iPhone App In App Store Limbo Open Sourced

recoiledsnake writes "The author of iPhone prototyping tool Briefs has decided to open source it after the App store submission has been in limbo for over three months. The app had got into trouble for what Apple believes is being able to run interpreted code, though the author denies it, saying all the compiling happens on the Mac. While Rob stays civil, his co-worker blasts Apple for not even rejecting the app. Three months is nothing compared to Google Voice for the iPhone though, which is still being studied further by Apple after more than a year."

Comments

Why really does Apple behave this way?

[bogaboga]

Can someone explain to me why Apple behaves this way? I fail to understand. What even bugles my mind is the fact that Apple as a company is [still] a darling in many people's hearts. No bad publicity sticks.

I for one, will not touch an iPhone even with a 10 foot pole for my HTC Incredible does all that want it to and even more. The trouble is Oracle that is threatening to cut off Android's air supply with patent suits against Google.

 

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Haedrian]

When you've got a market locked down, people think buying your products will make them cool, and you've closed everything off so the only way out is to avoid apple - then you can afford to (mis)treat people anyway you want.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MichaelSmith]

How about failing to pay homage to SJ?

But authoring uses a simple language called bs. BS is a simple language written specifically for creating briefs.

Reading the web site it does look like a new development tool. If apple want to force people to use their tools (because the tool enforces policy) then it seems logical they would want to tie this one up in the approval process.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[phantomfive]

Oracle doesn't want to cut off Android's air supply. They want to milk it for everything they can. Larry Ellison is certainly greedy, but even he knows not to kill the golden goose. Patent lawsuits like this rarely result in a product being destroyed.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Michael D Kristopeit]

i find it telling that the stated purpose of the company behind the briefs product is: "to give [our] users the best experience possible."

the thing is, the "user" to briefs is someone with an application idea drawn on napkins who wants to release a prototype application "without expensive development". to apple the user is the REAL user... the user of the application created by the user of briefs prototyping tool, and to apple, that user is not getting the best experience possible... they are getting a translation.

imagine you are a company that could benefit by making a high profile apple product look slow and buggy and prone to crashing... you release an innocent enough looking "prototyping" tool... it doesn't make applications as optimized as one's with "expensive development", or using the free native development environment, but it's dumbed down and simpler, and hey, it's just a prototype and it works... the translation isn't optimized at all, but all the buttons will do what you tell them to do... now these prototypes are going to be seen by people and the hardware will be judged by the responsiveness of the software.

apple has taken a firm and understandable stance: THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE SOFTWARE FOR THIS DEVICE. NO EXCEPTIONS. *cough* except javascript.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[mr100percent]

According to Steve Jobs, they get 1500 app submissions per day. Even so, this wait is unusually long for an approval/reject. Maybe this one just fell through the cracks?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[beakerMeep]

look at windows... the root cause of most problems is the requirement to keep legacy software supported...

What does that have to do with interpreted code?

Isnt it equally likely a ton of app developers could be slow to re-factor out deprecated APIs as it is for a platform of interpreted code?

And latency? Really? It's simply about protecting profits. Go watch Flash running on a Nexus One and tell me Apple is saving the world from those milliseconds of latency.

This whole thing is about profit. The really isn't anything complicated about it. The mental gymnastics some people go through to justify it really amaze me sometimes though.

There are some fantastic things about iPhone and Apple's tech and even advantages to the draconian locked down system. But 'saving' users from interpreted code isn't one of them.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Sycraft-fu]

They behave the way they do because they are control freaks. They want absolute control over their platform. Their ultimate vision is that they'll be the source of all your media, all your apps, etc. They'll dictate how you consume stuff. Such a setup would be, needless to say, very profitable.

As for why they can get away with it, well I'd say there are two reasons:

1) Fanboyism/zealotry. Apple has had a following for a long time of people for whom they can do no wrong more or less. A non-trivial amount of these people are in the press (Macs are big in prepress work). They just love Apple and everything they do. So when something bad comes out, they find ways to rationalize it away, or ignore it.

2) For many of the Apple buyers these days, Apple is not a technology company but a fashion company. They largely won't admit it, but they buy them as fashion accessories. They are the "cool" product to own. As such they are purchased based on that alone. Whatever restrictions/costs accompany that are ok because they want to be cool. I see the same thing these days with fixed gear bikes. They are in with college kids (I work on campus and bike to work). They buy brand new, surprisingly expensive, fixed gear bikes. This, of course, makes them harder to ride up hill, but they are ok with that because fixed gear is cool, road or mountain bikes are not.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Michael D Kristopeit]

slashdot user: "I fail to understand."
slashdot mod: "Insightful."

*sigh*

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[beh]

Like many here you're not getting one thing - developers / geeks do not account for 90% of possible iPhone customers. There is something that is a problem for YOU and a problem for many OPEN-SOURCE type people - but not really something that is seen as a problem by the majority of people out there.

And it's not even limited to the iPhone - most people still use MS Office, despite how many competitors again? Despite the free OpenOffice?

You might like Android - and you're perfectly in your right to be. Be happy with it. But please accept, that if I had to buy a new phone for my parents/grandparents, it'd be an iPhone - I think it would be more geared to what she'd need and what she'd be capable of using, simply because it is more streamlined.
The closed Appstore may be something you hate - on the other hand, as far as non-geeks are concerned, I'd rather have the AppStore than seeing a proliferation of new phone threats (like - wouldn't you hate being spammed by a mobile botnet?). As a developer myself, I also see the stores limitations, but as a normal person, I see the advantages of the store as well in that it gives some more peace of mind to the less tech-savvy user.

Don't get me wrong - the iPhone has its own set of quirks I don't like. On the other hand - for me (and most people), it was APPLE that made smart phones a lot easier to use - everyone, including Android, is trying to copy that ease of use (with varying amounts of success).

What annoys me about the whole discussion of the iPhone is this: Noone attacks MS for being a commercial enterprise. MS is commonly attacked for 'innovating' things that have been out there for ages. With Apple it's the other way around - they're being attacked for trying to make money - while it's the 'open source' crowd 'innovating' all the things Apple has done on the phone.

The same with the iPad - the iPad came out to much ridicule from the tech-savvy crowd - but see how many projects there are out to 'innovate' a tablet computer now that the iPad is out? Some of those may even offer some more eye-candy - but eye-candy alone isn't going to make me buy one of them. It's the usability - the general usability for the majority of people out there (inclusive of all the non-geeks) - that needs looking at, not flashy graphics.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[shutdown -p now]

I don't see any relation here. Indeed, you point at Windows as an example, but Windows does not use any kind of interpreted code to support legacy software! And, of course, there are countless uses of interpreted code that have absolutely nothing to do with legacy etc - user scripting is an obvious one, and exists solely to empower the user.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Michael Kristopeit]

Go watch Flash running on a Nexus One and tell me Apple is saving the world from those milliseconds of latency.

milliseconds of latency on every single executed flash bytecode instruction... billions and billions and billions of them, all of which also require electricity that will be drained from the battery.

show me a flash application that can't be written natively and function better and use less resources.

show me a flash application that without it, your phone is useless.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Runaway1956]

I never trust anyone after they've had their mind bugled. Yeah, I've heard that you can be rehabilitated - but, I just won't ever trust you again. Call me a bugle bigot, it won't bother me. I don't HAVE to be politically correct. I've heard that mind bugling is the gateway to kiddie diddling - not sure if I believe it or not. It sure makes a guy think though. Should we have a no bugling zone around our schools?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[shutdown -p now]

If your sole association with the word "empower" is superheroes, then I'm afraid that the problem isn't with retarded kids on Slashdot ... (elsewhere, perhaps?)

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Anonymous Coward]

but not really something that is seen as a problem by the majority of people out there

For the majority of people, it's not a matter of perception.. this really isn't a problem. There are iPhone apps for just about everything, they're cheap and easy to access. The majority of people love their iPhones and for good reason.

most people still use MS Office, despite how many competitors again? Despite the free OpenOffice?

But it works. And whenever Microsoft creates a new file format (ie. every release of office), OO isn't compatible ... again. As long as most people continue to use MS Office .. most people will need to continue to use MS Office. It's a matter of practicality not politics.

It's the usability - the general usability for the majority of people out there (inclusive of all the non-geeks)

The iPad is so much more of a killer tool than the iPhone. It's a cheap, secure web browser for all the people who don't need anything more than a web browser. Sure you can also load apps on it (which'll make all the people who love their iPhone apps want one) but ultimately it's the computer for the people who don't want to have a computer... most people.

Apple is fighting the same front as Microsoft. They're turning the computer into a commodity .. a tool for every man. The only problem with OSS and geek elitism is that they (we?) don't understand how to make a computer for every man. That's why OSS is so big in the server room and so small on the desktop.

Do me and my granny a favour and stop bashing Apple for accomplishing what me / you / Ubuntu / Richard Stallman keep failing to accomplish.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[beakerMeep]

milliseconds of latency on every single executed flash bytecode instruction... billions and billions and billions of them, all of which also require electricity that will be drained from the battery.

show me a flash application that can't be written natively and function better and use less resources.

show me a flash application that without it, your phone is useless.

Seems the mods are taking the axe to your posts (from two accounts?) but I wanted to reply to this one.

Interpreted code doesn't need to function as fast as native code in order to be good or useful. Look at JavaScript/Java/Python/Lisp/PHP/C#. And the software: Open Office, Eclipse, etc, etc. There are endless examples. Google Docs, Desktop Tower Defense.

The beauty of interpreted code is that it opens up a platform to developers who think differently about how they write code. And who prefer different tools. It enables rapid prototyping. And, if the end result is good, it doesn't matter if a native app is a tiny bit faster or uses a tiny bit less resources. (You really have no idea how fast Flash is on an N1 or how much battery is uses either though, do you?)

Nothing needs to be essential to a phone in order for a user to have the opportunity to try it out. How many fart apps are essential to the phone? Are you really arguing Apple should be protecting it's users from everything it deems non-essential?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds exactly like cigarettes!

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Frag-A-Muffin]

And latency? Really? It's simply about protecting profits. Go watch Flash running on a Nexus One and tell me Apple is saving the world from those milliseconds of latency.

Ummm, I have (and obviously you haven't), and it's quite horrible. Perhaps *you're* ok with a program that runs that slow on any device, but if THAT is what they want to release, then please, keep it off whatever device I'm using (in this case, the iPhone). I have nothing against Android (I have a milestone as well), in fact, I love it! However, to say flash runs smoothly on the Nexus One means you're either a) delusional b) a fanboi/hater or c) both.

I guess being subjective is not cool these days. :\

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[rjch]

Can someone explain to me why Apple behaves this way? I fail to understand. What even bugles my mind is the fact that Apple as a company is [still] a darling in many people's hearts. No bad publicity sticks.

Not here it doesn't. Less than six months after getting an iPhone (after being unable to find an Android phone at the time that didn't have decent enough hardware that also supported the weird 850Mhz 3G frequency required by my carrier for calls outside the city) my opinion of Apple has completely reversed.

Yes, the UI is fairly well thought out and it's relatively easy to use. However the outright refusal to give people what they want grates on my nerves significantly. The promises of iOS4 just didn't deliver. Multitasking is a huge pooch-screw...

Nope. Next time work gives me the option of what phone I want, I'll be picking something Android based - assuming Oracle (a company that is rapidly developing an even worse reputation than Apple) doesn't manage to squash it first.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[noidentity]

When you've got a market locked down, people think buying your products will make them cool, and you've closed everything off so the only way out is to avoid apple

They've got the market locked down because people choose to buy their products? Kind of like how Google has the search market locked down because most people choose it for searching? I envision a day when we don't get to choose what we use, and instead are treated to a random selection of all the available alternatives. No more locked down markets, for one!

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Haedrian]

I didn't mean that, I meant -

1. You need to use their hardware (smaller SIM Card, propriatry charger/connector)

2. You need to use their store to get applications

2a. You need to obey their rules to get your application there

2aI. [I'm not going into these, seriously]

-
That sort of thing is what I meant. Once you 'buy' apple what you can do with it is pretty much dictated.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Ihmhi]

I don't know about that. One is a filthy, disgusting habit that costs thousands of dollars every year and is only really done by wannabe hipsters, and the other is smoking.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. You need to use their hardware (smaller SIM Card, propriatry charger/connector)

The Micro SIM wasn't developed by Apple.

"The micro-SIM was developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute along with SCP, 3GPP (UTRAN/GERAN), 3GPP2 (CDMA2000), ARIB, GSMAssociaton (GSMA SCaG and GSMNA), GlobalPlatform, Liberty Alliance, and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) for the purpose of fitting into devices otherwise too small for a mini-SIM card." source

As for the other point, your on the mark.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[rtb61]

I'm a dreamer I envision a day when the truth is the only acceptable and legal form of advertising. Any time a company falls short of that they pay triple the profits they generated as damages and that goes into a public fund so that victims can make claims against it. In this current day and age I'd expect that fund to be worth a trillion dollars within a couple of years.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[neumayr]

Choosing whether to buy an Android or iOS based phone is a political decision, and just that.
There are Android phones with a build quality comparable to iPhones (though I haven't played around with the iPhone 4 yet, maybe that ones better..), there also are apps for everything, and the usability, well, Android require about as much training as iOS does. Only when you're already used to iOS will iPhones be easier to use. The integration of different Apple devices is great of course, and makes for a better experience, but if you already have multiple Apple devices, the political decision was already made. That's a kind of vendor lock-in Microsoft can only dream of, at least concerning endusers.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[indiechild]

Your argument doesn't make sense to me. Why would having Flash running on iPhone be a threat to Apple's profits? It's not like those Flash apps/games can replace App Store apps -- Flash apps would always be less than a native app. If Flash worked properly and efficiently, I can tell you that it would've been on the iPhone already and we would not be having this debate. Steve Jobs doesn't tolerate failure or incompetence, and Flash on mobile devices has been less than spectacular so far.

Apple has draconian App Store restrictions and unwritten rules etc not because they want to protect their profits, but because that is how Steve Jobs operates. He's a control freak -- he will do anything to protect his vision of how things are supposed to be. If he's purely in it for profit, there's dozens of things he could've done differently in order to milk the cash cow to the max. But nope, that's not how Apple rolls -- Apple is the embodiment of a technology company that intersects with the Liberal Arts. Steve Jobs is the brooding, demanding and often cranky artist holding the paintbrush. The App Store is effectively a dictatorship largely run at the (sometimes changing) whims and desires of one man.

"Saving the users" or "protecting the users" is exactly the kind of thing that Steve Jobs does.

Geeks tend to claim Apple's decisions are always in the name of protecting their profits, but that's usually not the case. It's about protecting Steve's vision of how things should work. Profits come second. That's why Apple has been so successful after Steve's return. Apple was in trouble during Steve's absence precisely because they were only concerned with milking for cash, and they didn't care about quality or the user experience. Steve turned that all around. Geeks keep on screaming how Apple is the ultimate evil and how its downfall is imminent, but it won't happen as long as Steve Jobs is the CEO. He's got too strong a vision. He won't sell out.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[indiechild]

Well said. Apple products tend to be understated and a bit minimalist -- sometimes even conservative in design. It's the competitors' products that tend to be flashy and overdone.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[julesh]

Like many here you're not getting one thing - developers / geeks do not account for 90% of possible iPhone customers. There is something that is a problem for YOU and a problem for many OPEN-SOURCE type people - but not really something that is seen as a problem by the majority of people out there.

No, actually, this particular issue is one standing in the way of corporate adoption, not geek adoption. Corporate types don't want to have to hire Objective C developers - who are rare and expensive - to develop their iPhone apps. Apple, however, won't allow any other language to be implemented (other than Safari's javascript interpreter).

Geeks don't want rapid development tools, which is what the app in question is (a brief read of the web site makes it sound like a modernised implementation of the same sort of idea Lotus Notes started out with -- a quick way of defining your data structures and a very easy way to prototype UIs to manipulate them). We're generally happier getting down to the nuts and bolts and playing with the hardware at a lower level.

And it's not even limited to the iPhone - most people still use MS Office, despite how many competitors again? Despite the free OpenOffice?

MS Office *is* technically superior to OpenOffice. It has a large number of features that are not duplicated in OO. Its programmability is substantially superior to OO's. Also, it is the only piece of software that is able to read 100% of uncorrupted MS Office documents, and as that is the de-facto standard document exchange format in most fields of business, it's an important consideration.

The iPhone is not technically superior to Android, or even Symbian, both of which have important features that are missing on the iPhone. Flash is merely the most obvious one, but it is well worth noting that it is not only geeks who care about it. Many geeks, I suspect, are happier without it.

The closed Appstore may be something you hate - on the other hand, as far as non-geeks are concerned, I'd rather have the AppStore than seeing a proliferation of new phone threats (like - wouldn't you hate being spammed by a mobile botnet?).

I'm not sure in what way a mobile botnet is any worse than a static one. Sure, I see your point, but when it comes down to it you can make the same argument for your desktop computer... why run the risk of installing malware by mistake? Let's get a PC which will only install software that's been approved by Microsoft. And, admittedly, there are a lot of people that would be an adequate solution for, maybe even better than the current situation. But there are also a lot of people it isn't adequate for, and you can bet that if it was a situation that existed we'd be making a lot of noise about it. Why? So that people don't get one *by mistake* without realising how limited they'll be.

The same with the iPad - the iPad came out to much ridicule from the tech-savvy crowd - but see how many projects there are out to 'innovate' a tablet computer now that the iPad is out?

You seem to be missing something, which is the large number of people who were already working on tablet computers before Apple even announced the iPad. Several manufacturers released devices in a similar factor before the iPad was released (e.g. Asus's T91). Microsoft have been working with numerous manufacturers on similar devices since the late 90s. It's hardly a new idea.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Anonymous Coward]

They just love Apple and everything they do. So when something bad comes out, they find ways to rationalize it away, or ignore it.

This is overstated. Sure, Mac fans have been giving me hives too for 25 years now, but c'mon -- _no_ company is lambasted by the general populous and general media for something as obscure as this. It's only an issue to friggin geeks like you, me, and the parent. This isn't time to pull out the fanboy charge.

Apple is not a technology company but a fashion company.

Oh just stop. Yes, shiny tech is fashionable. So what? You're just pulling "I liked it before it sold out & got popular." This too is "Fanboyism/zealotry", just of a different stripe than Apple fans.

[And hey, try a fixie sometime. They're a blast. Yeah, I know it's stomach-churning to try something when it's fashionable, but if you can get over that ego-blow, they're a lot of fun. And not actually harder to ride up hill, just different. Your legs bitch for the first week, then figure out 'standing' and then you wonder what the problem was. Me, I prefer a one-speed coaster for city use. Did the mountain/road/touring/track nonsense years ago and finally got over it. But if you haven't played with a fixie yet, do.)

