Tag Archives | iPhone

The Latest Victim of the iPhone NDA: Developer Books

Posted by Ed Oswald on September 25, 2008 at 10:20 am

While we’ve already discussed Apple’s NDA and the muzzle its put on App Store developers when applications get rejected, its reach apparently extends to another area as well: books. Silicon Alley Insider reported Thursday that at least one publisher–Pragmatic Programmers — has canceled its plans to publish a book on developing apps for the device because of NDA restrictions.

News of the cancellation came by way of the publisher’s official blog. While the publisher thought the NDA would have been lifted following the launch of iPhone 2.0, it never was. “It now appears that Apple does not intend to lift the NDA any time soon. Regrettably, this means we are pulling our iPhone book out of production,” it said.

This is not an isolated issue. Take a look at some Amazon search results, which show Apple’s code of silence is also holding up other books as well. All appear to be on pre-order at the moment. There is at least one that explicitly says the release of the book is directly related to the lifting of the NDA itself.

So what is a developer to do? Let’s remind everyone that while Steve Jobs may have made a big deal out of how easy it is to program for the device, for many it is still completely new. Yes, a fair amount of it drag and drop. However for more advanced features some developers are going to need to brush up on on Macintosh programming–most are probably Windows developers first and foremost.

Books like the ones now being quashed are great references to get developers up to speed quickly. While I’m sure developers will survive without them, the learning curve may be a little steeper. Why frustrate the folks that are essentially the core of your entire platform?

While Apple may see its silence as key to keeping a competitive advantage, I’m seeing way too much negative publicity out of this, and its going to end up hurting the company in the end. I’m not sure how much longer the company is going to be able to maintain its current business practices.

Sooner or later, the walls are going to have to come tumbling down.

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Won’t Someone Build an Android-Based Anti-iPhone?

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 24, 2008 at 1:32 pm

So T-Mobile’s G1 has been unveiled. It looks neat–and it looks like the most serious rival to the iPhone yet, though the BlackBerry Bold could be a contender once AT&T starts selling the darn thing.

What the G1 doesn’t seem to be is transcendent–a phone that’s as impressive as the iPhone, but in different ways. And the world could use such a phone. Some stuff about the iPhone is a matter of personal preference: Lots of folks are OK with the onscreen keyboard, but there are at least as many hardcore smartphone users who won’t ever buy a phone that doesn’t have (to quote Steve Jobs) little plastic keys.

Then there are the things about the iPhone that may stress out even Apple’s biggest fans, such as the company’s monopoly on application distribution and its mysterious, troubling policies on what does and doesn’t get in. All in all, I think there’s an opportunity for somebody to build a phone that’s the opposite of an iPhone in some ways, and better than an iPhone in others, and maybe even open in ways that no phone has been to date. And Google’s Android OS seems like the best platform to build it on.

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Apple Makes Changes to App Store Policies

Posted by Ed Oswald on September 24, 2008 at 9:48 am

Stung by criticism, Apple has put a muzzle on applicants to the App Store by including the rejection letters it sends under a non-disclosure agreement. In addition, it has closed a loophole which was allowing rejected developers to find other avenues to serve their applications to users.

The newest rejection letters come complete with a warning to those reading them: “THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE.” No doubt this move is in response to high-profile cases of rejection by Apple, where developers in protest published the letters in verbatim.

We’ve covered at least one of these apps in detail, Almerica’s Podcaster, and shared our laments over Apple’s hard-lined stance several days later when another developer got the thumbs-down. Apparently, Apple’s had enough of this kind of coverage and has decided to put the kibosh on any further releases of its rejection notices.

But it doesn’t end with the extension of the NDA. Apple is taking it one step further by closing a loophole which was allowing developers such as Almerica to bypass the App Store completely. Originally intended for education and software testing, it allowed for ad-hoc licenses to be created which would allow the applications to be run on the phone legally. Continue Reading →

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The T-Grid: T-Mobile’s G1 Android Phone vs. the iPhone

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 23, 2008 at 9:48 am

It was all but official for what seemed like an eternity. Now it’s just official, period: T-Mobile is releasing the G1, the first phone powered by Google’s Android operating system. It’s essentially impossible to not instinctively compare it to the iPhone 3G. With phones more than almost any other technology device, the devil is in the details, and the best thing about the iPhone–its incredibly refined user interface–needs to be experienced to be appreciated. So a real comparison of the two superphones will need to be a hands-on one.

Still, there’s some value in a simple features comparison. Here’s my first stab at one, with data from sources such as Gizmodo’s writeup of the G1. (What’s a T-Grid? It’s an at-a-glance comparison in this format, and we’ll be doing them on other topics as appropriate.)

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Okay, Podcaster Wasn’t a Weird Aberration

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 21, 2008 at 4:55 pm

Here’s an apparent second example (this was the first) of an iPhone application I’d like to use–one which makes it easier to use multiple Gmail accounts in Web-based form, rather than in Apple’s Mail app–being refused access to Apple’s App Store on the grounds that it duplicates functionality in an Apple product. To quote the rejection letter MailWrangler developer Angelo DiNardi received:

“… Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion. …”

Confusion? As a Gmail user, I understood DiNardi’s explanation the moment I skimmed it. Wouldn’t it make sense to let real people determine whether they’re confused by the purpose of his program?

In addition, Apple apparently criticized DiNardi’s app because there’s no way to edit a Gmail account once it’s been entered; you have to delete it and start over again. Possibly a fair point that would be reasonable to bring up in a review of said application. But Apple has okayed more than its share of schlock for the App Store, so it’s not entirely clear why it’s suddenly playing design critic with an app that serves a clear and useful purpose.

Let’s recap Steve Jobs’ explanation of why Apple might reject an iPhone app from last March:

No mention of there being anything offensive about doing something similar to Apple; nothing about apps being nixed because they’re not the most fully realized incarnation possible of an idea.

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again: An App Store in which third parties aren’t allowed to tread too closely to Apple’s own programs is one that’s vastly less interesting–and one that’s likely to stunt the development of what can be and should be the most exciting mobile platform to date.

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Podcaster for iPhone: It’s Available! It’s Good!

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 16, 2008 at 12:33 am

On Saturday, I wrote about Podcaster, the iPhone podcast-listening app which Apple refused to add to the iPhone App Store on the grounds that it duplicated functionality in iTunes. I said it sounded cool. And I now know I was right–because I’ve been enjoying using it tonight.

As reported by Sarah Perez over on ReadWriteWeb, Podcaster developer Alex Sokirynsky has used the iPhone’s “ad-hoc” distribution feature, designed to help enterprises install custom apps, to make Podcaster available outside the walled garden that is the App Store. I’m not clear how he’s doing this–I thought that ad-hoc distribution permitted installation of an app on no more than a hundred iPhones. But I followed Sokirynsky’s instructions and ended up with a working copy of Podcaster on my phone.

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Apple Exec Confirms In-House Chip for iPhone Enroute

Posted by Ed Oswald on September 15, 2008 at 11:25 pm

While some scratched their heads when Apple scooped up semiconductor company PA Semi back in April, analysts suggested that Apple may have been looking to take its portable device chip manufacturing in-house.

Those analysts now appear to have been correct. In a rare leak, Apple’s chip team senior manager Wei-han Lien revealed on LinkedIn over the weekend that he was working on an ARM processor for the iPhone, the New York Times’ Bits blog claims. It should be noted that we can’t confirm this as Lien’s profile appears to either have been removed or possibly set to private, although a Google cache result from August 15 appears to suggest that this link was valid at one point.

Steve Jobs confirmed Apple’s plans for PA Semi in June, saying it would be tasked with developing chips for iPods and iPhones. Using the chips made sense: the company had made a name for itself by producing high-performance chips with low power consumption. It was also a blow to Intel, whose Atom processors have had their share of problems, and suffered from performance and cost issues.

Intel’s processors never made it into the iPhone — Samsung’s ARM processors power the unit according to analysts — but its not too out there to argue that they had hopes to get inside the popular devices eventually. With the iPhone an obvious success, Intel could stand to make quite a bit off of money by expanding the partnership to Apple’s mobile devices.

But taking out the middleman plays into Apple’s culture of silence. With a chipmaker in-house, there would be less of an opportunity for leaks, and would be able to customize the processor to the devices exact needs, possibly reducing costs elsewhere and increasing profit margins.

Either way, the move now brings the PA Semi acquisition full circle, and arguably puts Apple in a position to begin to advance the capabilities of the iPhone much faster than it would have if it would have continued to use a third-party for the iPhone’s processors.

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