From the comments on the page: If you want to develop applications for the iPhone you'll have to sign a Non-disclosure agreement (NDA). This prohibits people from sharing best practices and improving the platform overall. Everybody has to reinvent the wheel.
Apple makes all potential app developers obey essentially a gag order. Whether it's legally enforceable is an open question, but since they control the platform and app store, Apple have all of the cards.
That means: no books, no libraries, no websites, NOTHING because of a fear of being banned from the platform.
That's pretty standard, why is this surprising?
I developed replacement firmward for the Archos handheld multimedia player a few years ago. You couldn't even get documents on the chip. The firmware was completely locked down, compressed+encrypted.
It's standard in semiconductors and devices. The iPhone is drawing lots of the kinds of developers (web, ISVs, etc) who are not used to that. They cut their teeth on very open/well-documented environments.
I respectfully suggest that times change. A generation ago most "real world" programming platforms were closed. The idea of multi-billion-dollar companies routinely depending on free software stacks was almost inconceivable.
It's just a bunch of tweets about how much people don't like the NDA on Apple's Dev. Program. Honestly, without knowing more about what I'm seeing here I don't think it meets News.YC standards. Would this an appropriate use of the 'flag' link?
I think it is interesting to see the outcry and the problems its causing. Both from a developers view point and from a how not to do a community view point.
Also fuckingnda.com is a good was of expressing that and bringing together twitter.
A few open source developers isn't going to make much difference.
It's causing problems for open source developers who like to be able to do what they want, but for end users I don't see any problems. Apart from the quality control - why are there so many useless mindless apps like "flashlight"?
Personally I'll mainly still continue to use webapps rather than the apps.
First everything has to go trough the iTunes AppStore. Then there is the no background-applications limitation because it might "hurt" the iPhone's image if they sucked some battery.
Now this. It seems Apple is a tad over-protective about their supposedly great platform. I'm suspicious of anything in need of this much protection.
Come on. Look at other consumer devices. Most are completely closed. A little perspective and gratitude for Apple being a million times less closed than most devices.
The Windows mobile platform has official SDKs you can download and no NDA. Any application can do anything allowed by the SDK and they can be installed by any regular consumer without jailbreaking, either directly from the internet on the phone itself or trough a simple setup-program on a PC synching with the phone.
Microsoft beats Apple at all points here. I have no experience with Symbian development, but a quick google seems to imply that their platform is as open as Microsoft's.
I'm not saying Windows Mobile is flawless or that Microsoft are saints, but I fail to see why people constantly are cheering or apologizing for Apple when they are clearly overstepping their bounds in the name of a "it just works" image-based egotrip.
And Windows Mobile is a LOT older than the iPhone. As in, you could trace back the history of Windows Mobile probably something like 10+ years. Compare to iPhone, which has its roots in OS X, but this is the first mobile/embedded version of OS X, and it's Apple's first phone, and the SDK is hardly months old.
Just saying, this could be Apple being stupid and malicious, or it could be Apple wandering into new territory (for them).
I'm hoping situations change in the coming years, but I mean, I really wish people would put a little perspective into this..."Windows Mobile has this, has that! iPhone doesn't!" well, what if you gave it some more time? Good apps and know-how don't just appear out of thin air, it stems from experience.
And good apps would certainly stem from people being allowed to develop for the phone, not to mention discussing experiences.
What Apple is doing here is trying to keep the "good apps" in house and under their control so they can capitalize on it (and make it a selling point), instead of developers out on the free market.
To be honest, I don't think Apple's doing that...and if they are, they're doing a horrible job of it.
Have you seen the apps on the app store? Half are complete trash. Maybe like 5% are awesome and worth using. The rest are mediocre (and on a sidenote, I think those percentages apply to applications in general anyway). Outside of the ones that violate the terms set by Apple/AT&T, I don't really want to know what the hell kinds of applications Apple is rejecting...or what it would be like if it was a complete free-for-all instead of having a "tax" of the $99/year fee.
This is not even beginning on touching on the developer issues outside of the NDA, like actually getting apps/updates accepted to the store itself (it's definitely not Apple being picky, they just seem massively backlogged).
I'm hoping this is just growing pains from Apple just starting out, but you never know...it's only been a few months, I'm going to give it some more time. (Also, everyone who knows other people who are definitely in the program aren't stopping from talking about it e.g. during wwdc, which was a good thing but...eh.)
To be honest, I don't think Apple's doing that...and if they are, they're doing a horrible job of it.
What I mostly meant by my statement was that they are keeping expertice and experience in house, while rejecting the rest of the developer community the same thing.
It has the net effect of what I said, but if this is a "evil", intentional master-plan or just a side-effect of other policies... Time will tell.
Hmm, well it depends if you paid the "tax" to go to WWDC to take advantage of their in-house expertise and experience, which is still minimal given how new this all technically is. :)
Regardless, Apple can't keep on doing this, there are lots of entities who are wanting the NDA gone, not just the app developers. It's in their best interests to do so, and I will be shocked if they keep it for much longer.
Actually, the iPhone may be unusable, but it wouldn't be anything new for a phone with 3G support.
On edge my old iPhone lasted 4-5 hours constantly on IRC. I can't even sporadically browse that long on a browser on many 3G phones, not just the iPhone but also the likes of the samsung blackjack and the htc/at&t tilt. There is no way in hell I would be able to stay on IRC for a reasonable amount of time with that kind of battery suckage.
I appreciate some aspects of the push notification service Apple is willing to provide, but I disagree with some of them, and obviously for others they would not work (ugh, again, IRC).
