DRM-free music dream haunts Apple's app-store lock-in

As much as we hate the wireless carriers, we may end up hating the app store vendors even more. Why? Because they create app-level lock-in that inhibits consumers' ability to move to alternative platforms. While carriers mostly locked in users by blocking phone number portability, today's app stores prevent us from having a …

[Giles Jones]

Consoles

What about games consoles?

Why does nobody mind paying for games, online service when you're locked in and can only buy games that have been approved? Games that cost £40 or more!

What about Windows? if you buy software for Windows and want to move to the Mac you don't get a free copy for Mac automatically.

[StooMonster]

Some software houses do this

Although only in the games industry...

Blizzard give you PC/Mac version at the same time, as do Valve who give you Mac versions if you bought PC in the past and PC/Mac versions these days, Valve again if you buy PlayStation 3 version of Portal 2 give you PC and Mac versions for free, some EA games (e.g. Sims Medieval) give you PC/Mac versions on same disc, etc.

Unfortunately business software isn't the same (nor most games), as you point out. Microsoft, Adobe, etc. don't offer you multi-platform versions; then again sometimes they don't even give you full version of one product as they've divided it up into many SKUs.

[Quantum Leaper]

How many system would you play the game on?

Most multi console people I know simply pick the game they think is best an buy it for that platform.

Windows vs. Mac, buy the game on Steam and you can play it on either platform or make sure the game comes with both versions on the DVD.

[Rob Davis]

Adobe Creative Suite has free cross-grade

From Windows to Mac, for example. This is a transfer of the license from Windows to Mac platform, not the creation of 2 licenses, i.e. where you would run the software on both Windows and Mac simultaneously and independently as 2 user seats - it's not that. However the Adobe T&Cs do allow up 2 to installs of the software on the same platform provided it is only the one same user using one of the installs at any given time: ideal if you want to work on the move on your laptop and at home/office benefit from the other install being on a more powerful desktop workstation.

[Vlad The Impatient]

You read this here first...

...unless there's prior art. ;)

Don't all app sellers have more or less unique IDs of all the purchases made? Can't they announce that if you can prove (via transaction ID or similar) that you have purchased their app on iOS you then get a copy for Android for free or a nominal fee? Surely this is possible?

Yes, it's a bit more work for app sellers/authors, but surely worth it in the long run. Or did I misunderstood something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Viewranger

Guess there are probably quite a few apps that this in the real world already - Viewranger /GPS mapping software, allows you to move it between phones (and phone Os') with a single licence already.

Yes you have to email them to get a new activation code, and as every phone has a unique imei, it is easy for software developers to lock a licence to a single device, rather than lock the software single PC/Mac/other.

[Paul Bruneau]

@vlad

No, we don't all scrape the unique IDs of the devices of our users.

But even if we all did have that, we have no way to provide anybody with a free copy of our app on an app store, except for very limited quantities of promo codes (iOS)

Plus, let's say we have the UDID--how do we tie that to the user's new device?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternative fix: buy two copies

Here's another way to restore "fairness": Matt and his son each buy their own copies of the apps that they both use. Why should Matt and his four children (and wife, two ex wives, parents, grandparents and neighbours) get to pay just once for apps that they all use?

If instead they each bought their own copies, then there would be none of the "lock in" that he complains about here.

[/\/\j17]

...Like you would on your desktop...

If I look around my house I can probably dig out 3 desktops, 4 laptops and a netbook.

By Mr Asay's logic I should only need to buy one Windows 7 license and run it on all of these in parallel but for some reason Microsoft won't let me.

Mr Asay, why do you believe you should pay for a developers time and effort to create an app for your iPhone then get the results of their time and effort porting/re-writing it for android for free...?

[Dave 142]

maybe

Maybe, but then if Apple are happy to let you put an app on up to five devices and the app vendors are happy with that too I don't really see the problem with one copy for a family.

[alcockell]

Offer multiple-client licences...

... and maybe you have a point.

What IS annoying is how outside business and critical systems software, multiple-licence packs are not easily obtained. If the option was there to be able to legitimately get a 3- or 5-user pack for games, and possible to install them on networks rather than requiring the CD/DVD to be mounted all the time..

Running Call of Duty in a youth group is currently a real hassle when you want to keep the install media away from kids...

[David Dawson]

I have to agree

I recently bought an eeTab Transformer android 3.1 tablet for the missus (to go with here HTC desire). She loves it, and is constantly showing it off. Recently she showed it to one of our friends, he was duly impressed, but came back with the same argument as here. If he was going to buy a tablet, it would have to be an ipad, as he's got a load of apps that he doesn't want to purchase again (I'm not sure about the sharing of apps between users, rather than devices, as in this article though, is that really whats in the Ts & Cs?)

I hadn't thought of this before really, having only had an android phone for 18 months or so and not coming up to a refresh cycle yet.

While I've been tempted to look at the webOS stuff when it comes around (I'm a bit faddish), on consideration, I probably won't now, which is sad, as the dev environment looks fun.

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd.

Apps are cheap. Many are free.

If you can afford a smartphone (not sure that I'd buy one for my kid, but there you go) the cost of a few apps shouldn't enter into it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap cheep

"I've paid 59p once, I don't see why I have to pay it again for this app on a different platform."

