Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=750608

by TomOfTTB • 17 years ago

11 58 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

jacquesm8• 17 years ago

The final question is a bit confusing! (at least it is to me...)

TomOfTTB12• 17 years ago

I'd edit it if you could tell me why it's confusing. I honestly can't see what you're talking about.

jacquesm8• 17 years ago

much better already! Interesting question by the way.

Full disclosure of terms is a must I think, and a very rigorous process should be in place to handle these situations.

I firmly believe that even though the app store is clearly apples creation with great power comes great responsibility.

And when companies do not live up to their responsibilities (I think Apple has proven beyond reasonable doubt that they act in an arbitrary way) then they ought to be forced to do so.

People build their businesses on top of the Iphone app store ecosystem and they should have a reasonable expectation that their investment is not subject to some arbitrary action of Apple.

If Apple does not want that kind of oversight they have a simple solution available to them: Open up the app store for everybody and drop the review process other than to look for stuff that I would loosely class as 'malware'.

If your application is merely stupid, trivial or has been done a million times already that should not disqualify you. Even 'disgusting' stuff should be possible, who is apple to define what is disgusting and what is not.

As long as applications stay within the law there should be room for them in the App store, the only thing Apple could do to protect its brand in this respect is to categorize the applications or to cut the app store loose from the mother ship.

They're in a tight spot on this one, damned if they do and damned if they don't. The 'apple knows best' strategy is backfiring big time.

apsurd3• 17 years ago

The hell?

laissez-faire

You are comparing the nations food supply ... with iphone applications...

...

jacquesm8• 17 years ago

Not really, he's showing that the government already has 'full disclosure' rules for some industries and suggests that the digital world might benefit from that same principle.

You could easily trivialize this by suggesting that the food supply is a critical resource, but if a company gets large enough to employ a bunch of people living in Apples 'eco-system' and Apple decides to pull the plug the results for those people are quite comparable to eating something bad. In both cases there are people that have no way of knowing what is going on 'under water' whose health and well being depends on being informed.

To ask for that information is the only right thing to do.

Consumers don't have the power to bend a large corporation to their will, but the government can do that.

apsurd3• 17 years ago

I understand your point. But very simply, that is not what Capitalism entails. Capitalism is like biology's natural selection. You don't arbitrarily go determining rules of engagement and codes of conduct within the animal kingdom, so as to even things out. Why? Because those things are taken care of naturally.

I'm not saying I know what's best for anyone. Rather, it's just not the American/Capitalistic way. And Americans, they like their Capitalism.

thingie• 17 years ago

Couldn't you just ask "would you agree"? Mabye it's confusing because you are making statement like if you were going to ask "would you agree", but then ask a question expecting opposite answer (if you were going to agree, you have to say "no, I don't have a problem"). And I think there is no real difference between saying I agree and I don't have a problem with that.

TomOfTTB12• 17 years ago

Thanks for the suggestion but can't really change it now without screwing everything up

diazamet3• 17 years ago

I see no reason why the government should get involved. It's an free market, if people don't like Apple's practices regarding the App store, they are free to go elsewhere or buy a phone from a different manufacturer.

jacquesm8• 17 years ago

I think you are missing the point regarding the acceptance of applications, it's not an end-user issue.

It's mostly the app store developers that are setting themselves up for trouble because of this.

So that should read 'if developers don't like Apples practices regarding the App store they are free to go elsewhere', only there is no 'elsewhere', the only way to the Iphone leads through the app store.

moe5• 17 years ago

This might come as a shock to you: There actually is an 'elsewhere' beyond the iPhone. Last time I checked apple didn't go around forcing people to become app developers.

Don't like their rules? Don't play on their lawn.

diazamet3• 17 years ago

Ok, point taken but equally, nobody is forced to develop for the iPhone. Develop for Android or Symbian. Ultimately, so many developers have succumbed to Apples practices and they are responsible for giving Apple the power they have. This is still no reason for government involvement.

jrockway3• 17 years ago

I agree that the government should not be able to tell AT&T and Apple what to do ...

... as soon as Apple and AT&T deliver phone service without using any public infrastructure. As long as they want to use the public airwaves, though, the public should have some oversight into what goes on.

