Apple bans competing ads from the iPhone Apple has tweaked its developer terms and conditions to explicitly lock out in-application advertising services that might compete with its own iAd service. The new terms, picked up by All Things Digital, spell out the rules. Applications may not collect statistical information for advertising, or any other reason, without …
That rule wouldn't stop spamming at all. The app might not distribute your analytics to a 3rd party but the server on the end most certainly could. Indeed, the likes of Facebook seem intent on selling your data to all and sundry. Does this rule mean we'll see a ban on Facebook apps?
Nope. This rule is to stop apps embedding advertising widgets. More evidence (if any more was needed) that Apple intends to monopolize every aspect of their device.
<rant>
Apples behaviour in the mobile space is becoming more and more like the company that almost crippled them in the 80's PC wars. Why do we have to go through another platform war ? Didn't we learn anything from the last one ? Won't somebody think of the children ! Sigh ... Hang on need to put a new battery in my iPhone, oh no I can't, I want to download a Political Satire App, oh no, the leader says I can't ... and while I'm at it, Adam Corrolla was right, why is everything Apple make shaped like a bar of Soap !
</rant>
I've had the popcorn ready for the last two years in anticipation of watching this entertainment unfold. Unfortunately I'm starting to believe that Apple have already won over any legal authority who might be in a position to take action against the monopolising behaviour Apple has been practicing in recent years.
Strange how Apple are actually going even further than Microsoft did in the late 90s in terms of bad behaviour, yet the people who can stop it are refraining from doing so.
I hate to blame the people here, since that's usually a diversion tactic away from the real issue, but in this case I think it's legitimate.
People are too stupid to see how anti-competitive apple have become. In the future, when they realize how much harm apple's preemptive strikes against all competition have done, they will finally turn on apple only to realize that it's too late. Apple will have profited handsomely and pocketed all the politicians they'll ever need to control the market. Like someone else said, this is very much the microsoft model to success. Big win for apple, big loss for the rest of us.
Unlike microsoft, I think apple is smart enough to pre-emptively defend itself against anti-trust hearings. In the future, when today's records are being investigated, there will be no internal evidence with which to convict apple. They might even plant counter-evidence today, for a trial which hasn't even begun.
Remember, it's not unlawful to be a monopoly, it's only unlawful to use that power to knowingly impede competitor's abilities to participate in the market.
"I've seen this comment thrown around by so many non-lawyer types it's not funny. There is no anti-trust violation."
I may be a non-lawyer type, but then again I never said there was an anti-trust violation, at least not yet. It simply looks like they're headed that way in the future.
"Apple aren't anti-competitive, they are just competitive."
Now that's obviously untrue: "Apple bans competing ads from the iPhone".
If apple were a monopoly, it's hardly debatable that apple would be committing anti-competitive practices. Just because the legal definition of monopoly is 50% market share, does not mean a company cannot apply anti-competitive tactics well before then.
Wasting my scant mobile bandwidth with ads is the main thing that would make me want to go back to a dumb phone. I am sick of people presuming that it's OK to wedge ads into every little nook and cranny in life.
I instantly remove any Android app that I find to have ads, and iAd was the main thing that made me think twice when I was buying the Android device- and put me off the iPhone a bit.
Given that the main use of a browser on my phone is to check the national rail website for train fail, I can easily do that on the little (and excellent) java-based Opera port. Every other whizzo feature on my smartphone was just there because I wanted rather than needed it. If it becomes riddled with adverts, then screw it, it is no longer a device that appeals to me.
Assume you pay for your bandwidth - one way or another. Ads, in that case, become something that you have no choice but to pay to download and watch, as opposed to something like terrestrial/digital broadcast TV where it's beamed at you free or even satellite/cable TV which is a genuine unlimited service, unlike data.
Speaking as a developer, I have no qualms about asking somebody to pay me for my work. But asking somebody to pay for my work and then _keep on paying_ O2/Voda/T-Orange/Three/Whoever FOREVER for something they don't want seems a bridge too far.
Those ads on TV have already been paid for, moron. Just like in a newspaper or magazine, heard of one of those? Nobody's fucking requiring you to pay attention to ads in any of these media, they're just including them to pay the bills. If an ad pops up in your smartphone app because you're too fucking el cheapo to pay for it, then fucking look away or something, I don't know. Go and get yourself a drink until the ads are over, like with television. People aren't freetards for ignoring ads, they're freetards for expecting everything for free, ad free, at no inconvenience or cost to themselves. Why not develop your own damned apps, then? Your stupidity is enough to boil the blood. You can't even get the logic of your own stand straight! Freetard moron.
