Apple Eases Restrictions On iPhone Developers

WrongSizeGlass writes "MacRumors has a story on a report by Apple Outsider's Matt Drance that Apple is easing their restrictions on interpreted code used in iPhone development, a change which allows game developers in particular to continue to use interpreted languages such as Lua in their App Store applications. The change comes alongside Apple's further modifications of its iOS developer terms that again allow for limited analytics data collection to aid advertisers and developers, but appear to shut out non-independent companies such as Google's AdMob from receiving the data. It's not enough of an 'about face' to let Adobe or Google back in the picture but they've backpedaled enough to let the little guys squeeze through."

Comments

Common sense prevails

[Dan East]

Good to see a little common sense prevailing. I use Lua in my game engine, and it is a very good language for embedding in an application. It is much more efficient to call into than Javascript, for example. This is more about the logical segregation between engine developers and game designers. Scripting (especially event-driven) better suites game designers, who often are not hardcore developers that have a firm understanding of Objective C, C++ or C.
It's not even about portability - pure C and C++ (not dependent on any external APIs besides that of the game engine) is even more portable. It's about using the proper language for the job.

Re:Common sense prevails

[beakerMeep]

Doesnt seem like common sense really prevailed to me. You could expand your argument to include game designers who prefer ActionScript, but they are still SOL.

The way I read this (minor) language change is that interpreted code is still generally prohibited, but you may ask for Apple's written consent to have an exception made for your app. Not what I would call a huge "easing of restrictions"

Sounds like they just realized they shut out half of the game devs already on their platform and are only halfway back pedaling to a point where those that were shut out now have to ask politely (and hope) to be let back in.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

The restriction made no sense. If you're not allowed to embed lua, you'd probably write a small DSL for your app.

And at what point does merely switching on data at runtime become an interpreted language? How about parsing data from a declarative data format (eg: xml/yaml)?

Ruby, python, perl, flash, mono, java... There's valid reasons to not want all this crud on customers devices, there's also valid reasons for specialist apps to bundle runtimes. Nobody is served by the dimwit developer who bundles a language runtime and several libraries for the appstore equivalent of hello world. One suspects this is what Apple really wanted to avoid.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is served by the dimwit developer who bundles a language runtime and several libraries for the appstore equivalent of hello world. One suspects this is what Apple really wanted to avoid.

Except they already have full control over app approval, and thus quality control. With the current abundance of Hello Fart World apps out there, I can't see how this is a valid issue. Like most of Steve's reason's, it has no basis outside the Reality Distortion Field. There are some valid reasons like you said, but this for sure isn't one of them.

Re:Common sense prevails

[kimvette]

Ruby, python, perl, flash, mono, java... There's valid reasons to not want all this crud on customers devices, there's also valid reasons for specialist apps to bundle runtimes.

Since when are Ruby and Python crud?

Re:Common sense prevails

[oztiks]

FTC is on Job's ass ... now he's scared .... there joined the dots for ya.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when are Ruby and Python crud?

Since people started using them inappropriately, for system tools and general use applications.

Re:Common sense prevails

[jonwil]

Since they started requiring bundling large amounts of runtime, interpreters and library code with every program written in them. That may be ok for a desktop system where you can either use the system Python/Ruby (on linux) or bundle Python/Ruby (on Windows) but its not OK for a mobile app to be shipping large amounts of runtime and library code.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Python users generally admit that they're using Python as a prototyping language, just because it allows for quick, but shitty, development. When their idea is somewhat proven, then go back and rewrite it using a real programming language like Java or C++.

Ruby users, on the other hand, are usually quite ignorant of other technologies. It becomes the old when-all-you-have-is-a-hammer scenario. They try to build large systems using Ruby (see Twitter), which then subsequently perform like utter shit (see Twitter), and finally prove to be unusable (see Twitter).

Re:Common sense prevails

[91degrees]

Scripting (especially event-driven) better suites game designers, who often are not hardcore developers that have a firm understanding of Objective C, C++ or C.

Scripting better suits game developers who are hardcore programmers as well. You don't need to recompile when you change a value. You just need to reload the lua. Really helps a lot when you;re using trial and error to get a value correct.

Re:Common sense prevails

[icebraining]

At least Python users generally admit that they're using Python as a prototyping language, just because it allows for quick, but shitty, development. When their idea is somewhat proven, then go back and rewrite it using a real programming language like Java or C++.

You mean like Youtube?

Python is fast enough for our site and allows us to produce maintainable features in record times, with a minimum of developers.

Or like EVE Online?

Python enabled us to create EVE Online, a massive multiplayer game, in record time. The EVE Online server cluster runs over 50,000 simultaneous players in a shared space simulation, most of which is created in Python.

More: http://www.python.org/about/quotes/

I don't know about Ruby, but I disagree with your opinion on "shitty development" of Python.

Re:Common sense prevails

[ScrewMaster]

Ruby users, on the other hand, are usually quite ignorant of other technologies. It becomes the old when-all-you-have-is-a-hammer scenario. They try to build large systems using Ruby (see Twitter), which then subsequently perform like utter shit (see Twitter), and finally prove to be unusable (see Twitter).

I disagree. I think a better example of your scenario would be Twitter.

Re:Common sense prevails

[tepples]

you may ask for Apple's written consent to have an exception made for your app.

You need to ask for Apple's written consent to get a game onto the App Store in the first place anyway.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Draek]

Which is why they should've included Python, Ruby and Lua interpreters *with* the system so that app developers can use them without needing to redistribute them with every copy of their apps. You know, like OSX does on desktops?

And before you complain about 'size' and 'bloat' I'll remind you the Lua runtime is 130k on my Debian system, and while typical Python and Ruby installs weigh far more, you can strip a lot of libraries from them and get something that's much smaller while still being useful to the average developer.

Re:Common sense prevails

[aztracker1]

In fairness, MonoTouch's interfaces are a pretty tight mapping to the SDK, which makes sense, considering it compiles to native. As does the Unity toolset etc, and even Flash, as it were. The entire runtime isn't bundled in, just what's needed for the cross compiled app o run. Which is still build on Macs, and in the end still compiled with XCode & via Obj-C.

I'd been considering MonoTouch as a path to the iPhone, but now, I'm just sticking with Android.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Sparckus]

Obligatory link: Clicky

Re:Common sense prevails

[shutdown -p now]

its not OK for a mobile app to be shipping large amounts of runtime and library code.

Says who? The users are the only ones who can reasonably judge this, and I don't think they care, if the app does what they want it to do. And if your app is bloated and does little of use, it will be ignored. We call that "free market" and "customer choice".

Re:Common sense prevails

[Vintermann]

When you quote like that, you make the parent look pretty confused about the benefits of python.

Re:Common sense prevails

[SashaM]

As an avid EVE player and an experienced software developer, I can confidently tell you that from the perspective of software design and development EVE is a pile of steaming crap. Every new release breaks existing features and known bugs last for years. Much of the code, the developers themselves have admitted, can't be touched anymore because nobody understands how it works. Instead of fixing bugs, they write new features which are released unfinished and then promptly forgotten when the next expansion is due.

What keeps EVE afloat and myself playing the game is that the concept itself is amazing. The day I managed to load Elite on my Sinclair, I knew that the the same game, with added massively multiplayer gameplay over the network would be awesome.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

Ruby is similar to Python (scripting language with balls), but perhaps more elegant in its implementation of functional and OO ideas.

I will admit that there is probably a cost to large projects represented by things like dynamic typing and freedom of paradigm. Essentially, the extra flexibility and power means that you need to be sure that your team can be trusted to enforce their own standards. But those languages can pay for themselves in terms of quicker turnaround for writing new features.

Paul Graham isn't right about everything, but he was right about why managers like Java: unlike "hacker" languages, it enforces coding consistency to the point where programmers become hot-swappable. That doesn't make it a "real" language.

There's a whole world of languages out there, and they all have unique things to offer. You have to feel bad for those guys who got told once that C is all that matters, and believed it. You can usually tell them from a mile away too: self-taught, scared of recursion, don't see the value of an REPL, strong opinions on languages they don't code in, proud of how good they are at pointer math (it's so hard!!!), etc. They'll tell you, without flinching, that Java does pass-by-reference or that interpreted languages are slow "by nature." Whatever.

If there's a golden hammer, it sure as hell isn't in the C family.

Re:Common sense prevails

[mysidia]

If that were the reason, they would have considered easing their anti-competitive restrictions against Google also.

Just because they didn't put Google's name in the rules against data sharing, doesn't mean the restriction is not specially designed to make sure iAD succeeds, and AdMob dies.

Re:Common sense prevails

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

More likely just fine tuning the policy to keep crap like Flash out while allowing for better uses that were previously excluded. Seems pretty obvious unless you haven't been paying attention to the evolution of their policies or know much about running a business.

But if thinking that Steve Jobs is scared makes you feel better, I guess no one's going to stop you.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you have provided some counterexamples. Yes, just as it is possible to write Perl that is readable and maintainable, it is also possible to write Python that is robust and performs well.

The fact remains however that a disproportionate amount of Python code is slow and fragile. In Fedora, for example, there is a very strong correlation between programs where I've thought "huh, this is running rather slowly" and programs that are written in Python -- and generally the reason I know they're written in Python is that instead of handling problems gracefully, they just bomb out with a cryptic stack trace. As an end user I don't care whether it is the Python language or Python culture that is causing the programs to behave this way -- I just wish they'd work properly. And generally if I replace them with an alternative written in another language, I get something that works properly.

Re:Common sense prevails

[oztiks]

All I can say is ... timing people ... timing. Maybe it's just a co-incidence but its a sure good one.

Though I would see this as a bad move cause in the courts its just another piece of ammo Google's lawyers can use.

"They changed this just as the investigation began, what are they hiding?" sort of thing.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

(Not the same AC... I probably should go back to having an account but bad things happened to my productivity last time)

Re:Common sense prevails

[Orestesx]

You should be so lucky to have twitter's scalability problem. 99.9 % of software doesn't not have to scale to twitter-esque levels. It's one of the busiest sites on the planet, with a frequently updated database that is searchable in real time.

Re:Common sense prevails

[oztiks]

Day 1) Google get's pissed at iAd's and calls their buddies at the FTC

Day 2) FTC officially launches an investigation

Day 3) Apple reduces the restrictions on iPhone development ...

Gee, we are not talking weeks here were talking the span of a few days. You tell me ...

Re:Common sense prevails

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Possibly, but correlation does not equal causality. It's not like they've suddenly let Google or Flash in. It's likely a combination of things.

Re:Common sense prevails

[oztiks]

Yeah, I'm happy to buy it as a coincidence, but it's certainly an interesting one as it could lead to lot of different perspectives.

Is it Apple muscle flexing or was it something in the pipeline for a while? Is it going to go be a detriment whilst an investigation is going on? letting smaller players in meanwhile leaving the bigger players on the road side (showing even more anti-competitive behavior)

Either way, it will make interesting news in coming weeks.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

the reason I know they're written in Python is that instead of handling problems gracefully, they just bomb out with a cryptic stack trace.

And you can tell buggy C programs because instead of handling problems gracefully, they just bomb out with no error message at all. And possibly leave your display in a confused state, depending on what they were doing when they died.

You're right, that's so much better than a clean exit with a cryptic stack trace. Except it isnt'.

If you are trying to claim that all Python programs fail to handle problems gracefully, then you don't know what you are talking about.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Kalriath]

I don't know, Basecamp seems like a pretty good example of Ruby actually working.

But then, you'd hope the people who developed Rails could actually use it correctly.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Kalriath]

There are two separate inquiries going on. One about their restriction on programming language you can develop for iPhone in (apparently there is a chance that could be called tying) and another related to their advertising rules.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a variety of different proof (twitter) makes your point.

