
Apple Rejects Kid-Friendly Programming App - jbrun
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/apple-scratch-app/
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pjonesdotca
When I was a kid, the Apple ][ was the system I coveted most to learn how to
program. Instead, my computer club could only afford a teletype interface to
some remote system (think 1982) and up until recently I've always suffered
from at least a partial Mac envy.

No more. This is ridiculous.

~~~
axod
No, this is ridiculous:

[http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=site%3Anews.ycomb...](http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+apple&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=)

This is hacker news, not Apple gossip.

~~~
mahmud
I just flagged the story.

Steve Jobs owns the Apple platform and can do whatever he wants with it, but
he doesn't own Hacker News.

[Edit: Removed "FOAD" to be nicer to AAPL]

~~~
tvon
Jobs isn't voting these stories up, HN users are.

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cabalamat
Apple has been much maligned in recent weeks, but I support Steve Jobs on
this.

Allowing kids to program on the iPad would empower them, and unleash their
creativity; these are clearly undesirable side-effects that Reichsfuehrer Jobs
is quite right to suppress.

I think Apple should do an ad campaign to highlight this: "Don't think
different. In fact, don't think at all. Let us do your thinking for you. By
the way, you owe us $$$$"

~~~
adharmad
Jobs sure is doing a good job of making Microsoft and Gates look saintly.

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tvon
Someone needs to make an app for handicapped minorities that comes with an
embedded interpreter so we can get properly outraged. I'm not sure you can top
children, but then we could call Jobs a racist...

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jcromartie
Just in case people think this is anything new: this type of app would have
been rejected under pretty much any of the earlier development agreements.

~~~
barranger
Doesn't the article state that it was "removed" from the App Store meaning
that it had made it through one of the earlier development agreements, but has
since been removed?

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praptak
So much for the "No worries, Apple is going to enforce its policies
selectively, it's really only about Adobe." argument.

~~~
tvon
Apple has been enforcing the "no interpreters" rule for a long time.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Selectively enforcing. Not against popular games written with lua by big
corporations. Which only makes this action worse.

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stcredzero
I wonder if Scratch could be hosted remotely in the cloud, with presentation
rendering done locally through Javascript & HTML5?

This could be hosted as described: <http://www.ngbasic.com/>

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kordless
I learned to program on an Apple IIe, so I have mixed feelings about this.

The more sensible part of me says that the iPad isn't my kids only option for
getting their hands dirty with code. Last count, we have around 12-13
computing devices in the house, including iPhones, iTouches, iPads, MacBooks,
iMacs, and Linux servers.

When I coded on my Apple IIe, that was it. I had access to some TRS-80s at
school, but the Apple was the only computer in a radius of 5 miles from my
house.

If Apple were ever to even half consider locking down my desktop/laptop, I'd
lead the revolt right to the doors of One Infinite Loop. I doubt they do it
though. Hopefully.

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stcredzero
What if Apple developed an API specifically for sandboxed scripting engines?
They might consider this to be a bad precedent that will later allow something
that they don't want. It would be perfect for enabling educational software of
this sort, however. If they tweaked the sandbox just right, it could separate
the UX of such sandbox environments from the UX of the iPad/iPhone. This could
certainly be done in a way which excludes Flash/Adobe as a general purpose
application programming language.

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statictype
I can't summon any indignation about this any more.

I actually think its fine that the app got rejected. The iPad and iPhone are
consumer devices.

If kids want to tinker and explore, let them do it on a Real Computer. Plenty
of options are there.

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Tichy
No surprise, no news.