(Remember, "the big bad government" isn't telling them what to do, the people that own the infrastructure, us, are telling them what to do. It's just that the process is very, very indirect.)

diazamet3• 17 years ago

"the public should have some oversight into what goes on", the public do have some oversight. The public could stop buying AT&T and Apple products/services.

jrockway3• 17 years ago

With a $200 termination fee, I doubt this would be much incentive for AT&T to "do better".

randallsquared2• 17 years ago

"Airwaves" are not infrastructure.

Apple and AT&T do have government-granted privileges (such as limited liability and the huge swath of regulations which assist larger and existing corporations against their customers and smaller competitors), but regulations for and against don't "balance"; handing someone a candy bar does not give you the right to tell them what to do.

plinkplonk• 17 years ago

"Airwaves" are not infrastructure."

Sure, but radio spectrum (which is what the OP meant by "infrastructure") is owned by the government and licensed to corporations subject to public good and review isn't it?

(pS: I don't have a dog in this fight. I've never used Apple Hardware or software and never will. So I don't really care what Apple does. Where I live Apple is a very very minor player anyway. Just trying to confirm my knowledge of how radio spectrum is owned and allotted).

jrockway3• 17 years ago

handing someone a candy bar does not give you the right to tell them what to do

OK, let's stop giving away candy bars then. What's in it for me?

radu_floricica• 17 years ago

I voted Yes, I'd have a problem with this. Sounds like a common sense idea, but the implementation would be horrific. How exactly do you set the standards for this? You can't make a law especially for Apple, so you have to legislate ... what exactly?

TomOfTTB12• 17 years ago

I'm not sure I see why this would be hard. I'd say the law could look something like this...

"Companies who create computing environments that are not open to all applications must clearly define the acceptance criteria for developers wishing to create applications for those environments"

I guess there will always be some ambiguity (What's "clearly " for example) but anything is an improvement over what we have now.

danek• 17 years ago

How about a criteria that says "we will not accept applications that are crap or that make us look bad or dilute the pool of good applications"? Because this seems like it's what Apple is doing. Now whether they are doing their filtering well is a different matter.

I don't see why government needs to be brought into this. Do we really need a "computing platform fairness czar"?

drewcrawford6• 17 years ago

Here's where the analogy breaks down:

Ingredients listed on food are provided so that people who have allergies can see what's in the food, and not die. In a universe where foods don't have to list ingredients, foods without the ingredient label will be cheaper, meaning allergic people have to pay more to find out what's in the food. Meaning that allergic people ("disabled", if you will) are forced to pay more because of a from-birth (or from-young-age) disadvantage through no fault of theirs.

I'm republican and libertarian as the day is long, but I support government regulation that puts this sort of disadvantaged people on equal footing with everyone else. That means elevators have to be in buildings, handicapped people should get free parking, learning disabled should get special classes in school, etc.

You can't be allergic to an iPhone app. Being open and transparent about an app market is one of those things that should be competitive advantage. Sprint or MS or whoever's building their app store should be able to say "Look at our app store, it's open! Come over here!" as a selling point even when their software stack is inferior (no flamewars please).

I'm an iPhone developer and I am pissed at apple. What they are doing is wrong and evil. But developers are perfectly capable of staging a coup and changing Apple's mind (we did with getting them to release the app store in the first place). I'm open to discussing why that doesn't happen (too many people are making too much money is my theory).

But what shouldn't happen is the government stepping in and saying "Too lazy to stand up for yourselves? Don't worry, we'll do it for you!" That's so dumb I don't even know where to begin. It sets an awful precedent. Software developers are fiery and passionate, generally speaking, and I've seen way too many professions lose that because they outsource their righteous indignation to their government, and then become dependent. And then there's regulation written for yesteryear affecting today's tech companies, and in about fifty years tech becomes the auto industry or the banking industry: one-brilliant people who gave their battles away to someone else to fight, and everybody paid the price for it.

Maybe that's a bit overdramatic for one government intervention. On the other hand, for want of a shoe...

TomOfTTB12• 17 years ago

The thing is your analogy doesn't hold up. Companies are required to put information like the number of calories in a product and that has nothing to do with allergies.

As for the rest of your comment I don't know. I guess we'll see. The tech community couldn't be more riled up then it is now (how many times have "I'm dropping Apple" posts made it to the front page of HN lately?). So if Apple does eventually change their policy than maybe you're right. If not I think you should reconsider your objection to limited Government intervention.

drewcrawford6• 17 years ago

> The tech community couldn't be more riled up then it is now (how many times have "I'm dropping Apple" posts made it to the front page of HN lately?)

