iPhone OS 4

[photon]

Exactly.. when there's no rhyme or reason to one's actions, then you can basically support either side of an argument with any action!

[FanIn80]

Haha, exactly.

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by La Flames Fan

Having not read ANYTHING in this thread, I can assume this:

1. There are many people giving Apple the gears for stifling development.

To that, I say this:

I find it refreshing that a company would actually take time and care as to what happens to their product. We've seen it with PCs, phones, etc...poorly developed third party apps/programs that make vulnerabilities and devalue the brand...and that's the key. Don't devalue the brand. How do we do that? Maintain control of what can be developed.

I fully support Apple dictating what can be developed for their product, at least then I know it's approved and sanctioned.

Winner winner, chicken effing dinner.

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by photon

Exactly.. when there's no rhyme or reason to one's actions, then you can basically support either side of an argument with any action!

It's exactly what leads me to believe they'll apply the new 3.3.1 SDK rule in the same way.

I don't think they're going to tell Activision that they're no longer allowed to release rock band or their zombie games (they use Lua, technically that's illegal under the new EULA) on the new iPhone OS. They probably will tell developers in their basement doing the same thing to get stuffed though.

[photon]

http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits...ples-wager.ars

An interesting take.

[kermitology]

More of a hardware update..

New iPhone expected to be called iPhone HD

http://bit.ly/9DjeMy)

[Yeah_Baby]

More iPhone HD speculation


I wonder if they'll stick with the same chassis or have a completely new one.

[BlackEleven]

Usually I write about security here, but Apple's iron-bound determination to keep Adobe Flash out of any iWhatever device is about to blow up in Apple's face. Sources close to Adobe tell me that Adobe will be suing Apple within a few weeks.

Not sure who his sources are, but this wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Full article:
http://www.itworld.com/legal/104320/...source=smlynch

If you're a big Apple fan you might not want to read it, the author, quite clearly, is not.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by BlackEleven

Not sure who his sources are, but this wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Full article:
http://www.itworld.com/legal/104320/...source=smlynch

If you're a big Apple fan you might not want to read it, the author, quite clearly, is not.

Perhaps somebody with more legal knowledge than I can shed some light on this. Can you really sue a company for not carrying your product in their store? I don't understand how Adobe can sue Apple into supporting them on their product.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Russic

Perhaps somebody with more legal knowledge than I can shed some light on this. Can you really sue a company for not carrying your product in their store? I don't understand how Adobe can sue Apple into supporting them on their product.

I don't think Adobe could sue Apple about putting Flash on their products, I'd be very surprised if that's what they'd do.

What they would be suing about rather would be this new EULA language.. because it's not a question of supporting Flash on the phones, but a question of restricting what tools people can use to create native iPhone apps.

Take ridiculous cases, say Apple said you could only develop iPhone apps if you used the right font in your editor. That would probably be illegal, if only because it's unenforceable. So step that back, say Apple made it so that you couldn't create iPhone apps unless you used their editor for all the files. If you touched one of the source files with vi from a command line rather than the normal editor your app was rejected. Would that be illegal?

Because disallowing apps from cross-platform things is basically the same thing as those examples.. the difference being quantitative not qualitative.

I can't see how they'd win from a "freedom" point of view, but there's lots of laws around business and competition I have no idea about.

EDIT: You could say Apple has a defacto monopoly on mobile applications in which case maybe they'll argue this EULA stifles competition or something.

[Flaming Choy]

I think I remember reading here that people wanted a way to hide Apple's built-in apps without jailbreaking. Found this article today that offers a non-jailbreaking solution. hopefully some one finds it useful.

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/13/hacks...-applications/

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by Russic

Perhaps somebody with more legal knowledge than I can shed some light on this. Can you really sue a company for not carrying your product in their store? I don't understand how Adobe can sue Apple into supporting them on their product.

I think the basis for a lawsuit is that there are alternative environments for developing iPhone apps (like Adobe's new Flash feature) but Apple is attempting to lock you into only their environment with legal language (ie there are no technical reasons why you can't use another environment).

I don't think there would have been as much of an issue if Apple did this from the onset, but since there are a few tools already that do this (and Flash was about to), Apple is taking away their business by trying to make it illegal.

I'm not a lawyer, but if they try and sue Apple, they will likely try to do so on the basis of them being anti-competitive, since Apple is excluding not only Flash but every product except their own. The fact that Apple is not a monopoly muddies the waters quite a bit though, and I'm not sure if Adobe is on legally solid ground. It's clear why Adobe is angry, it's not clear if they can do anything about it, legally speaking.

