
Apple Not Accepting Opera Mini on iPhone - qhoxie
http://www.osnews.com/story/20455/Apple_Not_Accepting_Opera_Mini_on_iPhone
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DarkShikari
I'm always confused by this. If Dell didn't allow Opera or Firefox or Linux to
be installed on the computers they sell, or Microsoft didn't allow 3rd-party
applications on Windows, people would be up in arms. But Apple is allowed to
block _anyone_ from installing any application _on their own personal iPhone_
, and there aren't lawsuits flying?

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qqq
Is Apple preventing it from being installed _in any way_ or just via Apple's
app distribution mechanism? (I don't know either way, just asking.)

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alexandros
just via Apple's distribution mechanism. Which is the only way to install
stuff on your iPhone, short of jailbreaking it.

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cstejerean
the appstore is by no means the only way to install things on your phone. as a
developer you can install whatever you want on your phone including write
applications that run in the background. apple will just refuse to publish
said apps to the apple store.

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erik
Yes, but you have to pay apple, and be approved by them before you receive a
developer key. Apple still plays the gatekeeper.

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cstejerean
Before the SDK was released you had no way to get any apps onto your phone, or
anyone else's. I see the current situation as a step forward and I believe
Apple will looses restrictions for ad-hoc distribution of applications, they
just need to figure things out (the same way they needed a while to figure out
building a good SDK and distribution platform).

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silencio
Sure there was, and there still is. It's called jailbreaking, but Apple
doesn't like it (will refuse to support your iPhone should there be problems,
so you'll have to revert). There were multiple apps one can still use to get
jailbroken apps on one's iPhone.

It also happens to be the only way one can pirate existing app store iPhone
applications, sooo...

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ken
Gruber at <http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/10/30/opera-iphone>:

"I don’t see how this is surprising at all. One can argue about whether it’s a
good policy for Apple not to allow third-party web browsers on the iPhone, but
unlike other rejections, this one is not arbitrary. The iPhone SDK Agreement
clearly forbids writing your own JavaScript interpreter."

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anewaccountname
What if the only reason it forbids it is to prevent Opera, Flash, et. al. from
coming to the iPhone? Then Gruber has his cause and effect wrong. Even if he
doesn't, this is still sick in sort of the same way that Alumni preferences
keeping blacks out of state funded schools is--sure there is technically
another reason than there blackness, but the end effect is still bad.

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tptacek
I don't believe this surprised anybody, including the Opera team.

~~~
dmpayton
Agreed, it's not like this is the first time Apple has denied a "competing"
application.

I can't wait for Android to be released on a decent handset. Then I can give
my iPhone to my wife.

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tptacek
This isn't Podcast Listener Pro or whatever; nobody will be surprised if Apple
turns down Windows Media Player or Azureus either. One expects Opera did this
largely as a publicity stunt.

You're going to be the one geek in the room with the Android phone and the
Nomad MP3 player, you know. =)

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olefoo
This year maybe. But in two years time most phones will be Androids. We've
been down this road before, except this time around an unencumbered OS is
there from the inception of the environment.

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tptacek
Want to put $100 on that?

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olefoo
What exactly would we be betting and how are we going to judge the outcome?

new phones in the preceding month?

estimates of phones in use at time t[0] and t[1]?

iPhones are in the minority of total phones in use right now.

What geographic area do you want to restrict it to? Remember that most of the
world cannot buy and operate a 2nd gen iPhone without voiding the warranty,
and if you think that iPhones are going to dominate the market in asia and
africa, you are being optimistic.

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redrobot5050
Stop me if I'm wrong, but Apple actually got AT&T to develop features on the
backend of their network to get visual voicemail working.

Android was also a bid from Google to have the newly opened bit of spectrum be
a "utility" band, where any device that gets FCC certified can plug into that
network -- regardless of carrier or manufacturer. That didn't fly.

I would wager that's a more telling indication of who's going to come out on
top of the scrap heap. The wireless handheld market is not beholden to perfect
competition. Especially not within the US of A.

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Dilpil
Classic example of a business sacrificing long term gains for short term
gains. Sure they gain money by doing this via google or whatever. But in the
long run, well, this is why there is no Apple developer ecosystem.

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dmix
_This is why there is no Apple developer ecosystem._

Is this a known fact or your personal opinion?

I only develop for the web but I always thought Apple had strong support from
developers which is why it has some of the best designed software.

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wizlb
It's fairly well known that Apple has a very small developer base and that
they treat developers poorly in a number of ways. For one, they've been known
to break backwards compat. like it's nobody's business.

Sure, a lot of _nix people use Macs now, but ask them if they're developing
software for the Mac OS. Most likely, the answer is no. They're doing_ nix
stuff.

Compare the Apple developer "ecosystem" to that of the Windows and Linux
world. Can you see any big differences?

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anewaccountname
Yeah I can see a difference--Linux breaks backwards compatibility way more
than Apple =P.

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wmeredith
It's ham-handed typical Apple, but honestly, I'm glad. One of the main reasons
I enjoy developing iPhone sites is that I don't have to support a bunch of
random user agents.

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trezor
You should be developing _mobile_ sites, not iPhone sites.

Or do you think that making "MSIE only" sites too is an acceptable way of
dealing with web-pages and users?

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juliend2
Concurence déloyale

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trezor
While I'm not surprised by this, it kinda sucks. If you are going to make
mobile pages, being able to test on as many browsers as possible is a good
thing.

With moves like this, Apple pretty much forces me to keep a Windows Mobile
phone around as well.

