Comments on: Personal property and computing

By: Nickw

Nickw — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:12:06 +0000

Agree 100%. The whole App Store thing demonstrates perfectly the double standards of corporatism. It’s often marketed as “freedom of choice” yet why the hell do iPhone owners not get the freedom of choice to download apps from 3rd party websites, and developers make apps available at 3rd party websites? Fair enough I guess Apple have a vetting policy for their own App Store, but to prohibit the availability of apps from other sites is closed-shop capitalism at its worst. It has certainly lost them a sale on my part – I would have bought an iPhone had it not been for the ridiculous and restrictive “AppStore only” policy. I got an Android phone instead, whether they make it easy or not to use the NDK at least developers can make their apps available on their own websites perfetly legally.

By: Vern

Vern — Mon, 24 May 2010 06:29:42 +0000

As much as I dislike some of Apple’s licensing policies, if I follow the reasoning in your blog, then Nintendo has no right to decree what kind of content can be sold on the Wii, and Microsoft has no right to decide what can be sold on the XBox. It’s your XBox, and you can install whatever you want on it. Is that really what you’re arguing? If so, why aren’t you up in arms about that? This has been around for years, ever since the original Nintendo.

By: Yves

Yves — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:51:06 +0000

“So screw Objective-C, MonoTouch and lets go jQuery+HTML5+REST.”

Probably you are aware that in that case you get all your apps running on Android as well, since it supports what you mentioned. Probably windows 7 mobile as well.

By: Gad D Lord

Gad D Lord — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:29:35 +0000

I am starting to look more and more at JavaScript, jQuery, HTML5 development and building a SaaS applications for those platforms. The “desktop” applications are too restrictive and rely on too many OS dependencies.
I really hope Jobs succeeds with his crusade for HTML5 and defeat the Flash at the end.
Don’t get me wrong, I am HUGE desktop applications fan but nowadays it becomes more and more difficult to handle them for way too many OS, Architectures, XX-bit versions with constantly evolving APIs and new and new bugs in the Virtual Machines and Frameworks. I am getting a bit tired now after 10 years of desktop development and when I look back I see the following:

1. We are still using HTML 4 and it serves well. And we have been using it for ages.
2. The new HTML5 is crazy good
3. You have to learn 10 to 50 new tricks, recall your JavaScript knowledge and code a WebService or RestService for a backend at your web server.
4. When you build a good customer base and you pay too much for a “standard” hosting migrate the backend to either Amazon EC2 or Google App Engine.

So screw Objective-C, MonoTouch and lets go jQuery+HTML5+REST.

Just my 2c.

By: Jolyon Smith

Jolyon Smith — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 21:34:07 +0000

If you don’t like it, don’t buy an iPhone/iPad/iTouch and don’t develop apps for the platform. If more people are bothered by it than are not, then the platform dies. It’s as simple as that.

If more people like it or are simply not bothered by it then, well, whether you like it or not doesn’t really enter into it except in so far as it determines whether you RSVP the invite to the formal dinner party with a positive “Yes”, or churlishly refuse to attend unless they make it a fancy dress cabaret affair.

By: Yves

Yves — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 21:14:20 +0000

Android does not really discourage you to use the NDK. But their doc tells you to carefully think where you need to write a lib using the NDK, and where to go Java. Which is true since probably 90% or more of apps can be done perfectly in Java.

The NDK comes in when number-crunching or other performance-critical code needs to be run. Firefox Mobile, or Fennec, for Android (to be released this year) was made possible only by the NDK [1].

Apart of that you can use c, c++, pascal, soon c# (mono) [2] or Qt [3], you will also be able to use scripting languages at some point of time [3].

This is the difference between a quite open system, and a proprietary, controlled one.

