This is very bad news: I don't mind at all that Apple's Mac/iPhone/iPad technology is closed and proprietary, but when they use that to censor delivered content, I get very, very unhappy. Mark Fiore is a fabulous web political cartoonist, and he came out with an iPhone app to provide access to his work…and Apple rejected it.
But there's just one problem. In December, Apple rejected his iPhone app, NewsToons, because, as Apple put it, his satire "ridicules public figures," a violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which bars any apps whose content in "Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory."
A while back, apparently Apple blocked a whole bunch of apps that were basically soft-core porn — girls in bikinis, that sort of thing — and I didn't notice, because I'm not in the market for that stuff, and don't favor that kind of exploitation of women anyway. But when we didn't stop the censorship of soft-core girlie pictures, who knew the next stop would be the censorship of political satire?
Apple needs to get out of the censorship game. Review apps for compatibility, but not content; it's OK if Apple will only market neutered, innocuous apps through their branded store, but not OK if they use their tech to restrict access and allow no other app outlets.
This is a serious enough danger that I've decided to put off any purchase of an iPad until I see some resolution of this problem. Unlock the apps.
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Iono - that seems to be their thing. You only get to play with their toys, if they want you to.
I don't like their business model, ethos and image - as I have said repeatedly, but they're free to do whatever the hell they want with their company, as long as it doesn't hurt the public good.
People who like softcore, cartoons and non-locked phones will just have to take their business elsewhere.
This is exactly why I will never buy an Apple product.
Why do you think they're going to change PZ?
They've just added a "no crosscompilers" restriction to the new SDK as well.
And sooner or later someone will find an Apple-approved app offensive . . . and sue . . . and Apple will lose because they placed themselves in the role of censor. Anyone remember Prodigy?
Apple has already requested that Fiore resubmit the application, because they claim it should have gone through the process.
The real issue with Apple's approach isn't the rules themselves, but the inconsistent and brain-dead application of said rules. This has been the weak point of their application distribution system since day one.
They're going to be scaring off developers, and that's not something they want to do.
@sqlrob: That's a good rule. Apple is likely going to be switching hardware architectures in future revisions, and they don't want people using third party tools that will generate binaries that may stop working in future hardware releases. Apple's gone with an LLVM and Clang architecture on the compiler for a reason, and that reason is flexibility- for them, not you.
This is not the whole story, I think. If I remember correctly, after Mark Fiore won his Pulitzer Apple encouraged him to resubmit his application for the app store.
Apparently, Apple's intricate rules apply only to us, anonymous people. Once you make it up there, Apple will just forget everything.
See more in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/books/17cartoonist.html
Can happen easily no tedohio. Those bikini apps got removed to avoid offending.
Unless they were big names like Sports Illustrated or Playboy.
Another reason to hold off - apparently the ipads cause enough DHCP malfunctions to bork entire university wireless systems, and they're not happy about it.
This won't be a problem. After all, Apple wasn't nearly destroyed in the 90s because of its insanely tight grip on its proprietary software.
Oh, wait, it was.
--Chris
Apple's strength and weakness is the control it places over it's products. Part of why you don't have the compatibility problems with Mac as opposed to PC is that more people are allowed to make products for the PC and it's harder to get that many players working together. Meanwhile Apple keeps a tight reign on who makes their stuff and how its used. So it's a monopoly vs free market argument played out in the computer world.
It is their product, and they're free to censor as they wish; we just need to punish that decision by using other products
That said...I love my iPod (podcastPlayer)
Yes, as others have pointed out, this particular issue has already been resolved.
I think the far more worrying App Store event of the (past) week — and the one about which the geekosphere is still buzzing — was the removal of educational tool Scratch. Alan Kay should really get Jobs on the phone about that one.
@t3knomancer:
There's no reason a cross compiler has to go to native code. It can also go to another language (that's how gcc works, and remember cfront?)
If you want technological freedom, you should stay away from Apple period.
And to further clarify my point in #13, gcc is also the native toolchain for Apple, so outputting any language it can parse should be fine.
@sqlrob:
There may be a very good reason for the "no crosscompilers" restriction. Apple is now manufacturing their own CPUs. The A4 currently runs ARM binaries, but the CPU may actually be a PowerPC core with an ARM compatibility mode. By disallowing cross-compilers, they may be able to increase the speed of applications substantially just by upgrading the XCode compiler.
Do I like this? No. I'm just sayin', it might not be entirely arbitrary.
The way to make money is to tax the friction. Get in between consumers and producers, and charge them. If you can control the distribution chain, you really stand to make some big bucks. (That is, after all, how Microsoft, Wal*Mart, Google, and the various *AA groups make their money.) Apple's now getting into the game, I reckon.
Apple used to be better than this. Hell, the Apple ][ came with schematics, and source code for the monitor ROM. It sucks Apple is doing this sort of thing.
One other note: this isn't the first case of censorship. Apple also recently removed several "mature" apps that showed scantily-clad (not nude) women, for similar reasons of "offensiveness." They removed all those apps. Except those by Playboy and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit app.
@nigelTheBold:
You miss the same thing t3knomancer did. Cross compiling doesn't require compiling to binary. You can compile to another language, specifically one that is explicitly supported by Apple. They restrict you even from that.
They're reevaluating his application after they saw there was so much ire. Of course they said "it should've gone through" but that's just because there was so much angry reactions at this.
Apple censors a ton of shit.
I'd like to hear more about how 'bikini apps' are 'exploitation of women'. Were the women coerced into it, or are they simply unable to decide for themselves if posing for bikini shots is something they want to do?
I don't think you can separate the two issues so cleanly-- part of why having an open platform is important is to prevent anyone from being able to censor. As I'm sure has been done many times, I'm going to reference Richard Stallman's 1997 story Right to Read as an argument for why these two issues are tied together.
And Microsoft. And IBM. And Garmin. And Sony. And...
I can't see much of a way to obtain technological freedom. Even with Linux, it's hard to obtain true freedom. For my laptop to function properly, I still need proprietary video drivers, and my WiFi requires binary firmware blobs. There are still websites that require IE (though those are admittedly becoming far rarer than they used to be.)
At the moment, your "freedom" is the freedom to choose which subset of the whole you wish to access.
I'm not defending Apple here. I'm just sayin' the other options aren't all that great, either. (Though Google has been doing better with Android, in the phone space at least.)
Personally, my faith in Apple was lost completely when they went over to x86-based CPUs. At the risk of reinvigorating long-dead holy wars, the PowerPC is an inherently superior architecture to the x86 -- in fact, *anything* is an inherently superior architecture to the x86. Even if you disagree with this, though, Apple's decision amounted to the death of any choice at all in the general-use microprocessor market. There may not be a corporate monopoly on the market, but there is an architectural one now, and that can only stifle innovation.
@tedhohio
I've thought that from the beginning of this app store business. So far they've been lucky, but reviewing and approving all apps seems to create a serious legal liability. Especially considering the poor job of reviewing they tend to do. Of course Apple has every right to do this, it's their store after all, but it is one more troubling piece in the Apple puzzle. But as long as they avoid the lawsuit and people are willing to pay them big bucks for this stuff, they'll just keep doing it.
Most, if not all, of the soft-core porn apps which were removed were basically lists of images, hardly app-worthy. I'm actually glad they're not cluttering the app store with apps which could've just been websites.
They're also going after glorified RSS feeds, for example. Apps which are too simple have no place on the app store.
Censoring for any reason other than compatibility, user experience, etc. is a no-go, though.
But rumour has it Apple's working on an explicit category for the app store, so yeah.
Unlocking the iPhone, though? A closed system helps protect against pirates (although I know it takes just seconds to jailbreak an iPhone 3G), which in turn stimulates the app-designers. I'm not sure this would be the right direction. The closed app system has worked for things like the game industry for quite a while now, I'd rather have a functional system than an open system.
I'm probably still getting an iPad (if it ever comes out here in Belgium...), but I do hope Apple shapes up their act.
You've never written PPC assembly then I take it?
Loading a 32-bit address with 32-bit instructions blows chunks.
@sqlrob,
I'll have to go back and read the new terms. I understood it to say that the code you submitted to Apple had to compile under XCode. That seemed to suggest you could submit the result of your cross-compiler, but not the original code that required the cross-compiler.
Any other way just doesn't make sense.
As an example, there a great Perl script that exports Blender models as C structures that can be used by OpenGLES. This Perl script would be a cross-compiler, in the exact same way as a Python to Objective-C compiler.
Anyway, I'll go back and re-read it. It'd be seriously fucked up if Apple really outlawed the use of code-generation products (which is all a language-to-language compiler is, after all).
PZ: I don't mind at all that Apple's Mac/iPhone/iPad technology is closed and proprietary, but when they use that to censor delivered content, I get very, very unhappy.
And this is the problem of science, particularly biology, particularly molecular biology -- overspecialized training.
Don't you know that the medium IS the message? That a system of technology censorship ultimately implies content censorship? Just like the little Kyrgyzstan story this weekend, where it came out that the authorities had used a microsoft lawyer to shutdown an opposing online news channel on claims of "software piracy", given that all organizations in Central Asia use pirated software (and Microsoft itself has disavowed all knowledge of the incident)?
