You’re right, but not in a anticompetitive way, simply as that! Anyway, court around the world will take care of this and fix it up by enforcing sideloading and third party payments and also opening NFC.
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Apple's Past Sideloading Plans, Ecosystem Lock-in Strategy, and More Revealed in Internal Documents
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Would be good though. Have you not stood with a cable that did not fit into one of the many ports of a computer?
EU did force “free” roaming of mobile data so traveling in EU did not not cost a fortune to use you devices. Hence EU increased tech usage but I agree they take the end users side and not the companies side. What is wrong with that?
I think AppleMusic is on Android.
As for purchased movies and shows, my Samsung Smart Tv has the AppleTv+ app which has all my purchases. I’ve never been one to watch shows or movies on my phone or iPad so if works for me.
It’s no surprise that the App Store from Apple (and every other company with something similar) is ugly. This is what happens absent competitive pressure.
Wrong.
As soon as you become dominant, you will come under scrutiny to make sure you don't use that dominant position to stifle competition. That is the entire premise of anti-trust.
The thinking is that as soon as you gain dominance, innovation might not be your primary goal, but to stay dominant, with whatever means possible, including using your power to disrupt competition.
I'm not saying Apple _is_ doing that, but it is inevitable a dominant company will come under a lot of investigation to make sure they don't abuse their powers since history has it that dominant companies _do_ abuse their powers.
Yeah I have Apple Music installed on an Android phone and its been great, and with Disney's Movies Anywhere most of my movie collection is cross platform. Apps and TV Shows are the main problem as I watch mainly on the go.
Lets put it this way:
How would any company go about to become a competitor to Apple and Google?
How big would the investment be to make a new OS and new hardware and try to get some traction?
Giornomous I would say. I'm not even sure Apple would pull it off, were they not in the business.
The problem with Apple and Google is that they are now so big that noone can compete, and that _is_ a problem.
When huge companies like that spread into more areas to keep expanding, the market power they possess becomes a huge problem.
So how do we fix this problem?
Does the government start giving grants to every startup to try to build a 3rd platform? To spawn some competition?
As was stated previously... there were many platforms a decade ago... Windows Mobile, Palm, Blackberry, Symbian, etc.
But the people chose Google and Apple.
I think we're just stuck with 'em.
The question is not what our opinion is of Apple's strategies, but what can be discerned of Apple's intent for them. From the documents it's pretty clear Apple's intent was at least in part to make it harder for its users to consider switching to other platforms by increasing the cost of doing so, which is pretty much the by-the-book definition of vendor lock-in.
IMHO proving Apple had such intent from the documents would be easy for Epic: the difficult part would be arguing that it constitutes a violation of anti-trust regulations, but EPIC definitely has more ammunition than without those statements.
The fact that you are saying “Apple and Google” and not “IBM and Microsoft” proves your argument is poorly thought through. Free markets always have a natural lifecycle and winners and losers are determined on their merits. The irony is monopolies cannot even be sustained without government protection. There is always competition and disruption just around the corner to shake things up no matter how big the current players are.
Only reason I like these lawsuits against Apple. An insight into protypes (Samsung suit) and inner workings in regards to the App Store (Epic)
Now THAT'S the big question. I'm glad at least someone here can identify the problem, that's not really this forums forté.So how do we fix this problem?
Does the government start giving grants to every startup to try to build a 3rd platform? To spawn some competition?
As was stated previously... there were many platforms a decade ago... Windows Mobile, Palm, Blackberry, Symbian, etc.
But the people chose Google and Apple.
I think we're just stuck with 'em.
I _loved_ Windows Mobile, Metro at its finest. Its demise was very much due to MS targeting enterprise. Enterprise tend to not spend that much on apps, and therefore, developers didn't really flock to the platform since not that much money could be made, and so, it lacked in apps.
Bad move from MS, sad for us who loved it, but noone but MS could be blamed, really.
One move could be to break away Apple's iOS division, and Googles Android division. If hardware manufacturers could offer both OS:es, then that would spur even more competition on mobile OS. Also, if iOS were available on other manufacturers phones, that could drive down prices, and speed up innovation. Maybe, maybe not.
It would lower the barrier for new phone manufacturers, and also for new OS:es since the hardware could no longer be locked to one OS.
Dragging up MS och IBM and the computer market 30-50 years ago proves YOU didn't think this through.
When IBM ruled the world, "PC" was not a big thing, and mainframes were the game. Worldwide sales were in the thousands.