Signed: a ruby user who churned out code in python, smalltalk, fortran, java, pascal, asm, basic even.

Re:Common sense prevails

[mysidia]

I see... so it would make sense to make the minimal policy change at just the right time to change the answers they can give, to each inquiry.

That would suggest the inquiry about programming languages is further along, eh?

Re:Common sense prevails

[icebraining]

As an end user I don't care whether it is the Python language or Python culture that is causing the programs to behave this way

Maybe not, but in this case it is important to distinguish - because the fact that shitty developers have more trouble with Python doesn't mean the language itself it shitty, just that it requires a more experienced developer to fully take advantage of its power.

Re:Common sense prevails

[Kalriath]

It is indeed.

Re:Common sense prevails

[mini me]

The funny thing is that Twitter did exactly what the parent suggested. They prototyped it in Ruby and then rewrote it in Java (Scala).

Re:Common sense prevails

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I think it's possible lawyers work on policies a bit like a developer works on a program. So when they need to release something sooner for some reason, other changes might get implemented earlier than planned or needed.

Re:Common sense prevails

[andi75]

My lua interpreter is probably less then 100kb in size, I don't think it's much of a hassle to ship it with the app. In fact, I'd rather use my own then one supplied by the OS which contains god knows what wierd patches.

big nothing

[MrDoh!]

So.. interpreted is not ok atm, but might be ok next week.
Cross compiled flash is not ok now, but might be ok if server side translated to be displayed.
Showing too much on a desktop picture frame still gets your app removed.
Flash (that'd allow more apps to run, just no totalitarian control of the app market) will never be allowed.
Gotcha.

Stuff even attempting to develop on this platform.

Re:big nothing

[FuckingNickName]

The iPlatform is not really for people who develop for the sake of development - they'd never consider such a stifling platform. It's more a financial investment risk: things could pay off and you could end up very rich, or you might just find you've just poured time and money down the drain.

It's like asking why companies go into China: is it because business there is fair and open, and everyone has the free opportunity to exchange values and end up richer? Or is it because, if you dance the right dance, you might just be able to take advantage of a restrictive environment rather than having that environment take advantage of you?

Re:big nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, while "officially" China is a very restrictive country, I think the Chinese are much more relaxed and flexible than Americans (U.S. Americans and Canadians both - I had the doubtful pleasure of dealing with both as manufacturers).

In China, there's much less sense of entitlement. This means that:

  A) Your project matters to them. If you take enough time and attention to talk to their engineers, you'll see that they are often (not always, of course) both smart and resourceful, and will generally want to work with you.

  B) They will not apply rules like automatons would, just to get out of work. Typical US excuse: "we are not allowed to change the production process without a written ECO and a re-quote" - never mind that basically adds a week of downtime to any "experimental" change, and allows the manufacturer to sit on their ass for a week. Or, "well, I guess we'll have to wait until we have the intermediate product before we start making tooling for the next step, you know you can't trust those thar CAD drawings of yours."

  C) Unions. It's very "amusing" when you move a piece of equipment from one room to the other (on casters no less), just to get written up for not requesting a union employee. This usually takes at least 4 hours to get sorted, usually a day. The problem with unions is not that they don't want to do any work, but that they don't want anybody to do any work that they are also not doing.

As an engineer, who has absolutely no financial interest in the cost/profit from my designs, I would still very much prefer to manufacture in China.

Re:big nothing

[Matthew M. McClinch]

Stuff even attempting to develop on this platform.

You're forgetting that 95% of applications submitted to the App Store are approved within 7 days.

Re:big nothing

[FuckingNickName]

You're forgetting that 95% of applications submitted to the App Store were developed in a couple of weeks, cost a couple of dollars (yes, yes, $3.87) and are worth maybe half as much.

A platform is interesting when risky, groundbreaking development occurs, the result of teams taking months to perfect something new and useful. A 1 in 20 chance of delay/rejection due to bureaucracy is then not worth the risk - but the 1 in 20 is a best case figure, and for a significant app the chance of problems, including outright rejection because you're competing with Apple, is much greater.

Re:big nothing

[0xdeadbeef]

Jebus Crust! You mean for any application there is a 5% risk you'll end up sitting in limbo, and the weeks of time and money you spent developing the application could be wasted?

That's a service level availability of "one nine". No business would tolerate that, but fanboys think it is great.

Re:big nothing

[FuckingNickName]

Your project matters to [the Chinese].

As opposed to Western businessmen, who... tell you that your money is no good to them? What are your experiences with Western businessmen?

you'll see that [Chinese engineers] are often (not always, of course) both smart and resourceful, and will generally want to work with you.

As opposed to Western engineers, who are... what, exactly? Stupid? Unable to apply resources? Refuse to work with you? What are your experiences with Western engineers?

They will not apply rules like automatons would, just to get out of work. Typical US excuse: "we are not allowed to change the production process without a written ECO and a re-quote"

Sounds like the problem is that you agreed to stupid rules and are annoyed that US engineers adhere to them while Chinese engineers don't.

never mind that basically adds a week of downtime to any "experimental" change,

Fix your processes.

"well, I guess we'll have to wait until we have the intermediate product before we start making tooling for the next step, you know you can't trust those thar CAD drawings of yours."

Sorry, what? Did you actually say "I'll pay you to do this, and if our CAD designs are fucked then that's our problem and you'll still get paid"? Or are you annoyed again because you agreed to a particular process and found that it didn't fit with your requirements, but you weren't prepared to change it?

Unions. It's very "amusing" when you move a piece of equipment from one room to the other (on casters no less), just to get written up for not requesting a union employee.

So renegotiate terms with your union. Or join the union and improve it from within. American workers have rights unimaginable in China, but with any collective bargaining there will be some stupid rules - focus on fixing these rules rather than jumping somewhere the worker does what he says because he has no alternative.

As an engineer, who has absolutely no financial interest in the cost/profit from my designs

Then you're not an engineer. An engineer's job is compromise to complete some task with the tools available, and what determines the available tools is cost/profit.

Re:big nothing

[kanweg]

Well, according to Apple the top three reasons why those 5% of apps were rejected are:
1) they crash (apple doesn't want rotten fruit in its shop)
2) because they don't do what the developer says they do (lemons instead of peaches)
3) third I forgot (perhaps the use of non-public APIs. If Apple changes those, the third party apps relying on them wouldn't work; see #1)

It is not as if the developer isn't in control of any of the above.

Bert

Re:big nothing

[kanweg]

I can only imagine the parent saying "QED".

Bert

Re:big nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

1) they crash (apple doesn't want rotten fruit in its shop)

Okay... it's a good policy for most users, but there's only one shop! So if for example my tastes don't quite match Steves, I'm out of luck?

Also, as a developer (if I was one!), I have to hope that the rules don't change in the future? And lets be honest, they aren't all about creating solid applications -- there's a *HUGE* element of Apple not wanting any cross-platform development kits. Yes, Apple say this is to ensure applications have a UI consistent with other iOS apps, but lets be honest -- it's mostly because Apple doesn't want to compete with Android.

It's the little things, like not mentioning "Android" that kinda give the game away! :D

Re:big nothing

[FuckingNickName]

Perhaps you haven't compared classical Western to Chinese engineering. Perhaps you are too young to have even experienced Western-engineered technology, and everything on your desk was Made in China. Perhaps you don't know what it's like to have a 20 year old calculator with buttons as comfortable as they were the day you bought it; perhaps you're cool with a disposable printer rather than something churning out smudge-free printouts as well as it did in '95; perhaps all your capacitors are lucky enough to retain their sleek and slender shape. Or perhaps you like the upgrade treadmill and think that repairing rather than discarding is something people should only have to do during wartime.

The Chinese approach is simple: make something which works well enough to be sold now and hopefully won't break down in the next couple of years. Interfacing and reliability aren't problems because you want your clients to be locked into your system and to upgrade before things start going wrong. Decent documentation for interoperability and long-term maintenance is a pipedream, and wouldn't be worth requesting anyway because processes are so lax: see post above.

Re:big nothing

[yyxx]

Those are the top three reasons because few people even bother writing the interesting apps anymore; just to name a few that ought to be there:

- Bluetooth DUN

- USB 3G modem driver

- custom touch keyboards

- non-Apple music and video stores

- in-device software development

- WiFi music sync

- on-device file management

- full synchronization and backup with box.net

Re:big nothing

[Sancho]

Those are the top three reasons because few people even bother writing the interesting apps anymore; just to name a few that ought to be there:

- Bluetooth DUN

- USB 3G modem driver

To what end, exactly? To tether your device? That's a part of the OS. If you can't do it, it probably means that you're in the US, where AT&T didn't allow Apple to enable it on the devices.

- custom touch keyboards

This would be nice, but it wouldn't exactly be an app. It would be replacing driver-level components. There are serious pros and cons to allowing this no a platform.

- non-Apple music and video stores

Has any music store tried to write apps? I mean, you have alternate music options with Pandora and Rhapsody on the iPhone, and Rhapsody is very much like a store--you can download the music and then play it offline.

- in-device software development

Why would you want this, out of curiosity? It seems like developing with a touchscreen device would be annoying.

- WiFi music sync

This would be very nice. If you Jailbreak your phone, you can buy an app that does this. There's no damned good reason for Apple to not develop this officially.

- on-device file management

Files? What are files?

With iOS, Apple is trying to make a simple, yet powerful device. They are trying to abstract away the concept of files. Any app can let you manage its own data files however the developer wishes.

- full synchronization and backup with box.net

What does this mean exactly? Full backup? Of what? Apps and app data?

box.net, from my glance at the website, looks like just a file dump. Kinda like dropbox. Is it more than that?

Besides, an app wanting to do that would have to have access to lots of things outside of its sandbox. One of the nice things about the iOS platform is the segregation of apps, meaning it's much harder for one app to compromise you. Again, this is a situation which has pros and cons. The major pro is security. The major con is flexibility. It's a design choice where there is no right answer.

Re:big nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't entirely disagree with what you are saying here, but there are two points to note: if you specify expensive parts and decent quality control in China, they will go your way. Just look at Apple - their products are widely considered to be better quality than for instance MSI, and they are both made in China. You will, of course, pay a premium for this - and most companies do not want this. So as an end-user, you are most familiar with crap quality from China.

The other point is that United States manufacturing is almost non-existent now. Trying to have a device manufactured in the US is hard - most of the remaining manufacturers are actually set up for military contracts with high margins and fairly old tech.

Re:big nothing

[contrapunctus]

yeah but the one application i care about (google voice) was not approved so i switched to an android phone.

Re:big nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what Apple claims, but then again they claimed to the FTC that Google Voice isn't rejected, it's merely still being considered. Obviously anything Apple says about the app store isn't worth the bits used to transfer it.

Re:big nothing

[the_humeister]

Wait a minute. That's not necessarily the Chinese approach. That's just the approach of foreign companies trying to save a few cents. Chinese manufacturers can and do make quality and long lasting products. The problem is that their foreign customers (with a handful of exceptions) generally don't want to pay for the testing necessary to do that.

Re:big nothing

[macs4all]

Stuff even attempting to develop on this platform.

Just more room on the App Store for everyone else!

NOW who's the REAL loser?

Re:big nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

> As opposed to Western businessmen, who... tell you that your money is no good to them? What are your experiences with Western businessmen?

As I have said, I am an engineer. I'm sure the businessmen love my employer's money, but this is not about businessmen.

> As opposed to Western engineers, who are... what, exactly? Stupid? Unable to apply resources? Refuse to work with you? What are your experiences with Western engineers?

Neither stupid, nor unable. Just unmotivated - they know they deserve retirement anyway, and whatever they do is OK, because Uncle Sam will keep the ITAR defense contracts rollin' and there's nothing I can do about it.

