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Inside Apple's iPhone SDK Gag Order
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Tom Yager takes a closer look at Apple's iPhone SDK confidentiality agreement, which restricts developers from discussing the SDK or exchanging ideas with others, thereby leaving no room for forums, newsgroups, open source projects, tutorials, magazine articles, users' groups, or books. But because anyone is free to obtain the iPhone SDK by signing up for it, Apple is essentially branding publicly available information as confidential. This 'puzzling contradiction' is the 'antithesis of the developer-friendly Apple Developer Connection' on which the iPhone SDK program is based, Yager contends. 'You'll see arguments from armchair legal analysts that the iPhone developer Agreements won't stand up in court — but those analysts certainly won't stand up in court on your behalf.' Anyone planning to launch an iPhone forum or open source project should have 'a lawyer draft your request for exemption, and make sure that the Apple staffer granting it personally commits to status as authorized to approve exceptions to the iPhone Registered Developer and iPhone SDK Agreements,' Yager warns."
I had no idea about this. I don't follow apple things (...) but given how sue-happy they are, they can certainly live without MY buying any of their gear.
simply because of this, alone; I vow not to buy an iphone. I was not really in the market but now I know for sure that apple is on my blacklist (at least the evil phones).
apple: are you trying to dislodge MS as the most hated computer company around? keep it up, mate....
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
nuf said
Is the way the iPhone dev Center refuses to use a cookie and remember your login info. Every stinking time you want to download the new SDK or check for new sample code, you have to log in. Again. Then you close your browser and and hour later, oop, sign in again. I've downloaded the SDKs now a total of 9 times, so I've definitely typed in my login name and password at least 20 times now. Considering there's no software update for XCode I'd imagine most other devs have too.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
I am a big Apple supporter and member of the apple rumors community... however...
Apple can get away with this because they can outspend almost any web/forum site. If they are in the right or wrong, who cares? They can keep throwing lawyers at you until you give.
They attack Apple rumors site on a routine basis for BS claims of copyright or trade secrets. If I take a picture of somebody else holding a pre-release iPhone, how is that copyright? They are in the public!
Look at the EULA and Apple attacking the company making mac clones. Most lawyers do not think that the EULA would stand; however, no company (other than microsoft or google) could tolerate the time/money that fighting would cost.
So with this NDA issue, I can't buy a book, read a forum, get any assistance at all with writing my iPhone application... So what the hell good is an SDK you can't talk about? Is this cellular fight club or something?
Apple, fix this shit. Really. Fix it now. There's no excuse for not letting the NDA go, no way that it protects you. The phone's been jailbroken, it _will_ be unlocked, so why stifle development?
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
After all, the iPhone SDK cannot remain a "beta" forever, and once it's no longer a beta, I presume the SDK will show up side-by-side with the MacOS X Cocoa SDK from which it was derived.
Most of Apple's beta stuff has the same confidentiality agreement, so I presumed this was just a bug.
The market will bear it, and that's that.
What?
Stanford has announced that it will be offering an iPhone development course. I would also expect that many books on iPhone development are being edited to be published soon. For these to occur, iPhone development information cannot be under NDA. So it's just a matter of time. Apple is not stupid.
...then the future for computer users and developers is heading toward some pretty shitty seas.
http://mediagoblin.org/
Can we please have a "-1, Stupid" mod?
Apple doesn't support developers.
They focus solely on end user consumers.
This forum is in contempt of the NDA.
Only if it applies to those MacFags.
I'm puzzled as to the "why" of this. The excerpts support the article's claim well, and I presume the excerpts are genuine, but the part I'm missing is why Apple would even _want_ something like this. It seems like the SDK is the next big piece in ensuring iPhone world domination, so it seems like they'd want to foster an active, healthy development community, and not strangle it. Do they have a paid community site which offers tutorials and forums to members or something?
What parallel universe is that in? When I connect to my account there, I cannot share bug reports with anybody else and search the bug database for similar bugs already filed, how's that dev friendly???
Apple doesn't want me to program their hardware. I hear and will obey...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
If you do a Google search for "apple developer forums" the top hit is the developer discussion at "discussions.apple.com". Most of the discussion there at the moment is about iPhone development. This discussion is in no way private.
Well, maybe that's because, like most other professions, lawyers need to be paid money in exchange for work done.
Giving legal advice and running proceedings costs money and exposes the lawyer to risk (i.e. suits from the person receiving the advice if they rely on it and it turns out to be wrong).
Read Pynchon.
With a mad dictator like steve jobs at the helm, what more would you expect?
He'll demand that people conform to his world view, and demand that the people working for him force their customers to conform to his world view.
Now, he's demanding that his workers force his customers to force THEIR customers to conform...
*phew*... I'm so glad I don't work for / with / against / near Apple. I get winded just thinking about them!
A secret survey conducted by the Rand Corporation in the 1970s confirmed that any person attracted to white, plastic machines completely without sharp edges is an utter homosexual, subconsciously wishing to insert them into his rectum.
Wow. I gotta watch Wall-E again...
This is incredibly surreal.
I went to ADC on iTunes, click on a link and get referred back to a page (which had an appIdKey, so that's why I'm not listing it)... and WTF but the link to the Registered iPhone Developer Terms and Conditions is a link to XKCD.com
Not that I mind much (excluding being able to read the conditions), but WTF?
Can you think of a single fanboy that doesn't defend his obsession to death? ... then again, I guess that *is* the definition of fanboy.
