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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."
apple: are you trying to dislodge MS as the most hated computer company around? keep it up, mate....
They're already there, as far as I'm concerned. Apple's business practices just reeks of some mad power trip in general. They absolutely despise people using their products (be it hardware or software) in ways that they had not intended. Microsoft is FAR their superior in that regard. The main evil with Microsoft is seen by the IT professional, not the consumer. With Apple, it's generally the other way around.
The only explanation I can see for Apple's recent surge in popularity is their marketing, which is absolutely top notch.
So... I guess this kind of mentality puzzles me. There are a lot of apple users out there, who, like you, acknowldge that they're being dicked around mostly even because you take interest.
To me it almost seems like an abusive relationship. You care about them, they beat you up, and you keep coming back. Why?
Note, I don't mean you, per se. But it seems pretty common in the Apple fanboy communities.
http://mediagoblin.org/
Is this cellular fight club or something?
Not quite. I expect the iPhone SDK NDA bullshit will end with the end of the Android SDK NDA bullshit. Neither wants to show their cards first.
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.
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.
The only explanation I can see for Apple's recent surge in popularity is their marketing, which is absolutely top notch.
So in the past 10 years, the switch to a unix based operating system with modern object oriented apis, the switch to intel hardware that made an easier transition for windows developers, the acquisition and development of technologies like multi-touch, the negotiating with record labels to break out of the subscription model, the adoption of open source for many parts of the operating system (from Darwin to WebKit) and so on had nothing to do with it?
Yeah, it's silly that they haven't lifted the NDA yet, but it's not like developers have gotten excited about their platform because of brightly colored commercials.
Every anti-competitive trick used by M$ is also used by Apple. However, M$ has a monopoly and Apple doesn't. For some people, this is reason enough to abstain from hating Apple. Unfortunately, such people don't realize that they are just becoming silent promoters of such tricks.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
As an owner of an iPhone 3G who previously owned dozens of different phones from all possible manufacturers (SE, Nokia, Siemens, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, just to name a few), I have to say that iPhone is superior for two simple facts:
1) It is, BY FAR, the most intuitive and easy-to-use-out-of-the-box phone I have ever used.
2) It is fun to use. Sure, all new phones are fun in the beginning, but after 2 weeks with this phone I still enjoy every time I surf the web or write an eMail with it. Something that never happend to me with any other phone (and not with any of the same generation competitors of the iPhone).
So yes, it has many downsides, Apple are bastards when it comes to their control freakiness but their products are better.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say sometimes Apple's anti-competitive practices make Microsoft look like angels by comparison.
I'm no M$ fan in anyway but I do find it remarkable how much stuff Apple get away.
"but there is nothing wrong with that because Apple has no monopoly in any market."
Nothing wrong to you maybe, personally I think no matter what the game, the players should all be playing by the same rules.
"the whole sue-the-blogger fiasco was grounded in law"
Yea, grounded in bad law, which doesn't make it right. The Nuremberg trials after the Holocaust established that.
Let's be clear, given the evidence at hand, if history was different and Apple were in Microsoft's position there would be, if anything, far less openness and freedom for innovation in the software industry.
Er, what? How is that good governance. I'm trying really hard to think of why we should allow artificial product tying ... and failing.
How is society served by requiring iTunes to activate an iPhone? How does the free market benefit when Apple abuse their iTunes install base to install Safari for Windows?
I can swallow "natural" tying .... like the iPhone SDK to a Mac .... because implementing the SDK in a cross platform fashion is hard and that shouldn't be an aspect of law. But Apple actually had to go out of their way to make the iPhone depend on iTunes and I'm just having a really hard time seeing why that kind of crap should only be illegal when you're a monopoly. Because to me it seems inherently bad.
Another non-sequitur. A company is just a group of people. It's not illogical to dislike a company, anymore than it's illogical to dislike a group of bullies at high school, or a band, or a political party. Companies don't get a special "get out of emotions free" card through virtue of being incorporated.
I agree, but you have to remember that their overbearing protection schemes are also the reason that their products are popular. Say what you want about it from a Freedom perspective, but when one person/group/company controls the entire ecosystem, they're able to weed out the junk that plagues the other ecosystems out there. A year and a half on I still can't get decent drivers for Vista for my very-current-at-the-time system, but I've absolutely never had issues of hardware or driver compatibility on my MBP.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?