Friday, February 21, 2020

App Store Confidential

Juli Clover:

Apple is aiming to stop the sale of a new insider book called “App Store Confidential,” written by former Apple employee Tom Sadowski who ran Apple’s App Store business in Germany until November 2019.

[…]

Apple claims that the book reveals “business secrets” that are of “considerable economic value,” but Sadowski denies the inclusion of proprietary information. Apple also says that Sadowski has violated his employment agreement.

Malcolm Owen:

Lawyers working for Apple have ordered Sadowski and his publisher to cease deliveries of book orders, to recall all copies of the book that are already in circulation, and to destroy all manuscripts of the book. Publisher Murmann and the author have so far resisted the demands from the iPhone maker.

Previously:

4 Comments RSS · Twitter

My only question about this whole thing is: when do we get an English-language version?

Graham Lancashire

The book is slightly overrated and everybody who follows the App market will not be terribly surprised. What is clear from the book is that Apple focused on apps with large international audience (no surprise here) and that local niche players (even successful ones) have not got an ear at Apple.

@Graham I'm wondering if Apple legal is concerned about liability for those unsurprising things. For example, we all laugh when Apple talks about App Store review being a "level playing field" for all developers, but published confirmation of an open secret from an authority might be usable in any of the various ongoing suits against them.

Is this the correct legal strategy by Apple? Their aggressive legal threats have now effectively brought this heretofore unknown text to my attention. Where once it was unknown to a larger audience, the news coverage on the legal threats have likely greatly expanded the market for the book and Apple has not been successful in preventing its publishing and distribution, so I would tally this yet another legal blunder for the Cook Apple years. Congratulations?

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