> Sounds like the problem is that you agreed to stupid rules and are annoyed that US engineers adhere to them while Chinese engineers don't.

I don't agree to rules, this is done by the Legal Department. Anyone who has worked at a company with more than 5 employees would know that engineers are not allowed to set contracts.

> Fix your processes.

Fixing bugs is a natural process, and any complex-enough piece of hardware has them. My process (tell the manufacturer what to try on a small batch) has nothing to do with it; if fixing a bug in China takes 2 days and in the US 2 weeks, I prefer China.

> Sorry, what? Did you actually say "I'll pay you to do this, and if our CAD designs are fucked then that's our problem and you'll still get paid"? Or are you annoyed again because you agreed to a particular process and found that it didn't fit with your requirements, but you weren't prepared to change it?

It was a new product - nothing about changes. We pay for and own the tooling so it's your first case - we had to pressure the manufacturer to do what we wanted at our own cost.

> So renegotiate terms with your union. Or join the union and improve it from within. American workers have rights unimaginable in China, but with any collective bargaining there will be some stupid rules - focus on fixing these rules rather than jumping somewhere the worker does what he says because he has no alternative.

I am not in a position to negotiate terms with unions and, I am certain, neither are you. Unions in the US have bargaining power that exceeds almost any single employer, much less a single engineer. Plus as an EE it'd be rather odd for me to join a carpenters' union.

> Then you're not an engineer. An engineer's job is compromise to complete some task with the tools available, and what determines the available tools is cost/profit.

My tools available are: US, Canada or China. I choose China, but not just because of profit - they are simply a lot easier to work with.

Re:big nothing

[buchner.johannes]

The iPlatform is not really for people who develop for the sake of development - they'd never consider such a stifling platform. It's more a financial investment risk: things could pay off and you could end up very rich, or you might just find you've just poured time and money down the drain.

Help me, who did ever get rich through a iPhone App? And how does that compare to playing lotto [app fee]?

Re:big nothing

[Lars T.]

1) they crash (apple doesn't want rotten fruit in its shop)

Okay... it's a good policy for most users, but there's only one shop! So if for example my tastes don't quite match Steves, I'm out of luck?

So you like crashing apps. I bet the Android developers are thrilled about the information.

Re:big nothing

[QuantumBeep]

Your response is "you have no good reason to want anything Apple doesn't allow"? Really?

Re:big nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

on-device file management

Files? What are files?

Because some users are too stupid to be able to handles files and things are easier for them if we abstract the concept away is enough reason to develop such an abstraction layer. It's not a reason to hamper the rest of us, who are intelligent enough to handle that simple concept..

Fine, don't require a file manager to use your phone. Don't include one if you don't want people to start relying on it. However, don't fucking disallow people from using one if they so desire.

Re:big nothing

[tyrione]

I can't entirely disagree with what you are saying here, but there are two points to note: if you specify expensive parts and decent quality control in China, they will go your way. Just look at Apple - their products are widely considered to be better quality than for instance MSI, and they are both made in China. You will, of course, pay a premium for this - and most companies do not want this. So as an end-user, you are most familiar with crap quality from China.

The other point is that United States manufacturing is almost non-existent now. Trying to have a device manufactured in the US is hard - most of the remaining manufacturers are actually set up for military contracts with high margins and fairly old tech.

Manufacturing is non-existent because congressional leaders didn't give incentives to develop and manufacture at home, but actually encouraged and gave incentives to manufacture abroad to get dirt cheap crap coming in from overseas. As a mechanical engineer I never was less impressed with my fellow senior engineering students than I was with the chinese group. Nice guys but not at the head of the class, unless you consider mass cheating the head of the class. The Indian, Japanese, Persian students were always making connections with their American fellow engineering students to be at the top of the class. It was a nice group of cross cultures learning engineering, even if the chinese group kept to themselves.

It's hard to set up US manufacturing when US Senators don't want it.

Re:big nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you want higher quality Chinese stuff you'd have to pay a higher cost. Generally when companies manufacture in China their main concern is cost, not quality. If you want higher quality stuff then it gets into pricing where it's not economical to outsource to China.

Re:big nothing

[amRadioHed]

- custom touch keyboards

This would be nice, but it wouldn't exactly be an app. It would be replacing driver-level components. There are serious pros and cons to allowing this no a platform.

What exactly would be the cons of allowing this? On Android there are a wide variety of 3rd party keyboards for various input methods that Google doesn't have the time or interest to implement. Seems like an exclusively good thing for Android users.

Re:big nothing

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

The thing is, developers with great ideas generally don't spend so much time focusing on the negative side of things. They're so focused on their great idea that they'll see if it's viable then get to work. While some people are worried that their app might not get approved and spend their time bitching and moaning on Slashdot about Apple's draconian policies, others are already convinced they won't have any problems, and most of the time they're right.

Re:big nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

umm,, i forgot my login but what does android have anything to do with talk about one app store? it doesn't. i have an HTC Evo from Sprint and frankly i have been downloading like crazy and i have not found any app that crashes yet.. and apple doesnt want more than one app store because they want conformity. they want to be able to say 'NO POKEMON APPLICATIONS' and have every single one of their devices be affected immediatly and BAM every single end user with a pokemon app suddenly loses that app. they can gussy it up all they want about 'crashing' and stuff like that but the main thing is they want comformity, and they want to be able to affect everyone all at once. and with one app store they can do just that. they can decide that certain apps arent on any of their devices. and certain enterprising people took notice to that and decided that they would 'hack' into the iPhone and make their own app store. this is what we now know is jailbreaking. and now what this is is called a rant.... i dont know where im going with this but Apple is to the U.S.S.R. and Communism as Android is to the United States of America and Democracy and Republics

Re:big nothing

[mjwx]

It's more a financial investment risk: things could pay off and you could end up very rich, or you might just find you've just poured time and money down the drain.

Investors dont like risk.

Apple would have been better off in the eyes of financially minded people without making this change. Apple changing their minds every second week means that a product that you start developing for todays rules may not fit the rules when it is released in six months. That represents a very big financial risk, already backers are shying away from Apple as they've started to realise the money inst there.

It's like asking why companies go into China: is it because business [pointless guff removed] end up richer?

China is preferred because it is cheap and stable, little chance of political upheaval. Then we go to Thailand, slightly more expensive then China and business is not affected by politics, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are considered more unstable, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia are very expensive for Asia but have very skilled workforces for Asia (this is why a lot of computers and components are assembled here). Philippines is expensive and unstable, Indonesia is just unstable. So we go to china because its the cheapest option where a contract will reach completion.

Re:big nothing

[mjwx]

This would be nice, but it wouldn't exactly be an app. It would be replacing driver-level components.

No more like accessing an API. You dont need to replace the driver on Android you only need to interface with it. Your application controls where on the screen a key is and how it can be access (length of touch, deadzone around the key and so forth) meanwhile all the API needs to know is that "A" was pressed. Very simple really, I dont know how Android does it, that I just figured out off the top of my head.

Has any music store tried to write apps?

What the GP means is an alternate distribution method. Nice way to twist his words. Realistically you should be able to install from any source, including the Internet.

- WiFi music sync
This would be very nice. If you Jailbreak your phone, you can buy an app that does this.

Why should you need to Jailbreak to get an application for such basic functionality. Android has been able to transfer files wirelessly (that is what it boils down to) since I started using it at version 1.1 via a thrid party program. In 2.2 it is a standard part of the OS.

Files? What are files?

Files are what a *nix operating system is based on. They are also where all data is stored. In computing everything eventually comes down to a file.

With iOS, Apple is trying to make a simple, yet powerful device. They are trying to abstract away the concept of files.

Nice marketspeak, I'll translate

What Apple are doing is obfuscating file transactions by providing an extremely limited custom interface which hides file transactions from the user. In no way are they eliminating the concept of files, rather just treating the user like an idiot and hiding the actual transaction from them.

What does this mean exactly?

I'd like to backup my entire device to filesystem or another device without the need for buggy third party software. Simple concept, no?

One of the nice things about the iOS platform is the segregation of apps, meaning it's much harder for one app to compromise you.

It's not like Android can manage separation of user permissions without compromising the entire device. Your excuse for the lockdown is bunk, you need not restrict the entire user just to protect them, you need only to restrict application from accessing the parts of the OS (API) that it doesn't need. This can be accomplished by explicitly granting permissions during installation and explicitly denying access to all other functions. You know, how Linux security works today.

This is a very fanboyish attempt to justify lock-in. Frankly it's a very poor attempt at, even for a fanboy. As I've pointed out you've blatantly ignored 1. how operating system theory works, 2. how *nix security works and 3. the difference between a driver and application. Such crud should not have been modded insightful.

Re:big nothing

[Cronock]

Has anyone actually said you couldn't do this now? I know at least on the iPad you can use bluetooth keyboards. When the iPhone version of the OS gets brought to speed with the iPad version, I'd assume it would work using a standard bluetooth interface then, if it doesn't already.

Re:big nothing

[Cronock]

- WiFi music sync

This would be very nice. If you Jailbreak your phone, you can buy an app that does this. There's no damned good reason for Apple to not develop this officially.

The only conclusion that I can come up with for this is that there may be some agreement or licensing issue with syncing over WiFi that is holding it up. For a company like Apple, implementing that in software would be trivial.

Apple is very big on consistency, for good reasons. If there was a patent, license, or agreement holding it back for something like, music or rented movie transfers, Apple probably wouldn't want to split syncing up and say "you can transfer A and B over wifi, but you have to plugin over USB for X and Y".

All convenience aside, I am very glad that they automatically back your device up each time you plug in. It's saved my butt a couple times. I never planned on leaving my phone outside during a hailstorm, but I plugged in my replacement and it restored to my backup from earlier that day. Short of missing a few texts in between, you'd never have known it was a new one.

Re:big nothing

[yyxx]

Has anyone actually said you couldn't do this now? I know at least on the iPad you can use bluetooth keyboards.

We are talking about soft, on-screen keyboards. Apple doesn't allow third party on-screen keyboards, and Apple's on-screen keyboard is a usability disaster.

Re:big nothing

[yyxx]

- Bluetooth DUN
- USB 3G modem driver

To what end, exactly? To tether your device?

Yes: to be able to use a non-3G iPad to connect to the Internet via a Bluetooth modem or something that plugs into the bottom of the device. You can't do that anywhere.

That's a part of the OS. If you can't do it, it probably means
that you're in the US,

You can't do that anywhere.

- custom touch keyboards

This would be nice, but it wouldn't exactly be an app. It would be
replacing driver-level components. There are serious pros and
cons to allowing this no a platform.

There's nothing "driver-level" about it, not even on iOS. The reason Apple restricts it is because of branding: they want you to have their user experience, not someone else's. Also, iOS doesn't have the security architecture to deal with this securely.

- non-Apple music and video stores

Has any music store tried to write apps?

And have what happened to Google and Adobe companies happen to them? What's the point?

Rhapsody is very much like a store--you can download the music and then play it offline.

Yes, a cumbersome, non-integrated, separate offering. And its business model is no threat to Apple. As long as it's cumbersome enough and doesn't threaten Apple's revenue stream, they'll approve it.

- in-device software development

Why would you want this, out of curiosity?

Scientific data analysis, among other things.

It seems like developing with a touchscreen device would be annoying.

It's not that hard to type on the iPad, you don't need to type much, and you can use Bluetooth keyboards. Also, there are special touch-based development tools.

- WiFi music sync

This would be very nice. If you Jailbreak your phone, you can buy an app that does this. There's no damned good reason for Apple to not develop this officially.

