Apple's App Store Is Designed to Be Monopolistic
Apple is facing the heat once again for what it has done several times before: copying a third-party app's feature and then subsequently prohibiting them for having that feature. This time, however, it has led Kaspersky Lab to file an antitrust complaint with the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service against the company's monopolistic App Store policies.
In a blog post first spotted by 9to5Mac, Kaspersky Lab claims that Apple banned its Kaspersky Safe Kids for iOS app from the App Store for violating its policies, and that Apple found fault with the app only after the company announced its own Screen Time feature in iOS 12.
It's notable that the Safe Kids app made use of configuration profiles (which recently became a point of contention after Facebook and Google were caught abusing it to make users download "spyware" apps in return for gift cards) to allow parents select which apps their kids cannot run, and open web pages only in Kaspersky Safe Kids' built-in secure browser, but these are some of the very parental control features Apple introduced with iOS 12.
While there is definitely some merit to Apple's decision (use of profiles, while not always malicious, offers potentially devastating access to the device and the content it can access), the problem here is that Apple decided to eliminate competition from the App Store by banning apps that are direct competition to its features. And this isn't the first time, nor will it be the last.
This behaviour is so well-known that the phenomenon has its own name: "Sherlocked." To be sherlocked means to have Apple copy a key product or feature that was previously offered by third-party software and integrate it into its own operating systems or apps, thereby killing the competition in the process.
When Apple launched iOS 9.3, it introduced a new feature called Night Shift that cuts down on nighttime exposure to blue light emitted by iOS devices so as to encourage better sleep. The only problem? The feature was in direct response to a very popular Mac app called f.lux.
f.lux courted App Store troubles right after it released an iOS version of the app, with Apple asking the developers to take down the app for violating the Developer Program Agreement. "f.lux cannot ship an iOS App using the Documented APIs, because the APIs we use are not there. In the last 5 years, we have had numerous conversations with Apple about our product and what would be required to make it work with iOS," wrote co-founders Michael Herf and his wife Lorna.
That's not all. Spotify recently filed a similar antitrust complaint in the E.U. alleging that Apple's so-called Apple Tax — the 30 percent cut on each App Store transaction — gives the company's own services like Apple Music an unfair advantage over its rivals.
Apple is a different kind of monopoly from Facebook and Google in that it may not have the market dominance of the latter two, but by tightly controlling what apps can or cannot make it to the App Store, it has the upper hand in eliminating a third-party service from becoming a serious threat to its business in the future. That isn't to say the App Store app distribution model isn't beneficial.
But as Apple increasingly pivots to a services model, making money off iCloud, Apple Music, Apple Books, Apple Pay, AppleCare+ and most importantly App Store, which also happens to be a platform where others come to sell products that are in direct competition to the Cupertino-based company, the best option to get out of the antitrust complaints coming its way would be to leave the choice to consumers. But will it though?
It's notable that the Safe Kids app made use of configuration profiles (which recently became a point of contention after Facebook and Google were caught abusing it to make users download "spyware" apps in return for gift cards) to allow parents select which apps their kids cannot run, and open web pages only in Kaspersky Safe Kids' built-in secure browser, but these are some of the very parental control features Apple introduced with iOS 12.
While there is definitely some merit to Apple's decision (use of profiles, while not always malicious, offers potentially devastating access to the device and the content it can access), the problem here is that Apple decided to eliminate competition from the App Store by banning apps that are direct competition to its features. And this isn't the first time, nor will it be the last.
This behaviour is so well-known that the phenomenon has its own name: "Sherlocked." To be sherlocked means to have Apple copy a key product or feature that was previously offered by third-party software and integrate it into its own operating systems or apps, thereby killing the competition in the process.
When Apple launched iOS 9.3, it introduced a new feature called Night Shift that cuts down on nighttime exposure to blue light emitted by iOS devices so as to encourage better sleep. The only problem? The feature was in direct response to a very popular Mac app called f.lux.
f.lux courted App Store troubles right after it released an iOS version of the app, with Apple asking the developers to take down the app for violating the Developer Program Agreement. "f.lux cannot ship an iOS App using the Documented APIs, because the APIs we use are not there. In the last 5 years, we have had numerous conversations with Apple about our product and what would be required to make it work with iOS," wrote co-founders Michael Herf and his wife Lorna.
That's not all. Spotify recently filed a similar antitrust complaint in the E.U. alleging that Apple's so-called Apple Tax — the 30 percent cut on each App Store transaction — gives the company's own services like Apple Music an unfair advantage over its rivals.
Apple is a different kind of monopoly from Facebook and Google in that it may not have the market dominance of the latter two, but by tightly controlling what apps can or cannot make it to the App Store, it has the upper hand in eliminating a third-party service from becoming a serious threat to its business in the future. That isn't to say the App Store app distribution model isn't beneficial.
But as Apple increasingly pivots to a services model, making money off iCloud, Apple Music, Apple Books, Apple Pay, AppleCare+ and most importantly App Store, which also happens to be a platform where others come to sell products that are in direct competition to the Cupertino-based company, the best option to get out of the antitrust complaints coming its way would be to leave the choice to consumers. But will it though?
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