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Meta-question: Will this termination inspire the same anti-"proprietary walled garden" rhetoric as Apple's imposition of new terms for subscription sales? If no

Meta-question: Will this termination inspire the same anti-"proprietary walled garden" rhetoric as Apple's imposition of new terms for subscription sales? If not, why not?

stanleydrew 16y ago
If not, I suspect it's that most people already understand that a hosted service, like Facebook, is inherently a walled garden, and hence it's not surprising when something like this happens. Apple's control over what you can and can't do with hardware and software that you own is a little more alarming perhaps?
- Judson 16y ago
  Sorry, I meant to upvote. Fat iPhone thumb.
  - mkr-hn 16y ago
    I think this phenomenon needs a word. How about iThumb?
    - alexophile 16y ago
      "Fat-fingering" has been the phrase for a while, but I think there's a consensus that it sounds rather... unappealing.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
- tptacek 16y ago
  So jailbreak your phone. Then, re-evaluate 'ragenwalds question substituting "iOS App Store" for "iPhone".
  - noglorp 16y ago
    Isn't jailbreaking circumvention under the DMCA?
    - metageek 16y ago
      Only if what you're breaking prevents copyright violations. Does jailbreaking an iPhone let you copy DRMed content on the phone?
    - nfriedly 16y ago
      Nope, it's an explicit exception to the DMCA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmca#Anti-circumvention_exemptions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmca#Anti-circumvention_exempti...
    - Natsu 16y ago
      It's not circumvention because it was explicitly permitted in an exemption. HOWEVER, there's still a big gotcha: that permission does NOT exempt you from the "trafficking" provisions of the DMCA. So you're not actually allowed to "manufacture" or "import" a circumvention device. In other words, it's a catch-22, where you're allowed to do it but denied the means, because you're not allowed to make or acquire the tools to do so. As to the question about Apple, I don't like this move: it's sort of like they don't want people to let people know all the creepy things people can learn by knowing your entire social graph. But they have no trouble using that data themselves. I solve this issue the same way I do with Apple: I have no Facebook account. EDIT: This article is about something else, but it has a pretty good explanation of what the DMCA means by "trafficking" and why it's so crazy: http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/blakereid/new-dmca-exemption-security-research http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/blakereid/new-dmca-exe... It's possible that a court would exempt you from trafficking if your tool only worked for an exempted work, but nobody has tested this in court, so you do that at your own risk.
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    The "just jailbreak your phone" argument isn't useful in my opinion. It's an easy way to avoid the actually difficult questions that arise from what Apple has done with the App Store. Would "just jailbreak your phone" be acceptable advice to give to your mother, who is always rolled out as the beneficiary of Apple's tight control over the App Store ecosystem, if she were to want to obtain the recently banned Readability app? If not, then we shouldn't be using it as a way to sweep these discussions under the rug.
- butterfi 16y ago
  I appreciate that you're taking a user-centric approach to the issue, but the majority of complaints I seem to hear about Apple come from developers who want to deploy on/in Apple's space (which includes hardware, but more often concerns iTunes). These two complaints sound very similar: "company X won't let me do what I want to do in their environment."
  - jellicle 16y ago
    And that is the crux of the difference: some people disagree with you that the hardware which they purchased is "Apple's hardware".
    - jdminhbg 16y ago
      Hard to tell what the parent meant, but I took "Apple's hardware" to mean the infrastructure that runs the App Store and iTunes platform (like using Facebook's hardware to run there).
      - butterfi 16y ago
        That was a poor choice of words on my part, I was indeed referring to App store/iTunes. I do believe that hardware should be open.
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    I agree the complaints sound similar. I'm not entirely convinced of the difference myself. I was just positing a likely reason for the difference in reaction to the two situations. But I will also stick up for the user-centric perspective. I will never forget how Apple treated Google with respect to Google Voice. In that specific case Apple made up some very capricious arguments to avoid allowing an extremely useful app from appearing in the App Store, which would have hurt me directly had I owned an iPhone instead of an Android device.
moultano 16y ago
No. I don't own facebook's hardware. Apple's terms for their app store wouldn't be so onerous if there was another legal/good way to install software on your own device.
- Skroob 16y ago
  You're welcome to jailbreak your iPhone and install whatever you want on it. It's perfectly legal, but Apple is not under an obligation to support it, or keep the security holes that allow it in place, or even make it easy for you.
- cryptoz 16y ago
  Jailbreaking is entirely legal. And jailbroken phones allow for the installation of arbitrary software. So really, iOS Terms are not as big of a deal as you make them out to be then? I think that the legality of the task is important, but it's also pretty critical how supported that task is. While it's legal to jailbreak, it's also (probably? unknown) legal for Apple to accidentally brick your phone during updates.
  - sjs 16y ago
    Not every device/OS combination can be easily jailbroken. Apple actively fights to keep us out of our own devices, and that has rubbed me the wrong way since I got an iPhone in the summer of 2009. I'll buy an Android or webOS phone next without question. That we can jailbreak is no consolation for, say, Grooveshark. They put in a lot of work into their iOS app and it's still only available to a relative handful of users on Cydia. It's great we have Cydia but it sucks that you have to join some elite nerd club to use it. Make no mistake, only people who are at least slightly geeky jailbreak devices. Most people cringe at the word "jailbreak" and are scared of bricking their phones. It's a very hard thing to explain to non-technical folk. Grooveshark focuses instead on other mobile platforms. That's not good for the iOS ecosystem, it's not good for iOS users, and it's not good for Grooveshark. (I can't say that it's not good for Apple because as a result of not having Grooveshark on the store they might be retaining music sales on iTunes.)
    - 16y ago
cninja 16y ago
My guess: no. Apple's policies involve dictating the terms of outside services being used in their garden. Facebook's policies involved dictating the terms of their own services being used in their garden.
eli 16y ago
Well, first, there aren't exactly many people defending Facebook either here or at TC. But I think the reason the rhetoric is different is because we've all been buying downloadable apps without an app store for years. It's familiar. So it feels like Apple is adding unnecessary barriers for no other reason. On the other hand, there is less history of service providers allowing you to use any app to access data they're holding on your behalf.
martythemaniak 16y ago
You know, some people view their phone in an intimate, personal way - not much different from their car - so the idea that Apple feel it is their phone and not your phone is rather insulting. Such expectations don't exist when interacting with services.
- SoftwareMaven 16y ago
  I've taken two jailbroken iphones into Apple for warrantee work, with Cydia and MyWi sitting there plain as day. I've never had them tell me I couldn't do that to their phone. I think people are letting their feelings about the App Store color everything about Apple. Ironically, the people with the strongest feelings are the people who least have to put up with it, since they understand how to get around it, whether that be jailbreaking and using Cydia for apps, using web applications, or going with Android.
  - nitrogen 16y ago
    Ironically, the people with the strongest feelings are the people who least have to put up with it... Perhaps knowing how things could be makes one more upset at how they are, in any situation (not just phones).
  - YuriNiyazov 16y ago
    I was at the Genius Bar when a guy next to me got denied warranty work for having Cydia installed. It's quite irregular, to say the least.
itsnotvalid 16y ago
The moment we lean on closed platform, we would have gotten to the point where the platform owner could define and bend the rules however they want. That is why we have democracy in the first place.
NetMonkey 16y ago
My take is that the two are different simple because Apple matters and Facebook does not :) If you have a product or service and want an additional presence on iOS it is to provide a better service to your customers and thereby increasing your value to them. When Apple makes that hard/impossible they are decreasing your value to customers which is a problem to a lot of businesses. The same is obviously not the case for Facebook except for a limited number of cases.

