Apple's draconian developer docs revealed

In the 1999 movie Fight Club, Brad Pitt famously tells a huddle of pugilistic aspirants: "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club." Apple's iPhone Developer Program License Agreement phrases that sentiment differently, but its directive to iPhone developers is essentially the same: You may not issue …

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Won't matter for long, anyway.

Well, there is Tim Cook who has pretty much been running the whole show for a while (even before the health problems), although Jobs has the final say.

Before Disney bought Pixar, Jobs divided his time between Apple and Pixar so had to do a fair bit of delegating. This also had advantages for employess of both companies, as the old joke goes, as Jobs could only terrorize them 50% of the time.

[Michael C]

a few points

First, I'm NOT a fan of Apples restrictions like this on devs and 3rd parties. i can understand in-development products and as-yet-unreleased NDAs, but when anyone who pays $99 can be a dev, an NDA on the terms of being one is kind of pointless...

As far as Apple's store? What's new, BestBuy can pull a product from their store for equally bizarre reasons, without explanation. If Apple doesn't like it, even if you followed their rules, you're subject to removal, and that'sd clearly disclosed in advance, so no one really should be bitching. its not like this CHANGED.

On "reverse engineering" sorry, i often agree with the EFF, but in this case they're wrong. You CAN reverse engineer software you;re licensed to own (under first sale doctrine and fair use) but a) only for non-commercial purposes, and b) the SDK is not sold, it's a service of a contract subscription and thus does not apply under first sale.

"don't hack our stuff, including anything you run the SDK or iPhone apps on." Duh. Standard. no news here. If there's no provided API, and you can't reverse engineer the tools, then is it really a jump in logic to think that hacking a device to inter operate with iTunes that's not an iPhone would somehow be OK?

"not libel" yup, standard. basically: You made it, we sold it FOR you, if you get sued that's YOUR problem, we only check to make sure it doesn't break our coding rules and general policies, you have to make sure it doesn't violate laws, patents, copyrights, and not injure people, etc... and you can't sue US for your loss because you did something we didn't like (or a customer didn't like). This is a VOLUNTARY system, accept it or leave.

iPhone is NOT the only choice of platform. It has a THRIVING development community, a secure device people trust and find easy to use, is compatible with lots of stuff they own, and is extremely popular. If you don;t like apple's policies after becoming a developer, Apple is more than happy to refund your $99 before you invest time and money in development and advertising something that might violate the policies defined. You can also always CALL apple and discuss a yet-to-be/in-development app and discuss possible infringement/acceptance. If you don;t like it, code for WinMo, RIM, Android, Symbian, or something else, YOU HAVE CHOICES (and many of them are equally restrictive, and becoming more so out of necesity for security and performance considerations)

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh say can you see, your rights floating away

Looks like Apple may be on dodgy ground trying to enforce some of this because here in the UK, unlike the 'land of the free', reverse engineering for commercial purposes is permitted as long as you're not doing it to profit from pirating the soft/firmware and there's good precedent set in law to back this up. The DMCA does not apply outside the good ole US of A.

Fortunately, also here in good old Blighty, you can't sign away scads of your rights just by agreeing to something as silly as a software licence or contract which may be largely invalid under UK law.

Just because it says it on a piece of paper or some electronic format doesn't mean it's enforceable.

[The Other Steve]

Desperately seeking cluesan

Oh dear. No. That's really not how it works at all, although I see that eight other idiots are simmilarly clueless.

Firstly, just because something is permissible under UK law does not mean that you can't contractually agree not to do it, so your whole 'unenforceable' whinge is based on a total lack of clue as regards contract law.

Secondly, you also demonstrate your utter incompetence to ever enter into any legal agreement on your own behalf with the statement :

"Just because it says it on a piece of paper or some electronic format doesn't mean it's enforceable."

If it says it on a piece of paper or some electronic format that constitutes a valid contract, which you have agreed to and which contains terms which provide valid consideration then it is, in fact, enforceable. That's how contracts work you dribbling fuckwit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Takes one to know one, and all that.

"If it says it on a piece of paper or some electronic format that constitutes a valid contract, which you have agreed to and which contains terms which provide valid consideration then it is, in fact, enforceable. That's how contracts work you dribbling fuckwit."

IF the contract is valid. The "fuckwit"'s point was that certain contracts are invalid, by law, whether everyone concerned agreed to them or not. A contract can not, for example, bind anyone to break the law.

[The Other Steve]

All aboard the fail train

" A contract can not, for example, bind anyone to break the law."

No shit sherlock, but it can prohibit parties from doing things which are otherwise perfectly permissable, contrary to the OP's opinion.

I dub thee fuckwit also since in your haste to vent your frustration at being wrong you have managed to offer only a straw man.

That goes double because the document under discussion fulfils all the criteria that I listed, which both you and the OP would know IF you'd read it and IF you had any idea whatsoever about contract law.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the OP but the commenter.

Hence the reason the word *may* was used in my original comment. If I seriously intended to challenge a contract in court then I'd retain a bottom feeder to represent me.

It may well be that the Apple contract is watertight and entirely fair (as a friend used to say, there's a good deal every time with a used car from Chris ******** motors, for Chris *******) but plenty of contracts do contain unenforceable and or unfair terms, you may enter into one every time you wash your car, you may enter one every time you go and watch a motor race, a company cannot ask you to sign away your right to reparation in law but many try to, hence my statement, which I am happy to stand by, just because it's written down on a piece of paper does *NOT* mean it's enforceable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Small mind

"I dub thee fuckwit also since in your haste to vent your frustration at being wrong you have managed to offer only a straw man."

It was just an example. Indeed, I didn't even venture an opinion as to whether the contract in question was legal.

You're clearly not too bright, so we'll just leave it there.

[YetAnotherMatt]

Parts of a contract may indeed be unenforceable

I believe the general view is that contract clauses deemed to be unfair by a court cannot be enforced, but you have to go to court to prove it. This applies to various 'restraint of trade' clauses, of the sort often seen in a contract of employment. You know, the part where the it states that you cannot work directly for an end client for a period of 12 months after your contract expires.

There are circumstances where this type of clause cannot be enforced, e.g. if your employer has terminated your contract and then end client subsequently offers you a new contract (the order of events is important).

Please don't call people dribbling fuckwits, it's not nice.

[Karnka]

legally speaking

Sadly it doesn't need to be 'enforceable' legally.

They catch you doing anything they don't like and they can just pull your application.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree up to a point

"As far as Apple's store? What's new, BestBuy can pull a product from their store for equally bizarre reasons, without explanation. If Apple doesn't like it, even if you followed their rules, you're subject to removal, and that'sd [sic] clearly disclosed in advance, so no one really should be bitching. its not like this CHANGED"

While retailers have no obligation to sell a product, this situation is a bit different. Apple do not just refuse to sell the applications, they also restrict the developer (by means of their policies) from selling the application via any other store.