Very naive, my dear PZ.
Perhaps, but that wasn't the reason given by Apple. This was exclusively a censorship issue, and not an app-quality issue.
The 'faith' in Apple is an appropriate analogy, as it operates in largely the same why as some religions.
Sure, Apple does some good in the world, but then there's also this sort of bullshit, and an explicit declaration (not verbatim) that they can pull any app 'even if it meets the criteria'.
So, these are the rules, if you break them we won't allow your app, and if you comply, we still might not allow it anyway on some arbitrary basis.
So it will keep having it's faithful following, but turning away those of us who might want to develop apps. I have just downloaded the Android SDK to give app development a go (not a fart machine, I actually thought of something useful).
So I would predict that Apple will stop behaving in this manner when Christ returns to Earth.
Unless you think Steve Jobs is 'He'...
A long wait for you, PZ.
Honestly, they should toss in a "censored" section, so those who opt-in can get that content.
I would rather they didn't forgo the process of vetting apps. As a developer, and as a security consultant, the app vetting process (even with its minor flaws) is still far better then android or blackberry's null process, allowing absolute junk to clutter people's machines.
But yes, censorship is bad... In any case, I believe thats the same case where he was actually allowed to resubmit.
No more content censorship would be good, so long as they don't stop _any_ of the other vetting processes.
The reason for Apple's refusal (and their tight constraints on apps in general) is due to the legal liabilities of the walled garden they are attempting to maintain.
Because the App Store isn't an open market, Apple is on the hook for any products that are found to be infringing copyrights, libelous or slanderous, or otherwise legally objectionable.
They've locked the App Store down to ensure a clean computing environment on their devices but in doing so have unintentionally created for themselves a legal liability that they're (as most companies do in these situations) overreacting to.
People used to bitch about Microsoft but these days M$ looks like a champion of freedom compared to their glitzy overpriced rivals. If Apple released shiney aqua-themed handcuffs with matching ball-gag fanboys would buy it and (indistinctly) rave about they're hardly restrictive at all and how awesome it is to have their entire life directed by their new masters.
The reason everyone knows about the Mark Fiore incident is because it is Mark Fiore. What if it was David Reese? (Or, what if it was someone who was just starting something along the lines of Get Your War On?)
Makes you wonder how many other apps get shot down by people with no reputation to trade on.
Others have already pointed this out, but yes... Fiore has been asked to resubmit the App and it will likely get approval at this point, if for no other reason than to avoid more bad PR.
CNET has an article discussing the implications of content control and censorship by the Bitten Fruit company.
The problem is, as others have pointed out, that Apple is so intent on tightly controlling content on its devices that it has developed an unsustainable content review and acceptance process.
Steve Jobs does seem at least aware of the problem and I think Apple will ultimately sort it out... but in the meantime, there is a legitimate problem with Apple's review process that should give content deliverers pause before developing apps for that platform. Censorship, even if a result of an unwitting process, is a friend to no-one.
@idle.pip.verisignlabs.com:
You mean like when Apple had thousands of apps that were spyware? Yeah, that vetting process worked real well.
In the same way that jeans made entirely from live piranhas is a friend to no-one.
I am a programmer and we have been giving such issues much thought within our community. If fact, this is why open source is so important. In effect, our entire culture will soon be housed within electronic devices, and the only way to ensure that our heritage is not controlled by corporations is to make sure that there is always an open source alternative.
If we do not ensure that this alternative is always available, then the future may be very bleak.
Full disclosure - I publish an online editorial webcomic in Flash, so this issue has my attention.
The only reason Apple relented is because of the publicity of a pulitzer prize winner getting rejected. There are likely many more lesser known names who will not get treated as well.
The best thing Mark Fiore could do right now is use this moment in the spotlight, and reject Apple. Trash his app and walk away.
Mark's cartoons are animations published in Flash. Apple also trashed the ability of Adobe Flash CS5 to create content for the app store. (Is this the same as the compiler issue discussed above?) If you go to Mark's website on an iPad, there's a big blank spot where his Flash cartoon should run. It should just be there, no app needed.
I'm hoping for a big fail for the iPad and I look forward to the PC equivalents that have no app store, no censorship, and that run Flash.
A bit of fun that plays with the iPad and atheism: a-rationalist (Not accessible on an iPad)
Meh, I like my Mac. And my iPod. No viruses, they never crash. However, I dislike iTunes because of the DRM. So I buy music from Amazon, DRM free and 10 cents cheaper per song.
Uh, hello, free market. Don't buy a stupid iPad, they're overpriced as hell. At least not now, they'll be half as much next year.
Apple is not evil, nor are they perfect. They are good at motivating the competition, we can thank them for the glut of touch-screen phones on the market. Or not, touch-screens, not that cool. IMHO. And they are good at making pretty, shiny computers that last a lot longer than a PC with comparable specs. Apple's low-end products just don't go that low.
you hit the nail on the head for why most people are apposed to their current business model and the closed nature of their platform.
from a tech geek perspective. my partner was explaining how apple computers used to come with the schematics and you were encouraged to take it apart and figure out how to make it work better... now you have to take in your apple products to a specialist to just change the battery.
apple is kinda like the creationists for computers and technology.
Censorship would be Apple preventing you from using the browser on the iPad from accessing Fiore's website.
Since one CAN access Fiore's website via the browser on the iPad, and view all the artwork that his app would have allowed one to view, the cries of "CENSORSHIP" ring very hollow, indeed.
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
Quoth Homer Simpson: "faith is what you have in things that don't exist." Like Apple's customer service policy!
I'm kidding of course, so please stop dialing your lawyer's number, Steve. (Psst! everyone else: I'm not kidding.)
PZ: I'm not in the market for that stuff, and don't favor that kind of exploitation of women anyway.
The preceding is one of the few issues on which the far-left and the religious right agree. Why is it "exploitation" when a beautiful young woman decides to benefit financially from her looks, but not when, say, a dumpy middle-aged guy (like me) gets paid to use his mind? Are male models also being "exploited?"
It seems to me the lefties who hold this view are implicitly acccepting the same (flawed, imo) metaphysical premises regarding the human body and sexuality as the religionists.
PZ:
The first nearly always leads to the second.
@tuckerch
So close, yet so far. No flash on the iPad / iPhone, so no, they can't see the content.
#29:
Or when Steve Jobs departs it. Seriously, I wonder how much of the control-freakery is down to him.
#16:
I suspect it's mainly to make it harder for developers to do cross-platform development. If you can easily produce an app which runs on both iPhone and Android, where's Apple's advantage?
PZ, welcome to the Apple skeptics camp! They may or may not be lions, but they can roar in regular verse.
Not a week goes by that I don't read about another problem with Apple's app approval program. Really though, that's about the least of my worries when it comes to that company. My biggest concern is that they charge twice as much as any other company for essentially the same hardware, but in a shinier package. The last product I bought from Apple was a Powerbook that I was required to have for design school a decade ago. I've been tempted a few times, maybe. I got a little googly eyed over the iPod for a while, but by the time their prices dropped enough for me to think about actually buying one, Microsoft had released the Zune, which I think is a better product. The iPad had me hypnotized as well, but by the time I can get one, the HP Slate will be on the market for $200 below the iPad's price, with Win7 and better features.
Generally, BluesBassist, it's because people recognise that as much as in a perfect world the choice to pursue a career in pornography (or prostitution, or other sex work) would be undertaken willingly and with full understanding by all participants, all too often that's not the case, and coercion is more the norm.
There is some implicit assumption that given access to alternatives, sex workers would be happier and healthier jockeying an office chair in a cubicle, but one need not make those assumptions to recognise that the industry as it stands is exploitative.
Moggie's second paragraph.
Hey, this is working finally.
Nice to see the Mac vs. PC holy wars are still rampant. Lot of nonsense in this thread though.
The conflation of "proprietary" with "censorship" is pretty nonsense. I may need to use Apple tools to write a program for Apple-specified hardware, but unless I'm stomping on intellectual property, there's nothing to stop my from writing whatever Program I want, and deploying it on MacOS X or McOS 9 systems.
It's Apple's monopoly on the _distribution_ of software that has been the issue from day one of the App Store. That wouldn't change if Apple suddenly opened the OS to other cell phone makers. That distribution monopoly position is what allows Apple to censor and make arbitrary restrictions to pressure competitors like Adobe. My concern with the iPad is that Apple might try and push that limited distribution system to the MacOS X line, which would cause me to drop my Mac for Linux.
That issue is unique to the iPad/iPhone/iPod line within Apple's product list: There is no such restrictions on distribution of MacOS X software, despite being a proprietary system, so anything you write can still be distributed any way you like for that. The issue is also not unique at all to Apple: to my knowledge, the same can be said of every major video game console since the NES.
The monopoly dosen't extend out to the rest of the cel phone market; If you don't like it, get a Palm Pre, Google Android, or Blackberry. There is still market choice within the cel phone arena, so unless the iPhone corner's the market on Smartphones, the choice is completely up to the consumers.
That said, I think the Open Source Evangelicals ignore the fact that most people don't actually give a damn. For the majority of people, what they personally can do with their device is a more relevant measure of freedom than the restrictions they'll never encounter.
