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Apple Pulls C64 Emulator From the App Store
Rob Hearn sends in a piece up at PocketGamer.co.uk on why Apple suddenly pulled Manomio's C64 emulator soon after finally approving it. (El Reg has coverage too.) "It was a glorious few moments for retro gamers when Manomio's C64 emulator was finally approved by Apple and released to the eager, nostalgic iPhone public. Then, calamity! It was gone again. Apparently some wily users figured out how to access the Commodore 64 BASIC system that was originally packaged with the emulator — something that Apple wasn't too happy with, given the nature of the interpreter's code. By setting the keyboard to 'always on,' launching a game and restarting BASIC, players got into the 'empty shell' of their C64 emulator."
Seriously? What? What can you do from a C64 shell on an iPhone?
Try to take over the world.
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For technophiles, the iPhone is dead. The n900, with it's Debian-based-OS and open platform, is our new lord and savior. http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
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Having the C64 Basic interpreter as a programming environment on the iphone would strategically hurt Apple in horrible way....
Riiiiight
I have never been much of a believer in Stallman's dystopian visions but I'm getting closer to believing them.
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Banned: Duplicates text display functionality.
Where the C64 emulator becomes THE preferred programming environment on the iphone as Apple neglects to understand the nature of the threat...causing a renisannce in C64 programming; catapulting a once dead platform from the grave back into stardom...
As it seems, Apple tries REALLY hard to surpass Microsoft on the list of the most hated IT companies. This stunt they just pulled with the C64 emulator is pure idiocy!
When it comes to proprietary lock-in. Styling and hype is much more exciting than philosophical and economical arguments for having an open platform. I encourage anyone with appreciation of these issues to boycott closed platforms like the iPhone, consoles, and set top cable boxes.
Spur an interest in programmable platforms and maybe get people interested in being more than just a passive consumer of whatever crap Apple wants to shovel at them through iTunes.
I submit that anyone that conceivable _could_ do any damage of any significant nature through the BASIC interpreter on a C64 emulator on an iPhone has almost certainly already jail broken their phone and are already doing much wackier things. Further, if they haven't, then this provides further incentive to jailbreak.
Add to that the PR nightmare of constantly pulling the same app repeatedly, and it should make both users and developers feel increasingly gun shy about the app store.
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They are still bitter that C64 games were better than Apple ][e games back in the day...
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...they learned how to jailbreak their Commodore 64 too...
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
"By setting the keyboard to 'always on', launching a game and restarting BASIC, players got into the 'empty shell' of their C64 emulator."
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Next thing you know they'll block my app that allows users to connect a cassette tape drive. The nerve....
No seriously. Apple hates geeks. This isn't flamebait, btw.
Apple loves the image-conscious, visual-creative crowd that accepts the functionality they're given, wrapped up in beautifully designed packages.
But ultimately Apple's corporate strategy can be summed up in one word: Control. They want to control where you buy your music, what you do with your devices, and how you interact with other users. All of this 'control' of course is driven by profit motives.
But geeks ultimately represent a loss of control. Geeks love to tinker... They love to expand functionality. They're innovators. And worst of all from Apple's perspective: They create options.
Options are the enemy of a carefully structured system which drives users towards Apple's sacred points-of-purchase.
Options are the opposite of 'control'.
For all of Apple's "Think Different" public image, the reality is that Apple encourages nothing of the sort: "Think Alike" is the mission. And they prove it at every turn.
Apple fanboys will probably mod this flamebait. It isn't. I have multiple computers and phones, and own an iPhone and a Mac. But I'm constantly being made aware that my PC represents a nearly infinite amount of options in every usage category -- where Apple railroads me into a pre-approved (albeit always compatible) solution.
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This is a non-story. They weren't allowed to sell the app because it had BASIC. They snuck BASIC in, and Apple pulled it since they weren't allowed to sell it.
This is not news.
We don't need the "Apple should allow..." discussion. We had that 2 days ago when this was approved. And the last app that did something. And two before. And the next one.
This isn't a story. "Apple does exactly what it said it would." Call CNN.
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Yeah, I agree. The developer is a grade-A moron. Initially, the App was rejected because of this and after lots of back and forth Apple approved it with a condition of removing the BASIC interpreter. Developer thought it would be cute to hide, and make it available as an easter egg. Guess that plan backfired.
Without a doubt, they needlessly burned a lot of money because of lost potential sales. Apple might even return the favor by dragging its feet and not approving the app for weeks or months.
More and more companies are looking to Apple as an example on how to lock down their platforms.
True. Hopefully some others will come up with a better model that provides the advantages of the iPhone's lock-in without the disadvantages.
The only real solution is to legalize and strengthen fair use, so that jail breaking and other DRM circumvention is completely legal and encouraged.
