Developing for Apple not only means that you are at the mercy of their changing whims, it also means you are making their platforms more powerful for them so they can continue to abuse their market power.
The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
31–40 of 47 posts
Re: The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
#32Apple develops a technology called Airplay that it licenses to 3rd parties. Developers reverse-engineer the technology and sell apps that circumvent Apple's licensing model. Apple removes those apps from their store. I am not the least bit surprised.
Airfoil, at least, was developed long before Apple had any sort of third party licensing model. Reverse engineering for interoperability is completely legal and ethical.
It no more legal or ethical than Apple using their right to exclude whoever they want from their store.
It's like if I have a party and you are doing something to annoy me personally even though you are being legal and ethical I can tell you to get the fuck out.
Today's lesson is don't be that guy at the party, don't be that guy in the app store, the one who decided to reverse engineer the store owner's shit and then caused a scene when the host threw them out.
Re: The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
#33[deleted]
Re: The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
#34I don't get the point of these iOS apps. I use (and love) AirFoil to send music from my MBP to my AppleTV to have my computer stream music to my TV system's speakers. But who would want to have something sent TO their iPhone?
I have 100 gigs of music on my laptop, much more than can fit on my ipod. This is perfect for me.
Re: The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Airfoil, at least, was developed long before Apple had any sort of third party licensing model. Reverse engineering for interoperability is completely legal and ethical.
It no more legal or ethical than Apple using their right to exclude whoever they want from their store. It's like if I have a party and you are doing something to annoy me personally even though you are being legal and ethical I can tell you to get the fuck out. Today's lesson is don't be that guy at the party, don't be that guy in the app store, the one who decided to reverse engineer the store owner's shit and then…
Why shouldn't Rogue Amoeba have "caused a scene"?
As another comment notes, they've probably had the code to do this for a while. Why should Rogue Amoeba continue to sit on it instead of taking the chance? Unless they were banned from the App Store entirely (unlikely based on past practice and probably less of a concern since their app was a free add-on anyway), they'd have lost nothing (and gotten a decent amount of sympathetic publicity in the process).
Re: The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Airfoil, at least, was developed long before Apple had any sort of third party licensing model. Reverse engineering for interoperability is completely legal and ethical.
There's 2 parts to AirTunes (the part of AirPlay that Airfoil and AirFloat use), Sending and Receiving. Up to now, AirFoil only used the AirTunes protocol to SEND streams to AirPlay devices. If you reverse engineer the protocol you can send to any AirPlay device. No problem. It's harder to make an AirPlay receiver, because iTunes won't send anything to an AirPlay receiver that doesn't encrypt the request with the pro…
I object to your continued use of "stolen" etc. I believe extracting the key for the proposes of interoperability is still legitimate, even if Apple doesn't like it.
Let's say that's the reason, in any case. Why would Apple pull the whole app rather than simply making them remove the key and reverting back to the old functionality? Some petty sense of retribution?
Re: The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
#37I wonder at what point the removal of good and innovative apps will piss enough iOS developers off that no new good apps will get created...
What is good and innovative about stealing Apple's private encryption key ?
First, as far as I'm aware, there's no allegation that either this developer or Rogue Amoeba was responsible for extracting and publishing the key in the first place.
Second, I think the point is that some developers did good and innovative things with the key. By itself, I'd call extracting and publishing the key a mundane technical challenge, nothing more.
Re: The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
#38All was working out great, and in the first month I had 100 downloads and the reception was phenomenal. Only five star reviews on App Store. Is that a typo? Really only 100 downloads? If that's true then the app store is even more of a crapshoot than I thought.
It's only a crapshoot if all you do is drop your app in the store and assume that people will find it by magic.
Re: The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
#39All was working out great, and in the first month I had 100 downloads and the reception was phenomenal. Only five star reviews on App Store. Is that a typo? Really only 100 downloads? If that's true then the app store is even more of a crapshoot than I thought.
It's only a crapshoot if all you do is drop your app in the store and assume that people will find it by magic.
I've heard several very successful iOS devs say that they basically did exactly that.
I think the secret is finding a rich but unexplored niche but of course that's getting more difficult over time.
Re: The Removal of AirFloat and AirFoil [from the iOS App Store]
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's 2 parts to AirTunes (the part of AirPlay that Airfoil and AirFloat use), Sending and Receiving. Up to now, AirFoil only used the AirTunes protocol to SEND streams to AirPlay devices. If you reverse engineer the protocol you can send to any AirPlay device. No problem. It's harder to make an AirPlay receiver, because iTunes won't send anything to an AirPlay receiver that doesn't encrypt the request with the pro…
I object to your continued use of "stolen" etc. I believe extracting the key for the proposes of interoperability is still legitimate, even if Apple doesn't like it. Let's say that's the reason, in any case. Why would Apple pull the whole app rather than simply making them remove the key and reverting back to the old functionality? Some petty sense of retribution?
I did put stolen in quotes every time I used it because I'm not sure that is the correct term.
Here's how I see it. AirPlay is something Apple sells a license to. Assume Rogue Amoeba didn't buy a license, but used someone else's, and then sold the functionality that buying the license would have entitled them to.
What's that? Piracy? DMCA violation? Within Rogue Amoeba's rights? I don't know. Is Apple allowed to lock things down by requiring keys? Maybe they're in the wrong.
To me, this is similar to trying to sell software that uses DeCSS to play DVDs rather than licensing CSS. Regardless of my opinion, it doesn't seem to be legal (in the US, anyway).
Is that legitimate? If so, how is it different than other forms of piracy?