Coz Angry Birds etc are so very expensive.

Imagine if you bought Photoshop and wanted to switch platforms, how helpful do you think Adobe are?

[Peter 48]

Pretty Helpful actually

Adobe is probably one of the best software vendors out there for that - they allow you to crossgrade between platforms at the cost of shipping only. They are also one of the few vendors that don't mind you selling your license to others.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good stuff Adobe

Didn't know that, my software reseller told me that one had to repurchase and could not cross grade.

But then again they told me it was possible to just upgrade Photoshop in a Suite, and then when the serial numbers didn't work said "Oh yeah, that doesn't work". So perhaps they're not that worth listening to.

Someone above said that Adobe allowed two installs, but on my stuff that doesn't happen -- I get one activation -- how do you get two?

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC 19:32

Most of us have paid apps - I have only a few (a few games, a GPS route finder and some productivity apps) but it would cost me something like £50 to buy them all again. Many apps may be cheap or free but you only need a few non-free apps for the costs to start adding up.

Ultimately, though, it is not whether we can afford to buy apps we have already bought as much as wanting to avoid throwing away good money. That the author has the money to buy his kid a smartphone is neither here nor there - the point wasn't that he would have to buy more apps so he didn't bother buying junior a smartphone it was that the extra cash for existing apps made choosing a droid over an iPhone unjustifiable.

Small amount of trick-cycling here - research strongly indicates that we are far more geared up towards avoiding loss than making gain (I suppose it is a survival thing - failing to make a gain may mean you go hungry whereas making a loss may likely mean getting eaten) which is why people are susceptible to this kind of lock-in.

[adam.c]

Says it all

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps

[umakegoodcookies]

program much?

And this is worse than all prior commercial Application distribution models because?...

It really reminds me of the comedian who talked about people's sense of entitlement for something they heard about 2 minutes ago. The developer has to develop new apps for new platforms. Maybe they would like to get paid for that... not sure myself.

The current app store model lets you use your software on all of your devices for which it was written. There has never before been a more consumer friendly application distribution model other than open source... and even that's questionable.

[User McUser]

How is this any different than desktops?

If I have a PC and buy a Mac I have to repurchase all my apps there too.

I'm not sure what app stores have to do with this or why anyone would ever assume that an app written for one platform should be transferable to another (competing) platform.

Plus there's no incentive for developers to bother doing it. Half the money and twice the development and support costs? Gosh, where do I sign up for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Missed the point

Many apps written for smartphones ARE cross-platform.

As someone above said, Assay's pointed is clouded by his insistence that he was trying to buy it once for multiple use. It is a real problem however, if you want to move to a different platform which is what the article was purported to be all about and in this he has a good point.

If the developers of software want us to believe that they are giving us a license to use the software, there should be no reason why you should have to purchase the software again just because your platform is different. This is why comparing software to hamburgers above is a total non-starter.

[bob42]

cross-platform != multi-platform

Just because an app is available multi-platform does not mean the developer did not have to put significant work in to redeveloping to support each new platform.

[Chad H.]

Next week on the Register

Matt Assay bemoan's McDonalds Burger buy in "Why can't I order a Whopper in McDonalds? I don't want no stinking quater pounder nor do I want to leave the McDonalds Resturant"

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a completely false analogy

McDonalds are selling their *own* product to *their* customer.

The customer we are talking about here is the app developer's customer, not the phone manufacturer's customer.

Also, apps are reusable - they don't get converted into shit after one use.

[King Jack]

false analogy

You forgot they may be converted to pizza if you are (un)lucky, especially after a night boozing.

[Chad H.]

@ False Analogy

Its not as if Apps haven't caused a lock in before... Surely the most famous is the "Excel Lock-in" where finance departments refuse to consider anything other than Excel for Windows - hey look the OS developer is also making the app.

This is just an excuse for the author to engage in his favorite sport - Apple bashing for Apple bashing's sake with spirilous arguments.

Why do the Register pay this guy? (maybe they don't pay him - ah, that explains things)

[John Molloy]

Also...

His "Perhaps the answer lies with the Financial Times, which spurred Apple to ease its app purchasing restrictions by introducing an HTML5 web app that bypasses the App Store entirely." argument kinda fails as that is how Apple launched the iPhone in the first place - and all the developers went up in arms to ask for full app writing privileges.

Basically Matt's moan this week is to try and get Apple to hand over the keys to their kingdom. Application lock in was an important idea from the start - once you are on iOS you stick with it - that people poo-pooed, but it is real and it is an important part of the iOS strategy.

Eagerly awaiting the article next week using same argument on getting all my Windows apps for free on Linux... Not clones, but the same applications.

"Go on Adobe, I bought Photoshop for Windows, give it to me for free on Linux. And no, I won't give you anything for development, I've already paid you for your time once."

Sounds a bit stupid when you put it like that.

[Droid Eye]

Droid Does

Android allows the installation of apps through sources other than the Market. The problem is that developers would rather have their apps in the market than to host it on their own site. Google isn't forcing anyone to use the Market (unlike some other mobile OS companies,) they're just giving you a convenient place to set up shop.

If developers really felt "locked-in" by the Market, they could easily put a download link on their site right under the Windows, Mac and Linux download links they have. However, most sites I've been to have a link to the Market instead (to go along with their iTunes link for IOS.)