[1]
http://blog.vlad1.com/2010/03/31/android-progress-march-31-edition/

[2]
http://github.com/koush/androidmono

[3]
http://code.google.com/p/android-lighthouse/

[4]
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/06/introducing-android-scripting.html

By: Edward Rudd

Edward Rudd — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:20:43 +0000

Now, they only list C, C++, Obj-C or the “webkit Javascript” as allowed, But they disallow Assembly.. So basically All applications on the iphone are prohibited since they all get turned into Assembly before being compiled into object code . Ok. real stretch there but this is ridiculous as I’m sure LOTS of apps are using “other languages” to generate things. Examples being “internal scripting” for games (how many games use python, list, lua, etc.. etc.. as level scripts?) This throws a HUGE barrier on legitimate building of applications on the iPhone and going to encourage lots of “disobedience” to that requirement that apple really can’t “detect”. They just need to change that section to state “We don’t want applications from Google or Adobe or created through any of their products” It’s just a big “pissing” contest. Any we are all being caught up in the middle of it.

By: Nathaniel J Fries

Nathaniel J Fries — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 14:57:16 +0000

Ever since I learned that the iPhone would not allow the owner to download third-party apps off their website, I set it in my head that I would not buy one. To me it seemed a barrier against free expression, one of the founding principals of my country (the United States).

While they had the non-disclosure agreement on their iPhone SDK, I made up my mind that I would not develop for it; either, despite being a strong new market. Why? I am an open-source developer, I like releasing most of my projects under open-source licenses, and that prevented me in doing so. Not only was that a restriction on my freedom, it was also a restriction on my user’s freedom.

Now they’re preventing using interpreted languages and every language outside the C family. While this doesn’t affect me (I won’t touch anything other than C or C++ unless I absolutely must), it irritates me. Python, Lua, and Java are all excellent interpreted languages for people that prefer high-level languages, and I see no reason to prevent their use. Especially not Java, which has been pretty much standard in mobile device development for the past god-knows-how-long.

Of course, I’ve always disliked Apple’s policies despite liking their products, so this frustration with Apple is nothing new.

And as for what George says, yes it is true that Apple can change their license agreement whenever they want, just like online communities can change their rules whenever they want to (something that has screwed me once or twice in the past). That doesn’t mean we can’t be angry.

By: Openness vs. Freedom - The Podcast at Delphi.org

Openness vs. Freedom - The Podcast at Delphi.org — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:18:32 +0000

[...] has been a lot of fuss lately about the lack of openness on apple’s platform. There is still time for things to [...]

By: George

George — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 06:36:51 +0000

I hate to bring this up and I am *NOT* supporting Apple here, but a salient point needs to be raised. First, let me say this. I fight back the only way I know how and can reasonably afford – with my wallet. The loud snap that was heard at Apple HQ was the sound of my wallet snapping shut without disgorging any money for said i. I have never liked their policies or their products. Same goes for the Kindle – who is Amazon to be getting into “my” device and erasing books? I don’t care if it was an honest mistake, they very rudely just did it without asking for access to my physical device. That they own the platform is one thing, *I* own the hardware and, like my house, they need MY permission to enter. But, according to the DMCR folks and other, highly paid lawyers, apparently not.
Apple is indeed selling you the hardware and you are free to do with it as you please. But as far as I know, most software isn’t sold – it’s licensed to the user. This is why you can buy a copy of Microsoft Office and install it on any computer you like, however, you CANNOT resell copies of it because you do NOT own it! Under normal circumstances, the user can do as they please, however, there is a little clause in most of these licenses that says the license issuer can change the terms at any time they like. So, in essence, Apple actually *can* dictate what software you download and/or write to run on *their* platform. This is one of the reasons why Linux is so popular with developers in the first place – you have the source code, you can do as you please. I am fairly sure that if you asked a tech-savvy lawyer about this, you would be told that you are free to develop your own OS that runs on the Apple hardware, set up your own store, etc. all without violating Apple’s agreement, but you can’t use a line of Apple’s code to do it. Good luck with that.
It comes down to this – if you are going to play in a playground owned someone else, you have to abide by their rules. Makes Linux and it’s ilk MUCH more appealing, eh? I’m NOT saying this is right, just what is. And yes, it’s only going to get worse until the development community stands up and puts an end to this kind of crap.