Drop, charge, and lose the cords
Are iPhone App Store Restrictions Reviving the Jailbreak Scene?
Apple's dubious rejection of applications that are deemed of little utility or duplicative of built-in functionality has drawn harsh developer criticism.
In contrast, the jailbroken iPhone software market is completely unrestricted. Google's Android marketplace claims a similar unfettered approach. The unrestricted mobile application market is ground already tread by Palm, where concerns over malicious software and feature encroachment have been virtually non-existent.
The jailbroken market, after a period of infancy, is offering legitimate, useful software products: tethering, allowing use your iPhone as a modem to access the internet on your notebook while mobile; Intellisceen, a robust sleep locked-screen notification scheme and more.
Developers are, however, still seeking a method of jailbreak application distribution with an easy purchase mechanism. Although you can buy jailbreak apps on the Web, iTunes is trumps in this arena. Such a deficiency is not for lack of want -- many developers and users alike are anxious to wrest control from Apple. Consider these comments:
After Apple used the NDA again to club developers into submission many other developers have become angry for what they describe as bad behavior on Apple's part. Brent Simmons, developer of the RSS reader NetNewsWire for Mac OS X and iPhone, said on his blog, "When I read that Apple?s solution to the problem of the negative press around apps being rejected from the App Store was to add an NDA warning, I thought it was satire. It couldn?t be true. But it appears to be true. If so, then someone is making a mistake. This behavior is definitely beneath the company that makes the software and hardware I adore and love developing for."
Developer Wil Shipley, who writes the software for Delicious Monster,said on his blog, "I have to be clear: it simply will not stand for Apple to prevent applications on the iPhone from competing with Apple's own applications. Besides chasing away all decent developers, besides hurting their customers by stifling competition and innovation, besides it simply being evil, it will, shortly, be illegal. This kind of behavior is illegal when you hit a certain point in market saturation for your product; Microsoft was slapped for it constantly in the late '80s. If the iPhone is the success Apple thinks it will be, they will find themselves the target of a huge class-action lawsuit."
What's your take? Is Apple breathing new life into the jailbreak application market?
By the time iPhone 3G customers are ready for their next phone, there will be plenty of competition out there.
And believe me if Apple suddenly adds all the cool features we wanted with this generation, it will be way too little and way too late. And they will be holding a very heavy "bag" of unsold iPhones while the rest of embrace some other more open manufacturer.
Personally, I feel that video is a big deal, not just to watch but to record just like a camera, and do with it what I want. The iPhone is very capable of video, as witnessed by the outstanding app from Dreamcatcher, iPhone Video Recorder and accompanying software. This has been around since the first gen iPhone, and still can only be run on a Jailbroken iPhone. BS. I don't want to Jailbreak my 3G and PO Apple and cause any problems, but yet Apple has failed to allow the app into their private framework, and yet it is a very worthwhile app, fairly priced, and Apple hasn't even got a competitor that it encroaches upon. Why doesn't Apple support Dreamcatcher like Lucasfilm did with the new Lightsaber. Look how quick an improved version came out, and it's free.
This is all getting a little too much like MS. Clean it up or get cleaned out.
On with the show, good health to you.
You think that three or four disgruntled developers and maybe a few thousand jailbraking psychopathic iPhone users represent the tide of majority?
The whimpering, self-absorbed, no-matter-what-going-against-the-grain?
cheers!
Azazello
Good grief. The above is absolute nonsense. This argument is cut from the same cloth as the one that says that since Apple is the only vendor for Mac OS X and for Apple computers, then they are a de facto monopoly that requires regulation to prevent abuse of that monopoly position.
The problem is, it's poppycock. "Personal computers that run and/or are compatible with Mac OS X" is not a market. "Personal computers" is a market. Apple's share of that market in no way comprises a monopoly and as such they are not subject to such regulations.