What other industry do you know of where a store can not only refuse to sell a product, but prevent the manufacturer / developer from selling the product through another store? I can't think of a single one.

Personally I think this particular restriction could arguably be defined as interfering with or restricting free trade* and will probably end up being the downfall of Apple.

*of course the usual IANAL disclaimer applies

[AF]

Not unheard of, I suspect.

"What other industry do you know of where a store can not only refuse to sell a product, but prevent the manufacturer / developer from selling the product through another store? I can't think of a single one."

I bet there's some deals that Tesco have over suppliers like that - "We'll buy your stuff, but you're not to supply Sainsburys or Asda, capiche?". And I would have thought it would be possible in any industry, all that's happened is a company have said "We'll let you sell stuff to our users through our store, but only if you don't sell it anywhere else". It's just that no-one's had this big a captive audience before...

[Dave Murray]

Missed the point

You missed the point. It's not like an agreement that Tesco may have with some suppliers that they can't also sell through a competitor. This agreement is "we won't sell your product and neither can our competitors". This is not something that happens in other industries and it is against free trade.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Free trade?"

But they're not restricting free trade, that's the whole point! They are restricting trade on *their* product and by doing so are almost restricting *its* competitiveness. In short, the inference I'm getting from your statement, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that of Apple acting anti-competitively. No. No-one *has* to buy an iPhone or develop for it. There are are other options and Apple do not have anything close to a monopoly on phones or smartphones, but if you want a piece of Apples currently lucrative pie, there are conditions and rules.

"What other industry do you know of where a store can not only refuse to sell a product, but prevent the manufacturer / developer from selling the product through another store? I can't think of a single one" That is meaningless. So what? Try buying downloadable apps for your Wii. There are other sales and business models out there, and to paraphrase mothers the world over; "Just because Jimmy is going to jump off a bridge..."

As for "will probably end up being the downfall of Apple", arguably this policy has seen their stock rise. Put simply, consumers just don't care, so long as their product works as advertised, which the iPhone does by and large. Most nerds/geeks and especially those that are ensconced firmly in any of the 'fanboy' camps (including Apples - and yes some of the Register's 'reporters' fall into this camp; I'm looking at you Metz) cannot see beyond the end of their own noses. Apple, Google and Microsoft, to name the three obvious ones, actually can and do, and they have realised that the consumer market is where it's at. Yes, enterprise spends money, but it's as little as possible and not very often and with demands for legacy support, each company has a different way to deal with enterprise. Consumers on the other hand spend in smaller amount, but theirs more of them and it's less sporadic, and this is where Apple are beginning to dominate the mobile/portable market.

OT: A lot of the "restrictions" don't hinder development, they can help it. Take building codes and standards as an example; a bad designer will interpret them and produce a box, a good designer will interpret them and produce amazing architecture. An awful lot of the 'draconian' terms and conditions are standard legalese and are found everywhere else, not that this is a good thing at all! Still, any stick will do, eh El Reg? I mean 'Draconian'? Very tabloid...

[DrXym]

Apple's store is a monopoly

"As far as Apple's store? What's new, BestBuy can pull a product from their store for equally bizarre reasons, without explanation. If Apple doesn't like it, even if you followed their rules, you're subject to removal, and that'sd clearly disclosed in advance, so no one really should be bitching. its not like this CHANGED."

Sure BestBuy can implement some arbitrary, self-serving, two faced, draconian terms and conditions on producers. At which point they can shrug their shoulders and sell stuff through Sears, Walmart, Amazon, Ebay or a thousand and one other ways including selling direct.

If Apple yanks your app from the app store, it's gone for good. No right of appeal, no alternative outlet. It's gone.

Consumers and producers should be deeply, deeply concerned about such a model. I'm sure there are plenty of great apps on the app store but that does not excuse behaviour by Apple which is frankly evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to see here

I suppose this article might hold something for those who revel in conspiracy theories, but seems pointless to me. I've seen those same conditions in many contracts - they are standard, ordinary clauses. They are necessary because there will always be a selfish minority looking for loopholes that will allow destructive behaviour to go unchallenged.

Apple has invested heavily in this platform - it makes sense to protect it, for Apple, their customers, and serious developers. As far as I can tell, these conditions have only excluded the cowboys.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nothing to see here

Standard, ordinary clauses? As in, "You may not issue any press releases or make any other public statements regarding this Agreement"? Given the history of coercive agreements and their effects - wonder why you have to buy Windows on most computers? - this kind of action is only "pointless" if you think all business should be conducted through secret agreements, that smaller companies should exist only at the discretion of the large and powerful ones, and you - the consumer - should just suck it up and take what you're given.

There's only "nothing to see here" if you think that corporative expansionism is just super and are deluded enough to believe that only that will ensure that you get your regular dose of "shiny".

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, standard

Quote "Standard, ordinary clauses? As in, "You may not issue any press releases or make any other public statements regarding this Agreement"?"

Yes, almost every contract I see these days has that clause. Even opening a discussion - prior to looking at a contract - involves signing a NDA. Everyone is secretive because genuine R&D is expensive, and there are any number of companies who will wait for you to do all the hard work and then replicate whatever (successful) material you come up with.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes

"Everyone is secretive because genuine R&D is expensive, and there are any number of companies who will wait for you to do all the hard work and then replicate whatever (successful) material you come up with."

Apple, for example, copied Xerox's window system. And then sued anyone else who also copied it. Genuine R&D story.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Why so complicated?

"This nugget was finally uncovered by the digital-freedom crusaders at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), who obtained a copy (PDF) of the Agreement by invoking the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) after the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration signed on as an iPhone developer."

Why so complicated?

"You agree that the Apple Software licensed hereunder, the Documentation, the terms and conditions of this Agreement .... will be deemed “Apple Confidential Information” under this Agreement."

Ach so.

Oh well, I'm sure many developers would gladly provide a copy. It's not as if anyone is reading this standard exercise in legalistic incontinence. Or you can go here for example:

http://wiki.factoryjoe.com/iPhone-Developer-Program-License-Agreement

[Deb Swinney]

Yeah but

I'm guessing that if the EFF want to start any lawsuits, then the evidence (the Agreement) will need to be acquired legally. Anyone who signed up and discloses it isn't entitled to (under the Agreement), so they had to find a workaround that got them there within the law.

But IANAL, and I don't know what the EFF's plans are - just guessing.

[Anonymous Coward]

My thoughts.

