Tag Archives | Apple. iPhone

More on the iPhone/Ninjawords Situation

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 6, 2009 at 12:06 pm

I didn’t write at length about the latest iPhone App Store controversy, which involved Apple’s handling of a dictionary called Ninjawords and its alleged insistence that the app be both censored and restricted to users over 17. But I did mention it in yesterday’s T-Poll, with a link to John Gruber’s coverage at Daring Fireball. Now Gruber has followed up with an interesting post based on an e-mail sent to him by Apple marketing honcho Phil Schiller. There’s still plenty of room for criticism of Apple’s handling of Ninjawords, which seems at odds with its treatment of earlier dictionary apps. But Schiller says that the company didn’t demand both the removal of common swear words and the 17-only restriction.

Schiller closed his discussion of the matter with these thoughts:

Apple’s goals remain aligned with customers and developers — to create an innovative applications platform on the iPhone and iPod touch and to assist many developers in making as much great software as possible for the iPhone App Store. While we may not always be perfect in our execution of that goal, our efforts are always made with the best intentions, and if we err we intend to learn and quickly improve.

As Gruber says, this may be the first public acknowledgment by an Apple executive that its handling of the App Store is less than ideal. That’s encouraging in itself–especially if Apple does indeed learn quickly from its mistakes. As I’ve said innumerable times in my posts squawking about specific incidents, I remain a long-term App Store optimist…

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The T-Poll: Apple’s iPhone App Acceptance Policy

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 5, 2009 at 10:49 am

tpollHey, let’s try something new–a fresh T-Poll (powered by the wonderful PollDaddy) every weekday. For our first one, let’s revisit the ongoing story of Apple’s, um, unpredictable behavior when it comes to approving third-party applications for the iPhone App Store–the latest chapter of which involves it censoring a dictionary and then restricting sales to people over 17 anyhow. (Here’s John Gruber’s account over at Daring Fireball, which includes some of the words Apple required be purged.)

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Enter the Tablet Naysayers!

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 4, 2009 at 11:06 am

MomentaAt the moment, Apple’s tablet is not a real product but a gumbo of rumor, speculation, patent diving, and unabashed daydreaming. But it’s already inspiring a thoughtful backlash. Over at IntoMobile, Stefan Constantinescu lays out in amazing detail the history of rumors about an Apple tablet that turned out to be pure fiction, or which at least haven’t resulted in Apple releasing such a device to date. It’s a sobering and useful piece, especially given that there’s some chance that the Apple device that pretty much everyone is now assuming will appear soon may indeed be nothing more than the result of mass hallucination.

At LIVEdigitally, my friend Jeremy Toeman isn’t saying that the Apple tablet is fantasy–but he does contend that such devices would be rife with limitations and that they would join the giant deadpool comprised of products which the industry got excited about but real people had no interest in. It’s certainly true that there’s a long history of tablets being released and then failing miserably. The image at the left is the Momenta tablet computer, which was a big story and a major flop back when I got into the tech-journalism business in 1991. And if you were going to compile a list of Microsoft’s five biggest misfires, it might well include the whole idea of the Tablet PC, a platform which Microsoft representatives told me at Comdex in 2001 would make up the majority of notebook computers sold within five years. Tablets not only don’t dominate, but are pretty much moribund. (Even in 2001, I thought they’d drunk an entire vat of their own Kool-Aid.)

Every tablet computer we’ve seen to date has suffered from being…a computer. That is, they’ve taken many of their basic design concepts from standard laptops, borrowed much of their user interfaces from traditional operating systems, and generally been intended for applications we know from traditional computing, such as note-taking. Basically, they’ve proven again and again that pen and/or touch input doesn’t provide a very satisfactory substitute for plain old physical QWERTY.