Isn't the iPad just a computer? Why can't you upload your apps wherever you want and download them from wherever?
Umm, you can still use the iPad/iPhone web browser to visit Fiore's website or visit hundreds of porn sites or even Stormfront. You can use the the included YouTube or other video apps to see some fairly explicit stuff.
Finding porn using my iPod touch still works. I just checked.
Apple doesn't restrict the web, just what apps it will distribute.
If you want the latest issue of "Just 18" or "MILFs in Heat", you won't find it on your local grocery store magazine rack, you'll have to go to one of those other stores.
@Moggie:
I think you're close, actually. Not with Android -- Android apps have to be programmed in Java, and the iPhone uses C/Objective-C/C++. But, I think they may be targeting Flash-based content, as Flash isn't supported on the iPhone and iPad.
(Don't get me started on Flash. I've hated Flash since Macromedia first produced it back in the '90s. Flash blows, and it's proprietary. It was bad for the web then, and it's bad for the web now.
(That does not excuse Apple's decisions, though.)
Citizen of the Cosmos: Because Apple doesn't want you to. It uses the same OS as the iPhone and iPod Touch, and you can only get apps for it from the Apple Store.
@TurtleT actually because of the percentage of the market they control and some of the apps they've rejected. they're getting the FTC and FCC on their case. i believe it started with a google voice app or something from google. though i don't know the laws on this topic.
@tuckerch that is kinda true. my friend's blackberry would block the search results when you tried to google porn. i doubt that apple would try anything that blatant. but they are censoring their app market. and you can't argue that because there's a porn industry they're not censoring what gets into the movies.
@sunioc
I can get that they are controlling their own appstore, but it seems impossible for them to control what someone else can distribute on their own server.
Screw the app store, Android FTW. If I was to get any tablet, it'd most likely be the soon-to-be-released eee Tablet
This is why I am always so amused by the Apple side of the PC wars. The argument that Apple is somehow better than microsoft when they have always had the more proprietary attitude.
#53: The relationship between Apple's proprietary attitudes and their censorship is pretty clear. The one enables the other. If Apple products were "free" in the open-source sense of the word, breaking their monopoly would be trivial. Since it is closed, breaking that monopoly is illegal, which directly impacts what you can do with your device. Why most people can't be arsed to care about this sort of thing is beyond me.
#44: Don't you understand? *All* economic activity for profit is exploitation. You *are* being exploited for your brain. What PZ says here is that he doesn't favor exploiting women for pictures of their bikini-clad bodies. I quite agree. I would rather exploit them for video clips of their non-bikini-clad bodies. Actually, I'd far rather exploit their minds.
@ZigB,
Sure, you can visit his website. You just can't see his cartoons. He uses Flash, which Apple does not support on the iPhone and iPad.
Granted, with HTML5 canvas support in Safari, there's no reason developers can't switch to the more-open standard, HTML. But, as much as I despise Flash, that isn't a requirement. Nor is it an excuse.
Apple shouldn't be censoring these sorts of apps for these sorts of reasons. Period. The outrage isn't over access. The outrage is over censorship, and abuse of power.
No, it's not.
For anyone who doesn't want to bother following that link, the author refers to the suggestion that the A4 is PPC as "unhinged". Sorry nigel.
LeftWingFox: That said, I think the Open Source Evangelicals ignore the fact that most people don't actually give a damn. For the majority of people, what they personally can do with their device is a more relevant measure of freedom than the restrictions they'll never encounter.
Talking about nonsense. Of course, most people NEVER care about their freedom. Fucking shit, if most people cared about their freedom, and were aware of the processes by which they lose it, then Uruk would never have arisen, Giglamesh would have been killed by the local elders after his first rape, and we'd all be hanging around a cooking fire complaining about the iStick.
Ought and is, my simple buffoon. Practice versus your fantasies, dear child. The question of "censorship" is in the practice of censoring, not in the theory. What is the ultimate climate we will reach? If this leads to nothing but a small environment where a small proportion of people choose to have their minds molded by a few big corps, then there is no censorship. But if in practice this leads to an environment where all the products available are the kind of banal crap that SI & Apple want to feed us -- well, then this is the thin edge.
Of course, in practice we may already be there -- and this is already moving towards the thicker part of the wedge.
It gets even worse, PZ. I'm sure someone has already pointed this out, but they can come along later and decide to block your app, even if it has been in use for a while. This has all kinds of insidious implications.
If they see your app is successful and making money, they can write their own and then disable yours.
Welcome to the world of Apple. They are control-freaks.
Anyone else remember the 1984 ads, where buying an Apple was supposed to break the chains that bind us? Turns out that may have been an exaggeragion.
MikeM
@Citizen of the Cosmos: I guess you haven't played with an iPhone or iPad then. It's a completely closed system. There is no way to download an application onto the iPhone OS that does not come directly from Apple, unless you hack it. Most users don't have the knowledge or will to do that, and to complicate things further, Apple has on previous occasions sent out updates that would disable hacked hardware. You can of course access content on websites on the iphone as long as that content isn't in flash, but as far as software goes, it's Apple's way or the highway.
I call bullshit.
First, Apple used to be extremely open. As I have noted before, the box came with schematics, and (more importantly) the ROM source code. This was back when Bill Gates was posting petulant rants about the homebrew scene passing around tapes.
Second, Microsoft has generally been far more closed than Apple. This is why they have tried to create de facto standards and ram them down the throats of the users. They have been hit-and-miss on this. Remember Active-X? How about Silverlight? More importantly, there's OOXML.
Microsoft has historically been far worse than Apple. The difference is, Apple is mostly a hardware company, and Microsoft is mostly a software company that has quite a bit of control over hardware distribution. If you want to compare how "open" the companies are, just look at the software stack they are pushing. Apple pushes open standards. Microsoft pushes their own. As someone who has programmed for OS X, Linux, and MS-Windows, I can assure you that Apple really likes open standards. (It sucks balls of wax compared to Linux in this arena, of course.)
It started going down-hill at Apple after the iPod. (Though I'm sure they see that as their turning point for the better.)
Broad support for HTML5 is still a long way off. And, at some point somebody will invent a program that looks and acts just like Flash to do the same thing for HTML5. It will package all that code manipulation for you.
My Flash cartoon is just a simple slideshow. Sure, I can do it using Javascript to manipulate the CSS, but why should I when Flash is the perfect tool for it? I only have to manage one file at the server instead of several dozen per cartoon.
The Flash cartoon at Fiore's site does not display in the iPad browser.
Sorry for what? For presenting an update, and a correction, on some wild speculation? Nothing to apologize for! Even if I'd asserted it as fact, I'd rather be corrected than go around believing something that was demonstrably untrue.
I'm not sure the speculation was originally "unhinged," as it was based on the meager amount of evidence available the author at the time (such as Apple's acquisition of P.A. Semi, who designed PowerPC chips, and the very large die size).
Your link is broken, I'm afraid. However, I found a very nice tear-down of the chip, which indicates it is indeed a single-core Cortex A8.
#66 Nigel you are mostly right; but the ethics of companies changes. Apple use to be mostly Woz but now it's mostly Steve Jobs. Today I'd like to get an iPad but it's completely closed and dependent on Apple's iStore and apps - and Apple have just forbidden developers to use non Apple-approved tools in an attempt to lock them in as well.
The inevitable result of this kind of ethic is authoritarianism and lack of accountability, so it's hardly surprising they feel ok about censoring content as well.
For me, my next MP3 player is going to be non-Apple and I think I'll rather wait for the Android equivalent of iPad.
I don't think I would get much push back from this crowd if I asserted that big businesses have become the defacto leaders of the US. That makes closed source code and proprietary systems mechanisms of tyranny.
This sort of thing is exactly why close, proprietary systems of this kind should be rejected out of hand. Only a fool would trust a giant corporation like Apple to "do the right thing(tm)" in these cases.
If he really wants to get his app approved though he should just replace the "ridiculing" with random fart sounds. That'd not only get passed through instantly but probably make him a shiny nickel.
Talk about revisionist history. Back in the 1990s was when Apple tried licensing its OS. It was after Steve Jobs came back, ended Mac OS licensing, and reinstated Apple's iron control over both software and hardware that Apple came back.
You may not like it, but to claim otherwise is a rather...odd description of what happened.
Their boxes are actually price competitive for equivalent hardware. (And I do mean equivalent. No comparing an iMac to a tower)
Exactly. It's very simple. If you don't like Apple's policies with regards to App Store applications, just don't buy an iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone. It's just that simple.
Too bad. I find my new iPad to be a fascinating, intriguing and wondrous thing. I have not regretted the purchase once. I have owned and used both Apple and PC since the eighties and would not be without either. I guess it's fortunate that there is still a choice possible
Thank you Apple! Never heard of Mark Fiore before. Never would have bought the App. Now I have new fun site to bookmark into my laptop. Great job(s).
Uh, actually, there is no DRM anymore on iTunes songs and hasn't been for a year or two, although, unfortunately, there still is on video and movies. In fact, I never bought from iTunes until Apple finally removed the DRM. Now I do.