Likewise, "phones that run a version of Mac OS X" do not comprise a market. "Phones" are a market. Maybe if you want to get fancy about it, "smartphones" is a market, but frankly, that's a stretch, too, when many phones that don't qualify are perfectly capable of downloading and running programs from external sources through mechanisms like J2ME.
In other words, the iPhone's ability to download and install new programs is hardly unique. They do not constitute a distinct market. So unless you're saying that a majority of all phones worldwide are going to be iPhones, the idea of iPhones being subject to monopoly regulation is ludicrous on its face.
Beyond that, I'm flabbergasted that nearly all the commentary on this issue is knee-jerk "that's evil" without any thought behind it.
Let's think about this scenario: Apple certainly has a list of features it would probably like to implement on the iPhone. Some aren't ready yet (cut and paste, perhaps direct podcast updating over wifi, as examples) and some they currently can't do because it strains the relationship with their carriers (tethering).
Somebody produces cut&paste and podcast downloading apps in the App store and start to generate sales. Then Apple adds this feature to the iPod application on the iphone, destroying the market for this 3rd party app, and the community moans loudly and long about how Apple is cannibalizing its third party developer market.
Don't believe me? Just remember Sherlock and Watson. This has already happened, several times. Apple is essentially protecting itself *and this developer* by not allowing him to become dependent on a stream of revenue that Apple *knows* will be unreliable. Apple told developers not to go after low-hanging fruit like obvious missing features in the default apps. It's silly to conclude this is because they don't want to or somehow cannot make themselves able to compete with third party developers. It's because I think they believe, and probably rightly so, that there is no differentiation a third party developer can reasonably make that will encourage people to pay for and download a third party app if the default functionality is "good enough"-- and the entire reason Apple has omitted these features to date is because they are not "good enough"-- but that doesn't mean this will always be the case.
Slashdot had a ridiculous story about how it was "censorship" (nevermind that this word defines government, and not corporate action) for Apple to make app store rejection letters the subject of the devkit's NDA. Again, just think about it. If you're rejecting apps because they do, or will, duplicate functionality of built-in apps, you are essentially announcing in advance what features you are adding, something Apple almost never, ever does.
I'm not saying Apple requires or needs our sympathy. But why don't people stop, for even a second, put themselves in the shoes of Apple's management, and try to think of why what they are doing is reasonable, instead of just immediately concluding that it is unreasonable and evil because they don't like it, or because it negatively affects them?
@gsagi
Actually, mate, it isn't just a minority of psychopathic users that want apps which Apple disallow.
Look @ the following sitatuation, for example; the 1st Apple store opening in Melbourne, AU which occurred a couple of weeks ago.
I was with my mate (who was an absolute Apple evangelist, mind you). Anyways, we were excited by the opening store's atmosphere and the enthusiastic staff, so we wanted to capture it on video. My mate was anxiously snapping his iPhone's camera so he could capture the scene...I, meanwhile, pulled out my aging Treo, started recording and said, "Too bad the iPhone doesn't letchya capture video, hey?"
He replied, "Yeah...there's prob an app store application which lets you do that, right?"
I said, "Only if you jailbreak your iPhone; Apple don't like those video-capture apps."
Now, I wouldn't call him and the COUNTLESS other disgruntled non-jailbreaking users "psychopathic cases", because they're just normal users, expecting their phone to do average things that their $50 disposable prepaid mobiles to their $1k posh biz phones did.
I, on the other hand, do trust Apple engineers and programmers. I do not think that their decisions about rolling out of features and home-developed apps are capricious or haphazard - it is a development and design process and I respect it. The iPhone is pretty amazing as it is and video recording will come in due time.
Subversion will remain subversion and will not destroy the paternal metaphor - it actually survives because of it.
