Steve Jobs Admits Apple Made a Mistake | Hacker News Reader

Steve Jobs Admits Apple Made a Mistake

mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

63 pointsrooshdi50 comments

Steve Jobs needs a Twitter account. His email responses are the perfect size.

Reading the title, I was hoping to see he decided to change 3.3.1

After thinking about it for a while, I think the reason developers are so upset over 3.3.1 isn't just its direct effects. I think that many developers hoped that Apple would make the App Store more open over time. 3.3.1 is a clear sign that the opposite is more likely.

Reading the title, I quickly looked at the url, expecting it to say theonion.com

Admitting you made a mistake does not mean you have learned from it. Apple has proven this over and over in the past few months/years.

Reading through the comments, I am really struck by how much good will apple has completely squandered. The most obvious interpretation of events (in my mind, at least) is that no US based company would ever, ever want to be associated with censoring a satirist, and that the removal of the app really was a complete fuckup, indicative of a system that needs is not working like intended.

A lot of the other comments seem to think it isn't a fuckup, that the system is designed to keep satirists out. Which would mean viewing apple in a pretty extreme light. The only way someone could think that about a company is if you have a lot of ill will towards them in the first place. The whole level of suspicion towards apple right now is a sign of just how much they've fucked up the goodwill they earned with their shiny products.

I don't think that apple is intentionally rejecting satire apps. But I do think that unless they make a real effort to start earning back some trust, they deserve to have people thinking that way.

Does it matter? They're still selling, a LOT.

Watch how people ACT, not what they SAY. Steve Jobs knows this. People slam apple all the time but they're doing incredibly, incredibly well. So, from their POV, who cares?

Short term, yes.

AT&T wireless, Time Warner internet, Ticket Master, etc. are also doing well financially, but as soon as they lose their monopoly power and there's a good alternative, they're toast. I know 0 people who would pick them over a good alternative if they knew of one.

I love Apple products, but I would say they're heading down that same road with developers. If they ever lose their dominance in the app world, I think they're going to see a lot of defection.

Alright; its time to resubmit my apps that ridiculed public figures and see what Apple says.

If you're a Pulitzer winner then there won't be problems since that's all we can conclude from this article and App Store policy.

I was honestly expecting an onion article.

Even as a developer, I realize that political satire is far more important to the mobile platform ecosystem than a choice of language (e.g. 3.3.1). I'm glad that Jobs (and therefore Apple) realize that something needs to be "fixed" with the process that banned Fiore's app.

He didn't mention the process. It sounds like he is talking about this individual case.

Programming languages and satire are both forms of self-expression. So the difference between them is superficial. Lisp for example encourages a kind of punning.

>He added: “Editorial cartoons of all stripes should get a pass when it comes to the license agreement with the exception of those that espouse violence.”

Which means that Apple is in fact censoring content? Or does this exclusively refer to criminal violence?

Maybe Steve Jobs would respond more often if every little message didn't generate a news article.

And maybe every little message wouldn't generate a news article if he did respond more often.

Maybe, just maybe, every little message doesn't generate a news article.

The only thing I learned from this is that if you won a pulitzer prize for your satire you can resubmit your satire app. Just like if you're Sports Illustrated you can have an app with girls in bikinis.

It's just ugly to watch this hypocrisy. I don't plan on using iPhones anymore, or getting an iPad and maybe that means I miss out on really great phone and what looks like an amazing tablet, but at least I'm not a part of this long haul of an trip down Steve Job's ego. The thing is, I don't think Jobs thinks that he's doing anything but the right thing, protecting his app store from junk, and that's admirable in weird sort of way. It's just such a pain to hear about this ordeal day in and day out, for what like a year or two now, and just the parade of bad Apple news doesn't stop. I don't blame the tech blogs for reporting on it, I don't blame users for buying Apple's incredibly amazing devices. You know who I blame? Apple's competition for a complete inability to make decent shit that is at least in some alternate universe comparable in quality to what Apple produces, minus a crazy genius' ego. But I guess I don't live in that world. I guess in this world there's only one company capable of making good computers, and it just happens to come with a shit load of baggage.

Apple's competition for a complete inability to make decent shit that is at least in some alternate universe comparable in quality to what Apple produces, minus a crazy genius' ego.

If you want this, lobby for patent reform.

Patents are not the whole story. I doubt any other company cares as much as Apple about how the bottom side of their laptops looks. I don’t think you can patent that.

I'm not sure you get that kind of attention to detail without a crazy genius's ego.

You can get it anywhere you take a normal, passionate person and then don't rape that passion with stupid bosses and committees.

You need the crazy dictator's ego to suppress the formation of the normal corporate culture of stupid bosses and committees. MBAs and marketing droids are like mosquitoes on a warm summer night near a swamp, and you need eternal vigilance a lot of DEET to keep them away.

The most valuable thing Jobs does is suppress the bozo explosion that invariably occurs at successful companies.

