
Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy - sant0sk1
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2273-five-rational-arguments-against-apples-331-policy
======
fjabre
The problem is Apple has no real competition. They can do almost anything they
want without fear of retribution because your average consumer has no idea
what any of this means.

That's bad news for all us pissed off developers since Apple's new platform
will continue to be extremely popular in which case devs are forced to develop
for it.

Google seems to be inching towards being a real threat but they also seem
extremely unfocused. Does anyone really need a toaster running the latest
version of Android?

Apple needs some competition in this space and Android-based mobile devices
seem like a really distant second. It's time for Google to kick it up a notch.

~~~
thaumaturgy
> _...devs are forced to develop for it._

No, you're not.

This is what I don't understand from all of the developer "outcry" over this:
you're not _forced_ to develop for this platform. If you don't trust it
anymore, then stop developing for it.

There were ways to make money as a developer before the iPhone came along.
There are still plenty of ways to make money as a developer that don't involve
dealing with the iPad or the iPhone.

These counter-arguments sound so much like the web developer hatred for IE 6
years ago, where everyone was bemoaning having to develop code specifically
for IE 6, and everyone was saying that they had to keep developing code for IE
6, because that's what the users are using. But, years later, it has finally
become OK to abandon IE 6 altogether; it could have happened a long time ago
if developers had just quit supporting garbage.

Android/Google are looking for good applications developers. Go work with that
instead.

Otherwise, it's just noise.

~~~
donaq
Well, I guess everyone is hoping that if the outcry is severe enough, Apple
will take it out of the agreement. We can be pretty certain that if there is
no backlash, the clause will _definitely_ stay.

------
tmsh
> 5\. For developers it’s about more than just business

I imagine Jobs might reply, 'for business it's about more than just
developers'. Adobe's proprietary attempt at creating a cross-platform layer is
thwarted. And Apple counts on having enough developers for new apps who
already have a background in (or are willing to learn or relearn) Objective-C,
C, C++ and JavaScript. It's simple and pragmatic.

That said, I'm a developer and I generally only use FOSS products for
software. But I give Steve Jobs and his advisors more and more credit for
business intelligence.

A lot of these comments are about Android. Could be that Apple learned from
Sun's mistakes, whereas Google wasn't old enough to be around for the full
cycle of that. I love Lua and Scheme. I wouldn't be surprised if senior
engineers at Apple also love various different VMs, etc. And yet they would
fully support this strategic move by Apple.

Why? Steve Jobs' genius has less to do with his douchey presentations and more
to do with seeing the big picture dozens of business quarters before everyone
else. When you've been seeing that far ahead for three decades, and have all
the experience and confidence from succeeding with that like fourteen times,
controversial decisions like with Section 3.3.1 aren't as difficult. They are
one of 50 decisions that you've made 6 months ago with many different things
in mind that won't be released to the public for quite some time -- many of
them involving hardly black-and-white tradeoffs (see the Wikipedia entry for
Jobs quoting Wayne Gretzky).

Apple has a model that works for them. And free software, free digital rights
management, openness -- if it gets in the way of their business strategy, by
default they're going to plan around it.

If you really want Apple to change their policy, get the CEOs of businesses
who develop apps to voice concern to Jobs. Show that Flash and Lua and Mono or
whatever are mature enough technologies from a business standpoint. Make the
argument that it's too much of a gamble for the iPhone/iPad 3GS to be without
flash support with other tablets on the rise. (Apple is of course betting on
HTML5 pretty heavily.)

I guess my point is that: 'Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1
policy' is a good start. But those are mostly developer-based arguments. As a
developer whose not in the embedded space, I have no idea what the business
strategy arguments would be. But as a developer, I know when a client's use of
a library's interface is slighty off. Or something like that. Maybe I don't
even know that. Anyhoo.

