Should software developers fear Facebook, Apple?
It's hard to think of Apple and Facebook as obstructions to innovation and the free flow of information, but that's exactly what the companies could become one day, according to Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard law professor and a proponent of free speech on the Web.
Apple and Facebook have generated lots of consumer satisfaction by each creating environments where third-party developers can tailor software for the iPhone or Facebook's social network. Part of their success is due to the quality control the companies maintain over the applications running on their platforms, Zittrain said. But he also worries that Apple and Facebook--as well as other companies that might be tempted to follow their lead--will begin to exert more control over independent software development than ever before. He's skeptical this would be good for anyone.
Harvard professor is skeptical that platforms similar to those built around Apple's iPhone and Facebook provide the best environment for developing software.
(Credit: Jonathan Zittrain)In an interview with CNET News.com last week, Zittrain said his fears were stoked recently when Apple and Facebook each made news for booting software apps off their platforms.
Last week, Apple banned the bloody electronic comic, Murderdrome. The comic's creators wrote on their blog: "This is due to the part of the SDK that suggests content must not offend anyone in 'Apple's reasonable' opinion.'" Some of the other apps axed by Apple include Box Office, which provides movie information; Tris, a Tetris-like game app and PhoneSaber, a feature that simulates the light-saber sounds from the film Star Wars.
Last month, Facebook disabled Scrabulous, the digital game that looks a lot like the popular board game Scrabble in numerous countries around the world including the United States. Mattel and Hasbro, which share ownership of Scrabble, pressured Facebook to remove Scrabulous, citing copyright concerns. To sidestep the copyright issue, the brothers who created Scrabulous modified the game's look feel and relaunched it in North America as Wordscraper.
"What I object to is that these companies have put themselves into a position where they can be bullied into making decisions that leads to taking stuff down," Zittrain said. "It's becoming commonplace that code is either prevented from reaching an audience, or once it reaches an audience it can be yanked back because of the architecture."
Zittrain, co-founder of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society who calls himself a "happy Facebook and iPhone user," said he doesn't believe that Apple or Facebook created the platforms with the intention of asserting heavy-handed control over software development. He suspects that they control their platforms the way they do for sound business reasons.
But Zittrain warns in his book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, that anyone who creates these controlled environments is vulnerable to pressure from outside parties. Some requests to remove an app will be made for legitimate reasons while others may be made to gain a competitive edge, according to Zittrain.
"You can see where outsiders might want to force (Apple and Facebook's) hand for business reasons," Zittrain said. "The last thing Apple and Facebook want is to be embroiled in court fights for some app that hasn't taken off yet with a big audience. So it's rational for the platform owner (to remove the app), but it's not good for the ecosystem."
As supreme rulers over their platforms, Apple and Facebook hold unchecked power over what apps live or die. This harms consumers, entrepreneurs and the Internet by making it harder for disruptive software to survive. Often such controversial applications turn out to benefit software, Zittrain argued.
Would Kazaa or Skype have flourished in a platform similar to Apple's, asks Zittrain? Or would the music and telephone companies have forced Apple to ban them by threatening legal action?
Zittrain reminds anyone who will listen that all of the major operating systems of the 20th century; Windows, Linux, and the Mac OS, never sought to impede third-party applications written for them. "Nobody ever asked Bill Gates to kill BitTorrent," Zittrain said.
Apple may need to follow Facebook's lead
Apple declined to comment for this story, but Facebook defended its procedures for removing applications.
Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer at Facebook, said Tuesday that the social network has established a set of rules and standards for developers designed to protect consumers. "The idea that there are some rules at the margins I don't think significantly hinders the ability to be generative," Kelly said.
To protect developers accused of breaking rules, Facebook has a system to listen to their side of the story. A "platform team" assesses rules violations and makes a determination, Kelly said, adding that Facebook also has an appeal's process.
It's important to note, however, that the people who hear the appeals are not independent parties but Facebook employees. Still, this is more than what Apple currently offers. At this early stage in the iPhone platform's development, it appears Apple is without any formal process to allow developers whose apps are removed a chance to challenge the decision.
"Apple will remove your app without telling you why they're doing it," said Cyrus Najmabadi, a software developer whose application, Box Office, was taken down in July for over a week without warning. He brought it back under a new name, Now Playing. "This is frightening, given the traditional open nature of the computing market. Apple needs a notification system and to be more transparent."
Najmabadi said he couldn't detail why the app was banned, citing the non disclosure agreement Apple makes third-party developers sign.
One important question is why, if Najmabadi is unhappy, doesn't he develop elsewhere? The reality is that iPhone and Facebook's platforms have become enormously influential and potentially lucrative for developers, Zittrain maintains. Walking away isn't easy, Najmabadi said.
The more successful the platform, the more control they can assert over developers, said Colin Sebastian, a video game analyst with Lazard Capital Markets.
Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo operate walled-garden environments in the videogame sector, Sebastian said, but developers haven't complained much about the console makers throwing their weight around. That's due to the intense competition in the sector, which prevents the companies from issuing too many demands on developers. "I suspect that could change if any one of them ever became the dominate player," Sebastian said.
In the case of Apple and Facebook, Zittrain wants to see developers band together to pressure those companies to provide guarantees. He would also like to see platform creators get some protection under the law.
"There's plenty of people who argue to let the market solve the problem," Zittrain said. "That's fine. It's not like I'm racing to have the UN to send in the helicopters. The market will sort it out once they know the problem. They just have to know. I've been trying to bang the drum and rally the nation's developer communities because I think the platforms aren't yet fully dug in. So you could actually see flexibility."
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
1) Apple provides a closed, proprietary OS, hardware platform and software platform
2) Apple and $teve job$ are shills for the Chinese government censors and censor iTunes for a quick buc
3) Apple can't build a reliable, scalable service and denies iPhone 3G and MobileMe issues until their backs are aganst the wall.
4) Someone should investigate why $teve Job$ hordes his billions while Gates, Dell, Brin, Lazaridis etc all "change the world" with their fortunes. Who's the "evil empire" now?
Good thing Apple only has 3% of the computer market and will stay that way, and Chrome will kill any hope for that POS Safari. Now let's hope Android does the same.
1) Their vertical/homogeneous platform makes them evil -- hmmm, yeah, then why do other companies also try to emulate this (Microsoft-Zune, SAS-business software, IBM, et cetera) because the business model has been proven by Apple to work very well.
2) iTunes is censored?? How? The last time I checked, there is a lot of explicit content, but no p0rn -- would you want your kids to have access to this from Apple too? It's already easy enough to get. As for the comic, the authors self censored themselves on this. They knew that it wouldn't be approved due to the SDK. There currently is no mechanism to rate applications in the app store, and this occurs nowhere on any other companies' mobile software platforms. Why only is expect Apple to do so?
Also remember, China censored access to the entire iTunes catalog during the Olympics when they discovered that you could purchase an album supporting Tibet. Therefore, Apple does not = China.
3) Apple is not the only company having major issues with cloud computing. This is a work in progress technology and is not perfect. No one has been able to perfect this yet. Apple has been fairly up front about this and they have compensated customers with free months of service.
4) Yeah, Apple has cash in the bank, so does Steve Jobs -- who cares? Is it your money? Most of Steve's wealth is on paper through stock ownership of Disney due to the Pixar purchase and Apple options. What he does with his money is his business.
Apple, however, does have billions in the bank and since it is neither a not for profit nor a foundation does it need to justify having money. Microsoft used to have much more, but due to repeated product losses and questionable acquisitions their cash has decreased, however it is still greater than Apples' (the last time I checked a while ago).
Just to reiterate, Chrome is built off of the Apple WebKit, so Chrome is esentially equal to Safari. Plus, besides Mozilla, there is no other browser other than Safari that is a totally compliant browser (and was the first one as well). The two companies work closely together on many projects.
It just sounds like you have some sour grapes...I could bash other companies, but who really cares. If you want to make a difference, instead of ranting about it.
2) China unblocked iTiunes only AFTER Apple removed access to the Tibet songs to Chinese customers. That's censorship and $teve Job$ is supporting a dictatorship for a quick buck.
3) Wow. A free month of bad service. How much time and money did their customers lose? They should stick to what they're good at - making fancy plastic.
4) Apple has this wholesome image yet they DO NOTHING philanthropic to help the world. No cheap mac for the 3rd world, $teve Job$ doesn't give the way Gates/Buffett, Dell, etc do. It's a greedy company that bullies people they can bully. Apple is the new Evil.
You sound like you have problems on several levels...
You certainly couldn't tell a good thing if you came across one.
You believe what you read in newspapers and net rags. So distributing largesse or 'peanuts to peasants' is good?
Just tell us what other service has gone from 0 to 10 million users in the space of 1 year without glitches.
3%? - not even close to the real figure. And to think Apple is not even bothered about the cash register business... how can they survive??
Check some facts about Apple technology vis a vis WebKit and Chrome before you open your mouth to spew...
Oh, and grow up
iTunes is not officially availible in China, and it does not support the use of iTunes outside of the user's country. iTunes was used by individuals visiting Beijing, but as we all know China blocked access. You state that Apple removed the album from the store/blocked access, but this is untrue. Apple did not remove access nor did it block access. iTunes is built on xml and each album/item for sale has its own address in the store hidden from the user's view. China is the one who opened access again to visitors in Beijing once the Tibet album address was identified and blocked by China's great wall of censorship. Also, any of the artists who's name appeared on the album also had all of their albums/songs subsequently blocked.
Another point -- Steve Jobs is a devout Buddhist and Apple has used the Dali Lama as a centerpiece of previous ad campaigns. Before you go around blasting your "factual" horn, you really need to do some research first. It just makes you look more ignorant...
