
An open letter to Steve Jobs about approving the amber alert application - jgrahamc
http://zdziarski.com/projects/amberalert/email.txt
======
sho
I have very negative feelings about the whole AMBER alert idea. Maybe I'm a
callous bastard, but what is so special about child abductions that they
require an entire separate national infrastructure to "alert" the citizens in
the (incredibly unlikely) event they occur?

According to wikipedia the AMBER alert system has helped in the the recovery
of 27 children; even this is disputed. Sounds impressive until you remember
that thousands of children drown in backyard swimming pools every year. It's
absolutely nothing, not even a blip. Sorry, I know it sounds heartless, but
facts are facts.

There's a sinister aspect too - by making such a big deal about this
essentially dead crime, which isn't even a rounding error on child death
statistics, I get a nasty feeling that "the powers that be" are trying to
unite the public - united with the govt, of course - against this "pedophile
child kidnapper" bogeyman. Again, the numbers suggest this creature is almost,
if not completely, non-existent. "But they must be everywhere, right? That's
why we had to have AMBER alerts!" Encouraging paranoia, manipulating groups to
unite against faceless and unlikely enemies .. I don't like it one bit.

Saved 27 children since inception. All this righteous fuss. Meanwhile, in
Africa, 8 children die every minute from preventable diseases. Where's their
alert? Where's their iPhone application?

Selective caring. Couldn't give a shit about the thousands of swimming pool
deaths. Couldn't care less about childhood obesity or dropping educational
standards or manufactured food or childhood deaths in Africa from trivially
preventable diseases or child labour in Vietnam which you buy off the shelf at
wal-mart but OMG PEDOPHILES APPROVE MY IPHONE APP NOW OR YOU ARE KILLING
CHILDREN!

I don't really know how to express my loathing for such people but basically I
think they're hypocritical, self-righteous douchebags. I hope and expect Apple
to ignore this nonsense.

(updated to reflect the fact that I couldn't cite a good reference for the
55,000 annual swimming pool deaths I originally wrote - replaced with
"thousands", which should definitely be safe.)

~~~
DaniFong
You're comparing the magnitude of success for amber alerts - a solution to a
problem, to the magnitude of problems themselves. It's not mere callousness,
it's poor analysis.

Whether you want to think about it or not, child sexual abuse is no dead
crime. It's alarmingly common. It effects at least 20% of those closest to me
- and this only for cases that I know of. From national surveys of adults,
(www.unh.edu/ccrc/factsheet/pdf/CSA-FS20.pdf) it's estimated that 9-32% of
women and 5-10% of men were subject to sexual abuse during their childhoods
(though statistics for criminal reported cases are much lower -- about 1.2 per
1,000 children).

Who is to say that were the law enforcement less vigilant, such abuse wouldn't
escalate. In many countries, it does. Particularly in South-East Asia and
Eastern Europe, the sex trade is rampant -- Unicef estimates put it at 1
million young sold into the trade per year
(<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/1707763.stm>). The amber alert is but one
deterrent; the combined effect is likely quite effective.

Who among those arguing for AMBER alerts are campaigning against charity
programs to Africa? What instead we have are law enforcement agencies
partnering up to work against child abductions and sexual abuse effectively.

Effectively? It is even, by many standards, economical. The economic loss of
27 children would almost certainly exceed the $30 million in funds nationally
allocated to it. The biggest tax you pay is in attention, and even there
you've already given to it in reaction more attention than it demands. Is
there a school program, obesity program, or swimming pool program that would
do the same?

There may be more immediately successful uses for said attention and funding
abroad. But do those fighting child abductions and absurd donate less money
and time to charitable concerns abroad. It is only my impression, but in my
corner of the world apparently not. Those concerned with and directly involved
in advancing social good are rarely concerned with just one part of it.

Do not, then, begrudge people of the interest in the safety of their children
and community, of their charitable work, and of their fears. To do so is not
only to deny to human nature some of the most powerful forces for good, but to
deny the self-interest that drives our society, without which we would wither.

