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I'm fine with a vendor-controlled application store/repository, so long as the OS can also load/install applications from a third-party source/repository.

If you don't like the Apple/iPhone/iTunes/AT&T model then don't buy the phone. It isn't a monopoly -- you have other choices. I just don't understand all the frenzied discussion. The whole arrangement is known upfront.
While there is no doubt a financial motivation to the Apple App Store model, it also provides something that some of us really care about -- security and stability. I don't need to worry about installing malware. I don't need to worry about a third-party application erasing unrelated data on my phone.
For those that object to the model, then build a better mouse trap. Develop for Android or WebOS. You too have choices. That's the beauty of democracy and capitalism.

It would appear you don't understand what a monopoly is.

No one disputes that options other than the iPhone are available. However, it is roundly considered the best phone and most popular phone on the market; features and applications it arbitrarily denies are simply unavailable to a large number of cellphone users.

The whole app-store vs. jailbreaking thing (even the name, "jailbreaking" sounds like a criminal activity) reminds me of the warning on the pillow tags that said removal of the tag was a criminal offense. Of course, this was meant for the merchant, not the consumer. Nevertheless, it was funny because, after all, it's my darned pillow. I bought it, I'll take it home and tear it apart if I want to.

Same goes for iPhone/i-touch. If I pay $200 at best buy for that iPod Touch, I'll do whatever the heck I want with it!

@ jormungandr

Are you serious? I don't understand? I know exactly what a monopoly is. Apple provides a phone but it's not the only phone; you have a choice of other hardware. AT&T provides wireless service but it's not the only wireless service; you have a choice of providers. Ditto for the App Store. The phone's quality and popularity are not relevant to the monopoly argument except that if it sucked no one would care. It's precisely because it is successful that we're having this discussion. I would also argue that it is because of the business model that it is successful. And availability is also irrelevant, so long as it's not the availability of the alternatives. The fact remains that you can have an iPhone if you want one (and can afford it).

The bottom line is that holding a dominant position in a market is not in itself illegal, it's the actions taken to get there that can be. In this case, there's nothing new in the equation. Many new models of phones have been exclusive to a single provider, third-party applications have had limitations and specific software has been needed on the desktop. For now, objectivity renders this a non-issue.

@ dissyazz

I agree with you there.

furiousd said:

In economics, a monopoly (from Greek monos , alone or single polein+
, to sell) exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has
sufficient control over a particular product (iphone)or service (app store)to determine
*significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to
it.*^[1]^ Monopolies are thus characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods.^[2]^ The verb "monopolize" refers to the process by which a firm gains persistently greater market share than what is expected under perfect competition.

A monopoly must be distinguished from monopsony, in which there is only one buyer
of a product or service ; a monopoly may also have monopsony control of
a sector of a market. Likewise, a monopoly should be distinguished from
a cartel (a form of oligopoly), in which several providers act together(AT&T And Apple) to coordinate services, prices or sale of goods. Monopolies can form naturally or through vertical or horizontal mergers. A monopoly is said to be coercive when the monopoly firm actively prohibits competitors from entering the field.(by banning apps that are within the tos but outside of AT&t or apples buisness interests)

Name me one other industry that a producer of a good or service controls from production to day to day use EVERY aspect of a device for sale.....

Yes its a good piece of Hardware, I personally own one.

Everybody remember the Moto Razr? Ultra exclusive to free in a short time, because motorola dropped the ball? Well I believe people will only put up with terrible policies of apple and att for so long before the revolt.

Want a horror scenario? Here's one. Imagine a wide-open system that allows any and all third-party apps. Imagine the stability and security nightmares this system would be open to. There's a shining example of such a system--it's called Windows. Is there a Windows user alive that has never experienced the joy of having an offending third-party app screw things up royally? Personally, I want a smart cell phone that's a tad more stable and secure than Windows. For that reason, I'm willing to let Apple check and filter out apps that are problematic. Would a non-Apple app source be as conscientious about weeding out baddies as Apple? I doubt it. They don't have as much as stake. Remember, smartphones aren't desktop systems where a crash may be just an inconvenience. They're phones you might have to use to make a 911 call!
But, you say, there are some well-behaved apps that have been shot down. Why? There are lots of business reasons why Apple might zap an app. And why shouldn't they? Put yourself in their position. They're not a charity. They're in business to make a profit. Last i heard, it wasn't illegal for a company to make a profit at the expense of another company. It's called "competitive advantage", and it's completely legal--as long as it's not a monopoly, which the iPhone isn't. If you don't like Apple's business practices or restrictions, buy one of the many other phones that are available. But please do your homework before you buy anything. Don't buy an iPhone and then endlessly bitch and complain about it.

