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Apple Refusing Any BitTorrent Related Apps?
jamie pointed out what appears to be an unfortunate policy for Apple's app store that is refusing anything to do with BitTorrent. The example is a remote control app that allows a user to interface with their Transmission BitTorrent client. This certainly isn't the first complaint over app store policy. Issues from the return policy to the "objectionable content" of Nine Inch Nails have some developers concerned over what Apple is doing to the market. Of course, many are quick to remind that it is Apple's store and they are free to do whatever they want with it.
If you want torrent you can always jailbreak it.
Say NO to unpaid Internships!
Isn't this what web UIs are for?
I think ittl be a few years before people realize that bittorrent is perfectly legal, and a great distribution method.
The purpose of these stories, involving Apple refusing to sell apps, is not to debate the rights of Apple to do so. Everyone recognizes that Apple has a right to sell or not sell anything it so desires.
The purpose of these stories is to warn people to stay away from Apple, because Apple does not have your best interests in mind, only its bottom line.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Looking at the Transmission control interface through Safari on my iPhone right now. I guess now that Safari might be used to facilitate "this category of application" Apple will be pulling it from the OS?
I'm as much of a fanboy as the next guy, but Apple really need to get the house in order over the app store.
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
I stopped using Azureus once it disappeared from portage and I could only get Vuze. Since then I switched to rTorrent. Its awesome and command line based which means you can ssh into another machine and kick it off.
I've been meaning, but have yet to try out wTorrent which is a web interface to the same libtorrent that rTorrent uses.
This way you could just use safari to control your torrent downloads.
From what I heard, corporations are able to be criticized for their actions.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
"Of course, many are quick to remind that it is Apple's store and they are free to do whatever they want with it."
By the same token isn't it my iPhone that I am free to do what I want with it? Sure that means I can jailbreak it, but why should I be forced to just to use an app that Apple doesn't want to sell on their store?
No, actually, you're the one being stupid.
This is about controlling the bittorrent client on your home machine, not using bittorrent locally on the phone. RTFS.
It was an app to remotely control your desktop client. In other words the main utility was in starting your download again once you're on the bus and realise you forgot to unpause it.
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
Seriously. If Apple wants to engage in practices that result in a chilling effect on your target market why the fuck are you going to support them?
Because it's [LOVE]Apple{/LOVE]? Puh-leeze!
Because it enables you to reach a large market of consumers? Oh wait, they're denying those customers access to your products!
I'm sure Apple is great and wonderful and really really nice. I'm sure their app platform is the greatest thing since sliced stupid-people. But if they're going to actively interfere with your ability to reach customers FUCK THEM!
And yes, it's Apple's store. They can sell or not sell whatever they feel like.
However, it's not JUST Apple's store. It's the sole "legitimate" gateway into the devices you're writing apps for. That's part of the problem.
To use a baseball-related metaphor. You're a beer-hawker at a ballgame. Heaven help you if you try to sell booze in OTHER than the approved manner or brand.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If you don't like the way Apple runs its store, don't buy from it.
If you don't like gay marriage, don't do it.
If you don't like murder, don't commit it.
If you don't like France, don't go there.
If you don't like math, don't learn it.
If you don't care for Enron, don't buy the stock.
If you don't like subprime, don't take one out.
-- And in any case, don't talk any more about it.
Why am I starting to wonder if there might not be something a little bit wrong with this form of argument?
Indeed, I've also heard that it is Apple's store and they are free to do whatever they want with it.
I've heard this from two different sources now, so I think it's fair to say it's probably true. Off to update Wikipedia!
I'm I the only nerd who actually use it for mostly downloading ubuntu and feroda and for WoW patches? Who has time for movies anyway?
