It’s Not the Control, It’s the Secrecy
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
If, in addition to the App Store, developers were able to distribute apps themselves, there would be no problem. People would grumble whenever Apple introduced another asinine policy, but there wouldn't be such an outcry. Some restrictions in return for extra visibility and use of Apple's distribution system is a fair trade.
This isn't what we have though. It isn't just Apple's store they're locking down, it's the whole device. A store that you can't freely put software on is unfortunate but understandable. A computer that you can't freely put software on is just wrong.
Wrong? For most of the world it's exactly what they need. Allowing people to freely put software on their computer leads to a lot of bullshit. Hell, even experienced people will put themselves through a lot of bullshit because they're allowed to change things.
The regular people in the world want and need someone to man the gates of software. It may not be good for FSF or FOSS, but guess what? A whole fucking lot of people (And I mean a shit load) don't care about programming languages, kernels, drivers, or any other of that crap.
(Sorry if this comes off ranty, I have a cold and I get heated really easily when sick)
To switch to geek mode, the user has to solve a math problem involving SI units, answer "Do you really want to forgo ease of use for flexibility?" a dozen times, or some other ritual to prevent normal users from accidentally entering geek mode.
The core firmware of the device has a switch to do a factory reset to normal mode no matter how much damage has been done to the software. Look at the OLPC XO for an example of how that can be implemented. That way, if a geek ever sells their device, there's no need for the buyer to worry about the device being all "geeked out."
"Dangerous geek warrior mode" is much more akin to Jailbreaking.
* Sites start publishing easy how-to guides for entering GWM
* One-click tools to enter GWM are released
* Apps that use private APIs that require GWM are released
* Apple support has to deal with customers who fucked up their devices in GWM
* Apple has to deal with bad press when some malware spreads through GWM devices
* Any new iPhone OS release would have to deal with breaking however many GWM-oriented tools there are that rely on private, changing APIs. More bad press for little reward.
* The App Store is a huge win for end-users, and the benefit of that would go out the window with alternate sources of apps sprinting up. Where do you go to get an app? Where do you get the latest version? What happens if a non-App Store app gets really popular? You're back to having to manage your phone like it's a computer, which is a non-starter. You don't manage an iPhone, you use it.
You end up with a lot of phones that look like your computer-illiterate co-workers Windows XP machine from 5 years ago. But hey, people who like to tinker with their phones would be happy, so it's totally worth it.
Non-app store apps getting popular hasn't been a problem on other mobile devices.
In fact, Walmart is fairly picky about what they put on their shelves, especially when it comes to music CDs. We can argue that Walmart's control on the CDs it distributes might have a stifiling effect on the type of music that gets released. However, Walmart is not the only place allowed to sell CDs. Yes, it might suck that you have to make a Walmart-specific release of your album, but that doesn't prevent you from releasing a more explicit version elsewhere.
This is not the case with the App Store.
Where's your indignation about them?
Games consoles have only recently become viable for anything other than games and they're still not quite there yet. I do think their closed nature will be a problem in the future.
To me they're just the producer of the device and that's where our relationship ends no matter what idiotic, lobbied for, legal rules say (and please don't bring murder and rape into this debate, it's a whole different ball park).
I think there's less outrage because there's a sense that they are just for games. They are not intended to be general purpose computing devices, though these days they pretty much are. It becomes more outrageous when a device that you use for your private life, for your business, and for other things that really matter to you is controlled by someone else.
1. The government can engage in warrantless surveillance, violating my privacy.
2. The government can do so without having to justify it at all, even requiring that the act itself does not get disclosed (e.g. the much-abused national security letter).
Control and secrecy are both bad, and when combined is really staggeringly frightening.
The real problem is that pure content is being treated as an application.
There needs to be a separate whole section of the iTunes Store for this shit: Music, Movies, TV, Apps, Interactive. It'd come with its own Webkit-based development environment, like Apple is doing for their new iTunesLP format. The people making these pointless apps don't really give a shit about integrating with the phone, and they aren't doing anything they couldn't do in Mobile Safari -- they're in the App Store to get paid for their work.
There's clearly a huge market for systems that make it easy for customers to find and purchase apps, and for devs to reach those customers. People shouldn't be implementing payment systems over and over again for each product they create. It gives devs exposure and a market base.
I guess the problem is bootstrapping such a market. That's no easy task and the pay-off might not come for years.
Have a look few threads above - Apple is the only party that can put appications on iPhone OS devices - it is not that others are unwilling to do so, but Apple locked them out and unless there is a breakthrough in asymetric cryptography, it is not going to change.
I could see this working.
There is something like this: http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/
Thoughtcrime has not been a major cherished feature of the American experience previously.
I noticed this as someone who was born and grew up behind iron curtain.
There is a difference but it doesn’t matter for most people. It’s simply true that apps can present information just as good or better than websites. That’s just how it is. And I don’t like it either.
Objective, published criteria would make it harder to justify rejecting apps that threaten their business model. (Google Voice, for example) In addition, it prevents third parties from investing a significant amount in any one app.
At this stage in the iPhone's development, Apple may actually prefer not to have highly sophisticated third-party apps. Third-party apps add value to the iPhone, but they don't supersede the core OS applications. If apps became more like proper desktop applications and users came to value them more than the core OS, it would be easier for Apple's customers to follow ports of those apps to another platform. By undermining the third-party ecosystem, Apple gives itself time find out what people want and ensure the core OS apps have an insurmountable lead.
Monopolies are OK as long as...
All that aside, there is a problem: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-...
Even if you did think it was a valid comparison they don't really have a monopoly on the sale of Big Macs. They have a trademark (or whatever) on the name Big Mac but there are plenty of burgers that are very similar and you are free to create a burger that is identical in form to what McDonald's sells.
They can keep their monopoly on selling iPhone apps if they want to. I think that’s unfortunate but not something that has (necessarily) to be stopped. As I said: if they lose their dominant position, if you can get perfectly good mobile apps from any of those companies I mentioned.