That was the conclusion I reached but a little lateral thought leads you to the interesting idea that Apple may try to sue the US government for revealing it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait for Apple to get into EU radar too

Today MS released the patch to select which browsert to install on its own OS, after being forced to publish the specs needed tor interoperability. One day Apple will undergo the same treatment, because under this aspect it is even worse than MS.

People praising Apple will discover one day how bad will be to buy a DVD or whatever movie player will be available then and find it will be able to play only contents delivered by the hardware maker. Or printers refusing to print on any paper but that bought on the iHpp store.

And someone should think about times when Pullman employees could buy only in Pullman stores - and Pullman decided what was wrong and what was right.

[Headley_Grange]

So what's wrong with preventing people desinging shoddy software that buggers up my machine?

My PC, in common with most others gets slower and crankier as I load it up with various bits of software, both bought and free and I bitch like hell about what a pile of crud it is. Ditto my Nokia. If the results of this control by Apple are products which keep working as they were intended and don't need a barrage of after-market apps just to manage disc use then I look forward to the day that Microsoft takes the same approach. I can't ditch my PC for various reasons, and I'm envious of my friends who have Macs and don't spend 10% of their keyboard time waiting for them to boot up, doing backups (I spent hours on Saturday configuring a wireless backup disk and it still doesn't work properly because I don't know my TCPIPs from my UPNPs so my firewall won't play nicely; my mate just plugged in a white box and it started working) de-fragging disks, deleting bloatware, installing updates, deleting updates, searching in vain for invidia drivers to stop the pc rebooting overnight half-way through the backup or virus check .........................................................If Apple's approach is what's needed to make my PC boot up in the same decade that I first hit the power button and stay stable enough to run 4 hour monte carlo sims without crashing then the sooner they start locking down my PC with rules about what developers can put on it the better. I'd pay extra for that.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great and all

There's some homeless people outside on the street in front of this office-could we get rid of them, too? They really only make doing stuff slower, and they take up too many government resources (imagine what we could do with the money we save by not funding shelters!). I'll get the flamethrower.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: That's great and all

...because obviously you bought the homeless people and spend most of your time making sure they're not infected and their OS is up to date?

[Frank 6]

which planet are you on?

o Dnot blame the pc for your incompetence. i have a mac and they are just as bad as a pc and far worse in many ways. if you have been using windows 7 or even windows vista, a move to a mac will make you feel like you have gone back to win xp days.

various things crash, the security is a big hole waiting for a disaster and it is flawed by design in many ways. I will elaborate on a couple of things just so you can get a taste.

I got a Macbook Pro with aluminium unibody. Ever noticed the lack of air-vents in photos? Guess what happens if you try to run anything intensive. Yep, it gets extremely hot and thanks to the great heat conductivity of aluminium, you get scorched good if you touch it.

It comes from the factory set up to auto-login the administrator even if you have set up a password. Awesome security. MS was flamed for giving admin rights to the default account but at least it always asked for a password to log in. Why is it ok for Apple to do this?

It comes with the firewall disabled. Awesome security there.

Safari has crashed more times than I care to count. And it is not the only app doing that. Just works eh? I take pride in the crash reports I send to apple engineers, along with a few choice words in the comment box.

If you set it up to lock the user after a period of inactivity and an application shows a message on shut down, then your account does not get locked and anyone can walk in and see your files because OSX just sits there waiting for the user to respond to the dialog box from that application. That's because OSX cannot lock an account. You either log off or you are on and this means shutting down everything you are doing just to achieve a tiny bit of privacy.

I can go on forever but I am feeling all the blood going to my head just thinking about the money I spent on this piece of junk.

[Chad H.]

errr..

Been playing some intensive games for well, hours now.

Burns recieved from my aluminum macbook - 0.

Safari here only seems to crash on pages with flash.

I could go on, but I'm tired.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Frank 6

"various things crash"

Examlpes please?

I've only had a handful of things crash (in 5 years of owning macs) so I'm interested in finding out what caused your crashes.

"It comes from the factory set up to auto-login the administrator even if you have set up a password".

None of mine did... not one of them. Where did you buy yours? Have a word with them mate.

"Safari has crashed more times than I care to count"

One word: FLASH! It's the ONLY thing that's made my Safari crash (ever)

"If you set it up to lock the user after a period of inactivity and an application shows a message on shut down, then your account does not get locked and anyone can walk in and see your files because OSX just sits there waiting for the user to respond to the dialog box from that application. That's because OSX cannot lock an account. You either log off or you are on and this means shutting down everything you are doing just to achieve a tiny bit of privacy."

Come on. All you need to do is lock the account. You don't have to log off or do anything else. I found this out without even trying - a quick search of the net would have told you what to do...

I think your real beef is that it doesn't do things *exactly* the way your Windows PC did. If so then you need to get a grip on yourself man!

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs and 'PC' people

In 25 years of selling and maintaining Macs in some pretty intense environments, the most unstable ones are generally those set up by 'PC' engineers. They seem to think they need to tweak everything to the n'th degree because, hey, that's how you set up a PC right?

I was once told by the head of IT in a well-known company that I had to sort out the Mac network problem because they'd narrowed it down to a MAC address....go figure!

I've never been 'scorched' by my MacBook Pro, and apart from the Mac Pro under my desk all my family's Macs are over eight years old and working fine with the minimum of maintenance and no viruses, thank you.

No, I'm not complacent about security, and something is bound to happen in the future, but at least Apple built OS X with security in mind from the start, not as an afterthought.

[Tarthen]

RE: Macs and 'PC' people

Aren't Macs also PCs now?

...I'll get my coat.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Aren't Macs also PCs now?

The secret is they always have been...

[Gulfie]

Calm down dear...

I'm mystified by your post on a number of fronts...

Heat: I run seti@home on my Macbook Pro, which sits on my lap most evenings. Burns - none. Yes it gets warm, but no warmer than my old Dell Inspiron.

Firewall: Apple admitted in 2008 they'd got this wrong (after the '08 pwn to own competition) and started shipping machines with the firewall turned on, so for the last two years, nearly, this has been addressed.

Admin rights: Have to agree with you, Apple still ship machines with admin rights enabled, but do advise you to create non-admin accounts and use those for day-to-day use. Bear in mind though that many Windows users are given local admin privs - equivalent to the OS X admin rights - because if they need to install software, they have to have those rights. Even large companies don't necessarily tie people down by making them unprivileged users. So no difference to the competition, really.

Safari: the number two application I use on the Mac (as I develop web applications), I can't recall it ever crashing. Not once. I do get the odd application crash, usually the MySQL Browser or Eclipse, but I've never found the comment box you talk of when submitting crash reports, please enlighten me.

Security Lock: you must have this set up wrongly because I have my system set to lock after a period of inactivity and I've never come back to it to find that it hasn't locked. Application dialogs or no.

