Apple's "benign dictatorship" of the App Store leaves users, devs in the dark.
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
The nature of the platform protects you from the likes of Apple.
That there are options doesn't make Apple any more right here. I'm not saying that. But there are other platforms than Apple's closed circus. And people should consider them.
With time I hope people will see that value in an open platform. That these people, those who have their daughter threatened to be re-muted by Apple, that they still insist on using Apple's hardware is a mystery to me.
You would at least think that they saw why choosing Apple is fundamentally wrong for any person who considers himself free. If you're not free to do with your own property as you please, how much of a free being are you really?
"If you're not free to do with your own property as you please, how much of a free being are you really?"
Freedom is an illusion. Name one piece of property you can use as you please without restriction?
That depends entirely on how large your private security force is and how willing you are to bribe certain officials.
No, they would still have the same problem. Google has the killswitch ability. Amazon and Google do remove applications from the store on a regular basis for copyright violations.
EDIT: And the ability to install an APK from anywhere still doesn't mean that they'll be able to keep selling it while the court proceedings are going on. This problem isn't a technical issue. It's a legal one.
And that makes the platform infinitely more attractive to anyone who values freedom.
And the ability to install an APK from anywhere
still doesn't mean that they'll be able to keep
selling it while the court proceedings are going on.
And btw, I haven't seen Google pulling Android from the market in the eve of Oracle's lawsuit. That's because you are still free to sell your products until infringement is actually proved !
If PRC made that motion, and the judge allowed it, Speak for Yourself WOULD have to pull the APK.
You know what? No. The web is not a computer, it is not a computing platform, it's not magical app juice that makes things native application developers have to worry about just go away. It's great at some things and remarkably, profoundly shitty at others. Quit trying to sell the snake oil that the cloud is the future of computing, and we can bin our CPUs, storage, and native code. It's not happening.
Seems to me, on the basis of the videos of the software I've casually viewed, they could do it in MOAI in a few weeks. (http://getmoai.com/)
Most of the work for a 'port' is done: the content and design of the app. If the content is well organized, they could do a cross-platform version of SfY Next-Generation (runs everywhere: win/osx/linux/ios/android/&etc.) that prevails beyond falsely imposed boundaries.
Well off the top of my head, going on stories I've read in the past two months: The Apple app store is about 2-3x more profitable than the Android marketplace. The fragmentation of Android makes developing cool apps using new features a nightmare, as about 4% of all phones are using the most recent version of Android. The Android Marketplace has had problems with piracy and illegal app copying that aren't as bad on the Apple app store. Stories of people more willing to pay money for iOS apps.
If you really can't understand why someone would prefer one development environment over another for reasons other than "freedom" (the irony of calling developing for the whims of a fickle, fast moving market supported by a corporation you like more than another corporation's market 'free' seems to be lost on you) then I don't think you can be reasoned with.
I wonder how safe it feels doing working on a platform where you know that someone else, without any justification what so ever, can pull the rug under your business and say "so be it". You know, like we read about all the time with regard to iOS. Businesses dead because Apple declared them so.
Nice.
You seem to think that when I value Android over iOS, I do so because I prefer one corporate entity over another. That would be a false assumption. I value Android because the platform is open and will never own me.
I know this because I have cloned the Android git-repo, built it and deployed the build on my phone. From open source code to a working platform which I can use.
You will have to work very hard to convince me that this isn't open, that this isn't free and that somehow my preference for this platform is entirely corporate fanboying. If you somehow see that as "cannot be reasoned with", I think you may be in need of a mirror.
Just to drive that point home:
But amongst all of the oohs and ahhs of the new products and updates, there was one particular announcement that sort of flew under the radar. According to Apple, it now has more than 400 million active credit card-linked iTunes accounts…
At first glance, this may not seem like a very big deal. But let’s put this into some context. Paypal, arguably the most well-known digital payment provider, had somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 million accounts as of 2011. And only around 100 million of those were active.
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/06/14/most-overlooked-anno...
Yes, but it also protects you from the likes of customers and profits. Last time I checked that was still the case with Android vs iOS marketplaces.
