You must be reading a different forum, if you think nobody is saying an alternative store shouldn't be allowed.
What can be considered within the law, is what the lawsuit is about. We'll have to wait to see.
Oh come on. Now you're losing any credibility. How long have you paid attention to Apple forums? There's always a group that argues against something until Apple does it. Always. From apps to wallpapers to larger displays.
The really ironic part is Jobs originally was against any third party apps at all. He claimed they would make the phone and network insecure. Just imagine if he'd never felt the pressure from customers and staff to allow them.
The idea of change makes a lot of people fearful. That's understandable, but it's the only way we progress.
Save for the parties involved in the discussions at Apple no one knows what kind of assessment these made for this scenarios. Perhaps they hired the best legal teams there are. Perhaps they made a mistake and hired the wrong people who didn't see this coming.
Steve Jobs was indeed against the idea and wanted any 3rd party app/ or utilitarian functionality to run within the browser if I recall correctly. His people convinced him to let developers in on it.
Perhaps they are fully aware that these lawsuits are the cost of doing business in our society and accepted that:
you try and build it, if you succeed, people will come with their hand out.
Our society and laws allow for this to happen. Some lawyers only exist to extract money forcefully by taking advantage of the system.
The only way out I see for an entity like Apple is to keep innovating.
Having something people want time and time again is the only way to survive.
But isn't this all a big waste? The burden on our courts and the creators is unfair and the doing of ignorant/ selfish people who have never built anything in their lives.
[doublepost=1484333873][/doublepost]By the way, you can buy an iPhone and actually just use it as a phone.
I disagree, look at Android as a prime example of how they allow other app stores. They allow installation from unknown sources, but when you enable the feature that allows it they popup a warning letting you know that the apps may be less secure or cause device problems. Ultimately this policy has led to lower costs for consumers, because they can either sell directly or potentially use other app stores that take a smaller cut.
Apple could offer the same ability with a similar warning, it wouldn't be hard and it would solve the problem. Competition is never a bad thing.
Well Apple and Android took different a different approach and we ended up in the same spot with Apps costing nothing anyway in both cases. The lower cost was going to materialize anyway as demand and competition in the App Development business did its job. People collectively drove the prices down the ground because that's all everyone is interested in: money.
I'd like to read why you think Samsung, Microsoft and Blackberry mobile OS did not take off.
Why aren't the developers not flocking to them to create content: build and they will come, right?
It turns out, a clientele and user base does not just appear out of nowhere.
You can manufacture cool. You have to build it.
And now these people want to use anti-trust laws to waste Apple's time and money so they can get paid?
Why didn't they even buy an Apple device and why didn't return it when they found out they could not source apps away from the App Store? They own the physical electronics object but not its software.
They are not being shortchanged either. They bought it to use as a phone perhaps, maybe? Well then can. An iPhone works perfectly fine without adding any app or 3rd party content to it.