@dahduh:
Go for a Zune. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best portable media player out there right now. (The iPod Touch has more functionality of course, but that's not a media player, it's a broken iPhone.) The GUI is much better than the iPod's, especially if you're like me and have a 120gb Zune and still don't have room for half of your music. Scrolling through all that on an ipod takes forever. It also has built in WiFi, which means you can sync it wirelessly, and you can also purchase music directly from the device. It's also a lot sturdier than the iPod is. I've dropped mine about a hundred times, and not only does it still work perfectly, it doesn't have a scratch on it. The earbuds it comes with are crap, but I'm way too much of an audiophile to use cheap earbuds anyways.
I actually like Apple's closed approach to the technology. They really are easier to use, much cleaner and more elegant, and it's because they do exercise so much control over the hardware and OS. That's what I want. I went through my crazy days of hardcore tinkering years ago, and now rather than hammering on tools to make them work better, I just want tools that work right out of the box.
Where this crosses the line is that Apple is dictating content. I don't want a tool that intentionally blinds me to all the content that should be available. That's not a better tool, and it actually goes against the grain of what Apple has consistently done in the past, and that is making great tools.
re 66:
Shit man, that was the 80's; a freakin long time ago. Apple stopped being open when Wozniak left. And the problem with the PC is exactly its openness. It is virtually impossible to ensure that all the software and hardware available for the PC interact with no conflicts. But even in the days of IBM dominating the PC market (leading to the Apple "big brother" TV ad for the Mac), the PC started as a hackers computer and in a large sense still is. What was revolutionary about the Mac was not not freedom from IBM but a computer as reliable as a toaster, that worked straight out of the box. The downside being that, like a toaster, it only "toasted bread", getting it to do anything it didn't already come with was pretty difficult.
it is probably worth pointing out a couple of things right off.
the original developer agreement for writing apps for the iPhone forbid the use of intermediary runtimes and environments. you had to compile code that ran directly using the frameworks provided.
what this eliminated was the 'developer' creating a generic application that would be packaged with an individual program that would execute in this added environment. basically what this did was eliminate flash and java development for the iPhone.
(Adobe spent some time making a packager for Flash that would do precisely that. Apple rewrote the rules to make the implied limitation explicit. )
Mark Fiore tends to produce flash based animation. due to the aformentioned limitation in the developer terms. his app was essentially the same as the early porn things that were eliminated in that they were collections of media that had been reformatted to play in the native player as plain video. I could actually see Apple rejecting it for that alone. video takes up a lot of space, and for an app to monopolize that amount of storage is bad manners at best. given the lack of flash playback in the browser, fiore was out of luck unless he reformatted the material on his website. actually packaging the 'offending material' on the iPhone itself puts apple in a position of being sued for selling libelous content. carrying material that might be illegal in other places could cause trouble that can easily be worked around.
the solution that would prevented any of this would have been fiore having an app that was a front end to web access to the video provided externally. apple makes no rule preventing any nature of content that can be played in the phone or ipad, (there are plenty of iPhone porn sites...) simply what they allow to be sold directly through their store. these days, content can be sold from within the application without limit. see->kindle app for instance.
"...rejected his iPhone app...because...his satire "ridicules public figures,""
So... why didn't Apple reject The Onion's app then? Plenty of ridicule coming out of their publications.
@PZ Myers #79:
With all due respect, this is a false dichotomy. Closed systems are not inherently cleaner and more elegant, nor are open systems inherently clunky. It is a technical challenge to deal with heterogeneity in devices, but that's the case even with closed platforms that are deployed to a heterogeneous set of targets. If you look at something like the Nexus One phone where Google took their Android platform and applied it to a highly specific device configuration, the result is highly polished. Developers then can make a choice of whether to similarly restrict their attention to a single homogeneous environment or whether to tackle the challenge of heterogeneous development.
On the other hand, closed platforms do inherently restrict user freedoms. If you're lucky, then the company controlling the closed platform will not restrict freedoms you happen to care about, but that's always a gamble at best. It's one consumers are used to making with video game consoles, as has been pointed out, but that is nearly unprecedented in the general purpose computing market. That's why I won't buy an iPhone, an iPad or an iPod touch, and why I love my Android Developer Phone 1, and why I anticipate the WePad (make fun of the name, yes, but it's looking to be a solid device).
Ah yes, Garmin. I wish I'd known years ago.
I bought my first Garmin GPSr in 1997. Back then there wasn't really any software for it. It gave you location and would draw on a screen and that's about it.
In 2004 I picked up a newer unit that could handle loadable maps (eTrex or soemthing... I don't remember now, it died).
I needed a second unit, and in 2005 I threw down for a GPSMap 76CS. This is an expensive unit with a lot of features I wanted. I also paid a LOT of money for maps of North America and Europe in support of travel I needed to do.
Most (not all) of Garmin map products are limited to 2 GPS units. So, with my maps used on a now-dead eTrex and my GPSMap 76 CS I'm in a bind... I'd love to buy a new GPS with the new chipset (better reception, more features) but if I do, I will have to spend thousands of dollars on new versions of the maps I already own.
I have contacted Garmin about this, and their response was a bit long-winded but can be summarized as "suck on it." I even offered to return the dead unit as proof I would not be using the maps on a third GPS if they would free a licence on my software. They refused (and if they read this and change their mind, I've long ago disposed of the dead unit now).
So I'm stuck. What should be a simple GPS upgrade purchase will literally cost me upwards of $2000 if I want to have the same functionality I have now.
Worse, from a Garmin point of view is that if $2000 is on the table, I'll also be looking at their competitors, and I can't overlook the possibility software piracy to crack the versions I already own to work on a new unit.
Good job Garmin! With one stupid, bureaucratic decision you have alienated a customer, created bad publicity, and encouraged piracy.
In times long past, PCs were used for email and web surfing.
Today the iPhone/iPad are used for email and apps.
How easily we forget the web browser. (BTW Apple still provides a web browser on it's iPhones/iPads.)
Apple want to provide a better user a better experience through better software and hardware.
Apple wants an open internet so ANY device can access the world wide web by pushing for open internet standards.
Adobe wants to control the internet with their proprietary Flash plug-in and development software.
In 2000 Apple had to delay Mac OS X for a year in order to develop software (Carbon) that would allow old software like PhotoShop and Office to run without being rewritten. Ten years later Adobe finally released native (Cocoa) software (a couple parts of the new CS5 suite) that run natively on the Mac.
Three years after the iPhone, Adobe today announced a beta program for Flash 10.1 for some modern cell phones. It's "promised" to be released in the second half of 2010.
Maybe in another 10 years, Adobe will be able to keep up with Apple and other internet users. Unless its not in their business interests.
Anybody care to guess how many "fart" apps Apple sells? Apparently it must be music to Jobs' tin ear, there's so damn many of them.
Apple's licencing change effectively ends cross-platform development for the iPhone and iPad. You can't use other tools, you can't use other compilers and you can't use emitted code, you cannot sell anything made with Apple's SDK through any other channel for any reason, and you cannot talk about the terms of the developer agreement.
So, in addition to crapping on the heads of fairly large classes of developers and companies that have supported Apple in the past, the risk factor for developing for Apple has shot up.
Any excuses Apple has been proferring of late, including those of quality or performance are really smokescreens. Neither of those are currently bellwethers for acceptance into the store, and the effect that the licence has is apparent: Apple is locking down the mobility of developers, from without and from within.
I feel particularly sorry for developers who were partway through development of apps that were perfectly appropriate in the older licence when that steaming load of an agreement was dropped on them. Development takes a reasonable chunk of investment. Some people had all or most of their eggs in a previously acceptable basket.
All this doesn't even take into account Apples' blue legos on Flash content when web browsing, some peoples' "Flash must die" sentiments notwithstanding.
I know there are a lot of people out there who don't care in part because they're not developers. I am, albeit fortunately not for that space. It chills me to the bone to see a developer space operated under the self-serving and arbitrarily livelihood-destroying aegis that Apple has set up. I my own livelihood were under that kind of impersonal risk, I would freak.
I was never going to get an iPad, even without its restrictions, so voting with my feet will make no difference to Jobs, but I have an iPod, and I am going to place a moratorium on my music purchases from iTunes until they rescind the offending requirements from their agreements.
That, plus ranting near anyone considering purchasing the iPad. Even if they do buy one anyhow, the restrictions will be more evident, and that might temper their own recommendations. Apple is the bully this time, and folks need to know.
This seems like something that will be a short-lived problem. In probably less than a year, touch-pad type computers that mimic or exceed the iPad will be on the market.
And, as people have said here -- if you don't like Apple's selection of apps you are free to buy another device.
Mark Fiore is a big guy, but how many small developers are screwed up with no appeal by this policy?
Apple products are technically very good, but I just can't support half of the stuff they stand for.
DRM, Fritz Chip, closeness, conformism and idolatry...
No thanks.
In the long term, Apple is not building a better future.
PZ, please do not be proud to be a a technology ignorant any more than you would appreciate technocrats to be ignorant about evolution.
Your position of not minding if Apple's "technology is closed and proprietary" is nonsense. This closed and proprietary technology is exactly what allows them to be censors.
And censorship is censorship, it does not matter if it's acting against soft-porn, political satire or even creationist nonsense.
