Apple’s Neutrality Runaround

It recently occurred to me that Apple’s name was noticeably absent from the list of companies supporting Internet neutrality (or perhaps I’ve just missed it). As a provider of iTunes music and videos, as well as software updates, it seemed to me as though their bandwidth needs would be a prime candidate for higher tiered service.

A few days ago, the Apple rumor mill turned out a theory that Apple would bundle bittorrent in the next version of their operating system. Users would get credit (perhaps on iTunes) for sharing their harddrive space and bandwidth to serve tiny bits of Apple content, like music, videos, and updates.

This would essentially remove the need for them to sign up for a higher tier of service, because their serving needs would be completely distributed in terms of time, space, and bandwidth. While this has been around for years in the linux world, building a commercial model on this technology would be a fascinating innovation.