Several
big companies -- Apple, Amazon and Google -- are pursuing a "walled
garden" approach, where they hope to do so much for their customers
that they will never leave.
Apple did not invent the notion of using cellphones to play games
and carry out small tasks, but it certainly made the concept its
own. Its app store is the one all developers want to get into,
despite the much larger market share claimed by Google's Android.
There are so many competing devices using Android that developers
say they have a hard time getting the most out of their apps for
that system. Besides, customers are used to spending money for Apple
apps, but they tend to want Android apps to be free.
All this gives Apple power far beyond its operating system's 20
percent share of the mobile market. At some point, however, that
power might be detrimental for the Internet as a whole.
Several big companies -- Apple, Amazon.com and Google -- are
pursuing a "walled garden" approach, in which they hope to do so
much for their customers that the customers will never leave.
Internet policy experts did not like walled gardens when America
Online built one in the 1990s, and they do not like the prospect of
another one triumphing now.
A private universe, they suggest, will ultimately prove a dead
end for innovation and possibly for technology sector jobs as well.
"If someone else controls the distribution of your work and the
pricing, then you don't have a company, you have an affiliate," said
Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital
library.
If the goal is a diverse and truly free market for all technology
entrepreneurs, "you won't get there from here," he added. "But if
you want it to be a mall, we're well on the way."
As with most mall owners, Apple screens out those businesses it
judges unworthy or inappropriate. Perhaps it is not surprising that
a 2010 app from Tawkon, an Israeli start-up, did not make the grade;
it estimated the amount of radiation the iPhone was emitting.
"No interest," Steven P. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, e-mailed
Tawkon, according to the company. An Android version of the app has
been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times and gets generally
good reviews.
"We believe that Steve Jobs didn't want to associate the iPhone
with anything that could have a potential health risk," a Tawkon co-
founder, Gil Friedlander, wrote in an e-mail. "That said, Tawkon, as
our name infers ('talk-on'), was always a great advocate of mobile
phones while empowering users (adults & kids) to use them
responsibly."
Another startup, Fandor, a subscription service for independent
films, had a different sort of problem. Fandor's app has been
downloaded more than 100,000 times from Apple. Naturally, it wants
to market to these fans directly. But when members subscribe to the
service through Apple, it cannot. Apple considers the e-mail
addresses its property.
"The more Apple can control, the more it will control," said Dan
Aronson, Fandor's chief executive."It's nice to be king."
Apple declined to comment on Tawkon or Fandor, but in general it
has maintained that tight control is essential for ensuring the
quality of customers' experiences. The company screens out
potentially buggy or completely ridiculous apps, for example. And
Apple says the vast majority of apps -- more than 95 percent -- are
accepted on the first submission.
Mr. Kahle is not reassured. "Apple is creating a feeder system
where they get to learn everyone else's business model and then get
to compete with them."