Back in the mid 1980s during that chip recession, companies turned to "Customer Service" to differentiate themselves from the competitors, as common integrated circuits were averaging a penny per pin, so there wasn't much profit unless you had a big presence and focused on ASICs and cranked them out fast enough that the competitors couldn't keep up. So there was some humility in the high tech business back then. And the recession affected not only chip makers but every company that used them. Too much inventory.
But now I think the companies that survived the dot com crash have become incredibly arrogant. They never seem to learn from history despite others losing everything as they went out of business. They don't care about customers since they think they are invincible after surviving. Well history doesn't play very well for that attitude. Once you are on top, the only place to go is down. Witness Microsoft.
It won't end until the piratebay.org steps in and provides a safe, secure, overseas forum to discuss apple products.
... its just talking to another human being who has the same program you have... like, Idea sharing.
OH wait, this isn't even piracy. It isn't even 'stealing'
I guess they really mean it when they say "Think Different". As in, don't you DARE think what he's thinking. Don't even think about thinking about it...
A bug ... kinda like that one that said that Safari had to be installed ONLY on apple branded computers?
You know, the safari that apple pushed out through the itunes update to a whole bunch of PCs on purpose?
That comment actually makes sense and isn't the over-emotive whining elsewhere.
It is the old argument that us PSP owners with custom firmware keep using - "I bought it, so I'll do whatever I damn well want with it."
except with the SDK, you don't buy it.. they give it to you, so you don't have that leverage.
...you don't talk about Apple SDK Developers club.
apple doesn't support end user consumers either. It only supports people who conform to their idea of an end user consumer...
When I first got into Palm development 10 years ago, there was a vibrant and amazing community...I used to participate heavily in the mailing list and forums back then. If you wanted to do something that wasn't explained in the manual, you could post a question...and there was a good chance the person giving you a reply was one of their top OS design engineers. Microsoft started doing some of that later on when they had so many employees with free time on their hands...but you couldn't put a price on that kind of interaction. It seriously helped me pick up the platform so quickly, and that helped me build a pretty good career for myself. Even now I'm still a Palm OS hobbyist for mainly that reason.
I can't see that happening with iPhone. What a stupid, stupid way to go about things. Palm didn't even have a robust platform, and they kept a huge market dominance way longer than they should have by making it easy to develop for their platform by keeping things out in the open. You had to sign agreements, but it wasn't this fascist Apple crap for sure. I'll take on any Apple fanboy on that point.
Actually ... Many law firms are required to provide a certain number of pro-bono (free) hours... so...
nothing good has never come out of sharing development ideas: http://sourceforge.net/
my mom posts on slashdot.
This is par for the course for Apple. They make a habit of suing or gagging (by gag order) enthusiast sites... Apple fans almost joke that they know when a leak is dead-on when the lawsuits start. They mismanufactured (and maybe still do -- who knows?) the Intel Macs, specifying a full tube of thermal paste per CPU instead of a dab... and when someone published an excerpt of the service manual which ALSO said to use a full tube.. instead of Apple saying "oops", they Cease and Desisted them into pulling this info down. There's the wireless card driver hole from last year* -- Apple pushed the people who found this hole into using a 3rd-party card to demonstrate it -- and THEN had the nerve to play it up as "ohh.. that didn't even involve Apple wireless hardware", and making sure Apple fanbois filled in the blank (inccorectly) as "Apple wireless hardware drivers were not succeptible" instead of the truth that Apple just strongarmed them into not demonstrating it. That's just from the last year. In general, Apple suppresses info about hardware flaws both on their forums and to a lesser extent elsewhere. Between this and PR, people seem to think Apples are flawless, and they are far from it. I would NEVER buy a Macintosh because of a) general dick-like behavior of the company and b) I'd NEVER, EVER get a straight answer on if a model has any production problems, bugs, flaws or "issues".. as I can about Dells or just about any normal model.
*Which also was present in drivers for quite a few cards -- buffer overflows, allowing possible exploitation without even being associated to a wifi network by sending out corrupted wireless packets.
Kaspersky dosen't like that idea
Slashdotters apparently don't like that you can never write browsers, music/video players or background applications.
I can't think of any other company that has ever done anything like this. I'm really just curious, has any company ever publicised a SDK that has been so very private and restrictive? No other browsers?!?
This story reminds me of the time I tried to hook my Apple cinema display up to my Cable box's DVI port, it's just not worth it, even if you get it to work, you have 5 more lbs of monitor you've got to hide somewhere, just because Apple wanted to squeeze a little dough out of people with more proprietary cable connectors.
Apple has always been about "Show me the money", every action they take reemphasized that they are only interested in more money, not innovation. Here though, they really go out of their way to stifle innovation with literals like "...calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise...". It really says it all, don't bother trying to write this for our hardware, you may compete with us in such a way that we can't fuck you properly.
Apple.
Sign your life away, forever.
Apple is your god now.
Your life as you know it is over.
Apple is to be worshipped forever and ever.
Apple tv, Apple phone, Apple cpu, Apple
games [ lol ] , Apple colours, Apple [noun].
Apple is as open source as [ I can't think of
a good pun ].
Apple will go open source when pigs fly.
There. I got it.
Who will they sue, exactly?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If enough users fail to read the EULA, can a latin precedent for "Let the Manufacturer Beware" be argued?
...this just means that you need to host the forum in Antigua, China or any other country currently not willing to tow the USA's line. Certainly wherever they're currently hosting DeCSS
http://www.consumerdepot.com/products.asp?id=N810RB&referer=google
It is not only "like" the iPod touch, it is far and away more capable.
+++ATH0
Is the SDK out of beta yet?
