iPhone App Store Rejects Find a New Home 152
eldavojohn writes "A new site called App Rejections (somewhat slashdotted already) aims to provide a home for misfit apps. With Apple offering no documents or discussions on the matter of application rejections, this site might become a popular place to pick forbidden fruit. Could a third party horn in on Apple's monopoly in the iPhone application market?"
there's an app for finding a new home? (Score:5, Funny)
oh, wait...
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Yeah thats what I thought when I read the title, that someone had written an app for 'finding a new home' and that apple had rejected it, maybe because of pressure from real etate companies.
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And it sounds like it would be a really cool app, too... combine realty listings with Google map overlays. Integrate everything nicely with the GPS... mmm, metadata. *drools*
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Direct du proprio / By the owner (http://bytheowner.com/) has been doing this for homes & apartments for a while, at a very small flat rate rather than a fixed percentage of the home value for quite a few years, so much that it started replacing real estate agents :)
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Redfin has an iPhone app that does pretty much exactly that. It actually is pretty handy.
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Excellent suggestions all around, but I don't own an iPhone and don't plan on ever owning one. d:
Slashdot Rule #237: Talk about an app that would be cool for a platform, and you'll get at least two replies within 8 hours about apps that do exactly that.
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You forgot the corollary to Slashdot Rule #237: Also within 8 hours there will be a reply stating that they doesn't own an iPhone and don't plan on ever owning one. This can be made by the OP or someone else.
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oh, wait...
Pop Quiz:
1.) a: "Store" b: "Rejects" c: "Find"
Which one is the verb?
2.) Discuss why putting all three together in a headline is a bad idea.
[I would have gotten an iPhone for the "Find a New Home" app.]
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Well, actually, I've written the "Feed the World" app. Of course there's an app for that!
(It's an iPhone interface to http://www.thehungersite.com/ [thehungersite.com] -- 'TouchToGive' from the Greater Good network, on the store within a couple weeks no doubt -- or listed on TFA's site. Place your bets which now!)
No (Score:5, Informative)
Not that the linked site appears to have much if anything to do with breaking the monopoly. The vast majority of iPhone apps are very inexpensive, so the only hope of making anything above hobby money as a developer is to be part of the Apple marketplace that offers tens of millions of potential customers. Not to mention the suspicion that people who jailbreak phones are likely to know how to pirate software as well, making them a less desirable market as well.
The site provides another forum to attempt to get Apple to reform its ways and to try to help each other figure out the sometimes murky meaning of the rejections. There's no revolution there. Until someone provides a real threat to Apple's hardware/software iPhone platform, it has no real motivation to mend its relationship with developers.
That said, karmic payoff may just bite them once there's that alternative.
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Not to mention the suspicion that people who jailbreak phones are likely to know how to pirate software as well, making them a less desirable market as well.
Please don't lump us jailbreakers in with pirates, Having the power to pirate and doing it are two different things. I take your point, But I just don't see most people going to all that trouble just to dodge a small fee.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
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Excellent point.
I am not a programmer, though I've done some fooling around and know some of the basic issues. Some of the issues complained about on this site seem to be of the legal department variety. Those guys are jerks. But if you don't enforce your copyrights, in two years some guy in a New Jersey basement could lawfully make an "iPhone." Some of these things are frivolous or plain wrong, like the Missing Manual for... app. Lawyers have no common sense. They're paid not to have common sense.
The remai
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Not everyone, no. But draw me a Venn diagram. Make the center circle "People who know how to pirate iPhone apps" and the other two circles "People who have jailbroken iPhones" and "People who don't have jailbroken iPhones." What does it look like?
The basic fact is that piracy is rampant in the iPhone world: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4194/iphone_piracy_the_inside_story.php [gamasutra.com]
Does it mean that you are doing it? Of course not. But it means that you're part of a demographic that isn't going to be
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
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For the platform owner, sure. For the consumer, yes, it is.
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> It's generally good for society to be presented alternatives.
Only if the alternatives aren't crap. Better useful options = good. Only one option = usually bad (but not always ;) ). Lots of crappy options = bad.
Having lots of spam in mailboxes providing people with more choices = bad.
More crappy options = higher chance for people to make the wrong decisions. If a user interface presented new users with zillions of choices, choices that they know nothing about it does not help them. Pushing alternatives
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Joking aside, if you buy a product, you would expect to get "fuel" for it from a competitive market, unless it's technically impossible.
