matt hamann
musings from here to there
An end to the Apple App Store
0The company Apple, lauded and applauded for it’s innovative devices and software has hit some bumps in the road as of late. Continued controversy surrounding it’s methods for approving and (seemingly more often than not) denying apps from showing up in its iTunes Store has brought new decisions to light over the past several weeks. It seems that Apple can (and will) readily deny any app from showing up in the store for any reason. This could be something from not liking the look and feel of the application to rejecting it simply because it competes with an existing Apple-created app. This is the very definition of a company that has become involved in anti-competitive practices.
Yet, while I can’t necessarily comment on the legality of Apple’s operation, I will say this: every time I read an article about yet another app-rejection from the iTunes Store, it reminds me of a communist/fascist 2nd world government. Certainly it doesn’t align with the capitalistic system of business we strive for within the United States.
The Apple App store needs some drastic changes. I’m fine with them taking a cut of each app’s sales. They built a good infrastructure for app distribution and they deserve to profit from their efforts. I also believe that it’s okay for Apple to charge developers a fee for access to the SDK; however, I believe this should be a one-time fee. Not yearly as is the current policy. From there, they need to abolish the entire app-review process entirely (other than perhaps scanning for viruses or truly malicious code) and allow any developer to publish any app to the store, for any price, at any completion level they choose. They say they’re worried about half-baked and bad applications cluttering the store, but honestly this is probably not too much of a concern. Customers will indubitably continue to rate and review apps they purchase and download, so good apps will rise to the top and bad ones will sink to the bottom. This is the way a capitalistic system works! It is the customer satisfaction that makes or breaks the company or product. Not a 3rd party who has no idea how useful or useless a product may be to any given customer.
Take two apps rejected just this week: Google Voice and Riverturn VoiceCentral–the former rejected because it supposedly competes with AT&T’s mobile service and the latter not approved because it allegedly “duplicates existing iPhone functionality.” The funny thing is, four months ago, Apple approved Riverturn’s app along with several updates in the interim only to pull the app from it’s app store this week after rejecting the Google Voice app. Additionally, customers are requesting refunds for purchased copies of VoiceCentral since it’s no longer available. That sort of thing could break the company’s bank especially since RiverTurn would have to foot the entire bill whilst Apple keeps their 30% profit margin. I can see the contentedly smug expressions on their faces already.
Ultimately, developers will leave Apple’s fold in droves if the current conditions and policies continue in effect. They’ll abandon Apple for other more friendly developers. Can anyone say the Palm Pre? Or what about the Android Marketplace?
The consumers and developers will decide the fate of Apple’s App Store. But the way things are going now–it’s just a matter of time…
Apple updates frustrate me
0Just a minute ago, Apple Software Update popped up and asked me to update my Safari for Windows software from 4.0.1 to 4.0.2 to resolve some Javascript engine issues and fix a few security issues. A reasonable request since the browser version is pretty new. But what really got me was the fact that the update was a whopping 52MB!! I don’t understand this for several reasons.
First, comparable (read: better) browsers such as Firefox 3.5 and Internet Explorer 8 do not even come close to requiring a 52MB installer. The most recent version of Firefox is 10MB while IE 8 weighs in at a measly 25MB–less than half of Safari’s requirements. I’ve been equally miffed at iTunes and Quicktime which often require similarly sized updates–although I suppose I would expect those apps to carry a little more weight.
So, would someone care to explain the why behind these extravagantly large download sizes?
Apple iPhone OS 3.0 now available
0964 days
Users of iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch 1G, and iPod Touch 2G may now log in to the Apple iTunes store and download the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade for their device. It is available now for customers in the United States.
Enjoy 
Facebook usernames: who needs them?
0965 days
by matt
in Social Networks
It seems that with every new feature addition to Facebook there are as many naysayers and unhappy customers as there are proponents of the changes. From time to time I’ve written entries here supporting some changes to the site; other times I’ve criticized certain changes for making the site all the more unfriendly and hard to use. This post briefly discusses the latest Facebook feature: profile usernames.
Who needs them?
That’s a good question. To some, perhaps this marks just another “useless” feature, but for the 5 million people who registered usernames within the first 3 days of their introduction it screams for some attention. But for those of you still holding out, let me explain a few reasons why registering your own unique Facebook username might not be such a bad idea after all.
- What is a username?
For those of you who might not be familiar with how this works, a Facebook username is a unique name with no spaces that allows websites and people to quickly link to and access your Facebook profile. For example, after registering my own username, you can now access my Facebook page by visiting: http://www.facebook.com/matthamann. Yup, it’s that simple. - A username could help family and friends find you faster
These days search is king. Type your own name into Google and you might be amazed at how many results appear that link to some aspect of you, whether it be your blog, Facebook profile, a news article from high school or college, or who knows what else? The fact of the matter is: if you have any of these social networking devices, you’re not interested in hiding your identity from the rest of the world. If you were, you wouldn’t use those services. - It’s way more friendly
Before Facebook usernames existed, any time an individual needed to directly access or link to a user’s profile, they would have to enter a url similar to this one: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=630269242. Trust me, nobody wants to have to worry about long complicated stuff like that. Visiting http://www.facebook.com/matthamann is just so much easier to use and remember. Of course, picking a username like “dragonboy673″ probably won’t help you much unless you’re well known around the ‘Net by that moniker, but picking something closely related to who you are or what you do can drastically improve your visibility.
Are there more reasons to go ahead and get a Facebook username? Why don’t you let me know by leaving a comment?
Apple continues its march toward violating anti-trust laws
0Apple has a Monopoly on the digital media player market. I’ll give them that. But as I continue to watch the scene unfold, I’ve begun to believe more and more that Apple has gotten just a little “too big for their britches.” The attitude coming from the relatively small computer hardware and software manufacturer continues to show that Apple is more concerned with hanging on to it’s bottom-line, driving competitors out of the market, and keeping all the toys to themselves. And what company wouldn’t?
Recent articles by AppleInsider and cnet made note of a “warning” issued by Apple this past week in regard to its popular iTunes music software. Recently Palm Inc. released it’s new Pre smartphone as a direct competitor to other smartphones like Google Android-based phones and Apple’s iPhone lineup. Included in the Pre’s software is the ability to synchronize music directly with the iTunes software; however, Apple made a statement implying that it may update the iTunes software in such a way that it would prevent devices such as the Palm Pre from being recognized or syncing properly. Clearly this shows an unwillingness to play by any set of rules but its own.
Since the Microsoft vs. Apple debate always seems to rage across the web, I’ll continue the tradition by contrasting Apple’s market moves with Microsoft’s. The Redmond-based company almost always exposes APIs in its products that allow 3rd party developers to write new software that integrates closely with Windows and other Microsoft products. So if Palm had wanted to make the Pre device able to sync with Windows Media Player, they would have simply needed to tap into the proper programming APIs and things would work as expected, guaranteed. In recent years, Microsoft has, in fact, gone out of its way to ensure that portions of their systems work and play well with others. Definitely not so with Apple and yet another reason to refuse to bow to Apple’s demands.
Almost 10 years after the introduction of the first iPod and we start to see a role-reversal. Apple is the dark side, and someone needs to step in to stop them. Greed never gets you anywhere…
There’s a reason Apple has taken more than 7 years to barely reach even 10% of the U.S. computer market, much less the world. If Macs were really so great, do you think 89% of the world would still be using Microsoft products?