Night of the long spoons
If you sup with the devil, and all that.
The Apple App Store police are now rejecting iPhone and iPad applications for behaving like "widgets" and "creating their own desktops," according to one developer who's busy eating his previous claims that Apple isn't evil. In late April, an unnamed Australian — one of a small team of cross-platform developers known as Shifty …
Just because the rules haven't bitten you yet, it's worth understanding why people are complaining about them. The whole "well it hasn't hurt me" mentality is always a dead end for progress. I think the iPhone and iPad look great, but I'll stick with my laptop and OSX until I can use them however I like. I just hope they don't start locking down OSX too or I'll have to move back to Linux. To me, and apparently most of the world, the reason computers are so damn awesome is because they're so damn open.
If Apple really believed people wanted the platform under Apple control, they'd start limiting which websites could be visited. But they know that would be the death of both devices. People do want freedom. The only reason they can get away with the app limitations on the iPhone and iPad is because 1) the unlimited internet provides most of the usefulness in the first place and 2) they're supplemental devices; people already have a real computer to do whatever they want on.
And that makes clear the real reason I think Apple limits them: they don't want to cannibalize their computer sales. Fair enough. But I can't imagine how much it would suck to develop for a platform knowing you can get your plug pulled any time by Apple because you're making something too cool.
You are wrong, actually, as OSX is based on BSD kernel and, unless you are a kernel developer or low-level programmer yourself, in 2010 you usually don't budge with kernels.
All major operating systems' kernels are mature enough that desktop and applications are drivers of the average user's experience.
Well I think most Fortune 500s would disagree as most of them run Unix variants on their back-end servers, Trolley!
When you grow up, leave school and head into the real world, you will find that serious computing power does not come from some Mickey-Mouse 8 node Windows thing, but 64+ node Unix clusters running proper database software that can work in the petabyte size, not fall over when it runs a 50MB Access DB!
"Well I think most Fortune 500s would disagree as most of them run Unix variants on their back-end servers, Trolley!"
@The Fuzzy Wotnot
91% of the world's fastest computers run Linux, less than 5% run Unix. A fair chunk of the really fast machines run AIX and Linux.
(http://www.top500.org/stats/list/35/osfam)
The reason that Unix is still common in the business world is has more to do with marketing and legacy system support than the superiority of those OS's.
The very first thing I did when I got a Palm-based PDA back in my college days (yes, I'm that old) was to swap out it's boring white home screen with one I can change the desktop of.
For apple to deny such a thing when the home screen of an iPhone/iPad/iTouch is a boring black makes it less attractive. As much as I dislike M$, at least they're smart enough to allow skinning the desktop with custom themes.
Steve says wallpapering desktops is dead. I say he's being delirious.
But you can change the wallpaper on the iPad. That's a built-in ability, not something that requires jailbraking.
The upcoming iPhone OS4 will enable that functionality on the iPhone based on the demo.
You're right about them not doing themes, though.
By all means criticise a device for not providing a certain piece of functionality, but it's usually a good idea to check that it doesn't before hand.
And now I will be down-voted for pointing out facts that happen to be in Apple's favour. How dare I.
If you'd actually looked at an iPad, you'd notice that you can indeed have whatever wallpaper you want on your home screen. I've got a picture of the Peggy's Cove lighthouse on mine. True, you can't do it right this minute on an iPhone or iPod Touch, but it's been announced in iPhone OS4 (bit late, but it's coming).
So Steve doesn't say "wallpapering desktops is dead", he says "wallpapering desktops is actually not that bad after all, so go on then, if you must".
who didn't see this coming?
Well the Mac FanBois obviously. Jobs and his clan are rapidly becoming Balmer look-a-likes tho.
Hands up, I'm a Linux guy. This bitch fighting between users and 'owners' is getting tedious tho. OOH, dows it run on iPad, does it run on Android, does it run on AmigaOS?
I'm fucked off with this all now Reg! (Censor that if you want by the way?)
