An app developer is suing Apple over the use of Sherlocking in the Continuity Camera

Reincubate, which makes the Camo and Camo Studio apps to turn your iOS or Android phone into a webcam for your Mac or PC, is suing Apple, alleging anticompetitive conduct and patent infringement.

Camo was released for the first time In 2020But two years later, Apple launched Similar feature It’s called Continuity Camera, which only works with Apple devices. Reincubate alleges that Apple “copied the technology” and “used its control over its operating systems and App Store to harm this interoperable solution and redirect user demand to Apple’s own platform-related offerings.” According to the lawsuit.

“The camouflage was used by thousands of Apple employees, across all divisions of the company,” the lawsuit says. “At first, Apple encouraged Reincubate to increase its investment in Camo. But when Apple realized Camo was a threat — it took steps not only to copy it, thus violating Reincubate’s patents, but also to undermine Camo’s functionality so that Reincubate couldn’t compete with Apple’s scam, called Continuity Camera, which was only playable between Apple devices and Mac computers.”

says Reincube CEO Aidan Fitzpatrick Blog post Apple was an early backer of Camo in beta, claiming the company has “thousands of employees” managing it internally and making “all kinds of promises” about how the app will help. “However, once we proved it could be done and users loved it, they took it and built our features into a billion iPhones, Macs, displays, iPads, and TVs, while shutting us down and preventing the additional interoperability we could bring to the ecosystem,” Fitzpatrick said.

Fitzpatrick says he was “confused” by the continuity camera launch. “Connecting two devices and looking for a combination didn’t seem like the kind of setup Apple would rely on. There was a global pandemic going on, and I thought that if Apple focused on user needs, acknowledged the issues with its cameras and the move to remote and hybrid work, it might seek to quickly iterate on innovation, perhaps even with a point release, while implementing some multi-year initiative to lead with cameras in MacBooks.”

But Fitzpatrick argues they’ve done neither: “As I write this, the webcams on many Windows devices still outperform those on my MacBook,” he says. If Apple wasn’t “all about video, why bother cutting off our own legs?” The answer quickly became clear: We weren’t between Apple and users, we were between Apple and its walled garden.

According to Fitzpatrick, this lawsuit raises questions about larger concerns than the Camus case, namely: “whether there is room for developers to incentivize core elements of the digital experience, or whether we should be limited to building stand-alone platforms in the cloud, or ideas that are too insignificant to be replicated and frozen.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.