Well, it's just one of many bad decisions Apple has made; that's why Apple shouldn't be able to limited what runs on the phone: no single company is smart enough to make these decisions. Apple is just too arrogant for its own good.

- on-device file management

Files? What are files?

With iOS, Apple is trying to make a simple, yet powerful device. They are trying to abstract away the concept of files. Any app can let you manage its own data files however the developer wishes.

In different words, every app has its own file manager (and often web browser and E-mail client), and they are all inconsistent and a mess to use. Other platforms have the notion of "files" not because people want them, but because nobody has come up with something better.

Apple's pretending that files don't exist on the platform when they actually do means that even trivial operations, like getting a file in the web browser and then using it in some other operation, often don't work right; they also mean that the same file exists in multiple copies in multiple locations.

- full synchronization and backup with box.net

What does this mean exactly? Full backup? Of what? Apps and app data?

box.net, from my glance at the website, looks like just a file dump. Kinda like dropbox. Is it more than that?

No, it's not "more than that". It's a place where I can put my presentations and files that I work on and access them from anywhere and any machine. There is nothing like that for iOS. Apple actually recognizes the importance of this, which is why they are creating their own offering, but like many Apple offerings, it doesn't work well with other platforms (and it will likely be expensive).

Besides, an app wanting to do that wou

Re:big nothing

[Cronock]

Ahh, I misunderstood. I agree that at least on the iPad it's horrible. There's no ' without hitting a modifier key. I don't have a lot of complaints with the iPhone one, because I compare it to what I've used before. Mainly an old blackberry or a T9-type auto-detection monstrosity. The best bet for fixing that thing is http://www.apple.com/feedback It's the best way to attack the problem right now.

Re:big nothing

[yyxx]

The only conclusion that I can come up with for this is that there may be some agreement or licensing issue with syncing over WiFi that is holding it up. For a company like Apple, implementing that in software would be trivial.

You're grasping at straws here. Other platforms offer this without getting sued, and it's not like Apple has shied away from infringing on other people's patents. You can even get it for a jailbroken iPhone. If Apple really were worried, they could simply let third party developers offer the function.

Apple is very big on consistency, for good reasons.

Apple pays lip service to consistency; that's different from delivering it.

All convenience aside, I am very glad that they automatically back your device up each time you plug in. It's saved my butt a couple times.

Why should I constantly plug in my iPad? Where am I supposed to plug in my iPad when I'm traveling? You can lose weeks of data on iOS devices because they don't sync over the air like other devices do. It's a ridiculous restriction.

Re:big nothing

[Cronock]

You're grasping at straws here. Other platforms offer this without getting sued, and it's not like Apple has shied away from infringing on other people's patents. You can even get it for a jailbroken iPhone. If Apple really were worried, they could simply let third party developers offer the function.

You're more than welcome to make up with a reason yourself, if you'd like. Though this seems the most likely to me.

Apple pays lip service to consistency; that's different from delivering it.

Apple's no magically perfect company, some inconsistencies are inherent to humans as programmers. Stupid humans. But exactly why would you say that it's just lip service? I'm very curious there.

Why should I constantly plug in my iPad? Where am I supposed to plug in my iPad when I'm traveling? You can lose weeks of data on iOS devices because they don't sync over the air like other devices do. It's a ridiculous restriction.

So you're wanting "cloud" syncing of all your music, apps, movies, photos, and settings? Or just wifi syncing, which is all that other app did that's now on Cydia. If you have MobileMe, you're already getting your calendar, bookmarks, address book, and such synced over 3g, pushed, even. Now for saved app data, I would have you listen for some changes that might be coming to MobileMe late summer. But in terms of others having it, Android just got it in froyo, along with the ability to backup program data at all.

Re:big nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

The con is that you are allowing replacement of the UI, which is at a much lower level. More likely to cause problems and interfere with the whole experience of using the device.

Re:big nothing

[Sancho]

What the GP means is an alternate distribution method. Nice way to twist his words. Realistically you should be able to install from any source, including the Internet.

The GP lamented that there were no interesting apps and then noted music stores as one of the interesting apps he'd like to see. There was no twisting of words. It was a direct reading.

- WiFi music sync
This would be very nice. If you Jailbreak your phone, you can buy an app that does this.

Why should you need to Jailbreak to get an application for such basic functionality. Android has been able to transfer files wirelessly (that is what it boils down to) since I started using it at version 1.1 via a thrid party program. In 2.2 it is a standard part of the OS.

And you conveniently failed to quote the part of my post which said:

There's no damned good reason for Apple to not develop this officially.

Nice marketspeak, I'll translate

An unnecessary attack.

What Apple are doing is obfuscating file transactions by providing an extremely limited custom interface which hides file transactions from the user. In no way are they eliminating the concept of files, rather just treating the user like an idiot and hiding the actual transaction from them.

Yes. They're trying to make it easier for their users. That's what you apparently fail to grasp. Not everyone wants to manage files.

It's not like Android can manage separation of user permissions without compromising the entire device. Your excuse for the lockdown is bunk, you need not restrict the entire user just to protect them, you need only to restrict application from accessing the parts of the OS (API) that it doesn't need. This can be accomplished by explicitly granting permissions during installation and explicitly denying access to all other functions. You know, how Linux security works today.

I like Android's approach, to an extent. I like seeing what an app might do, and being able to decide "No, you know, there's no reason that this game needs to know my phone state." But Android's explanations of what the apps are doing needs help, and most people probably aren't going to even pay attention to them.. You know, like how most people just click "Yes" to Windows when it asks them for permission for something? Or did all trojans go away at some point when I wasn't looking?

This is a very fanboyish attempt to justify lock-in.

This is a very poor ad hominem attack. I kinda wish I hadn't bothered with the reply, but it's all there, so there you go. I prefer not to debate with people who are so rude. If you want to discuss with someone, try to refrain from name-calling.

Good day to you, sir.

Re:big nothing

[Sancho]

I don't think I said that anywhere.

Re:big nothing

[Sancho]

Apple pays lip service to consistency; that's different from delivering it.

Apple's no magically perfect company, some inconsistencies are inherent to humans as programmers. Stupid humans. But exactly why would you say that it's just lip service? I'm very curious there.

Apple has better consistency than most other smartphones. They at least really try. I don't know what that guy is talking about, either.

Re:big nothing

[Sancho]

You can't do that anywhere.

Ah, I misunderstood what you meant.

And have what happened to Google and Adobe companies happen to them? What's the point?

This is pretty vague, but I don't think it's fair for you to complain about companies not trying to do something because they're scared of Apple. You don't know what would happen if they tried.

So is it that you want apps to be able to modify the music database on iOS directly? Then I suppose apps aren't allowed to do that. But it's not exactly the same thing as just writing a music store app. Once useful multitasking comes to iOS, maybe we'll see someone write a music store with in-app purchases.

Really, while it's competing with Apple, if it's an in-app purchase, they'll still get a cut. It wouldn't surprise me if they allowed it, but didn't allow access to the music database on the phone.

Scientific data analysis, among other things.

There are graphic calculators in the store. There's nothing fundamentally different between a graphing calculator and scientific data analysis. Maybe no one has chosen to write such an app yet?

Other platforms have the notion of "files" not because people want them, but because nobody has come up with something better.

Files are a very high-level abstraction to a user. A music file has almost nothing to do with a document file. They're just globs of data. Getting rid of this abstraction is essential to making computers more accessible to people who don't care about how computers work.

Apple's trying something out. It certainly seems to be working. While there are cases where it's hard to make the device do what you want, for a good chunk of iOS users, it works perfectly well.

No, it's not "more than that". It's a place where I can put my presentations and files that I work on and access them from anywhere and any machine. There is nothing like that for iOS.

Well there's something like it. Dropbox, which I mentioned before. It's not perfect, obviously, but it's along those lines.

There is a right answer: give apps the level of access they need and enforce that. On iOS, right now, every Tetris clone can potentially read your personal information, access your location, and transmit all of that to Chinese hackers. That is wrong, and Apple's review process can't catch it either.

Other platforms get it right: different applications get different levels of access, and they enforce that at the OS level, and they do so without compromising functionality. It's a major deficiency of the iOS platform, and one that is hard to fix because it is so deeply hardcoded into the design of iOS.

I assume you are comparing it to the Android model? That makes the user have to make more decisions. Almost all of them will click through to get to play their game. The Windows world has taught us this. From a security standpoint, permissions manifests are mostly irrelevant.

Re:big nothing

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

"What Apple are doing is obfuscating file transactions by providing an extremely limited custom interface which hides file transactions from the user. In no way are they eliminating the concept of files, rather just treating the user like an idiot and hiding the actual transaction from them."

Exactly. Because, really, as a user, does it benefit you to have to name a file or document or whatever with an extension and all that? Especially when we've seen that it's possible to make an easy to use interface which involves simply a "+" button?

"I'd like to backup my entire device to filesystem or another device without the need for buggy third party software. Simple concept, no?"

Simple yes. And not a problem. Connect it to iTunes, let it backup your device. Then connect your new device, and restore. This will restore all the data attached to all your applications. Yes, those files that applications create and isolate from the idio..ahem... user are automatically backed up with a little control from the app so that it all just moves from old device to new device.

Now, if you were talking about piecemeal restores, yeah, that's not allowed. Why? Because apps could have private data, and doing this would allow you to easily backup and restore data in order to copy from a protected phone to a non-protected phone. Forcing you to restore the phone also forced you to retain the protection settings, while protecting you from the biggest problem (losing your phone).

"you need not restrict the entire user just to protect them, you need only to restrict application from accessing the parts of the OS (API) that it doesn't need. This can be accomplished by explicitly granting permissions during installation and explicitly denying access to all other functions. You know, how Linux security works today."

Allow or deny? Come on. Really?
Might work for us two, but certainly not going to fly for most of my non-programmer friends.

Say the iPhone worked more like you wanted.
"hey, look, check out this cool-looking new keyboard add-on app for my phone! ... oh, there's a list of APIs. Sound? File sys access? Network? um... sounds like that social fart app. If it's fine for the fart, it's probably fine for a keyboard. let's hit allow."

"Hi, this is Chase bank. We're detecting some suspicious activity....."

Re:big nothing

[Lars T.]

So you complain that Apple doesn't allow crashing apps on the App Store, because you would like crashing apps on the iPhone - but you do not want crashing apps on Android.

Gee, thanks for clearing up your position.

Re:big nothing

[yyxx]

Wow, pages upon pages of apologetics, obscurifications, and presumptions about users. The fact remains that iOS has numerous limitations and restrictions, no file or data management, and a simplistic all-or-nothing security model. These are not obscure and affect many regular users.

(And people should care. Apple's business model and software is a threat to software developers and innovation, and their billion dollar ad campaigns are luring people in with false statements like "the world's most advanced ...".)

Re:big nothing

[yyxx]

Apple has better consistency than most other smartphones. They at least really try

Whereas... Google is asking their developers to develop inconsistent applications? Or what? What are you saying?

20 years ago, Apple had a slight advantage in this area when they created written guidelines. These days, everybody is doing the same thing.

Re:big nothing

[yyxx]

Exactly. Because, really, as a user, does it benefit you to have to name a file or document or whatever with an extension and all that? Especially when we've seen that it's possible to make an easy to use interface which involves simply a "+" button?

Except that it doesn't work that way: on iPhone files do have names, and there are file managers, but instead of one of them, there is a separate, inconsistent one in each application that stores data.

Simple yes. And not a problem. Connect it to iTunes, let it backup your device.

So in order to back up my device while traveling... I need to travel with a laptop. Instead of one device, I now need to carry two. And for what? A function that could easily be provided over WiFi or 3G to some online service of my choosing.

