fantazio

you raise an excellent point and explain it very well with your VW example -

but still it seems the aforementioned laymen had the right intuition - as the appstore draconian policies are finally being looked at by regulators ...

"According to a person familiar with the matter, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are locked in negotiations over which of the watchdogs will begin an antitrust inquiry into Apple's new policy of requiring software developers who devise applications for devices such as the iPhone and iPad to use only Apple's programming tools."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/an_antitrust_app_buvCW...

"Apple responsible for 99.4% of mobile app sales in 2009"

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-...

so obviously AppStore is a monopole - the other 3~10 stores have a miserable 0.6% ... of course that says a lot about Apple genius and how its competitors are plain retarded ... but ...

still i think they are more and more abusing their dominant position with their draconian dev rules ... and that should be looked at - could present some legal challenges for them ... im no lawyer - but i think the only way they can get away with it is tru the private nature of the dev agreement ...

incidentally - i really think Apple is special - one of a kind genius company - but also because of that people cut them way too much slack ...

to prove my point - just try this simple mental exercise - try to picture - what would happen on this same forum if we were discussing about say - Microsoft - say Microsoft just put out a nice new license for Windows-7 that said you "can develop for W7 only if you use C#, .NET, Microsoft own compilers, Flash is banned and Redmond will need to approve all any application" ...

dude - it's so funny i cannot even finish typing it ... really - it just sounds so crazy - like a story from another world - a world of evil monopolistic corporations that try to control our free lives... yet all we did with this simple exercise is to change one word : Apple -> Microsoft ... and - last time i checked - Windows does not even have 99.4% of the market - more like 90% coupled with a boring, inferior resource hogging product that though comes with all the freedoms democracy brigs us ...

and that proves my point - we do cut Apple way too much slack just because they are so awesome in making great products ...

full disclosure - i owned both iPhone 2G and 3G, just recently dumped 3G for a nexus-one because id rather own an imperfect (though rapidly improving) democracy than in a perfect nazional-socialistic system ... i still use my mac - osx is awesome and kicks Windows-7 lower-back ... and just got an iPad - just because there are no other choices ... yet ...

oh yeah? how about calling europe with one click on ATT networks for 2c a minute?

... please - you Apple fan-boys should try things before jumping to conclusions ...

i dumped my iphone for a nexus specifically for Google Voice and Apple draconian control on the platform ...

"Apple responsible for 99.4% of mobile app sales in 2009"

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-....

check the numbers - AppStore IS a monopole ...

>> In all likelihood, Apple would argue—successfully—that the market should not be defined as the "iPhone software" market but as the "smartphone software" market, at which point they no longer have a monopoly and are no longer subject to anti-trust scrutiny.

"Apple responsible for 99.4% of mobile app sales in 2009"

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-...

... it doesn't take a Phd to acknowledge that the AppStore IS the mobile SW market - thus - i would rather disagree that Apple argument SHOULD be successful in case somebody (or some agency) should bring a legal challenge to the new draconian policies - which are obviously abusing Apple dominance ...

the question for me is more technical = who can bring such a legal challenge? can developers do that? can users do that? or only a govt. agency can ... in which case - considering the influence and connections Apple has with Washington - that might not happen ...

would it be possible for developers to team up in class-action suit based which could then trigger a govt. investigation?