I have to agree with this. If you want the free version of the app, then it's fair you suffer some ads. In my book that's a bloody good trade actually. Imagine if MS Office or Photoshop came free, including genuine registration & updates but had embedded banner ads or something. I'd snap that up in a second. All fine, as long as:
1. Ads do not appear in pay apps, or a no-ad version is supplied at a reasonable cost, so people that despise them can escape them for a fee
2. Ads ONLY appear in these free apps, and NOWHERE else - especially not within the OS interface itself
are quite entitled to make money from their aps by charging for them.
Personally, I would much prefer to buy a "full" version than to suffer an ad-supported version.
The thing that really annoys me, and a practice that seems to be in-vogue amongst Android devs at the moment, is converting a app from "free" to "ad-supported" without warning. In many cases this is pushed as a "Major update" on the Market, but does nothing more than introduce ads.
A current culprit is the producer of (what was) a very good Klondike Solitaire game (Android users will probably know who I mean). A "major update" appeared on the market with many "new features". When you do the update you discover the "new features" are ads. Nowhere in the Market write-up does it mention ads and they don't appear in the Market screen-shots of the same screen where the ads appear. Bloody underhanded.
Then there is the placement of the ads. Right on the card table where you constantly trigger them as you drag cards about.
If an app is paid-for, there's absolutely no justification for ads imo (unless prior agreement/consent with user).
If it's free, then heck, somebody gotta pay dem bills -- so fair and square.
As for his refusal to download free apps with ads, how the hell does that make him a freetard? He's not downloading/using anything at all -- if all apps were free but with ads, he'd have an empty device and that's entirely his choice methinks.
Like you, I hate ads. With iAds on the iPhone I am assuming (hoping? expecting?) that they will only feature in free versions of the apps, and will not be in paid-for versions. If they are, I for one will not be buying those apps, and I'm sure many others will do the same. I also will happily pay for an app rather than suffer an advert just to get it free.
AC wrote "With iAds on the iPhone I am assuming (hoping? expecting?) that they will only feature in free versions of the apps, and will not be in paid-for versions"
That's a question I've seen asked many times elsewhere. The consensus seems to be that developers have free reign to remove ads from paid versions if they want to, but there will be "encouragement" from Apple to use iAds the same way that some paid websites still show ads.
Of course, Apple themselves are excluded from the restrictions, so they'll free to "ad enable" all the core apps in iOS as they see fit. Remember you don't own your iPhone, iPad, iPod, you just "lease" it from Apple. ;)
As regards Apple not being prosecuted for having a monopoly - whilst it's correct that they don't have a monopoly on (smart)phones (thank the maker!) do they not now have an effective monopoly on ads on the iOS platform. In which case, surely Google et al _do_ have a legitimate complaint? (I'm not a lawyer, so I realise I might be well off beam here).
Interesting point.
I think Google should ask, then demand a license to the technology which "enables" Apple to indemnify against an invasion of privacy that Google (Street View) says does not exist.
The "Technology" Apple is using is "Monopoly". It is like Bernie Madoff arguing that he was only using the Ponzi Scheme as a Business Method, if any harm was done it's the method's fault.
.. why they aren't in a really big ass monopoly lawsuit. If Microsoft tried even a tenth of what Apple do they would be up to their ears in court documents before lunch.
Apple just seem to be going further and further downhill, literally begging to be taken to court. Aren't they ?
A monopoly implies they control the market. At the moment they control about 10% of the desktop/laptop estate. The iPhone is again about 10% of smartphones - even less when you consider "phones". I'm sure there are more specifics stats but this is broadly speaking.
THAT's why they're not being taken to court - you have a choice and Apple aren't abusing their market share to prevent competitors from getting to you. As it stands, they couldn't if they wanted to.
Microsoft have a (de facto) monopoly, Apple don't. No monopoly, no lawsuit. Quite simple really.
Apple are a long way from having a de facto monopoly in the phone / handheld device market, so they can do whatever they like, because if you don't like it you have many other competing products to choose from.
Apple have ~5% of the desktop space and around 30% of the smartphone market (about 8% of the total mobile phone market, IIRC). Oh, and roughly sod-all of the server space.
There's no big ass monopoly lawsuit because they aren't even vaguely a monopoly yet.
Yes, these stories generate huge amounts of hype and yes Apple look to be heading towards monopoly status, but they're still some way off.
It's a bit like the motoring press going bananas over every new Ferrari that's launched, it doesn't make Ferrari into a monopoly.
Run adblock for Android to block web ads, in its MarketPlace and is compatible with the same lists as Mozilla Ad Block. Buy the Apps you use to block in application ads, they're likely a couple of quid or something.
......or if you are a total amoral freetard get root (Google make it easy as developers need it) and run Ad Free which also blocks in application ads.
@twunt: "Since when is 28% a monopoly?"...
It depends on which jurisdiction you're talking about. In the UK a company can be considered to have a monopoly if they control 25% of a particular market...
http://www.blacksacademy.net/content/3328.html
http://www.economicshelp.org/microessays/markets/monopoly.html
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