I could go on but I'm not entirely convinced you're currently using a Mac at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac Zealots Annoy Me

Why can't you mac losers give this guy a break? He owns a mac AND DOES NOT LIKE IT. It is a personal preference. Why is it that mac users cannot accept any kind of negative criticism? This person owns a mac and does not think it is as awesomely amazing as everyone told him before he bought it. So what. I own a mac and I like it, but I hate that on forums that you can't hold a negative opinion about the mac. If you don't like something, you are WRONG. The OS is perfect, and if something is not to your liking you are simply wrong. It's pathetic.

Perfect example: Alt-Tab in MS Windows switches between windows, and in the mac it switches between applications. Which is utterly useless if you are running three applications with 30 open windows. That in my opinion makes using OS X difficult - More difficult than it should be. But on forums most mac freaks answer my comments by saying how I am "thinking like a windows user" or I "don't get the document-based system". No - i think the approach is fundamentally wrong.

Another example: there is no Cut and Paste in Finder (Mac OS X's Explorer). Yep you MUST drag and drop to MOVE and file in Finder (just imagine if that was the case in Windows Explorer). This is difficult when a) there are many windows open and b) Alt-Tab does not actually switch between windows. You can surely imagine that having to arrange the two Finder windows so that you can drag and drop, and arranging them when many windows overlap is can be difficult. This is Apple either trying to be different, or, again, it is a very bad design choice.

And I know every single Mac user has thought about this before but often you'll find that they will refuse to criticise the company and try and invent fancy ways of overcoming such strange peculiarities with the OS. For example I use Witch, an app which changes the default behaviour of Alt-Tab - but it is not free. So I need to buy add-ons to make Mac OS USABLE in my opinion. This says a lot. And the comment left by the gentleman above saying "I could go on but I'm not entirely convinced you're currently using a Mac at all." is absolutely typical of a mac user who cannot accept that someone might not like the OS.

[Chad H.]

Err

He's not being critised because he hates his mac, he's being critised because the reasons he's giving for a mac being crap are bogus.

I'd be supeised if he actually owns one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows zealots annoy ME!!!

Back at ya pal!!! In fact all zealots annoy me. The others were basically explaining where the guy had gone wrong, and in some cases dispelling FUD. The aggressive tone (if any!) might be because Frank started so aggressively...

"Perfect example: Alt-Tab in MS Windows switches between windows, and in the mac it switches between applications. Which is utterly useless if you are running three applications with 30 open windows. That in my opinion makes using OS X difficult - More difficult than it should be. But on forums most mac freaks answer my comments by saying how I am "thinking like a windows user" or I "don't get the document-based system". No - i think the approach is fundamentally wrong."

Indeed it *is* a perfect example. Both are wrong. First rule; Read The Fucking/Flipping( depending on your level of sensitivity) Manual. Always. Second rule; don not assume that the Windows way is the only way. Had you RTFM, you'd have learned about Exposé. I'll let *you* find out more. I'll agree that most forum users are useless, socially inept nerds that aren't always helpful, *especially* where n00bs are concerned, but that's not just true of Mac users, that's true of EVERYONE. I think that the Windows model is counter-intuitive, but that's my opinion and I'm entitled to it, as are you.

"Another example: there is no Cut and Paste in Finder (Mac OS X's Explorer). Yep you MUST drag and drop to MOVE and file in Finder (just imagine if that was the case in Windows Explorer). This is difficult when a) there are many windows open and b) Alt-Tab does not actually switch between windows. You can surely imagine that having to arrange the two Finder windows so that you can drag and drop, and arranging them when many windows overlap is can be difficult. This is Apple either trying to be different, or, again, it is a very bad design choice."

Correction; "This is Apple either trying to be different, or, again, it is a very bad design choice." First off; Apple did it before Microsoft, so Microsoft are "trying to be different". Secondly you left out "I my opinion..." I actually agree with you, only to the extent that its a minor irritation and easy to work around either buy using a Finder replacement OR using Mac OS as it was designed to be used, WITH A MOUSE. It certainly not the FAIL that you seem to be trying to make it out to be. It's merely a different way of working! Again had you RTFM, you'd know how this works on a Mac ('spring-loaded' folders and Exposé).

"And I know every single Mac user has thought about this before but often you'll find that they will refuse to criticise the company and try and invent fancy ways of overcoming such strange peculiarities with the OS. For example I use Witch, an app which changes the default behaviour of Alt-Tab - but it is not free. So I need to buy add-ons to make Mac OS USABLE in my opinion. This says a lot."

OK, getting annoyed now. What you are saying is that OS X isn't for you. Fine. Don't buy it then! What you want is Windows. SO USE WINDOWS THEN!!! It's not rocket surgery."So I need to buy add-ons to make Mac OS USABLE in my opinion." I'm sure exactly the same can be said for Windows. For instance I like the "Spaces" feature of OSX and I cannot find find a *decent* paid-for or free equivalent for the PC. This is such a basic feature, surely it's omission is bad design? That says as much...

"is absolutely typical of a mac user who cannot accept that someone might not like the OS." You are absolutely right, it does. Much like you post screams "I'm a Windows fanboy and I hate Macs and their fanboy users"

It's swings and roundabout, you are clearly used to Windows, as is Frank and neither of you have RTFM. Win 7 has some excellent features, but I'd never dismiss it as you have dismissed OS X because I don't like the way it install programs (now that IS bad design!) much like you have because you didn't Read The Fucking Manual...

I'll leave you with this;

Spoon boy:

"Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. "

Neo:

"What truth?"

Spoon boy:

"There is no spoon."

Neo:

"There is no spoon?"

Spoon boy:

"Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Windows zealots annoy ME!!!

Are you finished?

OK. Ta.

[Anonymous Coward]

ODFO...

That is all.

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm

ok, expose is an option when you have a few windows open, granted. with 30 windows it is no good. also Expose just lets me SWITCH between two windows, not drag and drop files. I do not think using a mouse is an acceptable way of moving files about - i like shortcuts, and i use a laptop with a trackpad, so I like using shortcuts with the keyboard, such as Ctrl/Command-X for cutting files. At least give me the option! In windows you can drag and drop, and use Cut and Paste...

Same goes for spring loaded folders - i want to be able to use a mouse AND/OR shortcuts. It is not so much to ask for the "world's most advanced OS". The argument that Apple did it first is not valid - it doesn't matter who did what first - if MS was first or apple was first does not matter to me. What would be the problem if apple were to take ideas from other OSs? If they are sticking to their guns and not making changes that make sense, then that is the same as trying to be different. I think Alt-Tab between applications is daft, and I do not think spring loaded folders or expose fix this. Anyway.... this Witch application does exist, so it is not a problem for me, but it annoys me that I have to pay €10 for it :-)

And I am not a win fanboy, I use a mac because I think it does some thing far better than windows, some things that are, for me, irreplaceable, but I sometimes wonder very much about certain design decisions in terms of their usefulness.