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Until someone provides a real threat to Apple's hardware/software iPhone platform
If having a much bigger market share (e.g., Nokia at 40%, to Apple's few per cent) does not count as a "real threat", I am curious to hear what does?
(And if you have that low opinion of your potential customers - that if they modify their own product to get basic functionality to work, that Just Works on all other phones, then they must be pirates - then I have no sympathy if Apple rejects the "app" that you've spent months or
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A threat would be something that takes iPhone users away from Apple. Nokia hasn't done that, and I doubt they will any time soon.
If you don't understand the Market, nor Apple's business model, you are doomed to make stupid comments on slashdot.
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If having a much bigger market share (e.g., Nokia at 40%, to Apple's few per cent) does not count as a "real threat", I am curious to hear what does?
In the US (yes, /. is international but the iPhone is a bit US-centric) smartphone market, Nokia is close to a non-player.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/28/rim-and-apple-top-u-s-smartphone-market-share/ [boygeniusreport.com]
RIM has 40%, Apple has 30%, Palm has 7%.
Worldwide Nokia had 40% of the smartphone market in Q4 2008 but that was with a 10% drop from the previous quarte
Article title correction (Score:5, Informative)
"iPhone App Store Reject Stories Find a Home". Actual rejected apps are not available there, nor necessarily anywhere else.
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There are rejected Iphone stories?? I thought putting in an obligitary Iphone mention was a guaranteed way to get a front page story, no matter how tenuous the link, or how trivial the story (remember the "You can view this website On Your Iphone" story? Something about parking tickets)...
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A serious black eye (Score:4, Insightful)
You know that old phrase about those who don't know their history being doomed to repeat it?
I don't know what Apple is thinking. Up until now, it's all been good for them because of the lack of serious competition. With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?
The scary thing is that Apple has been in this EXACT situation before. They owned a large market share of the PC market way back when IBM PCs were too expensive for the common consumer to afford. They kept all of their hardware all locked up tight, with proprietary everything. As the cost of PCs came down as the hardware moved to commodity parts and the PC "clone wars" cranked up, Apple took a beating and damn near went out of business.
I already have friend who refuse to buy an iPhone because it's locked down so tightly. The two most common complaints I hear, in order, are: "I refuse to sign up for AT&T's service," and "I keep reading about how they won't let people publish their apps." The more they press this issue, the more they are setting themselves up for a spectacular failure. (And yes, I know people who have bought Android-based phones specifically because they don't like a company telling them what they can and can't run on hardware they paid good money for.)
Apple has been a cool company the past few years. I have an iPhone and a Mac (which I'm typing this comment from now, in fact). Still, if I owned stock in Apple, I'd be selling it about right now because they are moving in the exact opposite direction that the market is.
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So you think Apple should just accept every fart-app hack, poorly written, buggy piece of scrap code a developer ships their way?
They have to have /some/ quality control. Opening the floodgates wouldn't do them any good at all.
He speaks about 50/50% market share times (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple once owned 50% desktop market. If you read the history, even from sources like Wikipedia, you will see it isn't exactly "evil Microsoft" put them in bad position, it is their bad treatment to developers, especially tiny ones.
From that site, I was led to that portable .NET game engine community and reading the legimate developer's comments, I really felt sad. There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed.
Re:He speaks about 50/50% market share times (Score:5, Insightful)
There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed.
This is what I would call "poor risk assessment skills". If you're depending on a capricious entity for your livelihood, I'd suggest a change of employment cause you sure as hell ain't gonna change Apple.
*Ahem* game releases became _fewer_. Countable and non-countable nouns. The more you know!
Re:He speaks about 50/50% market share times (Score:4, Insightful)
There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed.
This is what I would call "poor risk assessment skills". If you're depending on a capricious entity for your livelihood, I'd suggest a change of employment cause you sure as hell ain't gonna change Apple.
I think that was the point. They thought Apple could be relied on. Now they know better...
Hint to Apple: you want exactly those people who are good SW guys but perhaps not the smartest as business people to do software for you. They're usually at least as interested in the software as the money they make off it, if not more. So they'll crank out cheap software for those who might buy Apple phones, thus providing Apple very cheap software base. You don't want to drive them to Android and later Maemo.