I would love to be able to direct-download apps from websites to my Android (since the capability is built-in) but the devs have spoken, they like the Market.

As far as cross-platform usage, it's up to the rest of the platforms to catch up to Android's ability to install non-Market apps before devs can help us with that. Not going to happen since that would just make it easier for your son to have the Android he WANTS instead of the iPhone he's forced to settle for.

I'm sure you wanted to mention all this in your article but were just afraid of showing "Android bias." Don't worry, I've got you covered.

[umakegoodcookies]

old DRM myth

Resurrecting the old DRM myth of iTunes lock-in in your title is just further nonsense. Apple clearly stated when the Windows iTunes store was opened that they fought with the labels to NOT have DRM. Apple never wanted it (see Rolling Stone interview with Jobs of that year).

And it isn't DRM that locks you to the platform, it's because developers have to REWRITE THE WHOLE PROGRAM for another platform. Apps aren't like music etc. Yes, html5 apps will work cross platform and if you look at the iPhone history, that's how Apple wanted to do them IN THE FIRST PLACE. Try looking back at why that failed and the app store succeeded.

[JEDIDIAH]

Borgia Pope

> Resurrecting the old DRM myth of iTunes lock-in in your

> title is just further nonsense. Apple clearly stated

Yes. This would be much like Steve Jobs complaining that a bunch of Playmates forced themselves on him when he visited the Playboy Mansion.

"Please Stop"

"I'm virtuous, really I am"

Jobs is about as virtuous as a Borgia pope.

[Steven Roper]

But what you have failed to point out

is that Apple only distributes iTunes music in their proprietary .aac format which, while not necessarily DRM-locked as you say, can only be played on Apple devices unless you can find a converter program to convert them to mp3s. So no, technically it's not DRM by the strictest definition of the term, but it may as well be.

Just a heads up in case you aren't aware of this kind of Apple double-talk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in my experience.

iTunes Music both audio & video plays quite happily on my HTC Android phone, Sony PS3 and Samsung TV. It's just the DRM protected TV episodes which don't.

Where's the restriction? (Apart from TV episodes)

And NO there is no conversion or DRM stripping involved....

[JEDIDIAH]

Don't try to lie if you do it really badly.

> It's just the DRM protected TV episodes which don't.

Yes. In other words, anything meaningful in terms of content that is on iTunes that is not music is scrambled. Don't try to BS us. We can try this stuff out for ourselves you know.

It's a really incompetent lie you are trying to perpetrate.

Yeah... it's only the TV shows, or the movies, or the eBooks, or the audio books.

[jubtastic1]

AAC

Is mp4, it's exactly as proprietary as mp3 and not surprisingly, owned by the same company.

There are very few devices that can't play mp4, it's baked into most hardware decoding chips.

Just a heads up in case you weren't aware.

[Anonymous Coward]

"unless you can find a converter program to convert them to mp3s"

like iTunes for instance....

[JEDIDIAH]

unless you can find a converter program to convert them to mp3s

How about something that strips off the DRM like AnyDVD does for BluRay disks and mplayer does for DVDs?

[a_been]

Advanced Audio Coding

When did Apple buy Sony, Nintendo and Google? I ask because the Wii, Sony's walkman series of mp3 players and Android phones can all play AAC music. They can do this because "AAC was developed with the cooperation and contributions of companies including AT&T Bell Laboratories, Fraunhofer IIS, Dolby Laboratories, Sony Corporation and Nokia".

Still facts are so 1997, making shit up to blame on Apple is clearly the way ahead. Did you know Apple have sent mercenaries to Libya and are planing on invading Belgium! Fuck You steve Jobs!

Just a heads up in case you aren't aware of this kind of Apple double-talk.

[mrh2]

on my Mac,,,

...iTunes has a 'Create MP3 Version' option so I can convert any track to play on any MP3 player.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Matt and his son each buy their own copies"

I don't see a problem with that, though obviously there may be times when a "family discount" may be offered (though quite how you'd verify it remains moot).

But as a general rule, for a paid-for app, I would expect one user with one phone = one licence, and two users on two phones = two licences. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

When the one user with one phone wants to get rid of the old one and replace it with a new one, an administrative transfer (with limits) would make sense.

Anything else is surely daylight robbery, from someone's point of view.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fanboi Remorse

Isn't vendor lock-in prior art (c.f. M$ et al.) ?

[Anonymous Coward]

App Store irrelevant

The App Store does not stipulate that developers cannot release their titles on other platforms. And many developers do exactly that. If you want to know why you don't get a free copy when you change platforms, ask the developers. Apple doesn't own the Apps - it's none of its business. And the developers might point out to you that there is a high risk of higher support costs if you move between platforms ("why could I do such-and-such there but not here"?, or where did that button I use all the time go"?, etc, etc).

The fact is, you get the same issue *everywhere*. For example, do I get a free version of Office for the Mac if I move from Windows and own Office on that platform? Do my console games get replaced because I wasn't happy my existing platform? And did the music industry replace my audio cassettes and LPs when we moved to CD? No - they all make you buy the same things all over again.