------
erichsu
These are rational arguments for non-ObjC developers to be pissed at Apple.
None of them are arguments for APPLE to change its policy. In the medium term
it is clearly better for Apple's interests to implement 3.3.1, to maintain
control over platform and encourage differentiation of its hardware (the way
it makes most of its money!). In the medium term, they have more great
developers than you can shake a stick at, so they won't cry about losing a few
thousand more.

The only real argument that makes sense is that long-term, enough developer
goodwill will be lost that they will go flock to a better platform and
eventually tip the balance against iOS. That certainly will not be for the
next 3-5 years, which is an eternity in tech.

I am not an iOS developer nor do I own Apple stock, so I'm just calling it
like I see it. In short, it's a great business decision for them and I really
doubt developers will make them pay for it, either short or medium term.

~~~
statictype
I don't think anyone is arguing that this is not a good short-term business
decision for apple.

What everyone is furious about is the complete lack of respect for the
platform's developers.

Yes, Apple has every right to do that if they want, and developers have every
right to get furious about it too.

------
andreyf
_The web is not a carefully curated gallery of web pages and yet we're still
able to find the good stuff all the time thanks to intermediaries of
discovery_

This is hardly a strong argument, as the main "intermediary of discovery" is
Google, and most internet users are all too ready to give up their banking
information to websites which have an official looking header on the page.
Just because it worked for the web doesn't mean it'll work for Apple's
AppStore.

~~~
dhh
So you'd like for the web to be put back in the box and replaced with an AOL
Walled Garden of wonder? Freedom can indeed be dangerous, but I'd rather be
free to hurt myself than smothered to dead by paternalism.

~~~
clawrencewenham
The existence of a restricted marketplace doesn't mean the greater internet
must become just like it, as if through some kind of relative application of
logic.

The internet--and the real world in general--can host a million restricted
marketplaces, each designed for specific interests--and still be free in
general.

Your reductio ad absurdum is suggesting that the presence of a gated community
in the Hamptons means that every neighborhood ought to be gated.

------
jasonlotito
All are good points, but number 2 is the big one for me. That was my first
thought when I heard what Apple was doing, and I think it's important to keep
that in consideration. While I don't always agree with DHH, he makes some
good, rational points here. It should be noted that most of these arguments
have been made elsewhere, but it's a great summation.

~~~
MWinther
It's fascinating. This is the way I look at them, as being on the side of
people who agree with Apple on this one.

#1: Don't agree. Apple has 180,000 apps in their App store, maybe a good time
to remove incentives for a new influx of non-programmer-written apps straight
from Flash? Oh, they're getting rid of other stuff that also encourages people
to use other tools than their own? I think they can live with that.

#2: They're not. Tell me where and when Apple said: "You will be able to
develop for the iPhone using any and all tools of your choosing." They didn't.
They're simply clarifying what's been their position all along, that
XCode/Cocoa is the environment in which you create iPhone apps. Sure, other
stuff have been able to sneak in stuff, but hardly with an Apple seal of
approval. If you're using one of those tools without a suspicion Apple might
not like it even before this, I'd say you're a bit naive.

#3: Irrelevant. Apple has told developers which tools they can use from the
get-go. I imagine the existing cross-platform products have been too small to
have been a priority, but here comes Adobe with something that creates iPhone
apps straight from the desk of a designer. Yes, did you see the CS5
presentation? "Create iPhone apps without writing any code!" Sounds like great
apps to me.

#4: Of course it's unfair. But there isn't any better way to enforce their
rules. Naturally there'll be apps that fall through the cracks. But a "Aw, why
can't I when that app could?" whine sounds very 7-year-old to me. They're
putting up rules, if you follow them you should be fine. If someone does
something that might be within the rules, but they're not sure, they might get
rejected. If someone else tries the same thing, they might get rejected,
regardless of whether the first guy was caught or not.

