econgeeker

Yes, it is. The iOS Accessory SDK is public. You'd just be making an App that relies on people having this hardware already.

This works for hardware manufacturers who make iOS accessories and then want to ship an App to work with it (which is the general case of the cable.)

But you could, for instance, make an arduino hacking kit that lets you talk over the cable to a board, and sell that as an App in the AppStore.

That text communicates to me that it comes with no software to drive it and you'll have to write your own, and there are no assumptions about the hardware on the other side, but you could use it to work with an arduino.

Seems like this is the perfect piece of hardware to go with open sourced iOS software for doing development with the arduino.

Imagine being able to re-program your Arduino powered robot in the field from your iOS device!

How long until a former SNL comedian is holding Senate hearings about this major violation of privacy?

Except that Apple doesn't exercise any proprietary control, except if you want to sell in the App store.

If you just want to hack on your hardware, Apple doesn't care. You might void your warranty, but that's it.

Apple keeps the consumers protected, and doesn't stop the hackers.

This "very real threat" is literally an imaginary bogeyman that only "Free[1]" Software Hippies care about.

[1] So long as you use our license and only our license and never express an opinion contrary to the Chairman Richard Mao Stallman.

PS -- I've never met a real geek who thought Apple was exercising proprietary control outside of their realm. All of the people who complain about Apple like this-- that I know personally-- are not geeks who got into linux (and the "free" ideology) because it was cool, not because they're really hackers with engineering skills. But that's just my personal experience. Of course, they think they are the "real geeks" and that people who use macs use them because "they come with training wheels" and stuff like that.

Wait, did you want to hack together a solution, or sell something in the App Store?

You can run any software you want on your devices without Apple caring at all. Either your company is an enterprise licensee, or you pay your $99. Big deal.

$99 keeps the script kiddies out-- you know the ones who download iOS betas to show their friends and then complain that they managed to brick their device?

Wait, why should a geek be appalled that Apple cares about the quality of accessories people sell?

Its not like two weeks ago, before this product, you wouldn't hook an iPhone up to an RS-232 port! You could always do that if you wanted to hack together a solution.

Apple just made it official.

And really, $60? Seems a bit high, but there's the fact that this is a specialty product for a specialty market, and realy, if you're hardware hacking the time savings of buying a working product is well worth the $60.

I truly do not understand the idea that "geeks" wouldn't love Apple. To me, geeks are either people who really love technology, or people who have very strong engineering skills. I have both. And because of both, I really appreciate Apple doesn't waste my time , money or energy with crap. Apple makes first rate products, and that means I get to spend more time geeking.

People also seem to think that Apple has everything locked down. I don't see that at all-- you can work with nonstandard hardware if you're a developer by using the Apple supplied accessory SDK. Sure, consumers-- that is to say, non-geeks,-- are kept from hurting themselves to some extent by Apple, but that's a good thing. Means I can recommend their products to my mom.

Hackers have been hooking up iPods for years. Apple doesn't mind it, and you don't need Apple's permission. The idea that Apple is "locked down" while others are "open" is silly.

When it comes to you, using your Apple hardware with any other hardware any way you want-- apple doesn't care. Strap C4 to both, and Apple won't care.

Just don't try and get a warranty repair after you blow it up.

What Apple does care about is people selling hardware that interfaces with its hardware. Apple wants to make sure that hardware doesn't run mains voltage across the Apple board os they get a stream of "mysteriously" dead iPhones.

Apple provides really first rate hardware support in all their Apple stores. I think a lot of people don't realize this. But they do. Often just replacing hardware if there's any debate, and even sometimes completely out of warranty.

The approval here is merely to sell an authorized accessory. If there's demand for these beyond the hobbyist market, the price will come down and others will make them.

If not, then the people who are using them don't care about spending $60. You could got to sparkfun.com or other such companies and get interface electronics to build your own in years past... this is just someone making one commercially to make it less hassle.

I don't understand this comparison. Android tablets have not proven to be cheaper than the iPad (adjusting for screen size).