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[beh]

They behave the way they do because they are control freaks.

What is it with all the hate-mongering nowadays?

Have you also thought, that the same control also keeps the phone fairly free of malware?
You might be able to diagnose that - but most of the people outside the geek community can't.
I have a tough enough time telling people that they need to secure their PCs - you don't believe how many are out there that simply shrug and say "Why bother? I have nothing important on my computer."... The fact that their system could in turn be abused into participating in cyber-crime? "Nah... Why would anyone want to use my computer for that?"

They buy brand new, surprisingly expensive, fixed gear bikes. This, of course, makes them harder to ride up hill, but they are ok with that because fixed gear is cool, road or mountain bikes are not.

Not sure on the fixed-gear bike thing - don't have one of those. But sometimes restrictions can also be positive... Say, forcing you to rethink perspectives when using a prime lens on a camera as opposed to a zoom.

Also, sometimes the extra gears themselves can cause problems. One of the things Linux on the desktop still isn't happening, is that Linux may have all those fancy extra gears - but usability wasn't high up on the scale of important things, so the gears are in an awkward order, making them unnecessarily hard to use... (And - before you just apply your fanboi hatred on me - I have been using linux for a LONG time - since before linux 1.0 came out... I still use linux, but my desktop machine for the past 3 years has been a Mac - they're more expensive, but to ME, the extra convenience they offer on the desktop is worth it. Your mileage obviously varies...)

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[TheLink]

He's just trying to blow his own horn.

And take the wind out of Apple's sales.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[devent]

Like many here you're not getting one thing - developers / geeks do not account for 90% of possible iPhone customers. There is something that is a problem for YOU and a problem for many OPEN-SOURCE type people - but not really something that is seen as a problem by the majority of people out there.

That's so true, and really strange. People usually like freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of choice. But if it's computer or digital media, people bend over and take it. For example the EULAs today. If I ever bought a coffee machine with that kind of EULA attached to it, I would be crazy. But people buy software with an EULA that says you don't own anything, you can't do anything, you can't share, you have no rights at all. People buy DVDs that are only playable in special devices, people buy music that they can't share or copy anymore. It's just crazy and if on coffee machines or on t-shirts were the same restrictions people would go to the streets.

But I think it's because people don't know better. They are just listening to the nonsense that copying is theft, they just know Windows, MS Office or Photoshop. The people don't know that they have now a choice.

Furthermore, it's the billions of $ spend in commercials, and for the IPhone in special. I really want to buy me an Android, but I looked around and there are no commercials for Google Android. Nobody says on the phone it's Google Android. Look at the phones Where is a big logo of Android and where is a text Google Android? Now the iPhone There is big logo of Apple and the text iPhone. How can I know that a phone is a Google Android phone? If nobody knows that your phone is a Google Android phone than there is no value that it's a Google Android phone. I think that is a really big mistake, because they drop the value of brand recognition and the brand Google is really famous and stands for quality.

If I go to the shop there are 100 phones. They all look the same, but some of them are Android phones. Now I only want the phones with Android but they all look the same, so I have to ask which of the Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, LG, HTC, Dell and 10 others are Android phones. But the iPhone is an eye catcher, there is only the iPhone. People don't want to choose between 50 Android phones, they want The Android Phone. That's why the iPhone is so successful, there is only one brand and everybody else knows that you have an iPhone, because of the big Apple logo and the text iPhone.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[mgblst]

You are right, but your two points are just stupid.

The reason is that most people are not affected by these problems affecting developers. A casual user isn't out screaming for this app. There are already 250,000 apps in the app store, I think most people are happy with that.

Apple products are purchased because they are great devices, designed well, fantastic support, easy to use. They cost a bit more, but most people do not mind paying a bit more for a better device. Not everyone, plenty of people love shopping at Walmart getting the cheapest stuff they can.

Why you people can not understand this just makes you sound and look stupid.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[paiute]

I'm a dreamer I envision a day when the truth is the only acceptable and legal form of advertising. Any time a company falls short of that they pay triple the profits they generated as damages and that goes into a public fund so that victims can make claims against it. In this current day and age I'd expect that fund to be worth a trillion dollars within a couple of years.

And who gets to define the truth?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[StuartHankins]

Add a third option: For some of us, their stuff works, and we're so tired of hearing conspiracy theory crap from extremists that we want to puke. It's a technology company not a religion. Yes, it was funny at first, because we were laughing at the idea. Now not so much. We just want to be able to use the stuff and be left alone.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Sycraft-fu]

In the case of a bike variable gears are well established and nearly universally used. The reason to own a fixed gear bike is cost. It is simpler and cheaper to build. You sometimes find people who own old ones for that reason, the can be purchased cheaply and maintenance is potentially less as there is no derailleur or internal gear hub to break. However the cost advantage is not present when you buy a brand new, trendy one complete with the "bull horn" handle bars. Many of the trendy fixed gear bikes cost more than my commuter, which features a gear hub.

Sorry if you don't like the control freak assessment but it is accurate. You can argue that there are benevolent reasons behind it, however that doesn't make it any less true. Apple has always had serious control issues and as of late they've been able to expand that a lot. They dictate to you how the platform goes.

Something to consider, with relation to that, is would you be ok if Microsoft did the same thing? Suppose Microsoft allowed Windows to only run on Microsoft hardware. Suppose Microsoft wanted to be the sole apps provider for some of their devices. Would you be ok with that? If not then ask yourself why you are ok with Apple doing it. There is no evidence to suggest that Apple has any process in place to prevent them from abusing their power, and several examples of them already abusing it in one manner or another.

If you are ok with Apple doing something but not MS, that implies that your emotions, like or dislike for the companies, are influencing the decision, not logic.

Personally, I don't like a system where one person controls everything. I like it when things are more divided, where no one company has the sole deciding power over everything.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[dimeglio]

will not touch an iPhone even with a 10 foot pole

Sorry to hear about your restraining order against the iPhone. Apple has once again gone too far.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Lupu]

They behave the way they do because they are control freaks. They want absolute control over their platform. Their ultimate vision is that they'll be the source of all your media, all your apps, etc. They'll dictate how you consume stuff. Such a setup would be, needless to say, very profitable.

As for why they can get away with it, well I'd say there are two reasons:

1) Fanboyism/zealotry. Apple has had a following for a long time of people for whom they can do no wrong more or less. A non-trivial amount of these people are in the press (Macs are big in prepress work). They just love Apple and everything they do. So when something bad comes out, they find ways to rationalize it away, or ignore it.

2) For many of the Apple buyers these days, Apple is not a technology company but a fashion company. They largely won't admit it, but they buy them as fashion accessories. They are the "cool" product to own. As such they are purchased based on that alone. Whatever restrictions/costs accompany that are ok because they want to be cool. I see the same thing these days with fixed gear bikes. They are in with college kids (I work on campus and bike to work). They buy brand new, surprisingly expensive, fixed gear bikes. This, of course, makes them harder to ride up hill, but they are ok with that because fixed gear is cool, road or mountain bikes are not.

or 3) Their market share is sufficiently low to face antitrust investigations for monopolistic behavior.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Bert64]

That is exactly what MS does, although in a more devious manner...

The xbox already functions much like the iphone, you need to sign up (and pay) to be a developer, you must use their sdk which runs only on their os and any code you release must first be approved and signed by ms and they take a cut of any sales you make.

They do the same thing in other areas too, not by directly dictating, but through market inertia and various forms of lock-in... This is arguably worse because when people start sending proprietary formatted files around the lock-in extends to people who would prefer not to be customers of ms.
Apple on the other hand, can be totally ignored should you wish. You may have an iphone and i may not, but i will still be able to access the emails, photos, video, sms and voice calls generated by your iphone either on another type of phone or a computer.

That's not to excuse apple's behaviour, just pointing out that apple are a minor offender compared to ms here.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Bert64]

I see quite a lot of prominent android phones being advertised on TV... And they quite often display the android logo and talk about the app market.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Anonymous Coward]

except that you don't get working apps from Briefs, you get wireframes. It doesn't produce stand-alone applications at all.
So the scenario you described wouldn't happen.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[WrongSizeGlass]

I'm a dreamer I envision a day when the truth is the only acceptable and legal form of advertising.

We can't even get truthful and accurate reviews of products from professionals let alone bloggers, platform fanatics & zealots or consumers who purchased but don't actually understand the products. Even a straight 'specs vs. specs' comparison isn't valid on these devices where applications can be more important than the platform they run on.

Truth in advertising would be a good start but there's so much other crap to wade through that even knowing the 'truth' about a product won't be enough to make a truly informed decision.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[WrongSizeGlass]

imagine you are a company that could benefit by making a high profile apple product look slow and buggy and prone to crashing... you release an innocent enough looking "prototyping" tool... it doesn't make applications as optimized as one's with "expensive development", or using the free native development environment, but it's dumbed down and simpler, and hey, it's just a prototype and it works... the translation isn't optimized at all, but all the buttons will do what you tell them to do... now these prototypes are going to be seen by people and the hardware will be judged by the responsiveness of the software.

The apps developed using this tool would still need to make it to the general public to tarnish the teflon reputation of an iDevice. If they are as craptastic as can be then they won't make it past the steely eyes of the apostle manning the pearly gates to the App Store.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Wooky_linuxer]

It wasn't, but AFAIK Apple was the first and is still the only one to use it. So it is a way of using a non proprietary standard that still achieves the same goal as a market lock-in tool. Apple has done this many times - mini display port, mini DVI, recessed jack on original iPhone, etc.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be missing something, which is the large number of people who were already working on tablet computers before Apple even announced the iPad. Several manufacturers released devices in a similar factor before the iPad was released (e.g. Asus's T91). Microsoft have been working with numerous manufacturers on similar devices since the late 90s. It's hardly a new idea.

I think most here (including the author of the post you replied to) are aware that there were tablets before the iPad, even very similar ones, just as everyone is aware that there were smart phones before the iPhone. But just as most here might agree that the iPhone changed the way smart phones were designed, and made them friendly for the masses, the iPad may do the same for tablets. I think it's too early to tell, but I think it's safe to say that the tablets with a stylus touch-screen and a slightly modified windows/linux OS wasn't a huge success, and that the iPad seems to be doing better for now.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[drinkypoo]

1) Fanboyism/zealotry. Apple has had a following for a long time of people for whom they can do no wrong more or less. A non-trivial amount of these people are in the press (Macs are big in prepress work). They just love Apple and everything they do. So when something bad comes out, they find ways to rationalize it away, or ignore it.

A lot of these people simply cannot conceive that they might be wrong, or that a corporation might change. They have actually made Apple worship part of their identity, and to admit that Apple is evil now would mean they would have to re-examine the very question of who they are. This is what happens when you make fandom of a brand part of your daily life.

Whatever restrictions/costs accompany that are ok because they want to be cool. I see the same thing these days with fixed gear bikes. They are in with college kids (I work on campus and bike to work). They buy brand new, surprisingly expensive, fixed gear bikes. This, of course, makes them harder to ride up hill, but they are ok with that because fixed gear is cool, road or mountain bikes are not.

I was just thinking that about one of those "chopper" bikes, which is not only a single speed (though generally freewheeled and not fixie) but which also has a fat rear tire for enhanced rolling friction. So much like a real Harley!

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Mathness]

What even bugles my mind is the fact that Apple as a company is [still] a darling in many people's hearts. No bad publicity sticks.

This is due to the built-in smugness generator that all Apple products (and even some employees) have, one of its effect is that it reduces negative perceptions of itself and Apple within its working radius. The effect is easy to prove, simply lick the Apple logo on a device while in a public place, if people around you start to find the device creepy you have managed to find a device with a non working generator (caution: this will alert the fashion police and you might have to flee to another country just to be safe).

Rumours will have it that Jobs is currently using a beta of the smugness 2 generator which is capable of repelling gravity, and hence offer the user the ability to levitate and even fly*!

*Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame) was onto this development early on when he wanted a propeller hat.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Stratoukos]

No, actually, this particular issue is one standing in the way of corporate adoption, not geek adoption. Corporate types don't want to have to hire Objective C developers - who are rare and expensive - to develop their iPhone apps. Apple, however, won't allow any other language to be implemented (other than Safari's javascript interpreter).

The language restriction applies only for App Store distribution. Software distributed internally doesn't need to go through Apple's approval process and can be written in any language.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Fantastic Lad]

Yes, all the research into how to "Manufacture Consent" has shown us that a significant portion of the population is indeed cattle which can be easily manipulated, managed and bled without it ever being aware of the fact.

Why market to the small percentage of thinking humans when the real money is in bleeding cows?

Advertising and marketing, (essentially global mind-control), is a depressing reality. It works. And it hurts to watch because, even though I eat them, I still think cows are nice animals. They're so trusting and gentle.

This is why free-range is important to me. If I'm going to consume lower life forms in order to continue my own existence, I want to make sure they live good lives.

The same holds for humans. Apple pampers the livestock.

-FL

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Giometrix]

I'm in the same boat... I bought an iPad because finally someone made a portable computer in the form factor I wanted. The hardware is beautiful, but the lack of multitasking (yes, I know I'll get it soon... But it will probably still suck), lack of flash (I guess I can forgive that on a phone, but not on a laptop replacement) and subpar browser (even slashdot doesn't work 100% right), with lack of alternatives has really turned me off to apple. Also, after experiencing how android beautifully reflows text, it really makes safari seem archaic. This is not the feeling I want less than 6 months after plopping down $600 for a device...

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[BasilBrush]

MICRO-sim, MINI display port, MINI dvi. Spot the thing in common. You're criticising Apple for leading the way on implementing new open standards, developed by standards bodies for mobile devices?

The difference between a mini-SIM and a micro-SIM is a few millimetres of redundant plastic. Nothing else. With the level of effort that goes into making the most powerful device in a tiny package, it makes no sense to waste those millimetres. Every phone/tablet manufacturer will use micro-SIMs in the future. It just takes one manufacturer with the balls and and the clout to lead the way. Very often that's Apple.

If it wasn't for Apple, PCs would probably still have RS232 and floppy drives. Again, Apple let the way there, replacing/removing obsolete technology whilst the rest of the industry were too scared to be different.

The recessed jack was a case of providing mechanical support for the jack plug. But Apple listened to the negative comments from customers and didn't have recessed jacks after the first model.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[geminidomino]

Choosing whether to buy an Android or iOS based phone is a political decision, and just that.

False.

It can also be an economic one: "Sprint is cheaper than AT&T. Should I switch to AT&T and pay more so I can get an iPhone?"
"Which costs more, the new iPhone or the new similarly-specced Android phone? Could an older version do what I need for cheaper?"

A Technical one:
"I want to develop my own software for my phone, but I don't have a Mac. Should I get an iPhone or an Android?"
"It's time for me to upgrade my phone and Apple just came out with a new version. How long before gtkpod supports it so I can use it on my Linux computer?"

Or just a question of preferences:
"On-screen keyboards suck. Should I get an iPhone or an Android phone with a slide out QWERTY?"

Now they might not apply to the majority of the market (they seem to be more concerned with "does it come with the white iPod headphones so everyone knows I'm cool" and "can I play bejewelled/farmville on it?"), but those are exactly the questions that lead me to get last year's Moment instead. No politics at all.

Be careful about those absolutes, Sithy-poo.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[BasilBrush]

So, you're saying that a company that only offers a fixed gear bike is a control freak company. Even though people can choose to buy a bike from many other companies.

And that anyone that chooses a fixed gear bicycle must be deluded/a fanboy/a hipster, because you happen to prefer a bike with gears.

Does that about cover it? Or do you have some more hatred to vent?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[howardd21]

What are there, 250,000 apps in the app store for Apple devices, and you are going to boycott Apple over one unknown app's inability to get into the store?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[dunezone]

Couldn't you say this for any developer working on any console?

I believe Nintendo and Playstation require any software coded to be certified by them, and of course they also have licensing and developer fees.

The only real difference is that Microsoft owns Windows which happens to be a preferred developer environment for all these consoles.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

Except that they're not immune to malware. Witness the easy recent jailbreaking and that kid who hid tethering in a simple flashlight app. It's so easy to hide stuff in apps it's ridiculous. At least Android has permissions on an app to control/block malware.

READ: The IPhone has malware. IPhone is not secure.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

And above is the perfect fanboy. Rationalizing Apple's decisions.

For every one of those device's, PC did it first. And they all eventually came to every PC. The only ones that *didn't* were the ones that people said, "that's retarded and I'm not buying a new connector just for Apple." (mini-DVI, etc).

And no, Apple just wants another barrier so you only buy the IPhone through the approved way and they get a cut. Every other manufacturer has done fine with the normal SIM and don't have this problem. It's simply a case of more lock-in.

But you're the typical blind-eyed fanboy so you wouldn't realize the difference.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

And for someone with such a low UID, you should know better that the IPhone is not free of malware...

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

Then the fanboys should then stop spouting drivel and telling everybody that Apple's products are the best thing ever.

The problem we have is people telling others to buy inferior products. We all know Apple products are crap. We just hate Apple zealouts shoving lies down our throats and seeing other people believe them, and spending their hard-earned money on a shiny toy instead of an actual, real, good product.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Moryath]

If it wasn't for Apple, PCs would probably still have RS232 and floppy drives. Again, Apple let the way there, replacing/removing obsolete technology whilst the rest of the industry were too scared to be different.

Oh please, pull the other one.

Unused ports die when their time is up. Seen a gameport off an audio board lately? Nope. Why? USB.
Seen a firewire port lately, despite all that Apple did to try to hype it up over USB? Nope. GUESS WHY.
No computer uses floppies any more because they don't have enough capacity. Heck, most computers have a DVD burner rather than CD-only for the same reason. If you really need to use a floppy, you can get a USB floppy drive for $5.

Apple doesn't "lead" the market. They produce a proprietary, closed-scale system that has a small enough market share that virus writers don't give a crap about infecting it and then claim it's "secure." And they sell it to people who have too much money and not enough common sense to compare prices on similar hardware.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[dimeglio]

The way I read all this anger that the iPhone is really the best smartphone out there and some people feel it's a disgrace that Apple has the affront to control it the way it does. Otherwise, they would simply purchase a Samsung, Nokia, RIM or HTC smartphone and be happy with it.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Jeppe Salvesen]

3) They deliver better products than their competition, and their customers are too ignorant, uncaring or too trusting in anti-trust legislation to care about their actions.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[darien.train]

Don't forget the throngs of over-40 dot com crashers who stock on Apple lifestyle devices. They're an big part of the market share too (or even more judging from what I see on the subways) and they love to be told what to do. It's a kind of a technical "Step on my cubes" kind of thing.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't say what you mean, people mostly will not understand you. You're abusing the analogy/building a straw man.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

Ok people we have to ignore this poster. They're just spouting drivel.

Say it with me again, "The IPhone HAS MALWARE/VIRUSES/TROJANS/IS INSECURE."