They probably just don't the internet covered in websites with out of date SDK information, so that 5 years down the line Google searches will still bring up incorrect changed API tutorials online.
This is a big problem sometimes with other platforms.
It's no longer a beta since iPhone 3G release. But NDA is still in effect.
If you read the documentation that is available after agreeing to the discolsure agreement, you'll see that it is all marked as unfinished. They have a reasonably strong argument in their favor of preventing the widespread publishing of stupid wrong information based on incomplete and potentially incorrect documentation while they finish it up.
The NDA will surely be lifted when the documentation is finished.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
"If you're planning a forum, newsgroup, users' group, open source project, book, or any discussion of iPhone development, the only path to protection from liability is explicit written approval from someone at Apple."
Mail to Apple:
"Can I receive written permission to discuss this on Slashot?"
Reply from Apple:
"I'm sorry, we're not allowed to answer your question, but our lawyers have already been notified and started a lawsuit against you for sending this e-mail. Thanks for your trust in Apple."
It has the same CPU at a slightly slower clock rate and the same amount of memory. It takes SDHC cards, so saying it has "less storage" would be dishonest.
You could start with the physical keyboard, Bluetooth, lack of application restrictions, and the fact that it plays more formats of media as for it being more capable.
I currently own an iPhone. If there existed a device like the N810 with a GSM radio, I would buy it immediately and sell the iPhone. Unfortunately, I fear such a device will not exist for quite some time -- more than likely, years -- due to pressure from cellular carriers on handset makers to get them not to produce such a device.
Carriers do not like devices that empower their customers.
+++ATH0
Why?
+++ATH0
....but it's not a real solution, unless there is a real alternative. Unfortunately, openmoko is just plain poorly designed, too expensive, and did I mention that it sucks?
What we need is an openmoko that not only beats the iphone all the way on price and freedom, but on design as well. Hell, just clone the iPhone exactly for now.
With the inherently poor design decisions that seem to consistently go into FOSS projects, such as Ubuntu and OpenMoko, I have to wonder if they don't have some voracious and vocal corporate plants somewhere in the project actively sabotaging the overall movement. Or maybe I need a tin foil hat.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
These licenses, as well as EULA's often spout the oddest things. Give it time, it will be rectified eventually. Until then, use common sense.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
Just curious, this is an honest question. I understand that Google isn't all sunshine and flowers either when it comes to their Android platform, but how to other devices like the Treo and Blackberry compare for being more 'developer friendly'?
I'm mainly a Linux/Open Source user but I really don't have a problem with people paying for software if that's what they want to do.
But I really get annoyed with the people on /. who view Apple as a company that does them some kind of favour.
There's no doubt that Microsoft wants nothing more than to lock users into Windows & developers into DotNet but because they're so vocal about it, Apple themselves uses it as marketing tool in order to position themselves into the market also, as being "better than Microsoft".
But the fact is, both companies make use of closed source operating systems and deploy DRM heavily in their products. They are also both owned by shareholders and therefore have a duty to make as much money as possible - any director in either company would be kicked out, and might even find him/herself in a courtroom if he/she didn't make that the first priority.
So let's stop with the pretence that Apple is any different to Microsoft - they're not. And whilst you may think it's "cool" & "geeky" to own a Mac or Macbook, in reality you've just been suckered in by Apple to pay more for a computer purely because it's a fashion accessory - but if you're happy with that then good luck to you.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The only explanation I can see for Apple's recent surge in popularity is their marketing, which is absolutely top notch.
Hmm, it canÂt be because they switched to Intel then, and Macbook and Macbook Pro being superior in all respects towards other laptops. Better hardware certainly has nothing to do with it (beautiful screen, excellent sound, nifty things like superdrive and magsafe, integrated with OS, etc). Noo, it canÂt be that..
And donÂt get me on to how glad I am I switched to OS X from XP and Vista. Can you say bye bye annoying popups? DonÂt get me wrong, I dislike some of the dumbed down interface in OS X programs and Finder is horrible, but functional once youÂve gotten used to it, but to get out of the XP/Vista experience, which gets more and more horrible, itÂs worth every penny.
iPhone is the best phone/mp3-player/gadget IÂve ever owned, hands down. It has such huge potential too, and thatÂs the only thing its lacking: manifesting all that potential... or a competitor will do it.
So, yes, I know Apple is bad in how they treat their customers (IÂm not a "consumer"), but to give MS competition, and to get away from shitty laptops, thereÂs unfortuantely still no cure yet. Competitors: take a clue from Apple (yet again)..
Give me a non-shitty OS / laptop / phone, and weÂre talkinÂ. Does it make you feel good to call others fanboy? Most people just want gadgets that doesnÂt suck so horribly as Dell, HP, XP and Vista.. something that just works without being in your way when youÂre working.
Or maybe you just canÂt afford Apple, poorboy?
Seems it has a TI OMAP 2420, 400Mhz, which has roughly the same graphics system as the iPhone.
True for game consoles and smartphones.
In the case of game consoles, it is necessary due to the business model of selling the console cheap and cash in on the games (which is questionable in itself, but as long as it persists the consoles need to be closed).
In the case of smartphones, I don't quite understand it. Those you get for "free" are typically coupled with a 2-year-contract that will make sure you pay the phone through the monthly fee. I don't see how locking up the platform is necessary for those vendors.
APIs for stinking video cards, however, have a few exceptions. Most notably AMD/ATI who are releasing specs these days. Intel at least provide an Open Source driver for their integrated graphics. Between those two, you should find documented graphics hardware for most scenarios.
