[aptgetrekt]

Phones are tools so why is it that whenever those tools are used in a way where money changes hands, the maker of that tool gets some of the revenue?

Imagine a tool company demanding a cut of the revenue a building generates because their tools were/are used during the construction/maintenance of that building. Everyone using the tool already paid for the tool!

[tpmoney]

Without comment on specifically whether or not Apples actions are reasonable, I suspect that if tool manufacturers were expected to provide years of free upgrades to end users of their tools in order to support an ever changing security landscape and close any issues caused by the combination of their tools with 3rd party services, that tool manufacturers would be interested in getting a continual cut of revenue generated by those interactions.

That is, if I buy a paint sprayer, and combine the sprayer with paint sold at Home Depot that a 3rd party maliciously contaminated with caustic chemicals and that combination of sprayer and caustic chemicals caused a reaction in the paint that melts my walls, no one expects the sprayer manufacturer to give me a free new sprayer or even upgrade my current sprayer to be hardened against 3rd party contamination.

On the other hand if NFC protocols today are discovered in 3 years to have a flaw that 3rd parties are using to steal financial data, it’s Apple whose name will be dragged if they only make a change to NFC in newer model phones.

[lxgr]

Your comparison doesn't make sense to me: Isn't it much more like Home Depot selling a paint sprayer that, under some circumstances, blows up the attached can of paint? That would absolutely mandate a product recall!

Apple isn't expected to fix bugs in a third party's app using their APIs, but they're totally expected to fix those APIs, should they be faulty (conceptually or in their implementation).

Obviously that costs money, which they can make either from the sales of the phone alone, or via some subscription model for ongoing updates (remember when OS updates used to be paid? A new OS X version used to cost a hundred bucks!).

To stick with the Home Depot example: Why should the manufacturers of third party paint cartridges pay for Home Depot's product safety obligations?

[gamblor956]

*I suspect that if tool manufacturers were expected to provide years of free upgrades to end users of their tools in order to support an ever changing security landscape and close any issues caused by the combination of their tools with 3rd party services, that tool manufacturers would be interested in getting a continual cut of revenue generated by those interactions.

This is an actual issue in the real world that is dealt with using "support contracts." They've only been around for a few centuries or so...

Apple's problems are those of its own making. And if it keeps trying to bait regulators like this, it may soon find itself referred to as "Ma Apple" and its former divisions as "Baby Apples."

[Am4TIfIsER0ppos]

With that logic maybe banks and credit card companies should start skimming 30% off each transaction. [EDIT] They should also strong-arm you to prevent you mentioning cash as an alternative.

[talldayo]

Apple makes famously insane margins off each iPhone sold. I don't think they can legitimately fall back on the "but we can't support it otherwise", since they already do. The cost of developing new iOS builds is amortized by the hardware they sell and the profit they rake in. Even when service revenue was a shadow of what it is today and Apple was far less liquid, they had no problem supporting their hardware.

In professional industries like avionics, automation and fabrication, open tooling and security maintenance is the baseline expectation. It's only in captive consumer markets that businesses can convince their customers that they don't want the freedom to use what they paid for.