As to your other points:

1) If your parents have a problem with an Android phone, then maybe they shouldn't even be using a smartphone. How about a plain old regular cell phone?

2) MS Office is used because it actually IS superior. No knocks to OO--I use OO as my main office suite. But even I know that MS Office is superior.

3) No tablet was made because they found no one wanted a tablet. They didn't have a fanbase of stupid, gullible, brain-washed customers like Apple did. So they didn't have an audience who would buy crap just because they said so. It actually had to fill a need.

And the main kicker...

4) You spout that the ITunes/Iphone combo is easy. Have you ever used ITunes? It is the buggiest, slowest, cryptic, un-user friendly P.O.S. out there. I think the only worse piece of software made other than ITunes is--you guessed it--Quicktime. Again from Apple.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[fedos]

It will be voted on by Stephen Colbert, John Hodgman, and a homeless guy from Chicago.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[darien.train]

As opposed to yourself - an apple hater who always sees the worst in other people?

The worst in other "people?"

What would that be?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[the_womble]

So if tight vendor control equals security, my Linux laptop must be incredibly insecure?

I have a tough enough time telling people that they need to secure their PCs - you don't believe how many are out there that simply shrug and say "Why bother? The fact that their system could in turn be abused into participating in cyber-crime?

The only solution would be to allow victims to sue people who are negligent with security.

Also, if people do not care about security, why would they buy Macs because they are secure?

The reason for the hatred is that people find it very annoying to be told what they can and cannot do with their own property.

As for Mac vs Linux, you are quite right that YMMV: I never really saw what the convenience advantage of MacOS is.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[the_womble]

For people who just want a browser, I fail to see why a tablet with Linux pre-installed and big "web" icon on the start-up screen would not be just as good as the iPad.

The problem OSS has is marketing. If you install Linux for an average users they will usually be very happy with it. Its the "Windows power users" who hate it because their carefully memorised sequences of clicks no longer apply.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

Wrong. 100%. Remember when the first IPhone came out and *everything* in his vision was HTML apps?

If he truly felt he is protecting the users, then he should fix the malware problem on the IPhone.

If he truly felt he is protecting the users, he should fix all the insecure ways of protecting your computer on MacOS X. Imagine that. Win7 has better security mechanisms than MacOS now.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Securityemo]

Yes, or Apple thinks so anyway. Remember, it's all about the user experience, and if thightly regulating the apps allowed inside the walled garden contributes to that, then so be it. This is not how I or most other here use software, but to people who have no actual technical skills it's probably a boon. Most people with money most likely have no technical skills, or at least no inclination to fiddle around with computers.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

i never said the issue was with interpreted code. apple never said anything... let alone this being about interpreted code.... the REAL question is why are YOU talking about interpreted code?

From headline

The app had got into trouble for what Apple believes is being able to run interpreted code

From article

No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s).

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Strangelover]

They behave the way they do because they are control freaks. They want absolute control over their platform. Their ultimate vision is that they'll be the source of all your media, all your apps, etc. They'll dictate how you consume stuff. Such a setup would be, needless to say, very profitable.

Is this comment about Apples motivation related to the article? It takes longer than usual to get an app in the app store, ergo the people at Apple are greedy and evil supervillains?

As for why they can get away with it, well I'd say there are two reasons:

1) Fanboyism/zealotry. Apple has had a following for a long time of people for whom they can do no wrong more or less. A non-trivial amount of these people are in the press (Macs are big in prepress work). They just love Apple and everything they do. So when something bad comes out, they find ways to rationalize it away, or ignore it.

...so the prepress is supressing or rewriting stuff that is negative about Apple? - Fanboys are letting Apple get away with....erhh...developers..not...uhm. One of us must have derailed here.

2) For many of the Apple buyers these days, Apple is not a technology company but a fashion company. They largely won't admit it, but they buy them as fashion accessories. They are the "cool" product to own. As such they are purchased based on that alone. Whatever restrictions/costs accompany that are ok because they want to be cool. I see the same thing these days with fixed gear bikes. They are in with college kids (I work on campus and bike to work). They buy brand new, surprisingly expensive, fixed gear bikes. This, of course, makes them harder to ride up hill, but they are ok with that because fixed gear is cool, road or mountain bikes are not.

I don't care about fashion or being cool, but I do want cool stuff. If Apple makes the coolest stuff then I buy their stuff. Apparently millions of other people would rather have cool stuff themselves than whine about how crappy other peoples stuff is.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[dwightk]

AC's on slashdot

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[BasilBrush]

I agree with most of your post. However a couple of points struck me...

No, actually, this particular issue is one standing in the way of corporate adoption, not geek adoption. Corporate types don't want to have to hire Objective C developers - who are rare and expensive - to develop their iPhone apps. Apple, however, won't allow any other language to be implemented (other than Safari's javascript interpreter).

The answer to your problem is the brackets. Most corporate mobile app needs would be satisfied with a web app tailored to the appropriate screen size for an iPhone or iPad.

I'm not sure in what way a mobile botnet is any worse than a static one.

SMS/MMS spam?

Sure, I see your point, but when it comes down to it you can make the same argument for your desktop computer... why run the risk of installing malware by mistake? Let's get a PC which will only install software that's been approved by Microsoft.

By that comparison, Apple's restrictions seem unreasonable. However you could also do a comparison with games consoles and Apple's policy seems very reasonable. Games consoles software is far more restricted than iOS software is. Yet consoles have regained their position as premier games platforms from the PC. Why is that? Because for developers, the advantages of developing for the consoles far outweigh the disadvantages, so they put most of their development budgets towards console games, and so consoles end up with most of the best games. Consoles offer them stable hardware configurations, a good route to market provided they stick to the rules, and a far higher chance that they will get paid vs PC games. All these advantages apply to iPhone developers too.

You seem to be missing something, which is the large number of people who were already working on tablet computers before Apple even announced the iPad. Several manufacturers released devices in a similar factor before the iPad was released (e.g. Asus's T91). Microsoft have been working with numerous manufacturers on similar devices since the late 90s. It's hardly a new idea.

Tablet PCs are indeed an old idea, and they have never sold. The Asus you mention is very much in that vein of non-selling tablet PCs. The iPad isn't a tablet PC. Apple innovated in finding a form for tablets that IS desirable: A purpose made mobile/touch UI, building up from a mobile phone rather than modifying from a desktop. Decent battery life. Constantly connected via the cellular network. It's the iPad form that manufacturers are now racing to copy. Building up from Android phones rather than down from Windows/Linux laptops. Tablet PCs are going to become even more niche than they already are. Virtually no one is going to built them. It's now become clear that the market wasn't resistant to tablets. It was just resistant to PCs and or desktop OSs in tablet form.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[jedidiah]

> If it wasn't for Apple, PCs would probably still have RS232 and floppy drives.
> Again, Apple let the way there, replacing/removing obsolete technology whilst
> the rest of the industry were too scared to be different. ...the "Apple invented USB" fallacy again.

Infact, Intel bundled USB ports on all of their motherboards before Windows even
bothered supporting it. All Apple did was to FORCE THE ISSUE by making it impossible
to use legacy ports (including their own) and to leave everyone in the lurch (including
their own fanboys) scrambling to deal with artificially obsoleted hardware.

Each revision of the Mini seems to have yet a different video port. You need a different
dongle for each one to hook them up to normal monitors. It's bloody annoying and in no
way "innovative" or "progressive".

It's just stupid and bad engineering. ...and some PCs still have RS-232C ports. For some things, there's really no substitute.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[alder]

Why? The Ministry of Truth, of course.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

My thoughts exactly. My big jumping off point to Apple was when I got hired at another ISP doing tech support and we were still resetting the Winsock layer as part of trouble shooting, even in Vista. I thought they would have worked that out back in NT4. My machine had serious OS failure right as I got hired. There had to be a better way.

Linux/BSD didn't have the vendor support I wanted so I said screw this I'm getting an OSX machine. Now when my friends are botching about various computer problems I just shrug and say, "Really? Mine's grape.".

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pD-brane]

The definition of truth is not the only problem with the GP's vision. If companies would be as truthful as they can, they wouldn't look like the best anymore and people would buy from another company, one which is less truthful. Capitalism, regardless of how you feel about it, is about trying to be the best by lying. The only alternative which is compatible with the GP's idea is something else than capitalism.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[jedidiah]

> It's not like those Flash apps/games can replace App Store app

Sure they can. That's kind of why so much effort is put into them.

For a lot of those so-called "apps", you're a whole lot better of just with the generic Google search.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[elrous0]

Can someone explain to me why Apple behaves this way?

No problem. I have your answer right here.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[jedidiah]

What is clear here is that the Apple fanboys are repeating marketing propaganda that they obviously don't understand.

They are repeating nonsense about things they have no real knowledge of.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[jedidiah]

>> They behave the way they do because they are control freaks.
>
> What is it with all the hate-mongering nowadays? ...the Borg Queen rhetoric coming from Steve Jobs.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Duradin]

People still loudly criticize Apple for putting music in their proprietary AAC format. Good luck enlightening them on even less visible things like SIM cards.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[BasilBrush]

For every one of those device's, PC did it first.

Name the PC that did it first with any of those technologies. (Hint: You're wrong.)

Now, who's the "blind-eyed fanboy"? (Hint: You.)

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[index0]

So what happened to AppleTV? Why has the WDTV and ASUS O!Play dominated?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[terwey]

You seem to be missing something, which is the large number of people who were already working on tablet computers before Apple even announced the iPad. Several manufacturers released devices in a similar factor before the iPad was released (e.g. Asus's T91). Microsoft have been working with numerous manufacturers on similar devices since the late 90s. It's hardly a new idea.

Great there were TV's before Philips made them watchable. The point is not WHO STARTED it, it's WHO MADE IT USABLE. I've owned 4 different brands of MP3 players (not counting the MP3 portable CD player that had to be imported directly from the factory) which all pissed me the fuck off EVERY time I had to either: look for a song, change the volume or do something else which is BASIC shit. Then I bought an iPod and back then I was very wary of Apple. But hey, everyone loved it so... gotta have a reason right? Well guess what, it fuckin worked and kept working after I sold it to someone (current status unknown, it got stolen) so I could buy the latest-gen (more space! hooray!).

Same goes with OSX, you can bitch and moan all you want but the fact simply is: I replaced the Ubuntu (and before Windows) machine with an iMac at my mother's and now suddenly she's sending me emails with links of friggin websites she made with photos on it that she edited herself! How much I explained? Well NOTHING. Before every week something came up that either didn't work as expected or... she couldn't figure out how to do something....

The iPhone made my life so much fuckin better, sure it has it flaws but do they weigh more then the pro's? Hell no. It's the first fuckin (smart)phone ever I had that didn't require me going through 5 fuckin menu's to set an alarm clock. I've owned S60 and WM in the past and holy shit what a retarted messed up fuckin things can some developers come up with. No I don't first want to go to "Menu" -> "Extra" -> "Clock" -> "Alarms" -> "Set alarms" -> "Activate alarm". Hello?! It's a fuckin alarm clock, the goddamn thing on my nightstand HAS ONE SWITCH! Email on the S60 was horrible, even more so on WM.

I jumped the iPhone bandwagon when the 3GS was released since it was a moment I could afford one. One year later... well how many times has it pissed me off? Quite a lot. But considering that's maybe once every month/two months as opposed to every frigging time I want to do something on EVERY OTHER PHONE I EVER OWNED?! Amazing.
Ok so, Apple took a phone and made it an iPhone. zomgwtfhax it can't be good and everyone claims they invented touchscreen and phones and crap! No, they just made it usable.

Cue the iPad: same fuckin story. Tablets were out there but have you actually ever USED one?! Virtual keyboard popped out, time to bust out the pen and start tapping... handwriting recognition: orly? So basically you had a retarded laptop cause the CPU's were always shit in the tablets (no idea why) fun tho show to people but usability: zero. Sure some people liked it but some people also think Britney Spears was actually a good singer.
Everyone makes the jokes of the iPad just being a larger version of the iPhone: guess what? it is! BRILLIANT! All iPhone users have immediate recognition to the device and just start working on it right away. Great thing is though, since the iPhone was something you could give to a total idiot and he was able to figure out how to use it: SAME GOES FOR THE IPAD!
OSX on a tablet? Sure sounds sweet, usable? I think not. This is the perfect middleground for me between the smartphone and laptop. I bring my Macbook when I go on business trips cause somethings I have to get crackin and do some typing. But chillin in the lounge and want to read the latest news? iPad.

[/rant] Sorry I just can't take fuckin nerd-zealots who claim that just because a device with the same "general concept" existed before so the newer one can't add anything to the concept. Well throw away your fuckin CD's, DVD's, BluRays etc. Let's all start rockin the cr

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[jedidiah]

> Why you people can not understand this just makes you sound and look stupid.

Nonsense. Infact, it's the mob that is stupid. They are the same stupid mob that
put Microsoft in power. They have no real taste or understanding and are bound to
make decisions that have a wider impact than they realize. Their crude tastes and
tendency to blindly follow the current crowd tends to help build up proprietary
platform overlords (like Apple and MIcrosoft).

The draconian nonsense is entirely gratiutious.

The Mac handily demonstrates this to be the case. You don't need to be Big Brother
to ensure that a platform is easy or robust.

Apple is choosing to be Big Brother because they think they can and they have
an early lead in a new area. The problem of proprietary vendor lock-in might
actually allow them to get away with this (or not).

Steve is just showing his true colors and the Apple faithful don't want to
face the truth. Most consumers don't care because they are apathetic in
general and don't care about anything. They don't even care that a device
could do more and be more and that there are other products that achieve
this already.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[index0]

Did you ask Steve before trying out flash on your Android device? Why do you think it is ok to deny you the option of running flash on a apple device.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[blackraven14250]

Capitalism, regardless of how you feel about it, is about trying to be the best by lying.

Nonsense. There's false advertising laws for a reason.

The reason? So that we get to hear a relatively clean version of the truth about a given product. There's few outright lies in our system. Most of what you see are stretches of the truth.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Duradin]

The only Apple fanboys spouting that spiel are the ones made of straw and which exist only in comments like yours.

You pick up on what the strawboys say in a Hater's post and then use it as proof that fanboys are always saying it.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[jedidiah]

Apple is being a jerk in basic American terms (liberty).

This is where a great many of the shortcomings of their products come from.
They go out of their way to make their devices unecessarily limited and more
complicated to deal with. They manage to disable bog simple things so that
you need convoluted hacks just to get them back.

Of course the Apple faithful gloss all of that over.

Eventually Grandma will want to do something that Apple has decided is not
going to be allowed or supported. Then the "easy device" will suddenly either
become complicated or just plain limited.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[PopeRatzo]

You don't know much when it comes to Business and Taxes, do you? The U.S. DOES have what you describe as an "excessive earnings tax,"

Accumulated earnings taxes are not the same as excessive earnings taxes.

How much did Apple pay in "accumulated earnings taxes" last year? The year before?

a corporation may be liable for an additional tax at 15% (higher in 2002 and prior years) on accumulated taxable income in excess of $250,000

Last year, Apple ended the year with $40 billion in cash. Do you believe that Apple paid "15%" of that?

You are confusing income and earnings, son, and your copy and paste job doesn't really make you sound smart at all.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[jedidiah]

> You don't want an app to degrade the phone functions or put a customers phone into an unsupported configuration. Worse malware.

You now, all the fanboys like to whine about this.

However, the problem with this is the whole "Macs are the most widespread form of Unix" propaganda that fanboys like to spout.

The ipod's are just variants of Darwin/BSD. So there's no good reason they can't insulate themselves from whatever the "user" wants to do. You could even add extra scheduling logic to the purely "user" stuff to make sure it never interferes with the basic operation of the phone.

In order to elevate the new messiah, the apple faithful have to tear down the old one and deny all of the things that was supposed to make it special.

Keeping the userland stuff from bringing the entire machine down is what real operating systems do. If you have no clue and no taste and you've only ever seen Windows in your life then you probably have a wrongful idea about what technology should be able to do. It becomes easy to buy into a bogus line about how you need Big Brother in Cupertino to keep a computing device from being overwhelmed by the user.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Moryath]

You're joking.

USB was introduced in 1995. It was present - STANDARD - on every machine and motherboard a year later when I was comparing prices. The iMac G3 wasn't released until 1998.

Yes, there were other ports on those machines. There were other ports on the iMac G3 as well, a pair of firewire ports that went to... uhm... a few crappy, barely-even-apple-compatible cameras, and maybe a few specially designed keyboards that worked better with a standard MIDI interface anyways.

To claim that a shitty little closed-box unit with a hockey-puck mouse, crappy OS (System 8... gah that makes me want to puke just thinking about it) and that barely could hold 1% of the computer market somehow "created the market for USB peripherals" is just fucking stupid.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[beakerMeep]

I have an N1 so yes, I have seen the speed of it, and its far from abysmal. I also think it's 'cooler' to hate on flash these days for whatever that's worth so spare us the lone voice angle. But my point was.that it runs well enough for.people to want to use it. But if you really want something more objective, as of right now Flash player has a 4.5 out of 5 star rating on the android market. With over 13 k reviews. This is a higher rating than last.FM and Pandora. It may run poorly on a Milestone thoguh are you on froyo yet? How fast do you expec it to run. Btw saying someone is delusional or a fanboy means you are either a) lying about the performance or b) immature and judgemental about differing opinions reducing them into categories you understand.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[beh]

MS Office *is* technically superior to OpenOffice. It has a large number of features that are not duplicated in OO.

Is MS Office really superior in anything that 90% of the users actually need from their word processor?

The (not-so-creeping) featuritis doesn't necessarily make a product 'superior' for the most people.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thoromyr]

First, you are making a vague statement that implies more than it says. How many are "many people"? To answer your rhetorical question with which you start off with: because generally speaking Apple isn't doing what others allege. "Many people" are smart enough to not be taken in by publicity seekers.

Apparently you believe everything bad anyone says about Apple. The majority (if not the vast majority) of these "app store approval sucks" are mediocre apps trying to get some free publicity. I'm not commenting on this particular one as I've not looked at it. I wish I could remember the app name, but there was one that put in an interpreter, got caught, made a stink about it, removed the interpreter and it passed.

And then there are all the fabrications posted about Apple (such as them not "giving back" to open source). It conditions people to take new statements with a grain of salt.

Now, if you complained that no one seems to know or remember Apple's misdeeds (10.6 and text display anyone?) I'd be in agreement. The answer to that is that it rarely affects that many people and, especially in the case I referred to above, they incorrectly blame software vendors for the problem. And such problems are hard to get the general population worked up over because they are kind of abstract or technical. Because Apple feels a need to keep their plans for the future under tight wraps they often jerk developers around (the transition from OS9 to Intel OS X has not been exactly smooth from a developer perspective).