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/how_to_prevent_.html

Yes, totally -- but you presuppose that there has to be a large corporation to use passion at all.

To create a perfect global supply chain that produces complex electronic devices -- yes.

But not for lots of other things. You simply don't need the other people to begin with. If there's no middle management, you don't need a crazy genius to suppress its horribleness.

I'm protecting my passion by quitting all client work. :)

It made a real difference for me.

Or copyright reform, or cell phone law reform.

If you were, by law, allowed to unlock the phone, and they had to allow it, then 99% of Steve Job's crap wouldn't matter.

And the phone also would not exist.

That's a bogus argument.

Right, because if Steve has any restriction at all on his genius, he'll take his ball and glove and go home, instead of ... making a great product and making a profit.

Yours is a stupid argument that can always be whipped out to justify corporate abuse. Or any other abuse, for that matter.

Setting aside your attack on "Steve", the point I'm making is that no one WITHOUT A PATENT has developed an iPhone, or anything remotely close. Prove me wrong. I dare you.

How does A PATENT [sic] have anything whatsoever to do with whether people are allowed to unlock it?

I was responding to this comment: "If you want this, lobby for patent reform."

1> Didn't say patent reform. Also needed, but not related to this conversation.

2> Copyright reform could remove prohibitions on cracking the DRM, allowing people to install whatever and allowing third parties to legally install whatever and to legally bypass the signing and "licensing agreement" which is clearly a license of adhesion, especially in many states.

3> Cell phone law reform could mandate "install whatever" on devices be legal.

Already does exist. It's not going to stop existing if this regulation/law is made.

I think HTC is the closest thing to a credible competitor for Apple in the smart phone business. Their phones are incredibly well built, and Sense UI looks quite good and is improving.

I was rooting for Palm, but it looks like they are unable to deliver phones in Sweden.

In my dream world I'd get a HTC built phone using the webOS GUI paradigm, but with the OS and applications written in a language which compiles to native code instead of JavaScript.

HTC has come a long way from the purveyor of crappy Windows Mobile devices they used to be.

My first exposure to them was a Windows Mobile phone a couple of years ago, was an exercise in frustration.

Possibly because of the software, and the fact that I always lost the stylus.

But when I'm looking for an iPhone replacement, one of their Android devices will be a strong contender.

My wife and her parents used to have AT&T Tilts (HTC TYTN II). Like you, they were very frustrated with the phones. Now they all have iPhones and are very happy.

Question: why does that baggage matter to you (as a user)?

Apple makes good products. What do those products do? They enable people (i.e.: you and me) to do great stuff, without getting in the way. Stuff like programming and writing and designing.

An Apple product - to the average end-user - is an abstraction layer to all those other things. If the abstraction layer works, use it. If it doesn't, don't. Baggage has nothing to do with it.

Because it shows up on HN more than once a day. Because I use Apple products. Because I create apps. This Satire app rejection made the New York Times It's no longer just an Arrington rant anymore.

"What do those products do? They enable people (i.e.: you and me) to do great stuff, without getting in the way. Stuff like programming and writing and designing."

I don't know how you can say that with a straight face.

Because buying Apple products is voting for a future in which editorial cartoons are censored by a giant computer company with monopolistic ambitions. Even if you have to live in that future, it would help to know you didn't have a hand in bringing it to pass.

That's an emotional response as a developer, not a user. Not a logical response. You may dislike what Apple's doing politically, but if you limit yourself to using other, inferior products - well that just doesn't make sense, really.

Some of Apple's competitors DO make good products. They just do not have the brand loyalty and marketing power of Apple.

"Good" is a relative term, but I think here it is meant in comparison to Apple's products. And although it's subjective, a lot of people (including myself) don't see anybody making products with the kind of quality Apple does. This isn't brand loyalty, because I don't really like Apple all that much. They're far too evil these days. It's just hard to find anybody else making products that good.

Yeah? Who made the iPod killer? The iPod has been around for a long time now, why hasn't anyone come up with something decent that competes with it yet?

There are quite a few mp3 players that are superior to contemporary iPods on a technical basis.

But none that are good enough that their names popped into your mind when you wrote that comment?

Out of my head:

* Cowon S9 / Samsung P3 if you want a big screen

* Sandisk Sansa Clip (Plus) if you only care about music (cheap price too)

I currently own a S9 32 GB and the old Clip (8GB), and I mostly use the Clip at the moment.

Disclaimer: I used to lurk on http://www.anythingbutipod.com/ a few months ago :)

PS: ABI's Top 5 players of 2009: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2009/12/top-5-mp3-pl...

>>>The only thing I learned from this is that if you won a pulitzer prize for your satire you can resubmit your satire app.

No. This isn't the first time it's happened and Apple was called on it then too:

http://ebooktest.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/another-day-anothe...

Apparently, after that one was fixed, no policy lesson was derived from it.

Given the stuff Apple sells in iTunes in terms of video and music, why this happens is extremely strange.

This is the worst linkbait I've seen in a long time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com