I want to develop an app without considering tedious laws or API's. I need money coming in. Any platform that is not letting me isn't an issue.
I've dropped all iPhone development. I now write Layers for approved apps on both. It's cheaper. If either company drop the apps we write to that run on both phones, we'll drop using that app until something better comes up.
Where is your Tricorder you once asked?
When the mobiles all have a standard HTML interface thru to H/W and software, you'll have it. Untll then, sod the buggers. In IT everything always reaches a standard, and pads, pods, mobes ( :p ) and everything else will.
"There is no alternative platform, despite what others may say about Android, it’s immature and their app store(s) are a wild west nightmare. It really is Apple’s way or the highway, and that really stinks..."
Well, stop whinging, get off your arse and help make Android's app store better. Google would be more than happy to take suggestions to make the Android market place better and more ubiquitous than the Apple app store and give you the alternative you desire. Jump ship now, before the rush.
Eventually, Apple will piss off so many developers and have such a bad reputation they'll come crashing down. Developing for the the iPhone/iPad is somewhat like taking a stroll through a minefield with a blind fold on: one wrong step and "KaBOOM!!" And the worst part is, you know that if you do anything remotely creative and interesting you can virtually guarantee you'll step on one of those really nasty anti-personnel mines that takes your nadgers off but leaves you alive.
Look at the latest SDK, it even states that Apple can reject an app for any reason. So it doesn't matter that they cannot see anything in the SDK that prohibits it; the catchall clause covers it. Developers should be leaving in droves and show Apple that they wield more power than Apple thinks they have. The other clue should have been the confidentially portion as well. A developer is coding an application and releasing it to the world; what is Apple really hiding?
Apple's stance might well be illegal. If you simply do not allow an app, that would probably be OK, but throwing it out AFTER it previously had been approved, that is unreasonable, UNLESS the developer made changes which make it unacceptable. Even then the previously approved app should still be allowed.
Given the great asymmetry in power between Apple and most of its developers, a judge in the Netherlands might quite easily throw out the catchall "we can reject anything for any reason we like, and change our minds any time" parts of any contract as being unfair and unreasonable.
I have been a regular customer of Apple since the summer of 1984. I have been looking forward to the next version of the iPad (I try really hard not to be on the bleeding edge, 'cause I've lost too much blood in the past).
But now I may have to consider the full gamut of pad / tablet devices.
I fully appreciate the desire and need of Apple to keep crap off the iPad, but this time it seems they are indeed going to far.
Perhaps my one-time classmate (Mr. Jobs) is suffering from pre-mature fuddy-duddyness.
Just modify your app a bit so it has a border and shows 2 pixels of the iPad desktop behind it round all the edges... Then nobody (well maybe almost nobody) can claim it's a desktop.
Then load it up with a logic bomb which triggers in 2 months time and screams "Steve Jobs is a wanker" out of the speaker at full volume.
...about their beloved "Apple-ness". People can argue as many points as they may please, the Apple company continues to conduct itself as an obsessive big brat, in the tech industry - at least to whoever endeavors to introduce new approaches to the Apple platform and Apple Co's beloved "Appleness."
I'm not one to say, "Let's sell all our Apple stock." I would like to say, with all sincerity: Apple, grow the f- up, stop slighting whoever rubs your fancy fur the wrong way, and support your developers, already.
The reasons for the rejections when they ocurr are in fact often subjective. I.e. It does not fit in with how Apple see their own image/brand rather than there being anything objectively wrong with the app concerned. That is why our aussie friend has not been given any explantion, nothing he could change so that it would not be dropped. The cults priesthood just don't like it - nothing objective about the rejection at all.
widgety apps. But our app wasn't widgety so we did nothing.
I think app devs all need to unionize or form an association to use their group effort to put apple in it's place.
Or just move to android. I personally can't wait to retire my iphone for an evo 4g phone from HTC/Sprint come Friday.