Posts by DZ-Jay 938 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Apr 2007
You seem to attribute the lack of a single product that covers multiple networks to a decrease in Apple's perceived power over telcos. It could very well be a feature that could be implemented due to technical reasons before the intended release.
But sure, I guess it's more fun to continue to predict Apple's doom.
-dZ.
>> "Erm if you replace wikipedia with encyclopaedia Britannica in your comment what changes?"
I know that this is the standard retort, but consider that Britannica, as a private corporation intent on making profits and surviving, has it on its best interest to hire subject matter experts with sufficient experience. In fact, historically it has been trusted to do so.
Wikipedia on the other hand, has little barrier to entry. Yes, subject matter experts can write an article, but so can any ol' Tom, Dick and Harry off the Interwebz.
It is ultimately a matter of public trust, of course; and I will posit that trust is rarely engendered by lowering or even removing the barriers to participation.
-dZ.
I'm curious regarding your comments on Wikipedia. Whenever I need to consult an encyclopaedia, it is to research information for topics I'm either unfamiliar with, or not fully experienced on. How would I know if an article in Wikipedia is accurate if by definition I am not qualified to make this assessment?
On the other hand, if I am knowledgeable on a particular topic, I could accurately determine and gauge the validity of the content; but then, why am I looking it up on Wikipedia if I'm already an authority on it?
It's an honest question, not an attempt to troll. This goes to the root of my trepidation of using Wikipedia for anything else than trivia look-ups.
-dZ.
Oh, chill out, man. Nobody mentioned Open Source. The article doesn't even capitalize the word "open" to give it special meaning. It is not even talking about Linux nor any issue inherent in the software. It refers to the "openness" of the shop's *ecosystem* itself: a market place where anybody can sell anything, without artificial constraints such as a centralized curating body.
Jeez! Take that chip off your shoulder and try to to follow context.
-dZ.
Did you miss the part about the malware masquerading as legitimate applications? The authors took some real applications that people have been purchasing or downloading, re-packaged them with the trojan, and deployed them to the market place posing as the originals.
The users didn't necessarily lack judgement in installing apps "without ever checking permissions," they perhaps gave acceptable permissions for the app they *thought* they had downloaded.
I agree with you that users should exercise caution when browsing the open Web, and especially when downloading files from shady sites. However, in this case, the article is implying that the users had no reasonable way of knowing.
-dZ.
There is a sporting goods store in the USA called "The Sports Authority." Now, this is a very generic term if you think about it. Yet it is trademarked. Why? Because every other like store has a catchy name like "Foot Locker" or "Sears" or whatever, but none have used the term "The Sports Authority" before when naming a store. There may very well be an official "Sports Authority" government bureau, or maybe even an athletic complex with that name, but there are no brands using it as the name of a _store_ except "The Sports Authority."
There's also a grocer called "The Fresh Market," which also happens to be trademarked. And what about "Whole Foods"?
Like it or not, the same applies to "App Store." Maybe Nokia et all had an app store before Apple's, who cares? They didn't call it "The App Store," nor nobody actually referred it as such, as a proper noun, until Apple did.
While everybody would have refer to them before as "Marketplace" or "Download Center" or whatever, as soon as Apple named their own store the "App Store", the mainstream converged on that term to refer to the brand.
-dZ.
But that's exactly how it works. A trademark is no longer defensible when the word or phrase enters the mainstream consciousness as a generic term, within the same market segment. That means that if the majority of the populous uses the term "Hoover" to refer to *any* vacuum cleaner, not just those of the brand, then the trademark is lost.
However, it works both ways: if the majority of people use the term "Hoover" to refer to the machines produced by the Hoover company, then it is still protected. It is immaterial if the reason people associate it with the company is because of their market share or plain mind share.
Likewise, according to Dr. Leonard, a study of texts representative of the current mainstream language use identifies the majority of uses of the term "App Store" to refer to Apple's own store, and not generically to any application store. Note that this does not mean that nobody uses it to refer to anything else, just that the majority of common uses are referring to Apple's brand.
-dZ.
>> It is not a generic term for anything to do with computers.
Actually, it is. The term "window" has been used to refer to a graphical representation of a computer application's user interface, since before MS Windows existed. Really, the Xerox PARC team called those widgets "windows" when they implemented what is understood to be the basis for Mac OS and Windows.
I'm not really sure, but I also believe that Doug Engelbart called those UI elements "windows" during his 1968 Mother Of All Demos.
-dZ.
>> but when apps like the Kindle app use a web page in their app to sell stuff not being hosted by Apple, then it sucks that Apple is trying to get that money for nothing, which is precisely what it is because apart from the sale of the iDevice and iApp, Apple is contributing nothing to the specific sale of the specific item, be it an eBook or whatever.
