Apple Releases iPhone SDK, Demos Spore, Instant Messaging

[pflau]

Send me $99 and I'll stop whining.

That's what's wrong with some people.. gimme gimme gimme.. the world doesn't owe you anything.. take responsibilities of your own life for once.

So how exactly do they account for all the minor (10.4.1, .2, .3, .4, etc.) revisions which are FREE? Sorry, but they're keeping your attention over there while they pick your pocket over here. And the only "new feature" I've heard about in Version 2.0 of iPhone/iPod Touch is the ability to BUY new applications for it. So it sure sounds like they're charging iPod Touch users for the privilege to BUY more things from them. How am I wrong here?

The Exchange compatibility is definitely new feature, so is the mobile application store. It is nothing new to have to pay just to pay more, so to speak. Look around - cable modems, set top boxes, cellphones, all of these are "free" only if you are a subscriber because the cost of the device that allows you to buy is built into the subscription cost. If you are not a subscriber they are not going to give you a cable modem for free.

Are they trying to reduce their taxes??? I thought they were trying to eventually get you to buy more apps on iTunes so they can get that 30% cut of other people's software programs.

I am not going to host an accounting class here. Let me just say this again (as I have said in another thread). You cannot tell the government you are making so much money, and have the stock price shoot up, and later splurge on research and development to develop something to give away, just to lower your earning after R&D expenses so you pay less taxes. That leaves way too much room for stock price manipulation.

You mean like Cnet? That's one. Do you want more? Because your argument is a total red herring.

Cnet is a public, for-profit company. Do not ever mistake it to be anything otherwise. They are capable of making money off of you without you even knowning. As for their download service - it is cunning I tell ya. For instance, I did a search on H 264 encoding software, and I got a list of over 200 items. And unlike iTune, it does not tell you right away in the result set how much they cost. So the idea is for you to sift through all 200 items and hopefully you stumble upon a try-and-buy item and actually spend some money which is what they really want. Do not be deceived.

If you think anyone at Apple is starving you have even less of a clue than I thought you did. But in any case, a place like CNet gets its money to pay r reviewers and maintainers of the site through ADVERTISING.

This is just ridiculous. I am sure nobody at BMW is starving either. Are they supposed to give me a free car?

If you think internet advertising is anything less than a privacy intruding, shady practice you have even less of a clue than I thought you did.

But it's NOT a free market if someone like Apple gets to say they are the ONLY game in town, which is exactly what they are doing by forbidding ALL other forms of distribution but their 30% off-the-top mafia style market. That's no better than Microsoft. In fact, it might be worse.

Of course it is a free market. You can develop for the WinMobile platform, or the upcoming Android. Or you can even develop for the Palm Pilot V - I am sure that is totally free now.

So now you're a fortune teller as well? Do you know that MacOS X is based on a BSD core and is therefore also Unix based? To say Linux can't achieve what MacOS X has already achieved is to say MacOS X "CAN'T" exist. I don't think you really want to make that argument.

So now you're a mind reader? I have mentioned in another thread I do know where OS X came from. OS X has the backing of Apple, that's why it thrived. That goes to show Apple has the right distribution model to put UNIX on the desktops of regular people. Do you know that there were various flavors of DOS? Only MS-DOS really succeeded. All others had their 15 minutes of fame and than faded away. I don't need to make an argument. One doesn't have to look that far back in the history of computing to know I make sense.

I don't find Linux very 'hard' to use. If you think it's 'hard' then that's a reflection on your skills and knowledge not mine.

This is precisely the problem with Linux. That holier-than-thou attitude and that "if you don't like what we've done it's because us smart you dumb and since we're doing it for you for free don't ever complaint about free food." mindset.

Most Mac users seem to ENJOY giving their money to Steve).

[/QUOTE]

How else can Apple thrive and/or compete against Microsoft without money? People vote with their pocket book all the time. Political causes, charity, whatever. That's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Telp]

S
So how exactly do they account for all the minor (10.4.1, .2, .3, .4, etc.) revisions which are FREE?

Because they are minor revisions. Apple doesnt have a choice but to make you charge. The only thing they can do is price it appropriatly.If you dont wanna buy it then do us a favor and stop whining.

 

[blackbelt]

do you have to pay the $99 to test the apps on your ipod touch. (Just to view them not to distribute them)

 

[parapup]

How else can Apple thrive and/or compete against Microsoft without money? People vote with their pocket book all the time. Political causes, charity, whatever. That's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah let's just hope that you don't have to say the same thing about Apple few years down the line.