And you'll have to wait a long while for your iPad because this is what Apple is and will be. Cory Doctorow summed them up very well: http://boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-s…
Apple is funny. They had an add a few years ago saying how they were fighting the "big brother computer Co." But they seem to be just as much an "IBM' type co as any. Now I see that they are also resembling some of the more negative aspects of Disney. I think Steve and Walt would agree on many things.
proprietary hardware and maintenance
and censorship, strict control of uses it "allows"
its products which sounds more and more like leasing than ownership.
I have both PCs and Macs because I have to but I use PCs more and resent the control each have have over the "users" but what can I do
We all recognize there's a balance between individual rights of expression and the public need for the free flow of information; otherwise we'd see more people decrying spam-blocking as censorship.
The question is whether Apple's rights to restrict content as a distributor infringes on the free flow of information as a whole. As a distribution monopoly, it is in a position to both restrict competition and stifle free speech on the iPhone. Those effects as a whole are reduced by the existing marketplace competition from Palm, Google, RIM and Microsoft. Without a monopoly, excessive censorship hurts Apple more than the public: The more Apple censors it's Apps, the more attractive alternative smartphones become; consumer choice remains.
Right now, Apple's App distribution model is nothing more than a strike against it's purchase by the consumer. It is not in a position of market dominance that elevates it's monopoly to the point of moral panic.
The iPhone (and iPad) is a great product. The AppStore is a great concept. The AppStore is a great distribution system. The AppStore approval process is painful and unfair to developers. All of these statements are true.
For the last few months my colleagues and I have been switching over to developing iPhone applications that do not depend on the AppStore to make money.
Never crash?
Oh, sorry. Still laughing.
Give me a moment to collect myself.
Nope. Not working. I showed it to some of my programmers.
They're still laughing too.
Apple products have many things going for them: That old chestnut has never been one of them.
Please, stick to what they're /actually/ good at. You don't need to make any up.
A few off the top of my head.. Ease of use. Clean OS. Good support of open standards. (Not on the iphone or Ipad, but otherwise.)
I do game development, and I've recently gone platform agnostic, so my crew can use anything they want.
Blender, Zbrush, Unity3d, Silo3d. Best tools out there, and they work on everything. (For those that are interested in such things.)
point of clarification, Fiore's app did not provide "access" to his work, it simply "contained" his work. legally this makes a massive difference to the content provider.
if he's simply provided access, this whole thing would have never come up.
"As a distribution monopoly, it is in a position to both restrict competition and stifle free speech on the iPhone."
On the iPhone?!? What about my iMac? Where's my Fiore application for Mac OS X? Or a porn appllication. Why doesn't Apple allow Stormfront or MediaMatters publish their applications on the Mac yet? Damn corporate censors!
Of course, I CAN use my web browser to get to these sites, but I WANT applications damn it!
@circusboy: Don't count on it. Apple has rejected other apps for providing "access" to content they didn't like. The Cracked article linked to by an earlier commenter gives a great example of that. Eucalyptus, an ebook app that downloads public domain books from project gutenberg. It was rejected because one of the books that the program could download was the kama sutra. It was eventually accepted, but not until after it got a good amount of press.
I want an iPad. I certainly don't need one, so it's not on my shopping list at the moment, though an iPod touch is so I can replace my creaky old Palm Z31, and the touch is the only thing left out there that's a one-for-one swap. As long as people like the iPhone Dev Team are doing their thing, I'm fine with an iPad or touch because of the ability to jailbreak them. But I draw the line at the iPhone -- jailbreaking it would likely cause more hassle than it's worth, especially given the unique security concerns of mobile networks. I'd be more comfortable buying an Android phone.
I'm typing this from a Mac. I like the Mac platform. But it's shit like this from Apple that makes me utterly unashamed about not caring about piracy and fully supporting the jailbreak and Hackintosh communities.
ZigB: As was pointed out several times before, you cannot view Fiore's animations from an iPhone or iPad because they are in flash. If it was possible to view his cartoons through the iPhone's safari browser, I doubt he would have made the app to begin with, and there wouldn't have been a problem.
Joe:
It's more like "seldom crash". From personal experience, I can tell you that unless there's hardware problems (in the case of one of my G3 iMacs, evidently a wonky hard drive), a system crash is *very* rare. My laptop averages uptimes of over a month.
microsoft way worse
http://en.windows7sins.org/
(And that's a laptop. The G3 iMac that actually functions without major issues probably would be in the six month range if it wasn't for power blinks.)
#66 -- Apple has always been extremely open, eh?
Apple v. Franklin begs to differ with you, as does Apple v. Microsoft.
Apple has also pushed its own share of closed standards. Actually, there was a time when it was notorious for it. I think that at best you can say that at times Apple has shown no more of a proprietary attitude than has Microsoft.
And the really funny thing is that none of that really matters. Microsoft does not have near the dominance over the PC platform that Apple enjoys on the Macintosh.
Update: Apple will "reconsider" Mark Fiore's app! According to the NYT article I linked, the company contacted him to assure him there was an error and that if he submit again his work, it would certainly fare better. Wonder of wonders. Fiore's comment:
“Sure, mine might get approved, but what about someone who hasn’t won a Pulitzer and who is maybe making a better political app than mine? Do you need some media frenzy to get an app approved that has political material?”
irenedelse: Par for the course with them. All you need to do to get your unfairly rejected app approved is to get some media attention, and magically Apple is ready to reconsider. Never mind that they may have been putting you through months of form letter rejection bullshit before that.
For what it's worth, the issue with Flash is related to an overall ban on interpreters on the platform, with the exception of Javascript obviously. I can sort of see why they're doing this, but I find it odd that a company that employs people like Jordan Hubbard and Stuart Cheshire, not to mention having over two decades worth of experience in at least four different Unix variants between Apple and NeXT, can't figure out how to write a sandbox framework for hosted interpreters.
If you think this is bad, check this one out:
http://www.blog.montgomerie.net/whither-eucalyptus
Thanks for taking a principled stand on this. The nice thing is that there are about 20 nice looking tablets from other companies coming out now and this summer and fall that should definitely make the tablet space very competitive and exciting. No reason you have to deal with a company that treats its developers and users so badly.
Check out the Notion Ink Atom for an upcoming tablet with a really cool screen tech (Pixel Qi) that works indoors as a color LCD and outdoors as a reflective eink type screen.
Also there are some promising looking Android based tablets from Dell and HTC coming soon.
Hey. :) So does my laptop, and I'm running fairly high end stuff. My motherboard cooked on my due to the nvidia heat problem, but that's a different issue. My wife's Imac, before we replaced it with an XPS, had uptimes measured in days, sometimes hours.
Why? her admin was an idiot.
A properly maintained computer, regardless of what you're running, will have a long life and a long uptimes. We bought dell's because I know how to maintain them properly, keep them clean, fast and running.
I wouldn't buy a new Dell. (I own one, but bought it for $60 at a flea market because it was the cheapest thing there with decent performance.) Ever since their power supply connector conspiracy thingy c. 2000, I've considered them largely untrustworthy -- at least with my older HP Pavilion I knew what I was getting with an LPX motherboard. It doesn't matter as long as the current box still works, but if something breaks, I'm not entirely sure what I've got in there. (Which is a damn shame, because I love the case -- it's as close as an ATX case can get to Apple's old fliptop designs.)
On the topic of uptime. I am currently using my desktop with Windows XP and it has currently been running for nearly a month. The last time it was shut down was March 21, 2010 and that was because I was installing software that required it. Of course, my linux systems have run far longer than that.
Less than a year ago, I read how Apple had blocked an app that made farting noises. Meanwhile, my cousin's 12-year-old had an app on his iPod Touch that simulated the sounds of a dozen different firearms. So apparently, Apple didn't like the simulation of natural flatulence noises (though nothing stops you from loading an MP3 of same onto the device), but something that could lead an overly paranoid educator to put a school in lockdown was A-OK.
Combined with some other issues, I think I'm going Android.
@46;
Well, then, is it Apple's problem that Fiore's website designed hasn't created an iPhone ready version?
Still not censorship.
@sunioc
Yes, I posted my first comment before my eyes were open.
In my 2:24 PM comment, I was referring to my iMac. "Where's my Fiore application for Mac OS X?"
Lots of commenters are complaining about loss of freedom due to iPhone/iPad apps, but ignore the lack of the same applications on their desk tops since there's a web browser on the desktop.
Well, there's also a web browser on the iPhone/iPad.
Apple is all for freedom of information on the internet, but on their NEW platforms they will not support closed, proprietary plug-ins that limit device innovation such as Adobe's Flash and MicroSoft's Silverlight.
If media and advertising providers want to reach over 85 million iDevice and a few million other modern smartphone users, they have to use open web standards.
Three years after the introduction of the modern smartphone, there is no full version of Flash or Silverlight available.
@JediBear #103:
The Apple vs. Franklin case was about copyright. The Orange was found to have substantial portions of Apple's ROM in it. They weren't just cloning the Apple ][. They were stealing from it.
That's part of the reason Compaq was able to clone the IBM PC. They did a complete clean-room re-implementation of the ROMs.
Yeah. The Apple vs. Microsoft "look-and-feel" case was a debacle. It was stupid to begin with, and the fact that the courts upheld it set us back for years. This is absolutely a case in which Apple was attempting to stifle competitors.