It is true that this cable is overpriced, but that is simply because there isn't a big demand for serial cables, and thus only one company (so far) has made one.

Apple's "approval" process is like the approval process for the appstore-- they just want to make sure stuff isn't going to take you to the back alley and mug you. Roach motels don't care.

So, I'd say, iPad is $49/night, with a deluxe breakfast, optical internet, and nobody takes you in the back alley and mugs you.

You're correct, but I think this also is why it needs to be Cook.

Essentially, Apple is a one product company. That product is "the mac". The "mac" comes in the form of a combination of software and hardware. OS X on Macintoshes is the past, iOS on iDevices is the future. All of that is Forstall (if I'm understanding things right.) And even then, the hardware is merely the box for the software. They make a very great box.

But Forstall is the "new jobs" in that regard. Ive can demand that it have fewer buttons, and Schiller can demand that marketing be on message, and Forstall has to listen to them, and if he doesn't then Cook should have their backs. Cook is thus well placed to be the "vision guy" (and yes, I think that is a legitimate description and that he'd be just as good as jobs at it) whose got his finger on the daily operations but also is looking 5, 10 & 15 years into the future.

Apple University is the glue that holds these four guys together and keeps them on the same page. Plus, of course, The Writings of The Chairman from Jobs over the years.

In fact, I would bet good money that there literally is a book within Apple, that probably only has a dozen or fewer copies, written by Jobs about the Apple Way and presenting his vision for the Apple Way. In a way, his living will to the future.

I think this book is Apple's equivalent to Cokes "secret formula", only Apple doesn't trumpet that they have a secret formula, they keep even the existence of it secret.

You may not use them, but not everyone speaks english. Plus, I suspect that those were one of the things that got removed and that get pulled down at install time if needed.

IIRC The 3.7 Lion install is down from the 4.7 Snow Leopard install, which was the result of a crash diet that Leopard was put on, I believe, bringing it down from around 7GB originally.

Apple's been squeezing out the bloat for several years, I believe, with the intention of doing digital downloads of OS in the future.

This implies the Mac App Store has been in the planning stages since around 2007-2008 or so (when Snow Leopard development likely started.)

Everything in this article is false. The author admits having not even read the patent. This is just misrepresentation to further an agenda that wants to pretend that Apple didn't invent anything with the iPhone.

Reality: That compaq used a stylus, it was not a touch screen. And the patent doesn't say what is being alleged anyway... but then, its easy to construct arguments when you get to make up your oppositions position, right?

By definition, this whole thing is knocking down a strawman.

FWIW, every time I research one of these "alarming" "absurd" patents on an "idea", the turth turns out to be something else.

I'm convinced that the target audience never reads the patents or isn't conversant in the art sufficiently to comprehend them.

And thus these are essentially political posts to foster the idea that Apple doesn't deserve any protection for their inventions in the iPhone, because those making the claim are android fans or apple haters.

Reality is this: Prior to the iPhone, android was ripping off the blackberry. If Apple hadn't done this work, you'd still be arguing over which phone had the best physical keyboard and bespoke facebook interface.

I checked that page and checked the page specifically addressing Sovereign Immunity in the USA. Other than the repeated assertion that the US government has it on the wikipedia page, I could find no evidence that they do.

For instance, I doubt the constitution provides for this immunity.

I think that this immunity is not legal.

But maybe I missed some text in the constitution that grants it.

Most americans voted for either a democrat or a republican in the last many elections. I think he's safe saying "most americans" since the democrats and the republicans were involved with all of the situations he's describing, and even in recent elections, most americans voted for democrats or republicans.

There's no such thing (legally) as a warrant under court seal. If there is no warrant presented, and no warrant that can be gotten simply upon request by the searched party, then this was a warrantless search.

If it was a warrantless search, it was a crime, and every participant engaged in a felony (presuming they were armed.) US Code 18-242 makes it a felony to violate constitutional rights under color of law (while armed. If unarmed I think it is not a felony, a lower penalty applies.)