C - the footgun of programming languages
I used to have an iBook -- the graphite-looking one -- for about 7 years (until I fell on it and broke it). I still own a 1st gen iPod. And I own a shiny new (ok, now it's about 2 years old) 2nd gen MacBook.
But I'd really have a difficult time talking my conscience into buying Apple hardware again. I mean, up until not-so-long-ago, they used to be... aehm... different :-) Maybe they were always a little "stranger" than the rest, but that wasn't necessarily bad. Ok, their price tag was pretty impressive... but hey, at least Apple hardware had (and still does have) the looks :-)
But lately they're outright turning evil.
Tata Apple, was nice while it lasted!
I own an iPod Touch and it is HANDS DOWN the greatest tech device I've ever bought. There is nothing else like it on the market right now.
It's a music player. Maybe Cover Flow gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, and maybe you like to "touch", but there are plenty of other fine music players. In fact, just from the point of playing stuff, something with real buttons that you can feel when the thing is in your pocket is superior.
The reason I don't have an iPod is because I need to use iTunes in order to use it. iTunes has destroyed my music collection, not once but several times. The iTunes user interface also has serious problems, as the many third party attempts at fixing it show.
The iPod Touch hardware is nice, but until Apple opens it up so that it can officially synchronize with other music management software and until it can officially be programmed as an OS X system, I think it's foolish to buy one.
He missed Voodoo.
Er, no wait, he did say Marketing.
paintball
Huh? Every Nokia phone has an ARM CPU. If you want details of the instruction set, head over to the ARM website and grab the thousand page ISA reference PDF.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Just drop the whole "marketing" meme. It wasn't true last year, it's not true now and it doesn't look likely next year
It wasn't true a few years ago... Macs were genuinely better, but it is becoming increasingly true.
I was using Macs for a couple of years as my primary machine and also recommending it to my extended family, but I have switched to Ubuntu now and only use the Mac as a media player.
Ubuntu has more of the software that I use, is more consistent, is easier to maintain, and is cheaper to boot. Ubuntu also doesn't suffer from the spinning beach ball syndrome. The Mac used to be the king of eye candy, but even there, it has been surpassed.
Family and friends have also started switching to Ubuntu from Mac and are really happy with it because Ubuntu just works, while the Mac keeps bugging them with software issues.
The iPhone SDK is still a beta release, and the restrictions on discussing it are precisely the same as we Apple developers have always had for developer seed releases of OS X. Jager's trolling for page hits.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This entire forum discussion - in particular this post - must be immediately removed from the internet as it is in direct violation of Apple's iPhone SDK confidentiality agreement.
Respectfully, Apple
1. There are multiple versions of ARM CPUs. We don't know any official details. There might also be Nokia-specifc additions to the ARM instruction set.
2. There are many undocumented components in the phone besides CPU. The knowledge that the CPU is ARM is insufficient.
3. Even if I magically created a fully-compatible OS (which I doubt I ever will, given the huge number of undocumented components), there's no way I can get that phone to boot it. This is in sharp contrast to the OpenMoko, in which booting my custom kernel is as easy as editing a line in the config file of the boot-loader.
I believe that the title "Open phone" should not be given to any phone which offers less freedom than the OpenMoko.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
where if it doesn't have a CLI it's just a ball of fluff.
Gentlemen, start your flamethrowers!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Check out Apple's own forum where people are discussing the iPhone SDK and have been for months http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=727&start=0
The iPhone SDK is not beta any more. The download is iphone_sdk_final.dmg
Someone(not me) has created a petition to lift the SDK http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/iPhoneNDA/
But because anyone is free to obtain the iPhone SDK by signing up for it, Apple is essentially branding publicly available information as confidential. This 'puzzling contradiction' is the...
Apple has placed a restriction on the information, so that less than 100% of the public has access to it. Whether my front door has the deadbolt thrown or not does not affect whether or not my house is a public place. If I close the door, it's NOT a public place, even if anyone is free to knock on the door and get invited in. If you don't agree to put out your cigarette and refrain from smoking, you can rot on the porch for all I care, you're not coming in. And if you try to light up if I let you in, out you go!
Same thing here. This is Apple's, and they have the right to outline terms on which you can partake, just the same as I can outline how you need to behave in my house. And if you don't like the terms, you're free to stay outside.
There's nothing contradictory about it at all. Unless you consider everything public. (somehow this reminds me of the Free Rogue's Motto, "what isn't nailed down is MINE. What I can pry loose, isn't nailed down")
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Apple will probably want to wait until the SDK is more stable before lifting the NDA. Yes, it is out of beta, but after reading forums such as ArsTechnica it seems that it is still crashy as hell, regularily require re-boots of the entire developer system (i.e. the Mac) and re-installs of firmware on the device (Iphone, Ipod Touch). If they lift the NDA now, the forums will overflow with questions indicating that the SDK is not as good as it should be, the Media will love to use that as basis for negative articles about.
Someone handed me a Sansa e270 they couldn't get to do what they wanted.
I looked around, and found http://www.rockbox.org./
From their site:
Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players, written from scratch. It runs on a wide range of players:
* Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano
(not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd gen Nano, Classic or Touch)
* Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
* Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5, M5L, M3 and M3L
* iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
* Olympus: M:Robe 100
* SanDisk: Sansa c200, e200 and e200R series (not the v2 models)
* Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series)
So, in theory, you can have that wicked cool Apple hardware, and the ability to play oggs, flacs, wavs, all sorts of games, video if you have the horsepower, and anything else you want to compile.
I love it.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Not surprising. Apple is closed. This just another example of that.
