At least 17 political cartoon apps were rejected, and most of them remain rejected, just for being political cartoons. Of the ones that were ultimately accepted, only 2 were accepted without modification, and unsurprisingly those 2 were the subject of mass media attention.
"It is irrational to develop an app that is clearly in violation of an agreement you had to 'sign'"
In the USA, political cartoons are not considered "defamatory" or "objectionable" by the majority of people, and cartoons represent an important form of protected political dissent. Why would a cartoonist have any reason to believe that his cartoon is in violation of the agreement he makes with Apple?
"Who is in need of a little more objectivity here?"
The person who cannot be bothered to use a search engine to see how many apps Apple has actually rejected for being politically or sexually themed? Really, the numbers are there. The reports are there. The statements from Apple on the matter are there, but there are not many to go around, and they all amount to apologies for specific instances.
Perhaps you do not spend as much time paying attention to the opinions of far right or libertarian commentators as I do, but I have heard arguments against each of those. I have seen people claim that weakening all of the above will help slow the rate of offshoring and thus improve everyone's lives.
"No, all of the evidence presented is from one side"
Well, Apple has issued statements in the cases where it becomes a media spectacle, and their statements have been something akin to, "We made a mistake." The only other evidence from "the other side" has been the emails Apple sends developers, detailing why the app was rejected -- and they only cite the clause about "objectionable content." That does not really bolster a case for these apps being rejected for reasons of quality or for using undocumented APIs (why the latter should be reason for rejection is questionable in and of itself).
"Apple isn't rejecting apps 'left and right'."
Only if you neglect to count the thousands of sex themed apps they rejected.
"Did it ever cross your mind to question these reports with a little objectivity, given that you're only hearing one side of the story?"
I have never neglected to read what Apple has to say on the matter, but they really do not bother to say much. The only objective conclusion that can be drawn is that Apple does not want sex or political cartoons to be associated with their devices. There is a lot of secrecy surrounding Apple's decisions, so I am not going to try to guess at why that is the case, but there really is no other conclusion that can be drawn here.
"It's all very fine to claim the high ground and espouse higher morals and the need to do the 'right' thing, but I take a more pragmatic approach."
Or in other words, you want to dismiss any moral arguments.
"These advances are strictly due to profit"
Which advances would you be referring to? From what I have seen, the advances in consumer products, including Apple products, are the result of research that has mostly been carried out using grant money. What I see in Apple is a company that is very good at marketing those advances -- no objection there -- but to claim that profit is the only reason those advances were ever developed is a bit of a stretch.
"the needs of the geek market simply don't matter."
The ability to publish political cartoons is not a "need of the geek market." If I wanted to make a case for the needs of "geeks," I would have been talking about the restrictions on programming languages, the restrictions on the ability to use GPLed code, and so forth. Political cartoons are important for society, and the trend right now is for more and more content to be delivered to mobile devices like the iPhone or iPad, cartoons included, and Apple is a powerful force in that market. If Apple refuses to allow a political cartoon app to be distributed for the iPad, it puts that particular cartoon at an inherent disadvantage (since the apps store is pushed in everyone's face by Apple). People will still find the cartoons, but to a lesser degree than before, and that is a result of Apple's deliberate, calculated decisions regarding its products.
Maybe there are some people who fit your theory about the "anti-Apple crusade," but I do not think I am one of them. I view this as an issue of what is best for society and democracy, and Apple's behavior simply is not -- even you had to dismiss moral arguments before you could justify their behavior.
"There's a way to do literally everything I want to do"
You are not the entire world, first of all, and secondly, Apple is not just rejecting features, they are rejecting political cartoons and pornography from the apps store. People keep saying that HTML is the answer to that, but the apps store simply out-competes the web and HTML solutions are at an inherent disadvantage.
"Choosing one that has a unified and controlled app distribution system because it offers an excellent end user experience is definitely not participating in any kind of slippery slope scenario."
Yes, it is, considering that Apple already uses its control to do more than maintain quality.
"The appropriate way to complain in this scenario is to buy some other phone. Or, if you're a developer, develop for a platform provided by a company whose policies you prefer."