If the constitution is the highest law of the land then no subordinate organization (namely congress) can make a law that violates the constitution. Congress was authorized to make laws, and the government was given limited, enumerated powers in the enumerated powers section. If a particular law is not under and enumerated power, or involution of the constitution, it is never a valid law. The moment it is signed, it is null and void-- according the the supreme court in Mabury v. Madison.

Thus, a law authorizing a "court seal" for warrants, which violates the fourth ammendement, even if it exists, is null and void, and does not need to be struck down by any court to be null and void.

Without this law, without any presented warrant, the search is thus illegal, and every participant is a felon (if they were armed.)

I say all this to point out, just how far from obeying the law our government is.

Of course, it is absurd to expect that any prosecutor in the justice department will bring any of these people up on charges (presuming that an investigation reveals the facts to be as supposed in the context of this discussion.)

Since the government is not operating within the bounds of the law, the government doesn't have the protection of the law, and the government is, itself, a criminal organization (to the extend that the previous two clauses are true.)

Denial of this-- which is not really an opinion so much as legal fact-- is why americans are constantly surprised when things get worse and worse. (For instance: The TSA is not valid under the law, all of their searches are illegal. But nothing was done about them, so now they are molesting children in public.)

Things are going to get much worse until people start standing up to the government.

If you don't like the patent system, I have a sympathetic ear. I have issues with it as well. I've yet to see any proposals for an alternative, though, and an alternative would require amending the constitution.

If you're going to abuse the system to push competitors out of the market, you can do this with every competitor. Apple has not sued RIM, Palm, Microsoft, or any of the feature phones that -- from an abusive, overly broad perspective-- infringe on Apple patents.

Apple has only sued the people who took the iPhone design and replicated it. Apple is going after the cloners, not the competitors.

Before the iPhone was announced, android was an OS for a blackberry type device. It was better than RIM's OS, I believe, but it was the RIM formfactor and UI style. After the iPhone was announced, suddenly android became a touch-screen phone OS, copying the iPhone.

It is important to remember that a touch screen UI was never done before in this way. There were no touch screen phones prior to the iPhone announcement. It isn't like the iPhoen was just another phone... the iPhone was a new kind of phone. It created a new category. Just as the iPad created a new category (despite there being table PCs in the past, going way back, there was no tablet device market prior to the iPad.)

Apple invented the touchscreen UI, and much of the technologies for the modern smartphone. Apple started working on the iPhone and iOS system for the iPad project sometime around 2002-2003. Google started working on the touch version of android in 2007- after the iPhone was announced. If google had decided to compete, and launched a massive R&D effort, and invented a bunch of stuff, then they'd have patents of their own to defend with. They didn't, they just copied the iPhone.

There is no question android is designed to be an iPhone like OS running on touch screens with multi-touch. Apple invented this category of product, Apple has patented it with legitimate, innovative, non-obvious inventions.

Calling this "abuse" communicates to me that you think when it comes to software, people should be able to copy whatever they want.

I think that's bad. I think google should have innovated, and if they aren't willing to do so, then I don't think the should be able to just outsource their R&D to Apple and get the results for free.

The purpose of patents is to open the kimono and let everyone know what you've done. Apple did this, which gave google a heads up for starting their own innovations. This is good for innovation because it means companies don't have to start from scratch. It isn't a license to just copy the patent and not innovate.

I don't see anything here that couldn't be a fabrication on LOMO's part as part of an attempt to smear manning. LOMO isn't exactly a stand-up character, and combined with someone inside the military (which wouldn't be hard to find when the government is looking to create a scapegoat) these logs could be easily fabricated.

I also don't think that text logs, which cannot be authenticated in any way, could be admissible in court. But then, military courts aren't usually concerned with justice.

Can you show me a Times, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, or NBC article, that's not an editorial, taking a pro-gold position? That's the mainstream. That's what the mostly-unsophisticated read and believe.

The genuinely unsophisticated have a negative net worth, and they're not holding gold. They haven't dug themselves out of the hole they got into during the housing bubble.

