European Commission Joins Investigation of Apple's Flash Exclusion Policies

[hwhalers]

Isn't that a flawed argument tho?

Apple don't licence iOS or FairPlay - Apple's fault.
Apple don't allow Adobe flash on its devices - Apple's fault.

I suppose it's flawed if your goal is to make Apple look nice to everyone; they quite obviously don't. There's a demographic that dislikes their concepts of end-to-end integration, centralization, and prioritizing unified user experience over customization and perceived openness.

It's quite arguable that Apple would sell more media and devices if they were open to licensing their DRM and including every standard under the sun on their devices. It's also arguable they would lose a certain amount of control over their standards and operating system, however.

If they become monopolies they might have to. Thats what the discussion is about.

Ever heard of generic drugs?

A company becoming an anticompetitive monopoly through abuse of patents/IP won't always be compelled to license existing IP. Generic drugs is a poor comparison, as generic drug makers wait for patents to expire and reverse engineer production methods.

You seem to be pushing two arguments. The first being that Apple is, or potentially will/could become, anticompetitive due to its patents, which I don't really see. And the second being that Apple's integration (Apps, Media, Distribution, etc) makes/will make them anticompetitive. That one is slightly more realistic, although I'd argue that there's no real comparison to existing antitrust cases due to the DMCA exception to OS cracking that was given recently.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

There's a difference between "Customers Demand Something" and any governmental agency that force a company to do so.... nuances.

Your post that I responded to was a blanket statement that users can go elsewhere. Now if you want to bring the government agency issue into it that's different but certainly a different tone than your original post.

Furthermore, an investigation is just that. There is nothing wrong with an investigation. See where it leads. There is a difference between charging someone or a company and looking into an issue. Too many think "investigations" should only be conducted to make everything we already know "official". That's not the way it works.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

If they become monopolies they might have to. Thats what the discussion is about.

If that is what this discussion is about then it's over. iPhone marketshare in the Smartphone segment is around 16% -- nowhere near "monopoly" status. Popular does not equal monopoly. Consumers have other good choices at reasonable prices.

 

[Tyre]

That is a very liberal interpretation of the term 'freedom'. Are you suggesting that freedom means that the state should also be free to do whatever they want?

Freedom only makes sense if it is in the hands of individuals, whether they are citizens or consumers. If freedom is only enjoyed by the stronger party, that is not freedom.

If by liberal you mean classical liberal (modern day libertarian), than yes. If by liberal you mean modern day liberal (more akin to socialist), than no.

Freedom remains in the hands of individuals. But I find your last point funny because here the stronger party is the FTC or the EC which will impose its belief on Apple through nothing but physical force.

The point here is freedom. Apple has the freedom to permit Flash, or not. You have the freedom to buy it, or not. To say that this hampers freedom because "I don;t have the freedom to use Flash on my iPhone" is incorrect. You own the device, the US gov't has agreed that you may alter it in any way that you wish. What a lot of you are suggesting is forcing Apple to do something to grant you "freedom." That is not freedom, and you have no right to do so.

Complain all you want, but Apple has the right to make any business decision it so chooses. If that hurts its business, it must be responsible for that. But throwing the government at it and saying "you have to do this because I WANT IT NOW" blatantly disregards any logical interpretation of liberty.

 

[zacman]

If that is what this discussion is about then it's over. iPhone marketshare in the Smartphone segment is around 16% -- nowhere near "monopoly" status.

The European law defines a monopoly as a major market share. You don't have to have >50% or even >30% to have a monopoly.

And BTW: The German goverment also just banned the iPhone (and Blackberrys) because of security concerns and issued a warning about it to customers. Also they are looking into the AppStore right now as it currently violates Germany's state broadcast act.

 

[nascimento]

If that is what this discussion is about then it's over. iPhone marketshare in the Smartphone segment is around 16% -- nowhere near "monopoly" status. Popular does not equal monopoly. Consumers have other good choices at reasonable prices.

