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back to article EC probes Apple for anti-competitive antics

It's not just the Federal Trade Commission that thinks Apple might be going all monopolistic - the European Commission is also taking a careful look into Cupertino's business. The New York Post reports that the European Commission is working with its US equivalent, the FTC, to see if the practice of banning companies from iOS …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    OI don't mind really...

    I don't mind the Apple taking full responsibility in its duties to provide effective hardware-firmware-software devices.

    Given the importance of something like a mobile phone and the uses (personal, commercial, other) such devices can be put to I am sure there are whole swathes of people wanting to datamine our habits and usage patterns.

    Keep up the good work Apple!

    As a ps: maybe the Apple should do a higher spec device that conforms with higher security levels that might be immediately attractive to governments and the like?

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    1. DrXym
      Reply Icon

      Er

      "I am sure there are whole swathes of people wanting to datamine our habits and usage patterns."

      Yes and Apple would prefer that it would be them.

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    2. Jimmy Floyd
      Reply Icon
      Big Brother

      It sounds slightly more disturbing like this:

      I don't mind the government taking full responsibility in its duties to provide effective protection for the people.

      Given the importance of something like national security and the uses (counter-revolutionary, military, other) terrorism can be put to I am sure there are whole swathes of the enemy wanting to monitor our habits and usage patterns (but you can trust our government).

      Keep up the good work, Great Leader!

      As a ps: maybe the government should do a higher spec law that conforms with higher security levels that might be immediately attractive to those who do not (yet) agree with us?

      [But hey, it's just iLife, right? Or did NuLabour teach you nothing?]

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  2. Wibble
    Go

    Go Apple go!

    > only applying them when the company has "adobe" in its name is hardly fair.

    Oh yes it is.

    Adobe are a menace to the web with more security exploits per application than even Microsoft; total absence of standards compliance; creators of more unaccessible sites than FrontPage; and a bunch of rip-off merchants to boot.

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  3. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
    Go

    <Snigger!>

    That is all....

    GJC

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good

    Maybe we can get Flash and some emulators on the App Store. The only problem is it will probably take the FTC and the EC equivalent about 10 years to sort things out, by which time we might finally be rid of IE6, IE7 and IE8 and actually have a chance of using HTML5 for rich web apps.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Emulators

    > Allow someone to create a console emulator and they might start selling games direct - something Apple won't permit.

    There already is a Commodore 64 emulator on the AppStore, which DOES allow you to buy games directly inside the App, and all with Apple's blessing.

    http://c64.manomio.com/

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  6. Tigra 07
    Flame

    Lets see a fine for anticompetitive behaviour!

    After fining Microsoft so much for the default browser kerfuffle, this should be very interesting to watch

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  7. mulder
    Jobs Horns

    (cr)apple is just a less succesfull micro$oft

    There is little diference between the goals of (cr)apple and micro$oft its just that (cr)apple iss less succesfull dispite better marketing and media atention

    2 1
  8. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Why a title ?

    IMHO, I think the main things the anti-competitive people need to get Apple to do is:

    - Clearly publish the rules for accepting apps into the app store,

    - When rejecting an app, state what rule(s) were infringed

    I'm half torn about suggesting some form of appeals process for rejected apps, but I can see that getting bogged down with lawyers, and nobody (except lawyers) wants that.

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  9. JaitcH

    Looks like Steve is becoming more like King Canute each day

    King Canute, legend has it, sat on a beach in his throne and issued certain commandments to his minions which Nature immediately challenged.

    King Job, of California, is slowly learning his commandments are slowly being challenged, too.

    First the Law of Physics 'radio frequency division' failed to comply and now mere civil servants are challenging his commandments. Will this usurping of his power never cease?

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    1. Parax
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Oh dear...

      King Canute sat on the beach to prove he did not have power over nature. sure enough the tide came in and he was proved correct. His point was that God was Higher than the King.

      Even dumb wiki gets that one right.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great#Ruler_of_the_waves

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    2. Peladon
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      Smart-a$$ alert...

      Sigh.

      There are, in my poor and limited experience, two versions of Mr Canute.

      The first version appears to be quoted here. Mr C, getting a little too big for his size nines, had his court drag his throne down to the shore, set his butt fair and square to no doubt soft and fluffy cushions, and commanded the tide to cease coming in. This was pre-nuLabour and pre-Margaret and pre lots of other pre-s that appear to have tried it since with tides ranging from war to the economy to the ability of the Grauniad to rpint reliably. Yes, that was deliberate before anybody tells me I'm an idiot. I _know_ I'm an idiot already. Needless to say, he got his feet wett, at which point he sent out a press release indicating that he had in fact told the _outgoing_ tide to come _in_, and thus was in fact all powerful after all. Nobody having invented the press yet, his press release got lost in the mail nobody had invented.

      The second version is a little different. Mr C, ticked off and irritated at the way his court wandered round bleating that he was the best thing since sliced bread, or would be if anybody took the trouble to invent sliced bread, and that he could command the sun in the sky, the moon and the stars, and even make the Grauniad use a spell checker ( or would be able to as soon as anbybody got round to the printing press and that whole newspaper thing) decided they needed some lessoning. So he did the whole throne to the shore thing, probably _without_ cushions, and sat him down to tell the tide to stop coming in. When it didn't, he told the court that this proved we are all just wimpy mortals, and to stop blethering in future. At which point the court decided to ignore him, went round telling everybody what an idiot Mr C had been trying to tell the tide not to come in ( which diverted attention from their own less than bright behaviour) and put in a claim for a pay rise, since such wise counsel as they offered was clearly a national necessity. Or would be if anybody got round to inventing nations.

