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Why the Kill Switch Makes Sense For Android
Technologizer writes "It came out this week that Google's Android phone OS, like the iPhone, has a kill switch that lets Android Market applications be disabled remotely. But it's a mistake to lump Google's implementation and Apple's together — the Google version is a smart, pro-consumer move that avoids all the things that make Apple's version a bad idea."
In some ways it'd be stupid not to include a kill switch. The increasing power of smart phones means we'll be soon seeing rogue applications. This won't stop crapware of course, but at least it gives an option to stop malware type apps dead their it's tracks. The existence of the kill switch may not really be a deterrent to spyware houses looking to exploit the mobile platform, but hey it's something.
Hopefully this is used well to cull dodgy troublesome and harmful applications from the ecosystem because the trade off is a potential for abuse of power, but google isn't evil... right?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Really?
I get that Google's the new geek darling, I really do -- but this is ridiculous.
A kill switch is a kill switch. Period. If you can remotely disable an app on the user's phone, it's a kill switch. Now you may trust one company more than another, but trying to spin it like it's something else is just silly.
(For the record, I don't trust either company's killswitch. I don't own an Android phone, and I've disabled the killswitch on the one device I use that runs iPhone OS 2.1.)
The real litigious bastards...
A kill switch in any type of consumer device owned by the consumer is bad, no matter what platitudes are used to justify it.
If people trust Google more than Apple that's fine, just don't insult my intelligence by claiming it's OK for either of them to much around with a device I paid good money for and therefore is my property, including whatever happens to be installed on it.
It doesn't matter what the so-called reason is, period.
Kill switches are for ICBMs and evil terminator robots, not cell phones.
Why does one have to be good and the other bad?
Well, the kill switches could be the same. However, the Mob has already concluded that Apple's is bad. Now the Mob is trying to work out whether it can conclude that Google's is good without committing hypocrisy.
It's hard out there for a Mob.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Why does one have to be good and the other bad?
The argument the article makes is that both kill switches only affect items installed via the respective online application stores (Google's Android Market & Apple's App store).
The big difference however is that on an iPhone, you can only* install applications via the appstore, whereas you will be able to install Android apps from a multitude of sources, including the market.
I don't believe the kill switch 'makes sense' for either platform, but Google's implementation can't be the big stick that Apple's implementation could be.
* Yes, I'm aware of jail-breaking, but that's not a realistic option for most consumers.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
An Android user has the Android Market, while an iPhone user has the App Store. But if an owner of an Android phone decides not to use the Market, this user need only visit another site with Android applications to install any mobile app outside of Google's purview. To put it bluntly, Android has a multitude of possible channels for the distribution of apps. The iPhone does not. This functionality is built right into Android and isn't the weekend project of some particularly clever hacker. Furthermore, keep in mind that this kill switch will only affect apps distributed through the Market, not those installed from the Web.
The kill switch on Android only affects the apps downloaded from Google's Android Market. The Android user can still download and use apps from other web sites without worrying about the kill switch. OTOH, the iPhone can only use apps from Apple's app store but not from any other source. So there IS a difference. Of course, there's the possibility that Android doesn't really have the facility to connect to third party app stores and TFA is just spreading lies.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
> "Google good, Apple bad."
Google: Some apps we say are okay, some we don't, but we still let you install the ones we don't okay freely and easily
Apple: Some apps we say are okay, but if you install others we're going to fry your phone.
So yeah, google good, Apple bad. Not to mention the fact that Apple blocks apps that "do too much." God (Jobs) forbid you have too much functionality in an app. Google only "doesn't recommend" apps that "suck", but if you disagree you can still install them.
Latewire
So I can't see how Google's is more pro-consumer.
You have to see the forest for the trees; the forest is what Apple can do to your use of your iPhone compared to what Google can do to your use of your Android.
For any application A, Apple can prevent you from running A by not letting it be sold on iAppz. If you buy app A from gAppz, Google can delete it, but they can't prevent you from running it altogether since you can download it from my-gAppz.author-of-A.org.
If you bring the companies' past behavior into the picture, you're trying to use it to predict what will actually happen. That sounds like buying music from Wal-Mart based on the promise that "we would never shut down the DRM servers", versus buying mp3s from amazon: one of the companies can decrease the value of your product, the other can not do so.
It stands to reason that those who can't decrease the value of your product [that would be Google] are more pro-consumer.
-- Jonas K
Hmmm... sock puppetry much? Unbiased summary? Not a chance.
You have to admit that strictly speaking both Apple and Google can disable "an" app, which is all the original poster was saying and found offensive. *You* may think that disabling "some" app is not as bad as disabling "any" app, but you have to respect people for whom the idea of disabling "some app" is already completely offensive.
Riiiiight. Did you know that there is a place where almost all computers and devices are connected and can run absolutely anything? Its called the Internet, and I don't see the web randomly crashing all the time, the entire network thing is only a cell company excuse so they can control the network to make you pay more.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Hunh? Since when is it a good idea for anyone other than the owner of a piece of hardware to decide, without the right of the owner to override, to uninstall software?
Mostly because it's via the marketplace. From TFA:
Google intends to have its Android Market be the central repository for the vast majority of mobile app distribution. Their oversight will provide users a reservoir of safe, trusted apps under the promise that they have been checked for quality, much like the promise of the App Store....
Sounds very much like what I get from the Ubuntu repositories.
Think about it -- every repository for every distro, or even every sufficiently-privileged package manager, is a kill switch for your computer. When a repository has (very occasionally) accidentally delivered a package with some sort of malware attached, that package was immediately rolled back -- effectively killing the malware. There's no reason a critical update couldn't do anything it wanted to my system -- after all, I have absolutely no warranty to fall back on.
