Apple, Give Us a "Freedom of Choice" Button
eff.org
eff.org
No?
They don't have to make it _easy_ for you to do anything you want. They can choose what functionality they put in. But they're hardly stopping you from doing whatever you want with the device.
- Is it a picture frame?
- Does it include political cartoons?
- Does it include an ideograph of a clock?
- Does it do the exact same thing as the previous version, which was accepted?
- Does it include legally licensed song lyrics that mention sex (with the appropriate "adult content" black mark)?
- Does it display an unoffensive screenshot from a Mac?
- Does it allow access to the Internet through public APIs?
- Does it mention the price of the Voyager spacecraft?
- Does it use the extremely popular OpenFeint network and the reviewer happens to be in a bad mood that day?
Also, can you give an example of a major rejection story where the developer "freaked out about being rejected" and wasn't right? I don't think that happens. Apple usually tells you in no uncertain terms when your submission has been rejected.
And yes, the app may go on to be "fixed" and then approved, or it might not. That doesn't change the fact that it was rejected for a bizarre reason to begin with, in contradiction of your claim that only apps that use private APIs and illegal and confusing apps get turned down. There are many more reasons, a lot of which aren't written down and a lot of which don't exist yet. That's the scariest part — Apple will just change their minds. Remember the Great Skin Purge, where they deleted tens of thousands of apps for "showing skin"?
[1]: http://www.macworld.com/article/60252/2007/09/iphoneunlock.h...
We need digital privacy, portability and general freedom laws enacted by congress to set the playing field level between consumers and producers for this next revolution, the digital/social/mobile revolution.
It is not enough to say "vote with your wallet". Our liberties are being encroached from every angle in the digital sphere. Virtually every major corporation that plays in this space is screwing the consumer one way or another when it comes to these basic, common sense rights we should all have. Why is it that myspace and facebook and google and apple and amazon all have their own twisted, difficult to understand, legalize terms of service and privacy policies? Where is the government intervention, who loves to stick it's nose in everyones business, when it matters?
I don't want to be protected from doing voluntary transactions by the federal government - they have a pretty bad track record of making citizens' lives worse when they do that.
And besides, laws like this are started as a shield, but eventually get turned into a sword that's corrupted and hijacked by entrenched powers in the various industries. It's the nature of the current political situation with lobbying and a public that cares about the hot button issue, but doesn't follow up on the regulations a few years later to see how it turned out. Once people no longer care, the lobbying starts and you get all kinds of asinine things. Thanks but no thanks - the federal government isn't the answer.
Why can't my data be my data, backed up by law? Why is it that I can't get my data back from facebook anyway and anytime I want to? Why do I have to rely on the benevolence of facebook? Replace facebook with any other social site or entity.
I can get my medical record, by law - not based on which doctor I see.
I can get my credit report, by law - from all the agencies.
I can get a prospectus from a publicly traded company, by law - from all of them, not just those that think it is a competitive advantage to do so.
Cars need to adhere to certain minimum emissions standards, by law - not just because their engineers care about the environment.
I can go on all day. Do you think that any of these private/public entities would provide such niceties on their own volition? Perhaps some. But why do we need to rely on their whim.
Again, as for protection from voluntary transactions I agree with you. I want to smoke and drink all day till it kills me without the government being involved. Nevertheless, both smoking and drinking are regulated and for good measure. Who can disagree with that?
At some point in the not to distant future everyone will have a smart phone. Everyone will be on some sort of social network. Everyone will use Google or an equivalent. Everyone will have at least one device that can track their location on their body most of the time.
There is no feasible way that this will not be regulated. We can only hope that when it is regulated it is done as a shield and not a sword.
Sure, and you picked decent ones, but you left off all the inane bureaucracy like Sarbanes-Oxley with the time, hassle, and money it wastes.
> Do you think that any of these private/public entities would provide such niceties on their own volition? Perhaps some. But why do we need to rely on their whim.
Consumers have more control over companies than they do over the government. It's a lot easier to quit Coca-Cola than it is to get the government to stop subsidizing corn syrup. The corn subsidies are incredibly unpopular, yet persist, whereas I quit Coca-Cola and now don't drink it. Problem solved by individual choice.
> I want to smoke and drink all day till it kills me without the government being involved. Nevertheless, both smoking and drinking are regulated and for good measure. Who can disagree with that?
Well, me, for starters. Should you be able to smoke marijuana in your home? Choose your own medical treatments and practioners? How about not letting a English doctor practice in the States for... no good reason? Does that bother you? Should you be able to eat fatty food? It's your life, I have no right to vote to place controls on it. And you have no right to vote to place controls on me. It might happen, but if it does, it's wrong.
> At some point in the not to distant future everyone will have a smart phone.
