'enabling and promoting increased interoperability and reliability among USB products'
and
'To protect the needs of consumers, promote ease of use, and increase competition among vendors by supporting the creation and implementation of reliable, uniform, industry-standare compliance test procedures and processes which support the interoperability of USB-based products and services'
Apple has clearly not been promoting interoperability...
at least, it declared itself as an ipod device and conformed to the spec to act as an ipod device.
(Incidentally - in the original setup, it declared itself as an ipod that was made by Palm)
Given that USB (Universal Serial Bus) was intended to allow devices to plug and play, it is bad form at the least for apple to deliberately disable it.
How would you feel if Microsoft disabled USB keyboards that were manufactured by other vendors?
turns out that the placebo effect is hugely influenced by beliefs. So - if people are in a trial to treat mental illness, then the placebo will be more effective now than it was 20 years ago simply because people on average believe that mental illnesses are treatable.
In a similar vein, Cimetidine (one of the first ulcer drugs) has become much less effective over time. It suffered a dramatic drop in success rate when the new ulcer drug Ranitidine came on to the market. It seems that as doctors stopped thinking of it as the best drug, it became less effective.
No big surprise that placebos are working better in some contexts. It doesn't show that the placebo effect is generally getting stronger though.
I can't argue details of the GPL compliance. GPL non-compliance is not cool and I'll be surprised if Palm fails to fix that.
In terms of code openness, Palm goes way further than apple in in some interesting ways.
for example - can you see the source to MobileSafari, or Apple's contacts or camera app?
They're written in the same javascript that I use to write my own apps - and they provide a great way for me to see how Palm are going about things.
I have those for the pre in my development folder (and the source for all the other palm apps) I can tweak them, repackage them and run them on my pre. No code signing, no developer keys. For my own apps, I can distribute the package and anyone can install them directly to their Pre without me needing to go through the store or get device ids for limited 'ad-hoc' releases.
Sure it is a byproduct of the way the device is designed -but Palm have chosen not to minify or obfuscate their code. Presumably that's because they are cool with me looking at it and learning from it.
They have history of this. Way back when, Palm released some limited sourcecode (Palm Os 4 limited sources) for their key apps in the Garnet Operating system for developers to examine and learn from.
opera has a brilliant built in email client and rss reader. they went for the approach of filter/search rather than sort long before gmail made it popular
I hit f4 to show my email & rss on the right of the screen. You can see an old version here:
this is important if you are a belgian dvd shop that wants to sell over the internet to the UK.
Fair enough that if the UK passes some law restricting who/how a belgian store can sell dvds - then they should at least add it to a register of 'things you might want to look out for'
I'm failing to understand why this issue of limiting treatment is such a red flag.
The NHS provides treatment for almost any illness / injury including expensive ones like long-term cancer. However it does have a limited budget and at some point there is a cutoff where a medical company asks x for a drug that has limited benefit (and x is considered too high).
Unless you are willing to provide an unlimited budget - it is logical that at some point you have to draw a line.
Nonetheless, everyone gets access to healthcare that is very good.
People who want better healthcare can pay for it. Because the baseline is covered by the NHS, that additional cost is reasonable. For example, I have private healthcare which costs me about $50/month and which probably gives me access to a similar level of care that I would get from one of the better US healthcare plans.
So yes, we do have restrictions and rationing - but as a taxpayer that's what I'd expect.
Compare this to the US.
First of all, lots of people are restricted in that they struggle to access healthcare at all. Secondly, costs are large Thirdly, healthcare companies do seem to restrict and ration care through techniques such as refusing pre-existing conditions and cancelling insurance for folks who are long-term-sick Finally, my guess is most plans also come with restrictions - some types of care/drugs/operations/tests are simply not covered
I won't argue that the NHS is the best possible system, but I do think there is huge value in a universal system.
-everyone knows they are covered (even if they leave/change job or have pre-existing conditions) -private health insurance have to compete against a good free system
but why as customer should I have to install that extra stuff when it Palm can offer out-of-the-box interoperability with iTunes?
Palm didn't abuse any vendor id. The were really clear (in round one) that this was a palm device. Thy used the vendor id only where it was a 'magic number' that was required to get interoperability.
'Let's say the PalmPre somehow effs up your library.'
so Apple have written iTunes badly enough that a problem with the sync would destroy the library? You can say that - but I'm going to say that it isn't going to happen.
iTunes has defined the standard for managing your music. Palm is just letting you use the pre like an iPod. I think that is both smart and cool.