Except that the majority of people are not aware of Apple's behavior or the way that Apple is censoring these devices, and the minority who is aware will not make much a difference. The appropriate thing to do is to inform as many people as possible of the reality of the iProducts.
"Never heard of either of these 'apps' until they hit/."
Which was exactly my point: most people are not aware that Apple is rejecting apps left and right for reasons other than "quality."
"Is it possible some of these apps didn't do as the developer described? Is it possible they crashed or used private API's?"
Possible, sure, but there is no evidence of that. All the available evidence points to their being rejected because they lampooned politicians -- and then being accepted when the lampooning is removed or made non-specific.
"Who cares."
Some people do care, considering how popular these devices are and the projections of how much more popular these devices will become. We care even more when Apple starts courting publishers to release apps for the iPad, including publishers of well respected newspapers and journals which influence public opinion.
"In the end, it all comes down to money"
Has it occurred to you that maybe that is not the best thing for society? Maybe a system where the rich minority have a greater say over everyone's lives than anyone else is not a system that is conducive to a successful democracy (maybe you do not agree that democracy is a good thing, but that is a whole other issue)? A system driven by greed is not necessarily a system that will produce the best outcome for its participants, unless you are willing to define "best" as "whatever results in the greatest amount of profit for successful businesses."
Re:Oh good! The trolls are out in full force!
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
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· Score: 1
That's funny -- I bought a computer from Best Buy, and then got some software to run on the computer from another store, without even voiding my warranty -- even when I go ahead and install a different operating system than the one my computer came with! My friend bought an iPad, but when he tried to get some software from a store not run by Apple, he discovered that the device had been designed to prevent him from doing that, and that any attempt to circumvent that design would automatically void the warranty and came with some legal threats from Apple.
There are plenty of rejected political cartoons
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
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· Score: 1
Some political cartoon apps were accepted, only because of the media storm surrounding them, but not all:
Except that you are then forced to include TiVo -- which is locked down and not freedom respecting. Yes, I know that "GNU/Linux" as a term is a problem since there are few people who just use GNU and a Linux kernel, but just "Linux" can mean a lot more than "free operating systems." Personally, I tend to refer to specific distros, i.e. I will say "Fedora" when people ask me what operating system I am running, but that approach is a failure here, since most desktop, server, and mobile distributions fit the "freedom" criteria -- and that is 100s of distributions.
"So people who think there is a big brother conspiracy should be using HTML."
Can we please refrain from misconstruing the criticisms of Apple? There is no "big brother conspiracy," but there is a corporation that deliberately prevented politically or sexually themed applications from running on their customers' devices. Yes, that is something which deserves criticism.
As for using HTML, the current situation puts HTML/web apps at an inherent disadvantage against native applications. First, there is the obvious: offline web apps have not yet taken off (maybe this will be different a year or two from now), and wireless coverage is not exactly universal yet. Then there is the fact that Apple pushes the "apps store" in everyone's face, and so people are likely to look toward the apps store first and the web second. The "HTML is the answer" approach is nothing more than a way to excuse Apple's behavior.
"He was doing the typical "Apple is a big bad poo poo head" thing that is all the rage."
No, actually, I was pointing out the fact that Apple has put deliberate restrictions into the software, which they could at any time remove, but which they do not. You are making it seem as if there is no valid criticism of Apple's tactics with the iPhone/iPad.
"They're now an evil corporation and thus everything they do is to be reviled."
First of all, people were speaking out against Apple's proprietary software a long time before the iPhone. We criticized their approach to iTunes, which they did eventually change, back when they were still the "underdog." We criticized their harsh and heavy handed approach to journalists. They were criticized for pushing proprietary software on their Macintosh line before Slashdot even existed. The fact that Apple is now a major force in technology only means that when they pull something like this -- the "walled garden" approach -- it is that much worse, since it has a much broader effect.
"The problem some of us have is that there are times that Apple needs to be called out for stupid shit because, as with every single company out there, they aren't perfect and they fuck up from time to time but they really don't need to be called out Every. Gawddamn. Time."
Yes, they do need to be called out every time, when they are pulling the same thing over and over. Otherwise, they could just sit around ignoring critics until everyone forgets that there was ever a time before walled gardens. We did not stop criticizing Microsoft, so why should Apple be spared?