Edit: To use your store analogy, it's not like saying "You can't sell your products in my store" its more like saying "If you want to sell your products in my store, you also have to buy all your tools from this other company I own. If you buy your tools from anyone else, I will ban your products from my store." At least that's the case Adobe will by trying to make.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by photon

....

EDIT: You could say Apple has a defacto monopoly on mobile applications in which case maybe they'll argue this EULA stifles competition or something.

But having a monopoly is not illegal. I don't think that EULA changes are anti competitive. If Apple said you have to develop only for the App Store, punished devs who make apps for other platforms then there would be a case.

That being said, Apple should lighten up.

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by Barnes

But having a monopoly is not illegal. I don't think that EULA changes are anti competitive. If Apple said you have to develop only for the App Store, punished devs who make apps for other platforms then there would be a case.

That being said, Apple should lighten up.

No, but having a monopoly makes a big difference when it comes to being anti-competitive. Apple will try and counter arguments brought against them by saying people using other tools are free to sell their apps elsewhere (ie Android).

[photon]

And Apple would be right.. I can't really see how Adobe could make a case out of it, but I guess we'll see.

[QuadCityImages]

If you look at Microsoft verdicts, they were basically told that they couldn't force people to use their browser, even though its their OS. To me it seem like Apple is much more limiting, but I suppose because they make the hardware they can get away with it. I don't see much practical difference between MS's IE issues and much of what Apple is doing, but practical and legal are two very different things.

[photon]

I guess the only difference there is Microsoft was/is within percentage points of the entire PC market, and while Apple represents within percentage points of the entire mobile app market, they are only 25% of the smart phone market.

[FanIn80]

If I'm not mistaken, US courts have already upheld Apple's contention that (buy making both their own hardware and software) their products are closed systems. They retain full, legal control over all access to it.

Let's look at real events. They were already sued by a hardware manufacturer that wanted to sell their own desktops with a kit that allowed the installation of OS X. Apple had them shut down and put out of business.

The ruling was that Apple, by way of building closed systems, have full control over everything.

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

If I'm not mistaken, US courts have already upheld Apple's contention that (buy making both their own hardware and software) their products are closed systems. They retain full, legal control over all access to it.

Let's look at real events. They were already sued by a hardware manufacturer that wanted to sell their own desktops with a kit that allowed the installation of OS X. Apple had them shut down and put out of business.

The ruling was that Apple, by way of building closed systems, have full control over everything.

This case is different though. No one is trying to run iPhone OS on non-Apple hardware.

Apple opened the door into their closed system when they released an SDK to interface with it. And it was a tremendous success and its what made the iPhone into the powerhouse that it is. Some people are bound to get upset when Apple (partially) closes that door back up when companies have invested a lot of time and money into apps based on that SDK.

Is making the SDK much more restrictive legal? I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. But I can definitely tell you its not the same situation as Psystar. Also, Adobe has a lot more money to invest in legal battles if that what it comes to.

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by photon

And Apple would be right.. I can't really see how Adobe could make a case out of it, but I guess we'll see.

Originally Posted by photon

I guess the only difference there is Microsoft was/is within percentage points of the entire PC market, and while Apple represents within percentage points of the entire mobile app market, they are only 25% of the smart phone market.

I think you kind of answered your own question there. Adobe probably will argue that Apple has a monopoly on mobile apps.

All this makes me wonder how early in the process Apple was made aware of Adobe's plans to make a flash-to-iphone-app tool. It's seem illogical that they wouldn't contact Apple before even starting the process and asking Apple if they were okay with it before investing so much time and money in it.

If this was the case then a couple possibilities exist. Apple told Abode 'no' and Adobe went ahead and did it anyway. This would force Apple's to either grudgingly accept it or to make some sort of legal manouver to block it, since there was no way to do it technically, and look like a bunch of tyrants to the app development community. And of course changing the SDK would open the door to a potential law suit.

The other possibility is that Apple told Adobe 'yes' and then tried to block them anyway in a direct attempt to sabotage their business.

The last possibility is that Adobe went about all this in secret figuring that there are other apps that already do similar things so they'd be allowed in too. But I just can't see Adobe being that naive. I would think that any company making a big investment that depends on a third-party, would divulge their plans to that third-party first. I've built a lot of applications myself based around third-party SDKs and I'm always, always in contact with the vendor of that SDK -- not necessarily to ask for permission but to iron out technical issues or ask questions about what's supported and what isn't and issues like these.

Clearly both companies are engaged in some shady behaviour here, I just don't know who is worse.