High time for a competing app distribution network for the iphone.
Just imagine, Commodore Basic on your Iphone... the dangers!
"Apple's logic was that this tool could allow users to run illegal copies of games, holding it open to a charge of contributory copyright infringement."
That's what you get for trying to control a platform.
Imagine:
IBM Built the PC well before the Internet era, what would the world look like if they had had the possibility to have all of us under their thumb the way Apple does with the Iphone.
Yeah, you should see the lines at Apple stores filled with people returning their iPhones because they can't run C64 emulators. The app store is only a PR disaster for the 200 people who read HN. Scratched nanos was a bigger PR headache than this.
For that you'd have to have access to an alternative universe where all this had not happened, so you are asking something that is not really possible.
But the Google voice fall out went so far as to get the FCC involved, surely that would have some consumer effect ?
Consumers don't really care about legal issues. I'm at a school with a lot of geeky people. They all use iPhones. We sometimes talk about how much we like them. Nobody's mentioned the FCC before. I doubt most of them know what Google Voice is.
I do not have an iPhone, and I would if it were not for the closed platform and tie-in with the App Store. (For the record, I have a Nokia E61. It's not as slick but I can run whatever the hell I like on it, and it's an unlocked GSM handset.)
Obviously that is anecdotal but it is the best I can do, since there is no way to demonstrate conclusively exactly how many sales have been lost overall as a result of their strategy. I'm sure there are other people who have made the same decision to avoid the platform; probably not a lot, but some.
The question is going to be whether, going forward, the App Store becomes enough of a headache to Apple (in terms of bad PR and being a lawsuit or even anti-trust magnet) to make them reconsider closing the platform, or at least make it look like less of an unqualified good to other manufacturers who might try to do the same thing in the future.
It seems like the sort of thing that will eventually collapse under the weight of its own success (possibly in the form of monopolization claims), if not to direct competition from an open platform.
I agree that there are edge cases like yourself who've been moved by the crisis. I also like that thanks to Google and Palm, there are now legitimate options beyond the iPhone that aren't terrible. (With apologies to RIM, which was good before Apple did a thing but which bombed at making their multitouch OS.)
However, my point was that by and large the market is apathetic, and it's unclear whether that will change before Apple fixes itself on its own. I'm certain Apple's working on making things better, because Apple's more aware than anybody else what happens when you lose out because of your platform.
For now Apples app store acceptance policies have given it the biggest PR headache in years.
Nothing a couple of Tylenol won't fix, and when said head is ensconced in a hat made out of money the headache is easier to bear. It's time to invoke the Law of Logical Libertarian Indifference, which goes thus:
Nobody gives a fuck about software freedom.
What they care about can fit into two broad criteria:
* Does the damn thing work? (i.e., does it fulfill the job I expect of it?)
* How useful/easy/fun/cool is it?
In these -- all-important -- respects the iPhone passes with flying colors, and is over 9000 times better than its nearest competitor, Android.
Look at game consoles. The publishers are losing money on the most open game platform -- Windows -- but making it hand over fist on the closed console platforms. Sony offered limited software freedom with Other OS on the PS3. They stripped it out and cut the price. PS3 sales doubled. Because nobody gives a fuck.
I don't know much about commodore basic, but I think any form of executable code can be dangerous on the iPhone. What if there was a vulnerability in the emulator which allowed somebody to remotely run basic code, which sent your entire contacts list over to them???
For once I'm on Apple's side. Besides ain't it the developers fault for not removing something Apple explicitly asked him to remove???
> What if there was a vulnerability in the emulator which allowed somebody to remotely run basic code, which sent your entire contacts list over to them???
What if such a vulnerability existed in any other iPhone application ?
Or does the review process includes a line-by-line code audit and sign-off ?
What I meant was you can write/compile/execute scripts from the commodore 64 emulator, whereas that is not possible with an app that does not run code not written by the app developers themselves.
Valid question. IBM lost control of the PC market because it gave away the rights to the two most complex parts of the architecture - the processor and the OS (to Intel and MS respectively). Hence, any other manufacturer could easily build a PC using the products of those two new companies.
On the other hand, Apple successfully controls the key interface to its iPhone platform (the OS) - so the centralised app-store approach will probably be around for a while.
The stark irony of this is, of course, that very few games on the Commodore 64 used or required BASIC, and certainly none of the popular ones. BASIC games where the first generation, before people mastered assembly. Some games may make proficient use of internal BASIC routines, but most will bank the BASIC ROM out of sight and never look back. Without BASIC, you won't get that READY. prompt and you can't enter LOAD "* ", 8, 1, but that hardly seems an obstacle.
