That's "citizen", not "subject". Since 1983, practically nobody qualifies as a subject any more.
Speech is not protected in the UK
Yes, it is, through EU membership. Common law probably has a fair bit to say on the matter as well.
because of the cultural cross-contamination from the US most UK subjects think we have the same protected speech as you fellows across the pond.
Both the UK and the USA have limitations on the protection of speech. Lots of people fetishise the protection in the USA though, which is worrying because a belief that they have absolute freedom of speech results in an Orwellian redefining of unprotected speech as some kind of "unspeech".
Somebody was working overtime to go on-site with a client every weekend and manually update static HTML pages. I replaced them with a page that automatically updated whenever new content was available.
Wow, it's like this t-shirt in real life. I have also replaced somebody with a very small shell-script, I felt like I should have gotten an award or something.
Oh, bullshit. Try this: go to Apple's US page (which is "apple.com" which I'm guessing will redirect in other countries, and apparently you can't just add/us/ to force it to stay in the US, so, you may have to pick a random country if you're actually in the UK) and compare it to the UK version of the page. Notice anything different?
Yes. Apple are pushing the fourth generation iPad on their USA site and the iPad mini on all their other sites. That's the determining factor for whether the resize code is used. It's not specific to the UK. Look at their other sites. Their French site uses that resize code. Their German site uses that resize code. All the sites that are pushing the iPad mini use that resize code. The USA is the odd one out because it's pushing the fourth generation iPad, and for whatever reason they didn't use the resize code for that.
Now we've got two explanations for why that resize code is there. Mine, which states that it's a design choice to push their new product, and yours, which states that it's a deliberate attempt to hide a legal notice. Which explanation fits the facts? The fact is that the code is tied to the product. The fact is that the code is not tied to the country.
Not a side effect, it is deliberate. If you view source you'll see that the code is different on the UK site vs the others.
No, it isn't. You compared the UK site to the USA site. The USA site is the odd one out. Take a look at, for example, the German site, or the French site. They have got exactly the same "deliberately hiding the legal notice" code on it, despite the fact the notice isn't on those sites.
The difference between the USA site and all the others is that Apple are pushing the fourth generation iPad on their USA site and the iPad mini on the others. For whatever reason, they didn't use the resizing code for the fourth generation iPad hero shot. Whatever the reason for that is, it clearly isn't because they are trying to hide the notice, because the same code is in use everywhere the iPad mini hero shot is used, including countries where the notice is not required.
This is not a conspiracy to hide a legal notice. They've got a new product and they zoomed the image to fit the screen. Do not ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by common sense.
Because they included code that made it so that it wouldn't appear without scrolling no matter how large your monitor is.
No, what they did was include code that automatically resizes the hero shot to take up all the available space. This is hardly an unheard of design strategy. They are emphasising their newly launched product. Yes, it has the side-effect of pushing the notice below the fold, but it also pushes other non-essential content like the footer links below the fold as well. The assumption of malice is unwarranted, and spinning this as "they deliberately wrote code to hide it" is silly. There's a clear purpose for that code - to emphasise their new product. You'll note that code also runs on their website in other countries where the notice isn't present.
It's obvious that when the judge required that they post the apology, that they do so in a place where people were likely to see it.
I'm pretty sure their homepage qualifies.
The point is that this is certainly not what the Judge had in mind
Why? Scrolling is the norm on the web and he didn't specify a position. Why are people suddenly shocked that you might have to scroll to see something? Why are people suddenly convinced that if it's not above the fold it's invisible? You managed to find my comment alright didn't you?
My point is that it is not hidden. Just because something is below the fold does not make it hidden.
unlikely to be what the judge had in mind when the order was written
Why? Is the judge somehow under the impression that people cannot scroll?
The judge went into enough detail to specify which size font to use. If he cared about it being above the fold, he surely would have mentioned that. It is not at all an obvious requirement, so not doing so is hardly disrespecting the judge.
How is this contempt? The message isn't hidden, it's right there on the page. The fact that they optimise the page so that their product shot makes the most of the above-the-fold real estate is not removing it from the page in any way, it's just good design.
The judge never specified that it had to be in a particular place on the page, or above the fold. And wearing my web developer hat, it's not at all obvious that above the fold was implied to be necessary. If it were me doing it, I'd do it the same way - you'll notice that the other chaff like the footer links aren't above the fold either.