~~~
sho
DaniFong, I could write a book in response to your comment, but let me single
out three parts for refutation:

 _"Those concerned with and directly involved in advancing social good are
rarely concerned with just one part of it."_

Whatever gives you the impression I am not concerned with "advancing social
good"? I am fucking _obsessed_ with that cause, there is nothing more
important in this world. The question is how you go about it - by rational
measurement, analysis, and action for the greatest good for the greatest
number, or by cheap fearmongering, scarecrow-raising, and appeals to nebulous
sentimentality and doubtful external enemies?

 _"it's estimated that 9-32% of women and 5-10% of men were subject to sexual
abuse during their childhoods"_

If these statistics are accurate, then either we as a society are absolutely
fucked, or the negative effects of child sexual abuse are grossly overstated.
One in three women? _Really?_

 _"Do not, then, begrudge people of the interest in the safety of their
children and community, of their charitable work, and of their fears."_

Here you have inadvertently stumbled across the real thrust of the issue: "and
of their fears". No, no, one thousand times NO! Their fears are _irrelevant_.
What matters is facts, baby, _numbers_. Anything else and you are embarking on
a superstition-fueled witch hunt.

You need to rethink your beliefs. Sorry to get personal, but I can sense that
you care, and I want you to understand why I disagree. Let's look at these two
statements of yours:

 _"Effectively? It is even, by many standards, economical. The economic loss
of 27 children would almost certainly exceed the $30 million in funds
nationally allocated to it."_

and

 _"Particularly in South-East Asia and Eastern Europe, the sex trade is
rampant -- Unicef estimates put it at 1 million young sold into the trade per
year"_

In one sentence you set the value of a child's life at $1m US dollars.
Actually, the $30m is just the federal contribution, the states match it, so
the value is actually higher - but for the sake of argument let's assume $1m.

How much are those children sold into slavery for? With the same amount, how
many could you save? Off the top of my head I'd guess $1000 each for those
kids. Research suggests less - much less - but let's assume $1k. So you can
buy 30,000 lives for the cost of the amber alert program. That cool? One
American kid roughly equates to 1,000 foreigners? Is that justice?

Yes, I'm oversimplifying here. It's not America's responsibility to take care
of every basket case 3rd world country's unwanted young. But if we're going to
get all moral and talk about saving lives, we have to admit that lives do have
price tags on them. The amber alert price tag is way too high. The risk
premise is irrational. It preys on nigh-unfounded populist fears. It
encourages the wrong sort of thinking in the population. If you want to do
good, there's lower hanging fruit everywhere. Hell, the fruit is lying right
there on the ground! The price in some places isn't $1k, it's _$100_. I'd be
buying them up myself if I could figure out what the hell to do with them. Oh
for an "Illustrated Primer" and some ships. But the root cause is poverty ..
like I said, this could turn into a book.

~~~
menloparkbum
_The amber alert price tag is way too high_

Your ghoulish calculus could take into account some of the other ways the
country decides to spend its money. Saving 27 children seems like a better use
of $30M compared to spending it on half of a failed banking executive's exit
bonus.

~~~
sho
Wow. Checkmate. You got me there. That bit where I advocated $30M bonuses to
all failed banking execs was _way_ off base.

~~~
menloparkbum
It's not always about you.

~~~
sho
Right again!

------
briansmith
They haven't approved my fire alarm iPhone app either. Who knows how many
lives could have been saved in the weeks since I submitted it? The application
is so simple: When you see a fire, you go to your iPhone, click on the "Fire
Alarm" icon, go over by a window to get a good 3G data connection, then wait
for a GPS fix, then swipe the screen to activate the alarm, then wait as the
alert is uploaded. If your iPhone and your window are nearby, it could save a
marginal amount of time and effort compared to finding and pulling a real fire
alarm. If you already downloaded the fire alarm app, that is; otherwise, it
might take a couple of minutes to dig around the app store to find it.

Getting notified by the fire alarm application is even easier. First, you just
need to go to the App Store and download it onto your phone. Then, you just
leave it constantly running on your phone instead of using your phone for
anything it was designed for. Then you wait for somebody to "pull the alarm."
And wait. And wait. (I recommend sitting by a window.)