See, it could be much more riled up than it is. For one, developers could pull their apps from the store. That 50,000 figure Apple published ages ago could be 5,000. If Tapulous or one of the iPhone developers that Apple babies pulled their apps in protest, I guarantee it would keep Steve Jobs awake at night.

Google could stop handing macbooks to each new recruit. They could refuse to serve maptiles to future phones.

Front-page posts on HN, while I admit are more meaningful than Reddit or Digg or someplace, are chump change on the thermometer of developer outrage. All anyone's done so far about this is write passioned rants and maybe threaten to not buy any new macs personally.

stanleydrew2• 17 years ago

The problem is that a handicap doesn't have to be a physical or mental disability. There are serious asymmetries of information that handicap all of us, even the smartest. To take your example, I'd say that ingredients are listed on food so that consumers have the same information as the producers. People with allergies are just a particular subset of consumers who benefit from the level information playing field.

Another example: the SEC is set up to help keep information equally spread within financial markets, and in fact its (perhaps inevitable) failure to keep up with new information asymmetries involving complex mortgage derivatives and credit default swaps contributed significantly to the recent economic collapse.

But we can disagree in each particular case about whether the government should be responsible for improving information flow, or whether consumers should carry the burden themselves. I am definitely in favor of as little regulation as possible to get the job done. I'm just saying that some information asymmetries are literally huge and there's not much consumers can be expected to do without government's help.

drewcrawford6• 17 years ago

I carefully framed the world "disability" above to mean some disadvantage you were either born with or acquired very young, something that's fundamentally unfair or injust. You can't choose to be allergic, you can't work very hard and eventually overcome your allergies. Fate just struck you, and that's that.

I'm not sure I view 'information asymmetries' in the same light. Clearly some information (like passphrases or source code) are asymmetrical by design, and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that. I'm "disabled" in the sense that I can't read SJ's e-mail; forcing him to open his inbox would probably be "leveling the playing field" for a lot of people, but none of this is unfairness or injustice. Quite the contrary, forcing his inbox open would be an injustice. Sure, there are cases when you're investigating something else and you need to, but there's warrants and process and all that. There's a fundamental understanding that it's very very bad and only if we absolutely have to.

Similarly, meddling in the app store, private property of apple, would be an injustice. Sure, I think it needs work; what apple's doing is meanspirited. But it's their sandbox, and they need to be the ones to clean up the mess. Boycotts, nonrenewing contracts, etc., all put legitimate pressure on a company, governments work with illegitimate pressure (which can be useful if something really really bad is happening. But that isn't this situation).

sdrinf• 17 years ago

It's an interesting double-standard, forcing corporation transparency, when your own goverment isn't. Case in point: I had recently the pleasure of signing up for your country's "visa waiver" program. Technically, it's not a big deal, since it automatically accepts anyone with a recent passport, and a valid background. What got me is the fine print:

"...Waiver of Rights: I have read and understand that I hereby waive for the duration of my travel authorization obtained via ESTA any rights to review or appeal of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer's determination as to my admissibility, or to contest, other than on the basis of an application for asylum, any removal action arising from an application for admission under the Visa Waiver Program. ..." [ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/ ]

So, the way I understand, the "American Way" is forcing transparency from everyone, as long as it's not me? How is Apple any different?

axod• 17 years ago

Ridiculous. Flagged. Stop whining for the love of god.

Why not also whine about how your local cinema refuses to show your home movie!

TomOfTTB12• 17 years ago

What's ridiculous is I just looked at the posts you've made over the last few days and half of them are just like this (e.g. complain about the topic and insult everyone participating)

If you don't like something why don't you try just clicking away.

Edit: And for those down voting this comment I say the same thing to you: Just click away for God's sakes. There are almost 50 comments here so clearly people want to discuss this. Let Them! Just ignore it and move on to topics you're interested in. Stop trying to control what other people are allowed to do.

sharpn• 17 years ago

I would have a problem with this - it's like forcing a shop to justify not stocking a particular product. I do think Apple should be clearer, but they shouldn't be compelled to do so.

lg• 17 years ago

Force companies to decide exactly what they're doing, and declare it to the government in unambiguous language so that it can be broadcast to the public. Yeah. While we're at it we should force them to submit a document declaring the types of all their variables too, and have it notarized.

DanielBMarkham3• 17 years ago

This is like a political theory intelligence test.

Does Apple have a monopoly that is preventing free and open trade? Perhaps. If so, government has a role to provide an open, honest shot for smartphone developers (and more so for end-consumers) This is because monopolies distort markets, which hurts everybody. But it's important to realize that for 99.9% of cases, having control over your platform, sales, and marketing channels is a good thing for everybody involved.

Should government enforce food labeling? Sure thing, because folks can't make an honest determination of what they're buying unless the contents are clearly labeled. This is back to the free and open market idea.

Should government step in anytime somebody (even a majority) think something is "unfair"? Not so much. People think all kinds of things are fair or unfair, and such distinctions are very emotional.

The key question is whether or not the iPhone is distorting the free and open market for smartphone apps. I think we have a long way to go before we cross that line. Right now it's more a matter of Apple doing wonderfuly well and holding their cards close as to what they want to allow on their platform. But there are a lot of choices out there for app developers and consumers. And the worse Apple acts, the more the market will punish it.

I'm a developer who's thinking about writing some smartphone apps. With all the publicity, I've decided that the iPhone platform isn't for me. Over time, if enough developers feel the same way, there'll be more apps not on the platform than on it. Apple has to be smart enough to see this as a problem, so I think things will be self-correcting.

mcav• 17 years ago

In time, the market will self-correct if Apple behaves poorly enough. But I think it's important to remember that self-correction might take a long time.

We're dealing with platforms -- large systems to which people commit their data. We're also dealing with a two-faced community: developers and consumers. It's going to take a lot more than unfair developer treatment to get many people to switch away from iTunes.

Apple generally makes excellent products; combine that with the iTunes ecosystem to get a combo bonus. People aren't likely to switch to a platform they perceive as inferior; Apple won't drop the ball on creating good combinations of hardware and software any time soon. Even if a superior product arrives, consumers must commit to migrating their applications, data, music, etc.

It's going to take a lot more than a restrictive and unfair developer platform to get the market to correct itself. Look at the Windows Vista debacle: despite many unhappy consumers, I don't see a whole lot of people switching away for that reason alone. Anecdotally, the only time I see people switch away from Windows is when they're enticed by buying a Mac instead -- and they cite Apple's software more often than Windows's flaws.

DanielBMarkham3• 17 years ago

Absolutely. These things take a long time to work themselves out.

There's also a case to be made, which is made by every monopoly, that having a single player actually advances things in the public interest. In other words, by having Apple control so much, the future of smartphones in general is actually advanced much farther than if they didn't. I don't buy this argument as a general rule, but parts of it do seem to make sense. After all, getting 40 individual players to agree on a standard is a lot harder than getting one company to do so.

Perhaps the natural state of the technology industry is to slowly swing between monopolies and openness. During times of monopolies, de facto standards get adopted and interfaces stabilized. During times of openness, innovation rules and paradigm changes are made.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, just that it looks like a pattern might be setting up.

bmelton• 17 years ago

I would personally have a giant problem with government intervention in a private matter. This is a market issue. If customers don't like how Apple is behaving, they are free to take their business elsewhere. If they don't, they are either offering a more compelling product than the other guys, or are serving the majority of their customers satisfactorily.

I can see the argument that developers for the App Store are akin to contractors for Apple, but I don't believe that's the case either.

If the developers really want government involvement, the first step WOULD NOT BE regulation, rather it should be arbitration. The slighted developers have the courtrooms available to them, and potentially have contract dispute claims they could file suit on. (I don't know, I don't develop for the iPhone at all.) If they don't, then they've obviously entered into a one-sided contract they shouldn't have, and shame on them. That said, there might also be a claim for that as well. One of the primary tenets for contract law is that there is mutual consideration -- a contract without mutual consideration can often be considered valueless on its face. I am uncertain whether or not the potential for profit by app store sales counts or not, honestly.

zeckalpha• 17 years ago

I would be for government intervention, but your reasoning I see as flawed. It is hypocritical.

If you believe Apple should be required to list its requirements for applications, then you should also believe that governments should be required to list their requirements for corporations.

That is all.

Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

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