Ted Landau on Apple, politics, evolution, movies & whatever
Apple Inc
Apple’s Handcuffed Devices
Apr 29th
Years ago, Verizon was my mobile phone carrier. I eventually switched to Cingular/AT&T. My decision had nothing to do with the iPhone and its exclusive relationship with AT&T. I made the switch long before the iPhone came out. And it certainly wasn’t because I thought that my phone’s reception would be better with AT&T.
No, the reason was that I had become fed up with Verizon’s deliberate crippling of its phones. The final straw was when Bluetooth became available for phones. I read numerous articles about how, via Bluetooth, you could upload your own ringtones and wallpaper to your phone, bypassing the cost and limitations of the carrier’s options. When my phone contract came up for renewal, I went to my local Verizon dealer, eager to get one of these new Bluetooth phones. I was quickly disappointed to learn that the file transfer feature had been disabled in all of Verizon’s Bluetooth phones.
Although they did not publicly state a reason, the rationale behind Verizon’s actions was clear: they didn’t want to risk losing revenue from their very profitable ringtone business. So Verizon disabled the Bluetooth file transfer feature.
This sort of thing irks me. It would be like finding that your new television contains all the hardware needed to display an HD picture, but that (for some perceived financial gain) the manufacturer added a doohickey that prevented the HD display. Annoying. Frustrating.
Happily, I had an alternative. The very next week, I switched to AT&T. It was an especially easy decision — because AT&T offered the exact same Motorola phone I had intended to get at Verizon, except AT&T left the Bluetooth feature enabled.
I have never looked back.
I don’t know how many other people switched from Verizon for similar reasons, but I hope it was enough to cause Verizon to rethink its strategy. In the end, it must have had some effect, because Verizon appears to have given up on this handcuffing of its phones.
The Apple TV
I was reminded of this Verizon incident the other day, while updating my wireless network hardware. I was replacing an old b/g AirPort Express with a new 802.11n Express. The Express is in the same location as my Apple TV. My only need for the Express is to provide a wireless connection to my similarly-situated TiVo (yes, there is a degree of overkill here!).
At one point, noticing the Ethernet port on my Apple TV, I wondered: “Wouldn’t it be great if I could plug the TiVo into the Apple TV and have it connect back to my Internet router?” That way I wouldn’t need the Express at all. I searched the Web to see if this was even remotely possible. It wasn’t. Admittedly, this doesn’t quite qualify as a deliberate crippling of a feature. It’s more like a failure to enable one that could have easily been included. But it’s close.
You don’t have to go much farther, however, to find a perfect example of deliberate crippling: the Apple TV’s USB port. Ever since the Apple TV was released, users have been speculating about the function of this port. Apple claims it is only for “service use” and has no end user function at all. Too bad. Because it would be great, for example, to connect an external drive to the Apple TV — so as to expand the device’s disk storage space (as you can do with a TiVo). It turns out that the USB port can (sort of) be used for this function (and more!), but only if you are willing to do a software hack (as I covered in this article and as is similarly covered here). In other words, Apple deliberately crippled the USB port so that it is unable to perform otherwise useful functions that the hardware fully supports.
My reaction to the Apple TV USB port is no different than to the Verizon phone. It irks me. I understand that Apple (or any company making similar decisions) makes these decisions for one primary reason: to make more money. For example, if I could have connected my TiVo to my Apple TV, Apple might have lost the sale of an AirPort Express. Similarly, if Apple opened up the Apple TV’s USB port, they risk losing sales of Mac minis. And so it goes. There is also the matter of modifying the software to support the unblocked hardware function; this takes time and (again) money.
To be clear: I fully concede that Apple is within its legal rights to make these decisions. There isn’t even anything unethical about these decisions. I simply don’t approve of them. I also happen to believe that these sorts of decisions are usually short-sighted. Any potential sales gains are offset by the ill will that is generated among its customers and ultimately by decreased sales of the crippled device itself. That’s why, after some period of time, these restrictions are usually abandoned — and announced as exciting “new features.”
The Apple TV has, so far, been at best a modest success. It’s hard to argue that they could not sell more Apple TVs by making the device more capable — and ultimately gain greater profits. Even if I am wrong, it’s still an easy call for end users. What is best for Apple’s bottom line is not always what is best for its customers. There is no doubt that end users would be better served by having these more capable devices.
Apple has one advantage over Verizon: I can’t switch to a different vendor and get the “uncrippled” version of the exact same product. So I tend to stick with Apple and grumble about what I don’t like. This does not provide much motivation for Apple to change its ways.
The iPhone and iPad
The situation becomes more complicated when we turn to the iPhone and iPad. Once again, I want to focus on Bluetooth and USB.