Ok monopoly may be overdone in this case.
Anti-competitiveness practices is enough to be investigated

 

[aidler]

What about "Smokesceen". With hopefully upcoming iPhones and iPads with bigger CPUs that could really be a promising approach. Enjoying Flash content without the need to install Flash.

 

[beltzak]

You're just completely wrong... that's why. EC investigating any monopole... and forcing to use a proprietary system such Flash (owned and developed only by Adobe) wouldn't help in any way for the competition.

At least, even if Apple is behind the HTML5 and then they have a personal interest, HTML5 uses worldwide open standards.

Forcing Apple to put Flash on iOS devices would feed the Adobe monopole...

And as far I know, Opera is available for iPhone for several months now...
http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2010/04/13/

Get your facts right buddy

Well you are right that would help Adobe but who is talking about enforcing you to use flash. Just leave it as an option. The same way WiFi does.

About opera browser, well, I haven't checked your link but as far as I remember there was an opera browser ready for iphone 1.0 or 2.0 and apple didn't let them put the software in the appstore. Yeah, right now that would be anticompetitive for sure.

 

[SiPat]

You must either stop drinking or reading tabloids!

Don't do either -- never had a drop of alcohol past my lips in half-a-century of life, and I'm an (unapologetic) avid Guardian reader for the last 30-years.

i was affected by both the Compulsory Competetive Tendering directive and the rules about bananas was a major issue for our staff canteen.

Like the BBBs methinks you too should ****.

 

[G4DP]

It's about people having a choice. Steve doesn't like the idea, we all know that.

I've never had serious problems with Flash until the past 6 months. Sites would run smoothly without problems, no slowdown on sites with massive Flash adds.

All of a sudden Herr Jobs gets a bee up his arse about Flash and things seems to be going backwards.

Maybe a coincidence but I doubt it. I used Tiger the other day with Safari 3.0, handles Flash like a dream.

Flash may not be perfect but Apple are doing their best to screw it over completely.

 

[alexhooren]

European Commission sticking its nose in another American company's business!!

Yes.. an American company happily selling their products to the 500 million people in the EU and making mega money off them!

If you want to do business in any country and profit from it, you have to abide by local laws, regardless of the 'home' country.

Don't want to be told what to do, stop selling in the EU. That's definitely something Apple doesn't want to do!

 

[ryanw]

I kinda like the hardware of some of the recent HTC handsets, but I don't like the selection on the Android marketplace, and I can't watch movies I bought on iTunes on it, which gives me seething, unending rage. It's completely ridiculous that HTC won't license iOS and let me run what I want, and view the content that I want. Therefor, HTC should drop whatever it's doing, and pay to license iOS, and the HTC users who don't want to use it will pay extra and suffer from diminished support. But who are they to deny what I want on my device, paid for by my hard earned money?

Don't you think that if people had an OPTION to pay for iOS licensing they would have? There is NO OPTION to license iOS to 3rd party hardware venders. Same as MacOSX. Don't you think that HP and Dell would be making intel "macs" as well if they could license the OS?

Back in the early 90's while Steve Jobs was away from Apple the CEO made the MacOS available for 3rd parties to license. It ended up diluting their brand so heavily it almost completely destroyed them. I don't think Apple will be doing that again any time soon.

 

[xxgilxx]

I always love when the commission of something or other will in investigate any alleged BS by some whiners who do not have any involvement in the creation of a product yet wanting to hop on the hype bus. Sorry Adobe! No shirt, no shoes, no decent plugin...no service!

 

[z4n3]

Nice to see my tax money being well spent I think the EU should cut costs and solve a few problems closer and MORE important to home!!!

Happy Click2Flash user at work and home, and DO NOT want flash on my iPhone thank you very much..

 

[ChazUK]

I suppose it's flawed if your goal is to make Apple look nice to everyone; they quite obviously don't. There's a demographic that dislikes their concepts of end-to-end integration, centralization, and prioritizing unified user experience over customization and perceived openness.

It's quite arguable that Apple would sell more media and devices if they were open to licensing their DRM and including every standard under the sun on their devices. It's also arguable they would lose a certain amount of control over their standards and operating system, however.