If you have clicked on this Slashdot article and are now reading this comment, it is almost certainly below the fold. Yet you read it, right? It's not invisible?
How often do people use tablets when they have neither wifi access nor a phone they can tether to?
A lot of the time. Most countries aren't like the USA, free Wi-Fi is difficult to find. In addition, data tethering with your phone may be limited depending on which plan you have, and even if it's available, it's inconvenient and battery draining.
Even Apple can't get away with charging a premium with a substandard display.
Since when is the display "substandard"? "Not Retina" is not the same thing as "substandard".
Which is to be expected, since the iPhone is much more popular than the iPad in terms of sales and there wasn't as much pent-up demand as what you'd see when you've waited a year to release a new product
Also the only models that are available on launch day are the Wi-Fi only models. Everybody who wants a cellular model is waiting until late November.
Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram all send email addresses and phone numbers to their local servers.
All of these companies have both official iOS apps and official Android apps, and the ones I've used on Android have definitely accessed my contacts. In fact, Facebook made headlines by fucking up the email addresses in the address books of Android users recently.
But yes, let's have a little balance by directing the blame for the actions of these particular companies solely at Apple.
Given Android will now (I think - I've got an iPhone so can't be sure.... ssshhhhhhhh! Don't tell anyone) tell you what permissions the app will access
The very first release of Android did this, it's been in Android all along.
why isn't there the ability to just configure android to refuse to pass those details on to the app at the OS level?
Probably because it's simpler all round to just assume that if the app is running it has permission. Fewer moving parts. It's not in the user's best interests though.
This is a legal document, probably differing for every case, and the point in requiring it is to make developers take a hard look at what information they access and how they use it. Rubber-stamping a boilerplate lets developers say they have a privacy policy, but it doesn't actually encourage any increase in privacy until somebody's sued over it.
This happens anyway. I have to fight this battle every time I build an app that collects personal information. Every single time in four years of developing apps, I have been provided with the privacy policy for their website, that specifically describes things that are only applicable to their website, that doesn't account for their mobile app at all. I've got a current project hanging at the moment where we've chased them for a real privacy policy about half a dozen times. The rest of the app is finished, we're still waiting for the privacy policy, weeks later. If it wasn't for us insisting, the app would be live with a meaningless privacy policy they don't follow, and I'm certain other app developers aren't as insistent as us.
She's supposedly been consulting with app developers, although not ones representative of the larger industry.
Tthis is what could happen if it had to be within the app:
Receive letter requiring a policy in your app within 30 days.
Shit, we outsourced this (common because mobile developers are few and far between).
Pay for changing the design to include a button to show the policy.
Pay for a developer to make the necessary changes.
Shit, the developer we used has a full schedule, we have to find somebody else (again, common).
Find a new developer.
Get them up to speed on the project and get them to make the changes.
Submit the update to Apple.
Wait an unknown amount of time for it to be reviewed.
Apple don't like something in your app. Maybe their policies changed, maybe a previous reviewer didn't catch something, maybe you've just got a bad reviewer.
Go back to the designer and developer and pay for them to do more work, if feasible.
Resubmit to Apple.
Wait an unknown amount of time for it to be reviewed.
And you've got to fit that into 30 days. And that assumes the changes Apple requires you to make aren't fundamental to your business model or operation of the app. And that assumes only one round of alterations is required. And that assumes it's feasible for you to pay for expensive mobile developers.
Meanwhile, here's what it would be like if the policy only needs to appear in the App Store:
Receive letter requiring a policy in your app within 30 days.
Stick a policy online. It can be anywhere, even if you don't have a website, you can just sign up on Wordpress.com or something and post it there.
Log into iTunes Connect and put the link into the privacy policy field.
The article contradicts itself. Early in the article, it states that the policy has to be within the app, then later on, it says it has to be in the App Store. There's a huge difference between the two in what it means for app publishers.
So what you are saying is that Apple moved into existing markets where several other competitors had the advantage of getting there earlier, and Apple still beat them to the punch? And this somehow proves Apple can't compete on even ground? If, for example, Microsoft were so far ahead of the game in the tablet market, how come nobody was buying them until Apple released the iPad?
So I want my AERO, compiz, and pretty eye candy since I have this awesome supercomputer
That's great, but we're talking about mobile. Performance and battery life are inversely correlated. The more powerful GPU you need, the more memory you need, the less time your battery lasts. You might not care when you're using a supercomputer that's plugged into the mains, but it has a big, direct effect on how people use mobile devices.