If you think people who buy lottery tickets are idiots, then you should probably conclude that people who buy insurance for rare events are idiots.
It's a similar setup - just avoiding an unlikely large negative, rather than creating a possibility for an unlikely large positive
Insurance company: probably pays out ~50% of the cash it takes (sure, this varies massively) you are very unlikely to 'win' but if you do, they could cover a very large expense like your house burning down average return to the user ~50%
Lottery: probably pays out ~50% of the cash it takes (sure, this varies massively) you are very unlikely to 'win' but if you do, it could be a life-changing ammount of money average return to the user ~50%
I haven't met a single developer who isn't frustrated with the process (and yes - I have met a lot of iPhone developers).
Sure, apps do get through. Apps that are simple and obvious in what they do are much more likely to sail through in a process that can take from 3 days to two weeks.
Try to do something a little different though and you are taking a huge risk that your app never gets published.
take one example from my apps. It's a simple app that is a UIWebView that redirects traffic to the google web optimiser (reduces download times when you are on a crappy connection).
First of all, it took 7 months to approve. Most of that time was simply silent waiting, however there were about three rejections for straightforwardly false reasons (e.g. you have been rejected for implementing your own javascript rendering engine).
Even once the app was approved, updates take an inordinately long time (over a month and waiting for the last update).
It really does suck my enthusiasm right away.
Another app still hasn't been approved after about three months. It has been rejected multiple times for a straightforwardly false reason. I have spoken to Apple's head of developer evangelism who commented that a) he could see that the rejection was incorrect b) he felt my pain c) there was absolutely nothing he could do as he simply wasn't allowed to contact anyone in the review process (and had no ability to contact them even if he was allowed).
I got a similar response from the EU head of developer relations. He explained in detail that the apple system was designed to let him -ask about the progress of an app through approval -request an app be expedited if it was being delayed -have absolutely no ability to raise concerns or questions about a rejection
and yes, I have put up with this pain because Apple have done an amazing job of getting users to buy apps via the store. I really am concentrating a lot more on other platforms though where I don't have to deal with this crap.
the insanity is that after turning up and realising that this was just a bbq, they weren't able to apologise, enjoy a saussage and a chat, then go on their way.
after about a week (sometimes several months) you get a rejection email
that _will_ have a reason, but the reason may be factually incorrect.
I had an app rejected multiple times for 'having it's own javascript interpreter' that just wasn't true
It took 7 months to get the app approved. Most of that was just waiting for apple to respond after a period of 'extended review'
Another app of mine has been sitting waiting to be approved/rejected for about two months. Previously it was rejected multiple times for reasons which (again) were simply factually incorrect.
no appeal process, no begging, all you can do is re-submit and pray.
Anyone who wanted to claim copyright on their music could register with the collection agency.
What's more - they could specify the price they wanted to charge for broadcast (within tiers for simplification).
That way radio station X could simply say, 'we won't play any track that costs more than X'. The rights holder would get to decide whether they want to charge more than X.
No more monopoly negotiations - the agency simply manages a market.
My guess is that most companies would pretty quickly list their tracks at $0 so as to maximise radio time.
That's just a guess though - the point is that it would be up to them to choose, and they would have no grounds for moaning.
All they have said is that they won't make it compulsory.
In the same breath, they said that it would be optional 'like a passport'
Passports are not optional if you want to travel
They could well make id cards not optional if you want to -open a bank account -get a drivers licence -get a mobile phone
Unfortunately, the current british government has a history of such cynical manouvers. Like saying that they are stopping the giant email/call database, then instantly announcing that the private sector will be required to build much the same capability for them.
The ID card project is not cancelled until it is cancelled
If the pressure to justify charging for their content causes them to create better content, then that's a good thing.
Better reporting, digging, analysis, etc would certainly be a good thing for society. Someone has to pay for that - perhaps Murdoch can convince web readers to pay.
Perhaps Murdoch can even encourage somone to come up with a viable micropayments system (Paypal?) to support payment for news content and other valuable content.
Of course the other way to go would be downmarket; more sleaze, more hype, more celebrity. I hope Murdoch doesn't find that to be the most profitable road.
At some level, we get what we pay for. If we can get better newspapers by charging for better online news, and a better job of holding the state to account, then that is excellent news.
I get 85-90% of all my sales (on Palm software) that I make through Mobihand.com
they provide a similar service to the appstore; catalogue payment processing first line support
of course they don't have the store on the device - and they don't take 3months to approve my apps.
not that I resent the 30% that apple charge. I actually think it is a fair rate for the excellent job they have done in encouraging users to access and buy apps.
Google pays Mozilla because they want to increase competition against Microsoft. The more competition they can encourage, the more they can offer powerful services through the browser.
They don't care whether it is their browser, Mozilla, or even IE - as long as it supports the standards that let them push MS out of the way.
They built chrome to help that push, and to focus a bit more on javascript performance (again, so they can push against MS).
They don't see Mozilla as competition against chrome - but as an ally against MS. I'm sure they know that they are getting a powerful dose of worldwide browser improvement for not much cash. I'm quite sure they won't be stopping that cheque.
perhaps I'm misreading this - but it seems to me he is saying something about how the 'hardness' will mean developers take a while to figure out how to use the platform - and therefore, games will get better over time on the same platform.
e.g. if developers could use all the power easily now, then they would release 100qual (arbitary units of quality) games now, and would still be releasing 100qual games in 10 years.
With the 'hardness' of the platform, we get 50qual games now, 55qual next year and so on, so the platform doesn't start to look dated until 10 years from now.
still sounds crazy to me - but an interesting (post?)justification
Slashdot Mirror
I'd copy the USB articles of incorporation, but they are in a non-copyable pdf
http://www.usb.org/about/usbif_articles_of_incorp052605.pdf
points 2,3,5 and 7 talk about things like
'enabling and promoting increased interoperability and reliability among USB products'
and
'To protect the needs of consumers, promote ease of use, and increase competition among vendors by supporting the creation and implementation of reliable, uniform, industry-standare compliance test procedures and processes which support the interoperability of USB-based products and services'
Apple has clearly not been promoting interoperability...
thing is the Palm Pre _is_ an ipod.
at least, it declared itself as an ipod device and conformed to the spec to act as an ipod device.
(Incidentally - in the original setup, it declared itself as an ipod that was made by Palm)
Given that USB (Universal Serial Bus) was intended to allow devices to plug and play, it is bad form at the least for apple to deliberately disable it.
How would you feel if Microsoft disabled USB keyboards that were manufactured by other vendors?
They rejected my app (Fast Web) multiple times because they thought I was using my own Javascript interpreter.
It took about 4 attempts over several months to convince them that I was only using a 100% standard UIWebView
http://cube1986.blogspot.com/2008/11/airport-security-dont-bother-asking.html
such gems as :
'are you seeking to engage in immoral activity'
-well, what if I plan to cheat on my wife with my pa? does that mean I can't come in
'are you involved in espionage'
-doh; what did they tell me to answer to this one in spy school? er...
'do you have a mental disorder'
-Gary McKinnon claims asbergers syndrome. Does that mean he can't come in?
read 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre
turns out that the placebo effect is hugely influenced by beliefs. So - if people are in a trial to treat mental illness, then the placebo will be more effective now than it was 20 years ago simply because people on average believe that mental illnesses are treatable.
In a similar vein, Cimetidine (one of the first ulcer drugs) has become much less effective over time. It suffered a dramatic drop in success rate when the new ulcer drug Ranitidine came on to the market. It seems that as doctors stopped thinking of it as the best drug, it became less effective.
No big surprise that placebos are working better in some contexts. It doesn't show that the placebo effect is generally getting stronger though.
I can't argue details of the GPL compliance. GPL non-compliance is not cool and I'll be surprised if Palm fails to fix that.
In terms of code openness, Palm goes way further than apple in in some interesting ways.
for example - can you see the source to MobileSafari, or Apple's contacts or camera app?
They're written in the same javascript that I use to write my own apps - and they provide a great way for me to see how Palm are going about things.
I have those for the pre in my development folder (and the source for all the other palm apps)
I can tweak them, repackage them and run them on my pre. No code signing, no developer keys. For my own apps, I can distribute the package and anyone can install them directly to their Pre without me needing to go through the store or get device ids for limited 'ad-hoc' releases.
Sure it is a byproduct of the way the device is designed -but Palm have chosen not to minify or obfuscate their code. Presumably that's because they are cool with me looking at it and learning from it.
They have history of this. Way back when, Palm released some limited sourcecode (Palm Os 4 limited sources) for their key apps in the Garnet Operating system for developers to examine and learn from.
opera has a brilliant built in email client and rss reader.
they went for the approach of filter/search rather than sort long before gmail made it popular
I hit f4 to show my email & rss on the right of the screen. You can see an old version here:
http://www.freeemailtutorials.com/operaM2/operaMailInterface.cwd
rss is treated much like a seperate mail account
I love it.
I think you are missing my point.
At the moment, if you are insured, the insurance company decides what treatement you get. If you want more you pay.
if you are uninsured, then you get nothing. (unless you can pay)
If the government provided a baseline cover, then you'd get many (probably most) things covered. If you wanted more, you could still pay.
The government doesn't 'decide who gets treatment and who doesn't'. They just decide what baseline treatments are covered with taxes for everyone.
Create a central registry of organ donors.
Once you have been on the registry for (say) two years, you get preference over someone else if you need an organ.
you are missing the point of cross-border trade.
this is important if you are a belgian dvd shop that wants to sell over the internet to the UK.
Fair enough that if the UK passes some law restricting who/how a belgian store can sell dvds - then they should at least add it to a register of 'things you might want to look out for'
I'm failing to understand why this issue of limiting treatment is such a red flag.
The NHS provides treatment for almost any illness / injury including expensive ones like long-term cancer. However it does have a limited budget and at some point there is a cutoff where a medical company asks x for a drug that has limited benefit (and x is considered too high).
Unless you are willing to provide an unlimited budget - it is logical that at some point you have to draw a line.
Nonetheless, everyone gets access to healthcare that is very good.
People who want better healthcare can pay for it. Because the baseline is covered by the NHS, that additional cost is reasonable. For example, I have private healthcare which costs me about $50/month and which probably gives me access to a similar level of care that I would get from one of the better US healthcare plans.
So yes, we do have restrictions and rationing - but as a taxpayer that's what I'd expect.
Compare this to the US.
First of all, lots of people are restricted in that they struggle to access healthcare at all.
Secondly, costs are large
Thirdly, healthcare companies do seem to restrict and ration care through techniques such as refusing pre-existing conditions and cancelling insurance for folks who are long-term-sick
Finally, my guess is most plans also come with restrictions - some types of care/drugs/operations/tests are simply not covered
I won't argue that the NHS is the best possible system, but I do think there is huge value in a universal system.
-everyone knows they are covered (even if they leave/change job or have pre-existing conditions)
-private health insurance have to compete against a good free system
I think the complaint is that apple used Palm's vendor ID to spot that this was a palm device and to lock it out.
the issue is that the pre declared itself quite openly as a palm device (usb hub?) with an apple ipod connected.
but why as customer should I have to install that extra stuff when it Palm can offer out-of-the-box interoperability with iTunes?
Palm didn't abuse any vendor id. The were really clear (in round one) that this was a palm device. Thy used the vendor id only where it was a 'magic number' that was required to get interoperability.
oh come on.
'Let's say the PalmPre somehow effs up your library.'
so Apple have written iTunes badly enough that a problem with the sync would destroy the library? You can say that - but I'm going to say that it isn't going to happen.
iTunes has defined the standard for managing your music. Palm is just letting you use the pre like an iPod. I think that is both smart and cool.
If you think people who buy lottery tickets are idiots, then you should probably conclude that people who buy insurance for rare events are idiots.
It's a similar setup - just avoiding an unlikely large negative, rather than creating a possibility for an unlikely large positive
Insurance company:
probably pays out ~50% of the cash it takes (sure, this varies massively)
you are very unlikely to 'win' but if you do, they could cover a very large expense like your house burning down
average return to the user ~50%
Lottery:
probably pays out ~50% of the cash it takes (sure, this varies massively)
you are very unlikely to 'win' but if you do, it could be a life-changing ammount of money
average return to the user ~50%
which one is the idot?
probably pa
I haven't met a single developer who isn't frustrated with the process (and yes - I have met a lot of iPhone developers).
Sure, apps do get through. Apps that are simple and obvious in what they do are much more likely to sail through in a process that can take from 3 days to two weeks.
Try to do something a little different though and you are taking a huge risk that your app never gets published.
take one example from my apps. It's a simple app that is a UIWebView that redirects traffic to the google web optimiser (reduces download times when you are on a crappy connection).
First of all, it took 7 months to approve. Most of that time was simply silent waiting, however there were about three rejections for straightforwardly false reasons (e.g. you have been rejected for implementing your own javascript rendering engine).
Even once the app was approved, updates take an inordinately long time (over a month and waiting for the last update).
It really does suck my enthusiasm right away.
Another app still hasn't been approved after about three months. It has been rejected multiple times for a straightforwardly false reason. I have spoken to Apple's head of developer evangelism who commented that
a) he could see that the rejection was incorrect
b) he felt my pain
c) there was absolutely nothing he could do as he simply wasn't allowed to contact anyone in the review process (and had no ability to contact them even if he was allowed).
I got a similar response from the EU head of developer relations. He explained in detail that the apple system was designed to let him
-ask about the progress of an app through approval
-request an app be expedited if it was being delayed
-have absolutely no ability to raise concerns or questions about a rejection
and yes, I have put up with this pain because Apple have done an amazing job of getting users to buy apps via the store.
I really am concentrating a lot more on other platforms though where I don't have to deal with this crap.
the insanity is that after turning up and realising that this was just a bbq, they weren't able to apologise, enjoy a saussage and a chat, then go on their way.
when did the police become such morons?
People who donate money to charity will lose that money.
People who donate some of their bandwidth to passing surfers probably lose nothing.
Surely the police should be concentrating on the cases where there is a more significant danger of loss.
pretty much just upload and pray
after about a week (sometimes several months) you get a rejection email
that _will_ have a reason, but the reason may be factually incorrect.
I had an app rejected multiple times for 'having it's own javascript interpreter'
that just wasn't true
It took 7 months to get the app approved. Most of that was just waiting for apple to respond after a period of 'extended review'
Another app of mine has been sitting waiting to be approved/rejected for about two months.
Previously it was rejected multiple times for reasons which (again) were simply factually incorrect.
no appeal process, no begging, all you can do is re-submit and pray.
Anyone who wanted to claim copyright on their music could register with the collection agency.
What's more - they could specify the price they wanted to charge for broadcast (within tiers for simplification).
That way radio station X could simply say, 'we won't play any track that costs more than X'. The rights holder would get to decide whether they want to charge more than X.
No more monopoly negotiations - the agency simply manages a market.
My guess is that most companies would pretty quickly list their tracks at $0 so as to maximise radio time.
That's just a guess though - the point is that it would be up to them to choose, and they would have no grounds for moaning.
All they have said is that they won't make it compulsory.
In the same breath, they said that it would be optional 'like a passport'
Passports are not optional if you want to travel
They could well make id cards not optional if you want to
-open a bank account
-get a drivers licence
-get a mobile phone
Unfortunately, the current british government has a history of such cynical manouvers. Like saying that they are stopping the giant email/call database, then instantly announcing that the private sector will be required to build much the same capability for them.
The ID card project is not cancelled until it is cancelled
If the pressure to justify charging for their content causes them to create better content, then that's a good thing.
Better reporting, digging, analysis, etc would certainly be a good thing for society. Someone has to pay for that - perhaps Murdoch can convince web readers to pay.
Perhaps Murdoch can even encourage somone to come up with a viable micropayments system (Paypal?) to support payment for news content and other valuable content.
Of course the other way to go would be downmarket; more sleaze, more hype, more celebrity. I hope Murdoch doesn't find that to be the most profitable road.
At some level, we get what we pay for. If we can get better newspapers by charging for better online news, and a better job of holding the state to account, then that is excellent news.
not true.
I get 85-90% of all my sales (on Palm software) that I make through Mobihand.com
they provide a similar service to the appstore;
catalogue
payment processing
first line support
of course they don't have the store on the device - and they don't take 3months to approve my apps.
not that I resent the 30% that apple charge. I actually think it is a fair rate for the excellent job they have done in encouraging users to access and buy apps.
Google pays Mozilla because they want to increase competition against Microsoft. The more competition they can encourage, the more they can offer powerful services through the browser.
They don't care whether it is their browser, Mozilla, or even IE - as long as it supports the standards that let them push MS out of the way.
They built chrome to help that push, and to focus a bit more on javascript performance (again, so they can push against MS).
They don't see Mozilla as competition against chrome - but as an ally against MS. I'm sure they know that they are getting a powerful dose of worldwide browser improvement for not much cash. I'm quite sure they won't be stopping that cheque.
perhaps I'm misreading this - but it seems to me he is saying something about how the 'hardness' will mean developers take a while to figure out how to use the platform - and therefore, games will get better over time on the same platform.
e.g. if developers could use all the power easily now, then they would release 100qual (arbitary units of quality) games now, and would still be releasing 100qual games in 10 years.
With the 'hardness' of the platform, we get 50qual games now, 55qual next year and so on, so the platform doesn't start to look dated until 10 years from now.
still sounds crazy to me - but an interesting (post?)justification