“At the launch of the App Store, Apple noted the ability for developers to distribute software outside of the App Store. Essentially, Apple allows developers to issue software based on the iPhone’s serial number. This allows a company to issue an application to iPhones, without the application being on the App Store,” Christopher Price reports for PhoneNews.
“More importantly, it gave Apple an out to bypass anti-competitive business practices. If a developer doesn’t want to sell their software on the App Store, they can still sell it to customers directly. This was put to the test last week when Podcaster, an application barred from sale on the App Store, began being sold directly to customers,” Price reports.
Price continues, “Apple today shut down Podcaster’s developer once again. Essentially, Apple removed the developer’s ability to deploy software onto client (customer) devices. Prior to today, Podcaster was banned from the App Store, due to Apple’s assertion that it competes with iTunes, and that they do not have to allow iTunes competitors to be offered on the App Store.”
According to Price, “This puts Apple in a dangerous legal position. Before today, Apple had rights to assert that the App Store was only one sales channel, which they had every right to control. Now Apple is asserting rights to control any and all sales channels of software to iPhone and iPod touch owners.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s Ad Hoc distribution mechanism was intended for Beta testing as well as for small in-house projects with a limited distribution group of to up to 100 users, not sales of apps. Price’s argument simply does not hold water.
More in the full article here.
If you imagine a trojan being distributed via the Ad Hoc option, then shutting down Ad Hoc app distribution is probably not a bad thing. Security trumps the benefits of podcast managers, wealth proclamations, tethering apps, and *gasp* even fart buttons. By the way, many thousands of developers seem to be able read, understand, and abide by Apple’s rather clearly spelled out SDK terms.
That said, we wish Apple would clearly explain why they are pulling/blocking apps that do no harm and/or add functionality beyond that of Apple’s offerings as it would likely aid some developers in project planning.
Apple’s getting a bad rap from certain outlets especially in comparison to Google’s supposed “open” (and dangerous, we believe) approach with Android; with some people even going as far as to state that Google will be to iPhone as Windows was to Mac* (a conclusion to that skirmish hasn’t yet arrived, by the way). These same people doubtless said the same thing about PlaysForSure devices+online outifts vs. iPod+iTunes. Didn’t happen, for obvious reasons.
*We’d rather have control than chaos which is part of the reason we choose Mac. Please see related articles below.
Ahhh … “oops?”.
Oh, I think Apple will be on fine legal footing.
I mean, Sony doesn’t allow just any old crap to be sold for its Playstions. Or Nintendo for its systems.
What exactly makes the iPhone any different?
Apple wasn’t required to ever open up the ecosystem in the first place. They chose to. And now they’re choosing the apps that can run on it.
If you ask me, I think developers ought to put more thought into what they write for the device before they assume it’ll pass Apple’s litmus test. I mean, duh. Did they think they’d be allowed to put a competing service on the iPhone?
If this is true its time for Apple to get slapped by the legal system.
Lame, Apple. Podcaster does something that the iPhone version of iTunes doesn’t do, namely allow you to browse and view the iTunes store’s video and audio podcasts directly on your phone without using a computer. Perhaps Apple is killing this because they’re developing the same thing? Even so, I’m angry about it.
Podcaster puts AT&T;’s 3G network bandwidth at risk. How difficult is that to understand?
No apologies for Apple this time MDN.
Apple had better be careful what their next moves are going to be concerning this touchy topic. So far, I’m not liking what I’m hearing. I didn’t know that there was more than one sales channel. If Apple said there was going to be more than one sales channel and suddenly go back on this….well….
Its just not a good thing for Apple in the long run.
If someone is downloading a 200MB HD video podcast, say from the Washington Post, like I do, and if they do it over Podcaster using the 3G network, imagine what that does to all those people using the same cell tower?
I would like Apple to ban bandwidth hogs, until AT&T;has the capacity to handle this. Until then, good riddance. Of course, if Podcaster were to limit their downloads to wifi, that would be fine.
My understanding was this was to give developers a way to distribute BETA software for testing, not a way to SELL and distribute iPhone software outside the app store.
Podcaster is lucky that was all that was pulled.