That actually won't matter much. The real solution is to deal with the antitrust issues in adjacent markets so we can have properly operating competition and someone can make a better solution without having to kowtow to AT&T and the MPAA and RIAA and several other criminal gatekeepers.
The US and other governments should also declare Apple's App Store to be an illegal monopoly for their platform...
That's not how antitrust law should or does work. The iPhone is only one (admittedly high profile) player in a very large and diverse marketplace. Apple has done nothing to undermine any market in their technical decisions for the iPhone (although some of their partners have). In terms of antitrust law, in fact, Apple is one of the victims being forced to make choices that get them fewer sales because of illegal actions by their partners.
If people don't like iPhones being locked down, they can effectively vote with their wallets and buy any number of other phones both for use on AT&T's network or another. Apple has, in no way leveraged any monopoly influence in any market in what they're doing with the ecosystem for apps on the iPhone.
Commodore's BASIC was licensed from Microsoft with a one-time fee. If I were Apple, I wouldn't let Microsoft BASIC anywhere NEAR this emulator until I got a signed legal document from Microsoft saying that the license covered all derivatives of the Commodore device, or that Apple had a free and clear right to use it.
Sure, see maemo. I doubt you'll have complete to access the phone-part of the n900 though, the telcoms being rather cautions on what they allow on their networks.
The n810 is a nice little open pda, but as it isn't a phone I don't use it that much. If the n900 is at least half-decent, it will replace my nokia for sure. Bubye S60!
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If you want a versatile, easy to use, high end phone, but don't want more than that, get an iPhone. If you want a real smartphone, get a real smartphone. If Apple doesn't want to sell a general purpose smart handheld, that's their prerogative. There's plenty of options right now.
Really now, it's not like the iPhone is a closed black-box environment, for which no outsider can create software.
However, in these modern times with object-oriented multithreaded programming, BASIC is kind of a throwback, don't you think? It may have been nice as the "gateway drug" of programming languages, but these days it's barely a first step.
I'm not necessarily trying to defend Apple here; their decision to decline any app with programmability is still a curious, regrettable, and philosophically indefensible one. (Do symbolic environments count, like you'd find on a programmable calculator? What if that environment allowed the display of English text? What if the environment had English equivalents for some symbols?) But it is possible for people to buck the trend.
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I remember using PEEK and POKE to manipulate the memory on the C64. Is the emulator sufficiently sandboxed or could you use POKE outside of the conventional memory to brick^H^H^H^H^Hfree your iPod?
Which smartphones sold in the United States aren't locked down?
You mean what smartphones can you run arbitrary, unapproved software like emulators? Most of them. Blackberry, Linux, and Windows Mobile based phones almost all do that. There are, in fact, very few smartphones that don't, like the iPhone and a few new Android phones. One of the reasons the iPhone is so popular, however, is that it is restricted and that results in a better signal to noise ratio when trying to buy applications to run on it. The average person doesn't care if they can run a C64 emulator and those that do mostly only care about one that gets them to the classic games, not the Basic interpreter.
Millions might be a tad high there Obi-wan.
There's probably a total of two people who own an iphone/touch and bought the app and actually planned on doing something with the C64 BASIC.
Most of the people complaining probably wouldn't even think of owning anything Apple and BASIC is just something for them to make a show of why they'll never own an iPhone (and to look "cool" to all their F/OSS friends while doing so).
OMG! They pulled an app I'd never buy from a phone I'll never own over a feature I'd never use!!! I must complain loudly and vigorously to show how hardcore linux I am!
It isn't about the hardware, it's about the marketing. Apple has been selling hardware that costs more than the other brands do for a long time - because of clever marketing.
"But this one goes to 11!"
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1360395&cid=29345727
Way to go guys, you're so smart and quick that you're idiots.
Interestingly enough, they sold an extra copy of it yesterday to me because, predicting this would happen, I wanted to get a copy before they took it down.
I wouldn't have bought it otherwise, while its cool from a geek perspective, playing C64 games on a touch screen sucks a predictable amount of ass.
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Everyone on Slashdot seems to think the developer intentionally left an obvious, easy backdoor into the BASIC interpreter just to spite Apple.
But here's what I'm wondering: is it actually possible to remove BASIC from the C64's ROM, and still be sure that games will run?
If I recall correctly, the in-ROM BASIC interpreter provided a bunch of useful routines that you could access from machine code, and a lot of games and apps would call into these routines, or copy them elsewhere in memory, sometimes in ways that would seem horrifically non-portable and non-obvious today. It might be that it's just not really possible to excise the BASIC interpreter and still run a decent number of games.
I haven't done much C64 in many years though. Can anyone fill us in on the technical feasibility of completely removing the BASIC interpreter?
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