I never said Apple was completely squeaky-clean.
ZigB, @114:
look, i'm as big an open source fan as you're likely to run into without going actively looking for RMS, but even i'm pragmatic enough to realize you don't get to make a GUI web browser without Flash support these days and claim you're just "supporting open standards". hate it all you want --- i'm no great friend of it either --- but Flash is just too godsdamn important to the web these days to brush off like that. (Silverlight, yes --- it's still a small enough niche player that you can ignore it. but Flash is not, and hasn't been for years.)
especially when Apple's entire bloody platform is one huge closed and proprietary walled garden. they could at least think up some excuse a little bit less blatantly hypocritical than that, is what i'm saying.
This is a non sequitur. The complaint isn't about lack of applications. The point is very simply this: if Mark Fiore wrote an OS X application, he wouldn't have to vet it through Apple in the first place! He would have the freedom to produce the app. We'd have the freedom to download it or not download it. That's freedom.
What the iPhone and iPad store does is interfere with that freedom. Sure, Apple can do it however they like. It doesn't change the fact that they are interfering with freedom.
In some cases the decision makes sense: I definitely agree that Flash sucks. From Apple's point of view, not only does it suck, but it sucks power. A simple embedded Flash animation can suck up all extra processor power on a regular desktop. For desktop use, it's no big deal, because it's a low-priority event loop, so other programs will get their fair share. On a phone, though, that utterly destroys battery life.
The point is that Mark Fiore's application was rejected because of content reasons. This is entirely different. It means Apple has placed themselves in the middle as the arbiter of propriety. This has nothing at all to do with software, or technology in general. It has everything to do with Apple censoring based on content.
ZigB:
There's a little more to it than that, and it's the same problems laptops have -- 3G connectivity is limited and has relatively small market penetration, and WiFi is even more limited, with even densely packed urban areas not guaranteed public coverage; even municipal nets in my experience tend to be barely functional if at all. (I know for a fact that Harvard University's network looks public from the outside but requires a Harvard ID to log in, and there doesn't seem to be a public/visitor alternative.) The value of these mainly-content apps is in offline reading; I could have the foresight to use whatever-the-iPhone-equivalent-of-Plucker-is to solve that problem, but that's not a trivial effort.
nigelTheBold:
It's also the reason that Apple wasn't able to stop Vtech from creating the Laser 128, which was a clean room Apple ][ implementation in the same vein as the first Compaq BIOS, or Coleco from creating the ApplesoftBASIC-source-compatible Adam, which was a completely different architecture that was closer to MSX than Apple.
Incidentally, this is one very good reason to jailbreak your iWhatever:
http://cydia.saurik.com/info/netatalk/howto.html
For those of you who've never had to work on a Mac network, Netatalk is the most common open source implementation of the Appletalk/Appleshare stack. (Zeroconf/Bonjour/Rendezvous was based on Appletalk's rather nicely transparent, if obnoxiously chatty, service discovery functions, and DHCP replaces Appletalk's address assignment functions.) The value of having Appletalk access might be somewhat low for the average user, but there's going to be times when you want to transfer files on and off the iWhatever without having to go through iTunes. And, obviously, Apple hasn't approved this for the store.
I have to echo the point raised by many others. The closed and proprietary nature of the hardware and software distribution is directly responsible for the censorship. It is like saying you support government ownership of the news, and then get upset when the government censors the news.
In a system where one party has complete and total control over content distribution and are explicitly granted the power to block any content they don't like for any reason, they are inevitably going to restrict the distribution of content they don't like. This isn't just a matter of censoring content that they think will offend people, they also censor software that competes with their own software (and is better than their own software), or free software their does the same thing as pay-for software.
And I find the claim that apple supports open standards laughable. They support open standard sometimes, but in many other instances support proprietary and/or patented standards and push for their widespread adoption.
Their strong and practically lone push to get mp4 accepted as the standard for HTML5 video is a great example. If that had been accepted as a standard it would be illegal for firefox and many other browsers to view web video. It would be illegal to make a standards-conforming web browser without paying a fee. How can anyone be said to support open standards when they push a standard that would make the web browser market a payers-only club? And they still continue to push the use of mp4 as a de-facto standard even though they know it will prevent many users from viewing content legally. Those is not the sort of tactics a company that really supports open standards would use.
And anyone who has ever gone through the agony of trying to install drivers on a Mac would disagree that their closed and proprietary nature leads to a better user experience. I had to stop my Dad from throwing his mac out a window when trying to install scanner drivers (he uses a PC now), and one of the professors in my department has to walk several blocks to get to a networked printer that is compatible with his mac (even after installing the drivers using the instructions given).
I would. :) I have an xps from two years ago, still running it all with everything turned up. Plus dev'ed two AA titles on it.
All in all, highly impressed with it.
Asus is good too.
Probably sticking with Studio for my next upgrade though. Impressed me enough with the power and price.
All that said: All the software I use for my art is platform agnostic.
As in, If I'm working on a level file, or an art file, I can send the file, with no alterations, to a programmer using a Macbook, and it works. His version of the software opens it as well with no issues or problems.
I don't want to be dictated to, as to what platform I have to buy.
@nomen-nescio.myopenid.com #116
"It has everything to do with Apple censoring based on content.'
OK, Apple's not perfect introducing new technology. When the rest of the PC makers were starting to offer CD drives, Apple went with CD-ROMs. The corrected their course later.
The App Store is just 2 years old and has over 185,000 apps for download. From what I've read, they have about a dozen app reviewers and automated software involved in app approval. Fiore's app isn't the first to be rejected then later invited back. Apple is learning from their mistakes.
As I posted above, can you walk into your corner bookstore and get the latest issue of "Just 18" or "MILFs in Heat"? All merchants have policies on what they carry and what they won't.
Regarding the whole app approval process, Apple has its reasons for requiring app approval. iPhoneOS is a new technology. I'm pretty sure Apple has an idea of what they want to do with it and what changes will be made in the future. Only apps written as Apple desires will be able to keep up with the changes in this new OS and not have to wait three years for Adobe to update their middleware.
Yes, Flash has been on the desktop for ages. Only now has Adobe updated Flash so it doesn't use all my processor cycles.
@ZigB: you meant to reply to Nigel the Bold, comment #117, not mine at #116. HTH.
There is a big difference here: my corner bookstore is not the only source of magazines. I would not complain much because they do not have a monopoly on magazine distribution. Apple, however, is the one and only source of applications for the iPhone and iPad. They have a total monopoly on the distribution of content on those platforms. Someone who wants something that their bookstore doesn't carry can easily use one of at least a thousand other sources. But someone who wants something that the Apple Store doesn't carry is out of luck.
So in other words the issue isn't that the Apple store restricts content, that's expected and perfectly acceptable. The problem is that the Apple store is the only way to get content on a particular medium. That is when censorship becomes a real problem.
As another example, say you like crossworld puzzle books. Your bookstore, however, only carries crossword puzzle books made by the company or by some of its business partners. You think these book are overpriced and not very good. Is that a serious problem? Of course not, you just buy a better crossword book elsewhere (or use one of the countless free ones online). But when the same thing happens in the Apple store, people are stuck using the overpriced, inferior software or nothing at all. They can't go use an alternative developed by another group.
It is even worse for the iPad when you look at hardware. Imagine a bookstore that sold notepads that only worked with a pens that have a certain adapter on them, and the adapter is only compatible with black 0.5mm felt-tip pens from a few brands. No other pen will even leave a mark. Of course no one would buy the notepads there, but Apple does the same thing with the iPad (it supports USB, but only for getting pictures off cameras), but unlike where people can just buy their notepad elsewhere, people with iPads are restricted to only using the hardware apple approves.
I am not crazy about things like the kindle or TiVo being locked down, but those are at least single-use devices so there is some excuse. Single-use devices shouldn't come with any expectation of being able to install custom software (although some can).
But for what is marketed as a general-purpose device that can use a wide range of software, restricting it to only Apple-approved uses is simply unacceptable.
I have a 7 year old PPC, and >3 year old intel-mac. Out of box, they have been running since their purchase, only down for updates or prolonged power outages. Not a single problem.
My linux box has faired nearly as well, though for me it's a hobby kit - i expect to break it sometimes if only to learn how to fix it.
The new Dell win laptop my employer configured and then provided me with is another story - it crashes at least 3 times a week and runs at a snails pace compared even to the PPC.
A few years ago I told family/friends that my support/repair policy for them was changing: it's still free if they buy a mac, if they continue with win then they have to pay me. I (thankfully) get fewer calls now, but obviously for different reasons.
I don't know where people get bad stories about the daily use/reliability of macs, but there's no way it comes from anyone who actually uses them.
Ever heard the phrase "anecdotes are not evidence"? Just because you haven't had a single problem doesn't mean no one has. I've used Macs a fair amount, not so much because I want to but because I know people who have them and they often need help. They have had tons of problems, both software and hardware problems. Some have had more problems than others, but not a single one has never had any problems. I know lots of people who are pretty familiar with computers and help people they know out a lot as well, their experiences have been the same as mine.