Do you think developers are idiots that develop for iOS BECAUSE of the restrictions? They develop for iOS DESPITE the restrictions, because a) that's where the money is, b) more high-end devices and latest versions of the respective OS at more end user hands with less fragmentation headaches. Plus, as a API, Cocoa Touch is pretty hard to beat, not for easy of use but for sheer _comprehensiveness_.
That said, going with Android could have worked well financially for an app such as this though, where the customers have a real need for it that is more important than their preference in smartphone.
>You would at least think that they saw why choosing Apple is fundamentally wrong for any person who considers himself free. If you're not free to do with your own property as you please, how much of a free being are you really?
The concept of freedom, as developed in Greece and Rome, is all about influencing policy and not being under the will of another man. So, a better question would be: if you are not free NOT to work as an employee, i.e not to spend 8+ hours a day under the commands of another, then how much of a free being are you really? Or, if you are not free to have an equal influence in public affairs with Joe Billionaire and Jack Lobbyist, how much of a free being are you really? Furthermore, if half of your life is regulated, from non-smoking laws, to anti-abortion, to whatever, how much of a free being are you?
The "installing whatever on my smartphone" is really really low in the freedom list...
Given how important computers are in our society (and they're only getting more important) and given how many people use a smartphone as a primary computing device (and that's only increasing), I think "installing whatever on my smartphone" is higher on the freedom list than you think - and it is only moving higher.
It's perfectly fine to have a a curated app store by default, it's not OK when it's the only option. Especially when your as big as Apple is.
If you are critical of Apple's 'dictatorship', how can you be comfortable with the idea that the government is going to wield its power any better? You can choose not to do business with Apple. Try that with the government.
We aren't talking about public safety, fraudulent behavior, or monopolistic advantage here. You can even utilize Apple's hardware and ditch their curated ecosystem if you want (jail break your phone). Nobody is going to stop you.
Running to a lawyer and the courts when you don't like the product offerings of a private company is absurd.
They already do. In the US we call those dictatorial edicts regulations, and they specify how many business operations are to be done or impose restrictions on how things can be done.
Laws against putting sawdust in meat? dictating the business operations of a private entity. restrictions on how pure gasoline must be to be used in a car? dictating the business operations of a private entity. Laws restricting the reasons a business can fire someone or refuse to hire them? dictating the business operations of a private entity. I could keep going, but I think I've made my point here.
> If you are critical of Apple's 'dictatorship', how can you be comfortable with the idea that the government is going to wield its power any better?
Because in the us the government is not a dictatorship.
> You can choose not to do business with Apple. Try that with the government.
I believe that is called immigration.
> We aren't talking about public safety, fraudulent behavior, or monopolistic advantage here.
The government is not restricted to making laws abut just those things. Article 1, sections 8 through 10 of the Constitution define what the government can and can't make laws about.
> Running to a lawyer and the courts when you don't like the product offerings of a private company is absurd.
I think you are mischaracterizing what is happening here. I think it is more correct to say that what is happening is that people are running to a lawyer and the courts when a private company is trying to control how you use their product (and possibly making changes to how it works/what it does) after you have purchased it.
I was responding to the notion that Apple's decision to only support a curated app store should be 'fixed' by the government because it is in some unexplained way 'illegal'.
You are introducing a lot of other issues that I wasn't trying to address.
If you don't like Apple's curated ecosystem: use Apple's Enterprise Program to distribute unreviewed apps or jail break your phone or switch to Android or switch to a Windows smartphone or start your own company and compete against all of them or don't use a smartphone or ...
These are all preferable to supporting the idea that there is something illegal going on that has to be remedied by a lawsuit.
Which is so unlike the legal regime that backs up that "private" entity when it uses government granted privilege to keep competitors at bay (such as with patents and insane copyright legislation).
I would be perfectly fine with having their own little private ecosystem where they pull the rug out from under developers -- if they would stop trying to undermine those trying to compete with it via lawsuits, for that would just mean that they would ultimately learn their lesson. But when the government stands behind their tyranny over developers, they never learn.
[1] If the patent system is good/evil/broken/whatever is a separate argument. And if the patent system is the problem you fix the patent system, not something else that isn't related to it.