For that reason, I am always surprised that many open source fans are also Apple fans.
Jesus just slapped you again. When will you stop making excuses for him?
Long Live Wozniak!!!
_____________
Q: What is the problem with Vista?
A: XP
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
Isn't this the same tactic that killed the TRS-80's? User groups, developers and software authors couldn't use the name "TRS-80" in their name, literature or products. This is one of the things that made it fail. Even though the TRS-80 model IV had more features other computers at the time; IBM-PC, pre-MAC Apple, &c.
Nobody talks about the SDK!
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
1. This is intentional and Apple just tries to control this device with all means. By keeping up the NDA they can tolerate what they like to tolerate (and come on, there *are* mailingslists for iPhone developers and there's also code posted) and at the same time sue everyone to hell and back who they don't like. Of course this means that there will be hardly any books, courses, forums and so on. Which makes first-hand knowledge and programming experience with the iPhone a kind of intellectual capital which is very valuable to companies. And this might launch the next stage of the Intellectual Property madness. Doom!
2. They just forgot to pull the NDA or haven't been able yet to modify their developer program and paperwork to allow protection of future betas while opening up the currently released NDA. Apple is totally overburdened right now and it may well be that there are quite a few people taking a few weeks off after launching the G3, appstore and SDK, working 60h/week for a while. You know how it is.
Take a pick.
A friend of mine (who loves to hate on the iPhone) sent me a great link that might be of interest:
Gizmodo article on devel limitations
Some of the points raised:
I defend the phone and Apple as much as I can, but I have to admit that these are some pretty good points.
Any of you jokers actually read the agreement for yourself? It's linked to in the article. It's quite clear to me that the author of the article ( and you blind "me too"-ers ) is making a mountain out of a molehill. The crux of his argument is the conflicting statement that Apple says all confidential information must not be shared, and then later a contradictory statement that "All iPhone materials are confidential"
Do you really think Apple is trying to keep you from discussing function calls, or maybe just MAYBE it is an error in the agreement that needs clarification from Apple.
No, can't possibly be a simple mistake.
Mod me up if you're man enough to discuss it.
What also sucks is that the official documentation is a joke. It doesn't explain anything very well, and the sample code, more often than not, do not work. If you go to the official apple forums, some people will answer and help, and some dickheads will just respond with, "Sorry, can't respond because of the NDA."
Now, this being the internet, they may be dickheads who don't know and just enjoy being dickheads. They also might be the kind of pompous dickheads that know and hide behind the NDA. Either way, it's annoying that that is my only source for information. There is no "vibrant iPhone developer community" at the Apple forums because of this shit. There could be a "vibrant iPhone developer community" elsewhere, but the NDA doesn't allow it.
The SDK isn't beta right now.
I think the iPhone has great potential, but until the development kit is as open as Palm's (the Palm OS SDK was based on GCC and included an open source emulator) or even Microsoft's I'm not interested. I'm not interested in jailbreaking an iPhone, or otherwise sneaking around behind Apple's back either. It's not a "smartphone" in the usual sense, it's just a really nice high end cellphone.
I'm also not that much interested in Android, since its only official API is Java based. It seems like you can run Java apps in half the phones out there these days, so it's not really offering a lot more than Nokia or Samsung.
So this whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. There's nothing that really matters for open systems developers, because these aren't particularly open systems even without this kind of restriction.
freenet? It wouldn't be too hard to create a small secure network of people who want to develop on the platform.
Agreed in many places touch technology is misplaced. But on a small device, being able to remap the controls (or keys) to suit the specific task is a huge benefit.
Most of Apple's beta stuff has the same confidentiality agreement, so I presumed this was just a bug.
Psh. Where's the potential for vitriolic outrage in that? I mean honestly... how can you expect critics to make comparisons to fascism if it's just extension of the same practices they've been using for almost a decade?
The real litigious bastards...
Everyone who is posting at the forum has violated the SDK and Apple is collecting names. Settlement terms will be very generous - just sign over the copyright to your App and Apple will agree not to sue you for violating the SDK.
Clever bastards! What will they think of next?
After all, the iPhone SDK cannot remain a "beta" forever
Probably no longer than the Gmail beta.
I've seen no evidence that this is motivated by money, so there is no reason to draw that conclusion.
Other than that every iPhone application developer must sell their apps through Apple's store? Or that AT&T must get all revenue for voice calls despite the technology existing for more featureful voice communications?
Nah, irrelevant, it must be completely capricious.
n810 + Bluetooth DUN FTW.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
> but when one person/group/company controls the entire ecosystem
I can't help it if people can't understand that there isn't a "Vista PC". Microsoft just makes one component that PC makers use, along with CPUs, GPUs, storage devices, power supplies, etc. to make a system. Buy from a crappy company and you get a crappy machine. Blame the company who sold you the system if they didn't properly integrate the subsystems.
Apple has the advantage of making the OS and the integrated systems, but the drawbacks have proven to far outweigh the benefits. Yes, proven.
The invisible hand of the marketplace has rendered it's verdict. If Apple's way were better they would have found broad market acceptance by now and not just be a small[1] niche seller of luxury goods to customers who buy status symbols. Especially nowadays since Apple is a fabless builder who could double their production in China with a phone call... if they had more customers willing to pay super premium prices for under performing products with insane legal restrictions.
How many times per year does /. excoriate Apple for the huge fscking hole in their product line they refuse to fill, just to gouge their limited customer base? That tells me that Apple is convinced that introducing a midrange choice would just result in most of the current customers buying that instead of the insane Xeon monsters they have to buy currently and few new customers being added. And they are probably correct.