Here are some other counters to your arguments:
1) Apple does have DRM content on iTunes -- not because it wants to, but because the copyright/content owners REQUIRE it. BMI currently sells its catalogue as DRM free on iTunes. Steve has asked the record lables to abandon DRM, but they have not chosen this for its iTunes sales. Instead, the labels are giving Amazon the opportunity to sell DRM free music to try and take market share from Apple because no one else has been able to come up with a decent platform for consumer media other than Apple.
2) Do a component by component comparison between Apple and other hardware vendors. Or, go to any major hardware publisher and you will find comparisons on this topic. You will find that there is not much price difference between the manufacturers (if any at all, and in some instances the Apple hardware is considerably less). Apple has stated that it will not sell hardware in the budget category and has no intention to. There is no margin there and it is beginning to take its toll on remaining players (Dell is struggling to make a profit and is laying workers off, for example).
3) Do you know of ANY fledgling cloud service that is 100% error free? There will continue to be bugs. Apple at least admits this.
4) Again, Apple doesn't produce "economic" hardware (read crap hardware here). However, Steve did personally offer to have MacOS X donated as the OS for the Laptop for Every Child initiative. The group rejected Steve's generous offer and chose to go with a vanilla version of Linux. Now the laptop still hasn't been produced and its price has doubled from $100 to $200+.
As a law professor, Zittrain should be aware that most of these applications have been pulled for legal reasons: copyright infringement, for example. He would also probably be the first to recommend that the copyright holders sue for the infringement of said trademarks. LOL!
Walled gardens help us make sense of things and help establish some kind of order and give us clear boundaries. Those that don't like the man imposing rule on them find other places to go. (Yes, Steve Jobs in "The Man!" No wonder he has stomach cancer, that must be literally eating him upside. There is great irony in that, but I don't mean to poke fun, life threatening illnesses aren't funny, even if life on this earth is finite regardless.)
Facebook and iTunes will only survive if they give the freedom (or illusion of freedom) necessary for their participants to thrive/survive within their respective constraints and rules. Much like the Matrix where the computers tried to give everyone happy lives and 'entire crops of humans were lost because they couldn't cope,' change, innovation and new opportunties (growth, evolution) will be required if the walls of the garden will be able to contain its subjects without being overthrown from within or without.
That's why Steve Jobs doesn't want DRM. He wants everyone to connect to iStore. It's a chance to sell more, further cement dominance in the media empire he's building and more chances to expose the masses to The Apple Way.
If Apple or Facebook dared to ignored requests from copyright claimants, they would face the risk of a resource-sucking IP lawsuit. Apple in particular is a deep-pocketed company, with a lot of goodwill at risk, and a natural target for wealth-hijacking by plaintiff counsel.
Even if Apple might expect, on the merits of the matter, to prevail, some plaintiff counsel (think John Edwards) flush with the settlement rewards from some previous, successful but undeserved settlement, will cause enough hassle to pry another undeserved settlement from the defendant company.
Professor Zittrain should worry less about the anticompetitive effects of companies' understandable self-preservation behavior. He should look into the culpability of his own profession creating the atmosphere of lawsuit paranoia that poses the real impediment for innovation in the first instance.
I've been a software developer for 20+ years. I do not see the dire predictions as you describe it. Are companies like Apple and Facebook stifling innovation by playing the overprotective parent? Perhaps to some, but given the alternative, I'm more than happy with the current model.
You give them an inch, they want a mile. Open the gates too much, and the undesirables wander in. Is this professor even aware of the amount of garbage that is available in the App store in it's protected form? Can you imagine what would happen if they allowed unfettered access to a system? We'll find out with Android providing the phone providers actually allow it that kind of access.
I wonder what type of standard the critics are using to come to the conclusion that Apple/Facebook are stifling innovation. Many developers have made quite a good chunk of change already from it.
If anything, perhaps the more proper question that should be asked is "Are lawyers sue-happy mentality stifling software innovation?"
- by CyStarkman September 3, 2008 9:46 PM PDT
- I seriously do not agree, at least with Apple, I have no involvement with Facebook, so no comment there. The author of this book evidently has not been studying what is going on in Appstore. In fact considering the time of the release I doubt it could even properly reference the Appstore.
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(13 Comments)Also, the reference to Box Office in the article and book does not tell the story and Greg needs to do his own research. Box Office is back on the Appstore called Now Playing. You can read about it here http://cultofmac.com/box-office-returns-to-appstore-as-now-playing/2526 and from there link to the authors own words.
So from that point, there is not much else to say. Only there is a lot to say.
Study the Appstore. Yes something is changing and I doubt the software industry will be the same.
Like many media industries already, software is in the throes of being taken over by the Internet and users. There is a revolution going on in Appstore, it's incredible.
I have been making a close study of it. Nothing like this has ever happened to any developer, let alone so many at once.