DISQUS

Hmm, interesting. I think if/when I need to move again, it would probably be up to a dedicated or colo, rather than to another VPS.

I've been generally pretty happy with Spry, and the rate has stayed the same as it was since I signed up, which is pretty good. Never had any restrictions on anything imposed on me, including running proxy services, etc. I suspect they're probably more concerned if you're running an open proxy or something of that nature, which would be dumb of them to allow.

I don't recall a full one-or-two day system outage; the only long downtime I've had was a misconfiguration in their network equipment (routing tables, etc.) that caused a couple of the IPs on my server to be unreachable even though the server itself was fine. It was pretty frustrating that this particular problem actually happened more than once - I ended up finding out that someone backed up the wrong settings and then they got restored a couple times after that before everything got sorted out.

Could you elaborate on what they let you do that others you've tried don't? Just curious.

Oh yeah, it's "available for content producers who want it" alright. It's also mandatory even if you *don't* want it, if you want to sell an app through their app store.



But I'm sure it's some yet-to-be-revealed MAAA (Mobile App Association of America) behind the scenes pulling their strings and forcing them to do that, since we know they don't like DRM. :-)

Relative to???



I don't think it's relative enough that the term open could possibly apply to the iPhone development platform in any way.



If you want to say that "open is relative" and it's "open" because (if everything goes OK and you get Apple's blessing) it's *possible* that you can get an app released using it, then I can't think of a single SDK in the world that isn't "open" by that definition. Yay! - *everyone* is open!



"Relative" just doesn't stretch that far. It's like saying a guy who only murdered one person is a "relatively" nice guy compared to the one who murdered 100. It's much more accurate to just say neither is a "nice" guy.



If you want to argue that there's a relative scale, with "open" on one end and "closed" on the other, I just don't see any way you could possibly argue that they are towards the open end or even the middle.

Not sure if you read the end of my last comment...



I'm NOT saying it's "bad". I AM saying that it's definitely not *open*.

To further clarify my main point on the iPhone not being anywhere near an open platform for development, I'll let you know exactly what I mean by that.



The only two phone platforms I've ever developed and deployed mobile apps on have been Palm OS and Windows Mobile. Both of these are (or were - don't know the current state of Palm) truly open platforms, in stark contrast to the iPhone in almost every way.



(1) Both had SDKs that were free to download and use, without overly restrictive licenses.

(2) Both allow you to build ANY apps you choose to, without the restrictions and limited access to the hardware that the iPhone SDK enforces.

(3) Both allow you to build and deploy your app in any way you choose, anywhere you choose. You can sell it (with or without DRM) or give it away, and you don't need to get anyone's approval to do so.



There are other significant differences, but these are the big ones I consider to be *absolutely essential* if you want to talk about an "open platform" for mobile app development.



I'm well aware that it's your position that the way Apple has decided to do things will result in a better overall experience for the end user, in terms of quality, and that it probably works well for most of the developers that choose to use it to. I'm not arguing any of that. Just don't try to call it "open", because it really, really isn't.

I don't think I'm missing your point, I just don't quite get how you can justify hating DRM for music but loving it for apps.



Just because you as a developer might want it, that doesn't make the concept of DRM itself any better. DRM is DRM, whether it's on music or apps, so I think you need to evaluate your position for consistency.



But anyway, I'm not necessarily arguing that you shouldn't be ABLE to have DRM if you *want* it (although I still would think it's a bad idea), my problem is that they are *forcing* you to use it - you have no choice in the matter.



To clarify, I don't really care (for the purposes of this point) whether you or I like DRM, I'm proving that *Apple likes it*. This is irrefutable (so far) evidence that counters your earlier claim that Apple actually hates DRM and only uses it because other third parties force them to, because here they are forcing it on devs, with no third party pressure at all.

Read the links I posted. They refer to that announcement and clarify that the NDA is still in place UNTIL the app is approved by Apple and released, AND Apple also claims that the rejection letters are under the NDA. This is all after the notice you lined to.

Hmm. That's odd. I'm pretty sure that since you switched to Intense Debate comments never show up for me here unless I enable javascript.



Oddly enough, that last comment you just made does show up on this post, but no others do, if I turn off javascript.

Interesting. Have you had any Apache or MySQL crashes or system restarts recently? I've seen this in those cases, but I think that's more likely to cause an interrupted write to the database than code in PHP (WP or its plugins); I can't actually think of any non-intentional way for that to happen from within the PHP code.



Side note: Is it intense debate or your theme that makes it so comments don't show up if javascript is disabled? I take it that means that comments aren't indexed either?

Wow, that is pretty big. I'd be interested to hear what you find out.



I do remember finding at one point that the cached RSS items (the feeds WP pulls down to show in the dashboard) in the options table had gotten out of hand in one of my WP DBs. I don't think it was that big (so I'm guessing that's not the problem with yours), but it was a lot of wasted space I had to clear out.

Who are you and how did you get Dan's login? :-)



How is it that you like DRM for apps but very definitely don't like it for music and other media?



The point is, when Steve was talking about how they supposedly don't like DRM, the common answer to the question of why they still had it on everything was that the record labels and movie studios forced them to. My question to them then is in the app store, that is not an issue, and yet they still require DRM for purchased apps. Doesn't line up, IMHO.



