JMaille

I guess I did forget to mention the issue of companies allowing employees to access company network systems with personal devices.  But then when you have major corporations allowing random HVAC contractors full access to the corporate network (including retail and credit card systems) just to monitor the temperature in some stockroom somewhere, why be worried about what some unhappy employee might steal from you or do to your company network.

I know for many people this is easier said than done (potentially even being impossible) but you should never, never use a personal phone, computer, tablet, or any other personal device for work for an employer.  And it follows that you should never setup a personal device to have any type of connection or visibility of any of your employer's network or data.  Doing so can bring about a ton of problems from a legal standpoint.  In the situation described in this article a company could argue that being able to tell what is on the personal phone is not a bug, but a feature -- because they have to be able to protect their systems and network from potential malicious devices.  And that follows anytime you use a personal device for your employer's benefit.  They can argue that they need full access to the device (i.e. they need to search it) to protect the company and you as the employee using the device in this manner is a tacit agreement to such search.  And then there is the whole issue of if someone sues or criminally charges your employer.  Your personal device then becomes just another piece of evidence they may be able to get full legal access to regardless of the device's status as "personal."  FYI, not a lawyer but there is a ton of information about this out there on this type of thing -- I'm surprised people are still doing it. BYOD is a huge red flag for anyone looking for a position with a company.

Could the split to a different App Store for Europe be necessary to implement the changes required to charge developers directly for the use of Apple IP and backend systems in their apps directly since they won't be able to recover those costs as they do currently?

Time to start piloting the new program of charging all developers for the use of the API based on number of apps distributed.  I'm sure that those 1500 developers will find that a much more fair way of charging for the use of Apple's intellectual property.

I wonder if anyone at Apple has been paying attention to what Reddit did recently?  How much will it cost for developers that don't use the Apple App Store to use the APIs that Apple has developed?