No, I said if the free market were in force (as opposed to the protection racket that is the patent system), then THAT would teach Apple a lesson.
I made no remark about whether there should be strings attached to government privilege, but certainly it's reasonable that if someone is profiting unjustly from government handouts (e.g. patents), then they shouldn't have carte blanche.
I disagree. I think, if the control were introduced slowly enough and with the right justifications ("security" and "convenience" spring to mind) many users would welcome iOS level restrictions on their general purpose computing hardware. Indeed, we're already seeing Apple move in this direction with its increasingly strict restrictions on App Store purchases in OSX.
I hate to be as alarmist as Stallman and co., but I do think the ship has sailed on this one. The only way to guarantee that your device is open is to run an open operating system on it. If this were an Android app instead of an iPad, then the developers could have asked users to install a different app. store (like Amazon's app store) or even offered the .apk for the users to install themselves. It would have been less convenient than installing from Google Play, but it wouldn't have been nearly as difficult as with iOS.
If microsoft did that, There would have been no browser, No hacker news and you wouldn't have had opportunity to post that comment.
So yes, I agree with you. If Microsoft had been allowed to proceed down that path, it's conceivable that Hacker News wouldn't be around, or would exist in a different form. Now Apple is going down the path that was trod earlier by Microsoft. Yet the Justice Department today is silent.
> Why is it tolerated in iOS?
It's like if I buy all the real-estate in New York City, then force all businesses to pay me 30% of there revenues if they want operate there, and forbid any business that competes with one of mine.
No one holds a gun to your head to buy an iPhone/iPod/iPad. There are alternatives to these devices, some with more freedom, some with less.
I wish just as much as the next computer geek to be able to side-load any app into my iOS devices, but millions of zombie machines and a slew of critical private information harvesters are way more detrimental (and even more in your phone which may become your credit card and whatnot). I honestly sleep much better now that I know my relatives won't download, install and execute some random app, since they conveniently have all they could wish for right in the App Store, reviewed and signed. It's not an invincible fortress, but it's way safer and more secure for them than a full-open (or even half-open) situation.
Do you think the farmers make more than 70% of the retail price you pay for food in a supermarket? At an eatery? Do you think that book authors (before or after the internet) get more than 70% of the retail price of each book?
In selling things, the creation of the thing is important, yes. But so is getting it to customers and changing over the money (distribution and retail channel).
I, for one, am glad of the situation. No sideloading means less piracy.
And you don't need a relatively new Mac, just a Core 2 Duo Intel or newer (I have a 3 year old MBP and can sign/develop for iOS 6 beta seed 1).
And it requires absolutely zero technical knowledge: You just drag and drop an .ipa file, and sync with iTunes.
Xcode is free.
So, only your first argument ($99/year, for 100 devices) is actually correct.
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I hate being forced to defend Apple in a case that I don't agree with what they did, but your very poor criticism made me to correct you. I'm sure you understand that it's nothing personal, and doesn't mean I agree with what Apple did.
Only if we allow you blowing off the "need a Mac" requirement to equal zero dollars...
It's kinda a decent sized hole in your argument.
However if I were to play smart I'd say I didn't have any argument and was just refuting my parent's :)
http://www.theolympian.com/2010/04/18/1209941/kid-writes-iph...
Apple is in no danger here. They can just say "On further review, the plaintiff's case is not as strong as we thought; we'll wait for the courts to decide and eagerly await their decision.". But there's nothing from them at all. They didn't put the app back up, they didn't issue a statement. They wouldn't even talk to Ars about this story. What's going on in there? This is a PR disaster.
So... what would Steve have done?
Most of the time, though, Apple just doesn't get involved in stuff like this. What's in it for them? It's not actually a PR disaster for Apple; if anything, from a coldly calculated perspective, this is good PR for Apple.
That's pretty much it. There's basically nothing they could say or do that works out for them in either the long run or short run.