Really? So, an _Apple_ customer, that already has a card on file, and is ready to buy has no value to the vendor?
These are Apple's customers using an app they downloaded from the App Store; if they were already, say, Amazon's customers, then they would purchase directly from Amazon, since the relationship is already established.
Apple is not charging 30% per transaction, they are charging only for the _conversion_ from curious shopper to customer. It is clearly explained in the policy that if a user is an existing customer of the vendor, Apple get _nothing_.
dZ.
iPod Minis and iPod Nanos are intended to be used with the iTunes Music Store; they are a completely different product than the iOS devices like the iPod Touch or iPhone.
As the parent poster said, the iPhone's appeal is iOS itself, not its phone-call making capabilities. And, as opposed to the little iPods whose primary function is as a music player which directs traffic to the music store, an iPhone Mini with just phone functionality will not offer any additional product or service enticement from Apple. Thus, it makes no sense as a strategy.
-dZ.
>> And by "customers can easily subscribe" they mean "we still get a ludicrous chunk of your cash" :(
Actually, it means "customers can easily subscribe." 16 million Apple customers that already have their credit cards on file, that do not have to consider whether they want to give their personal and billing details to *another* party, or go outside their known walled-garden in order to get their goods.
Presumably they already trust Apple, and clicking a single button and entering their password (as they already do for many other apps, songs and movies) is substantially easier than opening a new account on an unknown web site.
Lets be clear, _this_ is what everybody here is rambling about: that users will find it much more convenient to purchase through iTunes than through their own systems, and thus must lose 30% of every transaction. In other words, they are against offering the _choice_of_convenience_ to the user.
-dZ.
Actually, it's a defensive reaction. After Job's "Thoughts On Flash," the light was shown on Adobe as pushing for its own proprietary technology above what the rest of the industry was choosing: an open, collaborative platform like HTML5. That surely did not look good, and although it was mostly Job's version, it did raise questions amongst the supporters of Adobe.
This is Adobe screaming at the world that they are not just focused on "Flash," and that the industry can indeed bet on them because they will adapt to whatever technologies are practical and in vogue.
But you are right, it is a reaction to Job's attack.
-dZ.
>> "But Google does have some momentum behind it."
That's only momentum towards a standard for the Web. Presumably, MPEG is interested in another standard that can be used across platforms, technologies, devices, and media; kind of like MPEG-2 and H.264 are standards applied to the entire work-flows of the film and television industries.
-dZ.
>>"The Kournikova worm was the first to be created by someone with a toolkit and little technical knowledge"
I keep reading about these supposed "first" in the era of "macro" and VBScript worms, ignoring actual history, and all that came before.
I remember playing with something called NuKe's Randomic Life Generator back in the early 90s. This was a do-it-yourself virus construction kit, which employed a nifty menu-driven interface to create viruses (or mosters, as it called them) with pre-built code modules offering diverse destructive or stealth features. With just a few keystrokes you could create a polymorphic, boot-sector virus that would crash your drive and try to hijack Norton anti-virus to spread.
Before that there was also VCL: Virus Construction Laboratory.
Boy, those were fun days!
dZ.
Regarding (2): As I understand it, any developer is free to build a web browser using the WebKit framework (not based on Safari expressly, as it is often mistakenly said), and allow it to download content to either its own internal sandbox, or the common/shared files area.
Moreover, Safari is not "castrated" to prevent users from downloading content. Recognized content is downloaded and handed over to the application that handles it, such as PDFs or videos. It does not allow users to download arbitrary files, that is true; but this is because the device is not meant to be a computer or file system, but a consumer appliance. If people want to view videos or listen to podcasts, they can use appropriate apps to do so (and they do not have to use the AppStore for it).
-dZ.
We do know some real facts about the situation, and some of them are not what's represented in this story:
First, the policy is not to prevent booksellers like Amazon from selling e-books through their own channels. The policy states that "in-app" purchases must be done through the iTunes infrastructure. There are valid reasons for this, which I will mention below, but they are irrelevant: Amazon does not sell its books "in-app," they do it through their own site.
Second, the policy further states that if an application developer sells content through external channels, such content must also be available through the iTunes infrastructure as an "in-app" purchase. This does not limit choice, but expands it: Users must have the choice of purchasing through an external (and perhaps unknown) vendor, or purchasing the same through Apple (presumably trusted, if the user already has an iTunes account).
Whether Amazon will agree to this, is an valid question, but I can't see why they wouldn't. So far we know nothing regarding price restrictions, so it seems possible that Amazon can offer their direct sales at a lower price than the iTunes versions, and thus have an advantage. To presume that this is an anti-competitive stance rather than a user experience issue (more of this below) is premature and disingenuous.
To recapitulate, there are two separate policies here:
1. All "in-app" purchases must be done through Apple; purchases through other vendors can be done outside the app. Furthermore, All externally purchased content must be installed into the common file areas and not downloaded into the application package.