Apple has far more at stake than their user base now. With the iPod and the iTunes store, they have entered a political and business hotbed where everyone's ass is so tight they could turn coal into diamonds in a week. Apple is likely seeing that they need to be very careful if they want the big winners to keep cooperating in a pliable manner. The RIAA won't stop working with Apple if they allow BitTorrent apps on the iPhone, but you can bet that they will give Apple a much harder time of it, costing Apple lots of money just to deal with it.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
...and we've been dancing it for decades. Big software corps, particularly ones that make the hardware and the software, have an incentive to make their stuff proprietary and to make it difficult to interoperate with anybody else's stuff. They lock you in, then lock you down. Apple is one of the worst offenders, here.
I'd like to say that when a truly open competitor comes along and offers competition, people will flock to it. But they won't because that's not how it works. Normal people buy the stuff that "just works" and apple's stuff is pretty good at that. The only way around it is for hackers to do what they do so well.
Hats off to you, hackers of the world.
If that dress code requires top hats, though, it's not terribly reasonable.
Wow. I'd shop at that store every day of the week!
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
People who don't play WoW?
You can use logmein or other vnc apps to control torrent programs on your computer. Better ban that. You could control it through a webui using safari. Better ban that too. Wait, you could set up a script to control it with a phone call or email! Better ban the phone and mail apps, just to be sure.
Rediculous.
obviously not about control because you can get apps by other means
Are you referring to the DMCA violation known as "jailbreaking"? How deliciously absurd.
I think we (Slashdot readers) get it by now what Apple's application development policies are. We don't need a weekly refresher of why Apple's policies suck. Please don't feed the trolls because this article much like the few before it contains contains nothing new that we shouldn't have known already. Someone makes a yes/no decision and you have to live with it.
Either two things will happen: Apple doesn't change their policies and we can assume as always that most applications that are perfectly legitimate but against Apple's corporate objectives will be canned, or that Apple decided that their policies are causing more harm than good and decide to change them. If the second case happens then please be my guess and post it.
This constant rhetoric over what should and what shouldn't be allowed is just fuelling a fire of debate that is ultimately as subjective as Apple's corporate policies.
Bye!
Yes, Apple is free to do what they wish with their store, and we are free not to pay for their overpriced and overhyped products when saddled in this manner.
Don't bother replying Apple fanbois, I'm not interested. It's just another corporation acting in its own best interest.
Option A) Apple products.
Option B) The freedom to do what you want with the stuff you buy.
Pick one and stop complaining.
STFU about slashdot bias.
Seeing this story elsewhere today prompted me to check the Android Market for a similar app.
Yup, found one and downloaded it immediately.
Works with Transmission (like the rejected app in the story) and uTorrent, making it great for users of any platform (i think mac users have one or the other, and Transmission is great on linux, uTorrent rocks on windows).
Gotta setup my new computer with DYNDNS again, but It looks like a nice app just from the setup options.
I have started developing a bit (a tiny bit) for Android, and I am really starting to appreciate the platform a lot.
I switched from windows mobile to the iphone a year ago, and then from the iphone to a G1 a few months ago, and I love my G1, it's the best phone I've ever had, and knowing now that I can develop apps for it easily (and on any platform, no less) for free (if I don't want to distribute them, or for just $25 one time developer's fee if I do) makes me REALLY like the platform.
Android rocks.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Well now, you can just use torrentflux, supporting an open source project, and still use your iphone. :P
http://www.torrentflux.com/
It's also legal for a main stream book store to openly sell hardcore pornography and sex toys.
Wow. I'd shop at that store every day of the week!
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
There, fixed that for you.
Actually they do. They just came out with their own 12 Prohibited Application Types for Microsoft's Windows MarketPlace for Mobile store. You just haven't been paying attention.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If you haven't seen the great Sita Sings the Blues be sure to download it and watch it today. Yes it's legal to do so.
And Apple, and all of you superfans who have gladly bent over for every offering of Apple's no matter how shitty and overpriced (Apple Mini?) convincing Apple that they can do whatever they want and fuck over their customers because they're too drunk on their own visions of how cool they look sitting in an overpriced coffee franchise with their black MacBook can suck my turgid, non-proprietary hardware.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The example is a remote control app that allows a user to interface with their Transmission BitTorrent client.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MM0VO3slK8