Of course they can release the app for free (although I wouldn't be surprised if even the free apps have DRM - meaning you can't share directly, each person has to download direct from Apple), but what about the case of people who want to sell their apps (just like music or movies) without DRM? So far it looks like that is not something Apple is interested in backing.



For me, all this really points back to the idea that the only reason they've been easing up on the DRM on the music side of things is because of pressure from the consumers and from the competition (Amazon, etc.), because when it's completely their decision, they choose to stick with DRM.

As far as I can tell, unreleased apps as well as rejection letters (for when they decide to exercise that closed control) are still NDA'd.

I thought the NDA was only dropped once the app was released, but was still in place for non-released apps?



In any event, it is still one of the most restrictive models out there. I can't think of one that's more restrictive. Expensive, maybe, but not controlling. Could you mention one you had in mind?

Oh, and don't forget the MANDATORY DRM for purchased apps.



For a company that claims to dislike DRM and likes to blame it on third party content rights holders (record labels, music studios, etc.) I find it very telling that in the situation where there are no third parties (just Apple and the app developers), they force it on you if you want to sell apps. I wonder who the scapegoat will be for that one?

The iPhone is by no means an "open platform for app developers".



When you have to sign up for on of the most restrictive SDKs ever published (full NDAs on unreleased apps, for example) AND have to go through an approval process where the gatekeeper is the single company who both sells the phone and runs the only authorized app store (and will deny your app if it competes with something they've released or even plan to release in the future), I'm just not sure how you could get LESS open than that.

And just to preemptively answer the inevitable attempts to associate Apple with free / open source software, I'm talking about stuff they make (themselves) and *release*, not what they *use*.



Making use of open or free software is nice (for them), but what I'm talking about is the end result. Outside of stuff that they actually legally *have* to contribute back to (GPL software like webkit and CUPS that didn't originate with them), I'd say that as a general rule / policy the stuff they put out is very restrictive.

Well, we've had that debate before. Apple sets the bar on the far "closed" end of the scale for most of the software / services that they release, relative to the alternatives (OS, iTunes, and now the app store being good examples).

That's interesting; I hadn't heard any reports of them blocking any apps at all for code quality. Do you have any links to stories about that? Not that I don't believe you; I'm just curious to read them.



I'm pretty sure I remember you also speculating that they would keep the store "clean" in terms of quality / useful apps too, as one of the reasons they'd want to keep it closed - to avoid the clutter. I'd have to go back and find those comments, though, which is too much trouble. I think it's pretty clear that they haven't done that, which could be good or bad (like you say). It just sounded before like you thought it would have been good.



The only stories I've heard about apps getting blocked have been for anti-competitive reasons, so it's good to hear that might not be the *only* reason.



I'm not quite sure I get your comment above about the platform being considered closed. It most definitely is closed; I haven't seen anyone argue that it's not. It's just a matter of whether you think that's a good thing overall or not. Surely you are not suggesting that the store is not a "closed" system?

Yeah, that is pretty funny.



At some point, I thought I remembered one of the primary counter arguments to criticism of the closed nature of the app store was that Apple would be able to maintain their high standards of quality throughout all the apps. I wonder whether people still feel that way today.

Hmm... interesting.



I wonder if this also means they'll stop discriminating against non-protected files when it comes to importing them to another computer from the iPod? I guess we'll have to wait and see. :-)

That EFF article was very good.



Do you know if they're also allowing the DRM to be removed from all previous purchases, or is it only for purchases from this point forward?

Yeah, I think that even if his health were perfect, I think it's important for Apple to manage expectations in a way they haven't been able to so far (this is not an Apple-bashing comment - just general speculation).



What I mean is that right now (this year), anything short of Steve showing up at Mac World (or another launch event) and introducing a revolutionary device on a fairly regular basis is seen as a disappointment. That is a bad thing, from the perspective of the shareholders especially, because it isn't sustainable, and it can rock the stock price if that's what everyone is expecting and it doesn't happen sometimes.



In addition, attempting to sustain it would probably actually be a bad thing in the long run, because it may end up rushing certain processes that they should spend more time on, just for the sake of meeting an arbitrary deadline. And even if they can push themselves hard enough to achieve an unrealistic goal, that just becomes the bar they will have to beat again (probably within a year) and perpetuates the cycle by making it that much harder.



They've got a lot of solid products right now; they don't really need to release new device at all within the next year. The only reason they would need to would be that they've trained people to expect it, but it might be time to wean them off that expectation.



I guess no one really knows how much of the company's success until now was directly dependent on him personally, but I think it will be critical for Apple in to prove (over the next 3-5 years) that they can still continue function as a successful company while pulling back a bit from needing Steve to deliver one-more-thing shockers on a regular basis, and also minimizing the perception (to whatever degree they can at this point) that he plays a critical role in their success.

Just a follow-up for this for some anti-MS balance... :-)



I've seen a lot of posts recently (primarily from the ALT.NET guys I mentioned above) about how the code for this particular project isn't really the best example of how these new technologies should be used, and in particular it encourages some "old-school" design mistakes in the areas of OO design and code structure.



Still, at least they're trying.

My bet is that he will be there, and will be speaking, as a "surprise".