rc3.org Strong opinions weakly held
The future of app stores
Stephen O’Grady argues that app stores (of which the iPhone App Store is an example) are going to continue to be a big deal. I’m inclined to agree, and I love his example of the WordPress plugin directory.
I’m also going to quote from one of his sources, Farhad Manjoo’s negative article on app stores to make a slightly different point:
That’s a miscalculation, because the App Store’s true rival isn’t a competing app marketplace. Rather, it’s the open, developer-friendly Web. When Apple rejected Google Latitude, the search company’s nearby-friend-mapping program, developers created a nearly identical version that works perfectly on the iPhone’s Web browser. Google looks to be doing something similar with Voice, another app that Apple barred from its store. Last fall, Joe Hewitt, the Facebook developer who created the social network’s iPhone app, quit developing for Apple in protest of the company’s policies. Where did he go? Back to writing mobile apps for Web browsers.
The question I’d ask is, how is this a loss for Apple? Web browsers are becoming increasingly powerful platforms for applications. It would be a problem for Apple if these companies were going off and building Android apps, but if they’re writing apps that still run well on an iPhone, then Apple is still a beneficiary of their work.
Does application count matter?
It’s funny these days to watch Apple brag about the number of applications for the iPhone, and to see Android fans defensively argue that the number of applications for a platform doesn’t really matter, as long as it has the applications you want. Fifteen years ago, it was Windows advocates who derided the Mac because it had so few apps, and Mac users who were forced to respond with the argument that quality, not quantity mattered. That argument has died on the desktop, probably because what’s really important is the ability to access the Web, unless you have a very specific unmet requirement.
For what it’s worth, I think Android fans are right — the number of applications really doesn’t matter. Besides, eventually there will probably be more applications for Android than there are for the iPhone — Apple’s review process for iPhone applications almost assures that. In fact, I’m mainly writing this to put a stake in the ground so that I can go back and laugh at this argument later. Android phones are already sold by more carriers in the US than the iPhone, and Android is the open platform. If the application count for Android doesn’t continue to grow explosively, it will indicate that something has gone horribly wrong for the platform.
In the end, Android is going to be Windows and the iPhone is going to be the Mac, even if it may not seem that way because Apple got out of the gates so much earlier this time around. The problem Android faces is that they very well may never be able to offer as polished an experience as Apple does on the iPhone. There will be lots many different handsets, more expansive user interface standards, and a lot more carrier influence in terms of how the Android interface looks. Even if you buy an unlocked phone with “generic” Android, the lack of consistency that results from the fractured user base will affect the overall experience of using an Android handset. Plus, when it comes to creating truly functional designs, Google is not Apple.
There’s plenty of room in the market for both platforms, and in an ideal world, they’ll both be pushing each other on a number of fronts for years to come. As an iPhone user, that’s what makes me happiest about the high praise for the Nexus One. iPhone users need for it to be a worthy competitor to the iPhone as much as anyone.
Daring Fireball on PastryKit
John Gruber has a piece on JavaScript framework Apple has developed for the iPhone: PastryKit. It’s interesting to see how close Apple is getting to providing the “native experience” in a Web application. It’s a lot closer than most people would have thought possible, I think.
Improving the iPhone app store approval process
This week, Apple got a lot of bad publicity when two iPhone developers abandoned the platform because of the way the app store approval process is handled. The first was Joe Hewitt, the developer of the Facebook iPhone application. You can read his reasons why here. Back in August he expressed his frustration with Apple but said he wasn’t going to boycott the platform. Then today Rogue Amoeba announced that they’ll be focusing on the Mac going forward because of problems they’ve had with Apple’s approval process.
Like most people who aren’t calling the shots at Apple, I’d prefer it if you could install apps on your iPhone by simply going to a URL and downloading them. Even if Apple wants to maintain the vetting process for apps sold through the official store, they could provide an alternate means that anyone can use if they’re willing to assume the risks of doing so. This would, essentially, be a way to let jailbreaking go legit. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon.
As an alternative, I think Apple needs to adopt a different form of government for the iPhone nation. Right now, it’s a dictatorship. Apple exercises nearly complete control over the platform — there are a few jailbroken and unlocked phones that participate in a sort of underground, but if you want to be a legal citizen of the iPhone community, you have to play by Apple’s rules. And as in most dictatorships, Apple makes up the rules as it goes along, and isn’t accountable for enforcing the rules fairly, or offering due process, or even telling people what the rules are, exactly. It’s not surprising that so many people hate this situation — it’s not fair. And Apple’s profits say that it can get away with this behavior for awhile longer. You don’t see too many iPhone users or developers moving to other platforms but the competing platforms are slowly becoming more compelling.