I think you meant, "Our last real freedom is GNU/Linux," or perhaps you meant, "Our last real freedom is GPLv3 software," or just, "Our last real freedom is Fedora/Ubuntu/Slackware/[distro of choice]."
Re:Oh good! The trolls are out in full force!
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
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· Score: 1
"This device is a CELLPHONE"
Which device, pray tell, is a "CELLPHONE?" When last I checked, the iPad is a tablet computer (at least in terms of its hardware)...
"it's not like people that buy them are unaware of the limitations at time of purchase."
I am not so sure that is really true, at least if the sort of people I interact with IRL are any indication. They are certainly aware that there are limitations, and some even have a vague notion that those limitations are deliberately imposed by Apple, but very few people seem to be aware of the full extent of what Apple is doing. Most people seem to have either forgotten or completely missed the news about political cartoon apps being blocked, or the Ulysses app, or the apparently arbitrary nature of what Apple decides to reject. It is even worse with the iPad: people have become conditioned to having their cell phones restricted and sabotaged, but the idea that Apple would ever try to do such a thing to a tablet computer seems to be lost on the average consumer.
You guess wrong, probably because you did not understand the point of my post. Here, I'll put it plainly for you: neither the democrats nor the republicans actually care about the rights of the people.
"This, people, this right here is the natural result of electing a pile of leftist socialists"
Wow, I have never heard of the republicans referred to as leftist socialists. They are, after all, the party that started the trend toward more and more surveillance, and Bush administration officials have publicly voiced approval of Obama administration policies.
Case-in-point: there were dozens of warning signs about the September 11 attacks, and that was without any additional Internet monitoring. The problem has nothing to do with detecting the communications of people who are planning an attack, but with correctly using that information.
In all seriousness, the democrats are not so different from the republicans, at least not anymore. The may say different things, but if you look at what they actually do, you will find that both parties really do whatever benefits corporations, even if it is at the expense of the people. Off-shore drilling? Supported by both parties until the current emergency. Secret negotiations of ACTA? Both the Bush and Obama administrations dubbed it a "national security issue." Deregulating the banking industry? It was under the Clinton and Bush administrations that the mergers which created the "too big to fail" banks took place, with both democrat and republican control of houses of congress. War? Every president since the creation of the military industrial complex has engaged America in some military action.
Why? "We connected our mission critical systems to a public communications network, and random people on that network are probing our systems! Waaaaah! Wait, let's probe their systems too!"
Or that the people who write these packages are not necessarily great hackers themselves, but people who read reports on others' work and write tools to perform the attacks.
"PC/internet is more like the effect of electronic calculators on the ability to basic math by hand or in ones head."
That really depends on the child, teachers, and parents. For example, when I was in middle school, one of my teachers taught me a technique for computing square roots by hand, to arbitrarily many digits. I immediately began testing myself using a calculator, which helped to reinforce what I had learned (I would also amuse myself by computing more digits by hand than the calculator could process). In high school, I began using a geometry program on my computer to study constructions, beyond the very basic techniques that were taught in class -- and one of my teachers gave me hard/interesting problems to work on.
I might be an outlier, of course, but the problem is not PCs or calculators. The real problem is that a lot of schools are failing to use computers in a way that reinforces knowledge or helps build understanding. This might be an artifact of the approach we take to schooling, that it is just job training, and thus teaching how to use a calculator is to compute answers is more prudent than trying to get students to understand anything.
Slashdot Mirror
"You also claim' thousands of sex themed apps'. Can you cite a source for that or are you just grandstanding?"
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/22/apples_overtly_sexual_iphone_crackdown_purges_5000_apps.html
Or is AppleInsider now considered to be a rabidly anti-Apple website? Perhaps removing 5000 apps does not count as "rejecting thousands?"
"To my knowledge, there have been 2 such apps that have been rejected."
http://www.cloudfour.com/apples-policy-on-satire-16-rejected-apps/
At least 17 political cartoon apps were rejected, and most of them remain rejected, just for being political cartoons. Of the ones that were ultimately accepted, only 2 were accepted without modification, and unsurprisingly those 2 were the subject of mass media attention.
