Why I’m Concerned About Apple (And Perhaps You Should Be Too)
A couple days ago I started working on a post about how, despite my anti-iPad ravings on Twitter lately, I actually find a lot to like about the device and would probably consider buying one when and if it adds a few more features and comes down in price a bit. However, after what transpired at Apple’s iPhone OS 4.0 event yesterday, I’ve axed that draft, because now I’ll have to think long and hard before buying anything from Apple.
Before yesterday’s event, I saw Apple as a company that was too full of itself but who made good, albeit overpriced and overhyped, computers and gadgets. Before yesterday, the main reasons I didn’t own more Apple stuff were that they were expensive and that I didn’t like the company’s pack of sycophant fanboys. However, yesterday’s iPhone OS 4.0 event showed me several things about Apple that really give me pause:
- Hypocrisy: Much has been made about Apple’s tight control over what gets into its Apps Store. That position of tight policing was reaffirmed during yesterday’s Q&A session with Steve Jobs after the introduction of iPhone OS 4.0. From Engadget’s liveblog of the event:
11:29AM Ryan Block from GDGT: What about running unsigned apps? Steve: You know, there’s a porn store for Android. Anyone can download them. You can, your kids can. That’s just not a place we want to go.
Yet earlier in the same Q&A session, someone asked whether there would be an approval process for the new iAd platform that Apple rolled out yesterday:
11:12AM Q: Will there be an ad approval process? A: (Jobs… super long pause) Um… well there’s going to be some process… but these people are paying to run ads. So, I’m not sure it’ll be anything other than a light touch.
So if I can’t get my objectionable content into the Apps Store, I can package it as an iAd (which looks basically like an app within an app), promise Apple a 40 percent cut, and I’ll have a much better chance of getting it through? Hmm …
- Viciousness: What made even bigger noise yesterday was the change Apple made to its developer’s agreement that effectively bans the use of Flash in developing iPhone apps. The move neuters the Flash-to-iPhone compiler, one of the key features in Adobe’s imminent release of Flash Professional CS5. I’m not an app developer, so this has no practical impact on me. But what bothers me is that given the timing of this move — mere days before Adobe is to launch CS5 — it sure looks like a giant F-you to Adobe, which has been in a much-publicized spat with Apple over Apple’s refusal to support Flash on its mobile devices. You can’t help but get the impression that Apple waited silently for Adobe to dump resources into developing a key feature and then yanked the rug out from under a company that 1) produces indispensable software for an entire industry of loyal Mac users (I’m that rarest of designers — the one who just shrugs when asked if he prefers PCs or Macs), and 2) isn’t even a competitor in the fields in which Apple operates. While I think Adobe is big enough that it will weather this and move on, imagine when Apple decides to do the same thing to a smaller company.
I’m no tech insider, so I don’t know if such dirty maneuvering are commonplace. What I do know is that very few companies have the clout that Apple does, which brings up my next point of concern.
- Power: If it hadn’t been obvious enough before, what transpired yesterday with Flash showed the ridiculous amount of clout Apple has. Even before yesterday, I was already a bit concerned with the fact that Apple’s refusal to support Flash on the iPad has basically ensured that Flash will not exist on most Web sites built from here on, even though there are other tablets on the way that do support Flash. My concern doesn’t stem from whether I think Flash or HTML5 is a better platform (for the record, I think HTML5 is), but rather from the fact that we are in a situation where a single device from a single company can pretty much dictate which technology the Web will be built on. Moving beyond the Flash-vs.-HTML5 debate, consider what happens when and if Apple decides something else that’s currently ubiquitous doesn’t play nice enough with its gadgets and uses its clout to kill it.
Combine hypocrisy, viciousness, and almost absolute power, and it spells trouble. Apple has always carried itself with arrogance, but what’s been happening recently has gone beyond the mere snarkiness embodied in the “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” ads. That was funny, maybe even likable in some ways, and relatively easily overlooked. What we’re seeing now, however, is something much more sinister. Apple has always operated with a control-freak, “our way or the highway” approach, which is tolerable when it was only controlling 10 percent of the personal computing market. But its mobile-gadgets empire has expanded its clout exponentially, to the point where it can put industry leaders like Adobe in a headlock, and Apple’s recent actions certainly lend credence to the old “absolute power corrupts absolutely” adage.