Meta-question: Will this termination inspire the same anti-"proprietary walled garden" rhetoric as Apple's imposition of new terms for subscription sales? If not, why not?

stanleydrew 16y ago

If not, I suspect it's that most people already understand that a hosted service, like Facebook, is inherently a walled garden, and hence it's not surprising when something like this happens. Apple's control over what you can and can't do with hardware and software that you own is a little more alarming perhaps?

Judson 16y ago
Sorry, I meant to upvote. Fat iPhone thumb.
- mkr-hn 16y ago
  I think this phenomenon needs a word. How about iThumb?
  - alexophile 16y ago
    "Fat-fingering" has been the phrase for a while, but I think there's a consensus that it sounds rather... unappealing.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
tptacek 16y ago
So jailbreak your phone. Then, re-evaluate 'ragenwalds question substituting "iOS App Store" for "iPhone".
- noglorp 16y ago
  Isn't jailbreaking circumvention under the DMCA?
  - metageek 16y ago
    Only if what you're breaking prevents copyright violations. Does jailbreaking an iPhone let you copy DRMed content on the phone?
  - nfriedly 16y ago
    Nope, it's an explicit exception to the DMCA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmca#Anti-circumvention_exemptions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmca#Anti-circumvention_exempti...
  - Natsu 16y ago
    It's not circumvention because it was explicitly permitted in an exemption. HOWEVER, there's still a big gotcha: that permission does NOT exempt you from the "trafficking" provisions of the DMCA. So you're not actually allowed to "manufacture" or "import" a circumvention device. In other words, it's a catch-22, where you're allowed to do it but denied the means, because you're not allowed to make or acquire the tools to do so. As to the question about Apple, I don't like this move: it's sort of like they don't want people to let people know all the creepy things people can learn by knowing your entire social graph. But they have no trouble using that data themselves. I solve this issue the same way I do with Apple: I have no Facebook account. EDIT: This article is about something else, but it has a pretty good explanation of what the DMCA means by "trafficking" and why it's so crazy: http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/blakereid/new-dmca-exemption-security-research http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/blakereid/new-dmca-exe... It's possible that a court would exempt you from trafficking if your tool only worked for an exempted work, but nobody has tested this in court, so you do that at your own risk.
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  The "just jailbreak your phone" argument isn't useful in my opinion. It's an easy way to avoid the actually difficult questions that arise from what Apple has done with the App Store. Would "just jailbreak your phone" be acceptable advice to give to your mother, who is always rolled out as the beneficiary of Apple's tight control over the App Store ecosystem, if she were to want to obtain the recently banned Readability app? If not, then we shouldn't be using it as a way to sweep these discussions under the rug.
butterfi 16y ago
I appreciate that you're taking a user-centric approach to the issue, but the majority of complaints I seem to hear about Apple come from developers who want to deploy on/in Apple's space (which includes hardware, but more often concerns iTunes). These two complaints sound very similar: "company X won't let me do what I want to do in their environment."
- jellicle 16y ago
  And that is the crux of the difference: some people disagree with you that the hardware which they purchased is "Apple's hardware".
  - jdminhbg 16y ago
    Hard to tell what the parent meant, but I took "Apple's hardware" to mean the infrastructure that runs the App Store and iTunes platform (like using Facebook's hardware to run there).
    - butterfi 16y ago
      That was a poor choice of words on my part, I was indeed referring to App store/iTunes. I do believe that hardware should be open.
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  I agree the complaints sound similar. I'm not entirely convinced of the difference myself. I was just positing a likely reason for the difference in reaction to the two situations. But I will also stick up for the user-centric perspective. I will never forget how Apple treated Google with respect to Google Voice. In that specific case Apple made up some very capricious arguments to avoid allowing an extremely useful app from appearing in the App Store, which would have hurt me directly had I owned an iPhone instead of an Android device.

