

Steve Jobs Admits Apple Made a Mistake - rooshdi
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/steve-jobs-says-apple-made-a-mistake-in-rejecting-pulitzer-winners-app/

======
staunch
Steve Jobs needs a Twitter account. His email responses are the perfect size.

------
ehasanov
Reading the title, I was hoping to see he decided to change 3.3.1

~~~
Zak
After thinking about it for a while, I think the reason developers are so
upset over 3.3.1 isn't just its direct effects. I think that many developers
hoped that Apple would make the App Store more open over time. 3.3.1 is a
clear sign that the opposite is more likely.

------
nnutter
Admitting you made a mistake does not mean you have learned from it. Apple has
proven this over and over in the past few months/years.

------
rauljara
Reading through the comments, I am really struck by how much good will apple
has completely squandered. The most obvious interpretation of events (in my
mind, at least) is that no US based company would ever, ever want to be
associated with censoring a satirist, and that the removal of the app really
was a complete fuckup, indicative of a system that needs is not working like
intended.

A lot of the other comments seem to think it isn't a fuckup, that the system
is designed to keep satirists out. Which would mean viewing apple in a pretty
extreme light. The only way someone could think that about a company is if you
have a lot of ill will towards them in the first place. The whole level of
suspicion towards apple right now is a sign of just how much they've fucked up
the goodwill they earned with their shiny products.

I don't think that apple is intentionally rejecting satire apps. But I do
think that unless they make a real effort to start earning back some trust,
they deserve to have people thinking that way.

~~~
endlessvoid94
Does it matter? They're still selling, a LOT.

Watch how people ACT, not what they SAY. Steve Jobs knows this. People slam
apple all the time but they're doing incredibly, incredibly well. So, from
their POV, who cares?

~~~
ericd
Short term, yes.

AT&T wireless, Time Warner internet, Ticket Master, etc. are also doing well
financially, but as soon as they lose their monopoly power and there's a good
alternative, they're toast. I know 0 people who would pick them over a good
alternative if they knew of one.

I love Apple products, but I would say they're heading down that same road
with developers. If they ever lose their dominance in the app world, I think
they're going to see a lot of defection.

------
vishaldpatel
Alright; its time to resubmit my apps that ridiculed public figures and see
what Apple says.

~~~
greenlblue
If you're a Pulitzer winner then there won't be problems since that's all we
can conclude from this article and App Store policy.

------
ohashi
I was honestly expecting an onion article.

------
hammerdr
Even as a developer, I realize that political satire is far more important to
the mobile platform ecosystem than a choice of language (e.g. 3.3.1). I'm glad
that Jobs (and therefore Apple) realize that something needs to be "fixed"
with the process that banned Fiore's app.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
He didn't mention the process. It sounds like he is talking about this
individual case.

------
DrSprout
>He added: “Editorial cartoons of all stripes should get a pass when it comes
to the license agreement with the exception of those that espouse violence.”

Which means that Apple is in fact censoring content? Or does this exclusively
refer to criminal violence?

------
comex
Maybe Steve Jobs would respond more often if every little message didn't
generate a news article.

~~~
kevinh
And maybe every little message wouldn't generate a news article if he _did_
respond more often.

~~~
KC8ZKF
Maybe, just maybe, every little message doesn't generate a news article.

------
apphacker
The only thing I learned from this is that if you won a pulitzer prize for
your satire you can resubmit your satire app. Just like if you're Sports
Illustrated you can have an app with girls in bikinis.

It's just ugly to watch this hypocrisy. I don't plan on using iPhones anymore,
or getting an iPad and maybe that means I miss out on really great phone and
what looks like an amazing tablet, but at least I'm not a part of this long
haul of an trip down Steve Job's ego. The thing is, I don't think Jobs thinks
that he's doing anything but the right thing, protecting his app store from
junk, and that's admirable in weird sort of way. It's just such a pain to hear
about this ordeal day in and day out, for what like a year or two now, and
just the parade of bad Apple news doesn't stop. I don't blame the tech blogs
for reporting on it, I don't blame users for buying Apple's incredibly amazing
devices. You know who I blame? Apple's competition for a complete inability to
make decent shit that is at least in some alternate universe comparable in
quality to what Apple produces, minus a crazy genius' ego. But I guess I don't
live in that world. I guess in this world there's only one company capable of
making good computers, and it just happens to come with a shit load of
baggage.

~~~
shadowsun7
Question: why does that baggage matter to you (as a user)?

Apple makes good products. What do those products do? They enable people
(i.e.: you and me) to do great stuff, without _getting_ _in_ _the_ _way_.
Stuff like programming and writing and designing.

An Apple product - to the average end-user - is an abstraction layer to all
those _other_ things. If the abstraction layer works, use it. If it doesn't,
don't. Baggage has nothing to do with it.

~~~
kragen
Because buying Apple products is voting for a future in which editorial
cartoons are censored by a giant computer company with monopolistic ambitions.
Even if you have to live in that future, it would help to know you didn't have
a hand in bringing it to pass.

~~~
shadowsun7
That's an emotional response as a developer, not a user. Not a logical
response. You may dislike what Apple's doing politically, but if you limit
yourself to using other, inferior products - well that just doesn't make
sense, really.

------
rudle
This is the worst linkbait I've seen in a long time.

