Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft and Apple Use Intellectual Monopolies to Stifle Competition, Still

Power button



Summary: Microsoft punishes Datel for competing and Apple keeps patenting customer-hostile antifeatures for iOS

Microsoft and Apple both enjoy a monopoly in particular areas. The main difference between them is perhaps the fact that Microsoft broke the law to attain a monopoly position (compare to Google for contrast), not just to sustain it.



Recently, Microsoft needed to compete against Datel, which had more than one dispute with Microsoft. We wrote about their story in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Datel seems to have just given up, thus settling with Microsoft according to Microsoft's boosters in Seattle [1, 2]. Given the items' similarities, Microsoft had a strong case and Datel seemed like a provocateur. According to the another Microsoft booster from Seattle, the antitrust case carries on. It's just that Microsoft managed to tame a controllers competitor.

Apple is increasingly using patents in an aggressive fashion, just like Microsoft. Apple even sued over the use of Linux/Android. Here is Apple patenting spyware right about now. From the EFF:

It looks like Apple, Inc., is exploring a new business opportunity: spyware and what we're calling "traitorware." While users were celebrating the new jailbreaking and unlocking exemptions, Apple was quietly preparing to apply for a patent on technology that, among other things, would allow Apple to identify and punish users who take advantage of those exemptions or otherwise tinker with their devices. This patent application does nothing short of providing a roadmap for how Apple can — and presumably will — spy on its customers and control the way its customers use Apple products. As Sony-BMG learned, spying on your customers is bad for business. And the kind of spying enabled here is especially creepy — it's not just spyware, it's "traitorware," since it is designed to allow Apple to retaliate against you if you do something Apple doesn't like.


The FSF foresaw such malicious features. Also see news articles like:

i. Will Prior Art Doom Apple’s Anti-Theft iPhone Patent?

ii. Apple Inc. (AAPL) Stock Rumors – Will Your Next iPhone Know Your Face?

iii. Apple May Use Behaviour Analysis To Detect Unauthorised Users

iv. "Apple Envisions Tech to Photograph, Record IPhone Thieves

v. Apple may be looking to lock out unauthorized iOS users

This can also be used against the customer under particular circumstances, e.g. after a phone is believed to have been "jailbroken":

i. Apple eyes kill switch for jailbroken iPhones

The application, which was filed in February and published Thursday, specifically describes the identification of “hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or removal of a SIM card” so that measures can be taken to counter the user. Possible responses include surreptitiously activating the iPhone's camera, geotagging the image and uploading it to a server and transmitting sensitive data to a server and then wiping it from the device.


ii. Patent it and patent all: Apple's closed-wall garden approach

Apple applied for a new patent to block jailbreaking of its iPhone and iPad series of products, in its bid to maintain a closed-wall garden. A customer enters the new Apple store, which is the world's largest, on its opening day at Covent Garden in London August 7, 2010.

A customer enters the new Apple store, which is the world's largest, on its opening day at Covent Garden in London August 7, 2010.

Although jailbreaking of Apple devices was legalized, Apple intends to patent its mechanism which allows it to detect a jailbroken iphone, iPad or iPod and restore it to factory settings.


Who would choose to become a customer of such a company? A reader of ours who bought a Mac several years ago put GNU/Linux on it some years ago, especially because he realised that Apple had gone rogue. A couple of days ago he explained: "I wonder about the time line here:

Can I use Apple's Runtime APIs?

"On up to and including 10.4, Apple was really doing well by FOSS.

A Brief History of Mac OS X

"Version 10.5 was developed during the worst of Jobs' illness, before major treatment. Version 10.6 was developed during his convalescence.

How Steve Jobs Got Sick, Got Better, And Decided To Save Some Lives

"That leads to questions of what kind of staffing problems arose then during the obligatory absence that now need to be cleaned up to get back into the groove."

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually