Nowhere in the Bible is there an exhortation to do such things. Christians are told to love their enemies. In the Koran, the Muslim bible, there is an admonition to kill infidels, ie. anyone who will not submit to Allah, their god. Islam means submission.
....As for suicide bombing, it's totally irrelevant....
Yes as irrelevant as all the changes to freedom after Sept 11. The terrorists want to take our freedoms. They will institute sharia law wherever they are able to become politically powerful enough to do so. They may not manage to do this here in the US, but even so we all are considerably less free now than we were before Sept 11. For their first big try at terrorizing the US and especially its government, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
....removing registry keys which point to files which no longer exist, finding all keys which relate to a specific application....
Why is it not possible for a program to instead install common resources in a specific folder were Windows may look for it in ADDITION to first searching the registry. That way MS could eventually get rid of that monstrosity or at least lock it for their own system use only.
.....the amount of junk which can be left in the Windows registry....
Yes that registry is a common point of failure. It is part of the OS, still even in VISTA.
Why *any* application programs needs to write to any part of the OS is a mystery to me. If the registry is corrupted by a buggy program, the computer may fail to boot no matter what is tried, even by a skilled user. The average Joe user then has to take the computer to a repair shop.
OSX and Linux don't need such a fragile failure prone construct. In OSX an application may install its own directory in the Application Support folder in the Library. This added data doesn't affect other programs nor the system. If the program that installs anything in that folder has a bug and screws up that data, it will only affect that program.
Will MS EVER get rid of that abortion they call the registry?
.....built and loaded with software from the manufacturer is my Mac laptop....
A nice feature of Macs is that any programs you don't want are easy to delete. Just drag them to the trash. No need for uninstallers. No registry cleaners or other crap removal problems. Why can't Windows be like that?
...Why are you putting the onus on me when it YOU who wants to use MY stuff?.......
I'm putting it on YOU to inform me and the rest of humanity that your WAP is yours alone to use. Until the makers of these routers can program them to read your mind, none of these devices know your intentions. If you do not tell your device your intentions, it and the connecting devices cannot know them and assume it is OK to connect.
Why does there have to be a law to compensate for the fact that you are too lazy, careless or incompetent to take a few minutes to inform your servant (the WAP) not to allow connections by outsiders?
Is that so hard to understand and do you have to stoop to become personally insulting?
...What I do want is a world where people ask ME for MY permission....
Good, then YOU program YOUR WAP to ask for a password. Don't demand by that your neighbor do the same for HIS WAP. Don't demand through law, that anyone who uses your neighbor's open WAP may be punished. It's none of your or society's business whether the neighbor's WAP is secured or not nor should you care whether someone else uses his open WAP. You secure yours and mind you own business.
...are you authorizing me to plug in an extension cord and power my stuff? Its the same idea.....
Not it is not the same idea. First of all, you have to come on the neighbors property unbidden. Second of all, the electricity you use, every watt of it, directly adds to his bill.
If you use your neighbors unsecured WAP you don't have to trespass onto his property and his bill will not change, unless you perhaps begin to download gigabytes of material. If you would just check email and post on/. you would never be noticed by your neighbor. Even if he knew, likely he wouldn't care, since he isn't out any money or inconvenienced.
.....keep their wireless connection open on purpose.....
We get visitors with laptops sometimes who want to use the Internet. So we do keep the WAP wide open. Because any password would be programmed into our computers, it is a hassle to remember the password each time someone asks. So by definition, when our WAP advertises the network it is intentional.
With all the problems faced by our society these days, people piggybacking on their neighbors network is not something our esteemed politicians should feel hard pressed to spend a lot of time legislating against. But perhaps they have nothing better to do.
Since most of our network is wired, we turn the WAP off when no wireless access is needed by anyone here. There is no way to improve the security of the network if the WAP is turned off most of the time.
....how they can be arrested for doing it because it's their connection....
On the other hand, if the authorities search the WAP's owners computer and don't find anything incriminating,they'd have no proof that holds up in court if the WAP is not secured. Meanwhile the owner could have a hidden Laptop which the cops did not find, or even some friend's laptop.
If the WAP is well secured, then it would be much harder to convince a jury that it was not the owner or someone the owner gave the password to, that did the crime. The evidence that child pr0n originated from the Internet account of the router owner is largely worthless if the router is wide open. Not having a secured WAP gives a strong measure of plausible deniability of guilt.
....they wouldn't like them freeloading of their electricity, cable TV, gas and water connections.....
Except those are metered and the freeloader is costing the real owner extra money. Internet connections are generally flat rate. Unless the freeloader is using large chunks of bandwidth, most WAP owners would not care.
They would care more if the freeloader is accessing their files and snooping.
....can't really be upset when somebody takes advantage now.....
Those who buy a WAP and leave its default settings probably couldn't care less if someone was using their connection to surf or get their email. They wouldn't even know it unless the stranger uses a significant portion of the available bandwidth for a large fraction of time.
....if they knew someone was using their network.....
That's a big IF. Most Joe users who go buy a router and plug it in wouldn't know or care whether someone was using their router.
Only if those foreign users were downloading huge files might Joe suspect something. Even then he might attribute it to his own computer, maybe even suspect he had a virus.
I think having such a law here is making a mountain out of a molehill. Of course legislators are paid to make laws. Whether those laws are stupid or not doesn't affect their pay.
....The N95 did beat the iPhone to market by about two months....
How long has Nokia been in the phone business? So they came out with another fancier model. The iPhone is Apple FIRST and ONLY phone. I think that selling 4 million of them is pretty good for a first try at something they have never done before.
(..iPhone wasn't locked to the American AT&T network..)
That incident was before Apple got sales in other countries going. Even there it was only money, not some life at stake.
I'm sure that in 2 years, you'll be able to use iPhones anywhere, with any carrier. Meanwhile, the sales of these gadgets is rather brisk, given that this is a version 1.0 product. In 2 years there may be 60GB phone available for a price that will be affordable by the same people that can now afford them.
....because mobile phones are notorious for shitty reception, dead zones...
Wireless of course will never be as reliable as a piece of copper. Even so, my $29 Tracfone has never crashed and is more reliable than any of our Windows PCs.
We have a good old reliable POTS line, since there is no cell reception whatsoever right where we live. Visitors with cell phones are always chagrined about that. We live behind some mountains and get no broadcast TV and very poor radio reception. However when we travel the cheap wireless phone comes in handy and has not let us down. Even in town, about five miles away, cell reception is excellent.
Our network here at the ranch is wired, even though we also have a WAP which gets turned on mostly if visitors with a laptops show up. Wireless is convenient, but whether phones or network, wires are still more reliable and more secure. We now have DSL, which is much more reliable than the satellite Internet we used to have, before the phone co. installed DSL.
Loading flakey software onto a wireless phone is not likely to increase its reliability. Apple has to, and will do whatever they can legally do, to insure higher reliability on their phones than Windows PCs or even their own Macs.
(..then it should be a crime for Apple to prevent unlocking,..)
Any time the government get involved in legislating technology, they generally do more harm than good. Maybe, once Apple's contract with AT&T runs out, you'll be able to connect iphones and other makers phones to any network or even all of them. Whatever tower give the best service, regardless who owns it and its network will be automatically chosen.
....As a result, they will likely REMAIN a bit player with single digit market share...
I guess you don't read the news very much. Apple is ALREADY the second most popular computer phone, right after "crackberry" by RIM. It has not even been a year yet since the iPhone has been on the market.
(..and get a free iPod, and a free iPhone with it??..)
Yes of course and free beer and pizza from your favorite pizza joint.
(..Can you currently buy an Apple computer for $399..)
Can you currently buy a new Lexus or a Mercedes for $20,000? No? What a pity! You'll have to make do with a Hyundai or Saturn. They'll still get you across town.
(..Apple DICTATES what you are allowed to run on your iPhone, and they can revoke a key and disable any app for any reason at their whim..)
Apple dictates that nobody will be allowed to negatively affect the experience of the customer who BUY their devices. Macs are full fledged computers and are not as critical as a phone.
Can you imagine yourself at the side of the road with your phone and its battery is dead, even though you charged it just hours ago and did not use it? Your significant other is bleeding from the impact of a car that rammed yours from behind. Now a life depends on that phone. A working phone can be MUCH more critical than a working computer.
What happened is that some buggy background task kept running and drained the juice. That task was part of a super-duper cool app you installed the night before. Now who might get sued? Apple or the maker of that cool but buggy program? Apple HAS to control what is allowed to run on their product, since they may be held liable in a court of law.
....Developers should be able to develop software without stupid fees and keys for that Mac just like they can on every other Mac.....
You can write whatever software you wish. Just don't expect Apple to help you market it or get it on other people's iphones. If you can design a server system that does the same thing as Apple's, without violating their rights, you are welcome to market your killer app independently. Apple has no obligation to hackers, but may rightfully thwart them at every turn within the law.
For some programs, such as you may be able to do, development thereof is minor, compared to marketing.
(..Give me an HDTV connected iPod dock and all of a sudden screen size isn't an issue. A bluetooth keyboard and mouse round it out as a standard computer...)
How many iPhone owners do you suppose exist, that don't already have a very nice desktop or laptop to use for standard PC type work? It's the phone and music functions that is the reason people buy Apple cool gadgets. The computer like functionality of these pocketable devices is a bonus that will get used in applications not already addressed by the computers most people already have.
Those who want an open system are welcome to program devices with Linux or even Windows CE.
....You won't see professional packages like Office or Photoshop....
Sorry that you could not come up with better examples than that! Who would want to run those apps or any like them in a PHONE with a tiny screen?
(..Nobody of any measurable clout will..)
Some with clout already have. EA realizes that people might want to play a cute and fun game on their iphone or itouch while killing time in a doctor's waiting room or on a commuter train. Epocrates, Inc., a maker of healthcare software will make an incentive for its 500,000 or so users to buy iphones.
If you want to write marketable software for the iphone, more power to you. Just keep in mind the limitations of the hardware you're writing to as well as Apple's rules. If you write a cool program and sell it for $10, Apple will let you keep $7 as pure profit. You'd be hard pressed to market your killer app to such a large audience for only $3.
....Are phones so much more mission-critical than computers?.....
People have different expectations from phones and toasters than from computers. Mostly because of Windows with its history of frequent BSOD's, freezes and other troubles, people have gotten used to the flakiness of PCs in general. Many EXPECT their computers to screw up now and then, or at least they'll accept that as par of the course. Even in OSX, there are rules which Apple imposes of programmers.
OTOH, phones have historically been MUCH more reliable. Computers are more critical to businesses, but ordinary people, have come to depend on their appliances, such as phones to work when needed. So yes, in short, phones are more critical to most users than their computers. When you're in a crash by the side of the road or out of gas, a working phone is very critical. If your computer dies, you may not be able to find out when the movie starts or even (horrors) post on/.
(..simply in order to protect their (and their carriers') commercial interests..)
So what? Is Apple some kind of charity? Any business will take steps to protect their good name, agreements with service and content providers, as well as their bottom line.
....the iPhone for its phone calling capabilities....
For those who don't need the phone part, there is the iTouch music player. Apple has to take steps to prevent their devices from becoming another Windows monoculture that attracts crooks who want to rip off as many people as possible. Some of these steps will displease the software freedom advocates, but are unfortunately a needed precaution in our connected world.
Decent developers should have no problems writing and selling clean software, according to the rules of Apple, made to ensure the reliability of their devices and profit. Apple is also NOT a charity, but a for PROFIT making company. They have a legal obligation to their owners (share holders) to make an honest profit.
If some malware gets on millions of iPhones, Apple will get the blame for their "insecure" careless programming, just as Microsoft did. Who wants to have to spend resources on after the fact malware protection? I am so glad that I don't have to waste money and my time to have to install some of the resource hogging anti-malware software Windows users need, on my Macs.
Indeed that's great. The malware writers would also like to have THEIR wonderful applications run in these new, powerful devices. Apple just wants to make that much harder than Microsoft made it for their Windows systems. By inspecting software and controlling distribution, they can filter out possibly damaging programs. If some bad code gets through, they will know exactly who to blame, and if needed get the law after the originators. They can also quickly stop further spread of any undesirable code.
There are some fundamental technical limitations, such as limited battery power. Both Apple and users surely would hate to see a device suddenly go dead when it was most needed.
There certainly will be some useful and fun programs available for Apple's present and future gadgets. Apple can only gain from this and has no incentive to limit or prohibit technically fitting and truly useful programs that don't violate laws or their contractual obligations to service and content providers.
Do you not think that Apple has the right to specify the particulars as to how the software for their devices are to be written and distributed? Nobody HAS to write software for any particular gadget or computer. Apple will try very hard to avoid for their products what happened to Windows.
Iphones and itouch are special purpose devices, even if they are based on a general purpose OS. Because of Windows, people are already used to the idea of an occasional BSOD or frozen interface in computers. However, most people I know, expect their iphones to work as reliably, as phones generally have in the past and their music player to do their thing they were bought for. They will not tolerate the kind of crap they have gotten used to in PCs in their phones.
I'm sure that there will be attempts to do to the iphone and itouch what has been done to Windows. Some may even be successful. Apple, by strictly controlling what can and what cannot be done with their product is simply trying to make it as hard as possible for malware to get a foothold.
Good luck to you getting many sales of any software not blessed by Apple and available on their certified application store. I know that I would never buy software from some outside, unknown source, if I could get the same or similar things from an official, quality controlled source. The slim possibility of saving a few dollars is not worth the risk.
The iPhone is a PHONE a wireless PHONE. Repeat this a thousand times. It is NOT a general purpose computer. Most people who bought or will buy this expensive gadget want a phone first of all and want that to work as reliably as any other phone at LEAST. Apple will and must do everything in its power that their phone or ipods don't become another Windows like portal for propagating all sorts of malware aimed at emptying unsuspecting people's bank accounts.
In that regard, Apple can simply inform iphone users in no uncertain terms that warranties on hacked devices are null and void. They are also within their rights to warn users that any update from Apple may indeed inadvertently brick their hacked devices. Unauthorized customer modifications and use of manufactured goods and machines have always resulted in lost warranties at the very least. Sometimes human lives are at stake.
If you do, so what? You still have to sell it somehow, unless you write it just for your own amusement. Do you think that people will sell your stuff for free, no matter even if it is insanely great? If given the choice of your "killer" app which may be virus infested, or a clean "vetted by Apple" program, directly from Apple's servers, which with most people pay money for?
Slashdot Mirror
....No, just an abortion clinic or two.....
Nowhere in the Bible is there an exhortation to do such things. Christians are told to love their enemies. In the Koran, the Muslim bible, there is an admonition to kill infidels, ie. anyone who will not submit to Allah, their god. Islam means submission.
....As for suicide bombing, it's totally irrelevant....
Yes as irrelevant as all the changes to freedom after Sept 11. The terrorists want to take our freedoms. They will institute sharia law wherever they are able to become politically powerful enough to do so. They may not manage to do this here in the US, but even so we all are considerably less free now than we were before Sept 11. For their first big try at terrorizing the US and especially its government, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
....removing registry keys which point to files which no longer exist, finding all keys which relate to a specific application....
Why is it not possible for a program to instead install common resources in a specific folder were Windows may look for it in ADDITION to first searching the registry. That way MS could eventually get rid of that monstrosity or at least lock it for their own system use only.
.....the amount of junk which can be left in the Windows registry....
Yes that registry is a common point of failure. It is part of the OS, still even in VISTA.
Why *any* application programs needs to write to any part of the OS is a mystery to me. If the registry is corrupted by a buggy program, the computer may fail to boot no matter what is tried, even by a skilled user. The average Joe user then has to take the computer to a repair shop.
OSX and Linux don't need such a fragile failure prone construct. In OSX an application may install its own directory in the Application Support folder in the Library. This added data doesn't affect other programs nor the system. If the program that installs anything in that folder has a bug and screws up that data, it will only affect that program.
Will MS EVER get rid of that abortion they call the registry?
.....built and loaded with software from the manufacturer is my Mac laptop....
A nice feature of Macs is that any programs you don't want are easy to delete. Just drag them to the trash. No need for uninstallers. No registry cleaners or other crap removal problems. Why can't Windows be like that?
...Why are you putting the onus on me when it YOU who wants to use MY stuff?.......
I'm putting it on YOU to inform me and the rest of humanity that your WAP is yours alone to use. Until the makers of these routers can program them to read your mind, none of these devices know your intentions. If you do not tell your device your intentions, it and the connecting devices cannot know them and assume it is OK to connect.
Why does there have to be a law to compensate for the fact that you are too lazy, careless or incompetent to take a few minutes to inform your servant (the WAP) not to allow connections by outsiders?
Is that so hard to understand and do you have to stoop to become personally insulting?
...What I do want is a world where people ask ME for MY permission....
Good, then YOU program YOUR WAP to ask for a password. Don't demand by that your neighbor do the same for HIS WAP. Don't demand through law, that anyone who uses your neighbor's open WAP may be punished. It's none of your or society's business whether the neighbor's WAP is secured or not nor should you care whether someone else uses his open WAP. You secure yours and mind you own business.
...are you authorizing me to plug in an extension cord and power my stuff? Its the same idea.....
/. you would never be noticed by your neighbor. Even if he knew, likely he wouldn't care, since he isn't out any money or inconvenienced.
Not it is not the same idea. First of all, you have to come on the neighbors property unbidden. Second of all, the electricity you use, every watt of it, directly adds to his bill.
If you use your neighbors unsecured WAP you don't have to trespass onto his property and his bill will not change, unless you perhaps begin to download gigabytes of material. If you would just check email and post on
.....keep their wireless connection open on purpose.....
We get visitors with laptops sometimes who want to use the Internet. So we do keep the WAP wide open. Because any password would be programmed into our computers, it is a hassle to remember the password each time someone asks. So by definition, when our WAP advertises the network it is intentional.
With all the problems faced by our society these days, people piggybacking on their neighbors network is not something our esteemed politicians should feel hard pressed to spend a lot of time legislating against. But perhaps they have nothing better to do.
Since most of our network is wired, we turn the WAP off when no wireless access is needed by anyone here. There is no way to improve the security of the network if the WAP is turned off most of the time.
....how they can be arrested for doing it because it's their connection....
On the other hand, if the authorities search the WAP's owners computer and don't find anything incriminating,they'd have no proof that holds up in court if the WAP is not secured. Meanwhile the owner could have a hidden Laptop which the cops did not find, or even some friend's laptop.
If the WAP is well secured, then it would be much harder to convince a jury that it was not the owner or someone the owner gave the password to, that did the crime. The evidence that child pr0n originated from the Internet account of the router owner is largely worthless if the router is wide open. Not having a secured WAP gives a strong measure of plausible deniability of guilt.
....they wouldn't like them freeloading of their electricity, cable TV, gas and water connections.....
Except those are metered and the freeloader is costing the real owner extra money. Internet connections are generally flat rate. Unless the freeloader is using large chunks of bandwidth, most WAP owners would not care.
They would care more if the freeloader is accessing their files and snooping.
....can't really be upset when somebody takes advantage now.....
Those who buy a WAP and leave its default settings probably couldn't care less if someone was using their connection to surf or get their email. They wouldn't even know it unless the stranger uses a significant portion of the available bandwidth for a large fraction of time.
....if they knew someone was using their network.....
That's a big IF. Most Joe users who go buy a router and plug it in wouldn't know or care whether someone was using their router.
Only if those foreign users were downloading huge files might Joe suspect something. Even then he might attribute it to his own computer, maybe even suspect he had a virus.
I think having such a law here is making a mountain out of a molehill. Of course legislators are paid to make laws. Whether those laws are stupid or not doesn't affect their pay.
....The N95 did beat the iPhone to market by about two months....
How long has Nokia been in the phone business? So they came out with another fancier model. The iPhone is Apple FIRST and ONLY phone. I think that selling 4 million of them is pretty good for a first try at something they have never done before.
(..iPhone wasn't locked to the American AT&T network..)
That incident was before Apple got sales in other countries going. Even there it was only money, not some life at stake.
I'm sure that in 2 years, you'll be able to use iPhones anywhere, with any carrier. Meanwhile, the sales of these gadgets is rather brisk, given that this is a version 1.0 product. In 2 years there may be 60GB phone available for a price that will be affordable by the same people that can now afford them.
....because mobile phones are notorious for shitty reception, dead zones...
Wireless of course will never be as reliable as a piece of copper. Even so, my $29 Tracfone has never crashed and is more reliable than any of our Windows PCs.
We have a good old reliable POTS line, since there is no cell reception whatsoever right where we live. Visitors with cell phones are always chagrined about that. We live behind some mountains and get no broadcast TV and very poor radio reception. However when we travel the cheap wireless phone comes in handy and has not let us down. Even in town, about five miles away, cell reception is excellent.