The knowledge that Apple is totally sue happy is probably a minor reason major accounts avoid them. Individuals generally don't care, knowing they would have to do something infamous to be worth suing, but a corporation with deep pockets and a legal department worries about getting entangled with rogues.
[1] iPod excepted. They managed to dominate that segment for a while, but competition has finally delivered enough quality products at better prices that their dominance is fading. But I was never tempted to buy one, knowing what sort of assholes Apple are. Although the older units that can run Rockbox tempt a bit on the grounds that eBay should be able to supply replacement hardware for a few years.
Democrat delenda est
All of these.
Out of the box, the N810 is a more capable device than the iPod touch. The Bluetooth, GPS and USB hosting are just three examples of why. That's not so much "specs" (MHz, etc.) as "what it can do."
Now, that said, the iPt is a bit cheaper. But to me, it's no contest between the two. The feature set of the N810 is far and away better than the iPt's.
Putting a phone into either one of these devices changes the equation SIGNIFICANTLY. I own an iPhone (jailbroken, of course), and would not trade it for anything else on the market right now.
+++ATH0
I don't think this is dramatically different from VMWare's EULA, which specifically precludes users from sharing performance analysis/comparisons of their products without their express consent. Of course, it's a bit more draconian, but it's not entirely unprecedented:
You may use the Software to conduct internal performance testing and benchmarking studies, the results of which you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware at benchmark@vmware.com to request such review.
Original source of the VMWare Server EULA (as an example) posted here.
And good luck getting their consent if the comparison isn't favorable...
My point was that it was barely slower while being a much more capable device.
And I was right, and he was wrong.
I'm afraid not, it supports whatever miniSDHC cards you can put into it, and 16GB cards are already out.
As an iPhone owner, I can confirm this is quite false. The iPhone has no Bluetooth stack as such; rather it has a bit of stub code that allows headsets to function and that's it. This is because Apple hates any technology outside its control, and it does not control Bluetooth. It lacks A2DP, OBEX, and several other key Bluetooth functions for no reason beyond Jobs' control obsession.
No, I didn't. The N810 is not a phone. It is an ARM-based MID, just like the iPod touch. I didn't "change my argument to be about the iPhone," which is a MORE capable device than either the iPod touch or the N810. I pointed things out about it because it is a similar device to the iPod touch and I actually own it.
+++ATH0
Kind of funny how all these years people tried convincing themselves, and others, that Apple wasn't a brutal monopoly.
Welcome to the reality based community.
iTunes is free.
Let's say I've created an OS. My customers are shouting at me: "Windows users can move music to iPhone using Windows-version of iTunes. ThisOS users can move music to iPhone using ThisOS-version of iTunes. ThatOS users can move music to iPhone using ThatOS-version of iTunes. However, I'm unable to do so. You are a technically incompetent programmer. Your OS is so crappy that it doesn't support moving music into iPhone. Your OS is not able to do something that's done by more popular OSs. I'm gonna switch to AnotherOS."
I really don't know how many OSs are supported by iTunes. But the whole damn point is that the list is _finite_ and _apple-dictated_. Why the hell should a phone manufacturer force PC users to choose their PC's OS from a finite list of OSs dictated by the manufacturer. Is there anything so inherent in technology that the manufacturer has to do so?
if iTunes didn't exist, you'd still have to install some Apple-written piece of software on your system to synch it with the iPhone
The anti-competitive practice of forcing customer's choices even when not needed has become so common that people have got used to it. There's actually no reason why the software has to be Apple-written. Apple can just publish technical specification of the interface between PC and iPhone. Competent programmers or OS-writers will do the rest.
you're complaining because the piece of Apple software that you have to install does more than the bare minimum?
No. I'm just complaining that Apple is tinkering with my freedom in more ways than are actually needed.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
This works absolutely fine; I can confirm this having used it myself.
As for GPS, there's always this guy: http://iphone-gps.blogspot.com/
The iPhone 3G can be jailbroken as of quite recently. This more or less makes it a totally non-locked-down device; to the point that the kernel isn't checked by the bootloader anymore and can run custom kexts.
Nevertheless, because of its superior capabilities, IF the N810 had a GSM radio like the iPhone, I would absolutely get one of them instead -- and also, I wouldn't have to worry about dancing around the manufacturer to be able to do what I wanted.
+++ATH0
for being a non-fanboy about these things.
+++ATH0
Nokia makes open devices like the N810 which are well-designed and have hardware anyone can write code to use. Maybe some things like the PowerVR chip are not implemented yet, but the software gets markedly better as time goes on -- and anyone can improve it.
Compare this to Apple and the iPhone's Bluetooth, which no one can improve but them, and they make no promises about it whatsoever.
Wouldn't you rather have the freedom to work on things like these yourself -- and at least some hints as to what the company plans to do with the platform?
+++ATH0
Can you wait a couple months?
+++ATH0
So with this NDA issue, I can't buy a book, read a forum, get any assistance at all with writing my iPhone application... So what the hell good is an SDK you can't talk about? Is this cellular fight club or something?
Actually that's not all true - some publishers are being wary and not releasing books. But anything else you can do today - ever since the release of the SDK there have been forums that provide assistance and people helping other people. There are also sites with tutorial videos.
And of course Apple themselves offer a ton of resources and sample code.
It would be great if Apple would clarify or lift the NDA thing but the practical effect at the moment is pretty minimal. It's also not stopping a few of the apps in the app store to release source under the GPL (WordPress and BoxOffice).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I would hardly call the vast amount of effort that has gone into developer docs "Begrudging". Apple does actually provide a great deal of really good documentation and sample code for all platforms...