Oh come on, you've got to be trolling. The context was clear. I didn't say anything about hobbyists in the sense that I didn't say anything about how it was desirable to exclude them. You were putting words in my mouth and I was pointing that out.
where should one find the capital to start a software business?
That's your problem, not mine. All I'm doing is pointing out that the cost of equipment and the developer programme are not the massive hurdles you make them out to be.
Why don't you ask somebody who said that? You said something specifically about startups, and my response was directed at that. I didn't say anything about hobbyists.
especially hobbyists who plan to use a hobby to gather capital for a startup?
If you're "using a hobby to gather capital", then it's not a hobby, it's work. You're trying to shoehorn hobbyists in here because your argument about startups failed.
I thought a cheap used Mac would be PowerPC and therefore unsuitable for running the iOS SDK.
Apple stopped selling PowerPC-based Macs six years ago. Practically all cheap used Macs for sale are Intel-based.
If I test only on last year's iPad, how do I make sure the application doesn't fail on this year's iPad?
I've been writing iOS apps for four years and I don't think I've ever seen this happen once. There are occasionally issues with forwards compatibility with different iOS versions, but they are few and far between.
Slashdot Mirror
That's "citizen", not "subject". Since 1983, practically nobody qualifies as a subject any more.
Yes, it is, through EU membership. Common law probably has a fair bit to say on the matter as well.
Both the UK and the USA have limitations on the protection of speech. Lots of people fetishise the protection in the USA though, which is worrying because a belief that they have absolute freedom of speech results in an Orwellian redefining of unprotected speech as some kind of "unspeech".
Somebody was working overtime to go on-site with a client every weekend and manually update static HTML pages. I replaced them with a page that automatically updated whenever new content was available.
Wow, it's like this t-shirt in real life. I have also replaced somebody with a very small shell-script, I felt like I should have gotten an award or something.
Yes, we have the same thing here in the UK.
They already exist, they are called Site-Specific Browsers.
Yes. Apple are pushing the fourth generation iPad on their USA site and the iPad mini on all their other sites. That's the determining factor for whether the resize code is used. It's not specific to the UK. Look at their other sites. Their French site uses that resize code. Their German site uses that resize code. All the sites that are pushing the iPad mini use that resize code. The USA is the odd one out because it's pushing the fourth generation iPad, and for whatever reason they didn't use the resize code for that.
Now we've got two explanations for why that resize code is there. Mine, which states that it's a design choice to push their new product, and yours, which states that it's a deliberate attempt to hide a legal notice. Which explanation fits the facts? The fact is that the code is tied to the product. The fact is that the code is not tied to the country.
No, it isn't. You compared the UK site to the USA site. The USA site is the odd one out. Take a look at, for example, the German site, or the French site. They have got exactly the same "deliberately hiding the legal notice" code on it, despite the fact the notice isn't on those sites.
The difference between the USA site and all the others is that Apple are pushing the fourth generation iPad on their USA site and the iPad mini on the others. For whatever reason, they didn't use the resizing code for the fourth generation iPad hero shot. Whatever the reason for that is, it clearly isn't because they are trying to hide the notice, because the same code is in use everywhere the iPad mini hero shot is used, including countries where the notice is not required.
This is not a conspiracy to hide a legal notice. They've got a new product and they zoomed the image to fit the screen. Do not ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by common sense.
No, what they did was include code that automatically resizes the hero shot to take up all the available space. This is hardly an unheard of design strategy. They are emphasising their newly launched product. Yes, it has the side-effect of pushing the notice below the fold, but it also pushes other non-essential content like the footer links below the fold as well. The assumption of malice is unwarranted, and spinning this as "they deliberately wrote code to hide it" is silly. There's a clear purpose for that code - to emphasise their new product. You'll note that code also runs on their website in other countries where the notice isn't present.
I'm pretty sure their homepage qualifies.
Why? Scrolling is the norm on the web and he didn't specify a position. Why are people suddenly shocked that you might have to scroll to see something? Why are people suddenly convinced that if it's not above the fold it's invisible? You managed to find my comment alright didn't you?
My point is that it is not hidden. Just because something is below the fold does not make it hidden.
Why? Is the judge somehow under the impression that people cannot scroll?