Edit: Somebody emailed me this question:

Q: What about the vast majority of people that don't have iPhones? How will
they be alerted? What about building it as a SMS service that would work on
every phone? You know, like this existing government-created Amber Alert
system for phones: <http://www.amberalert.gov/wireless.htm>.

A: I like playing with my iPhone and complaining about it publicly. I also
enjoy self-promotion. The fire alarm app is just a means of pursuing these
hobbies. I have no interest in distributing any kind of alerts to anybody
besides iPhone users. The actual alerting is secondary to my interests anyway.

------
qubikle
Yikes, the answer to this problem is so simple. I had a similar problem, and
really, all you have to do is call the folks at apple. There's a number hidden
somewhere for the app store team, you call them and they will escalate the
matter for you. It worked with 2 other companies we consulted for and it
worked for my app.

I don't want to self promote here, but those who are interested in the book I
co-wrote about this should check out the link in my profile.

------
nailer
If he's writing an open letter, I suggest he makes it possible to read without
having to highlight, copy, open a text editor that supports wordwrap, paste,
enable wordwrap. Otherwise few people will read it.

~~~
palish
Chrome wordwraps it.

~~~
redrobot5050
Which means WebKit wordwraps it. So Steve Jobs will have no problem, assuming
he's been using the Safari Beta/Developer Preview for months now.

~~~
nailer
Sure, but the reason it's an open letter is so that others will read it too.

------
falien
It seems to me that this is exactly the type of application that needs to be
reviewed the closest. The author is right that we live in a depraved world.
One where plenty of people would not think twice about taking advantage of
others who want to do a good thing by installing this application.

While I'm not defending apple's review policy because I'm sure its as terrible
as everyone believes, I would prefer if all such applications got a lengthy
review to ensure they're not doing anything they shouldn't be.

Personally I'm just waiting for a better variety of Android phones though, so
if iphone users want to be bombarded by poorly reviewed applications I have no
problem with it.

~~~
CWuestefeld
The letter makes the assumption that the Amber Alert program is one that
deserves fast-tracking. It sounds like the hackneyed "but if it saves even one
child" line.

In reality, the effectiveness of Amber Alerts is quite debatable, and so the
resources might be deployed to greater effect elsewhere.

Take, for example, this article:
[http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/...](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/abducted/)
"These are encouraging statistics - but also deeply misleading, according to
some of the only outside scholars to examine the system in depth. In the first
independent study of whether Amber Alerts work, a team led by University of
Nevada criminologist Timothy Griffin looked at hundreds of abduction cases
between 2003 and 2006 and found that Amber Alerts - for all their urgency and
drama - actually accomplish little. In most cases where they were issued,
Griffin found, Amber Alerts played no role in the eventual return of abducted
children. Their successes were generally in child custody fights that didn't
pose a risk to the child. And in those rare instances where kidnappers did
intend to rape or kill the child, Amber Alerts usually failed to save lives."

For more concrete criticism, see the actual study: "Abstract The AMBER alert
system is likely affected by a number of psychological processes, yet remains
understudied. The system assumes people will remember Alert information
accurately and notify police, but psychological research on related phenomena
(e.g., memory, willingness to help) indicates that people may not be able or
willing to act in ways the promote the success of the system. In addition, the
system is intended to deter child abductions, however, the system could prompt
copycat crimes from perpetrators seeking publicity. The system could also
cause a precipitation effect in which a perpetrator who sees the Alert could
decide to murder the child immediately to avoid capture. Policy
recommendations are made based on psychological research and theory, although
more research is needed to develop the most effective system possible."
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/bsg5mw> (sorry, the link was ridiculously long)

------
DLWormwood
There seems to be a deliberate ignorance of recent history regarding the
iPhone as a development platform, to the point that a lot of people are
developing a sense of entitlement regarding access to the device. Apple didn't
originally announce application support at all for the iPhone in the first
place. (Remember Steve Jobs pushing Safari as a web app host for the iPhone,
with no mention of a possible SDK just 2 years ago?) The iPhone/iPod touch is
probably the most _quickly_ successful product that Apple has ever produced,
much more so than the original iPod or the iMac. Yet, people expect Apple to
have the resources to bend over backwards for every individual developer for
the platform, regardless of good intentions.

