26 ms·

His app just hit the front pages of multiple high-traffic websites. It could well have been an excellent idea.

glhaynes 16y ago
Why? Does he have something else to sell? Assuming he doesn't, he's just put his effort into learning what could be a valuable skill, but now can't work on the platform (ever again?).
- lsc 16y ago
  > Does he have something else to sell? himself. If he wants to get a regular job later /or/ if he wants to launch a product later, having his name in the headlines helps quite a lot. i don't want to say "there is no such thing as bad publicity" because there is, but in this case, enough people, I think, will feel that a tethering application is 'not evil' and that this was overall a good thing to make it a net win for the programmer. Even if apple blocks him forever (I don't know their history... would they really say "no, f-ck you" five years from now?) and even if the apple platform remains dominant (I will be very surprised if apple continues its dominance after Jobs runs out of spare parts.) there are plenty of companies that make iphone apps that I'm sure would be happy to hire the kid. And there are plenty of other platforms out there to work on, too.
  - waterlesscloud 16y ago
    Just ask RTM.
    - lsc 16y ago
      Who or what is RTM? Remember The Milk?
      - thaumaturgy 16y ago
        http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rtm http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rtm aka Robert Tappan Morris. That's a name you should recognize. :-)
        jpcx01 16y ago
        Nope. Give us the gist of it
        davidw 16y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris,_Jr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris,_Jr.
        khafra 16y ago
        gistiest version: Accidentally took down the internet with a worm, then partnered with Paul Graham and made a bundle, and Ycombinator.
        lsc 16y ago
        haha. indeed. And allowing users to tether their iphone is far and away less damaging than creating a worm that infects sendmail.
        lsc 16y ago
        I was not aware he had an account. hm. he also looks like he's interested in MySQL NDB cluster, a really promising technology that it seems people are ignoring.
  - rythie 16y ago
    This is app. not really 'bad' or evil as such. It's not like he is breaking into computers, stealing money or defrauding people. All the app. does is something other phones can do like Nokias and Android phones, but Apple or AT&T don't want you too. In a few years this tethering will free on the iPhone (think competition) and common place or obsolete (multiple SIMs, same contract) and no one will care.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

Why? Does he have something else to sell? Assuming he doesn't, he's just put his effort into learning what could be a valuable skill, but now can't work on the platform (ever again?).

lsc 16y ago
> Does he have something else to sell? himself. If he wants to get a regular job later /or/ if he wants to launch a product later, having his name in the headlines helps quite a lot. i don't want to say "there is no such thing as bad publicity" because there is, but in this case, enough people, I think, will feel that a tethering application is 'not evil' and that this was overall a good thing to make it a net win for the programmer. Even if apple blocks him forever (I don't know their history... would they really say "no, f-ck you" five years from now?) and even if the apple platform remains dominant (I will be very surprised if apple continues its dominance after Jobs runs out of spare parts.) there are plenty of companies that make iphone apps that I'm sure would be happy to hire the kid. And there are plenty of other platforms out there to work on, too.
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  Just ask RTM.
  - lsc 16y ago
    Who or what is RTM? Remember The Milk?
    - thaumaturgy 16y ago
      http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rtm http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rtm aka Robert Tappan Morris. That's a name you should recognize. :-)
      - jpcx01 16y ago
        Nope. Give us the gist of it
        davidw 16y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris,_Jr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Tappan_Morris,_Jr.
        khafra 16y ago
        gistiest version: Accidentally took down the internet with a worm, then partnered with Paul Graham and made a bundle, and Ycombinator.
      - lsc 16y ago
        haha. indeed. And allowing users to tether their iphone is far and away less damaging than creating a worm that infects sendmail.
      - lsc 16y ago
        I was not aware he had an account. hm. he also looks like he's interested in MySQL NDB cluster, a really promising technology that it seems people are ignoring.
- rythie 16y ago
  This is app. not really 'bad' or evil as such. It's not like he is breaking into computers, stealing money or defrauding people. All the app. does is something other phones can do like Nokias and Android phones, but Apple or AT&T don't want you too. In a few years this tethering will free on the iPhone (think competition) and common place or obsolete (multiple SIMs, same contract) and no one will care.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]