.

  6. Oliver Willis says:
    April 10, 2010 at 2:23 am

    What’s Apple’s smartphone penetration with the non-business smartphone market? What do you think iPhone numbers will be like 5, 10 years from now? This is Microsoft-style monopoly behavior, only – with regards to developers – worse.

  7. Ganja Gardener says:
    April 10, 2010 at 5:33 pm

    Isn’t this because Apple has a lot of patents on the touch screen technology? Because that’s technically not wrong, it is a form of monopoly but we don’t want to punish corporations for R&D monopolies because that would discourage innovation. Its like how drug companies get patents and could be using their drugs that cost like 10 cents a piece to save lives but they jack up the price and make bucket loads of money.

    -GG

  8. JWeidner says:
    April 10, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    Let me be clear. I’m not at all defending Apple. I’m not an Apple fanboi. I don’t even own an iPhone. And honestly? I think Android is going to take a big chunk of the market away from Apple.

    But no matter what, although it is a dick move on behalf of Apple, they don’t have a monopoly on smart phones. They don’t even have the highest percentage of the US market. Developers are free to create apps with whatever software they like, and sell their app on Blackberry, Android, and Windows Mobile phones. Those 3 mobile OS platforms make up 66% of the US market. iPhone is 25%.

    I don’t know what iPhone’s share of the non-business market is, but even there, I think Android is going to wind up capturing a larger share than you expect.