Unauthorised iPhone apps crunch Apple - tough!

Stan Beer
Saturday, 07 March 2009 11:58

Opinion and Analysis

Today, in an age where mobile Internet access is hitting its stride, the iPhone is easily the best device on the planet and Apple is selling them by the truckloads. Yet Apple is trying to limit the number of applications being developed for its platform with implied threats of copyright suits for developers that sell applications that need to "jail break" its device to work.

Now rival iPhone application stores are springing up like weeds in an unkempt garden. They sell all sorts of useful applications that for reasons of its own Apple doesn't want to sell. Applications, such as one that turns the iPhone into a camcorder or a broadband modem are persona non gratis on the App Store but not on these rival sites.

So what happens if Apple is able to get the law to shut its rival iPhone store sites down? There's less useful applications for the iPhone. You can only get the ones Apple wants you to have and for which it gets a cut of the pie.

Is that good business sense? It might be if Apple was the only smartphone company in the world and iPhone was the only platform.

As I write this, a newcomer to the smartphone platform stage called Android has made its appearance. Developed by Google and subsequently released under an open source license, the Android platform currently has only a fraction of iPhone's market share, yet developers are churning applications by the thousands for it.

The fact of the matter is Apple has choices at this stage in its history. With the iPhone, it has an opportunity it hasn't had since the Mac.

Apple can open up its platform to the wider third party developer community and use them to help propel the iPhone into the indisputable dominant player position in the smartphone space. Or it can continue on with its walled garden and watch as the iPhone emulates the Mac and stays a significant but niche product.