3. All externally purchased content must also be available as an "in-app" purchase through Apple.
Regarding the first two, there are some valid reasons why this policy is in place. The most important one is security: In-app purchases performed through external channels cannot be verified by the user to be performed through secured channels. Amazon knew this and did not argue the point, opting instead to have the Kindle re-direct the user to their own e-commerce site, so that the user can confirm that the transaction is done through a secure (HTTPS) transmission.
Then there's user experience issues: if an app downloads content within itself (by modifying it's package), the user will not be able to share the content between installations of the same application on different devices.
-dZ.
So, you are agreeing with the results of the experiment: what you call "the right interface," really means the right interface for viewing content which is pre-programmed automatically, and not "on-demand." Customizing the programming based on user preferences is still programming, not "on-demand".
-dZ.
Just to corroborate my comment, the NY Times article says the following:
"Apple told Sony that from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division."
Followed by:
"Apple and Amazon declined to comment."
Therefore, the only thing we know for sure is (as the license agreement stipulates) that all in-app purchases must go through the App Store API. Everything else is exaggeration or speculation.
-dZ.
The article suggests that Apple is cracking down on apps that provide content which is paid for outside the App Store, but this is not true. What Apple is doing is cracking down on apps that provide an in-app purchasing component which does not use the built-in infrastructure. In other words, if an app wants to collect money, it must do so through the provided API and the iTunes store. Apple has said *nothing* regarding content paid for outside the iTunes store.
Ostensibly this is to protect consumers by preventing rogue or dodgy apps from incurring charges unannounced or unwarranted.
The Amazon Kindle does not implement in-app payments, but re-directs the user to the Amazon e-commerce site. The user is then invited to pay for the content *outside* the app, and download it into the app. This is why it doesn't violate the rules.
It is of note that these rules were always in place, but just recently started being enforced.
-dZ.
As I understand it, Apple recently started cracking down on apps that implement an in-app store without going through the in-app purchases infrastructure provided by Apple. I believe this was always a restriction in the license agreement, but one that they recently started enforcing. Electronic magazines, games, and other apps have been recently removed from the app store for this very reason.
Amazon's Kindle does not violate this restriction since the user is invited to the Amazon site itself to purchase their books, and the transaction is not handled through the app itself. It appears that Sony did not want to implement an external e-commerce site and tried to bundle the store within the app.
Apple's stated position is that they need to maintain control of monetary transactions within the platform in order to protect the consumer from dodgy apps. I tend to agree with them, but take that as you will.
-dZ.
Coping humour is not unique to the UK.
I'm a 'merkin, and as a child I heard many jokes regarding the Challenger disaster. My favorite was something like this:
The Astronaut-Teacher's kid was being interviewed on TV prior to the Space Shuttle launch. A reporter then asked, "so, where's your mum right now?" to which the child replied "over there!" while pointing to the Shuttle's cockpit. A few minutes after lift-off, another reporter asked the same thing--just as the ship exploded in mid-air--and the child responded, "over there! ...and there... and there... and there... and..."
Lame? Sure, but it was hilarious by the standards of a 12 year-old.
dZ.
This is what happens when the visionaries of yore grow old: they lose touch with the pace of innovation and the desires of the people that guide it. Especially when they haven't been involved in guiding it for so long.
I admire Mr. Atkinson immensely for his role in shaping the vision of personal computing that we currently enjoy. However, like Mr. Kay and even Mr. Wozniak, they really have very little new to say in the way of technology predictions.
-dZ.
The problem is that what you suggest would have been mere accident, not a design of Mr. Schmidt nor a testament to his business acumen.
It wasn't that Schmidt drew the "necessary conclusions in time." Google saw everyone making money from Android while at the same time, due to the prevalence and focus on "app" specific functionality (rather than on "web search"), they saw their relevance diminished. Since Chrome OS was not ready yet (which was their actual strategic project), they opted to correct this situation by controlling the device end-to-end.
Thus it was greed and hubris (and actual lack of vision) that led to that decision. The hubris cannot be understated, because--as the article states--they completely failed to foresee the resentment that such a move would inspire among their own partners, who have at that point invested heavily in Google's platform.
Had Google succeeded, the move wouldn't have eliminated the oligopoly of the networks, but shifted it to a new lord of arguably equal ambitions.
-dZ.
Whenever I'm up for space travel, I'll make sure to stay indoors, in a padded room, and have my meals brought up to me and my personal needs attended by carefully chosen professionals. I'll also will not take the opportunity to taste any new foods nor practice any new activity, regardless of how attractive or pleasurable it may promise to be.
No need to increase risk of missing my mission.
-dZ.
>> Maybe Google will claim that their sites are in some way "better" and so deserve higher ranks. "Better" meaning "easing for our algorithms to deal with".