"It is irrational to develop an app that is clearly in violation of an agreement you had to 'sign'"
In the USA, political cartoons are not considered "defamatory" or "objectionable" by the majority of people, and cartoons represent an important form of protected political dissent. Why would a cartoonist have any reason to believe that his cartoon is in violation of the agreement he makes with Apple?
"Who is in need of a little more objectivity here?"
The person who cannot be bothered to use a search engine to see how many apps Apple has actually rejected for being politically or sexually themed? Really, the numbers are there. The reports are there. The statements from Apple on the matter are there, but there are not many to go around, and they all amount to apologies for specific instances.
"Apple platforms, which can deliver FOSS software just fine even though the platform itself is proprietary."
Except, of course, the iPhone and iPad, for which developers are barred from distributed GPL software or using GPL libraries.
"Minimum wage, unemployment benefits, paid holidays, weekends, sick leave, workplace safety, N-hour week, overtime, child labour laws, trade unions, healthcare"
Perhaps you do not spend as much time paying attention to the opinions of far right or libertarian commentators as I do, but I have heard arguments against each of those. I have seen people claim that weakening all of the above will help slow the rate of offshoring and thus improve everyone's lives.
"No, all of the evidence presented is from one side"
Well, Apple has issued statements in the cases where it becomes a media spectacle, and their statements have been something akin to, "We made a mistake." The only other evidence from "the other side" has been the emails Apple sends developers, detailing why the app was rejected -- and they only cite the clause about "objectionable content." That does not really bolster a case for these apps being rejected for reasons of quality or for using undocumented APIs (why the latter should be reason for rejection is questionable in and of itself).
"Apple isn't rejecting apps 'left and right'."
Only if you neglect to count the thousands of sex themed apps they rejected.
"Did it ever cross your mind to question these reports with a little objectivity, given that you're only hearing one side of the story?"
I have never neglected to read what Apple has to say on the matter, but they really do not bother to say much. The only objective conclusion that can be drawn is that Apple does not want sex or political cartoons to be associated with their devices. There is a lot of secrecy surrounding Apple's decisions, so I am not going to try to guess at why that is the case, but there really is no other conclusion that can be drawn here.
"It's all very fine to claim the high ground and espouse higher morals and the need to do the 'right' thing, but I take a more pragmatic approach."
Or in other words, you want to dismiss any moral arguments.
"These advances are strictly due to profit"
Which advances would you be referring to? From what I have seen, the advances in consumer products, including Apple products, are the result of research that has mostly been carried out using grant money. What I see in Apple is a company that is very good at marketing those advances -- no objection there -- but to claim that profit is the only reason those advances were ever developed is a bit of a stretch.
"the needs of the geek market simply don't matter."
The ability to publish political cartoons is not a "need of the geek market." If I wanted to make a case for the needs of "geeks," I would have been talking about the restrictions on programming languages, the restrictions on the ability to use GPLed code, and so forth. Political cartoons are important for society, and the trend right now is for more and more content to be delivered to mobile devices like the iPhone or iPad, cartoons included, and Apple is a powerful force in that market. If Apple refuses to allow a political cartoon app to be distributed for the iPad, it puts that particular cartoon at an inherent disadvantage (since the apps store is pushed in everyone's face by Apple). People will still find the cartoons, but to a lesser degree than before, and that is a result of Apple's deliberate, calculated decisions regarding its products.
Maybe there are some people who fit your theory about the "anti-Apple crusade," but I do not think I am one of them. I view this as an issue of what is best for society and democracy, and Apple's behavior simply is not -- even you had to dismiss moral arguments before you could justify their behavior.
"There's a way to do literally everything I want to do"
You are not the entire world, first of all, and secondly, Apple is not just rejecting features, they are rejecting political cartoons and pornography from the apps store. People keep saying that HTML is the answer to that, but the apps store simply out-competes the web and HTML solutions are at an inherent disadvantage.
"Choosing one that has a unified and controlled app distribution system because it offers an excellent end user experience is definitely not participating in any kind of slippery slope scenario."
Yes, it is, considering that Apple already uses its control to do more than maintain quality.