Of course, from a consumer standpoint, most of this has little relevance. The Apple-Adobe fight is, in the end, geek-on-geek violence. Apps will keep popping up, and Apple still makes sexy gadgets and status symbols that their users swear by. But just as people have become wary of Walmart for its business practices, low low prices notwithstanding, I think we should be wary of the kind of company Apple is showing itself to be as its power grows.
I’m not the kind to make absolute declarations like “I’ll never buy from Apple again,” because it does make good products and because as a designer, Macs are overwhelmingly the computer of choice in my field, so I’ll likely encounter situations where I need to go that route. But now, when I consider whether to buy an Apple product, its features and exorbitant price will no longer be my only considerations. I can overlook arrogance, but not evil, and Apple seems to be increasingly leaning toward the latter.
UPDATE (4/15)
From Nieman Lab comes today’s example for yet another cause for alarm: A Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist can’t get his cartoon app approved because Apple disapproves of the satire. What’s even more disturbing is the language in the rejection letter Apple cites in one of the stories linked to from the Nieman Lab article:
“… We’ve reviewed Bobble Rep – 111th Congress Edition and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states:
“Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”
Banned for ridiculing public figures. Hmm, is there anything that sounds more un-American than that? Imagine if your Internet service provider decided to do the same thing, blocking access to Web sites it deems inappropriate. Somehow I don’t think the ISP would get as many people defending its actions as Apple has. One might point out that we’re talking about apps on a phone here, not the Web. However, the mobile Web is expanding rapidly and predicted to overtake desktop Web in a few years. Also, mobile apps are creating a whole new corner in the information marketplace, and it should definitely be a concern to us, right now, what the acceptable conventions of this new arena are. Does our tolerance for censorship of information change because the device with which we access that information changes?
Apple isn't deciding any of this stuff for you. It's making decisions about the products it offers to you. You may choose to buy them or not. Other companies may choose to support them or not. The industry decides to follow or not to follow. Don't blame Apple for that. Apple does not have to be greedy, hypocritical, vicious; it just has to let the greed, hypocrisy, and viciousness that is commonplace in its industry drive the moves that others make or do not make. As for being too powerful: it cannot be, unless consumers, business, and industry cede the power. It's just that simple.
I'm giving Apple my $$$, not because I trust them any more than I trust you, Microsoft, the church, or the government. I'm giving them my $$$ because they make products that have always–and I mean always–worked reliably for me, given me great value (which has nothing to do with price, you know), provided me with a useful and fun user experience, and integrated well from product to product.
Plus, I must admit that I enjoy the envy/fear that I read or hear from those who spend way too much time trying to personify and vilify a company that's defied the odds for so long and now is threatening the old order with each new product. It's a business making products people may choose to buy if they wish. It's not Satan's secret weapon to dominate and damn humanity for all time.
I have to side with Apple on the issue of flash-based apps. While it's true that it's scary that one company can yield so much power; we've seen something like this with Microsoft.
However, being a Mac user for a long time, I've also seen what Adobe has done to deserve this. Few years before Apple released Mac OS X, Adobe, very blatantly, posted an article on its website urging its -then dominant- Premier users to move to Windows. I remember the articles about the negotiations between Apple and Adobe where Apple nearly begged Adobe to keep supporting the Mac with Premier and Adobe's refusal.
Apple taught Adobe a lesson with Final Cut.
I also remember very well how many Adobe products gave preference to Windows, making the Mac look like a second grade platform, from the lowly Photoshop Elements to Adobe Acrobat which still sports tons of feature that are not available on the Mac version. We expect this and accept it from Microsoft, but when it comes from a company that started on the Mac, I can easily understand why Steve Jobs would want to stick it to them.
And lately with this flash thing. Did you ever use a Mac to browser a flash-heavy site? It works like crap. When people see how a website works on the Mac vs. the same website on Windows, they will tend to thing that the Mac itself sucks, and not some plugin produced by a third party company. If you were in Steve Jobs's place and some company was making your product look inferior, would you not try to eliminate the cause?
Adobe is now trying to do the same thing. Not purposefully screwing Apple, but merely trying to control the platform for delivering much of the web's contents and with the iPhone packager trying to extend this delivery control.