I'm not convinced by the comparison with the music industry in any case. Music formats are largely capable of supporting anything the music industry can deliver, but not so with software. In case you hadn't noticed, Apple has always provided extremely comprehensive support for web-base apps (in fact, that was initially the *only* option), and has long been a flag-bearer for HTML5. If it was so easy to deliver multi-platform apps that way, developers would be all over it. The fact is - like Java - it provides a weak user experience compared to a dedicated, platform specific API. If you want to deliver a top-notch iPhone App, use the iOS API. If you want to deliver a top-notch Android App, use that API. And study how users interact with that platform. Trying to deliver 'run-anywhere' solutions is a sure-fire recipe for mediocrity.

[Paul Bruneau]

You're wrong, Ralph 5

Sure the apps are the developers', but the developers have no way to authorize a user to get a free app. We don't even know who the user is!

[Anonymous Coward]

Authorisation? Not a problem...

@Paul Bruneau: "Sure the apps are the developers', but the developers have no way to authorize a user to get a free app. We don't even know who the user is!"

Simple - encode a unique ID from the customers phone, make it visible to the user in the app, and get them to register their purchase directly with you. Software houses have always provided registration methods that operate independent of the retailer.

But the fact is, the price for many of these apps is very low - so low that the admin overheads for managing licenses can be a significant cost factor. I really can't relate to the complaint raised in this article - software has never been so cheap.

[petur]

Your real problem

Your real problem is that you are sharing apps across devices of different users instead of buying them per device like you'd expect.

HOWEVER your point is COMPLETELY valid for users wanting to move from platform A to B. On the other hand, that issue already existed for Mac vs Windows

[Gav]

App developers do not owe you anything

I installed a new front door on my last house. Last year I moved. Imagine my disgust in learning that the door I had purchased for my old house was not compatible with my new house. I had to go out and buy again what was effectively the same door, just a slightly different size..

Why can't manufacturers let me move from house A to B and take my door with me? I've paid them once for the door, surely that entitles me to a new door every time I chose to upgrade my house to a new model?

[Anonymous Coward]

"cloud liberates enterprises and consumers"

Damn those herbs! They are no longer as good as they used to, are they ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not that clear cut

From the article:

"But that's the point: the customers are the app developers' customers, not really Apple's or Google's."

Well, yes. And no. When I buy, say, Glenfiddich whisky from Tesco am I Glenfiddich's customer or Tesco's? Obviously both. Separately, and jointly, and my level of customershipness may be different from the next person who buys the same product from the same store.

You see, I like Glenfiddich, and I chose to shop in Tesco. If I have any problems with the product I would go back to Tesco for resolution in the first instance - and only Glenfiddich directly if I got nowhere with Tesco (or if the problem was so serious it needed escalating also), however I would not hold Tesco responsible for product quality issues, just like I would not stop buying Glenfiddich if a Tesco staff member was rude to me.

But ultimately, do I shop in Tesco because I can get my choice of malty goodness there, or do I chose to shop in Tesco which means I select my heavenly taste of Scotland from the selection Tesco elect to provide? You can't tell from the simple sales figures - and the same with apps. I have an iPhone with many iPhone apps - but you can't tell from that statement whether I chose an iPhone because I wanted an iPhone (and therefore am stuck with the pool of apps His Jobness permits me to select from) or whether I looked at the apps I either wanted or had already paid for and was forced to buy an iPhone on that basis.

Arguably, back to the apps point, I am a customer of Apple, and Apple are a customer of the app developer who developed the app I chose to buy - I pay Apple and then Apple pay the developer after all.

We are paying Apple to provide a service - they make the apps available to us in a way we want and Apple perform a number of checks and balances to improve the quality of apps* available - this makes Apple more than just middle-men and we are happy to pay for similar services in other areas: we pay for shops to make it easier and safer to buy goods, we pay for travel agents to sort our holidays, we pay our governments to educate our children, we pay record companies to give us quality controlled, professionally produced music on shiny spinny-disky-things, we pay estate agents to forcibly make non-consensual love to our bottys - sorry, to facilitate the buying and selling of our houses, and so on. So why is paying an app store that much different?

*by quality I mean in the "won't brick your phone" way, not the "actually any good" way.

[Steven Roper]

I like your taste in alcoholic beverages, sir.

If you enjoy the Glenfiddich may I recommend you try the Ardbeg, Talisker and Caol Ila? They're all huge single malts with a real peaty kick to them. My usual favourite is the Caol Ila for the punch it packs, but if I'm in the mood for a smoother ride I go for the Talisker.

[A. Nervosa]

A few points.

"today's app stores prevent us from having a direct relationship with the app developer"

Have you tried walking into Heinz HQ recently and buying a tin of baked beans? You can't, and it's because there's this thing called a 'channel' and has these things called 'resellers' and it applies to a hell of a lot more than just apps. Some have one, some have many, but there's nothing new going on here.

"Once an app store vendor bills you for a set of apps, it's hard to justify purchasing them again on another platform." and "I'm married with four kids: I can't afford too much app divergence."

You can't have your cake and eat it, mate. You allude to taking advantage of the fact that you can install a single purchase iOS app on multiple devices simultaneously, and then you bemoan the fact that this isn't cross-platform as well?