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

For many of the Apple buyers these days, Apple is not a technology company but a fashion company. They largely won't admit it, but they buy them as fashion accessories.

How many people do you actually know with Apple products? Some of the most down-to-earth people I know own Apple products. They certainly don't buy them for fashion value, which is pretty obvious given how old and used their products are. Come to think of it, with one possible exception, I don't know anyone who actually does flash their apple products like a fashion accessory. Do you?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[mlts]

Time for me to do devil's advocate mode here:

1: Eventually everyone will be moving to a MicroSIM. Losing the couple millimeters may not sound like much, but with the ever shrinking form factors of devices, it allows for more leeway in positioning the card in a device, as well as a smaller size. The Apple 30 pin connector is Apple specific, but it does have three advantages over every other connector. The first is that it has a much higher insertion cycle rating than most USB plugs. The second is that the connector can be used as a dock so the iPod/iPhone can stand up and be supported physically by the connector. The third is that the connector is so common. Stereos have it, some car stereos have a place for the iPhone, some TVs have it so one can run movies from the device, and so on.

2 and 2a: Maybe this is a good thing, due to the dancing bunny problem. Without Apple watching the store, there would be a high chance of developers writing malicious software and putting it on the store. When one app gets found out and killed, the developer just buys another ID and keeps cranking out the bad apps -- the returns from grabbing contact info and other nefarious acts would more than be worth it. Then there is the fact that Joe Sixpack would download an app and scoop it onto the phone without thinking about it, then when he gets a gigantic phone bill, he will blame Apple for having a device with such poor security.

The absolute best thing would be an obstacle big enough to keep Joe in the walled garden while letting people with a clue be able to dispense with it and use the phone as a decent UNIX machine. I like how the Nexus One did it.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[recoiledsnake]

Submitter here. I included that line in the summary because of the information from a previous blog entry at http://blog.robrhyne.com/post/659211315/almost-on-the-app-store

Last week, after initially submitting on May 7th, I received a phone call from Apple to update me on the status of my submission.

The gentleman on the phone was courteous and polite, but his message was blunt. While I had not been officially rejected (at least, not yet), he asked me some questions and hoped to manage my expectations. Based on the information available to him, the reviewers believed Briefs contained a non-Apple interpreter and the first team initially rejected it for non-compliance with section 3.3.2 of the iPhone Developer Agreement. I’m still waiting to hear their final decision.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thoromyr]

This whole thing is about profit. The really isn't anything complicated about it. The mental gymnastics some people go through to justify it really amaze me sometimes though.

Really? The mental gymnastics people go through to make Apple the bad guy on this one are amazing. Facts:

  - up to the point where Adobe started really making a stink about it the implementations of flash on smart phones were poor

  - flash is a major source of infections on desktop systems due to vulnerabilities endemic in the implementation

  - a lot of flash video isn't h264 and would be expensive to decode on an iphone, significantly reducing battery life

  - Apple has been pushing HTML5 as a way to create web applications that will not only work on desktop systems, but mobile devices such as the iphone -- web applications over which Apple has no control

  - Adobe has pushed Apple around in the past, limiting what they can do with their own APIs due to the importance of Adobe applications on the Apple desktop

The mental contortions people go through to insist on believing that Apple wants control over web applications on the iphone are ludicrous. Apple has good reasons to keep flash off the iphone. Yes, one of the reasons is control (particularly as pertains to app store apps), but it isn't a revenue stream control as much as a freedom to change their APIs and hardware at their pace. Another reason is that Apple knows full well who will be blamed if web browsing causes the battery to drain noticeably faster (after all, they take advantage of this on the other end of the stick).

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[recoiledsnake]

But Apple's policies have a chilling effect on the developer software industry, so that flexibility is basically useless.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Coryoth]

The way I read all this anger that the iPhone is really the best smartphone out there and some people feel it's a disgrace that Apple has the affront to control it the way it does. Otherwise, they would simply purchase a Samsung, Nokia, RIM or HTC smartphone and be happy with it.

I think it has more to do with the fact that since the iPhone and iPad are currently very popular, they can foresee a future when there aren't any options other than completely locked down and controlled environments. This is a future that they wish to avoid, and that means being noisy about the perceived shortcomings of such controlled systems in the hope that other people will see this as a problem and diminish the popularity of such systems to a level that continues to provide strong competition from more open systems.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[theRiallatar]

Ironically enough, we have a stack of USB to RS-232 connectors here at the office. You still need them to access the console on most SMB+ firewalls and managed switches from Cisco, 3COM and a variety of other vendors. They still do it because the technology's cheap and when you're doing console, you don't need a lot of bandwidth.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Culture20]

Seen a firewire port lately, despite all that Apple did to try to hype it up over USB? Nope. GUESS WHY.

Yes. All the time. You probably don't see them because you work in a security concious industry instead of an artsy one. And to clarify, I'm seeing fw400 and 800 on HPs Dells, beige box. Not just Apple.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[rickyb]

An update to our app, G-Whizz! has been "In Review" now for over 2 months. All of our emails have been ignored. We actually got a hold of a dev relations specialist who is "on the case." Even he hasn't been able to get any information from the app review team after 1 month. What?!

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[lowrydr310]

Android isn't all happy and open-platform either. You will be prevented from doing some cool things that your phone is truly capable of, but those restrictions are probably imposed by the carrier and not necessarily the hardware/OS manufacturers. Fortunately it's somewhat easy to obtain root permissions, in which case YOU own your phone and can really do whatever you want.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Unused ports die when their time is up. Seen a gameport off an audio board lately? Nope. Why? USB.

Why did USB become viable? Firewire/400. It wasn't until USB2 when peripherals beyond a mouse and keyboard became viable. USB2 was created as a competitive answer to Firewire/400.

Seen a firewire port lately, despite all that Apple did to try to hype it up over USB? Nope. GUESS WHY.

I guess because you haven't bothered to look. Firewire is used to transfer video from HD digital camcorders (called iLink by the Sony folks). Firewire was also built in to a couple of ASUS motherboards I purchased for work lately. Not to mention the Firewire ports that Apple still uses on their machines. Firewire actually has higher data throughput and less CPU load then USB2. USB3 and Firewire/800 may be replaced when Intel introduces LightPeak with Apple reportedly signing on as its earliest adopter.

No computer uses floppies any more because they don't have enough capacity. Heck, most computers have a DVD burner rather than CD-only for the same reason. If you really need to use a floppy, you can get a USB floppy drive for $5.

The PC always came with a floppy drive despite the size limitation. We needed them because a particular version of a Windows OS needed the floppy to boot for installation. Also, the corporate suits liked the concept of the floppy for legacy reasons.

The floppy removal was a cost saving move after Windows 2000 and the ability to boot from CD-ROM. Dell gradually removed the floppy from their computers by charging $15 extra instead of making it standard.

Just because your PC compatible doesn't have a floppy attached doesn't necessarily mean that the motherboard no longer has the floppy I/O connector or the BIOS settings.

Apple doesn't "lead" the market. They produce a proprietary, closed-scale system that has a small enough market share that virus writers don't give a crap about infecting it and then claim it's "secure." And they sell it to people who have too much money and not enough common sense to compare prices on similar hardware.

Why should you care who leads? I never quite understand the Apple haters and their insistence of spewing stereotypes and the myth of overpriced computers. Can you by a PC machine for less price? Yes. Will it have the same features? Maybe. Will have the quality and support of an Apple computer? No.

I find it especially funny when people who dump on Apple computers over the price, drive to work in a BMW, Lexus, Acura, etc. You can drive to work in a Hyundai Sonata for much less money.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[lowrydr310]

Flash works just fine on the handsets with 1GHz processors, with no choppiness or lag... but what good is flash on a 4.3" screen? I find that it doesn't respond very well to on-the-fly resizing (pinch zoom) and really doesn't add to my "web browsing experience." Perhaps a developer could design a flash page specifically for a mobile device, but in that case a non-flash mobile optimized webpage/site would be much better.

I'm glad I have the option to run it if I want, however I currently have my device configured to only run on-demand, not automatically when I load a page that has it. I wouldn't miss it if my device didn't support it, however I would probably be bummed if I didn't have the option to at least use it if I chose to.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Tharsman]

Can someone explain to me why Apple behaves this way? I fail to understand. What even bugles my mind is the fact that Apple as a company is [still] a darling in many people's hearts. No bad publicity sticks.

I for one, will not touch an iPhone even with a 10 foot pole for my HTC Incredible does all that want it to and even more. The trouble is Oracle that is threatening to cut off Android's air supply with patent suits against Google.

At least you admit you [sort off] have no clue what's going here by noting you wont touch an iPhone. I'm an iOS developer and I went to that Briefs site to take a gaze at what's going on there. It seems what they are doing is not too far from Adobe's middle-ware to make applications in a different language. Apple has clearly stated they wont support that for many reasons, and most of them are valid.

If you want to program for the iOS, learn to program for the iOS. It's not rocket science, albeit it's not VB.net either.

Just for the record, there are 3 languages you can code with to push an iOS app: Objective C, Plain Old C and C++. You can make your app in either exclusively or in a combination of all 3. On top of this you can make HTML5 apps (and HTML5 is robust enough to call those apps) without Apple's intrusion or "nit-picky behavior". You can do those any way you want and "install" them to the desktop via Safari. The only issue are you won't get the marketing advantage of the App Store nor offline applications (you need internet to load up these apps.) I do sort of hope eventually Apple provides a way to sort of install locally HTML5 apps.

All that aside, Oracle cant kill Android although their lawsuit has valid basis. Google is modifying the java name-space, removing a lot of standardize code, rendering it incompatible. Either they stop calling it java or they properly support it all, that's Oracle's point. That aside, I'd love it if Google entirely dropped Java and just went for C++. Better performance and easier to port apps. With non-standard Java, it's not like I can count on java apps to always run on the thing anyways.

At the end of the day, win or loose, the Android platform will move on, future versions may just have full Java support or move to a new language for development. So if you want that HTC Incredible, I'd say go get it. My brother has one and he loves it.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[bnenning]

In order to elevate the new messiah, the apple faithful have to tear down the old one and deny all of the things that was supposed to make it special.

I love that. By their own standards Apple is creating a horrible user experience by including bash and emacs and Python and Java in Mac OS X, and being criminally irresponsible by allowing users to run random apps downloaded from anywhere.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Your argument doesn't make sense to me. Why would having Flash running on iPhone be a threat to Apple's profits? It's not like those Flash apps/games can replace App Store apps -- Flash apps would always be less than a native app.

You're missing the bigger picture: developers who write those simple games in Objective C rather than Flash are writing an app targeted to a single platform - iOS. It's about locking developers - and their applications - to a single OS, not something that can be used and run on a wide variety of platforms.

Apple is betting that developers will be developers - they'll work really hard at creating an application (in the blessed language as chosen by Jobs and company), and once it's out and released and starting to make money, they'll lose interest in it and move to the next thing, never porting it to other platforms. And thereby "locking" that app to iOS devices only.

Flash - or other interpreted code languages - break that lock, greatly expanding the number of platforms an application can support.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Have you also thought, that the same control also keeps the phone fairly free of malware?

Hmmm... There was the massive PDF hole that rooted your phone, the SMS-text-message virus, the Ikee worm, a hotspot app disguised as a flashlight app (and sold in the App Store), and a few others. How's that compare to the Android platform? Pretty poorly, all things considered...

Seems that control isn't helping at all, in terms of security.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

If Slashdot was a rap battle, you woulda just won it homeboy! dB-) Daaaayyyummmm!!

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[LynnwoodRooster]

And it's not even limited to the iPhone - most people still use MS Office, despite how many competitors again? Despite the free OpenOffice?

Note that you can write extensions and add-ins for MS Office in any language you like, including Java or Flash if you felt so inclined. Not so much for the iPhone...

In this case, Microsoft doesn't CARE what language you - the developer - uses, just as long as you support their platform (Office). Microsoft assumes you'll support their platform first because of it's dominant marketshare, marketshare that Microsoft will continue to keep and build by focusing on making a great product and making it extensible and customizable by users and 3rd party developers.

Apple wants you to support their platform, but rather than focusing on marketshare to keep you as a developer, they will force you to use their tools and pay extra money and sell through their sales channel only. They put much more emphasis on controlling and regulating you, the developer, rather than maintaining their 2nd place position in smartphones in the US that they once held (note they are now 3rd place, and falling rapidly).

Microsoft - judging from the actions with Office - treats you as a potential partner and courts you with marketshare and flexibility, so you choose to not go elsewhere. Apple treats you as a revenue stream that may go rogue and tries to lock you down so you cannot go elsewhere.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[j-beda]

Humm, that's not my memory. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#History The USB 1.0 specification was introduced in January 1996. The original USB 1.0 specification had a data transfer rate of 12 Mbit/s.[5] The first widely used version of USB was 1.1, which was released in September 1998. I recall virtually no USB devices available at all until after the iMac, which didn't even have Firewire until the "Summer 2001".

Someone as intelligent as you (or at least not as "fucking stupid" as myself) can surely see that a large market share is not required to "create a market". There was already an existing ecosystem of peripheral makers already selling into the (relatively) small Macintosh market - anyone making ADB devices was only selling to Macintosh users since ADB was only used by Apple for example. These companies were forced to produce USB products in order to maintain their existing customers moving forward and as a bonus they got to sell to those PC users with USB cards and/or built-in USB.

If you can find reference to more than one mouse, one printer, and one external hard drive available for purchase before the introduction of the iMac, I would be interested to learn of it. (I jest, I am sure there were more than one of each, but they certainly were not ubiquitous.) After the iMac it seemed as though virtually everyone was making the things. Granted, it could have just been a case of good timing on the part of Apple and that all those products would have been available regardless of what Apple in the same time frame, however there certainly seemed to be a lot of "bondi blue" at the trade shows for a while there.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Tharsman]

Oh please, pull the other one.

Unused ports die when their time is up. Seen a gameport off an audio board lately? Nope. Why? USB.

Funny... why the hell every almost every PC and Motherboard still comes with PS/2 connectors? I have not seen a PS/2 mouse or keyboard for sale in stores for years now, yet all PCs seem to keep the unnecessary ports there.

No computer uses floppies any more because they don't have enough capacity. Heck, most computers have a DVD burner rather than CD-only for the same reason. If you really need to use a floppy, you can get a USB floppy drive for $5.

Yet everyone called Apple crazy, and bashed the hell out of them, when they removed Floppies from their machines all the way back in 1998. It was not until 5 years later that Dell decided to stop making fun of Apple and just also remove the floppy disks from their machines.

Apple doesn't "lead" the market. They produce a proprietary, closed-scale system that has a small enough market share that virus writers don't give a crap about infecting it and then claim it's "secure." And they sell it to people who have too much money and not enough common sense to compare prices on similar hardware.

They don't "lead the market" in the way you interpret it. They lead the market by showing everyone else that a company wont go bankrupt by adopting the new standard or dropping the aging ones. It's true, no one says "hey, apple did this, we should do it to they just say "oh, they didn't go bankrupt as we thought, perhaps its not crazy to save money removing that aging garbage."

...unless we talking about Tablets and Phones, in case you didnt realize, Android would not exist if the iPhone didn't exist.

Disclaimer: I am referring to the post-Steve Jobs return Apple. Before his return, Apple really was a horrible company that was lucky to survive.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[sootman]

You can always spot the Apple-haters in the crowd because they always ignore #3: Apple really does make great stuff that a lot of people like. They sweat the details, they care about design, and if it takes 2 or 5 or 10 years to make a fantastic product, they'll put in the effort and not release some piece of crap early just to have something in the market.

• The original iPod (2001) had a unique scroll wheel that let you move quickly through thousands of entries, compared to the buttons (1 page at a time) or side-mounted scroll wheels (a few entries at a time) used on other products.
• The iPhone totally changed the face (literally) of the smartphone industry.
• The modern Tablet PC market was born in 2001 and limped along for year, then the iPad came out and shook things up and now, over six months later, there are still no really substantial competitors.

APPLE COULD NOT SURVIVE THIS LONG on marketing alone if their products were absolute crap. The fact that they make really great stuff is why users (and developers) are willing to put up with their other shortcomings. (And they do, indeed, have some shortcomings--you'll get no argument from me there.) THAT is why they can get away with this behavior. It's not just marketing and fanboys.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

milliseconds of latency on every single executed flash bytecode instruction... billions and billions and billions of them, all of which also require electricity that will be drained from the battery.

If you think that - as a general rule - each opcode in any interpreted platform adds anything close to milliseconds of latency, you probably should call it quits now ;)

show me a flash application that can't be written natively and function better and use less resources.

Nice straw man. Just because something can be written *more* efficiently does not imply a lack of efficiency.

show me a flash application that without it, your phone is useless.

Yeah, much better for your fart apps to be native. What was the point of this statement?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

are you serious? how do you think the old dynamically linked libraries are updated to run on a vastly different modern multiuser operating system?

Even if a compatibility layer is loaded between the OS and the component, the component and the layer are both running native code - not interpreted. Let's take an extreme situation: you're running a VM. Do you think all of the instructions in the system you run are interpreted by software? Unless it's a software VM architecture, you're not. The code still runs directly on the CPU. The overall performance is not as good because of the additional layers - but ultimately the binary code is not running interpreted. More recently, even software x86 VMs are trending towards the same behavior.

the REAL question is why are YOU talking about interpreted code

Actually the REAL question is this: why are you going on a rabid posting frenzy about this subject, since - by and large - it doesn't appear that you have much knowledge on the subject?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Do me and my granny a favour and stop bashing Apple for accomplishing what me / you / Ubuntu / Richard Stallman keep failing to accomplish.

I didn't see where GP was doing any bashing at all - he pointed out that they've made usable devices and systems that people like; and that their consumer base is not the geeks who are in an uproar over this. In other words, he was spot on.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

And who gets to define the truth?

Hopefully not the people who watch a movie with robots, laser swords, space ships, and aliens and say it's not sci-fi.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Your.Master]

Funny... why the hell every almost every PC and Motherboard still comes with PS/2 connectors? I have not seen a PS/2 mouse or keyboard for sale in stores for years now, yet all PCs seem to keep the unnecessary ports there.

A lot of people still have a working mouse and keyboard for PS/2. Mostly I see those things sold with USB to PS/2 adapters, so they still work, anyway. Wikipedia tells me that non-Windows systems under KVM behave better under PS/2. and also that we're starting to see it dropped from motherboards. Personally, I use them to free up two USB slots without buying a hub. They'll go away eventually.

Yet everyone called Apple crazy, and bashed the hell out of them, when they removed Floppies from their machines all the way back in 1998. It was not until 5 years later that Dell decided to stop making fun of Apple and just also remove the floppy disks from their machines.