When MS ruled the world, private computing was at its infancy. How many here owned a computer at all before 1995?
Today, a mobile phone is more or less a necessity to function in the society, that kind of "power" were never in the hands of IBM and MS.
IBM where found violating the Sherman Act in 1969(!) and had to take action (unbundle software and services). They lost the PC battle by trying to sell computers at astronomical price, while neglecting to patent its stuff, thereby making it possible for Compaq to clone and compete.
MS survived a break up through investing heavily in their only competition: Apple
I would like to see Apple investing in MS now to make them revive Windows Mobile
As someone who spends a lot of time tinkering with Apple computers from the early to mid 1980s, I'm guessing your question is more of an age thing
I think quite a few people (at least those born well before 1995) had a computer, or at least co-owned it with family. The 80's was the first home computer decade (Apple ][, Commodore 64, Atari 8 bits in the US- up to the 16 bit computers and *then* the PC clones ate everything else up by the early-mid 90s).
How would any company be able to compete with Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola?
How could an expensive iPod compete against Sony/Rio?
How could iTunes compete against BitTorrents and Amazon?
Competition happens all the time. The challenge is finding out where to compete. Because, as you allude, fighting head to head may not work. Facebook came out of nowhere to take on a number of already existing social networks. Google came out of nowhere to compete against a number of existing search engines. Sometimes, you have to get lucky (Microsoft).
And Sinclairs, TRS-80s, TIs before that. Then IBM dual floppy and Compaq portables. Girlfriends family had an AppleII.As someone who spends a lot of time tinkering with Apple computers from the early to mid 1980s, I'm guessing your question is more of an age thing
It's well known that IBM lost the PC battle because it did not get an exclusive license for PC-DOS. And IBM PCs were completely made from off-the-shelf components. It was only because Microsoft could legally sell MS-DOS to any computer (IBM clones) that IBM lost.They lost the PC battle by trying to sell computers at astronomical price, while neglecting to patent its stuff, thereby making it possible for Compaq to clone and compete.
MS survived a break up through investing heavily in their only competition: Apple
I would like to see Apple investing in MS now to make them revive Windows Mobile
re: investing in Apple: Yes, Microsoft needed to keep a competitor alive in the OS space. But, Apple had sued Microsoft over Windows and would likely win. The lawsuit was dropped for a) cash b) an investment in Apple Stock, c) supporting Microsoft Office for Mac for 5 years. The latter is, in my opinion, the most important since it allowed for a Mac to continue to work among PCs in the business arena. If Microsoft did not continue to support this cross-platform compatibility, Apple would have likely become irrelevant.
That might be an advantage to consumers if publishers are able to offer their own stores. When you buy an app from them they allow you to have access to both the iOS and Android versions for one payment in case you switch platforms down the road.
The issue is not competition being challenging, it's whether competitors try to use their position of strength to increase the cost for other competitors to challenge them, potentially making more expensive if not outright impossible to compete.
Take your first example: nobody would have been able to compete with e.g. Motorola without standard organizations pushing for mandatory FRAND licensing of their industry-essential patents. The standard organizations prevented Motorola to have the ability to arbitrarily stifle competition by limiting Motorola's license fees.
I think Apple’s total investment in bringing the iPhone to market was only about $150 million. While it’s nothing to downplay, any one of Apple’s competitors or even a VC funded startup could disrupt the industry with the next great idea. The scarcity is not money or resources. It’s good ideas that also resound well with the market that are in short supply.
I still believe the concept of lock-in exists only in the ether. Wanting out of the apple ecosystem is a simple three step process.
1. Buy competition equipment
2. Move data
3. Sell
Yep it will cost $$$, but that is real life.
Yeah. Apple has “been doomed” since Tim Cook turned over. This will probably be a record breaking year in terms of revenue.
AFAIK 150 millions was "only" the cost of developing the device itself, which is only a part of what was required to successfully bring the iPhone to market.
As example, one of the motivations behind the development of the original iPhone was the overlap between mobile phones and portable music players and Apple enjoyed a huge share of the market in the latter and the ability to extend the already established iTunes ecosystem to support their new device. Lacking that, such ecosystem would have to be realized too.
This is not to discredit Apple's innovations and ingenuity, it's more to highlight how the iPhone's success cannot only be attributed to the device itself and if one wants to consider the investment a competitor or new-entrant would have required, the cost of the groundwork Apple had already in place would also need to be factored in.