The simple fact of the matter is that any emulator, or for that matter any programming environment that can be used to create one will allow users to run "illegal copies of games" (though with slowdown that could be crippling, admitted). They should ban emulators altogether, and anything that even smells like custom code execution (subject to Apple's discretion, of course). I propose "applications may not supply a Turing-complete environment to users", though regrettably this may mean spreadsheets and anything using macros may have to get the axe as well...
Typing in games from listings in magazines was annoying enough on a full-size keyboard 25 years ago -- do they really expect people to do it on an iPhone?
Good thing they pulled it, god knows what script kiddies would have done to the iPhone platform once they learned how to access the basic interpreter on the C64.
sys49152?
Seriously, how insane are these people at Apple app approval department?
30 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 82.8 ms ] threadHigh time for a competing app distribution network for the iphone.
Just imagine, Commodore Basic on your Iphone... the dangers!
"Apple's logic was that this tool could allow users to run illegal copies of games, holding it open to a charge of contributory copyright infringement."
That's what you get for trying to control a platform.
Imagine:
IBM Built the PC well before the Internet era, what would the world look like if they had had the possibility to have all of us under their thumb the way Apple does with the Iphone.
What, a fuckton of money and all the user and developer mindshare you can ask for? Closed platforms are the way of the future, man.
I sincerely hope that you are wrong.
For now Apples app store acceptance policies have given it the biggest PR headache in years.
You are underestimating the HN audience by quite a bit.
Then there's reddit, digg, slashdot and so on.
Not to mention 100's of articles in the mainstream press, including business week, the Washington post etc.
http://news.google.com/news/search?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en...
But the Google voice fall out went so far as to get the FCC involved, surely that would have some consumer effect ?
Obviously that is anecdotal but it is the best I can do, since there is no way to demonstrate conclusively exactly how many sales have been lost overall as a result of their strategy. I'm sure there are other people who have made the same decision to avoid the platform; probably not a lot, but some.
The question is going to be whether, going forward, the App Store becomes enough of a headache to Apple (in terms of bad PR and being a lawsuit or even anti-trust magnet) to make them reconsider closing the platform, or at least make it look like less of an unqualified good to other manufacturers who might try to do the same thing in the future.
It seems like the sort of thing that will eventually collapse under the weight of its own success (possibly in the form of monopolization claims), if not to direct competition from an open platform.
However, my point was that by and large the market is apathetic, and it's unclear whether that will change before Apple fixes itself on its own. I'm certain Apple's working on making things better, because Apple's more aware than anybody else what happens when you lose out because of your platform.
Nothing a couple of Tylenol won't fix, and when said head is ensconced in a hat made out of money the headache is easier to bear. It's time to invoke the Law of Logical Libertarian Indifference, which goes thus:
Nobody gives a fuck about software freedom.
What they care about can fit into two broad criteria:
* Does the damn thing work? (i.e., does it fulfill the job I expect of it?)
* How useful/easy/fun/cool is it?
In these -- all-important -- respects the iPhone passes with flying colors, and is over 9000 times better than its nearest competitor, Android.
Look at game consoles. The publishers are losing money on the most open game platform -- Windows -- but making it hand over fist on the closed console platforms. Sony offered limited software freedom with Other OS on the PS3. They stripped it out and cut the price. PS3 sales doubled. Because nobody gives a fuck.
For once I'm on Apple's side. Besides ain't it the developers fault for not removing something Apple explicitly asked him to remove???
What if such a vulnerability existed in any other iPhone application ?
Or does the review process includes a line-by-line code audit and sign-off ?
1) that it is possible to break out of the c64 emulator into the app, then from there into the Iphone os
2) you'd have to download a malicious C64 program to do that
3) that program would have to be written in BASIC, which is inspectable
I find this a pretty implausible vector of attack.
On the other hand, Apple successfully controls the key interface to its iPhone platform (the OS) - so the centralised app-store approach will probably be around for a while.
For those willing to jailbreak their phones, there is the 'Cydia Store':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia_(application)#Cydia_Store
The simple fact of the matter is that any emulator, or for that matter any programming environment that can be used to create one will allow users to run "illegal copies of games" (though with slowdown that could be crippling, admitted). They should ban emulators altogether, and anything that even smells like custom code execution (subject to Apple's discretion, of course). I propose "applications may not supply a Turing-complete environment to users", though regrettably this may mean spreadsheets and anything using macros may have to get the axe as well...
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~haviital/index.shtml?projects_frodo
Huh?
It wouldn't BE a C64 emulator without the basic interpreter.
sys49152?
Seriously, how insane are these people at Apple app approval department?