Steve Jobs lectures devs, dodges antitrust action

It's Apple's platform, dammit.

It's Apple's platform, dammit. I don't hear you bitching about MS or Sony curating their platforms (Xbox Live and PS Network).

For non-techies (who, despite what Register readers think, make up 99.9% of the population) a curated platform is exactly what's needed. They are Apple's customers and it should be up to Apple what they sell to them, not a bunch of Unix-bent sysadmins like you lot.

How the arrogant have been taught a lesson

I guess that the imperialistic Jobs has learned it is hard to fight the Washington bureaucracy.

The piece says: "... that Jobs & Co believe that it's their role, not yours, to decide what you can load onto your iOS device.

In Apple's paternalistic world, you're an unsophisticated child, unable to make your own decisions. It's not up to you to decide what you want. Apple will take care of that for you."

Maybe the majority of iPhans like this amount of control exercised over them, they certainly have a different take on new product reliability with millions buying the defective Lemon 4 after Jobs admitted there were problems.

The aesthetic appeal of the Lemon obviously attracted many yet they passively accepted a poor quality plastic band which not only detracts from the Lemon 4 appearance but also signals to observers they are looking at a defective phone.

Smart vendors might be able to make money from this large audience with a definable, unusual characteristic.

uhuh

Yeah, well, frankly I'm glad Apple is telling develoeprs to produce great apps. Enough not just with the fart apps, but also with all of the crappy ugly and buggy software. If these kinds of developers won't adapt then get rid of them.

What's next, Reg, calling newspapers to task because they only report good stories (though less so these days), leaving all the non-interesting stuff behind? I'm a consumer, god-darn-it, and I should have the right to choose for myself.

my 2 cents

intercourse Mr. Jobs and the fornicating horse he rode in on.

It's Jobs' right to decide!

And it's my right to decide to buy an Android phone instead of an iPhone.

Between Jobs' condescension and being spammed by Google AdMob, at least I can root my Android phone and kill AdMob. I can't do anything about Steve's 'tude.

So many opinions aside...

t sounds like Apple is interposing themselves as a quality assurance firm, between the software developer and the user - and it's Apple's ball, Apple's bat, and (in Apple's own views) Apple's own baseball diamond, so they set the rules about how people get to play on the field, if at all.

If it's not hardly a democratic approach, but it's not a government either. In Apple's view - even the customer's own iPhone is still Apple territory, and King Jobs reigns ><

I think that it would naturally bear some contrast to the policies used, on other mobile platforms, in implementing each one's major (i.e vendor-provided) approach to the "app store" pattern.

In that, I'm familiar with BlackBerry App World, as a user of the same It seems to me that BB App World would is using a completely democratic policy, there, simply supporting availability of applications, on the platform.

Though I've yet to find any applications providing "mature rated" content, there, I've not set out to find such, either - save for one curiosity-compelled search for a Playboy app's description, a search that yielded a description of an application not even hardly risque.

Even so, BB App World isn't the only place one can go to - given an "out of the box" BlackBerry - as to install applications on the same.

I presume that the case may be quite similar, on the Android and Maemo platforms.

Back to discussing Apple, specifically: I think their policy can be read as it being an odd development after recent ideas about "intellectual property rights".

So long as they don't go into real estate, I guess I'm alright with it....

Yay!

More self destructive policy from the land of the iTards!

O_o

"It's not up to you to decide what you want. Apple will take care of that for you."

Apple dictate your desires to you. Google will predict your desires before you knew you desired them. So it Google telling Apple what to tell you to do?

Egads!

Thank You

"In Apple's paternalistic world, you're an unsophisticated child, unable to make your own decisions. It's not up to you to decide what you want. Apple will take care of that for you."

Thank you, Reg, for telling me what to think, because, you know, I wouldn't be able to decide without your help. I'm happy to join the rest of your sheeple readers.

Having said that, I'm a little concerned, as a developer, that there are restrictions. The restrictions, as they stand now, are outside the applications I am developing and have developed, but on the same token, I think it stifles creativity. I'd hate to be the guy who comes up with a great innovative idea, spends a year developing it after his work day, just to be denied.

Unfortunately, it's still the best thing going right now for freelance developers.

So much laughter, so little time...

If Jobs were a politician he would be somewhere right of the BNP. He's worse than our ex-Labour leaders who ingested paranoia for starters, mains and desserts. 'Control freak' just doesn't do the man justice.

At the end of the day, the iPhone is just another mobile (phone) device, the iPad is just another tablet ad iNfinitum! Personally I prefer functianality over design, functionality over fart apps, democracy over dictatorship.

My old iPhone died gloriously, on the wrong end of a hammer. It made a wonderful video. Truly wonderful!

@Tom 79: "Unfortunately, it's still the best thing going right now for freelance developers." What? You seriously want me to believe that as a freelanceer I can make more money from the AppStore than I can from my usual core business? Laugh? I nearly died! LOL! Ha ha ha! (Ok, I concede, it may provide a nice potential revenue stream, but the 'best thing going right now for freelance developers."? I think not.

Fanbois... Get a life... Get real and remember... It's just an overpriced phone, an overpriced tablet and an out of control iDictator. LOL! My sides are starting to hurt form all the laughter.

Anti-trust

How is forcing developers to use the built in webkit not anti-competitive?

MS got done for bundling IE with Windows, where you could still use a different one if you so desired.

This is like MS saying you can write your own browser but you have to use our engine to show the pages and run the JavaScript. If they did it they'd be fined to oblivion.

What is it with Apple that so many people are willing to bend over and take it dry? Seriously, I don't understand. Shiny just doesn't cut it.

Before the flames, I hold no real allegiance to any company, but I like to be able to do what I like with something that is legally mine.

Watch the app numbers

If the number of apps drops in correlation with the amount of duplicate guff (fart apps) then the police are adhering to rules.

However, if Apple make an announcement of "300,000 apps to choose from", then you know the cops are still bent.

RE: my 2 cents

I was recently GIVEN an iPhone, so I figured what the hell I’ll check it out. I didn’t bother activating the cellular part of it as AT&T coverage in my area blows. So I decide to configure it to do simple SMTP email; it failed, because Apple doesn’t support the type of authentication my ISP offers. So, I went with hotmail… I’m a wireless engineer by trade, so I was rather startled by the less than stellar throughput. After perusing iTunes and the litany of applications, I found a few that I was interested in so I downloaded them and was somewhat taken aback by all of the “meet girls in your area” adds. Shortly after installing iTunes, Bonjour screwed up the security software I run on my laptop. Don’t ask me how, but after systematically installing and reinstalling Apple’s software, I was able to consistently able to duplicate the problem.

I’ll concede that it’s a cool little toy, but it’s flimsy and after having it for about 2 weeks, I can tell that if I were using it like my regular phone, it would have died about a week ago, because it’s simply not durable enough.

Based on all that, after reading how Mr. Jobs wishes meddle in the development of software that could only benefit the sales of the iPhone brand, I have no interest in using it for anything other than novelty purposes.

Yes, it’s certainly their product line and they can peddle/license/control it any way they want, but they won’t be getting one damn dime from me, because I despise the rigidity Apple is infamous for.

Putting the boy ...

...in "fanboi". Yep, those of us that use other than Apple products are certainly poor, uneducated buffoons, but we are poor, uneducated buffoons who chose for ourselves. We are free to f**k up all we want and that's how I for one want it. If I f**k it up; I fix it up. Unlike Apple's Lemmings that simply follow the leader and give up that bit of personal decision making freedom.