Nobody buys an Xbox expecting to be able to get their games exchanged if they replace it with a PS3. Nobody buys spare parts for a Ford and expects them to fit on their new Fiat. Nobody has four bloody kids and expects to get all their clothes ugraded to larger sizes when they grow out of them.

You choose your platform, you buy for it and you make your investment like you do for almost anything else... until it's time to change the lot. It's preposterous to expect the entire software industry to go out of its way to cater to your principles on portability because you're a bit of a tight arse trying to save yourself 59p. You'd be better off giving Heinz HQ a ring and using condoms.

[TheOtherHobbbes]

Cake

"You can't have your cake and eat it, mate."

Yes he can. This is the same Asay who regularly witters on about how free market efficiences cure all human ills, including Microsoft and cancer.

The fact that he has a massive sense of entitlement and seems utterly disconnected from the amount of work developers have to do to ship on and manage multiple platforms shouldn't surprise anyone.

There is a technical point that maybe someone clever could invent a cross-platform app framework.

But the whole point of the iOS/Android experience is that low level OS access makes it possible to do more, and to do it more efficiently.

It's really, really unlikely that HTML5 - or wutevah - is going to be able to replace that for more than a limited range of app types.

Asay's other toy hobby horse - open source - doesn't have the technical or marketing resources to build a truly open app hardware and software platform. Android is as good as it's likely to get, and we know how !open that is.

So this is all vague hand-wavey pink and sparkly wishing and hoping. Neither Apple nor Google nor any of the smaller players are going to be spending a lot of time developing a cross-platform app market any time soon.

[bart]

Wha WHa WHA?

I'm sorry, am I missing something? Are there tons of applications for any platform that allow you to install them on as many devices as you'd like? Read your license agreements a bit more carefully . . .

In the world of more expensive desk/laptop software, it is nice to have developers grant you the ability to put it on "your family's" devices, but to expect that right with the phone/pad world of >$10 apps? Really?

Maybe we should start asking developers to pay consumers for the privilege of distributing their software? Apple gets away with it, why not the end user?

Of course you could let your son play games on your phone and save the $10 in an account towards his education rather than expecting society to subsidize it, let alone blot the tot's future with lots of fun student debt. Oh my, did I type that out loud? Just a thought . . .

[Jeff Clarke]

for all those that don't see the problem...

why don't you all come back and tell us what you think when, in 2/3 years’ time (may be longer or may be sooner), you want to move to a device with a different OS, on another locked in app store.... I'll bet there will be annoyance/hesitation/an outright give up when you realise you have invested in potentially £100's worth of apps you don't want to lose or buy again....

On the console front, there aren't shiny new consoles with totally new, or significantly better hardware constantly coming out every 6-12 months - if anything, this gen (xbox 360/ps3) has been one of the longer generations so far, at least for me. Not least because the major innovations are plug in additions, like move/kinect. Not something you can do with a phone so easily. Consoles also don't suffer battery wear, physical damage, being lost on train, you being mugged for, etc, etc type issues that mobiles devices do.

and remember the general annoyance when the ps3 lost backwards compatibility? – a similar issue really.

having said all this, so many people are quite happy to spend another £40-£60 on a rehash of unreal tournament (i.e. another FPS), that it might not matter. money has to be spent on something to make the world go round...

as for the comment "If you can afford a smartphone ... the cost of a few apps shouldn't enter into it" That is a little short sighted. Let's take a parallel - 'if you can afford to buy a car, the extra 20p/litre petrol shouldn't enter into it' - well, not many would agree with that statement, would they? Spending a lot of hard-earned cash on something does not equate to not having to care about the on-going costs of running said item. And no one likes to pay for the same thing twice, unless it is a service or outright consumable like food. Put another way - things add up!

The code from a previous purchase idea is perfectly doable, technically. But commercially it is dead in the water, as this lock in is what the OS vendors love, and where is the app store cut going to come from?

Eventually, I think something similar to ‘Microsoft having to release the code/details of the windows APIs, so others can play nicely with them’ type thing will happen. i.e. the powers that be (EU commission) will step in to make things more portable.

Diatribe over.

[Baudwalk]

8 months?

I don't need to wait 2/3 years. My phone is a Symbian, my new tablet is an Android Eee Pad.

Both mobile OSes, but completely incompatible.

I never expected to take my apps with me (yes, I'm he who actually *gasp* bought apps from Nokia's Ovi store *ungasp*).

It's nothing to do with App Store (*) lock-in. It's to do with incompatible hardware and/or OS.

Both Symbian and Android let me install apps without going through the 'official' App Store, anyway.

I also don't expect to be able to use the Microsoft Office 2010, I recently bought for the wife, on my Linux box. Wine notwithstanding (I prefer the liquid variety).

(*) Yes. "App Store" not "Apple Store". Only one is a trademarkable name, it seems.

[JEDIDIAH]

8 months?

How many apps do you have on your phone really? How many of those are payware? What's the average price of them?

It might add up to one Windows game or a single boxed set of a season of something from the BBC.

No. The kicker is all of your media files that previously came in industry standard formats that were not limited to a single hardware vendor. THAT is the stuff that ends up being an expensive pile of stuff that you don't want to buy again.

"Apps" are a distraction. They are probably an INTENTIONAL distraction.