Our network here at the ranch is wired, even though we also have a WAP which gets turned on mostly if visitors with a laptops show up. Wireless is convenient, but whether phones or network, wires are still more reliable and more secure. We now have DSL, which is much more reliable than the satellite Internet we used to have, before the phone co. installed DSL.
Loading flakey software onto a wireless phone is not likely to increase its reliability. Apple has to, and will do whatever they can legally do, to insure higher reliability on their phones than Windows PCs or even their own Macs.
(..then it should be a crime for Apple to prevent unlocking,..)
Any time the government get involved in legislating technology, they generally do more harm than good. Maybe, once Apple's contract with AT&T runs out, you'll be able to connect iphones and other makers phones to any network or even all of them. Whatever tower give the best service, regardless who owns it and its network will be automatically chosen.
....As a result, they will likely REMAIN a bit player with single digit market share...
I guess you don't read the news very much. Apple is ALREADY the second most popular computer phone, right after "crackberry" by RIM. It has not even been a year yet since the iPhone has been on the market.
(..and get a free iPod, and a free iPhone with it??..)
Yes of course and free beer and pizza from your favorite pizza joint.
(..Can you currently buy an Apple computer for $399..)
Can you currently buy a new Lexus or a Mercedes for $20,000? No? What a pity! You'll have to make do with a Hyundai or Saturn. They'll still get you across town.
(..Apple DICTATES what you are allowed to run on your iPhone, and they can revoke a key and disable any app for any reason at their whim..)
Apple dictates that nobody will be allowed to negatively affect the experience of the customer who BUY their devices. Macs are full fledged computers and are not as critical as a phone.
Can you imagine yourself at the side of the road with your phone and its battery is dead, even though you charged it just hours ago and did not use it? Your significant other is bleeding from the impact of a car that rammed yours from behind. Now a life depends on that phone. A working phone can be MUCH more critical than a working computer.
What happened is that some buggy background task kept running and drained the juice. That task was part of a super-duper cool app you installed the night before. Now who might get sued? Apple or the maker of that cool but buggy program? Apple HAS to control what is allowed to run on their product, since they may be held liable in a court of law.
....Developers should be able to develop software without stupid fees and keys for that Mac just like they can on every other Mac.....
You can write whatever software you wish. Just don't expect Apple to help you market it or get it on other people's iphones. If you can design a server system that does the same thing as Apple's, without violating their rights, you are welcome to market your killer app independently. Apple has no obligation to hackers, but may rightfully thwart them at every turn within the law.
For some programs, such as you may be able to do, development thereof is minor, compared to marketing.
(..Give me an HDTV connected iPod dock and all of a sudden screen size isn't an issue. A bluetooth keyboard and mouse round it out as a standard computer...)
How many iPhone owners do you suppose exist, that don't already have a very nice desktop or laptop to use for standard PC type work? It's the phone and music functions that is the reason people buy Apple cool gadgets. The computer like functionality of these pocketable devices is a bonus that will get used in applications not already addressed by the computers most people already have.
Those who want an open system are welcome to program devices with Linux or even Windows CE.
...that spot folks, is clearly reserved for a device with a free and open architecture....
Such as Linux? Oh no, its Windows, that's right Windows is the dominant OS and it is soooo open!
....You won't see professional packages like Office or Photoshop....
Sorry that you could not come up with better examples than that! Who would want to run those apps or any like them in a PHONE with a tiny screen?
(..Nobody of any measurable clout will..)
Some with clout already have. EA realizes that people might want to play a cute and fun game on their iphone or itouch while killing time in a doctor's waiting room or on a commuter train. Epocrates, Inc., a maker of healthcare software will make an incentive for its 500,000 or so users to buy iphones.
If you want to write marketable software for the iphone, more power to you. Just keep in mind the limitations of the hardware you're writing to as well as Apple's rules. If you write a cool program and sell it for $10, Apple will let you keep $7 as pure profit. You'd be hard pressed to market your killer app to such a large audience for only $3.
....Are phones so much more mission-critical than computers?.....
/.
People have different expectations from phones and toasters than from computers. Mostly because of Windows with its history of frequent BSOD's, freezes and other troubles, people have gotten used to the flakiness of PCs in general. Many EXPECT their computers to screw up now and then, or at least they'll accept that as par of the course. Even in OSX, there are rules which Apple imposes of programmers.
