Apple’s iApps Killing the Little Guys Softly?

A note from Subband Software, former developer of MacAmp, cropped up recently: “Thanks to everyone who supported us over the years. iTunes just got to be far too big, far too free, and far too bundled with the OS.The editorial is going on giving more examples how Apple is taking away market from the small developers by embedding such user software on OSX (e.g. iPhoto, iMovie etc). In the past we talked about it regarding the Watson application and its competition with Sherlock 3. Update: One of the two developers (the most commited one) of Chimera is thinking of dropping out: “I’m torn about what to do with Chimera. It’s obvious it will only ever be a marginal product on a even more marginal platform. AOL and Netscape have no interest in supporting it. Who aspires to be number two in an already over-commoditized space? Working my ass off for 3% just isn’t any fun any more. Safari has already won, the rest is just to see by how much.” In the meantime, Safari tops 1 million downloads.More over, Safari is not out for more than 15 days yet and it is already the No1 browser of choice among many OSX users. Now think when Apple brings Safari to stable status, add tabs and incorporate it with the OS. The rest 6 browses on OSX will have no major future (Apple’s userbase is just 2.3% leaving no major profits to the rest of the players in the “background”). Doesn’t this story sound a bit like IE, Windows and Netscape?


You can’t of course blame Apple for offering for free very nice software. But this “kind” gesture towards its users, kills many developers. And a platform, sooner or later is as good as dead when it loses its developers. Maybe this is why Apple wanted to originally charge for the 3/4 of the iLife applications? (now they only charge for the iDVD)

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