YodaMan said:

Hmmm Wide open sytem....Every smartphone (besides the iphone) has been "wide open" for ages. ANYONE can write and install software on their S60, WM or UIQ phone but Apples to apples... you got it! Windows mobile..... Never head of a virus or exploit for wm but even if there were one, I have never experianced it and I have had WM devices since it before it was called Windows ce. While we are on that subject WM has supported cut copy and paste since 2.21 and has had tethering, mms, mass sms, flash, the ability to record video, enterprise integration and web embedded video since they started putting gsm chips in them. They are so good that if you want to buy an iphone in the apple store, the sale will be processed on a WM5 device. Apple screws up royally and the fanboys come out and forgive them. MS screws up a little and it's raining daggers.

No "feature upgrades". Lets talk about blacklisted apps for the Iphone for a second, once upon a time there was an app called netshare. It was written by smart people who played by the rules. Apple and att changed the rules because they felt like it. Then released an "upgrade" that had the feature if you were willing to pay through the nose monthly for it! How about MMS? Disabled by apple because at&t says it can't handle mms! Doesn't every other phone, including my 10 year old non-color-screen nokia support and have access to mms on the at&t network? At&t has put out an option for an unlimited mms "plan" WTF? We are being robbed for data and sms's and now they want to charge us more for the data and messaging that WE ALREADY PAY FOR! Sorry I digress.... Apple want to squeeze their customers for money and I'm tired of being treated like a walking ATM for substandard hardware running substandard software.

Just FYI I have an iphone 3g (16g) , Sony ericcson Xperia X1, HTC shift, htc tytn, nokia 8801, nokia e71, e75, n97, SE p910i. I have used apple, WM, s60, UIQ I have an understanding of all these devices and In my opinion apples greed and hatred for its customers will make the iphone a nice paperweight very soon.

@yodaman, as long as the iPhone's phone functions are walled off as they are, there is no serious security risk from 3rd party applications. Apple should not be allowed to control application distribution for its OS any more than should Microsoft. Imagine the upset if Microsoft turned to the same business model as windows.

Yodaman,
No one is trying to take your security (insert Ben Franklin quote everyone beats the tar out of here) away. You are always free to choose to purchase Apple hardware/software exclusively, and as long as they produce a quality breakdown free product, they will probably retain many people's loyalty. But if you allow Apple to have their monopoly (which is what it is), then you have to allow Microsoft the same courtesy...i.e., Microsoft should be allowed to say, "If you use our OS, you must use only our software and you must prohibit access to any other companies' software on your PC."
If you don't think MS would do that one one billionth of a second after they were allowed to, you're naive. And believe it, HP, Dell, et. al. would dang well comply, and viola! You can't have your precious Firefox or Opera any more. You want to read a PDF on a PC? Tough boob, that's restricted. Presto, your techno-nightmare is real.
This doesn't even contemplate them saying, 'no using our software on an Apple'. BAM, no more Office on your supersweet Mac. Your boss will be by to take it away from you and give you a crappy Dell in just a bit.
As it stands, people are more than welcome to never use any software but MS, as you would be able to stay Apple-centric. However, very few people are MS exclusive, and why? Because other developer make a better product. I want that better product. But because of Apples' policies (I will never download my music irreversibly to itunes!), I will not buy and don't own a single Apple product. It ain't because I can't afford it, it's because I don't want even a great product at the cost of you(Apple) forcing me to buy what you want me to buy. Next thing, you'll(Apple) be telling me what color shirt to wear and what fancy overpriced vodka to drink. It would be like Sony telling me which cable channels I can watch on my T.V.
You are welcome to chain yourself to the anchor, just don't drag the rest of us to the bottom with you.