Say the iPhone worked more like you wanted. "hey, look, check out this cool-looking new keyboard add-on app for my phone! ... oh, there's a list of APIs. Sound? File sys access? Network? um... sounds like that social fart app. If it's fine for the fart, it's probably fine for a keyboard. let's hit allow."

By your reasoning, we shouldn't have seat belts because some people are too stupid to put them on.

In fact, in my experience, people do pay attention to those messages, in particular when it says "access private data" or "services that cost you money". And if the user who installs it doesn't pay attention, the reviewers for the store do and rate or report it accordingly. That's in contrast to iPhone, where everybody is left guessing as to what the application actually does.

Finally, the Android security model restricts permissions relative to the iPhone security model, so even if you always click "yes", you are never any worse off.

The reason Apple doesn't have such a fine-grained security model is... because they can't; the iPhone OS is technically not capable of it. You're trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

Re:big nothing

[yyxx]

Yes. They're trying to make it easier for their users. That's what you apparently fail to grasp. Not everyone wants to manage files.

That's your interpretation of what they are trying to do. If that is what they are trying to do, they are failing, because the cure is worse than the disease.

Since Apple isn't staffed by morons, there is a more likely interpretation: they are trying to prevent you from using your device with third party services that undermine their revenue model.

But Android's explanations of what the apps are doing needs help, and most people probably aren't going to even pay attention to them.. You know, like how most people just click "Yes" to Windows when it asks them for permission for something?

And you know this... how? In my experience with family and friends, people do not install apps without understanding those warnings. And the warnings are actually pretty clear: "This application wants to read your private data" or "This application uses services that cost you money, including text messages."

But regardless of whether people click "Yes" or not, the permission system still protects them, since it serves to restrict permissions relative to the one-size-fits-all model of iOS. Furthermore, the permission system makes a meaningful security review possible, both by staff and by other users, and applications that request permissions that tend to be quickly identified and down-rated in the market.

"This is a very fanboyish attempt to justify lock-in." This is a very poor ad hominem attack.

Well, I didn't make it, but I have to say: he is right. Apple's industrial design and engineering are pretty nice, so their devices aren't awful. Nevertheless, they know what they are doing when they put restrictions on them in order to drive people to their revenue-generating services and add-ons, and they know what they are doing when they falsely market the resulting restrictions as "ease of use". And you are eating it all up and repeating their marketing b.s., justifying it with ideas about users and usability that you fabricate out of thin air.

Apple could deliver exactly the same user experience they do today without the restrictions they implement. In fact, they could simply have a button in the preferences that basically says "Jailbreak this phone." They don't--not because it would be bad for users--they don't because it would be bad for their revenue. Of course, Apple has a right to screw their users if they like, but people like me have a right to tell their users about it too.

Re:big nothing

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

You're correct that on the iPhone, files do have names. After all, it's a unix box underneath. But well-designed apps are supposed to abstract that out so that while we as programmers know there's a filename, the user doesn't need to care.

Take the simple notes app for example; I don't know how it's built, but if I were to guess, it's probably a bunch of files. Instead of creating a note and giving it a file name, you hit the plus button in the corner, and a note sheet pops up. The title of the note is the first line of the note, not the file name.

If you look at the photo browser, you don't see the file names either even though they're coming from the DCIM directory like any other camera. Instead, you see small thumbnail or the picture. Like a camera, you're going to be interacting with it as "next photo", "previous photo", or "pick one from this sheet". The file name doesn't come into play for the user because, well, it's not like "IMG0010.JPG" is going to actually give meaning.

If it one day does mean anything, then fine, publish a photo browser app that displays the file name in the title, and I guess you'll make money.

-----

So, yeah, backing up while traveling is hard to do. The best option is to find somebody else's PC or Mac, and back it up and take the backup and put it on your thumbdrive.

Off the bat, 3G and WiFi sound like great ideas, but if you actually tried it, will hit upon more problems.

1) You're travelling. Therefore 3G data is expensive. Really expensive. Or just not available. (yes, I thought about this once too when I was in Japan with a hacked iPhone from AT&T US)

2) WiFi takes energy. As it is, I think smartphones have ass battery life as it is. Afterall, I'm used to my old Motorola which I charged once a week.
An iPhone 3G gets 6 hours on WiFi according to some web page. My iPhone backup is apparently 64MB on my computer. That's not too bad of a size I guess. I dunno how big others are.
Googling for GoogleWifi's free wifi speeds, some guy at PC Magazine tried measuring it. The highest upload speed mentioned is 198kb/s. So that translates to roughly 25 kilobytes/sec.
Transferring 64MB across GoogleWiFi on a good day will take 43.7 minutes. Nevermind that it just burned a little over 10% of my battery, it also just burnt over half an hour of my time. :(

-------

No, it's not like seat belts. People understand what seat belts do. And if you really don't want to wear them, it's not like it's a pain in the ass to avoid. You plop down in your seat and drive, and well, it's not like the belt's going to get in your way every time you sit in the car.

Your experience and mine appears to differ greatly, as we probably interact with different people. When it comes to programs, it's different. I've seen so many dialogs just come and go, and within seconds, the user asks me a question that was exactly answered by the dialog. Yeah, it's a facepalm moment. I think to myself, "Here I am, sitting with a PhD in physics (or bioengineering). A person who's technical education has surpassed mine, and he/she won't bother to read a dialog in the center of their screen?" How many people have you seen click "allow" when Norton Firewall or ZoneAlarm or McAfee or Windows Firewall asks if a program should be allowed to access the internet? Even when the subtext says something like, "This program may have your computer." or even if I'm visiting them cuz I just fixed their computer a few days ago. You'd think that'd be fresh in their mind. At least, I thought it would be fresh in their mind.
Thing is, we joke about the "allow or deny" ads and stuff like that. We'd like to think that requiring a user enter their root password to access system settings would encourage good behavior. I won't deny that it probably has made some users better or more knowledgable. But for every user who has become better computer users, there's many more who will mindless click through everything in the blind hope that the machine does what they wan

Re:big nothing

[lennier]

Files? What are files?

With iOS, Apple is trying to make a simple, yet powerful device. They are trying to abstract away the concept of files. Any app can let you manage its own data files however the developer wishes.

Ah, nostalgia. I remember the good old days of PalmOS before SD card support was added. No files, just databases.

Give 'em a couple of years and they'll be reinventing FAT, only badly.

Hierarchical filesystems do suck a bit, and file-less data storage is a wonderful dream as long as 1) you never want to support any kind of removable media, 2) you don't want to give any kind of standards-compliant bulk data-transfer facility, 3) you're able to force users to only ever use one apps to manage each kind of data and 4) you're quite happy completely reinventing the wheel, badly and with no semblance of unity, when you realise down the track that having 10,000 documents all in one big scrolling list is a pain to search through and that maybe adding some kind of idea of 'place' (but we won't call it 'directory' or 'folder') could be a big innovation.

And the 10k$ question is

[Anonymous Coward]

when Apple will lift the other embarrasing restrictions, like how iphone and ipad apps arent allowed to access the individual fiels in the ipod music library.

Theres just about a gazillion developers out there wanting to make a DJ hero app, or just a plain DJ application where you dont have to access music files via Wifi or 3G connection...

Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbidden

[sosume]

Apple is acting worse than Microsoft has ever done. The have developers jumping through hoops.

"No we won't allow non-objective C so your investments in your app are worthless."
"Oh we're getting bad press now? well we'll allow it then for a while."
"Storm settled? let's forbid it again."
"Antitrust investigation? Hmm let's allow some for a while again"

My business has decided against investing in the iPad/iPhone development platforms. The uncertainty and unreliability of Apple management are too great a risk.

Eases nothing

[0xdeadbeef]

Apple could give you permission to ignore the restriction document before, simply stating this in the restriction document is meaningless.

Result of investigations?

[Voulnet]

Is this, by any chance, a result of the FTC probe on Apple's business practices?

I wouldn't say backpedaling

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the terms were in the Beta SDK, they too were subject to change. There was an immediate cry from developers that disallowing ingame scripting would be tantamount to killing off entire platforms with shipping products.

I just wish it would be enough to allow the SCUMMVM engine.

Re:I wouldn't say backpedaling

[Carthag]

there are standalone games in the appstore that use the scummvm engine, flight of the amazon queen for instance

Re:I wouldn't say backpedaling

[Anonymous Coward]

Embedding the engine in a application is a terrible workaround, and not close to the same thing. It means you can only run SCUMMVM games that have actually been released through the app store - on Android you can install the engine once, then run any game you want - goes for Sega and Nintendo emulators too.

not in the first place

[Anonymous Coward]

They might reduce the restrictions today, but nothing stops them from going the other direction tomorrow.

The better tactic is not to allow them this control in the first place, which is why I bought no iDevices and recommend to my non-tech friends that they do the same. Whatever excessive control any large organization (govt, big company) has over your own property *will* eventually be abused. It is only a matter of when, not if.

All these problems go away when you have freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a really simple solution to this problem: freedom.

Apple shouldn't have any yay or nay in what you do to your own phone and what developers sell or distribute for the phone.

With software freedom you don't have to beg in such a pathetic manner.

Not "common sense" at all!

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't an example of "common sense" behavior in any way. In fact, Apple's behavior has been so fucking crazy lately that even this crazy-but-not-super-crazy behavior ends up looking like "common sense".

True "Common sense" behavior in this case would be for them to drop all restrictions on what programming languages developers can use to develop apps for their platforms. This should be a choice that's 100% up to application developers, 100% of the time. Anything short of that is craziness, not "common sense".

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Anonymous Coward]

Right.

I would wager your business model has little need or use of such an investment. Ignoring the most popular mobile application platform because it has issues is the biggest risk.

parsers and RPN

[pruss]

It's just hit me: The prohibition on interpreted code taken literally might prevent someone making a graphing calculator app and implementing the graphing functionality by translating the equation into RPN code for a very simple stack-based virtual machine, and then interpreting that for each point. I assume that's the standard way to implement graphing, since it's a waste of CPU time to parse infix notation for every point (when I wrote a graphing calculator app for the Z80-based Sharp Wizard 7xx, that's what I did). It might also prohibit someone from implementing a Boolean text search by parsing the search expression into RPN code (that's how I implemented the Boolean search in Bible+ for PalmOS).

Now, it's true that they allow the use of interpreted code with Apple's written permission, but only "for providing minor features or functionality". In the case of a graphing calculator app, the interpreted code is used to implement the primary functionality. And in the case of a Boolean text search, depending on the app, that might well be a major feature.

Maybe this doesn't count as really interpreted code because one doesn't have Turing completeness in the interpreter--it's too simple. But with finite memory, one never really has Turing completeness. And anyway, if Turing completeness is the defining feature of an interpreter, then one could get around the restriction by setting a big arbitrary limit on the number of times a conditional can be interpreted (maybe, 2^100).

Re:parsers and RPN

[yyxx]

The prohibition on interpreted code taken literally

You don't have to "take it literally"; Apple doesn't have to stick by their own rules, they can approve and disapprove whatever they like.

Re:parsers and RPN

[MacGyver2210]

Postfix/RPN is much harder to visually understand than typical infix expressions. The fact is that a standard infix calculator is much less intensive to create for the developer.

With RPN you would need direct access to the device stack or some sort of manually-implemented stack-based architecture. I find using the standard architecture to be much easier in all regards, unless you happen to be writing iPhone apps in Assembly.

Re:parsers and RPN

[shutdown -p now]

The prohibition on interpreted code taken literally might prevent someone making a graphing calculator app and implementing the graphing functionality by translating the equation into RPN code for a very simple stack-based virtual machine, and then interpreting that for each point. I assume that's the standard way to implement graphing, since it's a waste of CPU time to parse infix notation for every point

Parsing expression for every point still makes for an interpreter, actually. It's just not a bytecode interpreter, which is a subset. But then e.g. bash isn't using bytecode, either, and yet it is clearly a scripting language.