If you know how this works, you would know that for flash5 apps to work on the iphone/ipad, there would be a need for a runtime that translates the Actionscript programs to machine code, just like the flash plugin in browsers. If this runtime is optimized for Android phones and Windows 7 phones, then the same app built with this runtime would run much better on an android phone and like crap on the iPhone/iPad. Do you think people would understand why the same application runs like a charm on Android and like crap on the iPhone? they will most likely think that the iphone sucks compared to the Android one and blame Apple and never ever think about blaming Adobe; after all, they will have no idea how the app they just downloaded from Apple's App store was built.
Would you let anybody do that to a gadget/platform that you created? or would you do your best to keep such a danger away from your platform?
Maybe Adobe should stop supporting Mac completely. Then Apple would have to develop its own Creative Suite.
Flash runs like crap on some Macs is b/c Apple won't allow the Flash Player to use hardware acceleration. Why won't Apple work with Adobe to make Flash better on the Mac?
O rly? Then how come all the indie programmers use the GPU and have their apps already compiled in 64-bit and do not spinlock my Mac like a browser PLUGIN does?=
Steve obvlously knows more about the story, but has decanted it down to 'lazy'. I have 1000s of big and little Apps, and PLUGINS, including Silverlight, that do not spinlock my Mac.
Adobe didn't want to put time or money into making their stuff first class on OSX Desktop. Do you think Steve is just gonna LET them on OSX mobile? Given the fact that indie software devs with no funds as well as rival MSFT can do what Adobe can't seem to do anymore?? That they USED to do?
Stop making excuses for Adobe. 10 years ago their Mac proggies were best of breed and had no problems like this. NOW they have problems? The problem Adobe has is that they have more depth in M&A and bean counting than in tech. And it's showing. They decided they wanted to be a Flash and Windows shop. Apple certainly doesn't decide THEIR fate. And why they're 'assigning power to Apple' by whining about it in their blogs is beyond me. It's like they're having a melt down.
Apple has decided that they want you to program in HTML and C+ BOTH "open" languages that Apple does NOT own. Is that really a crime? So, you're advocating a closed and proprietary platform such as Flash OWNED 100% by Adobe is a better option? Nevermind that it's too feeble to understand anything but mouse controls? Plus, Apple has essentially created a marketplace where ONE programmer in their house can make money – now Apple is promising no one a free lunch in that you'll be successful but for $99 a year to be a mobile Apple developer, you get a chance to see your wares next to EA, Nike, etc … NO OTHER store promises you that. It is the MOST OPEN developer store EVER (and no the android store does not come close as there are 5 DIFFERENT android OSes and each store is NOT compatible). Apple, one store, one OPEN opportunity for everyone. Yes, they will require you to pass minimum standards (there are close to 200,000 apps, clearly, it's pretty open) but sure, not 100% open because it's their store – just like any store. If Safeway does not want to sell sex oils, that is their right. So, no, you do NOT need to be concerned – you need to stop looking at the negative of everything but look at the positive – is it perfect, of course not but then neither are you.
Because of Apple's business model of selling "affordable luxury" hardware, they will never get as close to a monopoly as either Microsoft with Windows or Office, or Adobe with Flash, which are offered to many hardware makers, who are willing to sell products with a tiny margin. Even as the iPod is considered dominant, it's only about 70% in a market of competing lightweights (MS was too little, too late).
In smartphones, it's a different story, there are many big players who are not lightweights – even if Apple hit on all cylinders, at best, they'd get to about 40% of sales (where Nokia is now already). Yes, they'd have more mindshare than that, but mindshare doesn't always translate into sales.
Thanks all, for reading and commenting.
@filecat13
Yes, I can choose to buy Apple products or not, but that's not my point here. Can I choose to develop components of a site in Flash? Well, technically, yes. But since a significant portion of the visitors to that site are going to be on iPhones or iPads, then I really don't have a choice if I want my site to be seen by as many people as possible. Now, in this case, we're talking about Flash vs. HTML5, and the move to HTML5 is a good thing. But the key is that I don't think Apple is choking off Flash out of a desire to push everyone to an open platform, but because Flash doesn't play well with Apple's own devices. Imagine down the road if HTML5 doesn't play as well with Apple's devices as a proprietary platform. Is Apple going to choke off HTML5 then to force developers onto the platform that works best for Apple? And why shouldn't Apple do that? It's a business, after all. That's what I'm worried about.
