Help us Neelie! Please, help us!

Apple clearly has a de-facto monopoly in the portable music player market, with upward of 70% of that market. It is busily working on monopolies in the music software and downloads markets and is behaving monopolistically in the PC market as well. Some of those market shares have certainly been helped by bundling iTunes with the completely unrelated QuickTime, which has huge installed base.

Continuing on the strategy that bundling helps expand market share, Apple has now started "leveraging" (a synonym for "abuse") those monopolies to force people to use its web browser, Safari. Safari, of course, has a miniscule market share; less than 6% according to BetaNews. Starting very recently, if you installed QuickTime (with no additional options) you will be presented with this dialog:

This astonishing abuse of power threatens to destabilize the software market world-wide, thwart choice, and hamper innovation. What would happen if Apple is actually successful in giving away lots of copies of its free browser? That would bite into other browsers' market shares and ensure that the organizations that wrote them do not get to give away a lot of copies of their free browsers. Eventually we will be in an Apple hegemony! We will all be looking at small fonts, shaded colors, and thin stuff. We will all look svelte and cool, wear turtlenecks and jeans, and nobody would grow older than 26! Oh No! There would be no more geeks! Worse still, everyone will be subject to all the vulnerabilities in Safari. Terrorists can use this hegemony to take down the Internet, endangering civilization as we know it. 

Clearly it must be illegal to abuse a monopoly in this way to push unrelated software onto an unsuspecting public. If only there were a government agency who took it upon itself to protect the public from miscreants such as Steve Jobs. Without protection from some kind of commission we will be crushed under the foot of his anti-competitive and hostile practices! If only there were someone who has stood up for individual choice and free competition among American firms in the past...

Maybe if we found our savior she could force Apple to make a version of QuickTime without sound? That would certainly promote competition. 

Published Fri, Mar 21 2008 3:28 PM by jesper
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Comments

# Kieran Jacobsen said on 21 March, 2008 07:30 PM

If all you need to do is lay .mov files, download VLC, it will playthem with no itunes or safari

# Luke said on 21 March, 2008 09:07 PM

Thanks for the laugh.

I still don't get why the laws that made Microsoft unbundle, in the US and the EU, not apply to Apple? Is it because Apple is smaller? Or that there just hasn't been any action taken?

# Martin said on 22 March, 2008 02:48 AM

I think the bigger problem than a hypothetic Apple monopoly is that they abuse their software update mechanism. It undermines the trust their customers might still have. What now happens is that a lot of iTunes users will switch off the auto-update completely and won't get security updates.

# wisher said on 22 March, 2008 05:00 AM

LOL, I'd love to have QuickTime without sound!

# Matthew Clapham said on 22 March, 2008 02:05 PM

I too have made my home environment Quicktime-free recently.  There really isn't any compelling content to me in .MOV format anymore.  I still prefer Windows Media, but most sites (e.g. YouTube) are moving to Flash video anyways.  

There's a reason why I still only buy CDs or listen to streaming radio stations like SOMAFM.com.  

In Europe, there are a few countries that have threatened to require competition amongst iPod music services (e.g. France) but I'm not sure what became of the initiative.  

Prior to the Zune, Microsoft had a very open system with the "Plays for Sure" initiative.  Using Windows Media Player and choosing from a host of possible music services or players.  Seemed a good counterpoint to the iPod + iTunes initiative.  

# Eric Eskam said on 24 March, 2008 12:39 PM

One slight difference, Jesper.  Apple isn't a convicted monopolist.  They aren't using the sales of one division to prop up unrealistic and predatory pricing for another with the sole goal of driving a competitor out of a market space.

The iPod still isn't the cheapest or feature rich  media player out there.  iTunes isn't the least expensive music store, nor are they the least restrictive when it comes to DRM - there are "better" alternatives out there if those decision criteria are important to you.

What iTunes and the iPod do have is the best all-around user experience out there.  Apple offered a product, and people voted with their dollars.  Apple didn't use the profits from their computers to prop up the money-loosing iPod division for years on end (*cough* xbox *cough* plays for sure *cough* zune).  The iPod stood on it's own, and even eclipsed other Apple revenues for a point in time.  It did so on it's own merits.

I expect even more hysteria when the iPhone starts it's inevitable domination of the smartphone market.  Heck, that's already started and with the SDK in June things should get even more interesting.