I was once a shareware/freeware developer for the Mac platform back in the 68k
era. The simple fact of the matter is that despite Apple's "big" size, in
comparison with most of the computer industry, they are small potatoes. For
over a decade, the primary development tools for Apple hardware were provided
by third-parties even. (First Symantec, then Metrowerks.) This, combined with
Apple's reluctance to take on debt (partly out of self-defense), means that
Apple will never have the responsiveness towards developers that the open
source community or even Microsoft has. Compared to back then, Apple _is_ much
more developer friendly, but the company has always been more focused on user
experience, even if this leads them to try to shackle developers with overly
limited or complicated APIs or UI conventions.

If the letter writer really thinks Apple is being that incompetent, he should
give up on the iPhone as a platform and focus on the rest more accessible
platforms. Yes, I know the goal is the maximize visibility for your cause, but
the problem with any and all outreach efforts is that people _naturally_ avoid
information channels like this. Just as web readers migrated from SlashDot to
Digg to Reddit to Hacker News, and social networking drifted from MySpace to
FaceBook, the "popularity for its own sake" principle and the people it
attracts alienate the very people you try to reach.

    
    
        Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.
        - Yogi Berra

~~~
StrawberryFrog
"a lot of people are developing a sense of entitlement regarding access to the
device"

Yeah, it's funny how people get these notions of fairness and equal treatment
from somewhere.

~~~
unalone
Yeah, they get it from a lot of crap in society that doesn't hold as true as
people pretend.

"Everybody should be equal" means that everybody ought to have an equal
chance. That doesn't mean everybody should succeed equally. This idea that we
should _all be the same person_ is twisted and wrong and actively harmful.

This applies to phones, too. You have a choice of phone. You know what phone I
use? It's this model by Samsung that doesn't allow _any_ applications because
I think applications on a standard phone are bunk. I don't complain. I like
that my phone makes calls and sends text.

It's worth saying again, because people like you _really_ like ignoring it to
complain: _Apple changed the mobile industry forever._ The sheer _existence_
of the iPhone changed the game plan of everybody else on the planet. Now the
iPhone's been out for 2 years, and _nobody_ has a user experience that comes
_close_! I've used other multitouch phones. They're all pathetic. When the
iPhone came out, it was the announcement of a vast reform in the way phones
worked.

Apple didn't have applications. Nobody cared. Suddenly, Apple releases this
App Store, which has become a hundred-million-app success in a year, and
people are complaining because this magical thing they didn't have before is
imperfect. It's like Louis C.K.'s routine. Everything is _amazing_ , and yet
nobody is happy, because we all feel entitled. (I'm not saying complaining is
bad if it's constructive, but your response unlike the OP's was just lazy and
fat and ugly and I hate that attitude.)

You don't like Apple? Go buy other phones. Buy one like mine, with small keys
and a bad screen, because that's all you're getting from other groups until
Apple made their phone. Revel in the lack of user experience. Note the lack of
decent apps on _those_ phones, too.

You want equal treatment, you'd better stop dealing with the human race. I was
forced into working in groups for classes in school, under this notion that we
all can contribute equal parts. I got worse grades in classes because people
would mess things up. At some point I started doing all the work myself,
because I couldn't stand this equal distribution. It made me into a manager
rather than an employee. I prefer the auteur route, where unless you have
somebody as smart as you working on something, you do it yourself and don't
complain.

You don't like that? Say goodbye to art. Know who was dictatorial and unfair?
Stanley Kubrick, who referred to actors as tools to be disposed of and who
disliked all but a handful of actors (the rest of whom called him abusive).
James Joyce, who produced two novels so complex that people refused to work
fairly with them for years, who insisted on not compromsing his work. (Or Ayn
Rand if you'd prefer something more "pop" - she refused the notion that
anybody could edit her writing.) Pretty much everything awesome comes from
somebody who's unfair and doesn't treat people equally and gets done the stuff
that's supposed to get done.