PR drivel

[yyxx]

against Adobe's Flash-to-iPhone compiler as part of Apple's broader effort to keep third-party meta-platforms from eroding the user experience and stifling innovation as developers become reliant upon them to roll out support for new features introduced by Apple

Translation: "... Apple's broader effort against a fair and competitive market place, and their attempts to translate their early lead into a monopoly".

What they are afraid of is people using non-Apple music and video stores and people creating applications that also work on Android. And in doing so, Apple stifles innovation and manages to extract more money out of people's pockets.

Re:PR drivel

[HermMunster]

Couldn't agree more.

What dumbfounds me is that anyone believes Apple's PR in this regard.

Re:PR drivel

[teg]

What they are afraid of is people using non-Apple music and video stores and people creating applications that also work on Android.

Apple allow non-Apple music and video solutions - they allow e.g. spotify, wimp, netflix and many more. The latter is definitely one of their targets - not because they don't want things to work on Android, even though not being able to share the costs might be a fringe benefit now that the iPhone app market is so dominant. Their real goal is to avoid development environments that abstracts away their platform - and target the lowest common denominator, and won't give access to new iOS features when available.

As an iphone user, I really hate and love their approach. I dislike that I can't develop what I want. On the other side, the quality of the apps is higher - and I prefer a phone experience with no flash. Probably without iAd too, I don't want rich, intrusive ads.

What scares me more than their technical requirements, is their content censoring. I don't want a walled, Disney-like "think of the children!" world.

Re:PR drivel

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is stopping anyone from using non-Apple music and video stores. The media player software does not care where the video is from, although it doesn't natively support other store's DRM. Further more, Netflix already exists on iOS, so not only can other media distributers compete, but they already are. There's also nothing stopping anyone from writing their apps for both iOS and Android (or any other platform). Aside from standard cross platform development, which uses native APIs for the UI, portable C/C++ for core logic, and Lua or another scripting language for any scripting, there's nothing stopping anyone from either extending GNUStep to support UIKit and run on competing phone platforms, or doing what Adobe did and writing an Objective-C compiler for Android, Windows Phone 7, Bada, or any other platform.

While I dislike the way Apple's been acting recently, especially regarding iOS, you, and many others are being intellectually dishonest over the language restrictions. If you really want to make iOS apps, pick up a damn book and learn Objective-C. It's a relatively simple language, and although the syntax isn't the most readable (it's based on C, what did you expect), any programmer worth their salt should be able to pick it up in a few days. If that's not an option for you, or anyone else, then simply spend your resources elsewhere.

One can't always have it his way, and it's not a travesty if one's own decision prevents him from developing iOS apps. Apple will simply have fewer developers for iOS because of it. Whether iOS becomes a dominant platform in the future and makes it more difficult for some people to find employment is something they'll just have to deal with if it comes to pass; if it doesn't, let Apple deal with that future. No one is entitled to extract revenue from all platforms. If one wants that, one has to make effort to support them in whatever way possible. This is no different from the situation now, where every day, with the exception of actual cross platform developers, Windows and Mac developers each pass up the other's markets. This situation will only become more pronounced as each platform shifts away from C-based languages for apps: Windows is moving to .NET and OSX is potentially moving to MacRuby.

There are a lot of reasons to be pissed off with Apple for their policies surrounding iOS. The random rejections and removals from the App Store for no apparent reason and prohibition of adult oriented apps, even ones which aren't pornographic, except from established producers are very good reasons. Programming language choice, especially with the latest amendment, is not one of them.

Re:PR drivel

[Belial6]

After listening to an Apple fanboy explain to me why pressing a green plus symbol makes perfect sense for shrinking a window, and how it makes total sense that pressing a red X closes some programs, and leaves others running, I am no longer surprised at anything that gets accepted by some people.

Re:PR drivel

[aztracker1]

as to the new iOS features, that's crap.. if you're writing an app on that toolset, you don't have/need said feature... and if you do, you use a different tool, or bitch to the tool vendor, not apple. We only allow approved skateboard manufacturers products in our skate park, because we may add a new safety track that nobody supports today.

Re:PR drivel

[yyxx]

Apple allow non-Apple music and video solutions - they allow e.g. spotify, wimp, netflix and many more.

They don't allow me to connect to an online music or video store and buy music there that I can then play in the regular music play.

Their real goal is to avoid development environments that abstracts away their platform - and target the lowest common denominator, and won't give access to new iOS features when available.

Well, we have had cross-platform tollkits and smartphones for more than a decade, and that sort of thing just doesn't happen. The only major platform (Java) to attempt a lowest-common denominator approach paid for it with failing miserably on the client. Successful cross-platform tools let you abstract what works across platforms and then let you add conditional support for advanced features on each platform.

On the other side, the quality of the apps is higher

Higher than what? What does that even mean? There are tons of high quality apps for all major mobile platforms, and there are tons of stinkers on iPhone/iPad.

and I prefer a phone experience with no flash.

Well, you can choose not to use it on other platforms. I like to have the option.

What scares me more than their technical requirements, is their content censoring [gizmodo.com]. I don't want a walled, Disney-like "think of the children!" world.

But their censorship is made possible through their control of the applications.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[jo_ham]

You're ignoring a 100 million installed base because you're worried about losing development resources if you do something against the terms of the dev agreement?

I guess your company's website only works in IE too, right?

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[pizzach]

It sounds like through risk-benefit analysis you figured out Obj-C is the safest (but not foolproof) way to develop for the iPhone platform. From the tone, I would guess that you have no money invested in Obj-C developers, so the safest way out of this mess is to avoid it all together. At least, that is how I interpreted your post.

Doesn't matter

[blind biker]

Apps have been rejected for no good reason whatever. Even apps that have been approved at a certain version, their updates have been rejected. For no good reason. The process is absolutely capricious and you can never, ever be sure your app will be approved in the Apple store.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Just name the companies already

[wannabgeek]

Why don't they fucking come out and say it like it is: "We don't want Adobe or Google (at the moment). Anything else is okay - until we feel threatened or pissed off at that company"

Re:Just name the companies already

[91degrees]

You're basically asking "why aren't marketing people ever honest?"

I mean it's a fair question but it's one that has been asked many times and never answered satisfactorily.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[multipartmixed]

No, it sounds like to me he came to the same conclusions as I did -- If I buy some more hardware, developer SDKs, and invest a few man-months in bringing a team up to speed on iPhone development and build an app -- there is very real possibility that I will not be permitted to sell the resultant software. Worse yet, there is no fixed set of rules which I can follow which will guarantee that I will be allowed to do so.

What this means, then, is that there is a non-zero chance I will piss all that money down the drain and have little to show for it except some toys. That is completely unacceptable from a business perspective; unfortunately, I am prohibited from gambling with company money, which is exactly what this is -- a poor draw of the cards can result in a total loss before the sales chain even enters the equation.

cherry picking hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Sonic the hedgehog on iPhone is a megadrive emulator.

interpreted languages such as Lua ..

[nurb432]

So does this mean Python is in our future?

Re:interpreted languages such as Lua ..

[fotbr]

Probably not.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[StuartHankins]

Good. More room for us.

Not worse then microsoft

[nurb432]

Apple is acting worse than Microsoft has ever done. The have developers jumping through hoops.

/p>

Try developing for a windows mobile and you will find its not all that much different. Remember this is not the desktop world we are talking about which is totally open.. This is the cellphone market, traditionally somewhat closed, for good reasons.

Re:Not worse then microsoft

[FreelanceWizard]

Actually, for Windows Mobile 6.x, you can quite literally write whatever you want and your users can install it. Yes, it is possible to restrict installations only to code signed by specific certificates and this is a relatively common practice on Windows Mobile 6.x Standard, but I've yet to encounter a single WM Professional phone that had such restrictions in place out of the box. This is why you can download software such as GSPlayer, GPSTestTool, and the like for free, or hop over to Handango and buy and install whatever you want. If you're up to it, you can even download the SDK and write your own software without having to pay Microsoft a single cent.

Now, Windows Phone 7 is substantially more restrictive in what it can run, but Microsoft doesn't:
* Restrict what ad systems you can use
* Arbitrarily deny specific development languages (the only restriction is that the code run on the Silverlight version of the CLR; this means you can use F#, C#, VB, Python, and even COBOL)
* Ban the use of interpreted code, so you can write emulators in the CLR language of your choice

Microsoft has also said that its final app requirements won't include any wiggle room for random app denials, and they've also strongly implied that the testing process for app approval will be at least partially automated to remove the possibility of an angry or prudish tester zapping your app. They've also said that they're working on parental controls and intend to allow mature content once that's in place.

So, how again is Windows Mobile or Windows Phone development substantially similar to i-device development?

Re:Not worse then microsoft

[icebraining]

How so? Are you forbidden from installing Windows Mobile software from other sources besides Microsoft's store?

Re:Not worse then microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. You can only install apps from Microsoft's store. Developers must pay an annual fee as well as $99 per app submitted.

Re:Not worse then microsoft

[codepunk]

Actually, for Windows Mobile 6.x, you can quite literally write whatever you want and your users can install it.

How is that different then droid for instance? I guess if your target market is a couple of hand sets you would be in business.

Re:Not worse then microsoft

[macs4all]

testing process for app approval will be at least partially automated

Yeah, because that process has proven to produce bug-free OS code for Windows. BTW, Vista's testing was an exercise in Automated Testing...

And, BTW, who says that "Automated" testing "remove[s] the POSSIBILITY for an angry or prudish" rule-set? The testing is only as good (and as open-minded) as those writing the test-vector scripts. Over time, those scripts would naturally begin to resemble the re-flash of Robocop's "Rule-set" in Robocop 2, where he went from about 3 simple "Rules" to dozens of overlapping and even self-conflicting rules. Systems NEVER get more simple over time.

Re:Not worse then microsoft

[shutdown -p now]

How is that different then droid for instance? I guess if your target market is a couple of hand sets you would be in business.

It's not any different. It's why I consider Android, by and large, to be the spiritual successor to Windows Mobile in terms of platform openness.

Re:Not worse then microsoft

[shutdown -p now]

You are, apparently, confusing the terms for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 - for which no final version, and no device using it, has been released - with Windows Mobile (6 and below).

Re:Not worse then microsoft

[tepples]

As I understand it, Microsoft isn't treating Windows Phone 7 as a "third pillar" the way Nintendo does with its new consoles. Once Windows Phone 7 comes out, Windows Mobile (6 and below) phones will no longer be sold.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[blackraven14250]

Guess what?

Anyone writing an app that takes more than 1 person two weeks to create, like those real, groundbreaking apps that aren't rehashes of another app that's already been done, aren't going to waste their time with a company as inconsistent as Apple when they have other platforms to develop for.

Especially when there's reason to believe that Android is beginning to exceed the iPhone.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[HermMunster]

Pathetic!

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[HermMunster]

Microsoft is just as evil, if not more, just in other ways.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[jo_ham]

Ah, yes, the padded numbers from the 2 for 1 Verizon promotion, and the slump in numbers because the iPhone 4 release is very soon...

Numbers for 1 quarter don't tell the whole picture, although I am glad Android is doing well - competition is good for all.

This has come up in discussion before - 95% of the apps submitted to the store get approved, and any company that is serious about making a living from mobile development is *crazy* to ignore a 100 million user base just because they think it might possibly cost them a little bit extra in development. If your company cannot afford to "take the risk" (ie, developing an iPhone app that is rejected would cause the company to fold) then it has bigger issues than a potentially "inconsistent" company.