      Sigh. My apology. The reality distortion field is a bit strong today...

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Headmaster

        Ommission..

        You missed the one about MrC insisting God was more powerful than the king, and the Religion was higher than the monarchy. Something many later kings denied.. and that his feet wetting incident resulted in him hanging up his crown (on a cross) and not wearing it again.

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  10. RichyS

    Don't Apple need a monopoly first?

    "It's not just the Federal Trade Commission that thinks Apple might be going all monopolistic"

    Don't Apple actually need a monopoly first? Even the best estimates only give Apple around a 3rd of the smartphone market; and well under 10% of the total mobile phone market. Where's the monopoly to abuse?

    Fair enough, you might not like their App Store strategy; but (and here's the important bit) because they don't have a monopoly, you're free to develop/buy from someone else.

    The difference with MS is there basically was no-one else.

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  11. danny_0x98

    The Sommelier of All Fears

    Apple won't let mobile device users transact directly with other vendors? They ripped out all the support for web applications from iOS last week and they didn't tell me?

    The thing about emulators, frameworks, compilers, and interpreters is they present a security risk and a risk where the closing of vulnerabilities is in another party's hands. (Apple is slow enough as it is.) While I understand that we hearty readers of El Reg face the bad guys with a sneer and snarl and are quite competent in captaining our own ships and taking responsibility for the risks of the software we install, Apple's aiming for a different, less-abled customer. That's why we insult the company and its customers, is it not?

    Now trade laws and regulations are what they are and I have no quarrel with them or the possibility that Apple may need to adjust its behavior. I would not be appreciative, though, if a side effect or unintended consequence of this affair is that some money that goes into the pockets of Apple and its developers went into the pockets of some other big company and its developer and I, idiot iPhone user I am, am fielding notifications that my AV signatures need updating or my subscription is about to lapse or that I'll be getting SMS messages and web popups offering me all sorts of needless things, including that system scan for malicious programs.

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  12. Simon2
    Thumb Up

    About time!

    See title.

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  13. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Sandboxing

    An emulator would be sandboxed just like any other application, so the security issue is not valid.

    The "Adobe Ban" is another issue, since it would be a sort of middleware that would have enabled non-Mac users to create/port Flash games to ObjectiveC and compile. They would for all intents and purposes be native code running on iOS, again just like any other fart app out there - to be distributed through the Apple's App Store. The issue (for Apple) would be that it would be easier to code for Apple, and re-use the same codebase to create the same app on Android or say, Maemo. Or worse still, Android Froyo equipped (that is Flash 10.1 equipped) devices would be able to enjoy the same benefits free (i.e. from the web), while iDevice users would have to pay.

    As for the C=64 emulator, it was pulled when it turned out it had a backdoor, that is, the ability to program in crappy Commodore Basic within the sandbox. Which actually was not a security issue, but an App Store agreement violation. It was disabled and re-submitted.

    You see, unless jailbroken, no app on iOS has the ability to access the rest of the filesystem.

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  14. g e

    WTF?

    not converting anything to Objective C that wasn't originally written in Objective C

    Ummm ... what ???

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  15. Goat Jam
    Pirate

    Huh?

    I'm pretty sure that I can buy a phone from one of a dozen manufacturers if I don't like the way that apple conducts its business. Apple have a platform and they control it as they see fit. Don't like it? Then buy another phone and get over it.

    The same can't be said about another companies products of course. Were I to decide to buy a laptop for instance I still have a dozen choices of manufacturer, but this time I have no choice on which OS I will be paying for. Unless of course I choose to take the most expensive option and buy, ironically, an apple laptop.

    There was of course a slight glimmer of hope a couple of years back when netbooks first entered the market but of course this was quickly extinguished through the application of illegal leverage by the incumbent monopolist and their abusive, bullying relationship with its long sufferring OEM "partners".

    The FTC and the EC need to stop faffing around at the edges and get down to the business of sorting out the true monopolistic abuses in the IT industry.

    Apple don't force any one to buy their products, Google don't force anyone to use their search.

    Microsoft however, DO force people to purchase their software every time they purchase a laptop, "netbook" or brand name PC.

    It is totally immoral and quite frankly is highly damaging to people, governments and businesses across the entire planet. Even if you like and choose to use Windows you are being adversely affect. While MS is not required to compete for their business they can set their prices to whatever they like which means you, I and everyone else in the world is paying above the odds for a product they whether you want to use it or not is forced upon you. For some reason however, nobody seems to want to do a thing about it.

    Ironically, it is apple and google, the two companies that have lately been the focus of FTC and EC scrutiny that are doing the most to weaken the iron grip that MS has had on this industry for the last 20+ years. One wonders whether there haven't been some brown paper bags exchanged in Washington and Brussels back alleys in order to redirect the attentions of certain regulatory bodies away from the ongoing travesties of justice being performed on a near daily basis by the Beast of Redmond and onto those companies that currently pose the biggest threats to the status quo.

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    1. Carol Orlowski
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      ^^^^ Apple Fanboy fud alert!!!

      I can buy computer hardware (even from some established manufacturers) without a windows OS installed - show me where I can buy an Apple laptop/pc with that same benefit....

      If I choose to buy an Apple phone why shouldn't I be allowed to run the software I choose?

      I would like flash on my device - around 80% of the video on the web is flash driven - adobe went out of their way to support the iPad and iPhone, yet due to nothing but Apple's choice I can't run flash.

      As to monoplies - what would you call Apple's marketshare of the Pad devices? (and no - the tablet is not an alternative)

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