Having a large library of single-vendor media content is a much bigger problem and one that certain people don't want the proles to wise up about.

[Peter Mc Aulay]

Re: for all those that don't see the problem...

Or, you could have realised all this before buying a platform which has a lock-in app store and not invest heavily in applications which you won't be able to migrate. Caveat emptor, sheesh.

[N13L5]

£100's worth of apps... seriously? pffft

phone apps are so cheap... I don't get what you guys are worried about.

You spend £1500 on Adobe's Master Suite and every other year it gets replaced

with an even more buggy new version ...or Office, or whatever your poison is...

Just a crummy Windows license sets you back more than £100 every 2-3 years.

And those hard drives you keep replacing, etc etc...

[Mectron]

Until....

All goverment of the world understand that DRM is, because of it;s very nature, ILLEGAL. there is no hope..... for regualr joe.... i, on the other hand, only product i can remove the DRM infection from

[Steve Evans]

Phone number portability?

I can only assume you're in the USA, as elsewhere, certainly in Europe, the right to keep your number and take it anywhere you like has been the norm for several years.

The only lock in is when the phone is knobbled to prevent it connecting to another network (this is pure software level, the European market doesn't have any weird networks running systems that require completely different radio hardware like the USA). This carrier lock is annoying, but removable, either by paying a small (but still excessive fee considering how much you have spent during your 24 month contract) to your carrier at the end of your contract, or by visiting a little man in the local independent phone shop who will do it for you for £5. Or you just buy the phone in the first place.

[cloudgazer]

I can't believe this article made it onto the register

It's so amazingly unbelievably stupid and with such a profound failure to understand how the software market works on practically every other platform that really - I don't know how to begin to say how bad it is - except to say it's the kind of thing I'd expect to read in the Guardian.

[jubtastic1]

Notice the author

It's basically the same as all his other articles which amount to "why isn't everything open source and free already?"

[cpf]

Just because they could

...doesn't mean they have to. Having >$15,000 invested in Nikon lenses and camera bodies, I'm well aware that no amount if whining will make Canon come out with products compatible with my investment, and I knew that from the first purchase I ever made. From the developer's perspective, the Android and iOS apps are entirely different products that each took time to develop, and therefore they are quite entitled to separate remuneration for each.

As for moving to HTML-based apps, well, we all know exactly how well that went over the first time...

[simmondp]

Nothing new here

It's a trick obviously learnt from the record companies. Buy it on vinal, but now I want in on cassette for my car, now I need a CD version, and now in MP3. Yes you can rip it (albeit it's always been a legal grey area) but if it's cheap enough most people will simply pay for the convenience of getting it in the correct format.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're as old as me ...

you'll recall in the early 80s, a few people actually got EMI to exchange their vinyl for CDs ....

[PAT MCCLUNG]

Clerk

What is an emeritus board member of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) doing with an iPhone, anyway?

[jai]

why is this different to anything else?

so by this argument, the TLC pack I have for my Mini (pays for the first 3 mandatory services) locks me into the BMW Mini brand because, if I sell the Mini and buy a Ford, I can't get the unused free services for the new car.

It's the way the capitalist world works, and all the "open" evangalism that is currently going around isn't going to change that any time soon.

[austerusz]

Others

Same can be said for today's books. If by any chance you want to switch from paper to Kindle, you need to re-buy your books for Kindle. Even within Kindle, Amazon was rather reluctant to allow sharing books between your own Kindle devices.

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait

How on earth did this trolling flamebait article end up on el reg?

[Dave 142]

No Sense

This whole thing is basically a personal rant about not wanting to pay again. It's a total red herring. Unless you are in some strange 0.0001% of consumers who's paid hundreds of pounds on apps (if this fictional person even exists) then financially this is irrelevant. If a new phone is more than £50 cheaper than an iPhone you can probably buy all the apps again and have some change left over. If people buy a new iPhone instead of a new Android/RIM/WP phone instead this won't be the reason.

I have a couple of games for PC and now I have an XBox, should I call EA & MS up about giving me another free copy? Or should I stop, think for a minute and not whine like an ass.

[Tralala]

befuddled guy or silly person goes shopping.. Anyone interested?

Could you keep personal excuse systems out of a news reporting and analysis site..

This piece is offensively self-indulgent and the absence of sense and reason does not add to charm or interest you think it had..

Still, I might be wrong - perhaps your shopping choices truly are fascinating given the amount of essays on shopping you provoked. Sad.

[Tim's Tales]

App-Store Lock in is nothing new

the same type of 'lock in' exists in the computer and video game console market. Playstation 2 games don't play on Playstation 3.

There is nothing stopping App owners to keep their old phones for the 'backward compatibility'.

Another example: I moved from a PC to a Mac and had to repurchase MS Office for Mac, it was also part of a tech refresh so was ok. One could also argue that App-Store purchases are dwarfed in price compared with traditional software and video game prices.

[Bilgepipe]

WTF?

What a crap article.

[Lamont Cranston]

What?

I couldn't buy my son a 'droid, because it wouldn't run the apps we'd bought for his iPhone? What kind of a complaint is that? My copy of MSOffice for Windows wouldn't install under Mint, and neither Windows nor Mint was able to run games I had bought for my PS2; this is normal, I expected it, and, somehow, I coped.