Also, I might note that a lot of these limitations put in place by Apple may be moot with the jailbreak (which I know many users would be reluctant to do, but if you were a hacker willing to deal with the possible consequences in exchange for having a slightly more open device, it's worth thinking about).
Agreed. Any 3G phone I've had has had significantly less battery-time than your usual edge phone. This is not a iPhone-only issue, and I'm not saying it is.
However: The decision on how to use that limited battery-time should be mine to make, and certainly not left to a phone-manufacturer trying to protect their own image.
True, but judging from what I've been reading for the last couple weeks, people who've had subpar experiences with apps are blaming the phone and not the app when the app was really at fault. When I consider that, I couldn't blame Apple for trying to protect the image because it's not only a 3G phone with already awful battery life, it's a 3G phone with a non-removable battery. Stupid design mistake or not, it's quite possibly one of the only phones that is like that and that makes the problem worse.
I don't disagree with you, truth be told my first app idea for the iPhone became an impossibility when I heard about that background limitation. But I can sort of get why Apple wants to do that.
background apps might also eat up CPU power. There are other considerations.
Also if you have background apps, you need some task manager to be able to manage them and shut them down etc.
Random side note: that's the first website I've noticed using the new WebKit transforms and animations (though they need some padding on those <p>'s...):
28 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 77.2 ms ] threadApple makes all potential app developers obey essentially a gag order. Whether it's legally enforceable is an open question, but since they control the platform and app store, Apple have all of the cards.
That means: no books, no libraries, no websites, NOTHING because of a fear of being banned from the platform.
These things just make it more fun :)
Apple hold all the cards because... erm they made the iPhone. It's theirs.
Agreed (whether you like it or not, i personally don't care for it).
>erm they made the iPhone. It's theirs.
Disagree. I purchased the phone, it's no longer theirs, it's mine.
Also fuckingnda.com is a good was of expressing that and bringing together twitter.
It's causing problems for open source developers who like to be able to do what they want, but for end users I don't see any problems. Apart from the quality control - why are there so many useless mindless apps like "flashlight"?
Personally I'll mainly still continue to use webapps rather than the apps.
Now this. It seems Apple is a tad over-protective about their supposedly great platform. I'm suspicious of anything in need of this much protection.
Microsoft beats Apple at all points here. I have no experience with Symbian development, but a quick google seems to imply that their platform is as open as Microsoft's.
I'm not saying Windows Mobile is flawless or that Microsoft are saints, but I fail to see why people constantly are cheering or apologizing for Apple when they are clearly overstepping their bounds in the name of a "it just works" image-based egotrip.
Just saying, this could be Apple being stupid and malicious, or it could be Apple wandering into new territory (for them).
I'm hoping situations change in the coming years, but I mean, I really wish people would put a little perspective into this..."Windows Mobile has this, has that! iPhone doesn't!" well, what if you gave it some more time? Good apps and know-how don't just appear out of thin air, it stems from experience.
What Apple is doing here is trying to keep the "good apps" in house and under their control so they can capitalize on it (and make it a selling point), instead of developers out on the free market.
Have you seen the apps on the app store? Half are complete trash. Maybe like 5% are awesome and worth using. The rest are mediocre (and on a sidenote, I think those percentages apply to applications in general anyway). Outside of the ones that violate the terms set by Apple/AT&T, I don't really want to know what the hell kinds of applications Apple is rejecting...or what it would be like if it was a complete free-for-all instead of having a "tax" of the $99/year fee.
This is not even beginning on touching on the developer issues outside of the NDA, like actually getting apps/updates accepted to the store itself (it's definitely not Apple being picky, they just seem massively backlogged).
I'm hoping this is just growing pains from Apple just starting out, but you never know...it's only been a few months, I'm going to give it some more time. (Also, everyone who knows other people who are definitely in the program aren't stopping from talking about it e.g. during wwdc, which was a good thing but...eh.)
What I mostly meant by my statement was that they are keeping expertice and experience in house, while rejecting the rest of the developer community the same thing.
It has the net effect of what I said, but if this is a "evil", intentional master-plan or just a side-effect of other policies... Time will tell.
Regardless, Apple can't keep on doing this, there are lots of entities who are wanting the NDA gone, not just the app developers. It's in their best interests to do so, and I will be shocked if they keep it for much longer.
On edge my old iPhone lasted 4-5 hours constantly on IRC. I can't even sporadically browse that long on a browser on many 3G phones, not just the iPhone but also the likes of the samsung blackjack and the htc/at&t tilt. There is no way in hell I would be able to stay on IRC for a reasonable amount of time with that kind of battery suckage.
I appreciate some aspects of the push notification service Apple is willing to provide, but I disagree with some of them, and obviously for others they would not work (ugh, again, IRC).
Also, I might note that a lot of these limitations put in place by Apple may be moot with the jailbreak (which I know many users would be reluctant to do, but if you were a hacker willing to deal with the possible consequences in exchange for having a slightly more open device, it's worth thinking about).
However: The decision on how to use that limited battery-time should be mine to make, and certainly not left to a phone-manufacturer trying to protect their own image.
I don't disagree with you, truth be told my first app idea for the iPhone became an impossibility when I heard about that background limitation. But I can sort of get why Apple wants to do that.
http://webkit.org/blog/130/css-transforms/
http://webkit.org/blog/138/css-animation/
It was done by one of my friends, and I think he mostly did that after various browser frustrations (read: http://twitter.com/firefox_answers/statuses/863189695) and laziness..