The monopolies start with control pills - some are given deceptively, dissolved in water, others come in white sugar coating but finally they are there for one reason - maximum control for the sole benefit of the corporation at the cost of choice to the consumer.

Apple telling you what you can run on your iPhone and what you cannot, who can sell products for the iPhone and how etc. is a baby step in the direction of complete control - make it successful and there will be more control to come. And I see it no different than Microsoft telling you to get Windows on every PC you buy - without choice.

How idiotically ironic that in America people fuel the growth of a new abusive monopoly to get rid of an existing one.

 

[MikeTheC]

parapup:

This kind of thing operates on two completely different levels, one of which is as you describe, but the other is not quite like that.

First off, the iPhone is primarily a cell phone. It's not a full-blown computer. Moreover, since it's Apple's solution, it's theirs to do with as they please. And since you clearly are savvy and well-informed enough knowing this going into an iPhone purchase, you have very little to hide behind in later trying to cry foul.

Moreover, being a cell phone, it's kind of important that it play nice. Can you imagine what would happen if things like DDoS attacks (to use just one example) could be made to happen on a cell phone network? On anybody's cell phone network? And what if that or other kinds of malicious activities could somehow be made to affect the land-line systems across the world? I'm not saying it can, since I really don't know. But then again, since there's really never been anything quite like the iPhone until now, does anybody really know just how exploitable (or not) the combined communications grid on this planet may actually be?

Now, I'm not speaking as an iPhone owner (since I don't have one), but rather as a technology enthusiast. There's a big 'ol part of me which doesn't like "fences" or limitations or externally-imposed control, perhaps even moreso than the average "next guy" out there (just look at the kinds of comments I've made elsewhere on this board vis a vis Sony, Microsoft, DRM, et al, if you don't believe that statement), but this is kind of a different situation. And given, in just the history of computers alone, all the "impossible" things that could never, ever be done which somehow managed to get accomplished or find a way to happen after all, do you really think communications technology is fundamentally any different?

Ok, so let me address the "other level" which is the one that operates as you suggest, and this ties very nicely into the point I raised above about the iPhone basically not being a computer.

When you buy a computer, whether or not you paid either a "Microsoft" or an "Apple" tax on the hardware, you fundamentally have a computer onto which you have the ability to load whatever software you like. But, it should not escape your notice you also have the ability to load whatever OS on it you like, with only a relatively small number of purely technical limitations imposed.

And clearly, if you were to build your own computer, or simply buy an OS-less "bare bones" system from any of a variety of hardware vendors, at that point you would absolutely have the most "unclouded" computer possible. Again, whatever OS(s) it had would be there solely at your suffrage as well as at your request. Obviously, you would find yourself at your most unrestricted in such a scenario.

Unfortunately, there's really nobody out there making "bare bones" cell phones onto which you can then load whatever OS you want. That's not to say there aren't -- or haven't been -- cell phones out there running some kind of OSS-based OS, but it's not like you can buy a completely "naked" cell phone and start from scratch.

So, given that that's the case, while it's true Apple is exercising control over the iPhone, is there really some other choice -- either less-restricted or unrestricted -- available to be made? Sometimes, even ethics and logic must give way to practicality and physics.

 

[parapup]

parapup:

It's not a full-blown computer. Moreover, since it's Apple's solution, it's theirs to do with as they please.

No, no not at all - that's where the fallacy is. Apple sold me a piece of hardware with software loaded on it - it ends there. It is not any of their business to tell me what I should be and should not be doing with it.

That is just fundamentally wrong - even more wrong since the device was not sold subsidized and was sold with a 2 year contract. If you give me something subsidized you have some right to tell me what I can use it for and how - not in Apple's case. They are taking it to a new level - they want you to pay the full price of the hardware, bind you to a 2 year contract, and on top of that tell you what applications you can run on it, where you obtain those applications from and a slew of other restrictions.

When I bought the iPhone - you are god damn right I made a well informed decision - I am not bound by AT&T, I run the applications I want to, and will use the SDK to even further my freedom without participating in Apple store bondage.

Your arguments make sense only when you are into complete acceptance that you have NO choice, Apple has licensed, not sold you the iPhone, and nothing even can come close to the iPhone sooner or later. IMHO that would be unfounded, uninformed and too pessimistic and thus backwards.

If everybody had assumed they had no choice when it comes to Windows there would be no OSS, no OSX and Microsoft would not have played it fair ever - they are today acknowledging OSS, opening up their specs and generally doing things that they never would in the absence of people who believed that choice exists.

 

[MikeTheC]

parapup:

It's not a full-blown computer. Moreover, since it's Apple's solution, it's theirs to do with as they please.

No, no not at all - that's where the fallacy is. Apple sold me a piece of hardware with software loaded on it - it ends there. It is not any of their business to tell me what I should be and should not be doing with it.

No, they sold you a solution. The fact that it happens to be a piece of hardware is simply a delivery conduit for the Apple-provided functionality you purchased.

That is just fundamentally wrong - even more wrong since the device was not sold subsidized and was sold with a 2 year contract. If you give me something subsidized you have some right to tell me what I can use it for and how - not in Apple's case.

So that means, when you buy a car, since it isn't subsidized, you can do with it whatever you want? Like driving it on other people's private property? Or on the median of a public road? Or use it to speed? Or run over pedestrians?

They are taking it to a new level - they want you to pay the full price of the hardware, bind you to a 2 year contract, and on top of that tell you what applications you can run on it, where you obtain those applications from and a slew of other restrictions.

When I bought the iPhone - you are god damn right I made a well informed decision - I am not bound by AT&T, I run the applications I want to, and will use the SDK to even further my freedom without participating in Apple store bondage.

I think this last statement here pretty much says it all. You knowingly chose to buy an iPhone, but now you want it both ways, including bitching about how the solution you purchased has been provided to you. Please...

Your arguments make sense only when you are into complete acceptance that you have NO choice, Apple has licensed, not sold you the iPhone, and nothing even can come close to the iPhone sooner or later. IMHO that would be unfounded, uninformed and too pessimistic and thus backwards.

So please, tell me how things work in your little world. Sounds interesting and utopian-esq there.

 

[parapup]

So that means, when you buy a car, since it isn't subsidized, you can do with it whatever you want? Like driving it on other people's private property? Or on the median of a public road? Or use it to speed? Or run over pedestrians?

Wow - you lower the intellectual barrier to constructive arguments to a new, hitherto unobserved low.

What you are saying is that the car companies that sell you cars legally require you to not run them on people's properties or to not overspeed? Or are you suggesting that the ability to run the applications of choice on a friggin cell phone is equivalent to run cars over people's property?

Sorry I can't keep up with your analogies and arguments that are founded atop wrong but convenient fallacies.

 

[MikeTheC]

Wow - you lower the intellectual barrier to constructive arguments to a new, hitherto unobserved low.

What you are saying is that the car companies that sell you cars legally require you to not run them on people's properties or to not overspeed? Or are you suggesting that the ability to run the applications of choice on a friggin cell phone is equivalent to run cars over people's property?

Sorry I can't keep up with your analogies and arguments that are founded atop wrong but convenient fallacies.

Nor can I, yours. So I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[pflau]

do you have to pay the $99 to test the apps on your ipod touch. (Just to view them not to distribute them)

Actually if there is anything that I think is not so fair about the pricing structure is that I would think anybody who develops app for this own use should not require to pay that $99. That $99 should only apply if you want to distribute your app.

But of course that opens up a can of worms about what if you just post the source code...

 

[pflau]

Apple telling you what you can run on your iPhone and what you cannot, who can sell products for the iPhone and how etc. is a baby step in the direction of complete control - make it successful and there will be more control to come. And I see it no different than Microsoft telling you to get Windows on every PC you buy - without choice.

How idiotically ironic that in America people fuel the growth of a new abusive monopoly to get rid of an existing one.

Control is not necessarily a bad thing. I honestly do not understand why people think control is automatically a bad thing. That is why we live in a democratic society, if certain control is bad people will just vote it out. We have gun control, birth control, immigration control. Control is what brings order to chaos, and to most what makes life liveable. If Apple's control makes their platform more robust and secured, I say why not. Perhaps that is indeed Apple's biggest advantage. If people don't like it they will just go back to Windows. We do have a choice now.

 

[pflau]

parapup:
Moreover, being a cell phone, it's kind of important that it play nice. Can you imagine what would happen if things like DDoS attacks (to use just one example) could be made to happen on a cell phone network? On anybody's cell phone network?

The internet is getting attacked every day. Worms, viruses, zombie computers, trojans, etc., etc., etc. Just imagine what happens when cellphones become infested with these types of malware. The entire cell phone network can be crippled and people cannot even call 911 during an emergency. And you cannot track down those cellphones from which the attacks initiate. What are you going to do? How are you going to clean up this mess when people can put anything in their cellphones? Remember 9/11 when many people could not make a call because the cellphone network was overloaded? How would you like a 9/11 situation everyday?

Hackers are good, very good, as they have shown how they have been so capable of unlocking the iPhone. They can do anything. So the key is control, such that we need to control the scope of their impact by limiting the distribution. Because one day some of those hackers are going to become crackers and decide to not play nice.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

The internet is getting attacked every day. Worms, viruses, zombie computers, trojans, etc., etc., etc. Just imagine what happens when cellphones become infested with these types of malware. The entire cell phone network can be crippled and people cannot even call 911 during an emergency. And you cannot track down those cellphones from which the attacks initiate. What are you going to do? How are you going to clean up this mess when people can put anything in their cellphones? Remember 9/11 when many people could not make a call because the cellphone network was overloaded? How would you like a 9/11 situation everyday?

Hackers are good, very good, as they have shown how they have been so capable of unlocking the iPhone. They can do anything. So the key is control, such that we need to control the scope of their impact by limiting the distribution. Because one day some of those hackers are going to become crackers and decide to not play nice.

By that argument, I could say that because there is crime out there in the real world, everyone should be forced to live under martial law, have implants put in their heads to inform the government where they are and what they are doing at all times (for society's good and to avoid crime) and basically take away every single freedom you have for the sake of law and order. Now maybe YOU would like to live in a world like that and gaging by your statements about CONTROL over iPhone to avoid all this rabid viruses and trojan attacks going on out there (odd how I've used Windows since 1999 and have NEVER EVER gotten a SINGLE virus or trojan on my computer and I do NOT have a virus checker running 24/7. I check it once in awhile and there's never anything there. I use the heck out of the Internet. I must be lucky, eh? One in a billion with all that evil trojan/hacking/virus malicious crap going on out there. Or maybe if you have a bit of intelligence and don't download crap, you aren't very likely to get infected. The same applies to certain risky social behaviors with certain real world viruses.

Personally, I like freedom. I like freedom of speech. I like freedom of choice. I don't like someone like Apple or Microsoft dictating what I can and cannot do with a computer I buy from them. And yes, the iPhone and iPod Touch are COMPUTERS whether you want to believe it or not. The world seems to be slowly turning into a giant fascist state. Some appear to not mind that one bit, I guess.

 

[csimmons]

By that argument, I could say that because there is crime out there in the real world, everyone should be forced to live under martial law, have implants put in their heads to inform the government where they are and what they are doing at all times (for society's good and to avoid crime) and basically take away every single freedom you have for the sake of law and order. Now maybe YOU would like to live in a world like that and gaging by your statements about CONTROL over iPhone to avoid all this rabid viruses and trojan attacks going on out there (odd how I've used Windows since 1999 and have NEVER EVER gotten a SINGLE virus or trojan on my computer and I do NOT have a virus checker running 24/7. I check it once in awhile and there's never anything there. I use the heck out of the Internet. I must be lucky, eh? One in a billion with all that evil trojan/hacking/virus malicious crap going on out there. Or maybe if you have a bit of intelligence and don't download crap, you aren't very likely to get infected. The same applies to certain risky social behaviors with certain real world viruses.

Personally, I like freedom. I like freedom of speech. I like freedom of choice. I don't like someone like Apple or Microsoft dictating what I can and cannot do with a computer I buy from them. And yes, the iPhone and iPod Touch are COMPUTERS whether you want to believe it or not. The world seems to be slowly turning into a giant fascist state. Some appear to not mind that one bit, I guess.

With Apple, you do have a choice. You can choose to play by Apple's rules, or you can choose NOT to play by Apple's rules. Seems pretty simple to me.

For all your musings about freedom and choice, at the end of the day you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too.

 

[BongoBanger]

With Apple, you do have a choice. You can choose to play by Apple's rules, or you can choose NOT to play by Apple's rules. Seems pretty simple to me.

Which is fine if they don't have a monopoly.

 

[unigolyn]

Oh man I posted too soon, you have to pay $99 to get the SDK???? WTF? Argh! NOT cool, Apple. Devs who are developing free apps, at least, should not have to pay.

Okay, hippie, walk up to the nearest supermarket and say you need to get free food because you're going to give it all away for free. The people who work for Apple and are writing the actual SDK don't do so for free but you know, like to feed themselves and their families.

And please no one start with "software is not tangible blah blah". The iPhone software is just as much a fruit of people's labor as the iPhone hardware, because inert pieces of glass, aluminum and silicon really have no value unless applied to technology such as this.

Just because you CAN flip burgers for minimum wage while writing free software, doesn't mean you should.

I said burger flipping because, dude, if you can't spend $99 on a hobby, you need a better source of income.

 

[csimmons]

Which is fine if they don't have a monopoly.

Having a monopoly is not a bad thing. How you use your monopoly power and how the monopoly was obtained is where the problems start, and so far, Apple has not done anything malicious with their position.

Besides, Apple is one player among many in the smartphone market. Where does this notion that they're in a monopoly position come from? Due to the system they set up for iPhone development? The way they set it up seems perfectly reasonable to me and many other people. I'm not a developer, but I deal with distributors on a daily basis for my business, and the terms of their distribution model are very fair. I guess one has have actually dealt with such things in order to understand them fully...

 

[gwangung]

Besides, Apple is one player among many in the smartphone market. Where does this notion that they're in a monopoly position come from?

Because computing people has this notion that products define the market.

Economists laugh at this; they know that consumers define the market. And they define by how they use the product.

 

[whooleytoo]

Because computing people has this notion that products define the market.

Economists laugh at this; they know that consumers define the market. And they define by how they use the product.

And most people laugh at economists, who'll tell you the future only after it has already happened.

Sometimes, a new product (with marketing) can create a whole new market where it previously didn't exist on any meaningful scale. The portable music player market was tiny and stagnant until the release of the iPod. The supply of the iPod created the demand.

Of course, economists will tell you that's nonsense. The demand was always there, and Apple just provided the supply. But they, of course, will only tell you this in retrospect. Which brings me back to my first point above..

As Henry Ford said: "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse."

 

[cbrain]

I wonder how much "SuperMonkey Ball" and "Spore" will cost...

 

[MikeTheC]

By that argument, I could say that because there is crime out there in the real world, everyone should be forced to live under martial law, have implants put in their heads to inform the government where they are and what they are doing at all times (for society's good and to avoid crime) and basically take away every single freedom you have for the sake of law and order.

Huh?

Does anyone else understand what this person said here? I'm sorry, but I really don't get it.

 

[gwangung]

And most people laugh at economists, who'll tell you the future only after it has already happened.

Sometimes, a new product (with marketing) can create a whole new market where it previously didn't exist on any meaningful scale. The portable music player market was tiny and stagnant until the release of the iPod. The supply of the iPod created the demand.

Of course, economists will tell you that's nonsense. The demand was always there, and Apple just provided the supply. But they, of course, will only tell you this in retrospect. Which brings me back to my first point above..

As Henry Ford said: "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse."

If'n people are laughing...why didn't THEY think of it first?

Of course it's easier to see it in hindsight...but you still have to look in the right place...and generally, that's in people, as opposed to getting all hung up in the product...

 

[diamond.g]

I wonder how much "SuperMonkey Ball" and "Spore" will cost...

If they are even remotely similar to DS/PSP sized games? I would venture to say from $15.99-29.99 with my gut going for $19.99. *Note all in USD, other currency mileage may vary.

 

[newspimp]

Okay, hippie, walk up to the nearest supermarket and say you need to get free food because you're going to give it all away for free. The people who work for Apple and are writing the actual SDK don't do so for free but you know, like to feed themselves and their families.

Which is why XCode isn't included free with OSX. Because the developers need money to be made on that product too otherwise they'll starve...


Wait...

And please no one start with "software is not tangible blah blah". The iPhone software is just as much a fruit of people's labor as the iPhone hardware, because inert pieces of glass, aluminum and silicon really have no value unless applied to technology such as this.

The value of a piece of software is determined by the person writing it. Why shouldn't a person be allowed to write a piece of software and give it away free of charge if they want?

Just because you CAN flip burgers for minimum wage while writing free software, doesn't mean you should.

Doesn't mean he shouldn't, either. One of the miracles of the ubiquity of personal computers is that people from all income strata can now compete on much more level ground and the availability of free-of-charge programming tools and environments has led to a rich and diverse application set that is available and has exponentially increased the number of budding programmers and computer scientists.

Not every brilliant programmer started as just that; some of them did have to maintain other, less glamourous (hard to imagine something less prestigious against the "glamour" of coding, isn't it ) day jobs while they built up their skill set. I guess since you think that people shouldn't write free software as a hobby unless they're willing to pay for it, that this is wrong...

I said burger flipping because, dude, if you can't spend $99 on a hobby, you need a better source of income.

So, now career-enabling and improving hobbies should be the sole domain of those with expendable income?

When it all boils down to it, the iTMS model is a great value for developers who want to sell their apps. It's not as great a model for those who wish to develop OSS or freeware apps.

 

[gwangung]

Which is fine if they don't have a monopoly.

By definition, they don't.