Mind you, I naively assume that, since 'droid is Linux-based, and nominally open source, all the apps for it will be free, so perhaps I should cut you a little slack.

[g e]

Not all free

But many very good ones are, yes.

[g e]

Platform fail

Surely if you'd not bought into Apple and gone Android earlier you'd actually have the choice of a good number of different devices to run your Android apps on?

I'd expect to be able to retrieve my paid-for Android apps for reinstallation if I changed from my HTC to a Samsung, though admittedly haven't had to try it yet.

You just bought into a (more) locked-down closed platform.

[noboard]

fixed it for you

"One click away from the Samsung Capitvate which is free on a £25/month contract, however, I stopped. It struck me that we'd have to repurchase all of the apps that he and I share (which include Real Soccer 2011 and Conquest) about £20's worth on our current iOS devices. And once he started buying Android apps, our app purchasing paths would continually diverge. I'm married with four kids: I can't afford too much app divergence. I reluctantly got him an iPhone, which cost £400 on a £35 a month contract. Aren't I a genius"

Now can I interest you in some magic beans?

[Neill Mitchell]

Spot on.

LOL, you sum it up perfectly.

As I've said before, these app markets have turned us into cheapskates. I have 20 paid apps on my droid devices for which I paid a princely sum of £22.75. One game blew the budget at £2.34.

In short, it's ridiculously cheap. Stop whining and pay the pence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its got you already then

From most of these responses, it would already seem that people expect to pay multiple times for the same data, on a different platform/device.

Well done Apple!

[Jonathan White]

What?

@AC 12:40 - It's not the same data though, is it? An Android app and an iOS app are absolutely different data. if you diffed them you'd get quite a lot of hits I'd imagine. The data in them may be arranged in a certain way to perform the same function but some skilled person had to take the time and effort to move the blocks around in the puzzle so they made the same picture. Amazingly enough, that skilled person might want paying for their skilled labour.

Nobody other than the Mad Hatter here thinks any different. I mean, seriously, has this bloke ever published an el Reg Article that a moment's analysis didn't show to be utter cobblers?

[Nanners]

apple is

It's own problem, not the p.c. makers. It's success is in tying you to it's products so that you stop yourself from buying an android and buy an iphone instead. I recently became an ipad user, guess what stops me from doing what I want on the ipad? Itunes. I can't just buy an ipad and use it, I have to have an ipad AND a computer, and if I'm tied to itunes I might very well buy an apple computer...especially if I'm a young, or first time buyer. How long before this is considered a monopoly and apple gets pinged like microsoft did?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Nanners, RE: monopoly

with all due respect, this is not monopoly behaviour. Clearly not as Google keep telling us how big Android is in the smartphone and tablet arena.

Can people please stop all this "Apple is a monopoly" crap - the only market Apple could be considered having a monopoly is in Apple products. If you don't want an iPad or an iPhone or a Mac you have plenty of alternatives - for fuck's sake, this is no more monopolistic behaviour than Ford forcing you to put petrol in your car in order to keep on using it.

[JEDIDIAH]

Monopoly

> with all due respect, this is not monopoly behaviour.

Sure it is. It's the same process that allowed Microsoft to be bully OEM into doing it's bidding.

The main difference here is that is just a single company rather than a collection of them. In that respect it is WORSE because presents a smaller surface area for attack for any potential rival.

It also reduces choice in a more drastic and obvious way.

In that regard the whole "single vendro" thign may be less sustainable and ultimately better for the rest of us.

[Anonymous Coward]

@JEDIDIAH

With all due respect (which to be fair is getting less and less as this continues) Apple do not have a monopoly.

Apple have a small percentage of the phone market, and as Google are boasting Android has over 50% of the smartphone market (with similar figures for tablets) there is no fucking way on God's green fucking earth that Apple can be accused of having a fucking monopoly. Especially as Apple software only runs on Apple hardware.

This has as much similarity to Microsoft's monopolistic behaviour regarding OEMs as a cat has similarity with the number i.

[Jonathan White]

Oh..

And we hate the carriers because they are uniformly a bunch of utter... well, fill in your own word, who do their level best to obfuscate and obdurate things to an immoral level get as much cash out of their customers for the minimal possible provision of goods and have customer service standards that would make you average dictator state secret police complaints department seem like a paragon of virtue.

Not being able to use the apps you've bought on an entirely different mobile platform pales into gross insignificance compared to some of the stunts the telcos have pulled in the past. I mean, Jesus what a crybaby you are.

[Peter 48]

It is possible

It is pretty simple to offer a cross platform license. Just provide the app for free and then implement a licensing system that requires you to enter a code which then registers with an online database. That is how the vast majority of computer software works and how apps like CoPilot satnav (I switched from android to windows mobile6.5 without any problems) then the app store is irrelevant.

[Christian Berger]

It could be done differently

You could just have a distribution and do the payment via license files, if the programmer chooses to require payment.

App-Stores are just the lazy solution to that problem, and the big problem is that they require DRM which leads to many people breaking the copy protection in order to be able to use their devices.

[tryfan]

So, what was the REAL point?

I may be wrong, but if I remember correctly, Matt Asay was always pro-Apple.

So what I think, is that he actually wanted his son to have an iPhone, but couldn't find the right argument to deny the kid an Android.