If Apple is releasing a tablet anytime soon, however, I think it’ll be smart enough not to offer us something that has much of anything in common with Microsoft’s Tablet PC design and other existing tablet concepts. The Apple tablet won’t use a pen, won’t repeat the Newton’s handwriting-recognition mistakes, and won’t be pitched as being very useful for taking notes or engaging in other text-intensive tasks. It’ll be an iPhone (or iPod Touch if you prefer) with more real estate–a gizmo optimized for listening to music, watching movies, reading Web pages and other content, playing games, and other activities that involve minimal input.

The iPhone and iPod Touch have shown that the basic idea not only works but is hugely appealing. It’s still not a given that enough people want similar functionality in a larger size enough to add another gadget to their lives–especially a $700 or $800 gadget. But if Apple really is readying a tablet (not a given) and it’s a giant iPhone rather than a “tablet computer” (also not a given, but I have my hunch) it could be something utterly new: a tablet that makes sense.

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Netflix: An iPhone App Litmus Test?

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 4, 2009 at 10:09 am

Netflix for iphoneRumor has it that Netflix may be bringing its Watch Instantly video-on-demand service to the iPhone. Unless there are insurmountable issues with content licensing, actually, it would be startling if it Netflix didn’t want to be on the iPhone. (In some respects, the iPhone land grab reminds me of the mad rush to release Windows versions of existing applications in the early 1990s.)

The big honkin’ question with a Netflix application for iPhone is the same as with any other app that involves video on the iPhone: Would it permit streaming over AT&T’s 3G network, or only over Wi-Fi? So far, there’s no discernible consistency to what’s happened with other such applications. TV.com does 3G but Joost doesn’t; SlingPlayer’s 3G version was apparently rejected on the grounds that it violated AT&T’s terms of service; Major League Baseball’s At Bat app not only streams games over 3G but takes advantage of new features in iPhone OS 3.0 designed to make that possible.

A 3G-enabled Netflix could be terrific; a Wi-Fi-only one would be a letdown. Here’s hoping.

I guess there is one other significant question about Netflix on the iPhone: Is there any chance that Apple would keep it off the iPhone altogether by using the “this duplicates features built into the phone” rationale it’s used to remove some apps, such as third-party Google Voice clients? iPhone owners who have access to movies and TV shows from another major provider such as Netflix, after all, are less likely to buy content from Apple’s iTunes Store.

So far, Apple has permitted other video merchants onto the iPhone, but neither TV.com nor Joost provides really compelling competition to iTunes. Netflix would be a bigger deal, as would the rumored iPhone edition of Hulu. But the really big question is whether there’s any chance in heck that iPhone users will ever get access to Amazon’s Video on Demand, the most direct competitor that the iTunes Store’s movie offerings have.

I’d love to think that the fact that the FCC is now nosing around into Apple’s app-approval process will lead to a chastened, paranoid Apple erring on the side of approving competitive apps–whether or not the feds eventually force it to do so. A really good iPhone Netflix client would be an encouraging sign; one that felt crippled would not be.

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Eric Schmidt Disappears From the Apple Board

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 3, 2009 at 8:09 am

schmidtdisappearsAfter three years as a member of Apple’s board, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is stepping down. “Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” Steve Jobs is quoted as saying in an Apple press release. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest,” Steve Jobs is quoted as saying in an Apple press release. “Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”

The news comes the Monday morning after it became public that Apple had rejected Google’s Google Voice application from the iPhone App Store, a development that the FCC wants to know more about. The timing is intriguing even though that ongoing minidrama might well have developed even if Apple and Google weren’t OS competitors. But it’s also evidence of just how fast Google’s ambitions have expanded that it was as recently as three years ago that it sounded logical for a Google representative to sit on Apple’s board at all.

There’s no reason why Schmidt’s exodus will necessarily usher in an era of fierce rivalry between the two companies. But it’ll surely have some impact on their relationship, and not just in the areas of phone and computer operating systems which Jobs references in the press release.

Google’s mission statement famously refers to organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful–and for awhile now, I’ve wondered if it was mere coincidence that it steered clear of organizing the world’s music or otherwise engaging in businesses that competed directly with Apple’s iTunes Store. (Google did try to sell video content for awhile, but it turned out to be a short-lived experiment.) May Schmidt’s disappearance from the Apple board usher in an era in which Google enters even more of Apple’s businesses without blinking. That sort of healthy competition would surely benefit consumers more than the last three odd years of Apple/Google coopitition have.

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The Feds Look Into Apple’s Google Voice Rejection. Good!

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 31, 2009 at 5:16 pm

Uncle SamPeople keep saying that there’s no court of last resort when Apple rejects an iPhone application. Heck, nobody can even demand that Apple explain its actions. But the one guy who can order even Steve Jobs around is Uncle Sam. And the FCC is now looking into Apple’s refusal to release Google’s Google Voice application on the iPhone App Store. It wants to know why Apple rejected the app, what role AT&T played in the decision, and what the situation has been with other Google apps.

I know I’d like to use the Google Voice app on my iPhone. I know that I believe Apple’s app approval process should be less restrictive and more open. But I’m not a lawyer–and I don’t know whether Apple’s actions to date violate any laws or FCC regulations. Neither does the FCC presumably, which is why it’s written letters to Apple, AT&T, and Google to collect information.

I’m enough of a libertarian that I don’t reflexively want the federal government deciding how Apple should run its application store. But I’m also a believer in competition–and so I think it’s important that we know if AT&T was involved in Google Voice’s rejection, and if so, if the FCC considers that to be acceptable behavior. Telecommunications remains a rather heavily-regulated industry for a reason, after all.

Of course, the happiest possible outcome from all this is obvious: Apple could save itself some potential legal headaches by approving the Google Voice application without being forced to do so. Is there an iPhone owner on the planet who would be displeased with that outcome?

[UPDATE: TechCrunch has published copies of the FCC’s letters to Apple, AT&T, and Google.]

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The No-Google-Voice-on-iPhone Uprising Continues

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 31, 2009 at 9:07 am

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington says (in a post that’s loading only sporadically for me) that he’s dumping his iPhone for a T-Mobile myTouch 3G over Apple’s rejection of Google’s Google Voice app. Developer Steven Frank is similarly irate. Six Apart’s Anil Dash is calm but concerned.

I’m glad to see that discontent over the Google Voice situation hasn’t died down yet. If Apple continues with the secretive and capricious attitude it’s had towards app approval long enough, the day is going to come when it makes a move that angers enough people that it’ll have to reassess its practices. If the Google Voice situation turns out to be that tipping point, it’ll be good news for iPhone users–and, I’m convinced, for Apple itself in the long run. There are certainly countless examples of consumers forcing companies to do things that are in the companies’ best interest–call it the New Coke Backlash phenomenon. And even Apple usually responds when enough of its customers are seething.

I remain enough of an optimist to believe that Apple will get all this right sooner or later. I even think it’s possible that it’s listening to the discontent right now and will decide to let the Google Voice app onto the App Store after all in the not-too-distant future.

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Take Back the Beep!

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 30, 2009 at 12:17 pm

My friend David Pogue of the New York Times is a man on a mission. He’s become irate over the time that cell phone company voicemail systems spend playing a recorded message telling you to leave a message, explaining how to send a page, and suggesting that you hang up when you’re done leaving the message. The messages are pointless little annoyances every time you hear them–and since they take fifteen seconds or so to play, they eat up the monthly minutes of the person who called.

David is trying to rally phone users to bury carriers in such a surging sea of complaints that they enter the 21st century by ditching these obsolete recorded messages. It’s a great idea. His post about all this includes instructions on how to tell your carrier you’re part of the crusade.

Of course, it’s not just that 15-second message that’s irritating–voicemail systems in general tend to sport the most aggravating user interfaces this side of automated supermarket checkouts. One of the nice things about using an iPhone and/or Google Voice is getting to avoid those convoluted menus…and David says that Apple insisted that AT&T eliminate the 15-second message for iPhone voicemail. Which proves it can be done–you know of anyone who’s called an iPhone owner, been bounced into voicemail, and gotten confused by the lack of instructions?

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