If they hated developers so much why would they even have WWDC?
Just because Jobs doesn't dance around like a monkey chanting "developers" is hardly a reason to claim Apple hates them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Personally, I think it's a good thing that Apple has draconian policies regarding their faux-open device. Market pressure will force other phone and service providers to create truly open competition for the iPhone, devices that won't require iTunes or "secret" SDKs. It's only a matter of time.
In fact, if the iPhone was completely open, it would be much harder for the competition, including Google, as they wouldn't be able to compete with an even-more-open device-- face it, the iPhone isn't all that open, really-- until end-users can write their own toy apps for it, the term "open" doesn't really apply-- regardless of who actually wants to write for it. On the internet, anyone can provide content, and content includes custom and homebrew applications. Apple has left their flank wide open on this one and it's only a matter of time until an AT&T competitor or a Google or Microsoft will hammer them over it, at which point Mr. Jobs will get religion.
In fact, if Microsoft had a brain in Ballmer's head, they could use this opening to gain themselves some needed positives-- an "open" phone (even running proprietary MS software, but with the ability for anyone to freely produce apps for it), could give MS a few sorely needed brownie-points for openness, and MS has the clout to pressure the Verizons and Sprints of the world to allow themselves to be raw data providers and stop trying to micromanage, meter and profitize every last little mobilephone feature...
Sorry, but the rant is pretty irrelevant - as an iPhone developer today I participate in a few forums, and mailing lists. These have been running since the launch of the SDK.
While it would be good for Apple to clarify the whole NDA thing, it's not stopping people from helping other people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think the iPhone has great potential, but until the development kit is as open as Palm's (the Palm OS SDK was based on GCC and included an open source emulator)
The iPhone compiler is GCC... and includes an emulator (not open source but it does work really well). And you can use most XCode/Interface Builder/Shark/Performance Tool features for debugging and optimization, right on the device...
I'm also not that much interested in Android, since its only official API is Java based. It seems like you can run Java apps in half the phones out there these days
That's so incredibly ill informed one hardly knows where to begin. Android for a start, is not J2ME... It's a totally different ball of wax. It's a whole mobile OS built from the ground up with a Java API.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is the year of the OpenMoko Plamtop! I promise!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You can't install iPhone software on your iPhone using the devkit. That's a crippling restriction.
As for Android, J2ME would be *more* open than a proprietary Java-based API.
Developers can't touch or enhance iTunes or iPod functionality in any way, shape or form -- they can't even access your music directory, meaning you better like the way the iPod button works just the way it is.
That doesn't stop people from writing other music players - like Last.fm.
No processes can run in the background -- apps have to completely quit when exited, completely contained in their little sandbox.
But background notification is going to be supported soon, which will work for most apps.
Devs can't integrate apps or functions into the OS.
Not wholly true, apps integrate into the OS settings panel.
Devs don't have deep access to the hardware.
Deep is different than "direct". You don't have access to the hardware directly, no, but you do have some API's allowing pretty deep access to things like the accelerometer, or to the 3D accelerator with OpenGL.
Apple's app review process is a complete mystery to developers and takes forever, which can affect app quality and horribly delays app updates.
While I would say the app review process is still mysterious, some apps have been approved quickly (as in a day or two). Both issues are basically a matter of load on Apple at this point, I would say.
Apple limits app testing to five devices, so there is basically is no beta testing.
That's DEVELOPMENT. There's a whole different mechanism that allows for up to 100 beta testers.
Apple's number one priority is Apple.
And as an iPhone developer I'd like to keep things that way - I'm not successful if Apple is not. We need each other, and Apple knows that.
Basically, that was a REALLY old list, and the last point is pure Apple Haterism.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Posting AC? Check.
Ill-informed rant about Apple? Check.
Apple hater? Check.
I'm a developer, have run EVERY sample project, and all of them out currently work just fine (and have for numerous previous betas which I also tried). If you can't make them work you have issues, not Apple. And generally I have found the docs to be really good except in a few instances where they didn't link up some constant in the documentation to the set of possible values.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You can't install iPhone software on your iPhone using the devkit. That's a crippling restriction.
Since I have been doing just that to test, I take exception to it being a restriction - much less crippling. I can install any software I choose using the dev kit.
In fact if anyone released source code for any of the supposed "prohibited" kinds of applications I could compile and deploy those to the iPhone, too. Apple has no knowledge (nor cares) what a developer deploys to the phone.
As for Android, J2ME would be *more* open than a proprietary Java-based API.
I'm not sure where you're getting this weird idea Android is less open than J2ME. They work on pretty much the same model as far as updates being accepted back into the mainstream.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I disagree with this... I think that Apple's intent is to control their stuff to get that "seamless, just works" experience for users. The fact that this creates "lock in" is secondary.
One reason I believe this to be true is that iTunes, for instance, doesn't really lock you in--you can work around Apple's DRM and burn and rip Apple-formatted songs to MP3 (or OGG, or whatever) and you can use the USB harddrive feature on an iPod to use the iPod without iTunes.
So it's more of a "soft lock" that makes the whole experience better for Joe sixpack (while inconveniencing power users) rather than some intentional scheme for lock-in.
Just my $0.02, of course.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
That's a load of crap. Their products are popular because they work well. Locking them down is *one way* to ensure that they will work well, and designing them robustly so that they are flexible, powerful and simple to use is *another way*. Apple won't be able to keep this tight control once there starts being some competition that can offer both user control and good usability.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
I thought it was the war we weren't supposed to talk about?