#5: Not sure this ia a very good argument either. For me, I develop for Apple
products because I love the platform, and I think there are quite a lot of
other apps that have been hanging around with Apple because we feel that is
the best platform in the world. Not perfect, but best. And I like it when
Apple says that what we've learned during the years of sticking by the company
because of that conviction, rather than some sense of duty, is going to pay
off. Sure, Apple could release the platform to any and all languages out
there, implement C#, Java and whatever else might be popular right now. But
that would seem to me to cater to the populist crowd, rather than the
faithful, so to speak. And those programmers are the same programmers that
will move away from the platform when something else catches their fancy. I
think Apple wants people like Omni Group rather than the "Oh, lord, another
device, another language, who cares? I guess I'll _have_ to learn it,
then."-crowd.

~~~
barrkel
What you've said there is that you are _not rational_ with respect to your
position re Apple. You explicitly say that people should work with Apple
platform from a "sense of duty", that people should be "faithful".

This seems to me to make you unqualified to counter rational arguments.

~~~
MWinther
Hm, nope. I'm explicitly saying work with Apple stuff out of conviction,
rather than a sense of duty.

And I'm saying that Apple has a point in supporting the faithful, as in the
people who are convinced this platform is the one they want to work with,
because that group of programmers will probably stick around even when some
new other thing comes around.

------
pohl
#1 is a bizarre argument. I can't weed my garden unless it is already free of
weeds?

~~~
flogic
I think it'a more "Don't claim you're weeding the garden. We know you're not."

~~~
clawrencewenham
They have been. Remember they expurgated all of the "sexy" apps a couple of
months ago?

~~~
donaq
Is iFart still there? If so, I call bullshit.

~~~
clawrencewenham
They killed "shake the baby", they didn't kill iFart. You try figuring out
where to draw the line. But there is no doubt that they are culling apps for
their content; "weeding" so to speak.

With 3.3.1 Apple is trying to control the overal UX. They can't reject bad
music from the iTunes Store, but they can enforce basic encoding standards, so
the music doesn't sound like crap for reasons other than the artistic content.

When they removed the "sexy" apps they were using a rule that could be made
specific and enforced consistently. The picked adult content because of the
peculiar standards that humans (and especially Americans) have when it comes
to sex.

Or maybe it's really difficult to phrase a definition for "college humor".

------
duck
I hope #5 turns out to be bigger than I think it will be, but people end up
sticking with what is popular (iPhone) even when it hurts to do so.

~~~
GrandMasterBirt
I been saying this ever since I first got wind of the new TOS. We went away
from Windows because MS was holing a leash on us with their API lock-in. Now
we're 1-up ing that with Apple's new TOS which takes the MS lock-in to a whole
new level.

People say "oh but it will keep the already crap x-platform apps out" to which
I say "Yes it will keep the would-be flashy x-platform POS games/crap apps
out, but it will also keep out the apps that let me do my business better that
run on Android / WebOS / iPhone because the developers of the TOOLS had to
cater to a larger market share."

If I am making a tool that takes pictures and uploads them to my website for
special needs of people running on the BlackBerry, Android, WebOS, iPhone
because it has to be a compliment to my web tool there is no reason why I
can't write it with minimal effort and use the iPhone store to distribute it
for free with that exact goal in mind! Its not about making a wonderful iPhone
app, its about doing my damn business and giving a business process
convenience using the iPhone.

Not every iPhone app has to be a super innovative new way to run the world,
sometimes its just a piece of crap complimentary tool that's just needed to do
some grunt work easier.

~~~
glhaynes
This is _exactly_ the thinking that Apple doesn't want going into App Store
apps: "I'll just put up this good-enough piece of crap because that's all I
have time/money to do." They've got a ton of businesses wanting to be on
iPhone so they're willing to lose those businesses that will only put out
crap. I agree with you that putting out a piece of crap might make the most
sense for your business. But it's not what Apple wants for its platform.

A key thing to understand here: the existence of a platform controlled in this
way _increases_ diversity, since there are several other prospering platforms
that do things differently.

~~~
confuzatron
Apple don't want crap apps in the appstore? Have you /seen/ the appstore?

I'm sorry, but the undiluted denial-of-reality from the more extreme Apple
apologists is making me dizzy.

