| > What about for those who do own an Apple device and thus paid the "tax" to use iMessage, but want/need to use it on unapproved devices out of convenience? You'd probably be told no, that you can only access it via Apple's devices. Your options there are to access it via approved devices or use a different service. You cannot arbitrarily bypass requirements to use it how you want to use it and expect Apple to just organizationally shrug their shoulders. > The argument would be very different if Apple merely restricted the service to Apple IDs associated to a valid Apple device purchase, but that's not what they're doing. That's correct. They only want their hardware and software on all ends of this traffic. That is not inherently unreasonable or anti-competitive and is likely spelled out in the terms of service. > Would you also apply that argument to Microsoft Office files? Microsoft would sure love it if it would be forbidden to create/edit such files in anything but Microsoft software. Would you also want LibreOffice/OpenOffice/Apple's very own Pages/Numbers/Keynote to not be able to read such files? I think it would be a bad decision on the part of Microsoft to attempt that, as the file formats are already supported by other software and artificially restricting them to only Microsoft apps would only serve to drive users to Libre/Open office, but ultimately having proprietary file formats that are crypto-graphically secured is also not without precedence and also not inherently anti-competitive. At my current employer we sell specialized software for maintaining machinery, and our files are locked right down because that's how we make our money: the ability to open, save, and utilize our files is our entire business model so you're damn right it's secured. That's not anti-competitive either: if you don't like how we do our business, you are free to use a competitor's product. What you're not free to do is crack open our software and use it anyway. Edit: I'm being rate limited: > This is closer to a Telcom/Basic Utility law issue No, it isn't, because iMessage is not the only way to text on an iPhone. It degrades gracefully into full compliance with SMS/MMS protocols to allow it to text Androids, Blackberries, or flip phones. > and is the default way to text message on this "basic utility" platform No it is not, SMS/MMS is. If your iPhone is in a particularly bad data area, it will also SMS other iPhones absent it's ability to contact the iMessage service. > Interoperability should be a given IT IS. |
Obviously the formats have already been reverse-engineered long ago. But the world you describe and wish for, such reverse-engineering would be illegal, thus those formats would never have been reversed & implemented in third-party software.
> our files are locked right down because that's how we make our money
If your client software is able to open the files then it means the key must be on the user's computer (in your application binary?) or fetched at runtime over the internet and a user can technically make their own software to obtain this key and decrypt the file.
> What you're not free to do is crack open our software and use it anyway.
What if the user pays for your software (and its implicit access to any online key server that serves the cryptographic keys) but instead uses their own replica that mimics this software? That's what's happening when an Apple device owner (having paid for access to iMessage) decides to use Beeper. Both you and Apple still make money in this case. Should this still be illegal?
> you are free to use a competitor's product
I'm not sure what the nature of your product is, but this gets murky if your product relies on proprietary file formats or centralized services like iMessage. In this case, using a competitor would be inconvenient or might be outright impossible if everyone else is using this software and expects you to be able to open their files or interoperate with them.
Why should we allow arbitrary roadblocks to interoperability that don't accomplish anything beyond strengthening monopolies and restricting end-user choice and convenience? It would be fair if Apple argued for a reasonable fee to allow iMessage access to non-Apple-device owners but they've never made such argument.