"Wasting their time" developing for an app that (for conservative estimates, ignoring older phones), is available to 50 million customers... right.

If you are serious about development in the mobile market you are crazy to ignore the iPhone - the user base is enormous, the app store is centralised and it continues to grow.

It would be the equivalent of being a scissors manufacturer, or a can opener maker and not making a left handed version for the cost of development. Even if the left handed population is small, relative to the whole (10% approx), it is still a market that is worth developing for. The iPhone is a significantly larger portion of the smartphone market than 10%. Ignoring it because you are worried about a serious minority of app rejections is just not good business sense.

By all means, develop for Android (especially with the rise in handsets and users - it's a clear emerging market), but any sensible business will also be "risking" iPhone development.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[aaarrrgggh]

Good points; the iOS (hate the name!) development seems to favor the startup mentality rather than a corporate cycle. But, all this really means is you start with fewer monolithic projects, and chase larger projects as you gain experience with the process.

$1B in developer income to-date isn't enough for a $1MM project, but a $10k project can be viable, even with the extra 5% rejection risk.

No they don't

[obarthelemy]

All the restrictions are still in place, with the added restriction that your competitors may have the restrictions waived if Apple fancy it. Like for the "Boobs" restriction, this probably means small independent developer can't do scripts (and can't do boos), but big-money conglomerates can. And even if you manage to snag an exemption, it may be cancelled at any time... but then again, so may your Appstore listing in any case anyway.

I'm glad that I'm not a developer and that, as a consumer, I can tell Apple to go f*** themselves.

Isn't this a step backwards?

[Trufagus]

Before we had a straight-forward, written, rule. Now we are back to the usual app-store situation where we have a rough idea of what will get blocked, but Apple reserves the right to block things for whatever reason it wants.

Re:Isn't this a step backwards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has always blocked things for no reason at all. Nothing has changed.

Re:The beginning of ther end

[Anonymous Coward]

I too find it disgusting that /. is echoing some apple rumors. I thought it was supposed to be about things that matter. And to nerds, no less.

Fucking /.

tits Apple's Party but let Google Cry anyways!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody knows where my Adobe has gone
Google left the same time
Why was he holding her hand
When he's supposed to be mine

It's not my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you

Playin' my records, keep dancin' all night
Leave me alone for a while
'til Apple's dancin' with me
I've got no reason to smile

It's mnot my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you

Apple and Steve just walked through the door
Like a queen with her king
Oh what a birthday surprise
Somebody is wearin' Apple's ring
It doesn't have to make sense it's REAL

It's not my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you

Jobs is on the run! Shoe him!

[Hognoxious]

I feel a sudden disturbance in the reality distortion field - as if a thousand turtleneck wearing ponces just shat their chinos, and then went "euuuuw!".

It is my device or not?

[virtualflesh]

If I bought the device, then I should be able to do whatever the bl#^p I want on it. Of course I must take responsibility for my own actions. That's the point. Feels like I'm renting the device from Apple and they still own it. So, despite my best efforts, I will never own (nor be able to own) one of these devices.

FLASH!

[MacGyver2210]

Until Apple wakes up and realizes that they need to allow Flash in some form, their stock is constantly falling in my opinion.

I never use iPhones, I'm an Android guy, but as far as writing software for the iPhone I don't bother anymore because of the overly draconian approval process(one of my apps was rejected, as best as I can tell, because I misspelled a word) and lockdowns like "Can't use AdMob".

I don't want to sign up for some independent advertising company that probably sends kickbacks to Apple! I have an AdMob account and I've got it set how I want it. What the hell is wrong with you, Jobs?

Re:FLASH!

[Anonymous Coward]

but as far as writing software for the iPhone I don't bother anymore because of the overly draconian approval process

Because you don't really care about earning money for your mobile software. Those of us who do, develop on both. And out of a half dozen successful iPhone apps (more than 2000$/wk of development time in revenue), I've got no complaints.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[IamTheRealMike]

If Apple only rejected apps that violated a simple and clear developer agreement that'd be one thing. The problem is that they don't. I'm not sure what part of this is hard to understand.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[xero314]

How is this any different than any other new product? Ever new product has risks, and that risk is that your consumer will not be interested in your product. In the case of consumer products this often means that distributors have to take interest in your product as distributors are the real consumer of the manufacturer. In this case Apple has to take interest in your product since they are the only consumer for developers of iPhone applications. If you wrote an application and neither walmart or best by would distribute it, you would be in a very similar position. If you wrote a Console game and the console licensor would not accept it (as is the case with all adult rated games in the US) then you would be in the exact same position.

Creating new products is a risk. If you don't want to take that risk, then stay out of the business of creating new products and leave that to people that are a little less risk adverse.

we had a deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm altering the agreement; pray I do not alter it any further

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[StuartHankins]

Pathetic!

Exactly my point. If you don't like the terms then go do something else. It seems massively stupid to pass up such an opportunity, but really we don't need you if you don't want to play. Got it? So don't stand here complaining all day, you get nothing done and we're getting tired of all the whining.

Or do you really believe a post on Slashdot will change everything? Boy have I got some unicorns to sell you!

In other words

[ClosedSource]

No significant competitor is allowed. From an anti-trust perspective Apple's change is a NOP.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[macs4all]

That is completely unacceptable from a business perspective; unfortunately, I am prohibited from gambling with company money, which is exactly what this is -- a poor draw of the cards can result in a total loss before the sales chain even enters the equation.

I guess you haven't done any real product R&D. ALL new product development (even contract development where the customer has given you the specs for 'exactly what they want') is a "gamble with the company's money". It OFTEN requires "buying new equipment, purchasing SDKs (Apple SDKs are free, after the $99 dev. license, btw)", and "bringing the team up to speed". And sometimes, even on a "sure fire" project, things just don't pan out. This happens to big companies and small alike. This is one of the reasons why everyone isn't walking around as a millionaire, and every business isn't as successful as Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, etc.

Even if your hypothetical app is approved, or even if you develop for a platform without any restrictions, there is ZERO GUARANTEE that you won't "result in a total loss".

So, where is this ideal world you live in, where "If you build it, they will come"?

Seems to me that you want a guarantee. Sorry, life (and business!) just don't work that way.

What about the economy?

[N0Man74]

First of all, IANAE (economist), but the way I see it....

I do believe in buying reliable products that last. Really, I do. I think it's a ridiculous waste when we buy shoddy products that we end up tossing in landfills a few years down the road when they break down.

However, as a thought experiment, have you ever considered what would happen if all American made products became more reliable? Eventually sales for these products would slow (since we're replacing them less often), which eventually would lead to having to cut back on on these companies. They'd probably have to cut back on production (and employees) to meet the reduced rate of consumption. As sales slow, investment in the company begins to slow and pull out. The loss of sales, investments, and jobs is going to adversely affect the economy.

As for the consumer, not having to re-buy their appliances and systems helps relieve costs for them. It's hard to say where that extra money will go. They might save it, which increases their personal financial security )but everyone saving more money also adversely affects the economy). The might just spend it on more goods, but there are only so many durable goods one can practically buy. They might spend more on more services (but I think they'd spend less than what they are saving on goods. Then again, by this point, they might be one of the unfortunate people who have been affected by the earlier job reductions and there is no extra money.

In the end, we are living in a system that works best when we have more consumption, waste, insecurity, and low reliability of goods. I'm not saying that's how it should be, but that's how it works out.

Re:What about the economy?

[Anonymous Coward]

See: the broken window fallacy. I think it is pretty similar to the argument you are using except instead of breaking windows, you want to more subtly reduce the quality of manufactured goods.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[jo_ham]

it's not hard to understand at all, but the key thing is that the vast, vast majority of apps are approved, and ignoring a potential 50+ million user base because a small minority of apps get rejected (and you can resubmit for approval) is just not good business sense.

I'm not sure what part of "maybe get rejected so DON'T EVEN TRY" vs "50 million potential customers can buy my app" is hard to understand.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is acting worse than Microsoft has ever done. The have developers jumping through hoops.

Really? You mean anybody could write stuff for the XBOX and have it published?

iOS Development

[awhite]

Many people on this thread have a very skewed picture of iOS development. I have released three fairly large iOS projects (i.e. months to years of development rather than a few days or weeks like so many toy apps). The first was a smashing success and our 3-person development company was acquired for it. The acquiring company is now my employer so I won't name specifics in this case. The second was an independent iPhone app I wrote that was a total flop. The third is my new independent iPad project called Stash that's doing pretty well so far: http://stash.hedonicsoftware.com/

Just the existence of Stash on the App Store - basically an app for porn, though it doesn't provide the explicit content - is evidence that Apple isn't nearly as draconian and capricious as many in this thread are portraying them to be. If you create a high-quality app (or hell, even a low-quality one so long as it doesn't crash) that follows their general guidelines and doesn't try to take over basic functions of the iPhone, you won't generally have a problem. Sure, there are famous counter-examples, and I really feel for those developers. I can't imagine a more frustrating experience then pouring your time into something that's rejected outright. But it doesn't change the fact that these are the few exceptions in a vast sea of approvals or justified rejections (based on the three points that Jobs outlined). Moreover, in my experience Apple is getting much better about working with developers to get apps their approved. It's still a slow process - the last release of Stash was delayed without feedback for over 2 weeks, which felt interminable - but they eventually call and tell you about any solvable issues and give you a chance to correct them.

I'd also like to point out that outside the pain of dealing with the review process, iOS development is a lot of fun. Someone on this thread said no one is in the App Store simply for the love of programming, but I strongly disagree. Apple provides some really nice APIs, and it's relatively easy to create something that looks and feels smooth and professional. I'm currently working on an Android project for my employer, and it's a real chore compared to iOS dev. I don't care how "open" the market is or even how powerful the SDK is if I hate coding for it and need a graphic design team to make it look decent. People forget that Apple/NeXT has been in the GUI framework business for a long time. They know what they're doing. They also seem to be good at letting their internal APIs fully bake before including them in the SDK, which results in a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than in Android, where everything feels over-engineered. I recently read an article by another iOS developer that sums up my feelings pretty much exactly: http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2010/03/android-sdk-from-iphone-developer.html

That's my 2 cents. YMMV. But if you're interested in mobile development at all, you owe it to yourself to give iOS development a shot.

Re:iOS Development

[awhite]

Why the hell was I modded "troll"? Because I dared to mention an app I created to show that, you know, I actually have some relevant experience? Or because I criticized Android development? I've noticed lately that the Android fans are even more rabid than the iPhone ones.

Re:iOS Development

[shutdown -p now]

Just the existence of Stash on the App Store - basically an app for porn, though it doesn't provide the explicit content - is evidence that Apple isn't nearly as draconian and capricious as many in this thread are portraying them to be.

Given that we've seen a bunch of cases where an application was approved for N major releases, and then blocked in (N+1)th, over the feature that has been present in it from the start, I dare say that this doesn't prove anything.

Now, if you want to have some proof - write an anonymous hysterical complaint about your own app ("porn! think of the children!" etc) to Apple, and see if they tell you to GTFO, or re-review and pull the app down. If you're that trusting of Apple, I dare you to do this, and post the result of this little experiment on Slashdot.

Re:iOS Development

[bledri]

How dare you say anything semi-positive about Apple! As if anyone reading a "news for nerds" site would be interested in development environments, well engineered APIs, or such. Anyway, you must be lying cause I heard that only people that don't understand computers like Apple products. So if you appreciate Apple's development environment and APIs, you can't possibly be a programmer and therefore you haven't worked on any apps.

Re:iOS Development

[wannabgeek]

Your post reminds me of a certain developer - Russell Ivanovic. Here's before and after. I hope you have a better experience than he did.