I think for the vast majority of people Apple have the best, easiest to use and most coherent platform available.

Give my wife a computer (Mac or PC) with iTunes and an iPhone and she'll have her music syncing to it in no time. Give her my Nexus One and she'd probably struggle! It's because of the ease of use that I can't fault them.

I can't really say I agree with everyone expecting Apple to make flash available on the platform. It is quite a well known thing that iOS doesn't support Flash and I'd guess that the majority of people who frequent these forums should know about the issue before buying an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

EDIT: I'm not saying that people shouldn't be vocal on the issue either as public pressure may result in what they want.

 

[-=XX=-Nephilim]

I can just hope someone teaches Apple good and hard lesson they will never ever forget... Bunch of appholes!

Great news!

Hope something serious comes out of it...

 

[beltzak]

I just don't get this. Denied the freedom to choose?! I have absolute freedom to choose. I can choose not to buy a device if I think it should do something that it doesn't do!

Every company makes choices about what options to offer as part of its service. Apple has made choices to include or exclude certain options based on its understanding of its martket and and the priorities, both tactical and strategic, that it wishes to focus on. If you don't like those choices then you are absolutely free to go and buy someone else's product.

What the hell is going on.

"Apple has made choices to include or exclude certain options .... and if you don't like you are absolutely free to go and buy someone else's product."

The hell with this. So, lets get the facts clear. So if EC forces Apple to put FLASH on it, you are free to go and buy someone else's product too. But if Apple decides not to update the mac mini, or the mac pro or the Apple TV can we all whine because apple doesn't update their hardware? And the same with Blu-Ray, nobody can whine ANYTHING about APPLE because obviously you can go and buy someone else's product, right?

So nobody can whine about APPLE guys, you buy them products and you just have to shut mouth. Stop whinning about Antenna issues, go and buy someone else's product. Your iPad doesn't connect to any wifi around don't worry just go and buy someone else's product.

This is INCREDIBLE.

 

[Enigma55]

REALLY?!?! yeah, you must be right, iPhones are barely selling. as a matter of fact they even had to lower the price because they cant get the damn things off the shelves. seriously, think before you type.

Exactly, nobody cares about Android. The only people that buy these phones are those that can't afford or switch their contract to an iPhone. Once the iPhone is available on Verizon, Android will become a marginal player. Apple should just boycott the EU and any other country that doesn't want to play by their rules. They have the power. Those country's residents would be pissed at their government then.

 

[Popeye206]

News Flash!

The EU has just released a statement halting U.S. based restaurant chain International House of Pancakes (iHop) from building 50 franchise restaurants in within Europe unless they add salted kippers and eggs to their menu . "It's unfair that pancakes should get a monopoly on breakfast over kippers" said an EU standards officer. "We enjoy our Kippers and expect them everywhere and they need to integrate kippers into all their dishes including pancakes".

UGH!

 

[OllyW]

Apple should just boycott the EU and any other country that doesn't want to play by their rules. They have the power. Those country's residents would be pissed at their government then.

They are also being investigated by the FTC. Do you want them to boycott the USA too?

 

[kernkraft]

If by liberal you mean classical liberal (modern day libertarian), than yes. If by liberal you mean modern day liberal (more akin to socialist), than no...

The word 'liberal' is not just a political term. I meant liberal as "broadly construed; not strictly literal or exact". My point was that you defined freedom in a very misleading way. Apple's freedom is not freedom for most of us. In fact, the freedom of the stronger on the expense of the others is pretty much the opposite of what freedom should be. That's all.

Don't do either -- never had a drop of alcohol past my lips in half-a-century of life, and I'm an (unapologetic) avid Guardian reader for the last 30-years.

i was affected by both the Compulsory Competetive Tendering directive and the rules about bananas was a major issue for our staff canteen.

Like the BBBs methinks you too should ****.

What do you mean by ****? It must be a special term only found in your Guardian.