And when he finally found the right argument - money - he also found the stuff for a new column.

Win-win for Matt Asay.

[lpcollier]

Logical Disconnect

It seems to me that the whole App Store concept drives otherwise intelligent people into total logical disconnect. About the only thing I can find that differentiates App Store purchases from boxed software is that App Store finally links software "ownership" to a single user or family, making it difficult to resell purchased software.

All of the other issues of "lock-in" are nonsense, and quite ironic that after nearly two decades of Microsoft/Windows dominance, we're finally in a position of true competition on the desktop and mobile front, and the media is awash with the obvious consequence of choice: incompatibility. Has everyone forgotten the golden decade of the 1980s where people bought a new microcomputer every couple of years, and had to throw out most of their software and start again?

We do need to find a solution for some of these issues - for expensive apps like creative and office suites people really will feel locked to a platform, but companies will have to find ways to give users store credit to crossgrade when needed. At the moment the app store model is quite immature, but these things will come.

[Henry Wertz 1]

Lockin solution? Free apps

A few comments:

1) I don't see divergence as a problem in the least. I assume running the same app on two devices involves two purchases. So, at that point, it doesn't matter if they are two IPhones or one IPhone and one Android phone.

2) Solution to lockin? Don't buy so many apps. No way in hell I'd switch to an IPhone, but repurchasing apps is not a reason for me not to do it. I've got one ~$8 or so app; at least on Android supply of apps that may show a little ad when running but are free (or the choice of paying and not having the little ad.)

3) As for the bit about Apple's "solution" via HTML5, yeah, don't even pretend that is something Apple "invented". Any IPhone or smartphone can load up a web page with plenty of Javascript on it and have been able to for years, and I know IPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Palm can all make an icon that goes straight to it too. The new thing is Apple trying to make a cash grab on subscriptions and suggesting web apps as a "solution".

[Henry Wertz 1]

Not monopolistic behavior

Vendor lockin is one aspect of it, and Apple does lock people in.

But, monopolists (like Microsoft) also "play dirty" to knock competitors out of the market.

Apple has not dropped IPhone prices to try to banrkupt competitors then when they are gone raise prices up to normal (Microsoft did this with Word and Office to knock Lotus, Wordperfect Corp, etc. out of business.)

They don't have contracts requiring AT&T to pay a royalty on every phone sold (as Microsoft has done, putting clauses in contracts where both OEMs and enterprise customers will have to pay Microsoft for *every* computer, even if it's running MacOS or Linux).

Finally, part of monopolistic behavior depends on market share -- a vendor who is dominant in a market is monopolistic for doing certain behaviors while in a competitive market the same behaviors are merely competitive.

As much as Apple fanbois want IPhone without the consequences of Jobses control freakery.. well, tough shit. There are numerous competitors that do not have the lockdowns the IPhone does. I would never by an IPhone for exactly the reasons you guys are complaining are monopolistic.. they are not monopolistic in the least, but I still wouldn't buy a product from a company with those kinds of attitudes, so I don't.

[Bill B]

astonished

I read this article with a bit of astonishment. I appreciate that it is a diverse world and that people's attitudes different, but I was somewhat taken aback by some of the concepts raised.

First of all a bit of context. Of the apps quoted, Conquest is £2.39. There isn't a 'Real Soccer' but he possibly means Real Football 2011 @ £2.99. These prices aren't back breaking, but I understand the author's attitude is that licencing should be on the basis of 'family and friends', so that one copy is bought and then shared. This attitude may not, of course, coincide with the developer's, but I'm not sure the author had the developer's interests at heart anyway. They are, after all, charging extortionate amounts for their games and deserve to be ripped off in any way possible.

Secondly, as has been suggested, the article is misplaced in my view. The author seems to think the vendor is Apple. I would disagree. If you can't buy an app for multiple platforms then it's the developer you should complain to. The author seems to have a distortion field associated with mobiles. If there's a lock in on a games console or PC it's not the console manufacturer that has locked you in. It's the creator of the app. Commentators have listed some apps/games where the developer has allowed multi platform use, but this is rare. Why the author believes the mobile world should be different is not clearly explained.

The author possibly makes money from writing articles. If he wrote an article for The Register which was then published by Wired, would he be pleased? Why he thinks he has a right to short change developers .. AND to broadcast the fact in an article .. seems a bit disconnected.

[N13L5]

What this article complains about is not app-store lock-in, but phone-OS lock-in

What this article complains about is not app store lock-in, but phone OS lock-in

And sharing your iPhone apps with your entire family may not be what the app developers had in mind to begin with. Did you read their licensing fine print?

If you want to leave the iPhone eco system, you can all share your Android Apps, as long as you create one family email address and link your Android Market account to that email.

Android app developers may also be dismayed to find a single app sale running on 5 phones.

At any rate, with Android, you can download PowerAMP for Android anywhere you like, not limited to any particular app store, but your purchase is locked to the email address on any given app store account, be that Amazon, Android Market the dev's website or any other place.

[OTS Solutions]

OTS Solutions

Ya you are right, It is difficult to afford too much app divergence. But I think lots of apps are free of cost. and if you can gift your son a smartphone, you can also afford for apps also. Some are free of cost and while others are very cheap