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Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

rogueamoeba.com

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Re: Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

#31
post #30

I was never on Rogue Amoeba's side. Phil Schiller's response totally the reasoning and response that I felt was correct. Not letting this issue drop just paints Rogue Amoeba in a bad light and confirms their immaturity to people like me who already thought they were in the wrong. Add to the fact that the feature is still in the app (you just need to upload a plist file) and I won't be surprised if Apple totally bans…

Rogue Amoeba wrote code that implemented a network protocol. Apple pulled their app because they did not ask Apple to license that network protocol. Which protocol will Apple claim you need a license for next? HTTP?

The fact that encryption is involved is completely irrelevant.

Re: Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

#32

Please entertain my crazy analogous thought processes for a minute... Imagine you were eating out at KFC one night, and using taste alone, you managed to work out their secret recipe. You then decided you wanted to get into the fried chicken business, but you didn't want the overhead of renting commercial space, or buying the kitchen/service equipment you need to run your own business. So you choose to walk into your…

The analogy doesn't work. iPhone users can only get apps from the Apple store.* Also, Rogue Amoeba isn't deceiving users. People who buy Airfoil know that it's not made by Apple.

*I know someone will bring up jailbreaking. Jailbreaking is not a solution. It's difficult, voids the warranty, and can cause issues with stability and software updates. It's a non-starter for the vast majority of users. By limiting Airfoil to jailbroken phones, Apple kills 90% of Rogue Amoeba's revenue.

Re: Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

#33

Please entertain my crazy analogous thought processes for a minute... Imagine you were eating out at KFC one night, and using taste alone, you managed to work out their secret recipe. You then decided you wanted to get into the fried chicken business, but you didn't want the overhead of renting commercial space, or buying the kitchen/service equipment you need to run your own business. So you choose to walk into your…

Note: Just to make things clear, I support Apple's decision here.

You're ignoring the fact that according to your analogy, our hypothetical KFC is already allowing people to make and sell different sorts of food with KFC branding from within their store (as long as you give them some of the proceeds and pay an annual fee, which was the case). In fact, a lot of people come to KFC precisely because they have an unmatched breadth of delicious and affordable dishes, and many people want to sell their wares at KFC because of their large clientele - KFC has successfully transformed into a food-court.

The hero of your post devised a delicious dish that would lose its flavor without the KFC secret sauce, but unfortunately for him, KFC only allows condiment manufacturers to use their secret sauce, and then only after a certification process to make sure they get the unique taste just right. Of course, they could, say, taste the delicious dish, realize that it's providing them with direct revenue, as well as satisfying consumers and increasing the odds they'll return to the food-court and spend more money.

Analogies aside, I understand why Apple does these sorts of things - first of all, they want consistency in UX since there really was no certification process. Also, keeping the ecosystem tightly under their control is much easier when you're very consistent about being draconian from the moment the platform was created (you go to the app-store, you play by their rules).

As a side-note, I'm surprised that there's so much support for Apple with these sorts of things when 15-20 years ago the same crowd would have been up in arms if Microsoft were to, say, send cease & desists to Samba or Wine (and still is criticizing Microsoft for disallowing other OSes in WinRT ARM devices).

Re: Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

#34

Please entertain my crazy analogous thought processes for a minute... Imagine you were eating out at KFC one night, and using taste alone, you managed to work out their secret recipe. You then decided you wanted to get into the fried chicken business, but you didn't want the overhead of renting commercial space, or buying the kitchen/service equipment you need to run your own business. So you choose to walk into your…

The analogy doesn't work. iPhone users can only get apps from the Apple store.* Also, Rogue Amoeba isn't deceiving users. People who buy Airfoil know that it's not made by Apple. *I know someone will bring up jailbreaking. Jailbreaking is not a solution. It's difficult, voids the warranty, and can cause issues with stability and software updates. It's a non-starter for the vast majority of users. By limiting Airfoil…

The analogy still fits. I was suggesting that they don't build apps for iPhones, Apple TVs, Macs, etc. You can't put your chicken in a KFC bucket, even though you worked out the secret recipe. You can't put your app in an iPhone, just because you reverse-engineered a piece of technology.

> By limiting Airfoil to jailbroken phones, Apple kills 90% of Rogue Amoeba's revenue.

Although you're right in saying this, it's only because 100% of Airfoil's revenue comes from the App Store. If they had revenue streams outside of the App Store (by choosing a different platform or devices), Apple wouldn't be able to block a cent of that income.

Re: Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

#36
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than terminology. "We have an Airplay licensing program explicitly to assist companies in creating AirPlay capable products. Apple never said that we would pull the rug out from anyone, we in fact worked with this developer to ensure they update their app and remain on the App Store" The clear implication there is that Apple had procedures available for getting this to work and RA just ignored them. RA's re…

RA did state that they inquired as to licensing it for a software product and were told that there were no plans to make that available. So, they didn't ignore the procedures as much as they ignored the response. In the end it's Apple's store with Apple's rules. The rules have changed without warning in the past and will likely do so countless times in the future. The tradeoff for this is what is likely one of the mo…

Except if you build a system to which millions (yes, millions) of people contribute in one way or another, pretend everyone's invited, and then decide to do something very self-righteous against the good of nearly anyone else involved just in order to feed your fat butt, then you are labelled an oppressive, opportunistic sociopath, and very rightly so.