I never met this sort of simplistic mob rule in the Guardian. You might have been an avid reader of it, but posts like this create the impression that you get your general knowledge from the pub. My favourite part is this: "Since the (mainly mainland European) private contractors moved in to the NHS-run hospitals in the UK, you are now more likely to get hospital-based illnesses (MRSA, etc) than be cured of whatever you were admitted for in the first place."

You sound dangerously close to the kind of character that some people would call 'Little Englander'.

Anyway, read your apparently Guardian-like comment and try to think why the hell you thought that it had any relation to the quality of a newspaper:

BBBs -- Brussels Busy Bodies.

These guys have nothing better to do than dictate the size, curvature, shape and colour of bananas. Yes, that's right!

And everything, even public services, have had to be opened up to Compulsory Competitive Tendering. Since the (mainly mainland European) private contractors moved in to the NHS-run hospitals in the UK, you are now more likely to get hospital-based illnesses (MRSA, etc) than be cured of whatever you were admitted for in the first place.

Sometimes, someone has to tell the EU to **** and deal with the more serious issues, like the blood-sucking (w)bankers who caused the economic recession.

Disclosure: I live n the UK and am generally pro-EU/EC.

 

[hwhalers]

Don't you think that if people had an OPTION to pay for iOS licensing they would have?

Maybe, maybe not. Depending on the terms. HTC found the interface on WinMo and Android to be mostly crap, and put their own UI on top of it. Motorola tried to 'add value' with their Android package. Even if Apple were in a license-friendly mood, I doubt they'd tolerate that. And HTC/Motorola might not want to give up that source of income and control.

There is NO OPTION to license iOS to 3rd party hardware venders. Same as MacOSX. Don't you think that HP and Dell would be making intel "macs" as well if they could license the OS?

Again, maybe and maybe not. Microsoft might try some of their old tricks and make it more expensive for them. And for their high-end stuff, HP and Dell already do alright with Linux, and would probably have absolutely no reason to offer OS X.

Some people really like iOS and OS X, but they aren't magic bullets. A whole lot of people don't like either, and wouldn't buy devices that ran them no matter the manufacturer.

I think for the vast majority of people Apple have the best, easiest to use and most coherent platform available.

Perhaps, but that could change literally overnight. The desktop OSes are, no matter what the crews on either side say, widely identical in terms of user friendliness, stability, and overall usefulness. Mobile stuff, not so much quite yet. There are platforms that are abysmal, others that have a less-polished interface but more raw features, and etc.

The problem I see for Apple and Google is balancing antitrust obligations with the fact that the majority of users enjoy centralization and integration.

EDIT: I'm not saying that people shouldn't be vocal on the issue either as public pressure may result in what they want.

Me neither. There are people that feel quite strongly about 'digital rights' and et cetera, and they should feel quite free to advocate for it. As long as facts are the basis for arguments, not nebulous invective rhetoric .

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I think at some point apple is going to be force to licenses out fair play to work on other players.

I also believe the real reason apple dropped the DRM on music from iTMS was not because it was what the customer wanted but because they knew that it was getting harder and harder to argue in court that they were abusing that apple was not abusing its market power. Apple knew it would loss and not be able to continue to use it to lock others out when they released movies and TV shows threw iTunes.

If and when the iTunes movies and TV become huge online and able to abuse its power to keep others from entering the market they will be force to allow other DRM on the iDevies and other devise to play movies from iTunes.

Apple does not do what is best for the people. It tells the customers what they will like.

 

[Bafflefish]

Nobody had a problem when the EU was going after Microsoft. In fact people here were praising the EU.

Because, you see, Apple can do no wrong, but MS? They're always the big, bad evil that is always out to get everyone.

 

[beltzak]

Exactly, nobody cares about Android. The only people that buy these phones are those that can't afford or switch their contract to an iPhone. Once the iPhone is available on Verizon, Android will become a marginal player. Apple should just boycott the EU and any other country that doesn't want to play by their rules. They have the power. Those country's residents would be pissed at their government then.

You are just crazy. There's more people in EU that in USA. Apple earns BIG MONEY in europe. You will see how your favorite company will bend over EC.
You wont believe it but look how turned the Microsoft case.