"The appropriate way to complain in this scenario is to buy some other phone. Or, if you're a developer, develop for a platform provided by a company whose policies you prefer."
Except that the majority of people are not aware of Apple's behavior or the way that Apple is censoring these devices, and the minority who is aware will not make much a difference. The appropriate thing to do is to inform as many people as possible of the reality of the iProducts.
"Never heard of either of these 'apps' until they hit /."
Which was exactly my point: most people are not aware that Apple is rejecting apps left and right for reasons other than "quality."
"Is it possible some of these apps didn't do as the developer described? Is it possible they crashed or used private API's?"
Possible, sure, but there is no evidence of that. All the available evidence points to their being rejected because they lampooned politicians -- and then being accepted when the lampooning is removed or made non-specific.
"Who cares."
Some people do care, considering how popular these devices are and the projections of how much more popular these devices will become. We care even more when Apple starts courting publishers to release apps for the iPad, including publishers of well respected newspapers and journals which influence public opinion.
"In the end, it all comes down to money"
Has it occurred to you that maybe that is not the best thing for society? Maybe a system where the rich minority have a greater say over everyone's lives than anyone else is not a system that is conducive to a successful democracy (maybe you do not agree that democracy is a good thing, but that is a whole other issue)? A system driven by greed is not necessarily a system that will produce the best outcome for its participants, unless you are willing to define "best" as "whatever results in the greatest amount of profit for successful businesses."
That's funny -- I bought a computer from Best Buy, and then got some software to run on the computer from another store, without even voiding my warranty -- even when I go ahead and install a different operating system than the one my computer came with! My friend bought an iPad, but when he tried to get some software from a store not run by Apple, he discovered that the device had been designed to prevent him from doing that, and that any attempt to circumvent that design would automatically void the warranty and came with some legal threats from Apple.
Some political cartoon apps were accepted, only because of the media storm surrounding them, but not all:
http://www.cloudfour.com/apples-policy-on-satire-16-rejected-apps/
Also note that on that list, several of the apps were only accepted after altering their "controversial" content.
Except that you are then forced to include TiVo -- which is locked down and not freedom respecting. Yes, I know that "GNU/Linux" as a term is a problem since there are few people who just use GNU and a Linux kernel, but just "Linux" can mean a lot more than "free operating systems." Personally, I tend to refer to specific distros, i.e. I will say "Fedora" when people ask me what operating system I am running, but that approach is a failure here, since most desktop, server, and mobile distributions fit the "freedom" criteria -- and that is 100s of distributions.
"So people who think there is a big brother conspiracy should be using HTML."
Can we please refrain from misconstruing the criticisms of Apple? There is no "big brother conspiracy," but there is a corporation that deliberately prevented politically or sexually themed applications from running on their customers' devices. Yes, that is something which deserves criticism.
As for using HTML, the current situation puts HTML/web apps at an inherent disadvantage against native applications. First, there is the obvious: offline web apps have not yet taken off (maybe this will be different a year or two from now), and wireless coverage is not exactly universal yet. Then there is the fact that Apple pushes the "apps store" in everyone's face, and so people are likely to look toward the apps store first and the web second. The "HTML is the answer" approach is nothing more than a way to excuse Apple's behavior.
"He was doing the typical "Apple is a big bad poo poo head" thing that is all the rage."
No, actually, I was pointing out the fact that Apple has put deliberate restrictions into the software, which they could at any time remove, but which they do not. You are making it seem as if there is no valid criticism of Apple's tactics with the iPhone/iPad.
"They're now an evil corporation and thus everything they do is to be reviled."
First of all, people were speaking out against Apple's proprietary software a long time before the iPhone. We criticized their approach to iTunes, which they did eventually change, back when they were still the "underdog." We criticized their harsh and heavy handed approach to journalists. They were criticized for pushing proprietary software on their Macintosh line before Slashdot even existed. The fact that Apple is now a major force in technology only means that when they pull something like this -- the "walled garden" approach -- it is that much worse, since it has a much broader effect.
"The problem some of us have is that there are times that Apple needs to be called out for stupid shit because, as with every single company out there, they aren't perfect and they fuck up from time to time but they really don't need to be called out Every. Gawddamn. Time."