Are you serious? It really isn't difficult to see the difference. In 1998, a floppy drive wasn't worthless yet. It existed in an age when broadband penetration was very, very low; and even Internet connections were not ubiquitous (my home was first connected to the Internet in 1999, I believe), and yet a network or Internet connection was the only reasonable way to get digital data off of the iMac. In 2003, some things had changed. People stopped making fun of Apple not because they realized they had been idiots all along, but because having no floppy stopped meaning that your data was locked to one machine, so iMacs were no longer automatically terrible choices for a large swathe of potential customers.

I can agree with the rest of what you say. Apple's competitors are certainly looking at what works and what doesn't about what Apple does. One more source of data for all their competitors.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[DinDaddy]

Got any sort of link to a floppy drive that apple sold concurrently with the iMac?

Nope. Because they didn't make one.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[DinDaddy]

Each revision of the Mini seems to have yet a different video port. You need a different
dongle for each one to hook them up to normal monitors. It's bloody annoying and in no
way "innovative" or "progressive".

True, but all of those minis did at least come with said dongle included.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[DinDaddy]

Apple owns Fraunhofer?

http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/amm/products/aaclc.jsp

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Sancho]

Probably the fact that the AppleTV requires a external computer to get its media from, and that computer has to run iTunes (which won't import/play most pirated media--and even if you coerce it into doing so, the AppleTV won't play it.) WDTV/O!Play both take media from a locally connected hard drive, and play pretty much anything you throw at them.

It's a shame, really. I've ripped my entire DVD collection to a format that is unsupported by iTunes, which might matter if I even had a Windows/Mac running 24/7 from which to draw the content. The WDTV interface just sucks. It's a horrible experience. The O!Play doesn't look much better (I declined to buy one to try it out after the terrible WDTV experience.) Apple really shines at making user interfaces, but without samba streaming and support for high-profile h.264, AppleTV holds no interest for me.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[TheRaven64]

For every one of those device's, PC did it first

Ignoring your grammar, what, exactly, did the PC do first? The grandparent listed three technologies:

MICRO-sim, MINI display port, MINI dvi

Micro SIM was not developed by Apple but, as far as I know, they were the first company to ship a product using them. Mini DVI was a proprietary Apple connector, electrically compatible with DVI-D or VGA (but not both at the same time). As far as I know, no other manufacturer has used it since. Mini Display Port is an Apple-designed connector, but Apple licenses the design royalty free to other manufacturers and it is due to be incorporated into the next version of the DisplayPort spec.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[DinDaddy]

Truth in advertising laws due not fall under the description of "capitalism". They are a necessary restraint thereof.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[TheRaven64]

I've seen the game port on a few motherboards too. It's still on sound cards largely because it also doubles as a MIDI port, although the MIDI-over-USB spec probably means that this use won't be around much longer - my MIDI keyboard has both USB and MIDI ports and is a few years old.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

"Most" laptops? I'd say they're on a small minority of laptops. The only non-Apple devices that commonly have Firewire are high-end gaming mobos (presumably for the l337 factor).

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Duradin]

Exactly.

AAC is not an Apple owned format.

If people can't get that through their skulls then there's no hope of convincing them that the new SIM format is not proprietary to Apple.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[j-beda]

Yeah, I suppose Wikipedia is full of dreck. But their time-line seems pretty accurate. Other than your general disdain, do you have anything else to offer?

These dates seem to match fairly well
http://books.google.com/books?id=fRvbxgH4wmsC&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false

From IBM is a pretty similar analysis of the economics and the significant role of the iMac: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-spec7.html

Enter the iMac.

The original "bondi blue" iMac was the first computer to offer USB ports without offering "legacy" ports. That's right -- no serial ports, no ADB. This changes the network effects. Before the iMac showed up, there were many millions of PC users who had no USB ports and perhaps a couple of million who had a USB port and also legacy ports. The biggest market in 1998 was in serial and parallel ports (or joystick ports, PS/2 ports, and so on) -- there was no reason to target the USB market. That would just restrict your audience.

The iMac presented a ready-made market of users who chose the Mac line for its graphics capability. In turn, the iMac offered a captive audience of users who would buy a USB peripheral but would not buy any other kind of peripheral. These users provided a market for USB peripherals that wasn't facing competition from other port choices. The result was a flood of USB devices in white-and-blue plastic. This was a crucial turning point that created a reason (tied to a proven system choice) to prefer USB to non-USB ports.

Once adoption was foist onto this substantial segment of users, the technical merits of the technology won out easily. USB's technical superiority (for most peripherals) to the conglomeration of a half-dozen different port types was unambiguous.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[TheRaven64]

It's not about Flash specifically, it's about portable code. I used Windows from 3.0 to 2000, via 3.11 and NT4. I no longer have a Windows machine at all, and the thing that enabled me to switch was the fact that I'd been running cross-platform apps on Windows. I could run exactly the same apps on Windows and FreeBSD (the two platforms that I used at home). When I got a Mac, I could run the same programs there too.

Every time a discussion about people switching to Linux comes up, you always find that they have one Windows-only app that they can't live without. Apple wants to create the same experience on the iPhone. If you can run exactly the same applications on an Android phone and an iPhone, for example, that makes it much easier for your next phone not to be an iPhone.

Even if the iPhone is better, there eventually comes a point when a one-generation-old Android phone is cheaper and there's no advantage in buying a new iPhone. Hopefully, by this point, you will have at least one app that doesn't run on any other platform and that you consider indispensable, so you'll buy a new iPhone instead of a competitor's phone.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[blackraven14250]

Truth in advertising laws due not fall under the description of "capitalism". They are a necessary restraint thereof.

Neither does "trying to be the best by lying".

All that capitalism means is that businesses are owned and operated privately, for profit, and employees get wages. Decisions are made in private hands, rather than by the government.

"Be the best by lying" and "be the best by creating the best product" are mutually exclusive, but either can be the case in a capitalist system.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Tharsman]

A lot of people still have a working mouse and keyboard for PS/2. Mostly I see those things sold with USB to PS/2 adapters, so they still work, anyway. Wikipedia tells me that non-Windows systems under KVM behave better under PS/2. and also that we're starting to see it dropped from motherboards. Personally, I use them to free up two USB slots without buying a hub. They'll go away eventually.

That's not a valid excuse. A lot of people still have programs that require floppy drives too. It's all legacy stuff that never adapted to the times. PC/2 is just a very valid example of how PCs cling to unnecessary technologies. It's also interesting that Apple never used it so never dropped it. Proof that the industry wont do something unless apple does it? No, but definitively does not help the counter-situation.

Are you serious? It really isn't difficult to see the difference. In 1998, a floppy drive wasn't worthless yet. It existed in an age when broadband penetration was very, very low; and even Internet connections were not ubiquitous (my home was first connected to the Internet in 1999, I believe), and yet a network or Internet connection was the only reasonable way to get digital data off of the iMac.

And that was what the iMac was about. The name was short for Internet Macintosh and it was advertised as such. It sold like crazy too, revitalizing Apple and saving them from certain doom. It was so popular that almost all USB devices produced during the next couple of years had iMac Candy Color Syndrome. It was so popular, even PCs started to imitate it (although still not bold enough to remove the Floppy Disk).

Also, even in the 56k era of dial-up internet, the content of a floppy was not hard to send through email. Professionally no one accepted them anymore either. Printers and publishers required Zip Disks and others required CDs or DVDs. Even when the data was small Zip Disks were still required by the Printers.

At that point in time I had only 2 uses for Floppies: Start-up Recovery disks on my PC and installing AOL trials. OK, I never did the second one, but there was nothing else for me to do.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

I haven't seen a game port on a sound card since the early 2000s. I haven't seen a joystick that uses the game port since the late 90s.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[StikyPad]

I find it especially funny when people who dump on Apple computers over the price, drive to work in a BMW, Lexus, Acura, etc.

I find it especially funny that people compare Apple to a more fully featured piece of machinery when A) Apple typically provides *fewer* features and amenities than its PC competitors, and B) with the exception of BMW, one can also purchase a Toyota or Honda (etc.), which gives similar functionality (though perhaps in a more utilitarian package) at a lower price point. Where is Apple's "everyman" brand?

Actually BMW turns out to be a good analogy for Apple.. they both adhere to minimalist philosophies and use cheap components (plastic interiors and garden variety chips, respectively) that are marketed as somehow being more prestigious than competitors because of the package they come in and the brand logos they carry. Not that I have anything against minimalism, but lack of features shouldn't cost *more*. At least they both offer free service for a year or two (though, pro-tip: BMW will knock $2k off the price if you decline the "complimentary" scheduled maintenance package. That will easily pay for the 3-4 oil changes you may need, even from the dealer, and with better oil to boot).

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[StikyPad]

...some PCs still have RS-232C ports. For some things, there's really no substitute.

Ironically enough, we have a stack of USB to RS-232 connectors here at the office.

Intentionally illustrating the GP's point isn't really ironic... so in a way, your post is only ironic because it's not.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

A rally mechanic I know absolutely lost his shit when his new laptop didn't have a serial port (he's not that good with computers and thought this was the end of the world...I thought it was quite entertaining, as he's a notorious asshole). It couldn't interface with any of the car's computers now. Somebody got him an adapter just in time for him to finish an important job.

I have an uncle who's a race mechanic, and he's always looking for old laptops with serial ports for use as cheap data loggers. They're not light but they'll do fine for testing.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[bingoUV]

While you are right that Oracle doesn't have much to gain by Android's death, but Android directly doesn't bring much revenue to Google. If the patent lawsuit means that Google needs to spend a lot to keep Android alive, why wouldn't Google simply destroy the product?

What milk, and what golden goose? These idioms are used for highly profitable things. Android is far from highly profitable. Though it has its own uses for Google.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[SiChemist]

Wish I had mod points for you, Mister Anonymous Coward. I will instead just say +1 insightful.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

Well I don't know about the Nexus One but Flash works fine on my N900.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[SiChemist]

The iTunes requirement is the biggest deal breaker for me where the iPhone is concerned. (There is not a version for my operating system.) The lack of a physical keyboard is a close second.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[webheaded]

Actually he was implying most of those fell under "this is retarded and I'm not buying this just for Apple." Most useful technologies (like USB for example) were NOT done first by Apple. All the examples you listed were Apple taking some standard and just making it smaller before anyone else and then being the only people selling cables. I don't see the point of a micro-SIM card or any of these "same thing but smaller lol" versions unless it actually becomes a standard and everyone jumps on board.

I don't really see many areas where Apple started a standard. If it's a standard, then everyone implements it usually. Most of what Apple does is bullshit lock-in and cables that cost 10x as much as they should.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

The Xbox is a game console. It's a toy. Your ninja turtle's weapons didn't fit into your power ranger's hands when you were a kid, but no big deal. Same thing with game consoles.

Apple fanboys have argued that phones should be treated the same way, but I strongly disagree. A phone is not a toy, and I will argue strongly against its console-ization.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

That's the way I see it, and that's the way things are headed. Microsoft went from an open Windows Mobile platform to a totally locked-down platform since the iPhone came out. Palm went from an open platform to a platform that was initially closed since the iPhone came out. Android has remote app kill/install capability, I wonder what inspired them to add that?

The effect of Apple's iOS on software freedom on mobile devices has been devastating and I hope this trend reverses itself as soon as possible.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

You could still argue that people might buy fixed gear bikes for the relative lack of required maintenance. Derailleurs being out of alignment are probably one of the most common problems on a bike.

Then buy a single-speed bike so you can still have a ratcheting rear hub and brakes.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

Malware's been successfully hidden in their app store before (and other apps with undesirable things like that secret tethering app, that demonstrate the capability to pass apps with undesirable functionality through the app store). Obviously they don't examine the source of the apps they're "verifying." If those apps stole logins and credit card numbers and sent them to a remote server, all the after-the-fact remote app-killing in the world wouldn't do any good. Every app store that doesn't examine source has this weakness. The problem is that Apple wants to pretend their app store is secure.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[sydneyfong]

I fail to see why a tablet with Linux pre-installed and big "web" icon on the start-up screen would not be just as good as the iPad.

Neither do I. Point me to such a tablet that has good performance and usability and stability, and I'd be tempted to buy it.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[GameboyRMH]

So a company would have to jailbreak iPhones to be able to use their own software on them? This is supposed to compete with (management's darling) the Blackberry in what way?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are ignoring their point and using a straw man to make yours.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[PopeRatzo]

And it really is pathetic if you think people/companies should be punished for being successful.

Not for being successful, but rather for being toxic to their own markets and to the societies for which they exist.

The biggest corporations have been having huge increases in profits (and earnings) at a time when the societies in which they exist are collapsing. Further, behaviors of those corporations are accelerating that collapse. And because corporations are by nature amoral, they are indifferent to the fact that societal collapse will mean their own destruction. It's a built-in blindness (and weakness) of the "free market".

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[M. D. Kristopeit]

it's not about portable code. it's about user experience... namely responsiveness, latency, and battery consumption.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[mattack2]

ADB was only used by Apple

Not true quite true (though effectively so). NeXT computers used ADB also.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[mattack2]

Uhh, your data wasn't "locked to one machine" without a floppy. LocalTalk/AppleTalk networks were available long before 1998 (and by that time we were using ethernet of some sort).

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[M. D. Kristopeit]

you're missing the bigger picture: it's not about locking developers... it's about protecting users from developers that place ease of development or porting over user experience.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[M. D. Kristopeit]

you partisanly or conveniently forgot to quote the next sentence in the story where it was quite obviously pointed out that THE ISSUE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH INTERPRETED CODE. the issue is translation, where the maintainer of the translation layer is entrusted with ultimately controlling the end user experience. apple is not willing to allow developers to trade in user experience for a non-standard development process.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[j-beda]

I did not know that.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Dusty101]

What even bugles my mind...

Is that something that, when you first hear it, makes you think "That blows!" ?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

you partisanly or conveniently forgot to quote the next sentence in the story where it was quite obviously pointed out that THE ISSUE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH INTERPRETED CODE.

Really? The next sentence in the article is "Above is the 3.3.2 clause of the developer’s agreement that the reviewer kindly provided in an email. "

I dont think the next sentence says what you think it says.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[BasilBrush]

You're joking.
USB was introduced in 1995. It was present - STANDARD - on every machine and motherboard a year later when I was comparing prices.

No, he's not joking, and you are wrong. iMac launched when UDB 1.0 was the latest standard.Virtually no PCs had USB till USB 1.1. You claim universal PC adoption, in reality PC adoption didn't start till late 1998, after the iMac. And it took years before it was "every machine".

There were other ports on the iMac G3 as well, a pair of firewire ports that went to...

Firewire came to iMacs a year later. USB was supported from the start. That's what kickstarted USB. Peripheral manufacturers first started manufacturing USB devices because it was necessary for iMacs. As the other poster points out, this is the reason why, for the first couple of years of USB peripheral existence, they tended to come in translucent fruity coloured cases. Not beige or black.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[jbn-o]

The answer is simple: the API terms are there to build at least two monopolies out of what could clearly become multiple commonses: no competing app store and no competing developers for apps (whether Apple holds the copyright or not). Apple has a long track record of denying users software freedom. The terms of their app store agreement is hardly surprising.

The more interesting question is why do application developers put up with this. The real power is in the application developer's hands; developers are submitting to the horrible iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. Why? I'm guessing the reason is similar to the lottery logic that persuades millions to buy into a scheme where the vast majority lose to prop up very few winners. Convincing people "you gotta play to win" instead of the more accurate "you're most likely gonna lose". In other words, it's a question of values: developers are taught to value popularity over all things, including their own software freedom and the software freedom of their users. Remember that if an application copyright holder chooses to agree to the aforementioned license and Apple denies them a place in their app store, the copyright holder has agreed not to distribute in competing app stores. This is one power one would normally have under copyright law and it is signed away in an attempt to prop up Apple's app store.

Who teaches them these values? Some open source movement proponents, to be sure; that movement was designed to never bring up ethics and that movement shuns talking about computer user's freedoms to run (recall that Apple can "kill" a deployed iPhone app on any non-jailbroken iPhone), share, and modify. Proprietors, including Apple, like it that way. This arrangement helps Apple more easily address an audience of talented software developers that might look at a digital phone as another general-purpose computing device which ought to properly be the property of its owner. As the EFF points out:

Overall, the Agreement is a very one-sided contract, favoring Apple at every turn. That's not unusual where end-user license agreements are concerned (and not all the terms may ultimately be enforceable), but it's a bit of a surprise as applied to the more than 100,000 developers for the iPhone, including many large public companies. How can Apple get away with it? Because it is the sole gateway to the more than 40 million iPhones that have been sold. In other words, it's only because Apple still "owns" the customer, long after each iPhone (and soon, iPad) is sold, that it is able to push these contractual terms on the entire universe of software developers for the platform.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Douglas Goodall]

Your words resound in my mind strongly. I do have a bitter feeling that my new "favorite" platform (mac) has a weird-ass development language. The objective C did not click for me when I tried it. I love the Mac GUI, but I am really happy the command line sits a click away, with GNU tools handy. I can write C or C++ in a standard Unix environment.

I have a Mac Pro as my workstation, and I am very happy with that. I still have to keep a Windows machine for those several turnkey apps I need to run under five percent of the time. I have an iPhone 4 and love it, but I am not an iPhone developer. I looked into it and could not abide the idea that I could conceive, design, and write an application, then roll the dice as to whether the App Store would accept it. I don't like to write programs in non-transportable languages. In a way, I feel we are still back at the point of the Unix Wars. We have competing platforms and a severe lack of portability because several vendors think customers are controlled more by lock--in than by platform quality.

What I would like to see is windows and Mac OS, and the iPhone and other phones, all use the same multi-source languages and interfaces, then let the customers choose on the value of the hardware quality, OS quality, and documentation quality. The users are blown around like leaves in the wind by the market forces. What Microsoft wants, what Apple wants. We could really use a clearly superior platform for development. One that inspires us to develop, with confidence that APIs will remain stable for a window of opportunity of several years, or even "five years" so it can be depreciated by business properly.

I have been moving towards embedded computing because the marketplace is littered with the dead bodies of companies that were embraced, extended, and extinguished.

I feel like an artist that wants to create a masterpiece, but I am unable to choose a canvas I think will last over time. I thought the Sony PS3 might be fun, but look what has happened to that. I am waiting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and don't know if I can last long enough to pass through this non-sense.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[simplexion]

Yeah, Apple products are pretty good but are they really worthy of people lining up on release day? The majority of their products are very often inferior to cheaper options. I have never understood the complete obsession with Apple products. They really aren't that good when you take into account similar products by other companies.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[exomondo]

milliseconds of latency on every single executed flash bytecode instruction...

Sounds like bullshit.

show me a flash application that without it, your phone is useless.

How is that relevant? He certainly never suggested a phone is useless without flash.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[exomondo]

Ummm, I have (and obviously you haven't), and it's quite horrible.