Do you know where we can find statistics of financial holdings by households in the USA? I'm sure it will show an increase in gold holdings, but the vast majority of people who have any savings at all have them in naive instruments like mutual funds. Even holding individual stocks is a level of sophistication that puts you above probably %80 of the population.

Holding gold is probably at the level of holding stocks in terms of sophistication right now... to do so you have to recognize the fundamental error in the worldview held by essentially the entire media-- and that takes a lot of thinking.

I do see a lot of people who aren't completely unsophisticated, but not very sophisticated who bash gold. These are the people who hold mutual funds and don't understand why paying %1 of your total assets to a mutual fund in order to underperform the market (which they think they're not doing because they have an "index" fund) is a bad idea, even after you try to explain it to them. ("Stocks are too risky, that's gambling" they say).

For the past 10 years, I've been seeing the same arguments, mostly ideological, against owning gold. I won't call these people unsophisticated, as it take some sophistication to understand why gold is a threat to their ideology.

Certainly there is more awareness of gold in the USA than there was in the 1990s. On political radio- conservative or liberal- you hear "buy gold!" advertising. I've been hearing those ads going back, at least, to 2005! They were there in between the mortgage refinance ads back in the day. On TV you see people pitching "investment grade" and "rare" gold coins. They think numismatics are the way to go, and they are charging too much money. I've seen that since the 1990s. I bet the amounts of both of these kinds of marketing of gold is up significantly in the last 10 years.

All around Europe, eastern and western europe, I've seen lots of signs at money changers and some banks who are happy to sell you gold. These signs are generally posters in the windows, not metal signs or painted, so this gives me the impression this is a new phenomena. I was very happy to see these signs, given my experience in the USA.

In the USA, if you want to buy gold, you can spend way too much to buy it on the TV. Or you can go to one of the few local retailers who sell bullion - but generally their primary business is either selling collectable coins or selling jewelry. The bullion is a side business. Unless things have changed in the last year, it is a pain in the ass to buy gold in the USA. There may be one or two of these bullion dealers in a larger sized town. You can't just go to the money changer or the bank.

I gave you several reasons for my perspective. Consider them critically. But if you're looking for someone to agree with you, and tell you I'm a dirty rotten capitalist who is full of it, you'll have no trouble finding that.

I would strongly recommend that you not rely on my opinion, or that of the "hive mind" or anyone else to make any sort of financial decisions. You have to use your own judgement and you have to learn what you can about the subject. This is why I said, "If I'm wrong, I'll be punished"-- the market will take one action or the other, long after this conversation is finished.

I would suggest reading economics books such as "Economics in one lesson" by Henry Hazlitt Free here: http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf

By all means, keep a critical eye on anything anyone says in favor -- or opposed-- to gold. That is why I read what you said and considered it seriously. I'm keenly looking for evidence of a bubble, and you referenced a metric I use.

I'd also recommend looking a bit into the history of gold, preferably by reading articles here: http://mises.org

Here's the short summary, see if this fits with what you know of the world: Gold is historically been the best form of money because it was difficult to counterfeit, had reasonable value per given weight, was malleable, didn't degrade, etc. But governments want to spend more than they have, so they choose paper currencies over gold. The nice thing about paper is that they can make it "money" by passing a law, forcing people to use it... and they can print as much as they want. The downside is, they get addicted to this spending, and in doing so, they always need to spend more and more. The more paper there is in circulation the more pieces of paper it takes to buy anything tangible, and prices rise, which means costs rise for the governments and they need to print paper at an even faster rate.

These effects take a very long time to play out. They ultimately result in a currency crisis, however. Gold is merely something that is difficult to counterfeit, and it is difficult to bring new mines into production. So it serves as a hedge against currencies.

I don't think there's ever been a gold bubble. When gold has gone up in response to a currency, really it is the value of the currency declining with respect to gold. The amount of gold in the world doesn't change very fast- it can't- at least in terms of currencies, and thus really the "gold price" is the "price of the currency in units of gold." $1,580 is not a gold price, it is a measure of the value of the dollar.

I disagree with you strongly, but I think you made a good attempt at an argument and I think it is wrong you were downvoted, so you have my meager upvote.