Clearly democracy is out of the question. Apple is a business, and they’re not going to suddenly let the users start running the show. What I do think Apple should move toward is a constitutional monarchy. Apple’s executives remain the heads of state, and are ultimately the final authority on iPhone-related matters, but for everyday purposes the rule of law exists. Apple would write a constitution of sorts for iPhone developers and users, and get rid of the hidden, arbitrary rules. They’d create an open process for developers seeking approval for their applications, communicate reasons for denial, and give the developers a chance to appeal such rulings. This would probably be more manpower-intensive than the current process, but Apple is ridiculously profitable, and in the long term holding themselves to a greater degree of transparency and accountability would be good for the iPhone.
The current system isn’t going to work for a whole lot longer.
Dangerous Liaisons with Apple
Here’s a dramatic reenactment of this conversation between an iPhone developer and the Apple representative who let him know his application was being removed from the store because it “duplicates features of the iPhone”:
Explaining the iPhone’s success
Every time a new iPhone is released, there’s a spate of articles that analyze the its success as a product. My friend Stephen O’Grady puts the success of the iPhone down to the apps. He’s got a point — the applications available for the iPhone are great. But the truth is that when the iPhone launched, the only opportunity for developers was to create Web sites that were optimized for the iPhone’s Web browser, and Apple was still selling a ton of phones.
Why? Because of usability. The iPhone offered a better experience than any other phone for making phone calls. Checking voice mail, conducting three way calls, and managing contacts are all light years better than they are anywhere else. The iPhone offered better Web browsing than any other mobile phone. Blackberry email is better than iPhone email, but the iPhone’s email experience is better than every other phone on the market.
That was the real secret to the iPhone’s early success, in my opinion. Apple spent a lot of time not only adding capabilities not available in other phones, but also perfecting the things that people were already using their phones to do. It made the wait for real applications tolerable.
Links from June 3rd
- Edmunds.com: “Confessions of a Car Salesman” Updated for 2009. The original series was a classic on the shady business practices of car dealerships. Turns out the same basic practices are still being applied.
- Bloomberg: Ballmer Says Tax Would Move Microsoft Jobs Offshore. Microsoft exec threatens to move more jobs offshore if the government closes some unrelated tax loopholes that the company takes advantage of.
- Dan Froomkin: Celebrity Journalism at the White House. A strong critique of NBC’s silly news special this week on the Obama White House.
- slacktivist: Killing in the name of. An important blog post on the history of the anti-abortion movement.
- Carrer Blog: 1 line CSS Grid Framework. Everything good and bad about CSS in a single line.
- Daring Fireball: Why Palm’s WebOS ‘Media Sync’ iTunes Integration Can’t Be Legit. Don’t miss the followup on the legality of the Palm Pre impersonating an iPod.
- Hivelogic: Deploying ExpressionEngine from GitHub with Capistrano. This approach should work for any PHP app.
- Andrew Leonard: GM: Into bankruptcy, out of the Dow. Companies that file for bankruptcy are automatically delisted.
- Joe Gregorio: Wave Protocol Thoughts. On the plumbing.
- Trader Joe’s Wine Compendium. A blog that reviews only wines sold at Trader Joe’s.
- The Atlantic: Do CEOs Matter? What do chief executives add? One thing’s for sure, a bad CEO can certainly be a disaster for a company.
Satirical programming
The folks behind the iPhone Twitter client Tweetie have added a brilliant spoof of the economics of the App Store. It must be incredibly frustrating to work hard on applications that are innovative and interesting, only to be upstaged in the popularity rankings by fart noise generators and “flashlight” applications. This is the best response I’ve seen.
Free Software Foundation vs iPhone
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.
iPhone 2.0 password masking
Apple made a clever user interface change with iPhone 2.0:
When you enter text into a password field, it briefly displays the character you just entered. After a few seconds, it changes the character into the mask, but it gives you some visible feedback that you’re entering the characters you think you’re entering. (I always had problems entering passwords correctly until this feature was added.)
It’s an acknowledgement that entering text using a virtual keyboard isn’t foolproof, and it provides a good compromise between masking passwords so people can’t see your password over your shoulder and enabling users to avoid typos when entering them.
By the way, this screen shot was taken using the new screen capture feature in iPhone 2.0.
Update: Commenters have noted that other phone makers have been doing it this way for years. I guess what this really means is that the iPhone is the first phone that I’ve ever used to enter a password.
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