OTOH, phones have historically been MUCH more reliable. Computers are more critical to businesses, but ordinary people, have come to depend on their appliances, such as phones to work when needed. So yes, in short, phones are more critical to most users than their computers. When you're in a crash by the side of the road or out of gas, a working phone is very critical. If your computer dies, you may not be able to find out when the movie starts or even (horrors) post on
(..simply in order to protect their (and their carriers') commercial interests..)
So what? Is Apple some kind of charity? Any business will take steps to protect their good name, agreements with service and content providers, as well as their bottom line.
....the iPhone for its phone calling capabilities....
For those who don't need the phone part, there is the iTouch music player. Apple has to take steps to prevent their devices from becoming another Windows monoculture that attracts crooks who want to rip off as many people as possible. Some of these steps will displease the software freedom advocates, but are unfortunately a needed precaution in our connected world.
Decent developers should have no problems writing and selling clean software, according to the rules of Apple, made to ensure the reliability of their devices and profit. Apple is also NOT a charity, but a for PROFIT making company. They have a legal obligation to their owners (share holders) to make an honest profit.
If some malware gets on millions of iPhones, Apple will get the blame for their "insecure" careless programming, just as Microsoft did. Who wants to have to spend resources on after the fact malware protection? I am so glad that I don't have to waste money and my time to have to install some of the resource hogging anti-malware software Windows users need, on my Macs.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
.....These are real desktop applications......
Indeed that's great. The malware writers would also like to have THEIR wonderful applications run in these new, powerful devices. Apple just wants to make that much harder than Microsoft made it for their Windows systems. By inspecting software and controlling distribution, they can filter out possibly damaging programs. If some bad code gets through, they will know exactly who to blame, and if needed get the law after the originators. They can also quickly stop further spread of any undesirable code.
There are some fundamental technical limitations, such as limited battery power. Both Apple and users surely would hate to see a device suddenly go dead when it was most needed.
There certainly will be some useful and fun programs available for Apple's present and future gadgets. Apple can only gain from this and has no incentive to limit or prohibit technically fitting and truly useful programs that don't violate laws or their contractual obligations to service and content providers.
.....I want or even need Apple's assistance.....
Do you not think that Apple has the right to specify the particulars as to how the software for their devices are to be written and distributed? Nobody HAS to write software for any particular gadget or computer. Apple will try very hard to avoid for their products what happened to Windows.
Iphones and itouch are special purpose devices, even if they are based on a general purpose OS. Because of Windows, people are already used to the idea of an occasional BSOD or frozen interface in computers. However, most people I know, expect their iphones to work as reliably, as phones generally have in the past and their music player to do their thing they were bought for. They will not tolerate the kind of crap they have gotten used to in PCs in their phones.
I'm sure that there will be attempts to do to the iphone and itouch what has been done to Windows. Some may even be successful. Apple, by strictly controlling what can and what cannot be done with their product is simply trying to make it as hard as possible for malware to get a foothold.
Good luck to you getting many sales of any software not blessed by Apple and available on their certified application store. I know that I would never buy software from some outside, unknown source, if I could get the same or similar things from an official, quality controlled source. The slim possibility of saving a few dollars is not worth the risk.
....restrictions on a computing device ....
The iPhone is a PHONE a wireless PHONE. Repeat this a thousand times. It is NOT a general purpose computer. Most people who bought or will buy this expensive gadget want a phone first of all and want that to work as reliably as any other phone at LEAST. Apple will and must do everything in its power that their phone or ipods don't become another Windows like portal for propagating all sorts of malware aimed at emptying unsuspecting people's bank accounts.
In that regard, Apple can simply inform iphone users in no uncertain terms that warranties on hacked devices are null and void. They are also within their rights to warn users that any update from Apple may indeed inadvertently brick their hacked devices. Unauthorized customer modifications and use of manufactured goods and machines have always resulted in lost warranties at the very least. Sometimes human lives are at stake.
....I develop a killer phone app.......
If you do, so what? You still have to sell it somehow, unless you write it just for your own amusement. Do you think that people will sell your stuff for free, no matter even if it is insanely great? If given the choice of your "killer" app which may be virus infested, or a clean "vetted by Apple" program, directly from Apple's servers, which with most people pay money for?