Now buckle up and stop complaining unless you've got a better solution.*

*Switching to a worse phone system doesn't count as a solution.

~~~
redrobot5050
This post totally made my day, until you actually implied that An Rand is
awesome.

~~~
unalone
Heh.

I like Ayn Rand. Most people that read her go way too far with her ideas (once
you start spouting lines from _Atlas Shrugged_ verbatim, you've gone too far,
and too many people go too far), but reading her at sixteen got me largely out
of the depressive "I'm a cog in the school system" mood I was in, and it has
that effect on a lot of people. As far as books worth reading as a young adult
go, _The Fountainhead_ is way up there. It gets you happier and healthier
going out than you were coming in, and even once you lose that belief that
Rand is right about everything, she's incredible pulp reading, up there with
Dan Brown. (A pirate philosopher meets a dashing Spanish copper miner? Come
on.)

------
pantsd
The letter points out a number of competing methods of delivering mobile
applications, but the way it is worded leaves me wondering if the AMBER alter
application is available on any these platforms?

~~~
jgrahamc
I did a search for this and it does not appear to be.

------
jgrahamc
What's really missing here, if you want to do this right, is a way to have the
application run in the background with GPS active. Then I could get alerted to
missing children who have been abducted close to where I am.

~~~
ars
Can the iPhone do something like cron, or alarms? This program doesn't need to
run all the time, every 15 minutes is enough.

~~~
dharris
No. The iPhone cannot currently do anything like that. There was an early
preview talk about a background push framework at Apple's WWDC in June 2008,
but still hasn't been made real yet.

I appreciate the app author's desire to create something that can enhance the
AMBER alert system, I think that this app will be useless until the iPhone
supports background processing.

~~~
redrobot5050
Yeah, and more importantly, can't you just sign up your phone (you know, with
a phone number) for TXT or SMS alerts from the AMBER ALERT folks? I'm certain
some of my family members have gotten AMBER ALERT TXTs before.

And then, you know, since your phone has internet access you could just pull
up their webpage or local news through safari.

------
misuba
If the author wants to put public pressure on Apple he'll develop an Android
version of the app, and a Symbian version, and a Palm Pre version, and
whatever else. Until then, he's all mouth and trousers.

------
ajo
His letter is below. The person made a poor choice on formatting, but sounds
like it's worth people knowing about:

"Open Letter to Apple, Inc., and Steve Jobs

To the Executive Team at Apple, and Steve Jobs,

The need to send an email such as this represents the magnitude of the
problems the App Store faces, and everything that is wrong with its lengthy
and ambiguous review process. The mere fact that a free utility that can quite
possibly save lives cannot make it into people's hands within a reasonable
amount of time is just a highlight of the ongoing problems independent
developers like myself have been experiencing with Apple for the past year.

This letter is to make you aware of an application I've volunteered my time to
engineer with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children - AMBER
Alert. This App Store application has the potential to revolutionize how
missing children are reported to law enforcement. By using the iPhone's GPS
and some geo-analytics, we're able to build a number of automated logistics
tools and quickly relay sightings to law enforcement agencies. With an
audience of millions of iPhone users, the missing kids that are out there
stand to gain a LOT more exposure.

Yet nearly a month has passed since my February 14th submission, and the
application continues to sit "In Review". NCMEC has adapted their
infrastructure to handle these submissions and has a call center trained to
respond to them, as well as their CIO, regional directors, and many others
ready to devote time to making this application successful - yet this entire
team continues to wait on Apple to approve this application.

The App Store review process is non-responsive to a cruel degree, and
unfortunately, a month is sadly only a small amount of time compared to some
of my other applications that Apple has chosen to flat out ignore for three
months or more. While spending time developing commercial applications only to
face Apple's silence is frustrating, to have an application (like AMBER Alert)
developed solely on a volunteer basis, and for such a good cause as finding
kidnapped children - to have this non-profit application ignored is entirely
insulting.

Is it the belief of many that these discriminating and opaque review processes
are hurting Apple's relationship with independent developers - a demographic
that once carried Apple for many years. With the advent of the Android store,
the Blackberry store, and competing iPhone application stores such as the
Cydia Store, continuing to operate in this mode of cold silence will only
drive away more developers.