Yes, they do need to be called out every time, when they are pulling the same thing over and over. Otherwise, they could just sit around ignoring critics until everyone forgets that there was ever a time before walled gardens. We did not stop criticizing Microsoft, so why should Apple be spared?
"Our last real freedom is Linux."
http://www.tivo.com/
I think you meant, "Our last real freedom is GNU/Linux," or perhaps you meant, "Our last real freedom is GPLv3 software," or just, "Our last real freedom is Fedora/Ubuntu/Slackware/[distro of choice]."
"This device is a CELLPHONE"
Which device, pray tell, is a "CELLPHONE?" When last I checked, the iPad is a tablet computer (at least in terms of its hardware)...
"it's not like people that buy them are unaware of the limitations at time of purchase."
I am not so sure that is really true, at least if the sort of people I interact with IRL are any indication. They are certainly aware that there are limitations, and some even have a vague notion that those limitations are deliberately imposed by Apple, but very few people seem to be aware of the full extent of what Apple is doing. Most people seem to have either forgotten or completely missed the news about political cartoon apps being blocked, or the Ulysses app, or the apparently arbitrary nature of what Apple decides to reject. It is even worse with the iPad: people have become conditioned to having their cell phones restricted and sabotaged, but the idea that Apple would ever try to do such a thing to a tablet computer seems to be lost on the average consumer.
I personally can't wait to see what measures this new software takes to control its users and limit their access to other programs.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of an envelope full of DVDs.
I can already send any data through email, so what exactly makes Wave worth my time?
"I guess you're okay with the situation now"
You guess wrong, probably because you did not understand the point of my post. Here, I'll put it plainly for you: neither the democrats nor the republicans actually care about the rights of the people.
"This, people, this right here is the natural result of electing a pile of leftist socialists"
Wow, I have never heard of the republicans referred to as leftist socialists. They are, after all, the party that started the trend toward more and more surveillance, and Bush administration officials have publicly voiced approval of Obama administration policies.
Oh, yeah, and the one socialist in the US Senate does not approve of the increased surveillance: http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=1cabd1b9-84c1-4f8f-a93d-2731bfe273fe
Case-in-point: there were dozens of warning signs about the September 11 attacks, and that was without any additional Internet monitoring. The problem has nothing to do with detecting the communications of people who are planning an attack, but with correctly using that information.
In all seriousness, the democrats are not so different from the republicans, at least not anymore. The may say different things, but if you look at what they actually do, you will find that both parties really do whatever benefits corporations, even if it is at the expense of the people. Off-shore drilling? Supported by both parties until the current emergency. Secret negotiations of ACTA? Both the Bush and Obama administrations dubbed it a "national security issue." Deregulating the banking industry? It was under the Clinton and Bush administrations that the mergers which created the "too big to fail" banks took place, with both democrat and republican control of houses of congress. War? Every president since the creation of the military industrial complex has engaged America in some military action.
Why? "We connected our mission critical systems to a public communications network, and random people on that network are probing our systems! Waaaaah! Wait, let's probe their systems too!"
I propose that MS create a walled-garden version of Windows that will work for 85% (my estimate) of home users.
FTFY.
Or that the people who write these packages are not necessarily great hackers themselves, but people who read reports on others' work and write tools to perform the attacks.
"PC/internet is more like the effect of electronic calculators on the ability to basic math by hand or in ones head."
That really depends on the child, teachers, and parents. For example, when I was in middle school, one of my teachers taught me a technique for computing square roots by hand, to arbitrarily many digits. I immediately began testing myself using a calculator, which helped to reinforce what I had learned (I would also amuse myself by computing more digits by hand than the calculator could process). In high school, I began using a geometry program on my computer to study constructions, beyond the very basic techniques that were taught in class -- and one of my teachers gave me hard/interesting problems to work on.
I might be an outlier, of course, but the problem is not PCs or calculators. The real problem is that a lot of schools are failing to use computers in a way that reinforces knowledge or helps build understanding. This might be an artifact of the approach we take to schooling, that it is just job training, and thus teaching how to use a calculator is to compute answers is more prudent than trying to get students to understand anything.