Submitted by So have you actually read the iPhone Developer Program[me] License Agreement? The EFF, using a freedom of information act to shrewdly get a copy legally off of NASA, look into the details and don’t like what they find. As well as trying to prevent anybody from so much as mentioning the existence of these terms, Apple owe you no more than $50 if they sink your company by removing your apps for any reason they so please. It makes for scary reading, that is–if you think the terms are enforceable in court. I hope to see this very thing challenged as soon as possible.
Go get iphones, macs, ipods, ipads and all those stuff and NEVER care how evil this damn company is.
who cares about so-called freedom after all?
… I read the terms when I signed up. I’ll admit to not having re-read them, and having blindly agreed to the newer terms as such features as Push and in app purchase rolled out, but they are pretty much standard fare. There’s nothing earth shattering in there. INAL, but they basically say “you can’t hack your iphone, you can’t use our tools for purposes we didn’t intend and if you do anything illegal, we will probably sever the agreement and you will get litigated against.” Yeah, there’s more. The $50 thing is old, old news. Very *shrugs*. I’ve signed up to way, way more draconian licensing agreements in my time as a developer.
Well, you are a slave. Maybe a happy slave, but still a slave nonetheless. Some people simply prefer to be abused. Others prefer to dominate. But most people prefer to be free.
If you ask most people, I’m sure they’d tell you they prefer freedom. But taking a look at our actions shows what we really care about. How many phones has Apple sold? How many developers have willingly bought into their dev program? Do people really care about freedom, or is convenience good enough? I think it’s pretty clear in this case.
Freedom includes Apple’s right to remove any app they choose from their store. Unless there was some theft or fraud involved in doing so they don’t owe the author anything. Its their service, their platform.
Freedom also includes Apple not being able to go after anyone for using their hardware as they see fit… including jailbreaking it or installing illegally obtained software. They can attempt to prevent that… they can cut updates or block you from particular services but they should be able to use the government to enforce so called IP rights.
Most modern people don’t mind being someone’s bitches if there is money involved, esp. if the bitchdom ends when you leave the office (and you are “free” to choose what channel you’ll be watching on tv).
These days I get the feeling that Apple are grinding in all ways to protect their products/portfolio, either by enforcing a slavery to the person that bought the device, or the developer that wrote it. The entire agreement kind of says : “it’s all ours and we can do whatever we want”. I’ve heard that before, and as someone pointed above me : I knew it was bad, but not that bad … now I’m even more convinced that I won’t lock myself with this vendor, even if it’s the only remained in the entire world.
I’m sorry you feel that way. You obviously never want to buy any future software, hardware or indeed have any kind of surgery, because God forbid you might have to disagree with a contract.
I think Bill Thompson has said it best when he wrote:
I knew that it was bad, but that bad… Thank you for letting me know, I’m even more convinced than ever before that App store + iTunes is the wrong way to go.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t support that agreement in any way.
But: Since when is the iPhone a PC or should be treated like a PC?
To me it seems that the iPhone has more in common with gaming consoles than PCs. I mean, compare the feature set of a PlayStation Portable with an iPod Touch for a minute. Only the inputs are different (buttons vs touch screen).
Apple isn’t going any new route here. Nintendo invented that development and compensation model in the 1980s for the Famicom/NES.
Anybody who opposes that treatment should speak the only language every capitalist corporation understands: Spend your money somewhere else.
If people instead invest their money into open platforms like Nokia’s N900 or the upcoming Open Pandora http://www.open-pandora.org
Well said
Right. Let’s compare the iPhone to a game console instead of to a, well, uhm, phone?
I compared the iPod Touch with the PSP, but hey… if you can’t read….
Uh, you compared it with “game consoles”, and mentioned both the SNES and PSP.
Re-read what he wrote.
Okidokie:
“To me it seems that the iPhone has more in common with gaming consoles than PCs”.
He THEN went on to say:
“I mean, compare the feature set of a PlayStation Portable with an iPod Touch for a minute.”
And the main difference between the two is telephony functions, or to put it another way, the telephony functions of an iPhone are only a fraction of it’s capabilities. And what percentage of apps that are developed under that agreement can’t run on the iTouch?
The point is valid, those types of agreements have been around for ages, but because it doesn’t suit your daily Apple bash in typical media fashion you chose to use one small part of his quote to attempt to invalidate his argument.
Edited 2010-03-10 05:18 UTC
Telephony functions of the iPod Touch?
Yeah.. so, why does that validate what you are saying? The Gameboy, DS(i), PSP, GameGear, Lynx, etc are/were still all consoles – at least in the English language. Semantics are fun aren’t they?
Okidokie:
“To me it seems that the iPhone has more in common with gaming consoles than PCs”. [/q]
yeah, and? Perfectly valid point, with regards to the openness of the platform, which is what we are discussing. In that respect they are more like consoles than PCs. Not supposed to hack an xbox and run whatever on it – not supposed to hack an iphone and run whatever on it
Edit: Forget it, you weren’t replying to me.
Edited 2010-03-09 22:48 UTC
The Pandora handheld has been hyped since 2007 and it’s still unavailable. I’m well aware that it’s an amateur project, but you cannot invest your money in something that doesn’t exist.
I would definitely prefer an open platform over my iPod Touch, but Apple delivered where others have failed. Some might call me a “slave”, but at least I got something!
The N900 exists.
I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize it was *that* bad. This just confirms it, I can’t support Apple despite the integrated accessibility in their products. Truth be told, I’m not sure how many of these terms would actually be enforceable if it came to that, but Apple’s got the money and the lawyers and they’d be sure to bankrupt anyone who tried to fight it in court.
What is the point in having a profession of law, when there is no accountability? A profession being something that limits the supply and controls the quality…
How can a lawyer draft a contract that is unenforceable in court? I’ve been a developer and everywhere I go I have to sign non-compete clauses and IP clauses… most of which I’ve been told would be rejected in court.
Companies should be fined and lawyers disbarred for knowingly having employees sign unenforceable clauses. Proving ‘knowingly’ can be tough, but I’d say any company with more than 1000 employees should be big enough to hire a lawyer for their legal stuff and should be legally knowledgeable and responsible of such issues.