Exactly what Flash content were you looking at?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[exomondo]

Wrong. i have dozens of relatives with windows (XP, Vista, 7), and dozens more with OS X. lately most have mac laptops and keep their old windows desktops around.

Ah anecdotal evidence. I can't be bothered typing it so just whatever you said but the other way round ;)

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[gullevek]

The difference was that for a long time PC board had USB and PS/2 connectors. And for a long long time a lot of people never bothered with the USB connectors.

Apple just removed any old connectors.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[TheRaven64]

Your words resound in my mind strongly. I do have a bitter feeling that my new "favorite" platform (mac) has a weird-ass development language. The objective C did not click for me when I tried it

I would really encourage you to try again. Obviously, I'm biased here, because I wrote the GNUstep Objective-C runtime, the associated code in clang for targeting it (supporting Objective-C 2 on non-Apple platforms), contribute to GNUstep (which implements the same frameworks as Cocoa on OS X), and co-maintain a desktop environment written in Objective-C, but...

Objective-C is a really small language, but is amazingly flexible. If you're coming from C++, you might want to read this short series of articles I wrote for C++ programmers learning Objective-C. Once you understand object orientation, Objective-C is trivial to learn. The only thing that you might find strange is the syntax, but if you've used Smalltalk then this will be familiar. The point of using Smalltalk-style syntax in Objective-C for object oriented stuff is to highlight the fact that it is different. In C++, you use the same C-like syntax for everything, even for things that have very different semantics.

The core frameworks are also amazingly well designed. Tim Berners-Lee credited the NeXT Objective-C APIs as the main reason that he was able to implement the first web browser. These APIs have undergone incremental improvements since they were created in 1988. The biggest changes came in 1991/2 when Sun and NeXT published the OpenStep specification, adding the Foundation framework, which handled platform abstractions, so code could run on Windows NT, Solaris and OPENSTEP.

Apple has made some improvements (and made a few things worse), but if you pick up a book on programming NeXT systems from 1992, you'll find that a lot of it is still very relevant today - for simple apps, you'd use exactly the same set of classes and methods. It's hard to find another API that's stood the test of time so well. At the time the OpenStep spec was published, Windows was using win16 and most other UNIX systems were using Motif, with a few using Athena. None of these really survive today. Meanwhile, code written for NeXTStep will often compile and run on a Mac or a *NIX/Windows system with GNUstep, and a number of popular OS X apps have been incrementally improved since they created as old NeXT apps, without ever needing a rewrite.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

I have to say, it's nice to have an informative, refreshing reply/rebuttal to my post. I give you credit (minus the silly jab at grammar). What I meant is overall, things like USB were on PC first, *then* standard on Apple, but were all on PC in varying degrees. The other things mentioned, that the grandparent and you mentioned, fall under "that is retarded and I'm not buying a new connector just for Apple lock-in."

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

See other user's reply to your post.

I don't hate Apple. They're brilliant. They make inferior products and make a crap-ton of money by successfully taking advantage of dumb people like you. I just don't like the fanboys spouting drivel and telling everybody that Apple's products are the best thing ever.

We all know Apple products are crap. We just hate Apple zealouts shoving lies down our throats and seeing other people believe them, and spending their hard-earned money on a shiny toy instead of an actual, real, good product.

And lest you forget, I speak from experience. I actually have a 3GS. I've used it extensively and in-depth and really spent the time using it. And you know what I found?--give me a Blackberry 9700 or a Evo 4G any day.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

Your OS is doing you a favor. ITunes is just godawful.

A tip for you though--I've found lately the soft-keyboards on all platforms have gotten pretty good. It takes a good 3 months, but by then you can be pretty productive (android in particular--I love the list of auto-complete words in a row--had a Droid and found myself not even using the physical keyboard). Of course, nothing will ever touch the speed and ease of a Blackberry 8830's keyboard. It's sad but nowadays no physical keyboards are any good. The new Blackberry's have awful keyboards (Bolds). The keys are not separated, too small, too close, slippery, and on an angle so you can't type speedily through the use of one's fingernails. Although the new Torch seems to address all these issues save the separated chicklet-style keys.

Also, maybe you can try Dragon dictation. It's pretty accurate (when the program works). And you can just go back and edit the text if needed.

Hope this helps.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[BasilBrush]

That hate filled little post was tacit admission that, as I said, you couldn't name a single PC that had those technologies before Apple.

You claim otherwise was as ignorant as the rest of your posts.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

*Sigh*. You want it? Here we go:

Developed *first* for the PC and found on PC's *first*:

PCI-E
PCI-E 2.0
DDR
DDR2
DDR3
SO-DIMMS
AGP
x86 CPUs
IDE
DVI
VGA
SATA
PCI
USB
USB 2.0
USB 3.0 (not even in existence yet in OSX)

You fail.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

All of what you say is irrelevant.

Developed *first* for the PC and found on PC's *first*:

PCI-E
PCI-E 2.0
DDR
DDR2
DDR3
SO-DIMMS
AGP
x86 CPUs
IDE
DVI
VGA
SATA
PCI
USB
USB 2.0
USB 3.0 (not even in existence yet in OSX)

With your most recent post, now you're just making stuff up and changing the entire argument. You can't say XYZ is the first, and then when you're wrong say "well XZY is the first with . *That* is being a fanboy.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

Btw, below were *first* developed for the PC and *first* used on PC:

PCI-E
PCI-E 2.0
DDR
DDR2
DDR3
SO-DIMMS
AGP
x86 CPUs
IDE
DVI
VGA
SATA
PCI
USB
USB 2.0
USB 3.0 (not even in existence yet in OSX)

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[M. Kristopeit]

what did i say that wasn't true?

what did i say at all? how is it possible to misunderstand something with a sigh? because other people agree, and you're the idiot they're all laughing at?

you are NOTHING.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[MogNuts]

The end clipped off what I had to say. When I prove you wrong, you can't come back and change the argument and say, "well this is first because ... on a special day, with the right amount of light, in the perfect position, with the earth aligned with mars, etc etc, THEN what I said is correct."

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[BasilBrush]

I see MICRO-sim, MINI display port, MINI dvi are nor in your new list. Admission that you were in fact wrong. They didn't appear on PCs first.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[julesh]

Is MS Office really superior in anything that 90% of the users actually need from their word processor?

As of the latest version, you still can't have a word count in your status bar. This is pretty-much a killer failure for anyone who writes to word targets (i.e., most professional writers).

Last time I looked, there were several serious shortcomings with calc, in that it couldn't cope with (IIRC) more than 64K rows in a sheet, which can seriously hinder using it for statistical analysis.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[TheRaven64]

You seem to be the one who is changing the argument. I replied to a post in which you called the person who listed three technologies:

MICRO-sim, MINI display port, MINI dvi

You replied to this post saying:

For every one of those device's, PC did it first.

I pointed out that this is not true. You then said that this wasn't what you meant at all, what you really meant was:

What I meant is overall, things like USB were on PC first, *then* standard on Apple, but were all on PC in varying degrees

Presumably this was in response to the original poster's comment that:

If it wasn't for Apple, PCs would probably still have RS232 and floppy drives. Again, Apple let the way there, replacing/removing obsolete technology whilst the rest of the industry were too scared to be different.

I then pointed out that the original poster was correct - adding the ports was not as important for adoption as removing the things that they replaced. USB was a port that was present but unused (or not present at all) on most PCs until around 2000. On Macs, it was the only way of connecting peripherals and this is what caused the adoption.

Oh, and a good proportion of the 'PC first' technologies that you list in other posts were in RISC workstations first and trickled down to PCs later.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[samwichse]

I just ordered a new Dell at work, and I got one with RS-232 on the motherboard and I got a riser card with it giving me two more.

I typically have only 2 of the 3 ports in use, but occasionally I'll have all three plugged up.

Dataloggers, pH meters, data transfers from a TRS80 M100 (!), LI-COR, etc. It's a very simple, very useful port, and there is still new equipment being made that uses it.

Sam

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

you are NOTHING

You seem to say that a lot ot people who respond to you. Maybe you are just overcompensating for the fact you don't know what you are talking about and lack the social skills to carry on a mature and adult conversation?

Grow up and get a life.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

You just proved my point to you. That you dont know what you are talking about and hide behind childish insults. No one will take you seriously if you act so immature.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

what knowledge is there to have?

that depends entirely on the statements you're making.

are you denying that flash consumes more resources to run (CPU/battery)

I actually don't know. I've seen poorly written apps that consume far more CPU than they should in Flash; and I've seen well-written ones that take up much less than a poorly coded native app. The reasons I dislike Flash are more because too many web designers find it acceptable to make entire web sites in Flash. However for simple games and other toys, it looks like it's a great tool.

and has higher latency and response time than a natively coded app?

yes and no. will it be slower? Of course - it's not JIT compiled. But that slowness is a matter of microseconds in many cases - and human perception cuts off at 100-200 ms. So as a user, you would see no difference at all.

pple respects their customers more than to offer them a watered down experience in the same way high end audio equipment manufactures would not sell a product with a gimmicky feature that added noise to the signal.

As I said above - that depends more ont he quality of the application than the platform it's written on. Trust me, it's entirely possible to make a native iPhone app that sucks your battery dry in record time.

flash is for lazy developers. i am a user.

As such, you likely wouldn't understand that constructive laziness is the single driving factor behind most productivity software out there -- and that includes toolkits and platforms (like databases, flash, directX, etc) that can be used to simplify building more complex systems.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[M. Kristopeit]

so the knowledge you're claiming i don't have, you now claim entirely depends on the statements i'm making.... and when i ask you to point out where your confusion began, and why you made claims that i don't know what i'm talking about, you respond "i actually don't know."

you're the worst kind of idiot.

you are NOTHING

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[M. D. Kristopeit]

what tools do you use to clean your relatives OS X machines of malware? what specific instances of malware are you claiming you have removed? were you able to determine how the malware found it's way on the machine? are you lying?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

You asked me a question, I gave an accurate answer. You didn't like the answer and so glossed over the entire reply and began insulting me. Gee, can't figure out why you had to make an alternate account...

Enjoy your day :)

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

It's all good, man. I mean - I would have liked to see a wider range and variety of insults. Still -- if that's the best you can do, I can't hold it against you. We are each limited by our abilities - or lack thereof in some cases.

I wonder how long I can make you keep replying? You're completely under my control.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Yep, I win this round too. Keep 'em coming. How does it feel to be helpless - to be forced to do exactly what I want you to?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

You are just upset cause I'm pointing out you don't know what you are talking about.

Grow up, or at least go away and stop bothering the adults when we are having a conversation.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

And yet not as powerless as you are to stop yourself from replying to this. All you have to do is walk away, but I don't want you to - so you won't.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[exomondo]

Im sorry you weren't able to understand the satirical point regarding anecdotal evidence. Better luck next time.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

or you just perceive from others what you really are yourself but are too cowardly to admit. You're the idiot, you're nothing. Read your posts, no civil person would talk that way.

Grow up little baby.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Yes you keep saying that to basically everyone. Kinda stupid of you to keep up a conversation with what you consider to be nothing.

Life will be hard for you when you crawl out of your parents basement.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Again with the NOTHING. That's getting really old.

If that's true then you are really quite juvenile emotionally. Do you have a job? A real one? If so I'm surprised that someone with such a juvenile mind could hold one down. Probably a Republican too.

Stop with the childish attitude. Really. You'll go a lot further in life.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Your helplessness amuses me. But I do weary of it, it's true - it's like poking a stick at a trapped animal. Have a nice day :)

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Why do you have so many alias names anyway? So you can mod people you don't like down, or mod yourself up?

Can you say anything other than NOTHING?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

HA HAHA HA HA!!! Thats funny NOTHING.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Completely proving my point you are immature.

I'm trying to make you a better person that others wont find so annoying. Why aren't you listening?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

You didn't answer the question. Is it because you are so much of an ass your account keeps getting blocked? Your Karma goes too low to post because everything you post gets modded flamebait?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Back to the NOTHING. And I thought we were making progress with your rehabilitation into society.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Cant fight my own battles? What are you talking about? Now you are just not making any sense whatsoever.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Seriously, are you happy being a jerk to everyone you meet? Don't you want to have any friends? Isn't this constant arguing with everyone tiring?

Why not try to be nice for a while to see how it goes?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

But you treat everyone the same way you treat me. What kind of a world do you live in where you perceive everyone else as an idiot? If thats true then you are a childish megalomaniac. you should seriously seek help before you take out your rage on those ugly cats of yours.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Kristopeit, M. D.]

you rely on omission as a tool to misquote others. you are a liar. a deceitful NOTHING the world would universally benefit to be rid of.

pee hook. fix your crooked dick, coward.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Clearly since you write YOU ARE NOTHING on every post you write, and every post gets modded troll, and you have many foes but no friends on slashdot, then clearly what I say is true. You have never said a kind word to anyone here.

You do have to white ugly barking cats. They in no way could be called dogs.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Oh. This must be the other personality. You are mistaken, I do not do as you say. You are doing denial and projection. Ever heard of it?

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Kristopeit, M. D.]

OR, there is more idiotic discourse going on within this internet chat board than positive, and i've taken a position of not allowing an idiot to not be told when they are posting idiotic messages, and the only defense an idiot has in such a situation are the tools provided to him by someone else, namely the moderation system. if i'm correct and they can't respond logically, all you can do it attempt to stop me from posting. such attempts only make you weaker as your responsibilities have grown and your resources have diminished. clearly you don't understand what the word "true" means. also, "clearly something being clearly" is clearly redundant. -1, idiot. "to"? is that like "for mine us to", idiot?

my wife purchased a bichon frise, and a maltese/shih tzu mix called a maltzu... both are dogs. i call them dogs. dogs are called dogs, moron. you might be dumber than i thought, pee hook. straighten out that dick. you're a coward until you post your name and address. you post like a woman.

until then:

you are NOTHING

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

You're funny. lol

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

That's barely english. It looks like a sentence since it uses words and the occasional punctuation, but it doesn't make much sense.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Kristopeit, M. D.]

... but it is english... and either something is english or it isn't, so your use of the word "barely" was ignorant.

perhaps my use of english only doesn't make sense TO YOU... because YOU ARE AN IDIOT, pee hook. you barely UNDERSTAND english.

you are NOTHING

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Learn English and shut the fuck up liar. Stop being an ignorant ass.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Apparently you don't know english since that sentence didn't make any sense. And of course you are a liar. What about the IPO for millions? Complete bullshit.

Why are you still bothering me? You obviously don't want to better yourself and try and be less of an ass, so please just go away. You're bordering on stalking with that unhealthy obsession with what my penis looks like - almost every post lately. Pervert. Geez.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Please I'm not interested in your perverted sexual advances. Go away.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Kristopeit, M. D.]

you're replying to me, idiot.

fix your crooked dick, pee hook.

you are NOTHING

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Seriously, stop replying to me about my sexual organs. I'M NOT INTERESTED. GO AWAY.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Kristopeit, M. D.]

YOU ARE REPLYING TO ME.

i'd be interested if my dick was crooked... does it keep getting more and more hooked? does your pee hook? what if it gets so twisted it falls off?

how is your interest in any way relevant? am i forcing you to read this? YOU ARE CHOOSING TO, BECAUSE YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

straighten out your dick, pee hook.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[pnewhook]

Stop replying to me!! I'm not interested in your dick and I don't want you talking about mine, pervert. Does your wife know you are gay? Please leave me alone.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Kristopeit, M. D.]

i posted.. you replied... YOU ARE REPLYING TO ME, PEE HOOK.

the real question is, what compels you to keep responding to me? do you have a wife?

ur mum's face is gay.

straighten out your dick, pee hook. i OWN you.

you are NOTHING.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Kristopeit, M. D.]

i'm not interested in your dick

what made you think my dick was up for offer? did anyone say anything about my dick? did you just fantasize it?

your name is pee hook... STRAIGHTEN IT OUT.

you are NOTHING.

Re:Why really does Apple behave this way?

[Kristopeit, M. D.]

ur mum's face is a pervert

Strange

[dissy]

One would think he could easily cross to the dark side, and release his app in the Rock store, or the Cydia store.

In fact, I would be surprised if someone doesn't take the code, compile the app, and release it as a .deb anyways.

But using the Cydia store features the developer could still make quite a bit of money.
Sure, it limits your app to jailbroken devices, but that is a very large number of devices compared to zero as the current situation goes.

I'm sure he has his reasons and all, I am just curious what they might be.

Re:Strange

[mjwx]

One would think he could easily cross to the dark side, and release his app in the Rock store, or the Cydia store.

Or he could re-write the thing for Android and make _some_ money. Some being greater then none, which is what he's making now.

Eventually this is the kind of behaviour that will drive people away from the Apple ecosystem. Apple gets to decide who does and does not make money, just wait until they start buddying up with big dev houses to push out crappy titles and sequels at $10 a piece.

Re:Strange

[dissy]

Strange (Score:3, Troll)

I simply love having troll followers :D

It's obvious when the trolls get mod points, and you see all of my posts going back for weeks get modded -1 troll in order

Makes me feel good that they have so much hate and so little to do as to follow me personally as such.
The truth hurts, doesn't it!

Read the license

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if this technically qualifies as open source, and it's not Free Software, because of this line in the license:

"The Software and/or source code cannot be copied in whole and
    sold without meaningful modification for a profit. "

Re:Read the license

[odies]

Open source is open source, meaning you can see the code. What's so hard about that?

Re:Read the license

[silentcoder]

>Open source is open source, meaning you can see the code. What's so hard about that?

The fact that it's just not true. The word has a definition.

How can I put this ? If it doesn't quack like a duck, it doesn't look like a duck, it doesn't walk like a duck - then the fact that it's waterbird isn't enough to make it a duck.

Re:Read the license

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the phrase has a definition, and it's not the page you link to. It is in fact the meaning to which your parent poster referred.

The desire on your part and the part of others to inflict additional meanings is irrelevant.

A waterbird is a waterbird, be it a duck or not.

Open, in the sense of 'can be seen', source as in 'source'. Source can be seen. Q.E.D.

Re:Read the license

[elrous0]

I don't recognize their right to define the term.

Re:Read the license

[ceejayoz]

You're conflating open source and Open Source.

Re:Read the license

[samkass]

I don't recognize their right to define the term.

They invented the term, which I think gives them the right. If you don't like it, invent your own term like "visible source" or "available source". The term "open" is already too overloaded for you to go add yet another definition.

Re:Read the license

[elrous0]

They *claim* they "invented" the term. I don't believe them. And even if I did, that still wouldn't give them any right to control its definition. Language is democratic, it is not controlled by some group of random putzes who happen to file a trademark. Maybe you should remind yourself of that the next time you use the term "spam" to refer to something in your email folder, and not a meat product whose name was invented by the good folks at Hormel.

Re:Read the license

[exomondo]

The fact that it's just not true. The word has a definition.