@john
I'm certainly not saying Adobe is free from blame in this, and Apple is well within its rights to do whatever the heck it pleases with its own products. What I don't like is the way it did it — sitting back and watching Adobe develop the feature and then neutering it a few days before it's set to roll out. And perhaps this is commonplace in the tech industry, but that doesn't make it right and I don't have to like it.
@craig
Adobe cutting off CS for Mac might be cutting off your nose to spite your face. Not only would it alienate CS's primary user base, I think forcing Apple to develop its own professional creative software would be inviting competition into an arena that Adobe has owned for a long time (not that a little competition is a bad thing), and you know whatever Apple comes up with will be eagerly anticipated since the bulk of designers won't want to give up Macs for PCs. That's why I think there's little Adobe can do in retaliation. At the same time, the users of CS are the ones who'll suffer from the strained relationship b/n Apple & Adobe. And even if Apple develops its own suite that catches on, then you're talking about two different design platforms, one for the guys working on Macs and one for the people working on PCs since CS would still have a big presence there, and that's just no good for anybody.
@jbelkin
I'm not advocating for one platform over another, whether it be open or closed. I'm advocating for allowing the proprietary AND the open and letting people and the market choose which tools they want to use. It's like when your IT department refuses to support Macs. Macs vs. PCs comes down to personal choice, with choice being the keyword there. An IT department's refusal to support Macs takes away that choice, just as Apple's refusal to allow Flash-created apps takes away the choice of which tool you use. Or, imagine if a web host says it won't host any pages created using any WYSIWYG programs.
@mark
What's disconcerting is that even without achieving a monopoly, Apple has gathered the clout to effect changes that impact everyone, not just Apple users. They may only sell 40% of smartphones, but because they refuse to support Flash, the sites you visit with your smartphone, regardless of manufacturer, will likely not be built with Flash. And this spat came about because Flash doesn't play well with Macs, which constitute, what, about 10 percent of personal computers? This seems like a case of the tail wagging the dog.
I want to know what types of computer you are using currently? Are you using any form of Windows OSes? If you are, I don't know why you have such sentiments toward Apple!
@bear chow: Thanks for the comment. I currently own a Dell and an older iMac. The first couple sentences of the last paragraph of my post applies to everything, including Microsoft. Am I happy with some of the stuff they do? No. But at some point, I simply have to go that route because of my computing needs. Besides, "Microsoft does it too" is a pretty weak defense for a company that's supposed to be the antithesis of Microsoft, isn't it?
Why are you acting so surprised? Read the old section 3.31 and then read the new one. Apple likes to leave wiggle room and hope folks will abide by the rules. Adobe pushed it, so they made it EXPLICIT. Bad Adobe puppy, no crApping in our walled garden anymore for you, wet newspaper over the nose.
The clubkids over at Adobe thought they were going to get away with this, nuh-uh says Uncle Steve, so the only thing they can do now is whinge in their pithy little blogs with occasional redactions from Adobe legal.
You'll remember, if you're old enough, that Billy Gates made a d*ck move like this against the Steves and those guys let it slide. Now we all have to put up with 'Ubiquitous' Windows.
So now some joke of an Indian MBA, his clubkids, and his offshore clones who have made Apple second banana wanna try this again?
Sorry, the nice Steve ain't around to tell the mean Steve to 'let it slide' this time.
There has been retribution, and it's called section 3.3.1.
Adobe started this. And like someone standing up to a sniveling bully, Uncle Steve ended it. Adobe should stop the sniveling, "I wanna be the bully like MSFT" act, take up their toys and go home. Lynch may be trying to invoke Adobe's old legacy as a middleware vendor, but the truth of the matter is that they bet the farm on this crappy plugin of theirs — hence all the bluster from their clubkids.
MSFT has a plugin much like theirs and you don't see them crying foul. Or at all. You DO see them playing by Apple's platform rules and dishing Silverlight content from an IIS server to a form that ANY device, including an iPhone can digest. I guess having experience with a REAL PLATFORM, even Windows gives you some perspective that merely being a plugin vendor can't.
Thank you, Uncle Steve, for finally standing up to these jokers. We can only hope that their 'ubiquitous' tech goes the way of MIDI, animated gif, and hamster dance. Remember when those were 'indispensible?'
Do whatever you like and we use whatever we want.
if pundits are that successful they would be running corporations like Apple Inc instead of writing whining blogs.