As I have written on numerous occasions (such as in this article), Apple has blocked much of the Bluetooth capability of the iPhone. The iPhone may be the only Bluetooth-capable mobile phone that does not work with Apple’s own Mac OS X Bluetooth System Preferences for file sharing. Until very recently, the only thing you could do with Bluetooth on an iPhone was connect to a headset.
Many third-party game developers would welcome the opportunity to offer Bluetooth game controllers for the iPhone and iPad. No dice. Why? Because Apple won’t allow it.
And remember Internet Tethering? It’s been almost a year since this feature has been available — and still AT&T refuses to enable it for either Bluetooth or USB. As to when it may arrive, AT&T is still repeating the same non-answer that they have been giving from the beginning.
However, there are recent indications that things may be shifting for the better — if only in millimeters.
Regarding Bluetooth, you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard to an iPad, with the expectation that this capability will be extended to the iPhone in iPhone OS 4.0.
As for USB, I was surprised to discover the hidden capabilities of the iPad Camera Connection Kit. As its name implies, the only official purpose of the kit is to allow you to import pictures from your digital camera to your iPad. The surprise is that it can do more.
The kit includes two components: (1) a Camera Connector, which essentially adds a USB port to the iPad and (2) an SD card reader. Despite its name, the “Camera Connector” works with more devices than just cameras. It is more of a general purpose USB port. As detailed in this TidBITS article, the Connector works with USB headphones, headsets and external speakers; USB microphones; and low-power USB keyboards. But not with USB drives. And you cannot export data to any connected USB device, such as an SD card.
Just because the Kit can do these things, it doesn’t mean that Apple approves. A recent Apple support article states: “Apple does not recommend or support using the iPad Camera Connector with devices other than cameras.” What a surprise! I would not be shocked to find that, rather than addressing the potential problems described in the support article, Apple blocks these “unsupported” features altogether in iPhone OS 4.0.
These restrictions have not seemed to hurt Apple so far — so there is no reason to expect any big changes ahead. Apparently, whether or not I am irked has little effect on Apple. So be it. Apple does so many things right, I can afford to be irked by the few things it does wrong.
iPhone OS 4 Quick Take
Apr 8th
My quick take on today’s iPhone OS 4 announcements:
• Multitasking and Folders: Wow! Two new features in iPhone OS 4 have been on my wish-list since the App Store first opened. I am thrilled to see their arrival.
Multitasking. You’ll now be able to do such tricks as taking a phone call in Skype while playing a game. You’ll also be able to select music from iPod while leaving a GPS app running and continuing to offer directions. This is a huge deal and is a giant leap for the OS. This Macworld article covers more details.
Folders. You’ll at last be able to take a collection of app icons on your Home pages (such as all your games) and combine them into one folder icon. Super.
These two features alone make the upgrade worthwhile.
• Better Mail and iBooks on iPhone. Great! A third new “tentpole feature,” although not on my tier one wish list, will still be very welcome: having one unified Inbox for all Mail accounts. An iPhone version of iBooks is yet another welcome addition. Apple really pulled out all the stops for this OS update. I am definitely impressed.
• iAd? Not sure about this one. There’s one new feature I could do without: iAd. This is Apple’s new mobile advertising platform. Steve talked about ads would appear on your iPhone an average of once every 3 minutes. He was rather vague about exactly how this would all work. I assume he didn’t mean every 3 minutes, no matter what you are doing. For example, I assume an ad won’t pop up in the middle of watching a movie. At the very least, these ads will only appear in apps that include support for iAd.
What about the older ad formats now included in many apps? Will they be discouraged or even prohibited in OS 4? I doubt there will be an outright ban. But Apple did not spell this out today.
On the plus side, the interface for iAds seems impressive — but they’re still ads. I’m not looking forward to this at all.
• iPhone OS compatibility. Only the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 3rd generation will be able to take full advantage of the new OS. The iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2G will run OS 4, but will not be able to use all of its features (multitasking will be notably absent).
The first generation iPhone and iPod touch are left out of this party. They can’t run iPhone OS 4 at all. This represents the first time an iPhone OS update will not run on all iPhone and iPod touch models. Had to happen eventually I guess.
New as-yet-unannounced iPhones and iPod touches, likely coming this summer, will also run the new OS of course — and should offer additional surprise features as well.
iPhone OS 4 will be coming to the iPad in the fall, a few months behind its release for the pocket-sized devices.
• MIA from OS 4. Two big items on my wish list did not make it to iPhone OS 4: (1) Printing and (2) More flexible file sharing (such as the ability to drag and drop files between a Mac and an iPhone). Oh well; there’s always next year.
I also would have liked some mention of when AT&T will finally enable Internet Tethering. Is it ever coming?
No surprise here, but there was also no mention as to whether the new OS would more effectively block attempts at jailbreaking. This is a potentially updated feature I’d be happy for Apple to omit.
