[Reuters] Regulators mull antitrust look at Apple: source

Want to develop for the largest mobile platform in the market? Great to have you! However, you must develop using our proprietary tools which make it VERY difficult to develop for the competitor platforms as well... but hey, we're not stopping you from spending the time there, too! (just really, really discouraging it with our gigantic machine gun of market power)

If you can't tell, as a software developer, I despise this sort of behavior and regulation from Apple.

 

I am pretty sure symbian is the largest smartphone market. I hate xcode and objective c.

I think objective c is like 30 years old there is a reason no one other then apple uses it.

Lets just throw objects and hope someone catches it and you won't find out if it works or not until you run it.

 

Why don't developers work on apps for android or mobile windows? It's not like devs don't have a choice. If the iPhone OS was the only mobile o/s out there for non-business use, then I could see a case.

 

Market share, quite simply.



Android and iPhone OS both have easy-to-use markets. Their apps are easy to buy/download/shop, thus they are the dominant sellers for apps in the market. As you can see, Android is a smaller portion of the market than iPhone, so you lose profit by developing on a less-used platform. It's the same reason many things exist on Windows-based computers, but not Linux-based or Mac-based. I'm not sure about Windows Mobile (or anything else), though, but I haven't heard much about apps being popular for those platforms.

While iPhone OS isn't the only one out there, it's the dominant player in the app market and most developers go there first because of it. Some don't, but most do. Apple's business strategy to choke the competition won't work if other operating systems become dominant, but their business strategy is specifically formulated to help avoid that.

Imagine there's an app called Awesome. It's the coolest thing since sliced bread. The developer sells it for $3 a download. On the iPhone app store, he might sell 1.5 million of 'em for $4.5 million in revenue. On the Android market, he would sell about 900k of 'em for $2.7 million in revenue. Obviously, it makes more sense to develop it for the iPhone and port it to Android later.

Person A thinks Awesome is amazing and wants to buy a smartphone that can run it. Currently, it's only on the iPhone market, so they buy an iPhone. Apple's market share and dominance increases.

If Apple did not have these sort of c**kblocking restrictions on developers, a generic platform tool could be used to develop Awesome for both iPhone and Android at the same time. The developers revenues increase, more people get Awesome. However, now Person A gets to choose between Android and iPhone. This is how the market should be, IMO. More money goes to the developer of app, more competition for the smartphones.

 

Playing Devil's advocate
Why should Apple give a d*mn about the developer's profits or the customer's choice?

Rocket River

 

Apple created a platform that made unemployed developers into millionaires almost over night.

They should be kissing Apples ass. If they want a more open system that uses flash then tell to try their luck with Android or Symbian.

the reason why the iphone/ipad is so successful is because of the apps right? The apps wouldn't be stable enough without the guidelines built by apple.

 

Because without the developers (say, they retreat to Android because they can develop apps for it and other mobile devices sans iPhone OS), there isn't much appeal to the iPhone. If all the good apps are on Android, why would anyone get an iPhones?

Apple needs the app developers.

 

That's a fallacy. Unstable apps are made by bad developers, not by strenuous guidelines. The best Android apps are just as stable as the best iPhone apps. Android allows for bad developers to develop bad apps because it's open, but if an app is bad, don't download it.

 

Don't download it? that's the reason why people trust the apple app store 10X more than the android market. They know that the Apps on the app store have been approved and work fine on the device.

You need to realize that the people spending the large sums of money aren't like you and me. They like simple and had to deal with freezes, glithces, resets.

If you don't think there is a big problem with apps using flash then you don't have enough experience with flash.

I'm non-iphone user BTW. rocking an N900.

 

I've downloaded a ton... well over $100 in apps over the two months I've had my Android phone. I've downloaded bad apps, but I blame myself because I didn't research them thoroughly. If you think the Android market is fraught with apps that do nothing but crash, you should try using it first.

Our application is flash-based (or will be) at my company. I have plenty of experience with Flash, and I know its pitfalls. This is not the reason behind and has nothing to do with Apple's stringent requisities regarding application development, however.

 

Exactly but app devs don't need Apple.

Like I said, it may be bad for app devs who want to make more money. But does that equate to Apple breaking antitrust laws. It's similar to MS with IE. I never understood why MS including free IE with Windows was considered monopolistic.

 

Obviously I'm biased since I am a developer and have worked with mobile platforms. Is Apple breaking antitrust laws? Beats me. I still think it's a stupid restriction that hurts the people who help their platform be on top.

 

Apple (and S. Jobs) have become even more douchey as of late than before. I love my macs, but some of this stuff is annoying to the point of disgust.

 

I've never had a problem with any app I've DL'd from apple. I've run into 2 bad apps that I downloaded from the andriod store in the last year for my dads mytouch. I guess I'm dumb for thinking Google would protect me

I wish the best for you and your endeavor but you are betting on a dying horse. If Google chopped flash from youtube that should tell you a change is a comin'.

It's ease of development is great but it's a major resource hog that just needs to go away and die.

 

So tell me. What's is out there to replace Flash at the moment? Steve Jobs is full of **** right at the moment. It's all about money for him right now. Until a new platform that's going to replace Flash but right now there's seems to be nothing on the rise. HTML5? Tell me about it went it actually coming out. Steve Jobs is a dick and he wants control of everything to his advantage and Flash is standing in his way.

 

Flash-based web applications are perfectly fine. Poorly developed flash-based applications are bad. Google is teamed up with Adobe right now, and Android 2.2 will have Flash support, so that should tell you Flash is fine.

Flash is also more efficient than HTML/JavaScript for web applications, too.

Methinks you're giving Flash a bad rap because: (a) it's rampant throughout the Internet and because of that popularity, the risk of crappy flash implementations is high, and (b) you don't fully understand it.

 

Even though I don't like Flash. I used to blame alot on Flash but I think it's more on the issue with the browsers. I've never had any crashes from Flash. Maybe I have awhile back. But for the some reasons video start to stuttered/freezed for a sec on Firefox after a long hrs of viewing videos from Flash base, to Silverlight, Quicktime and ect. But using Google Chrome I don't recall getting that same affect or maybe I haven't use Chrome long enough to have the same problem.

 

why does anyone care about apple's measly 15% market share? developers must be one stupid bunch of people. if i were one of those guys i'd build apps for symbian and get rich, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!