Apple never denies apps or peripherals because they compete with Apple peripherals or apps. Never. The thing you are thinking of is when they don't approve apps that duplicate inherent iPhone/iPod touch functionality. That *can't* fit your idea that this is because it competes with their "own branded and thusly profitable peripherals" (or apps, I assume) (how do they lose a sale on something that is already part of the product?). This is easily explained by Apple's official reason: to keep the core experience intact.
iMovie, GarageBand, Texas Hold'em... These apps *all* have competition on the App Store. Docks, cables, headphones, smart covers, cases... These *all* have competitors in Made For iPod.
Your assertion is completely baseless.
What? I appreciate that you're coming from the Apple is amazing point of view, but seriously?
http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2008/09/13445/ - PodCasting app denied because Apple wants to keep the iTunes monopoly. Not because it duplicates anything on the phone, but because it duplicates functionality on the desktop.
http://androidencyclopedia.com/android-magazine-denied-on-apple-app-store/ - Android mag app denied on the AppStore - well because it's about Android. To me it's a pretty weak argument that you're so afraid of the competition that you attempt to prevent even learning about it? It's the equivalent of security through obscurity, why not compete on merit?
A quick google search shows millions of entries for this. I won't even bother getting into the publishing 30% debacle with in-app purchases which is a transparent attempt to lock down the iPhone to Apple iBooks offering.
Apple has a clear track record of doing this, saying anything else is just lying - definitely to others and potentially to yourself.
They don't control for control's sake. They don't even control for direct profit. They control to make the product more appealing to consumers. Control is *NOT* the purpose, control is the means. The purpose is a good working experience. Apple makes money by making products people want. They do this by making good products, not by controlling people. Every single Apple customer is a voluntary customer. They don't have a monopoly and they aren't a government. You don't hear people say, "I didn't want an [Apple Product], but I had to get one."
They do control for control's sake (although admittedly this is my opinion - since I can't mind read, and neither can you this is only opinion) and they do control for direct profit.
Yes a side effect of that control is somewhat of a decent working experience, but it were control for a good working experience then they would be more transparent with it - after all you want people to know what the control is, you don't want a confusing, variable and whimsical control experience unless you're after the control for the sake of control.
A well defined process with clear steps, feedback and acknowledgement would provide you with far more efficient (and I believe more effective) control for the purpose of providing a great working experience - but that isn't what the App Store has. And feel free to say it does, but it's really really easy to come up with counter arguments.
In other words, no, you can't cite a single example.
Not for the hardware side, no - but then again you can't provide evidence that they are all bunnies and light on hardware. For me the balance of probabilities indicate that they are as controlling on the hardware side as they are on the software side. There are millions of examples of that control (and don't get me wrong - sometimes that control is a good thing) on the software side. If you can show me that Apple is really a completely different company when it comes to MFI, great (although a weird split personality there) and I'll apologise and everything - but I really don't believe you can. If you can't show me that, well then why should I give them the benefit of the doubt when they already do a lot of controlling (whimsically and in their favour) on the software side?
Yes, I stated nerds and hackers will like it. You guys have essentially zero market influence. Google's choice will have zero impact on iPod/iOS device sales, because no one is going to care if they can wire up their own board (and in fact, they can with the dock connector, so this whole issue is pretty much smoke and mirrors anyway).
And when I say no one, of course there will be a few thousand. But that's not even a rounding error.
I'm sorry to tell you this but 'nerds and hackers' as you say it do have market influence - how much depends on too many factors to be able to calculate. But let's take a look at a few points:
1. They work at the companies building phones, tablets etc, I mean after all engineers count as nerds I suppose (not that I'm a fan of the labelling - if you want to pre-judge people before you have a clue about them, up to you but it's a good way to be wrong).
2. There are a lot of hackerspaces http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces all over the world with more springing up all the time - and each hackerspace isn't just one person.
3. You don't have to pay for the hardware - you can make it yourself, for example already: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHIN_Ylhk5o
4. Have you seen the number of different things done with the Kinect? And you think nobody tinkers with hardware at all?
5. Over 200,000 official arduino boards have been sold, and there are a lot of different clones - it's an open hardware design so anyone can build one.
6. People seem to rely a great deal on what friends recommend for devices, and if you're a technically qualified person you'll be asked about computing stuff, mobile stuff etc.
7. There are a lot of technically minded people - and from my anecdotal experience a lot of them prefer Android to iOS. Obviously this is based on the circles I travel in, but to me at least iOS is being rejected considered for a lot of business uses.
8. Barrier to entry for any hardware development company just became lower, and cheaper per piece of hardware sold.
Not even a rounding error.
And it's worse than that. You can only benefit from Google's Arduino kit (which is quite expensive, ironically) if you have Android. It's not like if you have an iPod, you are going to start tinkering with the Google kit unless you also have an Android device. So the real impact isn't just the small number of tinkerers, but of those, how many will have purchased an Android device instead of an iOS device due specifically to this kit, which is going to be an even smaller number still!
I'm not sure what the people who are excited about this seem to think is going to happen. Sure, this is cool and fun if you want to tinker with it, but it's not like people are going to decide to start tinkering around with their phones all of a sudden.
A few things - firstly cost? it'll go down, there will be clone boards in no time and it's not that difficult to build your own. Cost a few days after mentioning it? yeah I'd expect it to be high from a limited run.
People already tinker with Arduino and many other embedded microcontrollers - this gives them an easy way to integrate with a mobile device. I don't know how many people thinking about tinkering will go Android instead of iOS, that said, I don't know anyone tinkering who's interested in the locked down iOS. I do know people who tinker who started with iOS and have converted to Android.
I'd agree that I don't expect a sudden blip of an extra 100k activations a day of people suddenly buying Android devices to use with this, I do believe that it's another plus point for the Android platform. In some cases it will make a difference.
I also believe that in the coming year we'll probably see a number of released hardware extensions for some odd and interested tasks - all those people that you don't care about, and that apparently (if your attitude is anything to go by) Apple don't care about will make things and sell them. Some might even get a popular following outside of the tinkering minded.
If this happens and it makes Apple open up their hardware a little? Great - everyone wins. If it doesn't? Well it's not the end of the world - people who want to tinker can still tinker, people who don't care still don't care.
Finally - the stats seem to show that Android phones are more popular than iPhones, I'm of the opinion that Android tablets will go the same way eventually, same with the rest of the devices. I don't believe that Apple's closed and whimsical process is better than Android's more open process and I think that people are tending to go that way.
I may be right, I may be wrong. But currently I prefer the way Android is heading to where Apple is.
Z.