Old news to anyone who’s followed Apple for any length of time. So old, that the concept has its own Wikipedia page (scroll down to the section “Sherlocked as a term”).

What’s new though:

Developers have come to accept that, without warning, Apple can make their work obsolete by announcing a new app or feature that uses or incorporates their ideas. Some apps have simply buckled under the pressure, in some cases shutting down. They generally don’t sue Apple because of the difficulty and expense in fighting the tech giant—and the consequences they might face from being dependent on the platform.

The imbalance of power between Apple and the apps on its platform could turn into a rare chink in the company’s armor as regulators and lawmakers put the dominance of big technology companies under an antitrust microscope.

Not sure I see a solution though. Do we add a rule that Apple can’t build something similar to something already in the App Store? Should Apple be forced to compensate a developer whose business they’ve just made irrelevant?

I struggle with the idea of some government oversight making things better. More likely, it’ll just make an already complicated universe even more complex.