Which means I guess we'll all have to wait and see if this applies -- or is ever used -- for software other than malware, and/or software distributed through channels other than the Marketplace.
That's the real difference -- we're all speculating about how this might work. Apple already has banned apps for no discernable reason whatsoever ("I Am Rich").
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Did you not even read his comment? "undue inconvenience" pretty much includes having to jailbreak your phone.
google can do wrong
microsoft can do no right
apple is ok, but please don't make believe it is as good as our darling google
all evidence to the contrary be rationalized to fit into pre-established prejudices in the manner of the story summary
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So to make the phone any real use to you you have to hack it? Ill just sit here and enjoy my windows mobile phone, which has no killswitch and does'nt require jailbreaking to make useful :)
So you're basically saying it's funny because it's not true?
Of course not; it would be ridiculous to find something funny just because it isn't true. Its overt exaggeration and utter political incorrectness makes it quite funny, though.
You can install other apps on the iPhone, too. It's called Jailbreaking.
Kind of like buying a house and having to pick the lock to get inside. No thanks.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Many other people are explaining the article. They don't cite sources either.
In fact, as far as I can tell, people are simply making things up based on wishful thinking.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Jailbreaking is voids the warranty. Installing Apps from a source other than Google on an Android does not. If you have to go through a procedure that only few people can do (and from the large number of people on Yahoo Answers that cannot properly "jailbreak" their iPhone, don't argue that it's easy) and you risk damaging your phone where you have to go buy a new one, just to install applications that aren't made by the company that sells the phone... then it cannot be compared to the ease with which the Android was DESIGNED to enable adding third party applications.
So sure. Anything is possible. That doesn't translate to "anything" being right.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
The real test will be when somebody comes up with an Android application that uses all available bandwidth, or provides a free service that is comparable to a paid service offered by the phone company. Then we'll see if they're different from Apple.
Remember... The iPhone OS is open source too.
Here's where you can download the source to Android's OS
Can you please point me to where you can download the source to the iPhone's OS? (not Darwin, but specifically the iPhone's OS)
Oh - that's right! You can't.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Except the lock pick comes in the form of an app that takes less than a minute to do its magic and you never have to deal with it ever again. You're just one of those cool counter-counter-culture kids who think that hating whatever's cool is awesome.
No, he's just smarter than you. Do you even know what the unverified binaries in that "magic app" of yours actually do?
Jailbreaking is voids the warranty.
No it doesn't, you simply restore the phone before bringing it in for service.
Voiding the warranty, and then lying and covering your tracks to claim you didn't, qualifies as fraud. Or were you unaware?
Hey dumbass...
#1. He says "if your family makes less than 250 thousand dollars, you won't see a penny of your taxes go up" or words to that effect.
#2. "Joe the Plumber" isn't a licensed plumber. His first name is Samuel. He made $40K last year. And under Obama's plan, he'll get a $500 tax cut. So he can stfu.
#3. You're offtopic.
These are not Google's phones. These phones belong to their owners and it is the owners who should have control over their own equipment, not Google. Google can control the Market, as it is their store and they can set their own rules as they please. The line is crossed where they feel that they can decide that purchases that have already occurred are no longer valid. People seem to see this when it comes to DRM. Why is it so hard to grasp when it is Google who's doing it, especially when they don't even hold the copyrights for these apps?
Imagine that a store accidentally sold a big anticipated product earlier than corporate wanted them to. Does that mean that they should be able to force their customers to return everything they rightfully purchased during that early sale, especially without explanation or a refund? This is the power that Google is giving themselves.
Jailbreaking DOES void the warranty
Repeating a lie doesn't make it true.
Apple will not service a Jailbroken phone - but that doesn't mean they will not service a phone that has been restored to the original OS, an operation that takes about five minutes. Once restored Apple cannot tell if it was ever Jailbroken or not.
and if somehow the install ends up messed up, you are screwed with an unbootable iBrick that has no warranty.
And making people afraid of a harmless process that CANNOT BRICK an iPhone even if it fails is despicable.
You seem to confuse unlocking with Jailbreaking (though actually even unlocking now is safe so really you don't even have that excuse). But we are talking about applications here, so only Jailbreaking applies.
Please run along and spread your FUD elsewhere to people who do not know any better - you might try Digg. This is Slashdot where people generally know better.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It still means that Google can unilaterally decide to take away from me a product that I've already payed for, with no money back. Why, exactly, is that a good thing?
Kill switches are bad because grant their controllers power over products beyond the point of purchase. If Google wants to control the Market, they can pull apps from the store and make them unavailable for future customers. The kill switch allows Google to terminate programs that people have already paid for.
That, in fact, is the point of TFA. It supports Google because Android has methods of installation besides their app store, and things installed via these methods are presumably not subject to the kill switch (TFA seems to make this assumption without sourcing it). You'll still have the ability to install things while Google has the ability to stop malware distribution from their trusted source. It doesn't support Apple because the only supported way of installing things is through the app store.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
First of all, amusing to see this position on /. -- and to see it upmodded! Installing software on a device you actually own and then restoring it before calling support is fraud?
Second, Apple's own geniuses tell customers who bring in jailbroken iPhones to restore them before bringing them in. It's not fraud, it's simply a troubleshooting step, along the lines of reinstalling Windows if something doesn't work.
Which if you think about it makes it fairly useless. Presumably Google's store has some kind of quality control and they won't be offering viruses and malware for sale.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the kill switch extended to any app no matter what its source if a virus manages to become widespread on the platform.