I think article, or at least the summary provided here, is quite incorrect. The purpose of the Ad-Hoc distribution mechanism was not so developers could “sell it to customers directly”. It was designed to answer the needs of the developer to have beta testers of the application without putting it on the iPhone.
imo its well within Apple’s rights to do this, but it still stinketh to high heaven.
officially off the bandwagon.
Let them hack or install what ever they want on the iPhone and just pop up a warning that this is not recommended and will void Apple’s responsibility and or warranty. If they do it, a small message is sent to Apple and the iPhone is tagged as hacked if there is a return issue.
Done!
Apple has every right to block outside installs. They have to make sure iPhone users have a good, consistent experience with apps.
However, I do think that their approval process needs to be spelled out. They often seel to be acting very capriciously when it comes to app approval.
I don’t like what Apple’s doing here and I hope they lose this battle. Allowing for alternative sources of apps will be good for consumers. Apple is being far too greedy!
</i> “Oh, I think Apple will be on fine legal footing.
I mean, Sony doesn’t allow just any old crap to be sold for its Playstions. Or Nintendo for its systems.
What exactly makes the iPhone any different?
Apple wasn’t required to ever open up the ecosystem in the first place. They chose to. And now they’re choosing the apps that can run on it.
If you ask me, I think developers ought to put more thought into what they write for the device before they assume it’ll pass Apple’s litmus test. I mean, duh. Did they think they’d be allowed to put a competing service on the iPhone?”<i>
Could not agree more!!!
Hey, we’re Apple Inc. Remember when we shot ourselves in the foot about twenty or so years ago with the Mac, well, we are at it again!
Have a nice day and don’t %$&^ touch that %^$%& iPhone without our permission!
Smile!
If you do not like it … make your own phone. Morons.
As a developer, I think that Apple needs to rethink things. They should ban things that violate the AT&T;service policy. Other than that they should allow anything – but place a disclaimer on the ones that they would have banned, stating that it does not meet this quality standards.
They should also make their rules clear as it is not right to wait till a person has developed something to disallow it – unless they wish to repay the development costs.
Apple Inc. is not a stupid company, they are making these decisions based on sound information… granted, this is information they are not communicating to the public. I am perfectly fine with this. I don’t know how in America we got to the point that everybody and everything must be 100% transparent. It could be that reality TV and celebrity publications and entertainment new shows have created this perception that all information is public domain and that privacy is a thing of the past. Apple Inc. is a consumer company and they are not going to make decisions to harm the consumer or to limit the rights of consumers. However, they will make decisions to limit certain functions of thier products to protect their customers. The argument seems to revolve around the idea that a consumer should be able to do whatever they want with the product they purchase, even if that action were to harm other consumer’s purchases. Apple Inc. is protecting us from each other. All you have to do is look to Microsoft and it’s Windows OS to find a company and a product that does not care about protecting it’s customers. This is becasue Microsoft is not a cmsumer company, it’s business centric company. Microsoft is counting on large teams of IT people to run and organize and update the software. All this to say, all will be revealed in time, but Apple is doing the right thing protecting its App Store and its customers. The App Store is a couple months old and the iPhone is only a year old… give it time to mature, Apple is.
I do not like trolls 🙁
As a ‘developer’ you are nothing more than a private contractor. You are selling your hot dogs at the stadium. If you piss and moan, that is okay … There are thousands just like you, that make shit just as good or better than you, waiting in line for your spot. So WTF? Play by the rules and do not be a dick and you may become a somebody one day.
what about downloading and installing at our own risk? hasn’t that been part of the game for a while now?
You start to wonder how many of these clowns are actually developers and how many are just being jack offs? If you are a developer and you have something worth while, you are making a boatload of cash off the iPhone. But if you were just a useless dick head, you would be complaining in forums like this all day.
Downloading and installing at your own risk is why the windows world is so f*cked up. No accountability. Is that what we want all over again?
Ah, yes. You can compute anyway you like with Apple…as long as it’s Stevie Jobs’ way.
Think Similar
If you are a developer, you COULD be making lots of money on the iPhone. Except the idea you have for an application may or may not be permitted by Apple, and you only find out about it AFTER you have completed the app. And now Apple is including their rejection letters to their NDA, so you can spend man-months or man-years of effort on an application, then get it rejected, and all you can do is, start working on something else and hope it won’t be rejected.