~~~
MWinther
I'd say that now that Apple has plenty of volume in the app store, they're
focusing more on quality. I imagine they want to implement higher standards at
a rate that still makes the number of apps grow. Like when they removed a
bunch of basically web-browsers with a hard-coded link somewhere for 0.99.
It's a process, ya know?

------
mrcharles
It seems to me that part of number 3 (about private APIs) is bogus -- it's
pretty easy to compare an executable against private API addresses to make
sure it isn't linked to any of them. They likely have a tool and it likely
results in an instant fail and I doubt there are any approved apps that use
private APIs.

~~~
minalecs
this is not completely true.. when google first released their search
application, they were allowed to use an undocumented api (at the time), that
detected when you moved your phone from your ear, and was allowed. Not sure if
this is the same as a private api, but in general they do reject the use of
private api's.

~~~
mrcharles
Special exceptions aside, of course. That follows with his other point about
big players, which I agree with. They get to do things the little guys don't.

------
BudVVeezer
Apple's focus is and always will be: 1) Apple, 2) Marketers, 3) Users, 4)
Developers, and #4 has always been a distant one at best (anyone remember the
Rhapsody fiasco?) Keep that ordering in mind, the latest changes make perfect
sense.

~~~
Perceval
While I think putting marketers in that list is a bit trollish, I think you've
hit on something that's broadly true. Developers reacted with rage to Apple's
app screening process and are reacting with rage again to Apple's banning of
intermediary layers/languages. Whereas Microsoft's slogan is "developers,
developers, developers..." Apple's is decidedly not.

Apple prioritizes the end user experience over the developer's experience and
aren't shy about rubbing that in. More than that, Apple prioritizes having
control over its own fate, and if developers using intermediary layers have to
suffer for Apple to retain its relative autonomy then so be it.

Microsoft's philosophy has the logic: if we have all the developers, then the
end users will flock to us, so we're going to cater to the developers. Apple's
philosophical logic is: if we make something that 'just works' and that all
the end users lust after, the developers will come to us, so we have to retain
our ability to push things forward.

I'm not sure which philosophy, if either, is better overall. But it seems
pretty clear which one angers developers more.

~~~
BudVVeezer
The reason I put marketers on that list (and higher than users) is because
Apple sometimes goes with "shiny" things which are marketing fodder instead of
things which truly improve the user experience.

But you expounded on my point nicely -- Apple and MS have different
philosophies about developers.

~~~
chc
In my experience, it is the users who go gaga over the "shiny things." If the
media pays attention to these things at all, it's simply because they know
that's what a lot of users will be interested in. If I tell my mom that the
new OS X has a totally rewritten Finder that follows OS X standards much
better and deals with failure much more elegantly, she'll just blink and say,
"Oh, cool." If I show my mom the graphical interface for Time Machine with all
the versions of my files apparently falling into a black hole, she'll point
and scream and call people over to see how cool it is.

The moral: Never forget that people really do like using shiny things a lot
better in many cases.

------
jpcx01
Extremely well reasoned I think. Much more persuasive than my screeching rants
on the subject in the last few days.

Nice work DHH!

------
wrinklz
Finally a rational analysis of the iPad developer agreement.

------
adnam
I liked the comment: "Apple is like Venezuela"

------
kevintwohy
All these arguments would be valid if Apple was in the 'being a nice guy'
business. But they're not.

------
marionogueira
isn't that the guy who likes to say "f*ck you" to the developers who use the
OSS framework he created and still manages?

~~~
bad_user
In case you are serious, that quote is out of context.

He said "fuck you" in a presentation on Rails where he tried expressing that
Rails is opinionated and that if Rails doesn't suit your style you're better
off choosing something else instead of trying to convince core devs to switch
directions (or something of the sort).