Though Maemo promises to be wicked cool from developer point of view, if you ask me :-)
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There were guys who have just 60 days worth of living money and if some idiot intern rejects their application, they will be financially doomed. I speak about not being able to buy bread to your home.
And if their app doesn't sell, they'll be ruined as well. I'm with the other poster. This can simply be chalked up to stupidity on their part.
Re:A serious black eye (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I think Apple should allow developers to distribute Apps without going through Apple's store.
There are two advantages:
Apple's customers can choose to only visit Apple's Store or they can download from elsewhere when Apple chooses not to publish something (and accept some risk).
Re:A serious black eye (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple decide, and some disadvantages for them are that:
1) Apple will get blamed by the press and blogosphere for any malware. Just as Microsoft gets blamed for Windows malware. But malware on a mobile phone can be much worse. It can cost you a lot of money on your phone bill.
2) Apple doesn't receive 30% of revenue if it's not sold through the App Store. Why would a company voluntarily give up revenue?
A disadvantage for the consumer is that life gets more complicated. A low price one stop shop such as the App Store is convenient. They are relieved of the concern that a better cheaper app is available elsewhere.
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Because 30% of revenue on 50% of applications for a platform with 40% of the market, is a lot more money than 30% of revenue on 100% of applications for a platform that has dwindled to 5% of the market.
Plenty of people would use Apple's app store voluntarily--for convenience, for the promotional clout, and so on. (Plenty of people use the BlackBerry and Android marketplaces.) Howe
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I simply don't think there's any big reason to believe that's true. I was in the hospital recently, and while there, the cute nurse saw my iPhone. After maybe 20 minutes of impromptu demo, she went out and bought one. To get big numbers like you want, you have to get a lot of people like that nurse into the tent. And the single source of apps makes everything very simple.
By the way, I get why people are upset about the Google Voice app. But then why are no people upset about the Google Maps turn-by-turn in
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Since Apple rejected both Google Voice and Google Latitude from the iPhone before Google Maps got turn-by-turn navigation, I think Google are quite justified in scaling back iPhone app development and not putting in too much effort to port the turn-by-turn functionality to the iPhone. In fact, I think they'd be justified if they quit iPhone development entirely; that's what I'd have done if Apple had jerked me around that way.
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Well, I'd like to think that Apple will start selling jailbroken iPhones. I'd probably buy one then. But my gut feeling is that they're too addicted to the control. Steve Jobs is an infamous control freak, it's well documented that the Mac ended up open in spite of him rather than because of him.
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This also allows Apple to prune it's App Store and get rid of all the crap and make discoverability easier.
I already have problems finding applications because when I look for say, a grocery list app, there's not 1 or 2 or 20. there's like 100, and it's hard to find a big difference between them. Of the say 100, 40-60 of them are either free or free demo, and so I download a dozen or so among them and try them out. If I don't find one I like, I have to go back to the store and find another dozen to try o
Re:A serious black eye (Score:4, Insightful)
You are right. Having a completely open platform has never worked before. *rolls eyes *
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There's not much evidence that a completely open platform works better than closed ones.
Linux is the most open desktop system, yet it is a tiny niche behind Windows and OSX.
All the games consoles require that games are approved by the console manufacturer. Yet they now sell more games than are sold for PCs. Various companies have promised open console systems. All have failed.
The printer market is dominated by companies that require you to buy first party ink cartridges at highly inflated prices. It is poss
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You are conflating the definition of "open". Here we are discussing the ability to run applications, without corporate approval. You can do that on Linux. You can do that on Windows. Hell, Apple even allow you to do that on OS X, so evidently they don't have a problem with "quality control" there!
And if you want to talk about market share and being open, 95+% of mobile phones let you run "apps" from anywhere, and under 5% of them don't.
Note that the games consoles work like that because the hardware company
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You're right. This is what I meant by "open platform". Something where apps don't require approval and/or can be installed from any source. Not an open source system as gp assumed.
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When has it? *rolls eyes*
Note, I'm not saying that Linux doesn't work, but that it's stuck forever around 1% of market share. And Firefox is an app, not an OS.
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As has been pointed out, I am talking about open from an application-installation perspective, not open source. Windows and most OS are open from this perspective.
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You think the App Store has anything to do with quality control? I don't know whether to laugh at your naivety or just feel sorry for you. You're probably too far gone to help. It's sad to see someone drink the kool-aid.