I count 2 words. In any case 'Open Source' software is pretty much synonymous with 'Free Software', which is why it does seem to make sense to have both terms. Whereas 'open source' software is much more generally any software to which you are given access to the source code.

Re:Read the license

[silentcoder]

I use "free software" as a rule because that's the movement I believe in. This doesn't change the fact that when a term has a well defined meaning as a term-of-art in it's field and somebody then claims something conforms to this term because it meets the less specific criteria of a common-speech definition that this is ignorance at best, outright fraud at worst.

To refer to a program as open-source when it clearly does not meet the definition of open-source as a term-of-art within software development is an attempt to mislead. I won't claim the author of the program or, for that matter of the summary, was DELIBERATELY misleading - it's just as likely they simply didn't know that open-source is a defined term-of-art with a more specific meaning than the two words it's made out of would suggest. In either case correcting this is important.
If the author in response to this either (1) changes the license to meet the definition [this is easiest achieved by using one already approved by the OSI] or (2) stops using the term open source to describe it (Microsoft opted for this approach when they came up with shared-source) then we can safely assume that it was merely ignorance.
If he persists and refuses to correct - we must then assume that he is deliberately attempting to mislead the public, which is at the very least false advertising.

Re:Read the license

[exomondo]

Sure, if you want to capitalise it as 'Open Source' and use their trademark then it can go to mean exactly their definition. However the more common 'open source' is simply the general interpreted meaning of the words in normal speech - not even necessarily in reference to software - which is the accessibility of the source rather than the licensing and distribution terms that the OSI has tacked on to it. The term 'open source' was around long before the OSI came along and trademarked 'Open Source' for use in terms of software.

The FSF term 'Free Software', or even the hybrid 'Free Open Source Software' seem to be better terms since unlike the general 'open source' - which doesn't even necessarily refer to software, much less licenses - they were coined for software and for explicitly including specification of licenses and distribution terms. Though even in this case the 'Free as in Freedom' vs 'Free as in Free Beer' conflict is still a pain, i mean if you tell someone that something is free in general they would take it to mean 'Free as in Free Beer'.

Re:Read the license

[silentcoder]

Okay, I'm glad we agree that free software is a better term - though it's a radically different concept because free software is a user-focussed movement while open source focuses on developers and practical advantages only.
But sadly, there is no point in debating with you at all because you haven't read a single thing I wrote... I already addressed and debunked all the points you made about the term open source - and showed you the reasons why your "common sense" approach here is just not TRUE. I have no desire to do it all over again.

Re:Read the license

[exomondo]

But sadly, there is no point in debating with you at all because you haven't read a single thing I wrote... I already addressed and debunked all the points you made about the term open source - and showed you the reasons why your "common sense" approach here is just not TRUE. I have no desire to do it all over again.

Actually i read and understood everything you wrote. What you don't seem to understand is that 'open source' - in the software world - existed long before the OSI came up with it's trademarked definition only some 12 years ago. So now we have a capitalised, trademarked, attempt at a 'term-of-art' version of it developed by this organisation that doesn't necessarily reflect the original loose definition of the term, which originally did not have anything to do with licensing and was little more than a development methodology.

In the context of anything done by the OSI 'Open Source' means exactly what their definition says, including the licensing terms and restrictions that preclude use of the term under certain licenses that are considered Free Software, so whilst the OSI bases itself on essentially the same principles as the FSF their definition of 'Open Source' means what is 'Open Source' is not necessarily 'Free Software' or vice-versa. I would find it hard to understand how someone could argue that FSF-defined 'Free Software' would not be viewed as open source by the wider software community.

Re:Read the license

[silentcoder]

There are licenses that are free software approved but not OSI approved but also there are (far more) licenses that are OSI approved that do not (and never will) have FSF approval. Because the two organisations have very different goals and values. There is sufficient overlap that MOST open-source is also free software, but not all and I think the wider community (at least that section of it which knows both terms) generally understand this very well.

I dispute your claim that open source was regularly or typically used within the software development sphere prior to 1998. When it was coined by Christine from Netscape it was adopted because it wasn't a term with previous usage, but it nevertheless made it's primary value quite clear as that is very close to the common-speech meaning of the phrase.

In a different context an "open source" could mean a leak in a tank causing bacterial infections (the source of the infection is unsealed and thus open). Context is everything.
I have NO doubt in my mind that we can safely demand the phrase open source today must only be used for software licensed under OSI approved licenses because that usage is now so well established that any time you use the phrase for something that doesn't meet those criteria you ARE trying to mislead.
I see absolutely no reason why an argument about semantics and linguistics is even relevant, it doesn't matter what a word CAN mean. When somebody uses a phrase that he knows his audience will attach a certain meaning to, knowing that what he is describing doesn't fit that meaning - he cannot claim "but it COULD mean that" - he is STILL trying to deceive people.

This is why when you write a contract you are expected to define terms in the context of the contract (that's why you see things like "Doctor Fred Mbogo (Hereafter: the lessor)", it's a legal requirement - to prevent ambiguous terms from being used for fraud. If you trick somebody into signing a contract which he thinks means one thing (and you encourage him to think that) knowing full well that it says something else and that you intend to enforce these terms which the signer didn't know he was signing for - that is a well established example of outright fraud.

Now it's not fraud to use a term in a press-release to describe something that does not meet the definition most of your audience will expect it to have - but it IS deceitful and it definitely IS false advertising.
Sorry but even if open-source had been used all the way back to Ada Lovelace it wouldn't make one ounce of difference here. The word in context have come to mean for the vast majority of people in the industry "as defined by the OSI". Any other use IS now deceitful.

Re:Read the license

[exomondo]

There are licenses that are free software approved but not OSI approved but also there are (far more) licenses that are OSI approved that do not (and never will) have FSF approval.

Long before 1998 the term open source was used and it was used in reference to software that met the general open source development model as well as FSF-defined 'Free Software'. So all 'Free Software' was open source, but not all open source software was 'Free Software', if you have been in the community before 1998 you would know this.

I dispute your claim that open source was regularly or typically used within the software development sphere prior to 1998.

Quite clearly you weren't around back then, otherwise you would know that it is idiotic to dispute it.

I have NO doubt in my mind that we can safely demand the phrase open source today must only be used for software licensed under OSI approved licenses because that usage is now so well established that any time you use the phrase for something that doesn't meet those criteria you ARE trying to mislead.

Hence the reason there is 'open source' and 'Open Source'.

The word in context have come to mean for the vast majority of people in the industry "as defined by the OSI". Any other use IS now deceitful.

Bullshit, just because you're new to the industry and don't know any better doesn't mean you can claim use of the OSI term outside of the OSI context is deceitful, as you said 'context is everything'.

Now it's not fraud to use a term in a press-release to describe something that does not meet the definition most of your audience will expect it to have - but it IS deceitful and it definitely IS false advertising.

Again, that's why we have 'open source' being the traditional meaning outside of the OSI's trademarked, licensing-burdened term. So no, it is not false advertising, it would be false advertising to use 'Open Source' in the OSI context.

Context is everything.

Yes! In the OSI context you take the OSI definition, NOT in the broader software development community.

there is no point in debating with you at all

Wow, that lasted.

Re:Read the license

[silentcoder]

>I dispute your claim that open source was regularly or typically used within the software development sphere prior to 1998.

>Quite clearly you weren't around back then, otherwise you would know that it is idiotic to dispute it.

You are aware that word context is also GEOGRAPHIC ? I am not from the USA - perhaps it was in use there, but it most certainly wasn't in use in my country - and I have never found a written reference to the term dating back any earlier than 1998 (and I read a LOT).

>>I have NO doubt in my mind that we can safely demand the phrase open source today must only be used for software licensed under OSI approved licenses because that usage is now so well established that any time you use the phrase for something that doesn't meet those criteria you ARE trying to mislead.

>Hence the reason there is 'open source' and 'Open Source'.
We're actually going to let capitalization be a nice excuse to get around the requirements ? You do KNOW that capitalization cannot be pronounced right ? So ... blind people are fair game for deception ?

>>The word in context have come to mean for the vast majority of people in the industry "as defined by the OSI". Any other use IS now deceitful.

>Bullshit, just because you're new to the industry and don't know any better doesn't mean you can claim use of the OSI term outside of the OSI context is deceitful, as you said 'context is everything'.

I am not new to the industry - I have been working in software for nearly 2 decades and with GNU/Linux in particular since 1993. What I am not, is an American. But that still changes nothing. Words change meaning - it's been 12 YEARS since the word as we use it was coined and it's become the established meaning -get over it.

>>Now it's not fraud to use a term in a press-release to describe something that does not meet the definition most of your audience will expect it to have - but it IS deceitful and it definitely IS false advertising.

>Again, that's why we have 'open source' being the traditional meaning outside of the OSI's trademarked, licensing-burdened term. So no, it is not false advertising, it would be false advertising to use 'Open Source' in the OSI context.

Again - if the only difference is capitalization then I put it to you that the difference does not exist.

>>Context is everything.

>Yes! In the OSI context you take the OSI definition, NOT in the broader software development community.

Defined by you as "only people who have developed for more than 20 years" ? If you go by "the widest understood meaning of the phrase among developers today" then I win. And that is the only definition of a word that any actual linguist would EVER consider. In fact, that's almost to a word the requirements the OED uses to decide which new words (and new word-meanings) go in the dictionary: a word must have been used in that specific way for at least 5 years, and the majority of people within the specific context should recognize it for the meaning it is being suggested for.
On the contrary, the most important linguists in the world give NO weight to the HISTORIC meaning of words. They are recorded (so when we read an old document we can check what the word meant at the time) but they are NOT held as the meaning of the word TODAY.

>>there is no point in debating with you at all

>Wow, that lasted.
Your response actually gave me something worth replying to - unlike the one before it.

Re:Read the license

[exomondo]

There's a standard /. quote system, it's pretty basic, learn to use it.

You are aware that word context is also GEOGRAPHIC ? I am not from the USA - perhaps it was in use there, but it most certainly wasn't in use in my country - and I have never found a written reference to the term dating back any earlier than 1998 (and I read a LOT).

You are incredibly ignorant, don't presume to know anything about me. Im not an American. If you really do read a lot you would find an incredible amount of references to 'open source' that don't fall into the category the OSI defines, this is not only in the software community but the media covering software.

We're actually going to let capitalization be a nice excuse to get around the requirements ? You do KNOW that capitalization cannot be pronounced right ?

What requirements? The ones imposed by the OSI? Use it in the context of the OSI if you want, but they don't dictate the meaning.

I am not new to the industry - I have been working in software for nearly 2 decades and with GNU/Linux in particular since 1993. What I am not, is an American. But that still changes nothing. Words change meaning - it's been 12 YEARS since the word as we use it was coined and it's become the established meaning -get over it.

I find that hard to believe, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. And wtf are you talking about being American for??? Are you really that small-minded?

Again - if the only difference is capitalization then I put it to you that the difference does not exist.

Im using that to differentiate between 'open source' and 'open source as defined by the OSI', though i thought that was obvious.

Defined by you as "only people who have developed for more than 20 years" ? If you go by "the widest understood meaning of the phrase among developers today" then I win.

No, how bout that new PS3 jailbreak, or the myriad of other code referred to as 'open source' that isn't licensed under an OSI approved license? You LOSE!

Re:Hey timothy...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a good example of why some animals eat their young.

his product

[phantomfive]

His product is one that creates wireframe prototypes of iPhone apps and allows you to run them on the iPhone. Presumably (from his experience, and others he's shown it to) this allows you to make better apps faster.

He shouldn't be surprised, he is running into essentially the same trap that was built for Adobe when they tried to create a compiler for Flash that translates onto the iPhone. Apple has said they want to be completely in control of the development environment, and anything that threatens to take away that control will not be allowed. They've written this into the license, and explained it several times. There is no reason for him to be upset over something he should have realized.

Now, if only someone would write a decent GUI builder for Android, I would be happy.

Re:his product

[Anonymous Coward]

As you say, the app allows one to create wireframe prototypes, but those prototypes are not usable in any sense. So it isn't the same situation as Adobe allowing Flash to be compiled into apps.

The reason the app was rejected initially was for allowing the "execution" of code that could be loaded from outside the app. However, the "code" was nothing but an XML document that was read into the app and used to construct interfaces. In fact, the XML document even used Apple's "property list" format, and was simply loaded directly into an NSDictionary.

The insane part of this whole thing is that had the developer not given his "code" files a unique extension (he used .briefslist I believe), and had changed the wording in his instructions just slightly, the app probably would have gotten through fine. Others have noted that there are live apps that do essential the same thing that Briefs wanted to do.

Re:his product

[Penguinisto]

"...this allows you to make better apps faster."

To be honest, this seems pretty subjective. It also misses the definition of "better" - is it "better" as in the app has better performance than a native-built app? Is it "better" as in it can have more features than a native-built app?

"Apple has said they want to be completely in control of the development environment, and anything that threatens to take away that control will not be allowed. "

Can't blame 'em in this case, at least from an objective viewpoint. The phone's reputation relies a lot on the apps' reputation. Apps that hang, or run slow, or basically sucks the battery dry in short order affects the users' perception of the phone. If that perception is destroyed by a bug in this particular app causing a raft of apps that basically suck (not in content, but performance, efficiency, etc)? For Apple, that would suck - far better to have flaws in an API, runtime, or etc that they themselves can fix in short order, than to stumble across flaws that they'd have to beg a third party to fix. It also leaves open a trap that Microsoft is stumbling on with each new version of Windows: Compatibility/Legacy issues. Given that there isn't too much capacity on a smartphone for Moore's Law to cover bloat, you can't just code your way out of a legacy issue - especially those caused by some third party build/prototyping app.

Apple's stance is pretty simple, really: If you want to build an iPhone app, learn to write code and do it your own damned self. The tools are free. The store fees are dirt cheap.

Personally, vote with your wallet. Android phones (esp. thanks to Verizon's BOGO deals and a far larger pool of manufacturers) are selling like mad right now. iPhones are still selling like mad right now. May the market determine the best model...

Re:his product

[Terrasque]

Now, if only someone would write a decent GUI builder for Android, I would be happy.

Like DroidDraw?

Re:his product

[Mr Z]

Erm... my understanding of Briefs is that it still requires you to make a native-built app. It is emphatically not a framework. Rather, it lets you try on different renderings of things that you could do within Apple's framework in a simple do-nothing environment. A bug in Briefs is highly unlikely to propagate into an app, since it appears mainly to be a "preview app" for UI decisions--a live white-board, if you will. From the description in TFA, it sounds like Briefs gives you a mechanism to quickly mock up new interfaces (within the constraints of what Apple's widgets let you do) and try it on to check out the feel, even though you can't actually hook it to an application.

Once you've got the fit and finish of the user interaction down, it sounds like it's still up to you to program your actual app to actually do that. That is, because Briefs is not a framework, you can't hang an application off of it. You can only prototype look and feel. It's still up to you to implement it, and when you implement it, you'll be implementing it as a native built app.

Or did I miss something?

Re:his product

[TheLink]

> However, the "code" was nothing but an XML document

Ah but XML looks a bit like Lisp with uglier braces.

Sometimes it seems like many Java (and other) programs are just Lisp interpreters that run huge XML "configuration files" ;).

Re:his product

[Cederic]

Verizon's BOGO deals

Buy one get one?

Damn the market's nasty in the US if that's a deal.

Re:Hey timothy...

[Securityemo]

An offtopic thought: given the recent (re?)surge of seemingly organized trolls here, mod points allocated by the automated system are going to waste, both from the karma-whoring trolls to mod up their own posts and from the people in the audience/freakshow modding them down. I have come across recent discussions in the usual places regarding playing the Slashdot moderation system, so I think the question must be asked: how many points wasted would be needed to destabilize the system by impoverishing it? If the number of posts and moderations increase and remain stable over a period of time, malicious or not, will the system compensate?

Even stranger...

[beakerMeep]

In his blog post about it he has this "aw shucks, time to go write some apps Apple will approve" attitude.

It strikes me as the psycho ex gf/bf who cant accept Apple broke up with them and refuses to mail order a new Android companion (or at least get a RIM job)

/yeah, this post went in a completely different direction from where it started

Re:Even stranger...

[roman_mir]

It strikes me as the psycho ex gf/bf who cant accept Apple broke up with them and refuses to mail order a new Android companion (or at least get a RIM job)

- hey, stop that. What do blackberries have to do with any of this?

Re:Even stranger...

[dzfoo]

Perhaps he realizes that there's more money to be made in Apple apps. There have been a couple of articles lately on the tech press to this effect.

        -dZ.

Three months is nothing.

[Professr3]

Three months is nothing compared to QA times for the T-Mobile Sidekick. Small teams can't afford to wait a year from submission to first profits, especially when you're writing software on spec (not sure if it'll even be allowed onto the platform). When you outsource your QA and pay them per bug they find, you're going to get a lot of non-bugs and a lot of repeats, and the developer is going to get pissed. I know my team and I did.

Welcome to the mobile software industry, where your target platform doesn't care about you because there are 600,000 other developers who'll bend over and take it if you won't.

Re:Three months is nothing.

[beakerMeep]

Three months is pretty long compared to directly uploading somewhere the user can download immediately.

Really though, what I mean is that it's a good thing the carrier controlled platforms are going the way of the Dodo. But let's hope they aren't just replaced with equally evil rent-seekers. Hopefully it's enough of a wedge to pry control of the devices away from them over the next 10 to 20 years and make device portability a reality too. I do give Apple a lot of credit though in that they caused so much love for their devices, AT&T was forced to start allowing things they never would have used to allow (like an app store not controlled by AT&T). But when you see Apple doing stuff like this, it should be clear we have a long bumpy road ahead with new players trying to control the market while others ebb. But hopefully the end result will be that these phones are ours and the Wireless cos are just dumb carriers.

Re:Hey timothy...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's emotional. GET IT RIGHT!

What is so hard to understand? MS does the SAME

[SmallFurryCreature]

And so does Sony AND Nintendo. I am of course talking about game consoles. Closed platforms where the owner of the platform (not you dear consumer sheep) decides what gets to run on it.

Apple has made the decision to follow the console model rather then the PC model. That is their choice. Your choice as a consumer is whether you choose to buy it or not. Your choice is NOT to force Apple to go another way other then through voting with your dollars.

Why has Apple made this decision? One of the many stupid mistakes MS has made in its lifetime is to allow Emails to contains executable code. For the email reader, the application to run external code. Abobe is regularly blamed for doing the same with PDF's. Lots of people here claim that data should not contain code. So when Apple decides that it does not want the option on ITS platform for 3rd party apps to run totally unknown 4th party code, of course they are COMPLETLY wrong in doing so...