• Q&A tidbits. Steve offered a few interesting tidbits in the Q&A that followed the formal presentation. He opened the door to the possibility of “widgets” in a future version of the OS for the iPad. And he acknowledged that there would be some sort of approval process for ads submitted to iAd. And that there would be no “porn store” on the iPhone (as if anyone thought otherwise).
• No Flash. If you were hoping to see Flash support in the iPhone OS, today’s announcements not only dashed such hopes but pulverized them. As noted in this Mac Observer article: Apple Effectively Bans Flash Compiler in iPhone Os 4 Developer Agreement.
• WWDC? Macs? Finally, what’s up with WWDC? Normally, it would have been announced by now — with Apple heavily promoting it. Is there even going to be a WWDC this year? Who knows? Maybe it will be announced next week.
This also started me thinking about Mac OS X 10.7. When will this ever see the light of day? There’s typically been at least a 6 month lag between the announcement that a new OS is coming and its release to end users. It’s thus beginning to look like we won’t see 10.7 until at least 2011. This is a long wait, especially considering that 10.6 was very light on new end-user features.
Combine all this with the fact that Apple has had no new “Get a Mac” ads this year and may be ending the campaign altogether.
Is Apple showing signs of Mac neglect? Is there a larger message to be gleaned from sifting through this bunch of tea leaves? I’m still ruminating on this one.
Apple’s so-called “ban” on protective films
Mar 17th
Numerous Web sites are reporting that Apple is removing protective screen film products from its Apple Stores. An initial posting from iLounge states: “Apple has banned protective screen film from its retail and online stores, a policy that will affect both cases and individual film packages beginning in May.”
A few quick reactions to this news:
• It’s not a “ban”
Apple is choosing to remove these products from its Stores. This is not a ban any more than if Apple decided it no longer wanted to carry Canon printers in its Stores. In such a case, you wouldn’t say that Canon had been “banned” from the Apple Store (at least I wouldn’t).
Apple is entitled to select what products it wishes to offer, especially in the limited space of its retail stores. As the “mother ship” of all Apple-related products, one could argue that there should be a moral obligation for Apple to be appear “fair and reasonable” to third-parties in its decisions. But ultimately it is for Apple to decide.
• There may be a good reason for Apple’s decision
These products are notoriously difficult to “install.” Frequently, you wind up with air bubbles or dust specks under the film. This, in turn, could lead to numerous dissatisfied customers who return the product, causing unwanted and unneeded headaches for Apple.
Added to this is that the “oleophobic” coating on Apple’s latest products make such films less needed (although not entirely without value). It’s a toss-up. Personally, I no longer use these films. But I know others who swear by them.
• There may be a bad reason for Apple’s decision
These are among the most popular of iPhone and iPod accessories. Many people coming to Apple Stores will want to buy these products. Apple is losing sales here. Even if they don’t want to encourage people to use them, this doesn’t mean Apple needs to stop offering the products altogether.
There is speculation that this decision somehow relates to the iPad and Apple wanting to actively discourage the use of such films on the new device. Perhaps. Regardless, as is now becoming far-too-typical, Apple is taking a heavy-handed approach where perhaps a lighter touch would have worked better.
• Either way, it’s not comparable to Apple’s App Store policies
In prior entries here at Slanted Viewpoint (and elsewhere), I have strongly argued against Apple’s decisions regarding removing or “banning” certain apps from the App Store. On the surface, it may seem that this latest move regarding protective films falls into the same category. It doesn’t.
Although the Apple Store may be a significant source of revenue for these products, manufacturers are free to offer the products elsewhere — which they will certainly do. You’ll be able to get them at Target, Best Buy, whatever — as well as at Amazon and an assortment of other online sites.
The same is not true for the App Store. If your app is not permitted in the App Store, there is no other place to go. That is why I continue to assert that special rules should apply to the App Store (or at least to how apps may be installed on iPhone OS devices) and why my reactions to Apple’s decisions regarding the App Store are much harsher than in this case of protective films.
Apple Stumbles over Wi-Fi Stumbler iPhone Apps
Mar 5th
Yet another small controversy is brewing in the iPhone’s App Store. This time it has nothing to do with sex. Rather, Apple has removed all Wi-Fi scanning “stumbler” apps — such as WiFi-Where, WiFiFoFum and yFy Network Finder. These apps allow you to locate free Wi-Fi networks that are in your local area, and have been in the App Store for months (in some cases, years).
Why were they removed? The developer of WiFi-Where posted that, according to Apple, his app was removed because “…There are no published APIs that provide the ability to manipulate the wireless connection or the show level of information regarding the wireless connection as demonstrated in the application….” Or, as stated elsewhere, he was using a “private framework.”