I won't say that no one is without problems on a Mac, I am sure there are some, but the claim that because you haven't had any problems then no one has had any problems is frankly absurd, and I can tell you from my own experience that it is flat-out wrong.
I've started using a Mac for the first time last year and I regret it. I switched to it because my workplace was buying it and I could pick the model, and because I work in UNIX all day long and thought - hey OSX is UNIX but with access to proprietary stuff like MS office and quicktime and such too.... Even if the interface can be mind-bogling stupid at times at least there's a real OS under the hood to drop into.
And then I discovered that no, that actually makes it feel worse. Knowing that it's a real powerful OS under the hood makes it feel even MORE annoying that the UI is handicapped by Jobsian thinking.
It's sad in the same way that watching the way Stephen Hawking has to communicate is sad - a fully functional beautiful mind on the inside, but it has to communicate to the outside world through a maddeningly hindering interface.
If I could re-wind time I'd undo my decision to get a macbook, but now that I've got it I'm stuck for a few years because it would be a waste of money to not use it.
I've already noticed it's starting to invade my habits and alter my thinking. For example I've noticed that when I go to use a Linux machine I keep forgetting that I can actually resize the window toward the left and I instead go through the clunky steps of sliding the window to the left and then resizing to the right from the lower-right corner of the frame - as if that was the "right" way. I'm already starting to conform and it's creeping me out.
@ Steven: Can't you just install Linux on the laptop? Dual boot, or even just wipe out Os X entirely.
If it was possible to get apps for your iPad from other places than just the apple's app store (in the same way you can get music for your iPod from other places than just iTunes) then your analogy would make more sense.
Then your experience is extraordinary.
I've worked on both. I currently work on both.
So, basically, you're wrong.
Flat out, wrong.
Why do I use a PC? I prefer windows to os. Personal preference. My system doesn't crash and everything works. Three years with this computer, And I can count the number of hard crashes on one hand. And one of those was hardware failure due to the rather publicized issue with Nvidia (Which crossed pc/mac boundaries. We should all be pissed at nvidia for this)
Other people do have problems.
What it boils down to: Computers are complicated masses of not entirely compatible hardware and software. Mac and PC are basically identical in that fashion, and both are prone to their own problems and foibles.
To note: Windows DOES crash. My experience with it is not the same as someone else. Just because I can run a windows laptop for months on end with no problems or crashes, know how to maintain it properly, even while running programs that use insane amounts of system resources, doesn't mean that 'windows never crashes'.
BluesBassist @ #4
The left and the right do agree superficially on this issue but they agree for different reasons. For the left, it has nothing to do with nervousness about sexuality. I am opposed to pornography, not because I think sex is shameful, bad, sinful, or naughty, but because it supports a very resistant set of gender expectations. The world teaches women that, by far, the most valuable thing they can have is a young, attractive body. It gives them power, it gives them confidence, it gives them value. It trumps everything else.
Here's an example of how this works: We can think several ways to describe a sexy older man. Sean Connery can look old and be sexy. But the only kind of sexy older woman we recognize is one who looks young.
My girlfriend was in a women studies club at the university here. She wanted to organize a "skip the primp" day, where women would not wear makeup for one day but most of the members, including the club president, refused--not because they thought it was a dumb idea but because they couldn't imagine coming to school without their makeup.
The problem is NOT about whether the women who pose for these pictures were coerced or whether they enjoy it or not. The problem is that women are encouraged to fully invest themselves in a form of social currency that society stops recognizing once those women reach middle-age. The problem is that the messages are so ubiquitous that by the time women reach puberty, they are fully prepared to contribute to their own oppression.
My daughter does very well in school. She loves most of her subjects and works hard at them. But she's also very pretty, and even though I talk to her about her interests as much as I can, she's already told me that she'd rather be pretty than smart. I hate that. But I understand it; that's what most of the people in her world care about, and she's only in second grade.
As far as I can tell, the far right's objection to pornography and the like is that sex outside of marriage corrupts the morals and offends God. I couldn't disagree more.
Perhaps in his old age, Steve Job's dick fell off of him and accidently got flushed down a toilet. Either way. it's nice that corporations tell us what to do with our products we purchased from them.
nigelTheBold | April 19, 2010 10:24 AM:
You can use XCode to develop both iphone and ipad apps on an Intel mac. That makes XCode a cross compiler. In any case - as is taught in any basic compilers course - any platform that can be supported by a native compiler can also be supported by a cross compiler. Apple's restrictions on compilers are not about performance. They are about keeping the hardware architecture secret. The article you link to is nothing more than dishonest sophistry.
Someone tell the retards at Apple that political cartoons are not defamatory. Hell, charge them $1M to educate them about libel and defamation laws and how the courts set a much higher bar when a public figure claims to have been defamed. If the decision to reject the software was made by someone in the legal department, they should lose their job immediately. If the decision was made by some clueless moron in another department, someone in the legal department should be screaming at them and insulting them - just staying short of defaming them.
@nigelthebold #16: All that stuff about cross compilers, speed, etc is absolute nonsense. Also, there is a gulf of difference between ARM and PowerPC - there is no such thing as a "compatibility mode" - you can run an emulator or you can have cores from two families with different software running on each and whatever system you can imagine to talk between the two.
Steven Mading | April 19, 2010 4:47 PM:
This is known as the sunk cost fallacy. If you can afford a replacement computer, and the replacement computer would increase your productivity or your pleasure enough to justify its cost, than a replacement is a good deal, regardless of how much or how little use you got out of the macbook. The same calculus applies to replacing just the OS.
@TheBlackCat #124
"Apple, however, is the one and only source of applications for the iPhone and iPad. They have a total monopoly on the distribution of content on those platforms."
Tell that to Google. Apple rejected Google Voice and Google turned around and made a web app to provide similar service through the iPhone's web browser.
The App Store is 2 years old. The iPhone is 3 years old. For that first year, iPhones only ran third party web apps.
Web apps have improved in the last 2 years. Take a look at the iPad operator's manual. It's a web app (one of the features of HTML5) that takes advantage on the iPhoneOS' scrolling physics capability.
notepads...black 0.5mm felt-tip pens... discussion..."Apple does the same thing with the iPad (it supports USB, but only for getting pictures off cameras)"
Are you still pining for your PS2 connector and a floppy drive? Technology is always changing. I can transfer files to an iPad touch through email, wifi and the included power/USB cable through iTunes connection.
Email me a file and on the iPad I could open it with any program registered to deal with that file type. Use the 99¢ GoodReader app to get a file over wifi from a desktop or the cloud and it will let you view it or open it in any appropriate app on the iPad.
WIFI is especially interesting. I can transfer files from within companion desktop applications. I can transfer from cloud storage services like DropBox and MobileMe. And I have an app on my iPod touch that includes it's own web server so I can connect to it through my desktop web browser and transfer files.
That is not the first time, and will not be the last. South Park Studios have an app ready to put on the itunes store, but they also were censored by apple. The history is on boing boing :
http://boingboing.net/2009/02/17/south-park-iphone-ap.html
This is known as the fallacy of assuming the sunk cost fallacy always applies. It's a no-brainer to realize that the sunk cost fallacy only applies when the thing you've sunk your cost into is so useless and hopeless that it's a massive hindrance to keep using it. I can get the work I need to get done on a Mac. I also could get it done on a Windows PC. I also could get it done on a Linux PC. The fact that I regret buying one and would not make the same decision if I could make it again does not mean that it's useless in its current state. I can make use of it, if I have to put a number on it, say, 90% as well as a Linux machine.
But when I bought it, I was not expecting only 90%. Once I have bought it, 90% is still good enough that the sunk cost fallacy does not apply.
As far as putting Linux on it, while doing that helps in one sense, it is a hindrance in another sense. It gets rid of the "can run commercial apps on it" advantage of the mac that's part of what's making up that 90%. (Yes, I know about dual boot. It's not useful when you're flipping context back and forth between the two tasks.)
To a large extent what I dislike about the Mac isn't something that's preventing my productivity. It's aesthetics and the attitude of the company toward people who want customizations. (Like how in the most recent release they shut down all theming with the attitude similar to Henry Ford that you can have your window frames in any color as long as it's grey. That doesn't hurt productiviy, but it does reveal an attitude I disagree with strongly about who really owns the computer once I bought it - me or Apple. The myth that less capabilities is an improvement because letting you have choices means you'll shoot yourself in the foot is why I stopped using Gnome in Linux and went to KDE several years ago when it was clear that Gnome was starting to adopt this sort of attitude about the interface.)
Steven Mading:
For better or for worse, Apple has been somewhat theme-hostile ever since Mac OS 8 (which was the first release to have a fairly powerful theme engine, which Apple refused to support), and those who do write Mac themes have largely had to do the work for themselves. Apple's always been very up front about developers not being able to count on anything that they haven't put down in official developer documentation (just ask anyone who ever shipped an application that tweaked the Layer Manager), and Snow Leopard made quite a lot of under-the-hood changes.
You can argue back and forth about the value of supporting theming -- X11 was designed from the beginning to be extremely flexible in that regard, while it's never been a priority on the Mac -- but circa 1990 X was considered an enormous resource hog at a time when 2-4MB of memory was a substantial investment.