Your app is very interesting. It appears like you put considerable thought into the porn stash use case (with secondary album and panic gesture and all that :-)

Good!

[SideshowBob]

Good.

As long as Apple's actions continue to improve (or at least don't diminish) the user's experience, then F' em. The developers are there to serve the user (as is Apple itself) and having a gatekeeper to ensure that happens is a fine thing.

It may be a walled garden but if it's well tended then that's ok. If you want to live in the jungle you have that as an option elsewhere.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Draek]

Because the rules to sell your product in all other industries are far more consistent, and even if Walmart and Best Buy refuse to stock your product you can always sell it yourself. Apple controls the *ONLY* way to reach your customer base (no, buying a dev account for every hundred customers isn't a possibility) and their rules change pretty much every day.

You make the comparison to adult-rated games and its an apt one, but how large is that market compared to the whole of videogames? that's the future of the App Store unless Apple grows up and provides a set of clear and consistent rules that developers (and, most importantly, managers) can work with and rely on. And stop trying to use their customers as ammunition against Google, for God's sake.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Hognoxious]

you're worried about losing development resources if you do something against the terms of the dev agreement?

Which dev agreement? The one in place when you start developing, the one in place when you ship or the one you think His Jobsiness (may his turtleneck never sag) will dream up two weeks after that?

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[aztracker1]

But the risks you mention are on top of, not instead of the blurry policy risks from Apple. This makes such an investment more risky. And with the competition and pricing model where it is, it simply isn't worth the risk. Higher risk for lower margins isn't a recipe for success.

WarioWare DIY

[tepples]

- in-device software development

Why would you want this, out of curiosity? It seems like developing with a touchscreen device would be annoying.

Even Nintendo, which ordinarily has an even harsher stance toward third-party developers than Apple, has made a product for limited, in-device software development on a Nintendo DS. It's called WarioWare DIY.

Files? What are files?

Self-contained data objects in an application's storage.

Any app can let you manage its own data files however the developer wishes.

The trouble comes when a developer either (out of malice rationalized as a business model) wishes that users not make a backup or (out of negligence) forgets to implement backup.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[whisper_jeff]

Anyone writing an app that takes more than 1 person two weeks to create ... aren't going to waste their time with a company as inconsistent as Apple when they have other platforms to develop for.

Ok, seriously, how do people even remotely believe this? Go have a look at the app store and browse through the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of apps that are available. Take a moment to pay attention to the development studios involved in many of those apps. Take a moment to contemplate the development time involved with many of those apps. Now, take a look back at your quote and see just how utterly fallacious it is. There are apparently plenty of developers "wasting" their time developing for the iPhone/iPad.

Especially when there's reason to believe that Android is beginning to exceed the iPhone.

As to your claim that Android is exceeding the iPhone, you are utterly wrong. The iPhone OS outstrips Android by a wide margin. A very, very wide margin. Three times larger, in fact.

You might want to read up on the subject a bit more because you are entirely wrong, in every way possible.

I don't see how that changes anything.

[greggman]

3.3.1 still says

3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++ or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++ and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

That still describes exactly Flash, Unity3D, Torque, SDL, Unreal and most game engines.

Re:I don't see how that changes anything.

[imthesponge]

The application is the Flash player itself, not whatever is being interpreted. I'd take this to mean that you can't actually sell apps written in Flash.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes, the padded numbers from the 2 for 1 Verizon promotion

Heh, I love this argument. It's like saying you can't count razor blade sales because they give away the handles for free! Newsflash sparky. Those are real handsets, (and they are really being paid for) you can't just handwave them away.

It's an uncontrollable risk

[Anonymous Coward]

> How is this any different than any other new product?

It's uncontrollable. I can do market research and things like that to mitigate the other risks. It's also a catastrophic risk, because if Apple says "no dice" to my application, it's useless. I won't just sell a few copies and come out in the red, I'll sell zero copies and lose my entire investment. Making developers face risks like that is unreasonable. Maybe if you're a one-man team and you don't care about that risk (don't quit your day job!) you can write the next iFart and make good money. More power to you.

But normal businesses won't face that kind of uncontrollable risk if they don't have to. And they don't. There are plenty of other platforms you can develop for. Ballmer may be an idiot, but one thing Microsoft did right was to focus on developers to help expand their platform.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[jo_ham]

Oh I'm not, just handwaving them away. However, you have to consider it from both sides - you can't just start proclaiming how "Android is overtaking iPhone!!!" and then show those single quarter results while neglecting to mention two very salient points: that the iPhone 4 is coming out very soon, so iPhone 3GS sales have dropped off, and that Verizon was running a 2 for 1 deal on Android handsets to boost sales.

Of course the handsets are there - no one is waving them away, but if the crux of an argument is about how Android is overtaking iPhone as a target for mobile development, and in installed users, both of those things are important considerations.

Kill Walt

[tepples]

I don't want a walled, Disney-like "think of the children!" world.

Please don't use Disney as an example here. Disney distributed Kill Bill.

Re:Kill Walt

[teg]

Please don't use Disney as an example here. Disney distributed Kill Bill.

I think it illustrates my point very well... in the US, violence in mass media of various kinds are accepted. There is no restrictions on showing violence/murder over the air, on cable, at any time of the day. Show a nipple by accident for half a second, and all hell breaks loose. The US has a rather disturbed view on violence vs. sex, and I don't like Apple being able to impose this weird behaviour onto more developed nations.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Man On Pink Corner]

it's not hard to understand at all, but the key thing is that the vast, vast majority of apps are approved,

The "vast, vast majority" of those approved apps are trivial exercises, a week's work at most for a competent basement hacker.

Complex, interesting applications are extremely risky to develop under Apple's TOS, and the more interesting they are, the riskier. Why should anyone spend several man-years and hundreds of thousands of dollars writing for the iPhone/iPad platforms, if they see other people who did the same thing having their work thrown out at the whim of some turtleneck-clad megalomaniac?

Apple is making it up as they go along. Professional developers will not take their platform seriously until they stop doing that.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[jo_ham]

Now you're just being silly. "Professional developers will not take their platform seriously until they stop doing that." - this is an opinion, not a fact. It's also far from true. There are many professional developers taking the platform seriously with successful apps.

As much as you want it to be true to support your bias, I'm afraid it's just not so.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[bteed]

It would be the same if Walmart only let you build products out of magical pixie dust that if taken out of Walland turns into a grumpy lawyer fairy in a black turtleneck.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Cronock]

Maybe his company plans on making an app that crashes while using private APIs to do things other than what the description says it should do.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that he needs to avoid all that hard work and development time he would put into that. Android offers you much more flexibility for these apps.

Business = Risk

[Cronock]

Business = risk. Every business venture has a chance to fail horribly. The people who go out and say "there's a chance it might not get approved, so why try" are going to be kicking themselves when somebody else does it and succeeds.

Follow the rules and test the app well before submission. But, if your groundbreaking app needs to bend/break the rules, sure, avoid the iPhone.

Re:Business = Risk

[Man On Pink Corner]

Follow the rules and test the app well before submission.

Which rules are those? The rules that are in place when I begin development, or the new and improved rules that Jobs pulls out of his ass the day before I upload the submission?

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Cronock]

It would be the same if Walmart only let you build products out of magical pixie dust that if taken out of Walland turns into a grumpy lawyer fairy in a black turtleneck.

I really need some of whatever that is you're smoking.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Cronock]

If you're out there comparing this to other platforms, the barrier to entry is extreme low. $99 assuming you already have a Mac somewhere in the office. $1098+tax if you don't. Even if that looks like a big number with the Mac, it's really not. If you see how much your company is paying for the software on your machine and your user licenses for things you access on their servers, you might be a little shocked.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[xero314]

Apple controls the *ONLY* way to reach your customer base (no, buying a dev account for every hundred customers isn't a possibility) and their rules change pretty much every day.

This is not at all true, unless you accept that you have chosen that your customer base is only Apple customers. This is the exact same that as artificially deciding that your customer base is only Walmart customers.

And stop trying to use their customers as ammunition against Google, for God's sake.

You are asking apple to carry a competitors product. That would be like Cosco carrying Member's Mark or Sam's Club carrying Kirkland (or more accurately Sam's Club carrying your product which happens to include Kirkland products in it's bundle). Or for that matter any store stocking and selling another stores brand. No one seems to complain about that, yet you are willing to complain that Apple won't carry Google products.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Man On Pink Corner]

There are many professional developers taking the platform seriously with successful apps.

Sure. Those developers are creating enterprise apps that don't require App Store distribution, and that you or I will never see unless we work for the org or division that uses them.

The idea that a consumer-accessible computing platform can flourish under terms like Apple's is utterly unprecedented. Even game console development is unfettered by comparison.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[jo_ham]

Your reality does not follow with actual reality.

There are also many high profile consumer-accessible apps that are more than "some single person business knocking out something in 2 weeks" that are selling very well.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Man On Pink Corner]

There are also many high profile consumer-accessible apps that are more than "some single person business knocking out something in 2 weeks" that are selling very well.

Such as?

The only ones I see are ports of existing applications from other platforms where they were developed first. Your argument will have more merit if we start to see entirely new nontrivial applications emerge on the iOS platforms. So far that has not happened.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a big difference between pulling the rug out from under developers just before release and a product failing commercially on its own merits.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[jo_ham]

So by that metric, the Android platform shouldn't be taken seriously either, since all the apps on that platform from the major players were developed first from other platforms.

The ones I can think of off the top of my head are the Crayon Physics thing (although again, physics engine simulations did not originate on the iPhone), the Ocrarina app that spawned a whole new genre (although, again, musical instruments and music as a whole did not originate on the iPhone), and games that were developed from scratch to match the capabilities of the phone (like the compass, accelerometers, etc) (and again, motion detection control input did not originate on the iPhone).

Apps like MotionGPS are also doing extremely well (although GPS navigation with waypoints, map drawing, en-route-snapshots, timers and route uploading to the web did not originate on the iPhone) which is making the company that develops the software for other devices a great deal of money since their customer base went from "gee, it would be nice to buy a GPS unit for my walking hobby, but it's expensive" to "ooh, $5 for a nice GPS waypoint app with some nice features that goes right on my phone".

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[multipartmixed]

> So, where is this ideal world you live in, where "If you build it,
> they will come"?
> Seems to me that you want a guarantee. Sorry, life (and business!)
> just don't work that way.

Ah - but therein lies the rub where App-Store development differs from the traditional software chain.

The guarantee I want is simply that if I build it, I will be allowed to sell it.

We use two business models:
1) We build and sell to many customers
2) We build and sell to one customer

App store is a little bit of a blend between the two, and that's why it's difficult for business to build non-trivial apps for it (and I'm not interested in recipe databases or fart machines).

In business model #1, before we start, we look around and make sure there is a good market. We build the software, and either we did a good job and people buy it, or we did a bad job and they don't.

In business model #2, before we start, we sign a contract with said customer, and make sure that they're not going to cause us to post a loss even if they change their minds halfway through the process. Usually this is achieved by getting money up front.

The App Store can be seen as a single customer in terms of software acceptance: either they like it, or they don't. But there is no contract describing the acceptance procedure, and no money changes hands.

I don't have a problem in the #1 scenario gambling on whether the company will do a good job or not. What I have a problem is gambling on whether we'll even be allowed to try to sell the software or not. To me, that's completely unacceptable. It's one thing to fail because you did a bad job: it's another thing entirely to fail because a single individual outside your company had a bad one day.

Re:Today they allow it, tomorrow it will be forbid

[exomondo]

You're ignoring a 100 million installed base because you're worried about losing development resources if you do something against the terms of the dev agreement?

More like worried about losing development resources if you adhere directly to the dev agreement then during development or approval process they arbitrarily change the dev agreement on you.