If it matters to you, choose the most open options and protect what you share. Be intelligent and use your own discretion. I believe in your capacity to make good decisions for yourself, I believe you're smarter and more well-equipped to make the right choices for you than politicians, lobbyists, and bureaucrats. Likewise, I want to be able to make my own choices about my own life, and the idea of well-meaning politicians, lobbyists, and bureaucrats affecting my options is a very unpleasant idea.
> There is no feasible way that this will not be regulated. We can only hope that when it is regulated it is done as a shield and not a sword.
See, I'm not going to hope - I'm going to look at track records. Specifically, USG's domestic policies over the last 50 years or so. It's not a pretty track record.
The point of watchdog groups like the EFF is to make some noise and get people to realize they should care about having alternatives.
And preemptive to the reply I'll get: apple rejecting an app doesn't infringe on free speech anymore than not getting your letter printed in the NY times.
It isn't like Apple is going out of their way to tell potential customers "people are out there writing software that you would like to have on your phone, but we aren't going to let you have it".
Why shouldn't the EFF be free to criticize whoever they want?
It's quite simple -- you can choose not to read blog posts that are clearly going to be critical of the app store.
The problem is that consumers don't necessarily make the choices that are in their own best long-term interests. That's why tobacco companies are still in business.
Apple has a responsibility to its shareholders to make money. It therefore has a near-totally correlated responsibility to make products that appeal to the market. If people want Apple products they will buy them and if there exists a market that Apple chooses not to sell to, other companies will exploit it.
The problem is that consumers don't necessarily make the choices that are in their own best long-term interests.
Best for who? You? You, like I, may like the freedom that OSs like Android allow, but the majority of people don't really care at all.
Did you read my comment at all? I was arguing that if iOS gained a large enough market share, using Android might become a choice with unrealistic costs, like insisting on using OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. You could do it, sure, but you'd alienate all your colleagues and/or limiting your choices of employment.
If people want Apple products they will buy them and if there exists a market that Apple chooses not to sell to, other companies will exploit it.
That's a straw man argument. If making iOS more open would necessarily equate to Apple choosing not to service any market, please show me how.
Best for who? You?
That question is peculiar, considering that it's a direct response to my saying "their own best long-term interests". :p
You, like I, may like the freedom that OSs like Android allow, but the majority of people don't really care at all.
That's actually part of my point about people not necessarily making choices that are in their own best long-term interests. Let's use SUVs as an analogy. SUVs are bad for the environment. What's bad for the environment will in the long run be bad for themselves. People still buy SUVs because they're spacious. In the same way, I would argue that, pleasing as the restricted platforms Apple produces are to consumers right now, the lack of freedom might result in a long term loss for consumers.
Like I've said before, the choice here is not between "open" and "closed," but between "open" and "good." That's the part that annoys me. If there were a legitimate platform that's just like the iPhone only without Apple's ridiculously oppressive policies, I'd be all over that. But there's not.
People raised issues with Microsoft practises because as a dominant player they set the industry trend. Taking it lying down means accept this as a general trend.
* Should Apple have the policies it has?
* Should Apple be legally allowed to have the policies it has?
* Should we buy Apple's products, given that it has the policies it has?
One might think the answer to the second and third are yes while the answer to the first is no.
That suggestion is only somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Look at Microsoft's direction for Windows Phone 7, for instance, and tell me it's going to be any sort of alternative.
And as for Android... eventually, someone is going to release some kind of really hideous malware that does substantial harm to a large portion of their user base. Jobs will spin this event as inevitable -- just as he has already tried to do by casting Android as the "porn" platform of choice -- and Google will end up marginalized further in the public view because they made the silly mistake of leaving their garden gate unlocked.
The harm done by Apple's policies can, and has, rippled out across the entire mobile computing sector. It is dangerously naive and disingenuous to claim that you can dodge this damage by "choosing not to buy an iPhone."
I don't own an Android phone, and am only superficially familiar with its OS or software stack. Do you think that the Android OS is architecturally more susceptible to malware than iOS? If not, do you think that Android's application distribution model is more likely to get malware onto people's phones that Apple's highly restrictive one?
That's my understanding, yes.
However, unlike a lot of people including Jobs, I don't see the ability to write deceptive malware for a platform as a "bug." People need to challenge this assumption early and often.
My choice.
Even if Google decides to focus on making Android appeal to a broader audience and starts following Apple's strategy, the market will still exist for open devices. Either someone will cater to it (which I am confident Google will continue to do), or the market has become so small that no one will bother. Either way, it's just the free market at work, not some evil conspiracy.
I'm sorry, but I stopped reading beyond that bit. There is no functioning government regulatory body in this world that would allow exhaust systems without catalytic converters or external wastegates, for example.