After thinking about it for a while, I think the reason developers are so upset over 3.3.1 isn't just its direct effects. I think that many developers hoped that Apple would make the App Store more open over time. 3.3.1 is a clear sign that the opposite is more likely.
Reading through the comments, I am really struck by how much good will apple has completely squandered. The most obvious interpretation of events (in my mind, at least) is that no US based company would ever, ever want to be associated with censoring a satirist, and that the removal of the app really was a complete fuckup, indicative of a system that needs is not working like intended.
A lot of the other comments seem to think it isn't a fuckup, that the system is designed to keep satirists out. Which would mean viewing apple in a pretty extreme light. The only way someone could think that about a company is if you have a lot of ill will towards them in the first place. The whole level of suspicion towards apple right now is a sign of just how much they've fucked up the goodwill they earned with their shiny products.
I don't think that apple is intentionally rejecting satire apps. But I do think that unless they make a real effort to start earning back some trust, they deserve to have people thinking that way.
Watch how people ACT, not what they SAY. Steve Jobs knows this. People slam apple all the time but they're doing incredibly, incredibly well. So, from their POV, who cares?
AT&T wireless, Time Warner internet, Ticket Master, etc. are also doing well financially, but as soon as they lose their monopoly power and there's a good alternative, they're toast. I know 0 people who would pick them over a good alternative if they knew of one.
I love Apple products, but I would say they're heading down that same road with developers. If they ever lose their dominance in the app world, I think they're going to see a lot of defection.
Even as a developer, I realize that political satire is far more important to the mobile platform ecosystem than a choice of language (e.g. 3.3.1). I'm glad that Jobs (and therefore Apple) realize that something needs to be "fixed" with the process that banned Fiore's app.
Programming languages and satire are both forms of self-expression. So the difference between them is superficial. Lisp for example encourages a kind of punning.
>He added: “Editorial cartoons of all stripes should get a pass when it comes to the license agreement with the exception of those that espouse violence.”
Which means that Apple is in fact censoring content? Or does this exclusively refer to criminal violence?
The only thing I learned from this is that if you won a pulitzer prize for your satire you can resubmit your satire app. Just like if you're Sports Illustrated you can have an app with girls in bikinis.
It's just ugly to watch this hypocrisy. I don't plan on using iPhones anymore, or getting an iPad and maybe that means I miss out on really great phone and what looks like an amazing tablet, but at least I'm not a part of this long haul of an trip down Steve Job's ego. The thing is, I don't think Jobs thinks that he's doing anything but the right thing, protecting his app store from junk, and that's admirable in weird sort of way. It's just such a pain to hear about this ordeal day in and day out, for what like a year or two now, and just the parade of bad Apple news doesn't stop. I don't blame the tech blogs for reporting on it, I don't blame users for buying Apple's incredibly amazing devices. You know who I blame? Apple's competition for a complete inability to make decent shit that is at least in some alternate universe comparable in quality to what Apple produces, minus a crazy genius' ego. But I guess I don't live in that world. I guess in this world there's only one company capable of making good computers, and it just happens to come with a shit load of baggage.
I think HTC is the closest thing to a credible competitor for Apple in the smart phone business. Their phones are incredibly well built, and Sense UI looks quite good and is improving.
I was rooting for Palm, but it looks like they are unable to deliver phones in Sweden.
In my dream world I'd get a HTC built phone using the webOS GUI paradigm, but with the OS and applications written in a language which compiles to native code instead of JavaScript.
My wife and her parents used to have AT&T Tilts (HTC TYTN II). Like you, they were very frustrated with the phones. Now they all have iPhones and are very happy.
Yeah? Who made the iPod killer? The iPod has been around for a long time now, why hasn't anyone come up with something decent that competes with it yet?
"Good" is a relative term, but I think here it is meant in comparison to Apple's products. And although it's subjective, a lot of people (including myself) don't see anybody making products with the kind of quality Apple does. This isn't brand loyalty, because I don't really like Apple all that much. They're far too evil these days. It's just hard to find anybody else making products that good.
Question: why does that baggage matter to you (as a user)?
Apple makes good products. What do those products do? They enable people (i.e.: you and me) to do great stuff, without gettingintheway. Stuff like programming and writing and designing.
An Apple product - to the average end-user - is an abstraction layer to all those other things. If the abstraction layer works, use it. If it doesn't, don't. Baggage has nothing to do with it.
Because buying Apple products is voting for a future in which editorial cartoons are censored by a giant computer company with monopolistic ambitions. Even if you have to live in that future, it would help to know you didn't have a hand in bringing it to pass.
That's an emotional response as a developer, not a user. Not a logical response. You may dislike what Apple's doing politically, but if you limit yourself to using other, inferior products - well that just doesn't make sense, really.
"What do those products do? They enable people (i.e.: you and me) to do great stuff, without getting in the way. Stuff like programming and writing and designing."
I don't know how you can say that with a straight face.
Because it shows up on HN more than once a day. Because I use Apple products. Because I create apps. This Satire app rejection made the New York Times It's no longer just an Arrington rant anymore.
Apple's competition for a complete inability to make decent shit that is at least in some alternate universe comparable in quality to what Apple produces, minus a crazy genius' ego.
Right, because if Steve has any restriction at all on his genius, he'll take his ball and glove and go home, instead of ... making a great product and making a profit.
Yours is a stupid argument that can always be whipped out to justify corporate abuse. Or any other abuse, for that matter.
Setting aside your attack on "Steve", the point I'm making is that no one WITHOUT A PATENT has developed an iPhone, or anything remotely close. Prove me wrong. I dare you.
1> Didn't say patent reform. Also needed, but not related to this conversation.
2> Copyright reform could remove prohibitions on cracking the DRM, allowing people to install whatever and allowing third parties to legally install whatever and to legally bypass the signing and "licensing agreement" which is clearly a license of adhesion, especially in many states.
3> Cell phone law reform could mandate "install whatever" on devices be legal.
Patents are not the whole story. I doubt any other company cares as much as Apple about how the bottom side of their laptops looks. I don’t think you can patent that.
You need the crazy dictator's ego to suppress the formation of the normal corporate culture of stupid bosses and committees. MBAs and marketing droids are like mosquitoes on a warm summer night near a swamp, and you need eternal vigilance a lot of DEET to keep them away.
The most valuable thing Jobs does is suppress the bozo explosion that invariably occurs at successful companies.
Yes, totally -- but you presuppose that there has to be a large corporation to use passion at all.
To create a perfect global supply chain that produces complex electronic devices -- yes.
But not for lots of other things. You simply don't need the other people to begin with. If there's no middle management, you don't need a crazy genius to suppress its horribleness.
I'm protecting my passion by quitting all client work. :)