moultano 16y ago

No. I don't own facebook's hardware. Apple's terms for their app store wouldn't be so onerous if there was another legal/good way to install software on your own device.

Skroob 16y ago
You're welcome to jailbreak your iPhone and install whatever you want on it. It's perfectly legal, but Apple is not under an obligation to support it, or keep the security holes that allow it in place, or even make it easy for you.
cryptoz 16y ago
Jailbreaking is entirely legal. And jailbroken phones allow for the installation of arbitrary software. So really, iOS Terms are not as big of a deal as you make them out to be then? I think that the legality of the task is important, but it's also pretty critical how supported that task is. While it's legal to jailbreak, it's also (probably? unknown) legal for Apple to accidentally brick your phone during updates.
- sjs 16y ago
  Not every device/OS combination can be easily jailbroken. Apple actively fights to keep us out of our own devices, and that has rubbed me the wrong way since I got an iPhone in the summer of 2009. I'll buy an Android or webOS phone next without question. That we can jailbreak is no consolation for, say, Grooveshark. They put in a lot of work into their iOS app and it's still only available to a relative handful of users on Cydia. It's great we have Cydia but it sucks that you have to join some elite nerd club to use it. Make no mistake, only people who are at least slightly geeky jailbreak devices. Most people cringe at the word "jailbreak" and are scared of bricking their phones. It's a very hard thing to explain to non-technical folk. Grooveshark focuses instead on other mobile platforms. That's not good for the iOS ecosystem, it's not good for iOS users, and it's not good for Grooveshark. (I can't say that it's not good for Apple because as a result of not having Grooveshark on the store they might be retaining music sales on iTunes.)
  - 16y ago

cninja 16y ago

My guess: no. Apple's policies involve dictating the terms of outside services being used in their garden. Facebook's policies involved dictating the terms of their own services being used in their garden.

eli 16y ago

Well, first, there aren't exactly many people defending Facebook either here or at TC. But I think the reason the rhetoric is different is because we've all been buying downloadable apps without an app store for years. It's familiar. So it feels like Apple is adding unnecessary barriers for no other reason. On the other hand, there is less history of service providers allowing you to use any app to access data they're holding on your behalf.

martythemaniak 16y ago

You know, some people view their phone in an intimate, personal way - not much different from their car - so the idea that Apple feel it is their phone and not your phone is rather insulting. Such expectations don't exist when interacting with services.

SoftwareMaven 16y ago
I've taken two jailbroken iphones into Apple for warrantee work, with Cydia and MyWi sitting there plain as day. I've never had them tell me I couldn't do that to their phone. I think people are letting their feelings about the App Store color everything about Apple. Ironically, the people with the strongest feelings are the people who least have to put up with it, since they understand how to get around it, whether that be jailbreaking and using Cydia for apps, using web applications, or going with Android.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  Ironically, the people with the strongest feelings are the people who least have to put up with it... Perhaps knowing how things could be makes one more upset at how they are, in any situation (not just phones).
- YuriNiyazov 16y ago
  I was at the Genius Bar when a guy next to me got denied warranty work for having Cydia installed. It's quite irregular, to say the least.

itsnotvalid 16y ago

The moment we lean on closed platform, we would have gotten to the point where the platform owner could define and bend the rules however they want. That is why we have democracy in the first place.

NetMonkey 16y ago

My take is that the two are different simple because Apple matters and Facebook does not :) If you have a product or service and want an additional presence on iOS it is to provide a better service to your customers and thereby increasing your value to them. When Apple makes that hard/impossible they are decreasing your value to customers which is a problem to a lot of businesses. The same is obviously not the case for Facebook except for a limited number of cases.