If they leave it up after the C&D/DMCA/whatever complaint, they could be sued. If they make a statement that's remotely in support of PRC's case, the story suddenly isn't PRC vs. Speak for Yourself, it's Apple vs. a little girl. If they make a statement in support of Speak for Yourself, it's suddenly PRC vs. Apple. None of those outcomes are positive PR. While the third is a feel-good move, it doesn't actually do anything positive with the case.
It's in Apple's best interest to just pull the app and stay silent until the courts decide the case.
Sure, that's a risk (though probably a small one: they know the revenue this app is producing, so they know what the maximum likely damages will be -- this certainly doesn't look like a big market to me). Bad PR is a risk too (I mean really: did you see that girl's face? You seriously aren't sympathetic? You think no one else is?). Why'd they take it down if they were going to "stay silent"?
I really am sympathetic to her, and that's the problem for Apple. PRC's actions, while they may be legal and proper, just don't feel right after reading that story.
It's an intensely emotional story. It's hard not to feel that Apple and PRC are the "bad guys" here. Apple's actions could be, at from a purely unemotional and logical view, be defended as a proper response to the situation. PRC's suit could have merit. But because of the emotional baggage, the moment Apple makes a statement defending or explaining their actions, the story absolutely changes from "PRC sues Speak for Yourself, and little girl is caught in the crossfire" to "Apple vs. little girl".
Apple cannot win that. Nobody can.
I understand the frustration with what apple has done here (which actually one of the prime reasons I haven't bought an iPhone or iPad; I don't buy computer products that don't give me root access or otherwise attempt to restrict how I use the product), but it's not like apple isn't being consistent with applying their policy.
They have taken down apps in the past that have been accused of violating patents/copyrights /trademarks without a court order. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is now actually liable for lost products or damaged reputation for not policing possibly infringing apps once notified of a lawsuit since they've set a precedent for doing so.
Our competitor sent a complaint to Apple, so we re-assured Apple, sued the complaining company, they counter-sued, and eventually settled.
The suit cost about 20k and we made minor changes to the app UI as a result. Waste of time and money for everyone.
Throwaway account and no other details because I'm under NDA.
As for the ambiguity - there will always be some.
One of the insanely useful things about the iPhone (at least to me) is that it syncs automatically with Address Book, iCal, Mail, iTunes, and iPhoto. To my knowledge, Android phones haven't done the same. Yet the increasing bogosity of Apple's policies make me wonder about the alternatives.
Though, you are trading one behemoth for another. You could, of course, substitute some of the pieces of this with your own, or other services without a hitch.
I believe that their behaviour is because they are Apple. They don't need you. You need them. So or you stick with what they give you or you can leave. Personally I left. But sadly to make them care one person is not enough. Too many people are still "blind", or stuck with them and cannot leave.
They've always been very pleasant and happy to help.
It's how market dominance works. As long as they have a massive userbase of paying customers, developers/businesses will find it tricky to leave.
When I upgraded to the iPhone 4S from the iPhone 4, the .ipa wouldn't install. Even when I tried to add it through iTunes, it would immediately delete itself.
They've pulled many apps for various reasons, so far they haven't reached into user devices and removed/disabled apps.
(Of course, they may still get a "real" legal injunction from selling it of some kind, but then at least they can stop complaining about their competitor back-dooring the justice system).
What would a malignant dictatorship be like?
Apple users are wildly happy according to surveys. The platform is still the strongest dev environment is Apple's history. The tradeoff is reduced control over your hardware and software. Not perfect, but concessions are made.
The use of metaphors is always what rings false though. The 'crystal prison' or leaving users in the 'dark'. Users are given a touch device that talks to everyone on the planet, can download things for 100 pennies, and becomes more useful with time. User don't see this as a dark prison in any way.
May want to click the link first next time.
"whining geeks have no affect on Apple and it's users, we should just stop paying attention to them" Obviously, that's wishful thinking. Computer experts will always pay attention to what most people are using and the markets that drive it, and other people who care what smart people think will continue to seek their opinion, because they are right.
Not really interested in why this has become a standard tactic by some... but it's not gaining any ground, so you can just stop it.
I respect people's wariness, but if they feel this way there are dozens of alternative options. Much better to promote them than to rag on what other people enjoy.