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Apple Targeting Business World for the iPhone
The New York Times is running a couple of stories about the future of the iPhone in the business world and Apple's plan to maintain control of application development. Now that the iPhone SDK has been released and the "App store" has been demonstrated, Steve Jobs is pushing for the adoption of the iPhone as a standard business tool. In addition, a venture capitalist named John Doerr has launched a $100 million "iFund" to spur development of applications for the iPhone. From the NYTimes:
"Mr. Jobs was upfront that there are limitations on what applications can do. He talked about bans on pornography and malicious programs. He also said Apple will not allow any application to be installed on the machine other than through the iTunes store. Nor will applications be permitted that enable an end run around Apple's deals with wireless carriers. Many questions remain unanswered. How much streaming video will Apple allow, because the iPhone is such an interesting video device? Mr. Jobs did say that the application development environment will have a lot of capabilities for video playback. Will Apple allow a service like Last.FM to offer streaming music on the iPhone?"
Newsflash! Company markets product! More at 10.....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
A ban on porn? So no webbrowser, no image viewer, no movie player, no music player, no phone. Because the internet is made for porn, 99% of images is of the jpg sisters, movies were invented to view naked people getting it on, it is bit rare but some people like a sexy voice tell them a tale, and offcourse there are the common sex chat boxes and the like.
How many of you used an old fashioned calculater in school to write 80085 on its screen? Exactly what is he proposing to ban here? Erotic games? Well that is a small market, so small that one of the first Nintendo DS games (fully official) had you tickling a girl. A NINTENDO GAME!
It makes sense in a Walmart kind of way, if you got a big store you might not want to have an adult section for fear of scaring people off. It makes sense, so how many supermarkets are there that don't stock playboy?
A few weeks ago we had the story that ISP's should get into the content business again from Sun's McNeal. Portals. Do you know why they failed? Because ISP's too were deadly afraid to be linked to porn and so banned it from their portals. But the internet IS porn and so people quickly had to learn to do without their ISP's portals, found the real web and never looked back.
I wonder, are the movies on iTunes censored? Will those who hope iTunes will take over content delivery one day find that tons of movies with content that doesn't meet Steve Jobs approval will no longer be available?
Offcourse when it comes to Apple most slashdotters have blinders on, but still, how is this different from an ISP who puts a filter on its network to shield its customers from unwanted content wether they want to be "protected" or not?
I am sure some rabid apple fan will explain it all away if I am not modded down for questioning the mighty Jobs but still, I can do with a laugh.
Luckily google is here! Gee, what a choice and fully open platform vs a closed one. That is going to be a though one. Android to the rescue, it may be less secure, it may soon be targetted by tons of malicious software and my spreadsheet will talk dirty to me, but I take that any day over the small minded closed and controlled enviroment of Apples offering.
Offcourse as I said in the opening, the iPhone will still be filled to the rim with smut, because it is impossible not to. But remember, when Larry Flint was under attack everyone who valued free speech came to his defence because if you value free speech you will defend smut. Now is the time to check where you really stand, if you think it is okay for Apple to have such thight control over what goes on to hardware it no longer owns, then you think it is okay for ISP's to filter you, for MS to decide what software you can install, for game developers to decide what you can and cannot mod.
Are you really prepared for a future where some coorperate overlord tells you what you can do on your own hardware?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think the point is that iPhone has (or will have, starting in June) a first class Exchange support, not some halfcocked hack.