Re: Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

#37

Please entertain my crazy analogous thought processes for a minute... Imagine you were eating out at KFC one night, and using taste alone, you managed to work out their secret recipe. You then decided you wanted to get into the fried chicken business, but you didn't want the overhead of renting commercial space, or buying the kitchen/service equipment you need to run your own business. So you choose to walk into your…

Note: Just to make things clear, I support Apple's decision here. You're ignoring the fact that according to your analogy, our hypothetical KFC is already allowing people to make and sell different sorts of food with KFC branding from within their store (as long as you give them some of the proceeds and pay an annual fee, which was the case). In fact, a lot of people come to KFC precisely because they have an unmatch…

I thought hard about the point you raised when I was putting together my original post. I tried to think about the hero as someone standing on the same footing as condiment/drinks manufacturers, who unlike the hero, play by the rules. They can sell their wares in KFC without needing to know the secret recipe. Airfoil used the secret recipe, and was punished for it.

Perhaps I got a bit lost when I chose to have the hero sneaking around, using equipment and service counters without the knowledge of the management, as that doesn't exactly parallel the App Store approval process. Although, seeing as Apple regularly approve apps only to pull them at a later date because of undetected features/activities, our hero's actions aren't too far-fetched.

P.S. I love that you played along with the analogy. In hindsight, KFC was a terrible choice, but I'm glad it opened up a bit of discussion.

Re: Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

#38
post #2

I don't understand where Rogue Amoeba is coming from here. They don't have a "right" to be on the App Store. It's Apple's store ergo their rules. And everybody knows that the rules are more guidelines and Apple can and will change their mind about them at any time. Especially if you try and undermine them e.g. by using their private encryption key. Does it suck. Absolutely. Is it unfair. Probably. But this has been t…

Removing an app from the store is one thing. Bending the truth or outright lying to your own customers in order to deflect blame for a decision that you made arbitrarily is entirely another. The fact that this nonsense is coming from a high-level Apple employee and not some customer service rep who can claim not to have known the truth makes it worse.

> Bending the truth or outright lying to your own customers in order to deflect blame for a decision that you made arbitrarily is entirely another.

This entire sentence applies to Rogue Amoeba. The Airplay protocol has been reverse engineered years ago: it's basically RTSP with an encrypted stream. Creating an AirPlay audio receiver is currently subject to a license, and requires a private key. This key has been extracted from a dumped AirPort Express ROM. Rogue Amoeba can say what they want about reimplementing the whole AirPlay protocol on their own, the clef-de-voûte is this private key, only available through licensing. When Schiller mentions private APIs, I believe he is not talking about an iPhone private API (which I'm positively sure Rogue Amoeba took great care of not using) but the remote AirPlay API, which they have no right to use without licensing.

The key point here is that there's a key virtually locking the API. I think it's perfectly apt to say now that — thanks to the Google/Oracle case — implementing an API is licit, but you would subsequently have to use your own public/private keys. Yet existing AirPlay sources encrypt the stream with Apple's public key, hence the content is at the sole destination of Apple's private key.

Compare this to the following situation: you publish you PGP public key and someone writes you an email and encrypts it with your public key. If someone steals your private key, that does not entitle him to decrypt and read the message whose sole intended recipient is you. This is, I believe, the crux of Apple's AirPlay licensing.

I generally don't like Apple's silent hammer, and I really like Rogue Amoeba and their software (which I bought multiple times), but — since I knew what was in play technically — when reading the last status report of Rogue Amoeba, it was obvious to me that they were concealing information with the goal of bending the truth to support their side of the argument.

Re: Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

#39
post #10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is ridiculous the way Apple basically changes the rules as it goes along. I just don't understand the outrage or surprise. There has been 3 years of developers trying to bend the rules and posting complaints like this. FACT: They reverse engineered Apple's proprietary technology and want Apple to help sell their app. MY POINT: You must be nuts if you think that will happen.

One interesting question is whether or not this sort of thing will be grounds for revoking a Gatekeeper certificate. Apple certainly could argue that accessing AirPlay streams without proper authorization is a form of malware / something they have to police because of agreements with content providers / etc

I know commenting just for the sake of agreeing is advised against, but this time I had to. If there's an outrage over app store rejection for these reasons, then imagine the reaction to gatekeeper cert revocation for the same reasons.

Re: Rogue Amoeba responds to Phil Schiller

#40
It's plausible that Apple has agreed not to distribute AirPlay client software in agreements with AirPlay hardware licensees, and (unfortunately) also plausible that the details of these agreements are under mutual NDA.

In other words, it's (disconcertingly) conceivable that Apple is contractually obligated to reject Rogue Amoeba's feature without a good explanation.

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