That would be fine. However, if you read the response from Google, they claim they do nothing. So which is it? Are they purposely promoting themselves over others because they feel entitled, or are they offering absolutely unbiased and neutral "organic" results?
Empirical data seems to suggest the latter, but Google denies. This is a problem with transparency with regards to their algorithms.
-dZ.
And since the technology world is moving closer towards convergence and rich media ecosystems, how would "The Web" play along when it is incompatible with the rest? Google wants to stick everything on the Web, while everybody else is trying to unite the experience. TV sets and other non-webby devices already support H.264 in hardware, and they are heavily invested in this.
-dZ.
I agree with your post. However, I would like to add one key point that everybody seems to be missing: while Google is concentrating on "The Web" as the sole source of content for consumption (GoogleTV, I'm looking squarely at you!), Apple seems more preoccupied with the inter-working of various media devices for this same purpose. In a very true sense, iOS devices form a rich ecosystem that encompasses *much* more than the Web. Tablets, television sets, HD movies, personal computers, content streaming, DVDs, etc. are all treated mostly equally in this ecosystem.
Now, the key point is that, outside the World Wide Web, the main codec for digital video used--and the de facto standard--is H.264. There is no question about this. Thousands of products, devices and applications alike, support this standard, which enriches and simplifies the experience of streaming and transferring video between them. More importantly, it opens it to any manufacturer of devices and to all creators of content, equally.
But Google makes no money outside the Web. Their core business is advertising within the World Wide Web. Therefore, it is in their most pressing interest to disrupt these external ecosystems, and promote the Web as the centralized point of access to content, while simultaneously segregating it from outside access (come on, do you think a name like "WebM" suggests it's focus on any other source?).
Make no mistake: this is purely a move against Apple. It is no coincidence that they chose to keep support for Flash--the single technology disavowed by Steve Jobs in iOS. By removing H.264 from their browser and promoting technologies not readily supported outside the Web, they are attempting to force content producers to support their "Die Web ist Alles" model with the expectation that Apple users will come back to use "their" Web, and thus extend their advertising reign and cast Apple's ecosystem to irrelevancy in one single master stroke.
That all this is done under the guise of "open" and "free" is not only disingenuous, but downright malicious. Google fans should think carefully about their allegiances, despite Apple's intentions and motivations.
-dZ.
Also, the additional segment in the peripheral antenna is a secondary receive antenna required by the Verizon specifications for their network. AnandTech is even claiming that the "death-grip" still attenuates the signal, so obviously Apple does not consider their antenna design an issue.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4125/understanding-the-verizon-iphone-4-announcement
In short, no conspiracy as suggested by the article.
-dZ.
Here's a thought, why don't you wait a few more generations until they release the one with the thought-controlled interface and a free jet-pack attachment. Oh wait, what if they release one with a tele-porter the year after? Perhaps you should wait one more year then. But, maybe 10 years hence they finally add the SD card slot; I say you should wait still for that one, then.
I personally think that the first generation of the iPad is rather "big stuff" already and I don't believe in waiting indefinitely to get that elusive mythical "next generation that will have it all," when I already know that they'll probably release a new and better one each year after. It's not like, say, the first generation of the Google TV or Windows 1.0 (or Windows Vista for that matter), which were actually half-baked, rushed to market, and rather worthless.
-dZ.
Although what you say is true, it's not the whole reason. As the article suggests, even if the single iPad had multiple profiles, it still does not solve the issue of one person monopolising it.
I've seen this first hand in my house, whereas my wife used her* iPad all the time, leaving me to consider getting my own.
-dZ.
* I wanted an iPad, but I purchased it as a birthday present for her, with the full intention of taking over it once the shiny wore off on her. To my dismay, almost a whole year later, she still uses it most of the time. The nerve of some people!
>> Nowhere except in the minds of journalists and people rich enough to spend that much on a toy, has this happened.
Maybe that's why all other manufacturers stopped dead on their progress of their upcoming tablets and smartbooks announced last year, in order to try to mimic the iPad.
Yes, I'm sure that missing the Christmas shopping season this year was part of their original plan.
-dZ.
The problem is that Android promotes the "single-function app" paradigm, as popularised by iOS devices; and the more specialised functionality you put in a single app, the less need there is to use the web or Google's webby services. This takes control completely away from Google's realm.
How then are Google supposed to make money if people are not funneled through their ad-fueled network and services?
The truth is that Android was a always intended to be a secondary market player, which by a historical accident (and to the surprise of Google themselves), ended up competing directly with Apple's iOS as a main player in the industry. ChromeOS was always intended to be Google's future for control of the web, but with "single-function apps" turning into the norm nowadays, the web as the single point of access to functionality seems much less sure now.
-dZ.
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