The judge went into enough detail to specify which size font to use. If he cared about it being above the fold, he surely would have mentioned that. It is not at all an obvious requirement, so not doing so is hardly disrespecting the judge.
How is this contempt? The message isn't hidden, it's right there on the page. The fact that they optimise the page so that their product shot makes the most of the above-the-fold real estate is not removing it from the page in any way, it's just good design.
The judge never specified that it had to be in a particular place on the page, or above the fold. And wearing my web developer hat, it's not at all obvious that above the fold was implied to be necessary. If it were me doing it, I'd do it the same way - you'll notice that the other chaff like the footer links aren't above the fold either.
If you have clicked on this Slashdot article and are now reading this comment, it is almost certainly below the fold. Yet you read it, right? It's not invisible?
A lot of the time. Most countries aren't like the USA, free Wi-Fi is difficult to find. In addition, data tethering with your phone may be limited depending on which plan you have, and even if it's available, it's inconvenient and battery draining.
Since when is the display "substandard"? "Not Retina" is not the same thing as "substandard".
Also the only models that are available on launch day are the Wi-Fi only models. Everybody who wants a cellular model is waiting until late November.
All of these companies have both official iOS apps and official Android apps, and the ones I've used on Android have definitely accessed my contacts. In fact, Facebook made headlines by fucking up the email addresses in the address books of Android users recently.
But yes, let's have a little balance by directing the blame for the actions of these particular companies solely at Apple.
The very first release of Android did this, it's been in Android all along.
Probably because it's simpler all round to just assume that if the app is running it has permission. Fewer moving parts. It's not in the user's best interests though.
Reader Bogtha points to coverage at Slashdot, too.
This happens anyway. I have to fight this battle every time I build an app that collects personal information. Every single time in four years of developing apps, I have been provided with the privacy policy for their website, that specifically describes things that are only applicable to their website, that doesn't account for their mobile app at all. I've got a current project hanging at the moment where we've chased them for a real privacy policy about half a dozen times. The rest of the app is finished, we're still waiting for the privacy policy, weeks later. If it wasn't for us insisting, the app would be live with a meaningless privacy policy they don't follow, and I'm certain other app developers aren't as insistent as us.
She's supposedly been consulting with app developers, although not ones representative of the larger industry.
Tthis is what could happen if it had to be within the app:
And you've got to fit that into 30 days. And that assumes the changes Apple requires you to make aren't fundamental to your business model or operation of the app. And that assumes only one round of alterations is required. And that assumes it's feasible for you to pay for expensive mobile developers.
Meanwhile, here's what it would be like if the policy only needs to appear in the App Store:
The article contradicts itself. Early in the article, it states that the policy has to be within the app, then later on, it says it has to be in the App Store. There's a huge difference between the two in what it means for app publishers.
Surely by that logic, BlackBerry would have a thriving app market that developers are very interested in.
So what you are saying is that Apple moved into existing markets where several other competitors had the advantage of getting there earlier, and Apple still beat them to the punch? And this somehow proves Apple can't compete on even ground? If, for example, Microsoft were so far ahead of the game in the tablet market, how come nobody was buying them until Apple released the iPad?
That's great, but we're talking about mobile. Performance and battery life are inversely correlated. The more powerful GPU you need, the more memory you need, the less time your battery lasts. You might not care when you're using a supercomputer that's plugged into the mains, but it has a big, direct effect on how people use mobile devices.
Oh come on, you've got to be trolling. The context was clear. I didn't say anything about hobbyists in the sense that I didn't say anything about how it was desirable to exclude them. You were putting words in my mouth and I was pointing that out.
That's your problem, not mine. All I'm doing is pointing out that the cost of equipment and the developer programme are not the massive hurdles you make them out to be.
Why don't you ask somebody who said that? You said something specifically about startups, and my response was directed at that. I didn't say anything about hobbyists.
If you're "using a hobby to gather capital", then it's not a hobby, it's work. You're trying to shoehorn hobbyists in here because your argument about startups failed.
More relevant: $27.55 a month for something that can earn you $80-120/hr at typical freelance rates.
Apple stopped selling PowerPC-based Macs six years ago. Practically all cheap used Macs for sale are Intel-based.
I've been writing iOS apps for four years and I don't think I've ever seen this happen once. There are occasionally issues with forwards compatibility with different iOS versions, but they are few and far between.