I don't understand why Apple gets a free ride for manufacturing weapons components (via their acquisition of PA Semi) and having a CEO that owns a large chunk of Disney, which is barely more than a swear word among the same people who appreciate their products on a technical level.
The iPhone SDK issues are merely disappointing in comparison. You don't see two year old blog posts from the same group of people flaming Apple for not providing a wireless device of any kind for them to develop on, which is surely a bigger injustice by their logic. Where were these people when I wanted some apps for my RAZR?
I think the Venn diagram of people who are affected by Apple's iPhone development policies, and the group of people who complain about them on the internet has a very small intersection, and if you add the group of people who can actually code, you could probably buy the lot of them a round of drinks for twenty bucks.
Personally, as a veteran of the war of mendacity against common sense that is SOAP, I support anything that gets Dave Winer upset.
How is Disney a swear word? It churns out a lot of popular crap and it has Pixar making probably the best movies out there now. Steve Jobs made it company policy not to release "direct-to-DVD sequels". Remember that? Without that, Disney quality jumped a LOT (which, I know, just says how awful they HAD been). Meanwhile, they've reinstated their 2D animation department, which is BIG fun news and which might bring back the good old Disney.
Why should we criticize them for making weapons components or for owning Disney? That has nothing to do with their products.
Disney is typically cited as a major force behind the never-ending extension of copyright (the famous 'keep mickey out of the public domain' strategy). Disney has also put considerable resources into lobbying for ever-more-oppressive legal measures such as mandatory DRM hardware in computers. They are no friend of the typical hacker. Steve Jobs, as a major shareholder and board member, could influence this if he so chose. Apple also chose to continue its weapons-grade product lines when it purchased PA Semi. Maybe they have a contract they can't get out of, but they may well have had the choice to shut down or spin off those products.
You can agree or not with those arguments, I'm not advocating for or against them. They don't affect my purchasing decisions (the best tool for the job in my current circumstances is a MacBook Pro so that's what I have). I make my living working for banks that no doubt finance far worse things. If Disney returns to form animation-wise I'll reward them with movie ticket purchases. It just seems to me that all the people posting "Apple is finally evil" linkbait nonsense could choose meatier targets than mistakes in developer relations, and the fact they choose not to means they're not even any good at being wrong.
It's crappy linkbait blog post pollution that irritates me, not anything that Apple's doing.
"Maybe they have a contract they can't get out of"
It really does pay to inform yourself before ranting. Worst case, you spent some time but your argument becomes more clear. Best case, you prevent yourself saying something uninformed and untrue.
In this case, yes, Apple tried to close the military product line, and the US military strongly insisted that PA Semi continue producing their existing military products.
Oh sure, I understand that. It is a complex issue that is a great example of the tension between philosophical or moral ideals and the more atavistic parts of human nature. I feel it would be hypocritical for me to say I am against it, since I benefit from the security and prosperity (and technological development) that military developments provide (and I'm writing this on a Mac). It's hard to fly on an airliner that wasn't built by an arms manufacturer too, and there are plenty of other examples.
What I mean is - you would think that the kind of people who write shrill blog posts about the iPhone SDK would be at least as incensed by these two points, and it's interesting that they have not emerged as anti-Apple memes in general, regardless of their validity.
I'd have expected to see more 'OMG steve jobs makes the brains for cruise missiles and steals our culture with copyright extensions' stuff around. Surely those caused Apple to become 'finally evil' to these people?
I'm a bit sceptical about the googlephone being the good guy. I wish he hadn't started on that. It's very tempting to pit the google phone against the iphone, but to be fair the only good guy in town is openmoko. The problem with openmoko though is that the interface is utter crap, but it's the best bet for a "free" platform for developers.
First of all, there is no google phone :) Let's be fair to Google, there's Android and then there's the G1. I don't have a high opinion of the G1.
Yes, in an ideal world openmoko would go head-to-head with the iPhone OS and it'd have a better interface and all that stuff. However, it will probably never be something mainstream users will want or care about. Android is the closest thing we have right now to be a rich, open mobile platform that will be on phones that a lot of people will actually buy and want to have. Until around the time the iPhone came out, people hated their phones, by and large. I give credit to Apple, though they do not get sole credit, for helping stimulate more innovation in cell phones.
Anyway, my point was that Android actually stands a chance against the iPhone OS but it's not a done deal and we still need good hardware for it. Ultimately, I want it to cause Apple to loosen up on these stoic principles behind the app store.
This is just IMHO: The whole "rant on Apple's app store policies" meme has run out of mileage. Its kinda getting like Rickrolls, except not as funny. I know several developers that have successfully gotten apps into the store. One of them is doing VERY well. His opinion when I asked him about this was basically, "Apple states it all pretty clearly in the documentation when you sign up. Some types of apps (podcaster for example) are obviously going to run up against functionality Apple already has implemented, if in a different form. You just don't develop for those areas."
It seems like mostly the only people who have been yelling, complaining, bellyaching, and blogging about Apple's policies are the ones that can't read the frakking docs. The developers who are all doing quite well don't have a big problem with the restrictions.
Bottom line, the iPhone SDK wasn't developed by an organization like W3C. It was built by a company that wants to make a profit. They own the incredibly popular platform. If you want to play, you play by their rules.
Otherwise, you can write apps for Android. You can sell your apps to the 1/10 of a percent of people that will buy the clunky HTC Dream and similar devices that do or will run the Android platform. I'd love to see Android running on the iPhone. That would give the great hardware plus the open OS. I would stick with the iPhone OS, but the option should be out there.
Totally agree. The iPhone is to developers as the iPod is to music owners. Sure, music owners could hawk their wares on any number of music stores, but only a deal with Apple would give them access to the huge iPod base.
I didn't mean to cut out from the loop the developers who have been making a lot of money from the app store with their great apps. And Apple can do whatever the hell they want with the iPhone, it doesn't belong to developers. That being said, it's just not fair for them to be so completely arbitrary in how they run the app store. Is it legal? Of course. There's nothing wrong with it, it just doesn't make sense.
When you have the potential to make even more money on a great product and make the user experience better and bring in even more users in the process, why wouldn't you? Yes, it does remove the control that Apple has had over their products and, arguably, has kept the quality of their products at a high level, but they're not doing the best job of filtering so that bad apps don't get in the app store so it simply doesn't make sense.
This comes across as a bit rant-ish, but I can absolutely see his point. Apple has a fine line to walk in terms of continuing to present it's users with the level of quality applications they are used to however the lack of clarity from Apple about the approval process coupled with the NDA means that nobody can even learn from other developer's experiences.
Sorry, it was a bit rant-ish and I openly admitted to it :) I almost never do that, but I was so tired of reading about all the junk Apple was doing to make developers' lives harder.