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Re:A serious black eye (Score:5, Insightful)
So you think Apple should just accept every fart-app hack, poorly written, buggy piece of scrap code a developer ships their way?
They currently do accept such crap, so what is your point?
I submit to you as evidence the hundreds of flashlight apps which simply light up the screen, the copies of Apple demo apps, iFart Mobile and the many copies, IAmRich (only removed after customer complaints), the appalling UI of 'TripLog/1040', etc etc. There are thousands of apps which can in no sense be rated as quality apps on the store right now.
The app store vetting is not about quality (as evidenced by all the crap-ware on the store), it is about control of competitors like Google and the purse-strings for the platform. They want to collect money on each transaction, and exclude any apps which they feel compete too closely with Apple products, and if that wastes months of time/money for third-party developers, or even their close partners like Google, well that's just too bad. The current policy certainly won't lead to more quality apps on the store - quite the reverse.
Apple are of course legally within their rights to restrict competition on their platform, whether it is in the interests of their customers, or indeed Apple long term, is debatable.
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Except now "PC" is called "Android."
Insightful? I beg your pardon? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say Android is deployed on every smartphone in the world that isn't an iPhone. Some are large and fragile, some are gold-plated, some with touchscreens, some without, some with keyboards, et cetera et cetera. To do this, every manufacturer and carrier needs to write custom firmware, apps, and UI elements to work with their handsets, on top of Android, ... so let's just say they did, and they work just fine, and here we are.
How does this in any way constitute a threat to the iPhone?
Here's another scenario: Let's take every computer in the world, from the toughest HP rig to the crappiest mini-ATX, and make them all run the same OS. Let's call this rival OS something suitably generic, like, "windows". By sheer numbers alone, it will totally crush Apple and their puny OS X! Except it hasn't.
What magic sauce does Android promise that will counteract the crushing weight of a zillion competing handsets and their chump code monkeys clamoring to distinguish themselves with blingy but utterly unusable interfaces?
I'd really like to know.
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Because using your proprietary control of the platform to play hardball with 3rd party software creators doesn't work so well when a viable alternative exists.
If Apple keep on artificially limiting what the iPhone can do, they're going to drive away developers. The risk is that one day soon, there is going to emerge an Android based phone with a killer set of cool apps, which are composed largely of all the stuff that Apple didn't allow on the i
Re:Insightful? I beg your pardon? (Score:4, Insightful)
Awesome! I can see it now! Sixteen icons on the home screen:
1. MAME r106, Really Hard To Control Edition
2. "Let's Bounce," With Russian ""Actress"" Yulia Nova
3. Telnet
4. Official Chase Bank App (actually released by phr0z3n crew, but who can tell?)
5. Captain Redb34rd's Totally Safe And Not Backdoored Personal Info Storage App
6. Flash Player (clocked down to 1fps for battery life)
7. I Am Rich
8. Baseband Burner
9. Firefox Mobile
10. Mozilla Mobile
11. Opera Mobile
12. Lynx Mobile
13. Internet Explorer Mobile
14. Internet Explorer Mobile Security Update Manager
15. WinAMP
16. Norton AV
Clearly, Apple sees short term commercial advantage in inconveniencing their customers, by not dropping each and every one of these apps into their next firmware update.
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Of course! A commercial phone company selling an Android based phone would only include rubbish apps because... um ... because they're not Apple! Yes! That must be it.
Silly of me to imagine that a competitor might actually want to compete. And maybe bundle software that made it competitive. I guess I'm just getting old...
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We're not looking at the included apps, which will tend to be very solid -- and that tells you something, right? -- but the ones you want to add, either through the apple or blackberry or Microsoft Marketplaces/iTunes, etc.
What is the motivation for somebody to make an app with a Trojan that takes your bank sign-in and sends it to Turkestan, huh? Why, there's no-- Oh, no, they want to take the money out of your bank account. There's lots of motivation for malware, and if it's from third-party suppliers, who
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Brilliant, mr. garote.
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There seems to be a problem of transparency and speed of notification of problems, yes. How many apps have been rejected, out of the 100,000 accepted? How large is the number of the developers who are chafing under this dictatorship?
