Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 8th Nov 2009 16:11 UTC
We're all familiar with the fact that Apple has trouble managing its App Store. While it is overflowing with applications, Apple governs it willy-nilly, and the web is rife with stories from developers who had their application rejected for no apparent reason. There's now a new issue we can add to the list. Are you an iPhone developer? Do you want a similar, competing application out of the App Store? All you need to do is send an infringement claim to Apple, and they'll happily threaten to remove the competing application without a second thought. Update: And here's a similar case, about Stoneloops! vs. Luxor.
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Member since:
2009-11-09
Phloptical is right, and I believe Apple is concern in their growth and market penetration reaching a point where Antitrust lawsuits might have more weight.
It is a odd situation. Besides the fact these authors seem to be amateurs who probably have no problem using free open source software and tools to write this stuff but have a problem when other people does similar work, what or whom is exactly Apple trying to protect? a) themselves from lawsuits? b) watered down (and profit share) applications from clones?
I also have trouble with the idea of the mindeset Apple is instilling here.
I'm the CTO of one the early online hosting application servers that began with modems and later incorporated internet connectivity. 3rd party applets are written to work over modems, console or the web. Just recently, in answering a question, one popular applet is a caller id callback verification. I found over 100 of them from free to shareware to commercial listing in our support file library! I can't imagine ever comtemplating getting involved in picking and choosing which ones are worthy of staying in our applet download library or offering a policy where authors can issue a complaint. In 25+ of operations, I don't even recall such a complaint and if there was a copyright infringement complaint, we were never involved in disputes between 3rd party developers. Short of anyone actually stealing source code, infringing on a patent and/or "look and feel", complainting about the existence of similar applications was just unheard of.
That said, one thing we are doing different for a new pending release is including some 3rd party applets to fill in product features we don't have the time to do ourselves. For one feature, there were 4-5 applets available and I choose the best one and contacted the author of our intentions.
But I do remember wondering how the others will feel when they find out. Will they stop supporting us as 3rd party developers? Will it create a PR problem for us? What if the success of doing this for one, prompts a complaint that it infringes on someone else?
Currently, we make recommendations for customer to explore which similar applets works best for them so it was never an issue. Maybe we might begin to see what Apple is going thru by picking and choosing what qualifies for their iPhone. We don't charge or get an percentage (other than our compiler and SDK is not free), so maybe this is also a factor for apple and her developers. Apple is getting a piece of the pie so that might create the environment for exclusivity and pressure to remove duplicate work by lesser known developers.