Apple has made a reputation for itself by having a better, more solid, hassle free user experience. But how has it gotten this? Partially by its users being UNABLE to install the crap they do under windows. IF the mac platform got the same kind of malware and cripple ware attention as the PC, it would be just as bad an experience, with DRM overwriting sectors on the HD it has no business overwriting.

Is Apple right in believing that a controlled environment makes for a better user experience? Who knows, what I do know is that they sell millions of iPhones. People are voting with their dollars. Apparently they like SOMETHING about the iPhone more then they don't like.

Don't buy/develop for a closed platform and then complain it is closed. That is like breaking into a prison and then complaining they won't let you go.

Re:What is so hard to understand? MS does the SAME

[Antarius]

Mod the parent up!

Re:What is so hard to understand? MS does the SAME

[MogNuts]

You forget that some of us didn't have choices at the time. Up until, IIRC, 6 months ago, if only AT&T worked in your area (like mine), you had 3 smartphones: IPhone 3GS, Motorola Backflip, or a Blackberry 9700.

I had a 9700 before from another carrier. Loved the phone to death, just wanted a change. Backflip had Android 1.5 (when 2.0 was out), so no deal. All we had for a smartphone was the IPhone.

I regret my decision ever since.

Re:What is so hard to understand? MS does the SAME

[lowrydr310]

And so does Sony AND Nintendo. I am of course talking about game consoles. Closed platforms where the owner of the platform (not you dear consumer sheep) decides what gets to run on it.

It's not just software but hardware too! If you've ever lost a Nintendo DS charger, you'll know what I'm talking about... Why do they need a proprietary connector for a charger?

To be clear: The code is visible, but not FOSS

[Qubit]

The Briefs code is now up on GitHub, and yes, you can go look at it, however it's not "Open Source" (per OSI), it's not "Free Software" (per the FSF), and it's not "DFSG-free" (per Debian).

If you look at the commit history for the license, he even explicitly changed the license two days ago to make it less free:

2010-08-28
Modified license terms to disallow someone from reselling Briefs without making major modifications. Also protect the Briefs trademark. Still, free source code, huh? Not too shabby.

Prior to two days ago, the code was under the... well, I'm not exactly sure what license!

Here's the license (the first paragraph is a dead ringer for the opening of the MIT License):

Copyright (c) 2009-2010, Rob Rhyne
Briefs is a trademark of Digital Arch Design Corp.
http://robrhyne.com/
http://digitalarch.net/
All rights reserved.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
restriction except as noted below, including without limitation
the rights to use,copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute,
and/or sublicense, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

Here's the non-FOSS part:

The Software and/or source code cannot be copied in whole and
sold without meaningful modification for a profit.

This is more of the MIT license:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

This middle part looks like the BSD license:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
the documentation and/or other materials provided with
the distribution.

Actually, there are only two clauses there, so that's essentially the 2-clause BSD, not the 3-clause one (just a minor point, really).

Then we get the YELLING-AT-YOU indemnification clause. Lawyers seem to love these things, but they seem so uncouth to me. Anyhow, for 5 points, from which license was this paragraph chosen?

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

That's right! It's the indemnification clause from the MIT license.

I googled around trying to figure out if other people used this same license, but the best I came up with was the NCSA license. It's unlikely that this license is based off that one, as the phrase to deal in the Software (MIT) is used in this new license instead of to deal with the Software (NCSA).

One more thing: let's point out exactly why the license doesn't pass any of the most popular FOSS metrics:

1) "Open Source" (per OSI)

Per

Re:To be clear: The code is visible, but not FOSS

[stephanruby]

Since this license doesn't force the publication/inclusion of the source code with the binary, couldn't he just have used an Attribution-NonCommercial Creative Commons License??? Of course, that Creative Commons License doesn't include the YELLING-AT-YOU indemnification clause, but may be that clause should be rewritten anyway, he forgot to include the standard iTunes app store clause: You shall not use my app for the "development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons."

Re:To be clear: The code is visible, but not FOSS

[Shoe Puppet]

If he's changed the licence after publishing, it's too late - the app is open source. You can't pull back a licence you've already granted.

(Providing the previous licence actually was open source, but I don't see why not.)

Re:To be clear: The code is visible, but not FOSS

[Shoe Puppet]

Here's the previous licence

Re:To be clear: The code is visible, but not FOSS

[ceejayoz]

No, that CC license wouldn't suit. He's OK with commercial redistribution, but only if it's significantly modified. Attribution-NonCommercial forbids commercial resale, regardless of how much you extend it.

Re:To be clear: The code is visible, but not FOSS

[mellon]

he should just release it under GPLv3. The anti-tivoization clause prevents anyone else from selling it in the app store, but it's totally open source then.

Re:To be clear: The code is visible, but not FOSS

[Qubit]

If he's changed the licence after publishing, it's too late - the app is open source. You can't pull back a licence you've already granted.

That's actually a very interesting question. If you downloaded his project from github before he changed the license, then there would be no question that you could use the code under the old license. But if you were to download an old revision of his code from github or download HEAD and roll it back today, could you use the older version of the code under the old license?

What if you maintain a FOSS program in git and learn at some point that one of your employees checked-in a proprietary-licensed library due to a misunderstanding? Let's say that no external people have ever cloned the repo, so you just revert the commit in git, making a note that the library isn't licensed for your use.

If someone clones your repo in the future, is just a revert good enough? Or should you git-filter-branch the whole repository to remove every trace of that proprietary-licensed library?

(Providing the previous licence actually was open source, but I don't see why not.)

The previous license looked like a mashup of 2-clause BSD and MIT, both of which are compatible so-called "permissive" licenses. So, short answer = likely yes.

Re:To be clear: The code is visible, but not FOSS

[oji-sama]

"The Software and/or source code cannot be copied in whole and sold without meaningful modification for a profit."

I guess (building and) selling the software doesn't count as a meaningful modification for a profit? ^.^

Karma accumulating?

[steveha]

How many more people does Apple have to hurt before it starts to tarnish the brand?

Apple has done a fabulous job of polishing the iPhone and iPad. If you really want the best available phone, and you aren't too choosy about your freedom, you buy Apple.

Sure, they won't get my money because I refuse to pay a company to tell me what software I may and may not install on my own device. That's okay, they don't care about me. But the more time goes by, the more stories like this one come to light. How much of this before people start to view Apple not so much as the hip, cool company but rather as the controlling, evil company?

And stories like this one are inevitable, because Apple is exerting such a high degree of control. The approval process isn't a simple rubber-stamp thing. The more innovative and unusual an app is, the harder it is for Apple to decide whether it gives the user too much freedom. In this case, I would guess that the problem is that an app for mocking up new apps is a little too much like an emulator, and Apple can't quite make up its collective mind whether this is a sort of emulator or not. (I can't even guess why Apple approved other app mockup apps while letting this one languish.)

So, the more time goes by, the more wronged people there will be. I guess as long as the majority of Apple customers are happy, and the majority of app developers aren't mistreated too much, the Apple brand will be undiminished.

But you know, if he had released his app for Android, it would be on the market now. He could even make an Android app for mocking up iPhone apps! I wish he would, just for the irony value.

steveha

Re:Karma accumulating?

[vadim_t]

How many more people does Apple have to hurt before it starts to tarnish the brand?

For me it's already tarnished enough that any product made by Apple is outright not worth considering.

Re:Karma accumulating?

[east coast]

How much of this before people start to view Apple not so much as the hip, cool company but rather as the controlling, evil company?

This will happen right around the same time the NFL starts to lose marketshare for keeping on scumbags like Michael Vick.

The public really doesn't give a crap about stuff like this. They may show a bit of interest and even agree with you but when it comes down to it they're really not that interested. And those that agree with you do it on the same level as smokers who know that they're killing themselves with their habit but don't really care to change their ways.

Re:Karma accumulating?

[nitio]

Actually, the ones who care about this stunts by Apple are the ones that either do not own an iP(hone|ad) or do not plan on having one. Honestly, I don't get all the bithing about this - it's not like it wasn't pretty clear when you bought that THAT is how the game is played.

It's almost as if these ppl want an iPhone but do not want the restrictions.Guess what? That's not how Apple plays.

Re:Karma accumulating?

[khchung]

How many more people does Apple have to hurt before it starts to tarnish the brand?

Well, the funny thing is how many people in /. who actually believe that these news will hurt Apple at all.

Look, to 99.9% of iPhone's target market, these news means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. If anything, these news will be taken as a sign that the App Store is working! "Wow, those guys at Apple are really taking the time to approve the apps and not just let everything pass to boost the number of apps!"

I do software development for a living, and I own an iPhone. Even I do not care about these news. There are already more apps available than I can ever use, I am all for anything that Apple do that might increase the quality of the apps available rather than quantity. Even if those actions may turn some developers away.

But you know, if he had released his app for Android, it would be on the market now. He could even make an Android app for mocking up iPhone apps! I wish he would, just for the irony value.

Yes he could do that, but good luck trying to earn much money from Android's app store, where lots of Android users can't even pay him even if they wanted to because payment from their country is not yet supported on the store!

As an iPhone owner, I am willing to PAY for high quality apps. More importantly, I am ABLE to pay for the apps, and very conveniently too. Money is what lures developers to the platform, and fewer higher quality apps will draw more money than a hundreds of sloppy apps.

Re:Karma accumulating?

[bm_luethke]

"How many more people does Apple have to hurt before it starts to tarnish the brand?"

Not very many. It is mostly selling as a fashion statement, not on its technical merits. Fashion is fickle and, for whatever reason, whomever is currently on top thinks they will always be. In this case it is because they are squatting on devs and the customers will not care so it will remain the fashion have to have. The issue is that those two ideas are orthogonal - the devs aren't the ones driving the fashion, they are the ones driving the technical superiority route.

Once the fashion moves on then it has to live or die by it's technical status, further the next fashion statement to make may not even be in the cell phone arena. At that point several things are big against the iPhone - one is AT&T only (but, of course, they could change that). The other *is* devs. Of course as stated no consumer cares what hoops a dev has to jump through, however what they care about is having the apps they want to use and apps are driven the devs. It is why (and how) Microsoft initially became so dominate - developers, developers, developers, developers. They may even *always* have more apps than an Android (though I doubt it), but if they aren't having the few key apps for general usage then it doesn't matter.

Flash is a biggie - many here want it gone, however the reasons are gook related, not consumer related. Consumers do not care about so much of the arguments against it - they just want to be able to view web pages. Niche apps can also often drive acceptance. Sure there may only be 150 people in the world care if they can get an archery journal app and no one develops one for the iPhone because of Apples rules - but there are *tens of thousands* such apps like that. It isn't any one of those that will kill it or give it a bad name but all together.

All one has to do is look at the sales between the iPhone and the Androids to see where it is going - the 1980's again as Apple going from a market leader to - while one of the biggest *single* deliverer of computers - only a small part of the whole market and mostly marginalized. The more open systems ended up crushing them because you could get them all over the place and get any software you wanted for them. There were few single points of distribution as large as them - after all if you had ~10% of the market and the rest was split between several hundred companies chances are you are the biggest single player - but you still only had around 10%. For Apple they made a profit and catered to their market niche so it was certainly a success, but it wasn't a dominate force at all.

Re:Karma accumulating?

[steveha]

Look, to 99.9% of iPhone's target market, these news means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. If anything, these news will be taken as a sign that the App Store is working! "Wow, those guys at Apple are really taking the time to approve the apps and not just let everything pass to boost the number of apps!"

So, you are saying that this guy has no potential customers for his app? Nobody cares? Absolutely nobody wishes they could buy this application, or if they do want to buy it, they think three months is reasonable?

There are already more apps available than I can ever use, I am all for anything that Apple do that might increase the quality of the apps available rather than quantity.

It's sad, really, that you are willing to see this issue as one of Apple trying to maintain some kind of quality. Here we have a high-quality app, and Apple has neither approved it, nor declined it with specific advice ("change X and we will approve it"). If the issue were truly one of quality, this app would not be in limbo for three months and counting.

As an iPhone owner, I am willing to PAY for high quality apps. More importantly, I am ABLE to pay for the apps, and very conveniently too.

I'm pretty sure there is nothing special about iPhone owners being willing to pay for quality; Android owners should be equally likely to also be willing to pay for quality. I agree that Google needs to get their act together on the app store situation, but they will. Right now it's much easier to make money as an iPhone developer, but there is no reason to think that will last forever.

steveha

Re:Karma accumulating?

[bm_luethke]

Yes, it was intended to be "geek" - took reading it a time or two to catch it after you noted it.

However I doubt that is the issue, it's being critical of apple in a non-vague non-open source based complaint. I have had posts be 0 insightful too - it has been especially bad in the last few months. I do not know if you still can (used to be able too) but I bet if you look at the moderation history it has a lot of ups and downs. Most of mine that get this do.

In the end I was correct in the late 80 to early 90's and I can assure you that if the BBS's I read had a similar moderation system it would have been "flamebait" then too.

While what I wrote in the previous post isn't, nor was it intended to be (it is how I see the market happening and how it happened back then), the following could be declared as such: Apple fans (which is distinct subset of Apple users) are currently in an all out attack mode. It will die down once the iPhone goes the way it is going to go - back into something people know about because Best Buy (or whatever retail chain) has an isle with an Apple on it.

Amusingly enough even if I had meant a racial slur I do not know what in the world that would have meant or how it would have been flamebait either. I'm not sure what it would have been other than just plain stupid, it is a word that doesn't make any sense whatsoever there in any fashion (well, except noting I misspelled "geek").

Lastly not only do I have plenty of karma here to burn I also do not really care what my score is either - so no worry.

Re:Karma accumulating?

[Garath]

Well, that depends on if their controlling nature keeps the majority of users from doing what they want with the device. I'm a geek, but I just bought an iPhone when my old phone died. That's because while other OSes allow more tweaking by the user, I've found overall that with Apple's products I have to do much less tweaking to get the device to a place where it does everything I want it to do. A week into owning my new iPhone, it already does everything I want better than my old phone, where I upgraded the OS several times to get things to work right. An Android phone would also probably have served me well, but I've reached a point where I'll happily spend the extra money to not have to spend a lot of my time customizing my new toy before I can play with it. The point where Apple's mistakes will turn me off to their products is if those mistakes result in a device that *doesn't* do everything I want without extensive tweaking, or when I find that their controls keep me from customizing my device to do what I want to do with it. So far, that hasn't happened.

I KNEW IT WAS A LIBERAL PLOT!!!

[BigMeanBear]

1) Fanboyism/zealotry. Apple has had a following for a long time of people for whom they can do no wrong more or less. A non-trivial amount of these people are in the press (Macs are big in prepress work). They just love Apple and everything they do. So when something bad comes out, they find ways to rationalize it away, or ignore it.

So we're in agreement here? This is yet moar evidence of the elite liberal media slant!

Technology ALWAYS improves...

[way2trivial]

which is reason why, if they filmed the famous 'sledgehammer through the screen' commercial today
it would bounce right off with nary a scratch...

and how accurate an analogy it would be as well..

Re:Hey timothy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. It's okay. Read at -1 and skim. Still lots better than most everyplace else.

Because this is how the game is played

[Powercntrl]

1. Get app rejected by Apple
2. Generate attention by complaining about Apple's draconian policies
3. Resubmit app with required changes & Profit!

A new app model

[whoop]

This makes me wonder, how well could an app do on Apple/Android markets if it were open sourced as well? Those with the skill could download and compile it themselves, or those without (or wanting to donate) could pay 99 cents for it. Do the developer agreements for either side put restrictions on the source code? It'd be an interesting experiment to try.

Re:A new app model

[russellh]

A lot of these iPhone apps are so basic that most of the code is the UI, and without serious software engineering effort or the use of some cross-platform UI tool, no, there is very little that can be cross-platform. And doubly hard if the iPhone apps use apple data store technology like core data. Rewrites are easier. Remember, cross-platform apps are like unisex underwear: possible, but nobody wants it.

Re:apple

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Clever. :-)

Re:iBored

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Some sheeple need iPhones to be cool. Just like other sheeple need to deride iPhone users to be cool.

Quibble - you mean "dynamic" code

[alispguru]

I agree with the primary idea above, but wish people would stop conflating languages and implementation details.

JavaScript/Java/Python/Lisp/PHP/C# are languages. Interpreted code is a method commonly used for early implementation of languages, and it is usually replaced by better methods as implementations mature.

Saying that language X is inherently slow because "it's interpreted" is wrong, but sounds superficially convincing enough to allow pointy-haired people to reject languages without really understanding the issues.

Re:Quibble - you mean "dynamic" code

[sydneyfong]

Some languages (the "dynamic") ones are much harder to compile into fast, static code.

Take the expression "a.b.c()" in Javascript. You'd at least need two hash table lookups to determine the type and value of b and c. I say at least, since you'd potentially have to look into the prototype and stuff.

In contrast, in C++ a similar expression could very likely be compiled into a single memory location. There's a reason why the "fast" C/C++ languages are designed to be so archaic and verbose. They are designed for the compiler to produce fast code, not for the ease of the programmer.

There's a reason why despite the battles in Javascript performance between IE, FF, Opera and Chrome, no one have really gotten it close to C/C++ speeds.

I'll take the free version, thank you...

[ccoder]

http://github.com/capttaco/Briefs/commit/7124127274d77e5aba899049072cbd68d82cc048

I'll take the license/release checked in that has fewer restrictions, thank you very much!

Copy/archive at will.

Re:Hey timothy...

[DinDaddy]

it doesn't give any 1 user more than a few mod points because 1 user shouldn't have too much power,

Not sure why, but I have been given 15 mod points every two to three days 5 times in a row now.

That after a span of about 4 or 5 months with none.

I sure have no idea what system they're basing assignment on.

Apple wants pseudo-open, not closed

[GameboyRMH]

Apple doesn't "lead" the market. They produce a proprietary, closed-scale system

Closed is such an ugly word, and Apple knows this. For example we see that these days they prefer to use obscure, unused but open standard ports (and other trickery like their secret charger resistor trick), so they can get some of the lock-in effects of using proprietary ports without the bad PR.

If their lock-in becomes any stronger, expect 2.5mm instead of 3.5mm audio jacks in the future, for, uh, miniaturization purposes. They really need those millimeters. Hey, don't complain, it's an open standard.

You can probably expect to see some OOXML-ish stuff happening on the software side too. They're already trying the EEE approach with HTML5.

Closed is bad for PR and open is bad for keeping customers locked in. Pseudo-open gives you most of the benefits of both systems (decent lockin + negligible amounts of bad PR) with almost none of the downsides. Microsoft has known this for a while, Apple's just catching on.

Linux allowed emailing executables since day 1

[cheekyboy]

Dude, we commonly emailed uuencoded executeables back in 1992.

Second, we have the right to complain lsabout inconsistent bad rules by apple. What will it take, a wikileak by employees showing their procedure manuals?

Re:apple

[oliverthered]

autistic ;->

Re:apple

[oliverthered]

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