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Petition for iPhone 3rd party development

T

trsmith24

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 30, 2007
10
0
I've been a mac user since the beginning. I love Apple products and was probably days from buying an iPhone. However, in light of the issues that have come up with the 1.1.1 update and 3rd party apps breaking, I'm seriously reconsidering. I wanted to see if somethign was being done about it and ran across this petition to open up the iPhone to 3rd party developers:

Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/iphone/petition.html

Digg it here, too: http://digg.com/apple/iPhone_Third_Party_Application_Support_Petition_2


To me, this is critical to the succcess of the iPhone and I think that we, the mac community, have to make sure Apple doesn't make the wrong decision here. So please sign this petition and let's get the iPhone open to developers!
 
T

trsmith24

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 30, 2007
10
0
boss1 said:
very well constructed and thorough petition.
Click to expand...

I agree. When I ran across this petition, I was pleased to see that it was well thought out and not just some rant about how Apple is screwing the consumer.

I cannot see why opening up the iPhone to developers wouldn't be top on Apple's list, as successful as they have been with OS X "open source" development. I would venture to guess that Xcode for iPhone is just around the corner... maybe I'm being too optimistic, though.
 
ImNoSuperMan

ImNoSuperMan

macrumors 65816
Dec 1, 2005
1,221
64
Signed. But surprised to see only 470 signatures. Need atleast 50 times more to have any chance of some real effect.
 
gceo

gceo

macrumors 6502a
Jul 13, 2007
655
1
San Diego, CA
I signed it, but I had a tough time with this line:

"Our argument is that a large portion of the potential market for the iPhone consists of power users who will be disappointed if they are limited to the device's built-in applications."

Though I would like to agree, I think most of us here suffer from "forumitis" where we think everyone is trying to hack the iPhone because of a majority of posts talk about it. What we're forgetting is the hundreds of thousands (now millions) of users that are just fine with a stock iPhone.

I believe that it should be unlocked, but a petition with thousands of signatures is still insignificant in the eyes of Apple (or any big company).

It's not like they duped us, we just want something that they don't want us to have. They have their reasons (a consistent 'feel' to the product, and an AT&T contract, and revenue from ringtones) and we have our reasons (are you kidding, this thing is like a laptop, open it up aready!)

Though I side with us 100% of the time, I just feel like Apple is getting a bad rap, even though they were very clear about no SDK and 3rd party apps. I feel like it will get better with time, but Apple needed to work with a carrier to implement Visual Voicemail. (one of my fav features)
 
T

trsmith24

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 30, 2007
10
0
gceo said:
I signed it, but I had a tough time with this line:

"Our argument is that a large portion of the potential market for the iPhone consists of power users who will be disappointed if they are limited to the device's built-in applications."
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can't say they got it right 100% in that petition article. But what I do like about this particular petition is that it's not just a complete slam on Apple and it doesn't make any unreasonable requests -- even though the accuracy of their statements about the iPhone market might not be entirely correct.

I think the iPhone is a fantastic piece of tech. And I have no doubt that Apple will continue to improve it and get it to the point where I'll feel like it has the right feature-set for me right out-of-the-box.

For me, these missing features were handled pretty dang well with the 3rd party apps, though. So this meant that I was much closer to buying an iPhone than I had originally planned. That is, until 1.1.1 came out. Now, I'm back waiting and hoping that either Apple will come out with a bunch of apps that are exactly what I want to see in the phone or they'll open the thing up to 3rd party developers.
 
Avatar74

Avatar74

macrumors 68000
Feb 5, 2007
1,608
402
Finally someone's taking a rational approach to all this.

While I'm not that interested in signing the petition... petitions and boycotts are the way to pursue such changes.

The only problem is, once you've already bought the product you've partially undermined your own power as a consumer.

I always remind people who want to write a TV station or network's Program Director about programming they don't like that... As long as you keep watching the channel while sending those letters, nothing's going to change. Ultimately you speak with your wallet.

If you are experiencing buyer's remorse despite knowing that third party development was going to be locked down, your key to leverage might be including a clause in the petition that binds each petitioner to agreeing to boycott some or all of Apple's future products.

Apple, while seemingly progressive, is still a company and still has a bottom line.... to make money to cover R&D, growth, shareholder interest, employee payrolls, etc. In that regard, the iPhone is not philanthropy. The company has no legitimate reason to bow to demands for third party development unless failing to do so can quantifiably hurt their bottom line.

That being said, be prepared to see Apple change nothing about its business plan... because, as some have pointed out, people on the forums are probably overestimating the number of those who really care about this issue. That isn't to deter you from doing your part.... do it, petition, boycott... But go in with the knowledge that those of us who are perfectly fine with Apple's stated business plan may vastly outnumber you and consequently your threat of lost business may be but a blip to Apple's bottom line.

Or not... it might encourage them to rethink their strategy. Either way, you have absolutely nothing to lose by boycotting their products. If you believe otherwise, then you aren't yet prepared to see this effort through.
 
C

Cinemagic

macrumors 6502
Sep 26, 2007
390
1
I'm 511. I'm all in favor of it and was glad to sign it - with my real name, too. I'm skeptical that Steve Jobs will do anything that is not in his financial favor. Customer satisfaction and innovation are merely secondary to greed.
 
QCassidy352

QCassidy352

macrumors G5
Mar 20, 2003
12,028
6,036
Bay Area
gceo said:
I signed it, but I had a tough time with this line:

"Our argument is that a large portion of the potential market for the iPhone consists of power users who will be disappointed if they are limited to the device's built-in applications."

Though I would like to agree, I think most of us here suffer from "forumitis" where we think everyone is trying to hack the iPhone because of a majority of posts talk about it. What we're forgetting is the hundreds of thousands (now millions) of users that are just fine with a stock iPhone.
Click to expand...

I absolutely agree. Even many of the users here (like me, for example) do not really care about 3rd party apps. And the % of such users in the broader iphone market has got to be much higher.

I just feel like Apple is getting a bad rap, even though they were very clear about no SDK and 3rd party apps.
Click to expand...

Agreed again. I can understand the frustration, but I do think that apple was clear about this. It's just that the hacking went so well at first that people began to expect it, but the truth is, we were all told up front that they were not allowing 3rd party apps.
 
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