Guess what, folks - it's about the user experience!  Deliver an outstanding, geek-free user experience and people will beat down a path to your door!  Instead of scorning Apple for their success, I would think folks would be inspired to do it better!  Apple may be good, but even they have left lots of room for improvement.  The problem is the geeks with the mile long checklists of "features" attack and user experience isn't anywhere on their lists.  Regular people (i.e. the vast majority of humanity) have their priorities flipped from us geeks(which is also why Linux will NEVER be a mainstream desktop OS).  If the success of the iPod and the iPhone haven't driven that point home, frankly I don't know what will.  But I digress...

Anyway, as soon as Apple starts taking iPod revenue and using it to sell iPhone's (or the next big thing) at a loss, call me.  Otherwise it's a nice red herring and much ado about nothing.

And for the rest of your commentors, all software update does is install Safari.  It doesn't run it.  It doesn't put some weird toolbar in your default browser that then executes automatically (google I'm looking at you) it doesn't install a hundred gigabyte office suite when you aren't looking (Sun, I'm looking at you) it doesn't install another plugin/potential attack vector just for visiting a web site and trying to use it (Microsoft I'm looking at you for requiring siverlight).  For all the "if this was Microsoft...." comments, I find it funny that people gloss over the above examples-and that list is hardly exhaustive.  Indeed, I find it ironic that apparently the only reason this got called out was because it *was* Apple - obviously no one cares about the rest of the industry that does it - or did I just miss those posts in your blog, Jesper?

And lest anyone think I'm giving them a pass, I'm not saying I appreciate any of the above from any of the vendors - including Apple.  I think such defaults are slimy and ridiculous.  However, if you are going to criticize one and act like the world is coming to an end, then I think it's only fair to expose everyone else at the same time.

Finally - propped up or not, I'm still not giving up my Xbox 360 :)

# Francesco V. Buccoli said on 24 March, 2008 08:28 PM

Great post, I'm still laughing!!! Fortunately Apple is not so powerfull here in Italy, but the European Union is fool enough to offset it.

# *** Carlson said on 24 March, 2008 11:46 PM

The worst part of their evil plan is that it is often elegant and has a UI that makes me squeak like a twelve-year-old girl.  For someone of my advanced years, that should be an actionable offense.  It's much more soothing to have software that takes it's own sweet time to load, much like my bodily functions have slowed as the years have passed.

And services that keep running (like the iron I left on -- I think I did) long after the need has ended.  Not to mention an almost continual recounting of my faults and shortcomings.  "Grandpa!  Your zipper is down and can't re-zip!  Please remove your pants, press undies-slide-off and restart your dressing."

I'm much more comfortable in a world where much is promised, and little is expected.  In a world where everyone around me talks about my capabilities, while my actual performance continues to decline.  A world where even those who love me wish that I'd just shuffle off so they didn't have to tolerate that "old-tech" smell any longer.

You're getting older, Jesper.  Soon, you're going to realize that the world is passing you by, and that you've become one of us.

# Stickan said on 01 April, 2008 02:37 AM

Hi,

Have a look into the EULA.

"This license allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time" ....

www.theregister.co.uk/.../apple_safari_eula_paradox

And also look into this

Safari Address Bar Spoofing and Memory Corruption Vulnerabilities  

secunia.com/.../29483

Stickan

# Spaceman Spiff said on 11 April, 2008 01:21 PM

Do you think that *cough* PS3 is not subsidized by *cough* game revenues.  Apple hasn't come under the radar because they don't have the cash that MS has in the bank.  The EU hasn't been able to compete in any non-regulated markets so it's time to go after successful American companies.

# Gis Bun said on 09 June, 2008 07:58 PM

I agree with Luke. If Microsoft has to pull WMP out of Windows products, why doesn't Apple have to? I wonder if Microsoft complained about this.

Actually I heard that Safari in windows went from something like a 0.32% share to almost 1%. I think that 6% share may include Macs. Most Mac-fanatics I know use Firefox.

Ever notice that the description of Safari in the image doesn't say "safest"? Over the last few months it's been hit with multiple vulnerabilities [as per SANS].

Fastest? Firefox beats Safari, not by much though. IE is behind. Easiest? That depends on the user.