I think your argument is disproven by walmart. Walmart doesn't chase "the super rich" they actually chase the bottom end of the market. They make good money by doing their darndest to make prices as low as possible, both to increase volume (and marketshare) but also to cater to the market that doesn't have a lot of disposable income.

I don't see the problem here as a lack of "equality", in fact, the super rich are taxed more than the poor. If things were equal they'd all pay the same dollar amount (not even the same percentage, the same amount in absolute terms.) That would be more moral as well.

The reasons those with less money have trouble affording things is that they have been impoverished by government. Presume you're at the lower tax bracket and paying %15 to the IRS. You're paying another %15 to Social Security (though only half is reported on your check, you have to earn the other half as well or you wouldn't have your job.) You're paying- what %4 to medicare? %3 for unemployment insurance, say %5 in state income taxes (just picking a low number since some states don't have it and it varies.) That's %42 of your income right off the bat.

Now if you're just scraping by, that means you're spending all of the remaining %58! All of that is taxed at rates from %8 (city sales tax) to %30 (cable, phone, an flights) to as much as %40 (gasoline).

If we take the lowest figure there, %8, then that means of every $100 that person makes, government takes %50. It is worse fro people in the middle and lower middle incomes. Their state and federal income taxes are higher.

That's why people have trouble making ends meet.

We went off the gold standard in 1914. There was a minor depression in 1920, but the government did nothing and it resolved itself. In 1929, the government decided to abandon that policy and took action, and by 1933 the use of gold as money in the USA was forbidden by executive order.

When you criminalize the wealth of the country, it is hard to blame people's use of that wealth for the problem. By 1933 it was literally a crime for money (in the form of gold) to circulate, and much of it was sent overseas to hide it.

Switzerland still has a conservative financial system, and may benefit from a "flight to safety" as the euro deteriorates. That might be his reason for buying francs.

Francs used to be backed by gold, and might still be partially backed by gold. I think they are not redeemable in gold anymore, but that the country keeps a large supply of gold onhand. So, sort of a partial fiat currency.

However, one can own gold directly, which provides a hedge against all currency risk. It sounds like this is what he is doing, and then also holding some francs against a panic in europe.

China's errors seem to be ones of engineering: Overbuilding. America's errors seem to be ones of lacking fortitude: constantly increasing over spending.

If neither change, china is headed for continued growth and maybe some painful re-allocations of capital, while the US is headed off of a cliff.

It is true that in a bubble everyone is telling you to buy. But I don't think we're in a bubble for the gold price for a couple reasons. The first is that most people with an unsophisticated financial perspective (eg: hair dressers) are not aware of gold (in the countries I've visited.) The slightly sophisticated (Eg: people who invest in mutual funds) have been claiming there was a gold bubble going all the way back to when it was only $400 an ounce.

But the other reason is we haven't seen gold take leave of the fundamentals. The financial crisis that has been unfolding since 2008 has revealed that the only response governments seem willing to take is ever more monetary inflation. The more money out there, the higher the price of gold. Secondly, most gold trading is at the level of very sophisticated people, not the average joe. When average joes start piling in and blowing up the price, then gold may take leave of its fundamentals and we'll have a bubble.

The thing is, in bubbles, supply rushes in to meet demand-- but you cant' scale up supply of gold like you can dotcoms or houses. Environemntal regulations and kleptocratic governments keep new mine production opportunities limited.

Finally, mining companies-- which should be the darlings of the gold bubble if there is one-- are trading sympathetic with the rest of the stock market, not contrary to it. If we were in a gold bubble, then good news for gold (eg: bad financial news) would cause those prices to go up-- but they don't they go down now. This indicates that they are not seen as an alternative, but as being subject to the bad news the same way General Electric, et. al. are.

We won't enter a bubble phase until that has changed. When people start seeing gold as a safer asset (or as a bull market "you just gotta get into!") then we'll have entered a bubble. At that point, when there's bad news for General Electric, you'll see a bump in the price of GoldCorp. We saw this in the dotcom bubble-- a big IPO for a tech company would cause a decline in General Electric or Gold for that matter.