[Tarthen]

Some quick easy steps!

1) Find OS disks.

2) Wipe PC.

3) Reinstall Windows.

4) Install only the apps you need

5) Uninstall WMP, IE

6) Run > msconfig , choose only what you want to start up

7) RTFM on your backup drive.

Also, a few tips - defragging is near useless on today's disks, don't update your Windows box without reading the blogosphere (then you don't have to delete screwups), and why the hell were you looking for Nvidia drivers to stop it rebooting halfway through the night!?

Or, do what I do and use Linux (hey, 50 seconds to desktop from power button > BIOS > GRUB > Xsplash (slow) isn't too bad, especially as my BIOS takes 10 seconds to start and the GRUB default timeout is 10 seconds...). My "wireless backup" is "mount *network drive here*; cp -randomcmdoptionshere /home/* /media/placewherenetmount; umount *networkdrivehere*; notify-send "Backup done :D", in addition to syncing to two different USB devices. All rather good, IMO :) .

[Headley_Grange]

The long and lonely search for Nvidia drivers

Why the hell am I looking for Nvidia drivers to stop it rebooting halfway through the night!? - well, because often if I leave my laptop on overnight I get up the next day to find that the laptop has re-booted. When I log in and go to windows problems it tells me that an Nvidia driver caused my laptop to crash. I'd rather it didn't crash - so I spend time trying to find out if I can fix it. Nvidia's tells me there's something I could try but it's at my risk and not to blame them if my PC never works again. HP's website doesn't help much and device manager says I'm up to date and there's no problem. The search goes on and my PC keeps on crashing.

[Tarthen]

Overheating

Don't leave it overnight, let the damn thing air and cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right...

You're an incompetent moron and it's the PC's fault?

[Chad H.]

Its simple.

Don't want to play by the rules of the sandbox?

Don't play.

That simple.

If its really that bad, developers would stay away and kill the Ecosystem... Since that hasn't happened, it can't be a big deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not a computer -- it's consumer electronics

OK everyone. Take a deep breath. i-xxx'en are not computers. They're consumer electronics. 90+ percent of the user base (including me) just want the bloody thing to work and couldn't give a rats about developer freedom. When was the last time someone got worked up about how tough it is to hack their DVD player or digital camera ?

[Martin Owens]

Yeah

First they came for the developer, and I did nothing.

Some people are so bloody short sighted you have to wonder how they cross the road.

[Sean Timarco Baggaley]

What?

Which part of "use something else" do you not understand? Apple have absolutely no moral or legal obligation to let others f*ck up their design philosophy.

Don't like the way Apple do business? Don't use their stuff.

Don't like the way Google do business? Don't use their stuff.

Don't like the way Microsoft do business? Don't use their stuff.

Don't like the way the Cult of GNU does its unbusiness? Don't use their stuff.

Apple make appliances. Their philosophy is the *antithesis* of that of the FSF and GNU religions: Apple believe that the *developer* should have to do the heavy lifting, not the user. If that makes developing software a bit harder, tough shit. (The UNIX community's primary philosophy is that the coding should be easy, even if that means you end up with a stupid, barely-usable UI.)

Oh and this:

"...not to mention the user's right to load whatever software they want onto devices they have purchased."

There is NO SUCH "RIGHT". Your rights end with the CHOICE of BUYING the product. Don't like the choice? Make your OWN product instead. After all, there's clearly a gap in the market if you're right.

Nobody complains that we can't easily change the software in washing machines or TVs; why should computers be treated differently? Because GNU say so?

You can't control the user experience of a product if you let any Tom, Dick or Harriet bugger around with it unmoderated. If, as a developer or technology junkie, you prefer to have unfettered control over the computer's every action, you have the choice NOT to buy Apple's stuff.

If Linux is so f*cking awesome, why do its advocates insist that *everyone else* does things the Linux way too? Isn't your own pet UNIX clone good enough?

[Ben Raynes]

For one reason only

"And even this unprecedented degree of control isn't enough for Apple. As we reported a year ago, Apple has told the US Copyright Office that jailbreaking an iPhone should be illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). According to Apple, the EFF's petition that jailbreaking should be exempt from the DMCA is "an attack on Apple's particular business choices with respect to the design of the iPhone mobile computing platform and the strategy for delivering applications software for the iPhone through the iPhone App Store"."

So you buy a product, and you can't do what you want with it, including voiding the warranty if you so wish?

Fine, jailbreaking voids the warranty. Fine, jailbreaking means no more updates. Fine, jailbreaking means no more AppStore and no more iTunes. Fine, jailbreaking might even mean that if you have a problem somewhere down the line, Apple might snort and laugh at you before charging you through the nose for repairs.

But trying to get you arrested for doing it? Fuck off.

That's tantamount to buying a washing machine and being told that you can only wash Calvin Klein underpants in it, and that washing any other brand of underpants is an attack on the business practices and strategic alliances Zanussi have made with respect to the design of the washer... my machine, I'll do whatever I want with it, thanks.

[BobaFett]

Game consoles?

Nobody ever seems to moan about the amount of control Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft exert over their games consoles. Yet in terms of hardware the PS3 and XBox would make perfectly adequate personal computers, much more so than an iPhone.

[corestore]

Pretty rich...

...from guys who got started phreaking the phone system

[Blain Hamon]

American company does american company things. film at 11.

Yes, the part of the agreement that's lifted from FIght Club is daft on Apple's part, but the most horrific crimes are actually pretty common boilerplate.

Nintendo does the same "No reverse-engineering" clause for its hardware, as do many software companies.

And really, Apple's $50 limitation of liability is $50 more than the GPL gives you, which doesn't even admit to enough liability for a happy meal.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

GPL gives you the right to use stuff FREE

provided you return the favour. Your get it FREE, so logically you are not entitled to any refund. You can distribute anything anywhere, provided you release your source code.

With Apple you pay, you invest hundreds of hours of work, you might end up not being able to sell or even distribute ANYTHING at a whim, with no chance of recompense. I would not waste ANY time on that.

[The Other Steve]

Quite right

"I would not waste ANY time on that."

Then don't. See how easy that was ?

[Blain Hamon]

Free only if your time is worth nothing

I never said refund. I said liability. If you use software, and a vuln in it causes damage to your business, the GPL license means you're SOL in terms of recompense, and there's no way to get the author of the code to fix the bug or even give you the time of day (Exceptions being a contract with Red Hat, but the contract isn't free, natch).

Is the license too restrictive? In my opinion, yes it is too restrictive in spots, but not too restrictive for me to outweigh the benefits.

My point is the parts that I do find restrictive are neither the limitation of liability nor the no-reverse-engineering clauses. And that the EFF could have spent its time better focusing on things that aren't run-of-the-mill legal boilerplate.

[da_fish27]

One wonders...

... about what's the point of having a policy on which applications will get accepted, if it can be overridden anyway.

I guess they trying to NOT look like Big Brother?

[dogged]

if nothing else

then at least watching the frantic fanboi attempts at justifying this fulfil the Reg's "comedy" remit.

[Tom 35]

It is a Computer

It's not a single purpose black box like a Camera or DVD player (though I did hack my DVD player). An iPod touch is not just an MP3/video player like a regular iPod. It can many things just by installing software of the owners choice.

Today I was having problems with interference with one of our wireless routers at work, I wanted to know what channels other networks in the building were using so I used WiFiFoFum and switched to a free channel, problem solved. Lucky my iPod is jail broken so I could still install it after Apple pulled it from the store, and read here that it was now available free.

[Henry Wertz 1]

Restrictive PCs and restrictive Apples

@Headley_Grange, your premise is wrong. You say

"I'm envious of my friends who have Macs and don't spend 10% of their keyboard time waiting for them to boot up, doing backups (I spent hours on Saturday configuring a wireless backup disk and it still doesn't work properly because I don't know my TCPIPs from my UPNPs so my firewall won't play nicely; my mate just plugged in a white box and it started working) de-fragging disks, deleting bloatware, installing updates, deleting updates, searching in vain for invidia drivers to stop the pc rebooting overnight half-way through the backup or virus check"

Every single problem you list there is mainly a symptom of running Windows! Macs don't restrict what you can install on them, it's just general Windows culture that encourages bloatware, update nags, programs that love to run some giant preloader or updater at bootup, defragmenters, virus scanners, and on and on. Ubuntu doesn't restrict what I put on, and I don't have these problems... my gentoo boxes are downright free-for-alls and I don't have these problems either.

As for the actual article... 1) I agree the terms as such are pretty standard. 2) Apple's restrictiveness is still ridiculous, I would not buy an iPhone in a million years and I discourage others from getting one -- this is not about providing a good user experience, it's about control, otherwise Apple wouldn't be trying to restrict people from jailbreaking using broken laws like DMCA.

For the record, no law will keep ME from modifying hardware I own, playing DVDs on my Linux boxes (including gasp! The ones without DVD drives in them), removing intrusive rights restrictions that keep me from exercising my fair use rights, or discussing any of the above. These restrictions are unconstitutional, pure and simple.

[Head]

Ha

Why bother with apple anyway?

Just get a a Chrome phone

[John Savard]

The Problem

Since the iPhone has telephony capabilities, keeping what can run on it tightly restricted to prevent security issues does, unfortunately, make sense. But the impact of restrictions that are not required to that end is serious, particularly as Apple patents may soon ensure the iPhone has no competition... if Apple's new lawsuits go the way it wants.

[amanfromMars 1]

Dark Renegade Matter for Heavy MetaDataBase Core Crashing

..... and/or Threshing in Corruptible Corporate Combines.

Get used to the temporary* chaos and rule changing and dodging, for both personal greed and public anarchy wrapped up in colourful black clothes and Non Disclosure Agreements, make up their own rules with Governments for others to either choose to ignore, realising the cynical reason for them, or to blindly accept in full ignorance of the Third Party Power Plays to stay/try to stay in overall control of runaway Intellectual Property developments which expose the Human Terrain Team Control System Kernel as No Longer Presently Fit for ITs Future Purpose but a Perfect Vehicle for Virtual Private Network and SMART Pirate Commandeering.

And there is an exact parallel mirroring collapse/meltdown scenario in this development too ......... http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/a-detention-bill-you-ought-to-read-more-carefully/37116/

*And you should notice that it is only a temporary inconvenient truth, for Increasingly IntelAIgent Information being Selfless Shared around the Globe on Simple Viewing Pages/NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive Windows just like this, have Created a Better Beta Programming for Other Beings in AI to Remotely Micro/MacroManage and Easily Change Perception for the Product Placement of Alternate Realities in a New Virtual World Order/Civil CyberSpace Command and Control Project .......... hence the Apple Panic Attack on Third Party Applets for Free.

[Gulfie]

Progress? What progress?

The saddest thing here is that over the last 20 years I've watch computers become more powerful, more flexible, more open - and software more easily portable. Long gone are the days when if you wanted an upgrade for your computer did you have to go back to your OEM and bend over. In a scant two years Apple has undone getting on for ten years of progress on the software front and people are just rolling over and accepting it. In five years people might wake up and realise that they are back inside a closed ecosystem. Thank god this can't happen in the desktop computing arena.

I've never seriously considered developing for the iPhone, after all I'd need to learn a new language, but the developer agreement has killed off any desire to consider doing so. This makes Google and Android look positively saintly by comparison. I use an iPhone but, and I didn't think I'd say this... I'm seriously considering the opposition when I upgrade in the summer. I'm getting a Nexus anyway for Android development, becoming familiar with it may just tip me over the edge.

[John Smith 19]

Perhaps a new tshirt

"I'm an Apple Dev Bitch"

They don't just set the rules for *what* and *how* you develop. They tell you *if* you can sell it afterward, something even games boxes, printers and camera suppliers cannot control. (yes some users ithings are free of this. That freedom was not *given* by Apple, but taken by developers. You can bet Apple are working seal off that route and return such "misguided" users to the "proper" path).

AFAIK even Microsoft were not that blatant. It would seem Apple picked up rather more than cash when Microsoft gave them a cash injection.

[The Other Steve]

Further absence of clue detected.

"something even games boxes, printers and camera suppliers cannot control."

Scuse me while I ROFLMAO, because if you'd seen any of the developer agreements for game boxes you'd be aware just how patently stupid that sentence is.

[James Butler]

Scuse YOU

Numbnuts ... the OP to which you replied stated:

"They tell you *if* you can sell it afterward, something even games boxes, printers and camera suppliers cannot control."

See that first part ... go ahead, read it even more slowly this time ... it says "They tell you *if* you can sell it afterward". Go back and read it one more time, and don't skip any words ... I'm pretty sure you weren't able to understand it the first time, based on your comment.

Get it now? The OP wasn't referring to developer agreements in general, but rather to a specific scenario only applicable to iProduct developers ... wherein (a) when Apple does not approve of the application (b) it cannot be "legally" distributed anywhere, although that will be for the courts to decide.

So tell us, oh profligate wise-ass Numbnuts, which "games boxes, printers and camera suppliers" were you referring to in the context of the original comment, and not in the context of your imaginary intelligence?

[The Other Steve]

Keep on failin

"it says "They tell you *if* you can sell it afterward"."

What do you want, a gold star for reading comprehension ?

"a specific scenario only applicable to iProduct developers ... wherein (a) when Apple does not approve of the application (b) it cannot be "legally" distributed anywhere"

As is indeed the case for, e.g. Wii, DS, XBox and Sony PS*. I think the "any" in my comment was sufficient to cover those, so clearly your comprehension skills failed under the vicarious frothing indignation you experienced, for reasons best known to yourself, upon receiving some clue.

Nul points.

[James Butler]

What planet are you from?

One can legally buy a Wii/DS/XBox/PS/PSP game/accessories/whatever at Sears, Target, Fry's, Staples, any major store, online at various places, from friends, from many grocery stores, etc.etc.etc.

The ONLY place one can legally get iProduct apps from is ... the Apple App Store.

NOW can you see the difference? Comprehension is a learned skill, Numbnuts.

Try again.

[James Hughes 1]

I have a question or two

Why is there only the Apple App store - why hasn't someone else started up a store for iPhone apps, for all those people who don't get accepted by Apple?

And secondly, since Android development is free and easy and will have a larger market place - are Apple app developers started to move over?

[Charles 9]

Quite simply...

...no other store is allowed. It's the Apple store or bust. And since only Apple has the official signing keys and since pure iPhones and such will only take signed apps (which means only those apps approved by Apple), you're up the proverbial creek. Devs wanting to go to Apple have two choices: kiss up or get kicked out (and kissing up is no assurance against getting kicked out, either).

[Anonymous Coward]

There are..

..at least 3 that I know of. BUT you need to jailbreak your iPhone to use them. No surprise that Apple is trying to make jailbreaking illegal under DMCA (even though the 'copyright' angle is very, very weak). It will be a sad day if Apple succeed (go to the EFF to read up on it).

[The Other Steve]

The evil machnations of Dr Jobs

So the problem seems to be that the Evil Jobs can force all these developers to sign up to these evil contracts against their will by using his evil powers of hypnotism, and then milk them by forcing his fifty million strong army of slaves to buy his products even though they really don't want to.

What a fun life he must be having sitting in his castle atop his piles of skulls and treasure and laughing all the live long day as his evil plan comes to fruition.

Run little freetards, run. Seek sanctuary in the Bizzare Cathedral of Linux.

Reality ? You've heard of it.

[Stone Fox]

The evil machinations of dr Jobs (fixed)

So the problem seems to be that the evil Dr Jobs can force developers to work under stupid and unethical conditions because a bunch of fashion victims and people for whom a real computer is too complicated keep buying his over priced offerings and the developers want a part of seperating these fools from their money.

What a fun life he must have with his god complex, playing with the lives of adoring brainwashed fanbois and laughing all the live long day as his evil plans come to fruition.

Run, everyone with any goddamn sense. Run to platforms that allow freedom for developers, freedom from tyranny, opression and fanbois. I mean, even Windows isn't this draconian FFS.

[The Other Steve]

... (fixed)(fixed) GTFU

Millions of fully informed consenting adults go about their daily business doing perfectly reasonable things. Thousands of other fully informed consenting adults enter into voluntary agreements with each other.

Six people who think that Steve Jobs' company should be run for their personal benefit suffer from delusions of both grandeur and competence and publicly, noisily spit their dummies.

Wow, that's what it looks like if you strip all the drama out.

[Jax 1]

and this is

the precise reason why I have never and will never develop for Apple products.

IPhone SDK docs were the same.

I became a developer so I would have some control over my career and life and my successes could be down to talent and determination. Signing up to something like this would be like going back to school.

"Shhhh the adults are talking. Oh and your application "talks back", so we banned it. Fuckity bye!"

[Inachu]

Iphone OS not user friendly.

Just think if Windows did this.

Also on a similar subject I was banned from the WOW message board for posting a url to a website that shows girls in Bikinis and they called girls in Bikinis porn.

So I assume the people in charge at Blizzard and at Apple are either orthodox mormon and do not even allow their ankles to show either and still wear 1700's style clothing.

If they want to live like that then so be it. I'd rather stay in the ever changing present.

[Anonymous Coward]

This all does make me wonder...

Considering how many people have written apps for the iPhone, the bitching and moaning evident about the "startling revelations" of the terms seems to be a little bit more of a non-event than an actual non-event.

For me, I'm-a-looking forward to the day when there's liability for writing code that screws up. Now that'll be a fun day, and a great spectator event.

[ZenCoder]

I run OSX and XP side by side and

My desktop setup had 3 arm mounted screens with an Windows XP deskotop and a OSX laptop sharing via Synergy plus and if you ask me ...

WHAT .. this story is about iPhone development and the app store

ER ... Nevermind.

[Luther Blissett]

Metropolis

Anyone remember Apple's Metropolis ad campaign? No, I don't think Steve Jobs can either.

[Rolf Howarth]

What's the big deal?

The amount of traffic generated here by all mention of the iPhone/iPad or the App Store is quite remarkable. Sure, it's a closed platform, but so are things like Xbox, PSP, Nintendo DS, Nokia, Blackberry, Kindle, etc. These manufacturer can also arbitrarily reject your apps and control what you do on them, and worse, you typically have to buy an SDK costing $5000 or $10000 if you want to develop for them. Why don't any of these other manufacturers generate such vitriol?

Everyone is acting as if Apple have a monopoly on portable devices. If they did, all the criticism would be valid, and they'd be under very close scrutiny from the regulators for anything which looks like an anticompetive practice.

Apple obviously have a huge slice of the MINDSHARE on portable devices, but unless and until that translates to such a dominant marketshare that it excludes anyone else from entering the market it's all moot and Apple are free to do whatever they want, just as all the other manufacturers are.

Honestly, if you really dislike Apple so much, the best thing you can do is shut up! All this controversy over such a non-issue is just playing into Apple's hands and raising awareness of the iPad prior to its launch.

[Jason 50]

To clear it up a bit

Actually the Xbox isn't that bad at all. With the introduction of the XNA from Microsoft and the OPEN SOURCE solution OpenXDK there is a much bigger oportunity for developers here. Same goes for Google's Android. I can't say much about the PS3's openness to developers because I have never needed to develop on it.

[The Other Steve]

Almost, but not entirely, quite unlike reality

"With the introduction of the XNA from Microsoft"

Only you can't commercially distribute XNA based stuff that you wrote yourself, can you ?

In fact, to get it out at all you have to submit it for review, last time I looked you had to join a program that cost $99 a year in order to be able do that. Hmm, sound familial at all ?

And as for Open Source dev kits, well, maybe, but you need an agreement with MS to distribute signed binaries, don't you, unless you are only distributing to modded XBoxes, in fact you have to have your title certified by Microsoft.

Wow, this all sounds so familiar, where have I heard something like this before ...

I'm going to wear this 'Fail' icon out before this godawful exhibition of sheer ignorance is over, I can tell.

[dogged]

actually...

your "fail" is entirely your own.

Both XNA and OpenXDK permit you to install on absolutely any XBox. You just can't distribute through XBox Live without MS certification. It's their network, they're the ones who'd get sued.

You're comparing apples to umbrellas again.

Go read up.

[The Other Steve]

Duh!

". You just can't distribute through XBox Live without MS certification. It's their network, they're the ones who'd get sued."

Yeah, and that's the bit that compares to the App Store, so, again, fail.

[Rolf Howarth]

Great news!

Well, I have good news for you on the PS3 front! Sony recently slashed the price of the SDK to less than half what it was. It's only $10,250 now.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what about Nokia, Microsoft, Google, Samsung

If the EFF could be so kind as to request the developer sdk and distribution agreements from the other big players in the mobile apps market using the similar trick, then we can hold a contest.

[John Smith 19]

3 question for games console developers.

1) How many of the locks designed to prevent people uploading software to your platform (Xbox, PSP, Nitendo etc) are *still* unbroken?

2) How many of those companies prescribe *how* you may sell *your* product to their customers?

3) How often have those companies (if ever) withdrawn permission to load *your* software on their *customers* machines.

Other posters say this is SOP for console vendors. I think it's above and well beyond what they do. But I'd like to know.

For the other products I described the nearest seems to be printer mfgs and their branded cartridges, which seems to be being challenged. Otherwise 3rd parties are free to supply what they like to whom they like.

[The Other Steve]

It's the NDA stupid

"2) How many of those companies prescribe *how* you may sell *your* product to their customers?"

How many of those allow *you* to sell *your* product *through* *their* *shop* with all the advantages *that* brings ?

"Other posters say this is SOP for console vendors. I think it's above and well beyond what they do. But I'd like to know."

And yet, they won't tell you except in very general terms, because of the NDA clauses in their developer contracts, which are standard. Haven't you been listening at all ?

[John Smith 19]

@The Other Steve

"How many of those allow *you* to sell *your* product *through* *their* *shop* with all the advantages *that* brings ?"

That simply reflects the question back to me. On the assumption you are not a troll let me try again.

IMHO there is *no* console maker who has the level of control over what is loaded on the machines they have sold. It is not an area I know well but I don't think *any* one dictates to their community in the way Apple does. If I wanted a game for various consoles I'd walk in a shop and buy it. Now try that for an app for an Apple/whatever.

It is not that they don't allow you to use *their* store to supply your product. It is they make it impossible to supply it *anywhere* else.

"And yet, they won't tell you except in very general terms, because of the NDA clauses in their developer contracts, which are standard. "

If you've read the article and followed the posts you know the level of control Apple has and how it has used that power.

My belief is that is *substantially* above other similar product mfgs require. IE withdrawing products which they don't approve of (why did they allow it to be sold in the first place?), arbitrary decency concerns (girl in bikini =porn?) and preventing sale *anywhere* else.

I didn't ask for details of specific platforms. I stated my belief that this level of control is *much* greater and more actively used than in other similar products. I asked for opinions (preferably based on experience )

If you have experience in the area I would expect you to have an opinion based on that experience. That was what I was asking for. Not a clause by clause analysis of whatever NDA you signed.

[The Other Steve]

OK, I'll bite

"If you've read the article and followed the posts you know the level of control Apple has and how it has used that power."

I know, because I'm a registered dev, and unlike the folks we've been hearing about so much recently, I read the agreement and had a legal beaver look it over as well. It's not something I would have chosen, but I have an R&D contract with a client, with whom I also have an NDA which is actually much more restrictive than Apple's, and in my experience this is by no means unusual. I also engage in quite a bit of reverse engineering work, all of which is under NDA and bound up with very strict liability waivers and the like. I deal with contract terms like these all the time. They really are standard boilerplate terms.

"I asked for opinions (preferably based on experience )"

That is precisely what you're getting. All the closed system manufacturers, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft (for the XBox) have varying levels of approvals processes, not only for the finished software, but often for approving developers. Nintendo, for instance, will not even sell you a dev kit unless they determine that you are the right kind of company. And you MUST be a company, with secure offices and a track record of development on other platforms (this much is on their public web site) before they'll even look at you.

All of them operate very similar NDAs, with practically identical terms, and all of them have approval and certification processes for finished software, largely because you have have your product cryptographically signed before it can be distributed.

All of them have "or any reason we damn well feel like" clauses, because such terms are just contract boilerplate. Go look at your contracts with your ISP, cell provider, bank, credit card, employer and you will find very similar terms there.

"I stated my belief that this level of control is *much* greater and more actively used than in other similar products"

Just different. Most of the console manufacturers approval and certification revolves around quality control issues, Apple is all about controlling the user experience, which includes, but is not limited to QA issues.

And again, I would remind you that the apps that were pulled violated the developer agreement, so it's not that Apple are exercising their "fuck you" clauses, more a case that they realised their approval process was broken or inconsistent.

Unlike many of the other closed system manufacturers, Apple have extended their dev program to anyone who has $99, this means that a lot of people who are decent programmers, but are not used to the gnarly business end of NDAs and contract terms are able to play, and some of them are going to get burned until they learn the business end as well as they know the coding end.

How was that ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And so...

Mr Jobs should look at his 1984 MacIntosh commercial...that guy on the screen is no longer IBM...it is Mr. Jobs.

[nsld]

I was with a fanboi yesterday

on an onsite visit and he has macs all over the place and iphones on tap.

We do a SaaS product which runs fine on the Mac boxes and an app for the iphone. Then his web developer joins us and the new website for the business wont run on his iPhone as it uses flash but seems fine on my HTC.

So there I am with my £200 Acer Netbook running Ubuntu and my HTC Hero surrounded by about ten grands worth of iStuff and thats when I realised you can spend a fucking fortune on the shiny shiny but at the end of the day you can get practicality and function for a lot less.

I am not a tech head, my Ubuntu looks after itself and just does stuff, the HTC is just slick and works.

Ethics aside, why spend that much money for a mediocre experience?

Its a bit like buying a Ferrari and then wondering why the guy with the Ariel Atom has a bigger smile on his face!

The market is changing and people will move with the changes in technology and now that many people in the UK are out of contract on the earlier iPhones I suspect the jailbreaking will grow, as will HTC's sales.

Paris an expensive and mediocre experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't ask why

"Its a bit like buying a Ferrari and then wondering why the guy with the Ariel Atom has a bigger smile on his face!"

Isn't it obvious? He has a bigger smile because he has a bigger penis, and therefore he doesn't need to buy a Ferrari!