That is the reason why people need competition and not monopolies. Only one store spells doom for any market. When will Apple learn?

The model for the iPhone is not the general purpose PC. It's the gaming console, where the manufacturer does control which titles you can run. Don't like that (perfectly valid) model? Buy a different product.

You have a point, with one exception: any game console manufacturer, whether Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft, has to allow third party games if they want to compete. The reason Nintendo's N64 and GameCube products failed was because they allowed third party development but didn't support it. Apple is hurting its users (myself included) and itself by not only blocking third party app repositories, but making access to their own store opaque and difficult.

This kind of knee-jerk blaming the consumer is so tiring. Listen, Apple is not God. And consumers have reasonable expectations, some of which can reasonably be enacted by regulation to tamp down anti-competitive practices.

I'm a LONG time Palm/Treo user - now trying to pick a non-Palm phone - but one of the things I loved about the Palm was the wealth of software. On the other hand, my Treo phone now crashes once or twice a day - so I know the price you pay for that.
But here's a couple of thoughts on some the comments above:
- is the iphone stable because Apple makes sure the apps don't crash it, or each other, before offering the app? I somehow doubt that is possible. It seems more likely it's because of the robust operating system, or the tight programming model. Maybe they would pull an app that was found to cause crashes - but testing is hard! So - it's not correct to say they do it for security reasons.
- I don't think the idea that Apple blocked apps for, apparently, competitive reasons was well known ORIGINALLY - someone mentioned we all knew apps had to be approved, but it seemed more likely it was for stability, or taste (we know that's not true, now), etc. Apple may pull an app once it finds it is causing problems, but finding them before hand through testing is HARD!

kronhead said:

1) the iphone isnt stable. Mine crashes all the time. or it will fail to make calles or recieve mesages until reset and then get hundreds. The "stability" you speek of is a lack of Error codes. Apple thinks we are all too stupid to solve our own problems. I have several apps that would start, run for a second then exit. drove me crazy untill i downloaded the enterprise diagnostic app from apple and a program called Behavior Scan. what i am left with is a profound understanding of under the carpet. Every single app has diagnostic data. Most have crashed at term (been killed) some have crashed at launch, ALL have pschotic amounts of data on how I use my phone/ipod/apps.Hello big brother. Apple claims it is for the advertisement sub system. If I use a fart app all day then research shows i will be more likely to respond to brand a vs. brand b. I personally think it is a control thing.



2) it seems funny that apple has in the developer's TOS that apple can reject any app that replicates function of an apple brand app, or replicates function of a planned apple app. Profanity and vulgarity ar no nos but they will selll me profane and vulgur albums all day long on my iphone thru itunes. I can't see one breast but I can have endless fart machines.



The market should determine what is sold. Not apple. Stability is not really improved compared to other similar smart phones running s60. Phones from WM really talk to much. If they just didn't tell you stack overflow this and divide by zero that, it would be just like the iphone.

BrettGlass said:

You can't be serious. Most of the games on Iphone Are ports from extinct consoles and pc games from decades gone by. I have yet to see one major developer commit resources to releasing games to the iphone.... Heres why.

Apple's control makes most serious developers nervous. This is because Titles like grand theft auto sell well precisely for the violence, nudity (hot coffee anyone) and just general anti social nature of games. There are quite a few other titles that don't rely on these items but typically sell way way less.

Problem is two fold. most everything on the Iphone is sold for $.99 divided by apples cut, and multiplied by the total number of iphones in the world and you will barely crack a third tier release game. raise the price and few will buy it because it is more expensive than other games. Add to the drama that major franchises could be removed and banned for no good reason and loose all the money that went into development and you can see why itis no game platform. it is a smart phone with gaming Nokia Ngage (withot mms)

I think you misunderstood him: he is reffering to the model by which they controll ther products being similar to how console manufacturers controll what is on the console.

He was also incorrect. Nintendo has a SDK that outside vendors use to create a product. Nintendo has no controll beyond that. Same with the Xbox and PS3