...laura, confused
No, it is not listed at $320 because it's a display item. You can buy them new at $309. Google, learn to use it.
It is also not the same class of device as an iPhone; the iPhone is a PHONE, the N810 has no telephony hardware -- much like the iPod touch, than which, again, it is much, MUCH more capable. As to how "cool" it is, that is subjective. In terms of capabilities, however, there's no contest; the N810 wins big-time.
+++ATH0
I have been doing just that (installing software to the iPhone with the devkit) to test,
Not without paying Apple $99 for a key.
There are a number of OTHER things which the N810 has that the iPod touch does not.
+++ATH0
I have not downloaded or installed the SDK. I am not an ADC member. Never have been. I have never obtained or purchased a product, service, or anything from Apple that that might subject me to involuntary claims.
So, does that mean I alone can start a forum about Apple's iPhone SDK, and I am fine so long as I never enter into such an agreement? As we have seen in cases about forum hosts the individual users are responsible for compliance with such agreements or laws, and they can post anonymously so long as the forum allows that, and the forum host has no obligation to try to investigate the identity of forum users in that instance.
So I am golden, right?
Anon :D
Not without paying Apple $99 for a key.
Then your Google skills really suck. Hint: Jail_____
Not that paying $99 is any kind of real burden on a device that costs a few hundred dollars to start with.
The main point in this, of course, must not be lost - you were dead wrong. In multiple ways.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Back in the days, I did the first hard drive for the Apple ][. That is I did the software that went in the eprom on the interface board. The code was straightforward and I remember it being a pleasure to work on. Even though it was written in 6502 Assembly. This was unlike what you have had to do to write a hard disk driver for Dos or Windows where you had to install TSR device filters and bend over backwards to make it work, or pay a huge amounts to MS for the installable file system kit, if you could get it at all. MS wants $1000 for Visual Studio, but development comes for free with Mac OS X.
They absolutely refused to tell me which CPU they put in the server I bought. They bent over backwards so as not to tell me which model of the Xeon CPU was in the SC1420 servers I invested in. The Intel CPUINFO program gave numbers that didn't correspond with any known part and Intel said it was up to Dell to disclose which part they were using. Both Intel and Dell pointed at each other, and I never did get to know what part was in the machine. So much for Dell openness
gives you the ability to run 1000 users on your app. Is that enough of a beta test?
"In Soviet Apple,
Rules break you!"
Harshness of the law and rules is compensated by not abiding to those rules.
Friend, expecting people to buy a devkit or crack (and risk bricking) their phones to use open source software is not merely "misguided", it's "damnfoolishness".
If the guy who gets your software can't modify it, it's not "open source" in any meaningful sense of the word.
Let alone being an "open system".
Going back to my original message, "I'm not interested in jailbreaking an iPhone, or otherwise sneaking around behind Apple's back either. It's not a "smartphone" in the usual sense, it's just a really nice high end cellphone."
And for a lot of people, that's all they want. That's all they need. For the people who are buying iPhone, the vast majority of them, this whole issue of access to information about the development environment is irrelevant. It's not a "Pocket Mac" even as much as a Windows Mobile phone is a "Pocket PC". It's a nice cellphone from a company that does decent user interfaces, and trying to make it more than that is just a waste of time.
Friend, expecting people to buy a devkit or crack (and risk bricking) their phones to use open source software is not merely "misguided", it's "damnfoolishness".
You have to buy a computer to program. You have to download a compiler from somewhere. In every thing people do, tools are required - certificates and cracks are just another kind of tool. You only refuse to accept them because it upsets your worldview.
If the guy who gets your software can't modify it, it's not "open source" in any meaningful sense of the word.
But I can download, modify, and run it all without cracks or a certificate (on the emulator).
Going back to my original message, "I'm not interested in jailbreaking an iPhone, or otherwise sneaking around behind Apple's back either. It's not a "smartphone" in the usual sense, it's just a really nice high end cellphone."
You can say it all you want but it's still wrong by any common definition, and certainly by the definition of most phone buyers. Given that the iPhone can do more than any other phone, I'm not sure what to call anything else if the iPhone is not "smart".
It's a nice cellphone from a company that does decent user interfaces, and trying to make it more than that is just a waste of time.
I would say it's rather a greater waste of time to keep your head in the sand and pretend the iPhone is of no consequence for mobile development, considering it will be driving mobile development API's from everyone for years to come. But hey, you're free to ignore the most popular smartphone on the planet if you want and let the world of mobile development pass you by. Good luck with that.
I'll let you have the last response, since Apple Haters feel the need to post last for some odd reason.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You have to buy a computer to program. You have to download a compiler from somewhere. In every thing people do, tools are required - certificates and cracks are just another kind of tool. You only refuse to accept them because it upsets your worldview.
No, because I've 20 years experience supporting users: internal users, external (commercial) users, and users of open source software, on more variants of UNIX than most people have ever heard of... including OS X.
Apple Haters [...]
I've been accused of being an "Apple Hater" before, and an "Apple Fanboi", and a "Communist" for supporting open source software, and a "Proprietary asshole" for supporting commercial software. When you start calling people names because they disagree with you, you need to ask yourself if you're really paying attention to what you're saying. Because you're not listening to yourself.
A gag order is involuntary. Hence 'order'.
An NDA is voluntary, hence 'agreement'.
You may not like the terms, but you have the right to decline (in which case you don't get the SDK). You're not entitled to have the SDK.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA