Apple has decided to drop the NDA for released iPhone software.
I assume this means released Apple software (rather than released applications for the iPhone), so now people are free to discuss any aspects of iPhone development that pertain to released versions of the OS, and that publishers will be able to start selling the iPhone books that have been in the works.
Given Apple’s developer-hostile practices when it comes to the iPhone and the iTunes App Store, it’s becoming increasingly important for other mobile phone providers to build handsets that are more competitive with the iPhone. It looks like the best hope on that front is Google’s Android, so I was interested to read Tom Conrad’s thoughts on the platform.
Conrad is the head tech guy for Pandora, the Internet radio company whose client is one of the most compelling iPhone applications.
He lists as plusses Google and the Android team, and as minuses, the fact that differences in hardware will make things rough for developers, and that carriers (not Google) will be the ultimate arbiters of how open the platform is.
I think many people who aren’t iPhone owners might see it as odd that people feel so strongly that Apple needs competition in the handset market. The iPhone is a relatively small player in terms of market share. The thing is, though, I don’t think there are many iPhone owners who would trade their phone for any other handset on the market. Blackberry is nice in some ways, but it’s not an iPhone. (Nor is iPhone a Blackberry.) The market is crying out for more decent substitutes for both.
Is China blocking access to the iTunes Music Store because an album called Songs for Tibet was added? What’s interesting to me is that regardless of why China started blocking access to the store, everything that happens from this point will serve to confirm some people’s assumptions on the matter, and we’ll probably never really know for sure what happened or how it wound up playing out.
Tim Bray on the current crop of Apple keyboards:
Geeks love misty-eyed reminiscing about the great keyboards of yore, with a rough consensus that the original IBM PC’s clackety high-travel product has never since been surpassed. I sure liked that, but if my tactile memory is right, the latest Apples may be better.
That’s my impression as well, and I couldn’t be more surprised. Before Apple introduced its aluminum keyboards, I thought this was the greatest keyboard ever, but even if Avant made a keyboard with the same mechanism just for the Mac, I wouldn’t trade.
Another nice feature of the new Apple keyboards is that they’re easier to keep clean than just about any keyboard since the Atari 400. It’s a nice change, since the old clear plastic Apple keyboards were impossible to keep clean.
The Free Software Foundation’s list of reasons why you should avoid the iPhone have gotten plenty of coverage, which is of course the point of making such a list. I assume their tactics are the same as Greenpeace’s criticism of Apple’s environmental practices.
The goal is, of course, to get Apple to change its behavior, but I suspect the primary goal is also to educate consumers about the aims of the groups making the criticism. Apple is more effective than any other company in technology at garnering tons of press coverage, most of it positive. Activist groups target Apple with the knowledge that it’s the best way to advance what I expect is probably their primary goal — publicizing their cause.
The FSF wants consumers to think about their definition of free software, the risks of DRM, and how your software may expose your private information without your knowledge. Criticizing Apple on those grounds is clearly an effective way to get that message out in front of the public.
In the end, Greenpeace was successful in getting Apple to change its practices, but I suspect that was less important than the light they shined on the bad environmental practices that pervade the computer manufacturing industry. I also think it’s more important that more customers will be thinking about whether they will accept DRM and who is allowed to control what software they put on their phone than is any success the FSF might have in provoking change from Apple. That’s probably a good thing, because I think it was easier for Apple to reduce its packaging and do a better job of recycling old parts than it will be for them to give up some of the control they’re exercising over the iPhone platform.
John Gruber flags a report that Apple sells two thirds of the computers sold at retail stores for over $1,000. I didn’t realize that Apple was doing that well or that the bottom had fallen so far out of the PC market. Are people who are buying high end PCs buying them online? What does this mean for the game industry, where the latest games need more powerful PCs to run?
Apple has backed off on pushing Safari for Windows out to iTunes users as a software update and now more accurately lists it as “new software“. What I find interesting about Apple’s sudden eagerness to get Windows users to install Safari is that it shows they’re significantly more committed to it as a product than I would have originally guessed. My original speculation when Safari for Windows released was that Apple was making it available so that Web developers who use Windows would have no excuse for not testing their sites in Safari, and more importantly, Mobile Safari. Now it looks like Apple feels like Safari has legs and that they want to get into the browser fight on Windows.
I think Apple could stand to improve their conduct a bit in terms of how they push out the software, but I welcome the additional competition in the browser market. It feels like Safari more than any other browser is pushing the state of the art forward in terms of standards compliance.
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Two posts on transparency
Just wanted to flag two blog posts I’ve seen in the past 24 hours that are on the same topic — transparency.
First, John Gruber explains how Apple is hurting itself by not establishing clear rules on which iPhone applications can be sold in the iTunes store. Anyone who’s interested in building a platform for developers should read this article.
The second is Nate Silver attacking the methodology used by RealClearPolitics in formulating its poll of polls in the Presidential election. RCP changes the composition of it polls without explanation, in what appears to be a partisan fashion. Because they do not hew to any documented methodology, they undermine their own credibility.
Transparency and reputation are the only paths to trust, and absent transparency, a reputation is an easy thing to attack or undermine.