Also, comparing Gnome to Mac OS X is rather spurious. As someone who uses both side-by-side, whatever else you can say about Mac OS X, it's polished, and AppleScript might be one of the most powerful (if admittedly wordy) scripting architectures out there, so if you can't get it from the GUI you can go around back and tweak it. (If you don't mind tweaking plists, you can go even deeper, but you can do that on pretty much any system.) Gnome is inept. It feels like the designers are trying to be Mac-like but are only looking at the superficial aspects. I don't actually blame you for switching to KDE (I only use a Gnome distro because I know a bunch of other Ubuntu users), but please understand that compared to the Mac, Gnome is pretty weak sauce.
Great for companies that can pay to host a web site, but that doesn't help most developers.
How exactly does that help if I want to connect a keyboard or mouse? Or one of hundreds of other types of peripherals? Transferring files isn't the only purpose of USB.
What about people who don't want to set up a wireless network, Apple is just going to make us do it? Emailing files is great...when you deal with small files below the file size limit. And sending files over the web is extremely slow even compared to WiFi, and cell phone networks are slower still.
Why should I have to pay for what should be basic functionality? Just listen to what you are saying. You are bragging that people have to pay to get a separate application just to get functionality that is built into pretty much every other device that has come out in about a decade. I don't care whether it is 99 cents, why is this not built into the operating system?
Why should I have to use a companion desktop application? Once again, you are bragging that we have to install a separate proprietary application on my computer just to do the same thing that my operating system can do out of the box. Are you one of those people who got mad when Plug'nPlay came out? You shouldn't need install anything just to transfer files to an external device, the functionality has been built into every operating system for a decade.
Once again, Apple acts as the gatekeepers. I can't just connect the device and start loading my files on to it like I can pretty much every other external device on the planet, I have to use Apple's own software for the file types apple approves.
@TheBlackCat
Want to get around Apple's "walled garden", convert it to a web app and post it on the free web space provided by your ISP. You have now bypassed Apple's censors and preserved the freedom of speech.
Mice don't work on iPhoneOS. My 2004 iMac can create a local wireless network without cables or a router to connect to an iPad. Cheap, flexible bluetooth keyboards are available on eBay and connect to the iPad.
The Document Sharing capability is in the iPhoneOS and available to third party apps. Apple's Mail already uses this process. For a buck you can extend that capability if you need it.
For all the whining, the freedom of expression is not in danger, there are connection solutions for data transfer, some technologies will be left behind and others will take their place.
Don't like the iPad options? Buy an HP Slate, with half the iPad battery life, a smaller screen, a slower wifi card, lots of ports, a stylus and upgrade your applications to be touch capable.
Right on PZ!
On the other hand, there's a fascist app on Spain's bloody little dictator, Franco, with snippets of his speech and other crap, is not banned...
That only works as long as your ISP offers web hosting, your application doesn't become popular, you don't need access to anything internal to the device, doesn't need to be fast, is amenable to being run in a scripting language as opposed to a compiled language, and Apple doesn't decide to block access (which according to the license agreement they can do for any reason at any time at their sole discretion). There will always be significant limitations to web apps compared to installed apps.
Case in point.
Not every computer has wireless network built in, wireless cards are a LOT more expensive than USB cards, and you still have to set it up for wireless networking. Why should we have to set up a wireless network, secure it, and have move any files I want to the shared folder (or share my entire home directory, which would be a pain to navigate) just to get files on a device?
The difference between USB and, say a serial port is that USB is easier to set up and easier to use. (ps/2 is a bad example because it was really only used for connecting mice and keyboards) Wireless networks are harder to set up, harder to use, and extremely dangerous if people don't know what they are doing (which, frankly, most people don't).
Great, if you want to spend 5-10 times what a comparable wireless keyboard costs (not to mention a wired keyboard). Once again, why is this is even a subject of discussion? Why in 2010, are we worrying at all about what sort of keyboard a computer supports? Shouldn't keyboards just work?
If it is built into the OS, why can't the users make use of it? Why are we being charged anything for an application that merely allows us to do something that every other computer and practically every other personal electronic device in the world can do out of the box?
First, no, there are no solutions whatsoever for most types of hardware. Second, you can only use files that Apple decides to let you use. If Apple decides to not allow support for a certain type of file, you will never be able to view it on an iPad. Apple can decide to block installation of a program, they can decide to block access to a website, I assume they can also decide to block access to content they don't like but I am not sure.
That does it, I call for a boycott on Ap p
You know what, TheBlackCat? Everything you say only applies if you intend to stay within the rules -- update when Apple tells you to without waiting for a jailbreak, never install Cydia or another third-party installer, never jailbreak your iWhatever at all. If you don't reserve the right to do that to hardware you own, yes, you deserve exactly what you get. You don't have to jailbreak your gear, and if you need the warranty it probably isn't in your interest to do so.
It's sort of like when people were hacking the original Xbox -- Microsoft didn't much like it, but there was quite a lot of demand for the hacked systems, so people went and did it anyway. (In Microsoft's case, it had the advantage that since the hardware itself was sold as a loss leader, it took money out of MS's pocket every time you bought one new.) At the end of the day, it's still the user's gear, and if the company making it has a problem with that, well, tough shit.
Yeah, I am sort of operating under the assumption that users won't be doing activities that may very well be illegal.
I should add that by that logic there is no censorship in China since computer users can use proxies to bypass the censors.
But when we didn't stop the censorship of soft-core girlie pictures, who knew the next stop would be the censorship of political satire?
Anyone with sense or a little knowledge about Apple's app policy.
if they use their tech to restrict access and allow no other app outlets
LOL. Google "jailbreak", and try to understand why Apple opposes it (it breaks warranty, although you can always undo it before anding your device to Apple).
They're also going after glorified RSS feeds, for example. Apps which are too simple have no place on the app store.
Censoring for any reason other than compatibility, user experience, etc. is a no-go, though.
You think that censoring for "user experience" is a good thing? Would you also favor Apple or any other computer manufacturer controlling what programs you can run on your computer?
Unlocking the iPhone, though? A closed system helps protect against pirates (although I know it takes just seconds to jailbreak an iPhone 3G)
You have no idea what you're talking about; jailbreaking is not "unlocking" and cannot be done in "just seconds".
I actually like Apple's closed approach to the technology. They really are easier to use, much cleaner and more elegant, and it's because they do exercise so much control over the hardware and OS.
You have very little understanding of the issues you are discussing. Windows is also proprietary, whereas a beautiful piece of software like Eclipse is open source with a modular plug-in architecture. Cleaniness and elegance come from good design, not closed technology. As for the hardware, you're comparing Apples to oranges because an Apple computer is an Apple product manufactured by Apple whereas a PC is a generic category and is not made by the software vendor. A more comparable system is the old Sun Sparcs, which had similar pros and cons to Apple.
Apple computers are not for me for various reasons, but I will get an unlocked Iphone when on holiday in Europe in a couple of months, purely because of the medical apps available for it, there is just nothing comparable on the market, and most senior medical staff have one exactly for that reason.
PZ said:
That's a bit naive given their track record and the fact that it's their proprietary system.Also, you would want some sort of control over what runs on your phones, shareholders wouldnt appreciate it if some dude wrote a pedo priest game app that became an instant hit.
To name one that spontaneously came to mind.
PZ
My friend has a dual core Apple that runs windows. I was using it to run a PC video editing program, I know that sounds upside down but nobody beats Sony Vegas for easy editing.
Outside of extreme gaming video editing is about the biggest strain you can put on a computer, and the thing ran great.
I wish I could afford one, but we use mostly hand-me-down computers here.
I'll have to wait a few more years.
On the iPhone?!? What about my iMac? Where's my Fiore application for Mac OS X? Or a porn appllication. Why doesn't Apple allow Stormfront or MediaMatters publish their applications on the Mac yet?
They do, fool; if there were such apps, Apple would "allow" their publication for the iMac as they have no control over what apps can be loaded on the machine.
"Apple, however, is the one and only source of applications for the iPhone and iPad. They have a total monopoly on the distribution of content on those platforms."
Tell that to Google. Apple rejected Google Voice and Google turned around and made a web app to provide similar service through the iPhone's web browser.
That's mindbogglingly stupid and is in no way a counterexample to the point. Google's product is a web service, that can be accessed from either a web browser or from a smartphone app; generally, apps on the phone are not web apps.
Your posts in this thread are consistently moronic and wrong; you should give it a rest.
I hope someone else has already mentioned thus, but in case they haven't, Apple has already asked Mark to resubmit his app. Apparently after the original rejection (which was a mistake, even Apple thinks so) he never tried again, which is unfortunate because if he did he would have had a different reviewer and most likely would not have had by more problems. The App Store's fundamental problems are understaffing and inconsistent rules. They have a lot to fix but I do not believe that this is a problem of censorship, merely one of a faulty system. I know plenty of other developers that have had mistaken rejections, and they were all able to deal with the problem and get their app on the store eventually. I really hope higher-ups at Apple are paying attention and will work to prevent more faulty rejections like this one.
Well, that was to be expected. They are control freaks and that is why opensource will always be preferable to me.
So Steve Jobs has called the banning of Fiore's app a "mistake" and the app is now available in the app store, just so you know.