All of these are subjective observations, so neither of us can really prove the other wrong of course. I found it interesting is that we use the same signal to detect a bubble-- the hair dressers and MLM schemes. I'm impressed to see how much more popular gold is outside the USA than it is inside the USA. I take that as a sign that it is heading towards a bull market.

However, if you're right and I'm wrong, I will be very severely punished by the markets. I'm not too worried, though. I got punished by the dotcoms. I played the housing bubble successfully going up and going down and got out a bit early, but am happy with the result.

I remember being told I was crazy on forums because I said there was a bubble in housing. So, you're not crazy, I just think you're too early.

I believe under the GPL, you can sell software, you just have to distribute the source, that's true.

However, the message hasn't seemingly sunk in, as there are many people who seem to be followers of stallman who get up in arms any time someone sells open source software (even if they are distributing the source.)

It is apparently offline now, but there used to be a huge list here: http://ffmpeg.org/shame.html

I picked some at random awhile back and looked into them. Every single "shame" was a commercial company that was complying with the GPL, and was distributing source code to ffmpeg. (Running it as a separate process, not mixing the code.)

This didn't matter to them. They documented constantly harassing these companies, who would try to comply with their demands (most of which were not required by the GPL) and then would give up, because the demands would just escalate.

It was kinda like software terrorism-- harassing people for selling software that included -- sometimes as a small part-- open source code.

" if you want to stamp out all this zeal and prejudice, you start with YOURSELF."

You're talking to the person, rather than the point. In fact, looking at your original response, it is constructed to do the same thing.

I'm done here.

I'm not sure the point you're making, but I should have said "phone interviews, at least for me, are a waste of time."

I would have brought you in face to face... a recommendation from someone already working there is a very valid positive signal.

People are very different. It takes all kinds. The kind of hacker you are, is not the only kind of hacker there is. There can be very bright, excellent engineers, who spend their entire off-duty time watching TV. They don't have a duty to contribute to open source software and choosing not to does not tell you anything about their skills as an engineer.

I remember once a new coworker telling me -- on his first day, no less- that he didn't have a computer at home. He was proud of this. He was a new CS graduate, and for him, computers were not an interest, at all. It was just a job. I asked him what he was into, and it was sports, naturally.

I didn't like that, it rubbed me the wrong way. I probably would have given him the thumbs down if I'd been in the hiring loop then.

Turned out he was a good engineer. Better than that, the sport he was into was one I got into as well and we spent a fair bit of time over the years in our off hours far away from any computers.

It is an obviously unsound practice because at its core is an ideological prejudice: We're going to judge you, not on the quality of your skills, but on whether you contribute to open source software or not.

Candidate are better off working for companies that are interested in getting to know them in order to make hiring decisions, rather than running them thru a political correctness filter.

I don't really care whether I convince you or not. I believe the basis for wanting someone's github id is a prejudice, and I've not had luck convincing prejudiced people that they shouldn't discriminate.

I find it interesting that you presume the hit rate on bringing people in based on resumes would be very low. I can tell a good engineer from a bad one, pretty well, using resumes.

Phone screens, however are a waste of time. It is difficult to establish rapport with someone over the phone, for both parties, and I've seen some people actually ask programming questions over the phone.

One very good engineer I hired, back before I was running my own show, did terrible on the phone screen.

I brought her in, though, because I saw something in the resume. She's asian and had a real problem talking on the phone, but eventually got the job and was great.

You are making a decision with an enormous impact. Therefore, it is critical that you do it based on a truthful assessment of the candidate-- not ideological prejudice.

What I really wonder, reading this story, is how he would have done if he'd gotten a product that didn't look like an iPod.

What percentage of his customers were thinking they were buying an iPod?

My nephew, one day, came to me excitedly telling me he was getting an iPhone and he showed me an ebay page with a "new in box" iPhone for $50. (he had $50 in birthday money to spend.) It was not an iPhone, but it looked like one. He's too young to understand, I think, the existence of knock off products.