Why is Apple doing this? It remains unclear. The License Agreement that all iPhone app developers must sign does prohibit use of private frameworks. But either there aren’t any private frameworks in use here (despite Apple’s vague contention to the contrary) or Apple has been making a long-standing exception for this category of software. So why change the game now? There may be a good reason (an article in The Register suggests it may be do to changes coming in the iPad). But, if so, Apple is not saying. Beyond its letter to affected developers, Apple’s only comment has been “No comment.”
I tweeted about this the other day, suggesting that I have had “enough” of Apple’s heavy-handed App Store tactics. A couple of people replied (paraphrasing here): “The developers knew that their apps were breaking the rules. They shouldn’t complain.”
I have seen this type of response many times before. I believe it is misguided, especially in this instance but also in general. Here’s why:
• Apple refuses to have a clearly spelled out policy. If Apple wanted to allow Wi-Fi stumbler apps in the App Store despite a general ban on “private frameworks,” and later wanted to reverse its decision, that is its prerogative. But it should at least explain what guidelines it was using in each case. Otherwise, how is a developer to know what to do? As the developer of WiFiWhere noted:
“This is very frustrating. WifiTrak and WiFiFoFum have been on the App Store since its very early days, and for the longest time no other apps appeared. It took months of trying and re-trying before WiFi-Where was approved. Starting in November 2009, we started seeing these new apps appear. We took this as an indication that maybe Apple had decided to allow WiFi apps, and began re-submitting WiFi-Where until it was approved in January 2010.”
Developers should not have to guess as to what Apple is thinking here. And, if Apple does accept your app, it should generally be taken as tacit evidence that Apple thinks what you are doing is okay — especially if your app is similar in function to numerous other accepted apps that have been in the Store for a long time.
To place the entire onus of responsibility for this situation on developers is wrong. It lets Apple off the hook far too easily.
• The larger issue for me has to do, not with developers, but the iPhone owners. Just because Apple has a clause in its license agreement, and even if the clause is legal (which has been questioned in certain instances), does not make it a “good” rule. Developers may have to abide by the rule, but that does not mean users (and even developers) are not justified to complain about this.
There may be good reasons for Apple to generally restrict the use of “private frameworks.” But that doesn’t mean it is always wise to do so. I am especially concerned when doing so means that worthwhile apps are kept from the Store — apps that over a million users appear to want.
As the developer of yFy Network Finder noted: “Every application that could scan for WiFi has been banned by Apple, after the fact, including applications that have been on the store a long time and have nearly 1 million users. Apple doesn’t want their platform to have this functionality.”
What is the harm in letting people have these apps, rule or no rule? In my view, Apple has not made a defensible case here. If enforcing a rule is preventing helpful apps from making it into the Store, then maybe it is time to change the rule.
As an analogy, I could have a rule that says: “Before you can post a comment to any articles on this site, you must demonstrate that you can speak Finnish.” I could enforce this rule. I could attempt to ban anyone who doesn’t speak Finnish from posting. If a comment from a non-Finnish speaker somehow slipped by me, I could later remove it. I could do all these things.
But that does not mean it would be wise for me to do so. It doesn’t mean it is good policy. It doesn’t mean that people coming to this site, even just to read the articles, should not complain about the rule.
The situation with the App Store is even worse than with my analogy. If you objected to my site rule, you could easily decide to stop visiting this site, without any real consequence. If you have an iPhone, you can’t choose to stop visiting the App Store. If you are developer who wants to make an app for the iPhone, you can’t bypass the App Store. There are no alternatives.
Jailbreaking is a possibility, but not a great one — especially as Apple continues its efforts to blockade jailbreaking with every iPhone OS upgrade or new iPhone model.
Buying a Google Android phone (or other competitor) instead of an iPhone is a possibility — but not a great one either. I prefer the iPhone. I just want it to be better. There are people who say: “If you don’t like what Apple is doing with the iPhone, don’t buy one. Otherwise, shut up.” My reply is that this is like saying “America. Love it or leave it.”
This isn’t an either-or situation. I can “love” my iPhone and still complain about Apple’s policies. From Day 1, I have been uncomfortable with the fact that the only way to get apps on my iPhone is through the App Store. I don’t believe this is good policy. I have always been a champion of a more open system. As I watch these recent developments, my conviction on this matter only grows stronger.
P.S. I remain well aware that opinions are varied and sharply divided on this debate. For yet another example of just how varied, check out the reader comments to this CrunchGear article. Whatever your opinion on the matter may be, I’m sure you’ll find at least one posting here that agrees with you! For the record, I agree with those who say Apple should be able to decide what it allows in its App Store — even if I object to its decisions. I don’t agree that Apple should be allowed to completely determine what I put on my iPhone.