Besides, when I have a problem with a friend, I don't threaten to boycott our friendship until they change, so I'm not going to do that to Apple either.
Apple is not your friend. Friends are people, not organizations.
Good post otherwise. Though I do wonder if Apple is legally obligated in some way to at least show that they have made a good faith effort to review applications that they are distributing. If there was no review process and people were distributing kiddie porn apps, could Apple be held legally responsible?
Not to get into corporate personage, but corporations can still be benevolent or malevolent, friendly or hostile. I don't know if I'd call Apple friendly - they're a bit aloof to be friends - but a company like Pixar I'd readily call a friend.
"Friendly" is distinctly different from "a friend."
a company like Pixar I'd readily call a friend.
I love Pixar, but they're not my friend, and they're not your friend, for at least three reasons:
1. Pixar, like all public companies, exists for one purpose: to make a profit. In fact, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their owners to pursue this purpose and if they don't, they can be sued.
2. Pixar is an organization made up of thousands of people. It's impossible for a group that's made up of thousands of conscious and self-determinant humans to be your friend. You might as well say that North Dakota is your friend.
3. Pixar does not know who you are. They do not know your name, what kind of ice cream you like, or why you enjoy riding a bicycle built for two. And to the extent that they do have any of this knowledge, it's referred to as data and is used in pursuit of the goals described in #1.
Unalone - corporations are by nature, by their charters, sociopathic entities. I'm not trying to be a hater, it's just the truth. They exist for very specific purposes, and by design they pursue the highest profit margin possible (publicly-traded companies in particular). There's a real danger in assigning human emotions or anthropomorphic qualities, it unnecessarily confuses policy issues.
Think of someone complaining about their computer or a program, "It doesn't waaaaant to! [do whatever]"
Hmm...that doesn't seem to be a fair analogy, though. It's not just that Apple is providing the OS that runs the software, they're actually distributing it. A better analogy might be Walmart allowing anyone to come into their stores and put stuff on their shelves to be sold on their behalf. I doubt that Walmart would be legally safe once drug dealers, prostitutes, and illegal arms dealers starting piling their wares in their stores.
You could be right. The only way to be certain of removing legal liability would be to allow people to install software through other means than the app store. Having the an app store as a kind of 'premium/safe' zone makes good sense - making it compulsory is the problem.
Apple would be fine, just as a web hosting company is fine if someone puts illegal content up. They'd have to make it clear that they are not the content producer and respond quickly when a legal complaint is received but it's not as if this is uncharted legal territory.
Apple is not your friend. Friends are people, not organizations.
Good post otherwise. Though I do wonder if Apple is legally obligated in some way to at least show that they have made a good faith effort to review applications that they are distributing. If there was no review process and people were distributing kiddie porn apps, could Apple be held legally responsible?