Apple's Game Center Shares Your Real Name

dotarray writes "Apple's Game Center has just made itself a few enemies through a simple change to their Terms of Service. Now, whenever you send a friend invitation, your real name will be attached as well as your Apple ID." Apparently they didn't learn from the poor reaction to Blizzard's similar idea.

Comments

Apple doesn't "get" Social Media

[Renderer of Evil]

Apple is great at many things. They're just excellent in their core competencies. No debate about it.

But they absolutely suck at social media on a grand scale. Hard to believe how tone-deaf they are when it comes to stuff like Ping and Gamecenter. Does it come from the leadership? Maybe. The company is run by old guys in their 40's and up. Maybe they just don't get it.

Perhaps they can hire back Guy Kawasaki to spearhead their social media wing. He saved Apple's bacon once. Perhaps he'll do it again if they asked him nicely.

Re:Apple doesn't "get" Social Media

[dzfoo]

I think you do not understand Apple's approach to "social media". There is a large part of the population who is not interested in the accretion of unknown and anonymous "friends", and thus shy away from vastly over-abused services like Facebook. Apple is attempting to fill that gap by offering a "social media" experience that is truly social, and revolves around people's real friends and family.

Their intention was never to compete with Facebook or the like, but to offer their users a way to participate in music sharing and games with their friends without having to go out into the wilderness.

          -dZ.

Not blood ... livers!

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I'm surprised they didn't require blood.

Apple needs livers! Soylent iPhones are made of human livers!

I finally bought my girlfriend an iPhone 4, because I could buy it officially unlocked. It did annoy me that I had to install iTunes to get it activated, though.

On the positive side it is a very impressive chunk of technology, and it is fun to play with. Both of us are left handed, and we have not experienced any problems with dropped calls, which are apparently more common with left handers.

Although I am not an Apple fanboy, I can understand how the Apple Inquisition's three main weapons, are: fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Jobs . . . their *four*...no... *Amongst* their weapons . . .

Re:First Impression

[houghi]

This would be great in Belgium. If you were not allowed to take (a copy of) the contract with you it would pretty much mean you do not have a contract, regardless of wehther you signed some other paper where it says that you read it.

Here you would need to write at least "written and approved" and sign. Also the other party (sales rep) would need to sign and each of you must have a copy.

In reality it would mean that the customers would not have a contract.

And even then cancellation would mean then end of payment, regardless of what the contract says as that will be against the law (and could make part or whole of the contract void).

Re:not quite like Blizzard

[Haedrian]

Since the game center works on their iProducts only, any spammer who is going to buy a ton of those in order to spam other players deserves a medal for stupidity.

I'm pretty sure you can easily lock the phone of a spammer (or at least stop him making accounts) without needing to spread names around.

Re:it's apple

[Opportunist]

My hope is, people will follow through it like the sheeple they are, then it backfires BADLY at them, with stalkers and stolen IDs that make the evening news.

That's my hope.