While these matters are better left for lengthier conversations, I'm asking
that you pick up the phone today and help push the AMBER Alert application
through. If you had to sit and look at these kidnapped children, as I have
while working on this application, you'd realize just what a depraved world we
live in, and how urgent it is to have an application like this be able to get
information out (and sightings back in). As a developer and a human being, I'm
anxious to see this application released. If I were the parent of one of these
missing children, I would be beside myself with anger over Apple's apparent
lack of interest in this application. The reprobate and fearful world these
children are surviving in - if they are still surviving - may very well be
prolonged because of Apple's lack of interest in independent developers like
me.

Please feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss this. Otherwise, I
hope you'll do the right thing and light a fire under someone's seat in the
App Store. If there is any application that should be getting reviewed today,
this is it. I would be glad to put all of my other application submissions on
hold to see this processed as soon as possible.

Jonathan Zdziarski"

~~~
jemmons
Shorter version:

"I care more about my own righteous indignation than the children I purport to
be interested in saving, so I'm going to publicly tweak the nose of the one
company whose support I need the most."

~~~
sketerpot
Alternate interpretation:

"I'm hoping to goad Apple into action by focusing some public attention on
them."

It might even work, if he posts it on a blog somewhere with proper formatting.
Even "Content-type: text/html" would make the letter a lot more readable.

------
timbowen
Extremely interesting discussion in this thread. When I first started reading
sho's comment I was instinctively leaning the other way, but ensuing
discussion has convinced me that these millions would be much better spent
on... universal healthcare for example. That would absolutely save more lives.

------
snorkel
The app is on hold because Apple's review team can't find the FART button.

It would do Apple a world of good to democratize the app review process. Let
the reviewers and customers decide what is App Store-worthy.

------
xenophanes
They should call Apple and offer $20,000 to review the app immediately.

They say they have a call center of trained people waiting. That's expensive,
so this would save them money. And it's a (small) win for Apple too.

When you want special service from a for-profit company, just do the obvious:
pay them for it.

------
TweedHeads
Amber Alert: Good

Public Pressure: Ridiculous

It is none of your competence why the AppStore has the guidelines they have in
place.

It is not a good idea to try to cause a bad PR storm in order to get their
attention.

If you need help, ask for it gently. They'll respond in accordance.

------
GrandMasterBirt
You people might be forgetting the most important point of abductions.

If you see an AMBER alert on the news, you will see it, and probably forget
about it. You might see one on a site like www.woot.com but that is in a
different state. Chances are you WONT REMEMBER IT.

Yet an application that can show you amber alerts for you current location
would actually improve the chance that people would actually memorize the
important faces and can always refer back to them immediately when seeing the
child and boom press a button to submit a sighting or call immediately.

The fact that the information is readily available might be the missing key.
Until now unless the picture is posted all over your neighborhood, you will
have no idea that you just passed the abducted child.

The point is, this application has nothing but good intentions to the public
good in mind, is free, is developed by volunteers, and can potentially do a
lot of good in America... yet it is delayed for quite some time just because
of apple's monopolizing process. The letter mostly points out that the apple
store's only reason for being used is because there is no alternative, if one
comes out or other platforms, it will be discarded because of apple's poor
policies. The application is not perfect and the AMBER system in general has
many theoretical flaws which are quite real even if given informational access
through this app, but its not like this guy is making a profit from it.

------
spoiledtechie
This one needs to be voted and submitted as much as possible to any and every
news reading site.

~~~
unalone
Why? Apple's being lax about publishing apps isn't particularly newsworthy.
Even if it's a fairly good cause, this isn't ultraurgent news.

We've still got genocide in Africa. How about we make a deal where if we're
going to be melodramatic, we be melodramatic about something that matters?

~~~
krschultz
That's a bit callous. There really are thousands of kids kidnapped every year
in America. And as someone who has been to Africa to help out with Engineers
without Borders, I still feel like fighting kidnapping here is a worthwhile
cause.

~~~
jgrahamc
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has data on this here:
[http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?L...](http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=2810)

"115 children were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. (These crimes
involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who
holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the
child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.)"