Say what you will about the guy, but he's a great salesman.

~~~
marionogueira
So Apple is also an "opinionated" vendor, so what? Not happy? Try developing
for Android or something else. Really, what are the merits for this guy to
complain about it given his own stand regarding Rails?

~~~
bad_user
You're comparing apples vs oranges ... Rails is an open-source web-framework.
If you don't like its directions and you'd like to change that, you can always
fork it without gettings sued ... and forks/clones in other languages have
happened and are thriving.

His merits are that he's a contributor to an open-source piece of software
that changed people's perceptions and he's also a founder of 37signals, a
small business that's quite profitable (which is a lot more than I can say for
myself).

~~~
marionogueira
It's a free market... anyone can create their own platform from scratch. Even
you and me. But it's hard, right? Anyway, it's not as if Apple had a special
license to address this market.

By the way, IP is far from being the only cost involved in building an
ecosystem around a platform (as ESR has explained ad nauseum). So the "Rails
is OSS" argument doesn't really apply here.

~~~
bad_user
Isn't there a recent lawsuit involving Apple accusing HTC of infringing 20
patents, even though HTC is not the stereotypical Chinese cloning machine?
Isn't Steve Jobs expressing his frustrations with Android every chance he
gets, even though there's lots of prior art in the mobile OS space?

Apple surely acts like it's having a special license to address this market
(whatever that means).

So I don't know why we are having this conversation. Being opinionated doesn't
mean you need to be a jerk that prevents others from playing on the same
beach.

~~~
marionogueira
Now you are comparing apples to oranges. Proprietary and open approaches work
very well in different scenarios (there hasn't been a lack of experiments in
OSS for smartphones for example).

Some innovations, when developed via a proprietary approach bring huge costs
and risks (and couldn't be done otherwise) and patents exist to protect the
innovators from free loaders.

Now, that's how it should work in principle. If Apple is trying to game that
model, it is not up to me to decide. There are courts for that.

And, as I said before, IP is far from being the only important cost when
creating a new platform.

"Ruby on Rails" is copyrighted to its creator. So what? Why is it so? Isn't
that an "asset" within the economics of OSS? It is, and there's absolutely
nothing wrong with it being copyrighted.

Anyway, my point is that none of this justifies the fact that the Rails guy is
simply being utterly hypocrite, period.

------
raganwald
Giles "Goatboy" Bowkett:

 _I even say (sic) DHH enter the fray, which is absurd hypocrisy, given that
the first time I ever saw this guy, he was putting a giant "Fuck You" slide on
a screen and explaining how he wasn't going to add features to Rails that he
didn't agree with, because it was his framework, and he didn't believe that
anybody who disagreed with him on that merited any other response but "fuck
you". What kind of response does he think he merits from Apple?_

[http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/04/its-his-platform-
no...](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/04/its-his-platform-not-
yours.html)

~~~
Tichy
git clone rails

~~~
raganwald
So if I understand your witty reply, what you're saying is that if you give
your work product away, you are entitled to do as you please with the fruits
of your labour.

However, if you develop a proprietary product, you are not entitled to do as
you please with it and must accommodate the needs of those who want to do
something else with it and are unable to do so because of your licensing
terms.

Is that what "git clone rails" amounts to suggesting?

~~~
Tichy
No, what I mean is that the comparison of DHH and Apple falls flat. While DHH
doesn't implement every feature he is requested to implement, everybody can
just clone Rails and implement all features they desire (or pay people to do
so).

You can't just clone the iPhone and it's OS.

Therefore I don't understand the claim that DHHs comments are hypocritical.

And nobody is disputing that Apple is entitled to do with their iPhone
whatever they want. They are just not entitled to people being happy about it.

~~~
MWinther
I'd say that for most people, cloning Rails isn't an option if the devs won't
put it in there. Having access to code is the same thing as being able to
implement new stuff in the product for a relatively small amount of users or
even developers, either due to knowledge or time.