I have an iphone. I have a legit AT&T contract and I jailbroke my phone. I purchase app store apps and I donate to the jailbroken ones. As far as apple is concerned, they make as much money from me as if I was a sane non-subversive type, but I get way more out of my iphone than you. While you sit there and wait for the amazing-video-recording-that-apple-may-or-may-not-work-on ( because, be very sure that it is IMPOSSIBLE to do with the current SDK, so ONLY apple can write it ), I'll enjoy capturing video at every gathering I go to and emailing it to my friends, as well as I enjoy the other amazing apps available to those that jailbreak.
Oh yeah ... and since yesterday, I can download my podcasts on the go too, since podcaster has migrated over to Cydia. Thank you jailbroken community. Apple's phone is a better one thanks to them.
I sure hope I never need a psychiatrist, because judging by the knowledge/judgement ( and I mean lack of ) you try to impart here, you don't strike me as someone I want anywhere near my psyche.
Apple's iPhone, despite its record-breaking sales success, is still in a very fragile position in the market place. It could be easily blind-sided and usurped by the next yet unseen great creation. In a parallel, look at the iPod and its market. The Zune is no real threat today, however it could have been several years ago. If Microsoft had been farsighted enough to see where the first generation iPod was going and nimbly pushed the Zune out there in a big way, would we have the current iPods now?
This is only the version 2.0 of the iPhone which means the thing survived 1.0 successfully enough to warrant expanded effort and future planning. I believe Apple is taking a guarded stewardship of the iPhone to carefully evolve it and keep it relevant. If it slips from relevance, it becomes yesterday's doughnuts.
To me, Apple?s policy is saying: Developers, there's plenty of space. Don't stand on the tracks of progress, wait on the station platform to catch the train.
One way protecting the iPhone?s future is to ensure developers (particularly the most economically committed developers) do not hurt themselves in the process. History is littered with the forgotten companies that had pretty good, usually small enhancing products that were squashed out of existence when Apple incorporated 80% or more of a developer's product function into the OS as a new feature. All involved were immensely upset, if not ruined.
Do you remember back before OS X (pre-version 7), when the Mac OS was internally a 24-bit system? Developers were told not use the apparently excess 8-bits of the 32-bit data path. Most took the guidance and didn't, but a few games and applications did it anyway. Those programs promptly broke later when the OS evolved to use real 32-bit addressing. Developers need to read the signs along the route and avoid the posted hazards.
The iPhone must continue to be (relatively speaking) stable, safe, and secure to remain a marketable smart phone. If and when version 3.0 rolls out, it should prove to be worth the wait and better by design not accident.
Just some thoughts.
As a customer who spends a lot of money with apple, I don't have time and do not want to put their shoes. I think they should put mine. If they don't, I will abandon ship. What I certainly will do with a next purchase if they keep acting not like a censor, but as company who is more focused in their products than in their customers.
Remeber that they are crossing borders of the industry. Nowadays they are firmly engaging in the services business (itunes, eg.), and in this field, to comply with the customers trends and needs is necessary.
Clients who complain are better than those who don't. Complaints give the company signals that customers are dissatisfied and the opportunity to shift direction and correct something if they judge it is the best way to act. It is up to Apple to consider or not what people say. I just think it is strange because it seems they do not hear anything said form partners (developers) and customers. Do not forget Apple is a company positioned as inovator. Their primary attention are tech savvy people and not laggers. In my view they are missing a great oppotunity to establish a great platform and a great base of customers. A lot of new phones with even greater functonalities are popping around.
But, it is up to Apple. Remember Betamax, and a lot examples. The best product a lot of times fail because a shorter view of the overall customer experience.
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by Gooze72
November 21, 2008 2:45 PM PST
- I dont care about the new street view Google map feature. And what is so great about sharing location via email? Sharing pictures via MMS means more personal to me. I dont care about where the Google search tool bar located, at the top, bottom, on the side or underneath, that won't make any (even little) impact to anybody on earth, I believe. But forwarding any sms that is worth sharing (a joke for example can bring a smile to any person to whom you forward the sms) that is much much more personal. And it is just a normal expectation from a mobile device user.
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(14 Comments)Probably iPhone has never been meant for average people...?