Apple has changed the developer terms to prevent use of cross platform development tools. This change was snuck in unannounced yet has caused the greatest uproar.
Many believe this is an attack at Adobe. I believe it is at least as much an attack against Google’s Android. Apple wants to prevent the creation of cross platform mobile applications. They’re trying to do everything they can to prevent developers from writting for Android. It might work while Apple has 60+% marketshare… or it might not if developers have moved to Android anyway.
But the problem is worse than that. It is the latest in an ever increasing series of attempt for Apple to exert unreasonable control over its customers and partners with the express purpose of squeezing out as much profit as possible while locking them in to the Apple platform. Locking in not by innovation, nor because Apple products are superior. Instead they’re now resorting to building disfunctional products that disable the ability to work with non-Apple facilities, using legal terms and conditions to threaten action if behavior doesn’t meet their approval, and to sue when competitors get too close to Apple’s jewels.
Recent actions include:
- Appstore: Steve Jobs originally billed the restrictions on the store altruistically. Meant to protect the carrier’s network from failure and to prevent malware. This has twisted over time to become a blatant filter, removing anything that Apple decides it doesn’t like or might be competitive with current or future products. Apple has come to enjoy this level of control over its users.
- iPad: The iPad is a powerful full function computer. But Apple has tasted the drug of total control with the app store. They purposely neutered a full function computer so that consumers are only allowed to obtain software for it from Apple’s app store. You can see where this evolution is going. Can a Mac app store be far behind?
- Terms: Adobe Flash and any 3rd party interpreters on the iPhone are a threat to Apple’s control and 30% of sales revenue stream from the appstore. Apple doesn’t want to allow users to circumvent their control over what users can run. When Adobe tried to get around it by cross compiling, Apple changed the terms… after Adobe had spent millions to develop their product.
- Android: Apple finally has a worthy competitor. 3 years in the making but finally here. Does Apple compete by producing a superior product? Sadly no. Their reaction is to sue HTC as a protected way to sue Google. The change in developer terms was not only meant to hurt Adobe, but to prevent mobile applications to be written for Android. Apple wants developers locked into Apple tools and wants them to have a hard time porting to Android.
Steve Jobs has let success go to his head. The iPad is a joke. These terms and how whimsically Apple changes them, make it unreasonable for a business to invest in making iPhone/iPad software. Yet somehow they think they can get away with this.
Maybe its inevitable. Small, rapidly growing companies historically often succeed against larger competitors by being more open, giving more choice and benefits to consumers and partners.
But eventually, if they become large enough, they become consumed with protecting their own turf. They no longer come up with sufficient innovation to drive growth. They turn to protecting their turf, put up walls, try to control and harm anyone who dares to challenge their products.
Ultimately its a loosing strategy but may signal a maturing company. No longer growing. Stagnant at best, or a slow decline.
IBM became a mainframe monopoly. To this day they still fiercely defend their mainframe turf.
Microsoft with Windows and Office. Seen any innovation there?
Now Apple. A amazingly lame iPad, terms which exhibit an unthinkable hubris, sue your competitors (HTC/Google).
I can’t recall a company changing their ways once this inward focus consumes them. Too hard to give up the remembrance of success. Likely Apple and Steve Jobs will be in denial for many years.
Apple’s recent success has been ignited when they made platforms more open, not closed.
- The move to Intel processors didn’t create a wall around Mac OS, instead it welcomed Windows to run native on the machine.
- The original iPhone broke the choke hold carriers had on consumers by controlling what websites could be visited and what applications could be run while charging unrealistic prices always measured in dollars each month.
- The iPod success was launched when Steve Jobs negotiated more reasonable prices and greatly reduced DRM restrictions for users, provided users with more control over their own music.
Sad that Steve has forgotten a key reason why Apple has become successful and chosen to lock consumers and developers in by only obtaining software from the appstore and having the hubris to attempt such heinous developer terms.
I had hoped for better.
Related posts:
iphone agreement bans flash compiler
steve jobs response on section 3-3-1
I think you’re being a little one sided.
Your post fails to mention the good that Apple is doing for book publishers. Look at how much Amazon has changed it’s business practice since Apple announced it’s pricing structure for iBooks.
What about Webkit?
What about all their work with HTML5?
The move to a DRM free iTunes was last years keynote. You’re acting like it’s what launched the success of iPod.
The way that Google obviously stole major concepts from iPhone OS for Android, you might as well say that’s open source. If I was Apple I would sue too.
Agree with you on these points. But I think they’re mostly minor activities compared to the public direction of their major products.
When I mentioned DRM, I didn’t mean the recent move to DRM-free. I was describing when the iPod originally came out. The music companies were charging high fees for subscription only services. And you couldn’t do anything with the music. You couldn’t put it on multiple devices, you couldn’t burn it to a CD. You only had access to it while you were a subscriber. Steve Jobs came in, somehow negotiated cheap reasonable prices and much laxer DRM rules which did allow you to put the music on multiple devices and could burn it to a CD.