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Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

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Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#21

Post by TomOfTTB »

drewcrawford wrote: post #18

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 becaus…

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.

Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#22

Post by jacquesm »

apsurd wrote: post #19
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it has to do with whether or not it is the American/Capitalistic way either... It's about whether it is right to have a platform that is closed without specifying clearly and unambiguously what the rules are for access to that platform. Imagine you're an Iphone developer, you build your application, you get it accepted. Business is good. Then you hire some more people and you improve your application. B…

Morally: yes. Good business: yes. Legislated: why? I bring up Capitalism because this is about business. All of your points are rock-solid data points of why NOT to do business with Apple's App store. Yet developers insist. I am going start a company that manufactures pagers. Is this a bad business decision? Maybe ... Is it my choice ... yes... Of course there's a difference. Your point is about retroactively pulling…

Ok, I get your point.

I think I'm more worried about the 'domino' effects of these arbitrary decisions.

Independent software developers ('the guy in the attic') are probably fairly aware of the legal position they place themselves in when they develop for the iphone (though by the recent spate of postings I'm beginning to doubt even that).

But if you were employed by a company making the above sample iphone app it would be your ass on the line, not your boss'.

Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#23

Post by TomOfTTB »

diazamet wrote: post #13
jacquesm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with you but I'm curious about one thing: Are you against anti-discrimination laws like those that forbid people from not hiring a person based on skin color?

I ask because those laws set a precedent of using Government intervention to make sure private industries treat people fairly. So if you are in favor of those laws you have to ask yourself if it's fair for some developers to be forced to develop on platforms with 30 million fewer customers.

Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#24

Post by drewcrawford »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #21
drewcrawford wrote: post #18

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 becaus…

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 t…

> 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.

Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#25

Post by TomOfTTB »

thingie wrote: post #6

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.

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

Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#26

Post by TomOfTTB »

drewcrawford wrote: post #24
TomOfTTB wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> 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…

Here's my problem with that.

The examples you give are never, EVER going to happen. Developers aren't going to pull their applications from the most popular computing environment just to prove a point. Nor are companies like Google going to change their whole computing environment just to prove a point. It would be corporate misconduct to flush all that money down the toilet just to prove some point to Apple that has nothing to do with your actual business.

So if we accept the actions needed for the public to make Apple change are not things that will ever happen the question is "As a society are we willing to just accept this injustice?" If your answer to that question is "Yes" that's perfectly valid. But if your answer is "No" then it requires government intervention.

Again, keep in mind, we aren't talking about forcing Apple to change their terms. Just to get them to publicly define them so developers don't waste months developing applications that may or may not be accepted.

Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#27

Post by moe »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #23
diazamet wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with you but I'm curious about one thing: Are you against anti-discrimination laws like those that forbid people from not hiring a person based on skin color? I ask because those laws set a precedent of using Government intervention to make sure private industries treat people fairly. So if you are in favor of those laws you have to ask yourself if it's fair for some develo…

laws like those that forbid people from not hiring a person based on skin color?

ask yourself if it's fair for some developers to be forced to develop on platforms with 30 million fewer customers

You didn't just seriously draw a line between those two statements, did you? Moreover please show me a developer who is forced to develop anything for any platform.

Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#28

Post by TomOfTTB »

moe wrote: post #27
TomOfTTB wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with you but I'm curious about one thing: Are you against anti-discrimination laws like those that forbid people from not hiring a person based on skin color? I ask because those laws set a precedent of using Government intervention to make sure private industries treat people fairly. So if you are in favor of those laws you have to ask yourself if it's fair for some develo…

laws like those that forbid people from not hiring a person based on skin color? ask yourself if it's fair for some developers to be forced to develop on platforms with 30 million fewer customers You didn't just seriously draw a line between those two statements, did you? Moreover please show me a developer who is forced to develop anything for any platform.

Yes, I did. I assume your objection is that racism isn't in the same league as what Apple is doing. I agree with you on that. But the government doesn't take a stance on racism. If Government was taking a stance on racism then they wouldn't allow racist literature to be distributed (as just one example). But they do allow that meaning racism isn't the issue.

So the question at hand is fairness not racism. Which brings me back to my original point of "Should the government legislate whether private industries treat people fairly?"

Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#29

Post by stanleydrew »

drewcrawford wrote: post #18

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 becaus…

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.

Re: Poll: Do You Have A Problem With This Statement

#30

Post by sdrinf »

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?

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