Last week I asked “Will AT&T use their iPad and iPhone data plans to attack net neutrality?” Today, Steve Jobs stood on stage and did exactly as predicted, he showed that Apple will be a preferential media delivery partner of AT&T. This is an opening shot in what I suspect will be the unraveling of net neutrality. When a significant percentage of internet browsing devices are iOS (the new name for Apple’s iPhone OS), the internet will have been co-opted by a device and software maker – scary times indeed.
So what did Steve announce? The new iBooks app on iPad and iPhone will not incur any additional data charges against your plan on either the iPad or iPhone. Your digital books will remain synced and accessible from any Apple device, free of AT&T data limitations. If you use the Kindle app (or any other reading app), tough shnookies. The Kindle app, already playing in an unfair game (in that it has to send people from their iPhone/iPad app over to the browser for purchasing thanks to Apple’s exorbitant in-app shopping experience) now also has to contend against data caps that Apple gets to workaround. Apple and AT&T are moving quickly to lock users onto their ecosystem for all media delivery.
I still love Apple products but this is something to watch closely. At what point will this become anti-competitive monopolistic behavior? When Apple moves movies and music to the cloud and gives themselves the same preferential treatment, people will be talking about this a lot more – I guarantee it.