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And what do "real" developers care when the thing that's providing their living is rejected from the Iphone store? It might only happen sometimes, but it's still a risk, and it seems corporate suicide to depend solely on another company in such a way. Far more likely it seems that companies might right an Iphone "app" in addition - are there any Iphone only software companies out there?
OOI, I'd be curious to know what the share of "real" developers to "hobby" developers is. Given that the most notable apps
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Yes, yes, yes. Of course they do. But if a day comes when an Android phone has all the cool bits that Apple have been barring from their phones, then it'll be worth the "real" developers while to migrate too...
The driver will be if the iPhone starts loosing marketshare to a platform that is less restrictive in terms of what the customer can do with it. Once that happens, the more mainstr
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Indeed - it won't crush Apple, because there's nothing to crush in this market. They'll go from having a few per cent market share, to having a few per cent market share.
Conceivably it might lessen the marketing hype - I mean, when every other phone is now running Android (not to mention that Google themselves seem to have some success at getting media attention, whilst Nokia etc are virtually ignored), then this might change things. Also you shouldn't underestimate the knock on effects, in that when you've
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Let's call this rival OS something suitably generic, like, "windows". By sheer numbers alone, it will totally crush Apple and their puny OS X! Except it hasn't.
In its corporate identity Apple Computer becomes Apple. Its focus shifts from the computer to the music store and the mobile device.
The Mac is assembled from a sub-set of commodity - Windows x86 - based PC hardware.
Apple markets the Mac with Boot Camp or virtualization as the perfect Windows PC. The Mac offers a rich secondary market for the Windows
Re:A serious black eye (Score:5, Interesting)
With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?
Android was first released in October 2008, with the first device being available the same month - thats over a year ago. According to Apple, the iPhone sold more than 4 million units in the first 200 days, so wheres the equivalent Android sales explosion? Analysts are expecting Android sales to outstrip iPhone sales by 2012, but why is it going to take that long if Android is such a good competitor? It didn't take the iPhone anywhere near two and a half years to take a significant chunk of the market from competitors.
I'm not an Android hater, I haven't used it so I don't hold an opinion on it, but it seems to be held as the ultimate saviour on /., and I'm struggling to see why. Its not the iPhone I am worried about, its the Android series of phones...
Re:A serious black eye (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:A serious black eye (Score:5, Interesting)
With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?
Android was first released in October 2008, with the first device being available the same month - thats over a year ago. According to Apple, the iPhone sold more than 4 million units in the first 200 days, so wheres the equivalent Android sales explosion? Analysts are expecting Android sales to outstrip iPhone sales by 2012, but why is it going to take that long if Android is such a good competitor? It didn't take the iPhone anywhere near two and a half years to take a significant chunk of the market from competitors.
I'm not an Android hater, I haven't used it so I don't hold an opinion on it, but it seems to be held as the ultimate saviour on /., and I'm struggling to see why. Its not the iPhone I am worried about, its the Android series of phones...
There is an analysis here, not entirely without flaws, that explains some of the problems Android is facing.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/21/inside_googles_android_and_apples_iphone_os_as_software_markets.html [appleinsider.com]
One of the biggest ones is hardware: limited flash on board castrates applications.
And leaving some of control of the firmware to the handset makers is the single, biggest mistake you can do. One of the main reasons the software scene on Symbian is lo lousy. You end up with too many different versions of the OS in use at the same time, and in some cases updating will be very, very difficult (did it never happen that a give FW update was NOT available for your specific Nokia handset - and thus you were unable to use some applications? IN Europe this is very common).
And TOO different HW characteristics. Some people complain that Apple's 480x320 screen is no longer the coolest around.
Of course Apple is already working on updates to the display - but in such a way that applications and icons won't look like rubbish (like scaling on the Motorola Droid). I need non insider info to know they are: they would be dumb if they didn't - and they may be evil, but not stupid.
I expect an exact doubling of resolution in both axes, and this will of course happen a bit later than on the Android platform (854x480 current on Droid), and with some _very_ simple software support (developers will have to check if such a screen is available, otherwise apps will be scaled, I guess).
Roberto
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It didn't take the iPhone anywhere near two and a half years to take a significant chunk of the market from competitors.
I'm sorry, when did this happen? Can you define "significant chunk of the market" in terms of percentage please?
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http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20091113/apple-smartphone/ [allthingsd.com]
Apple: From Zero to 17.1 Percent Smartphone Share in 2.5 Years
That's "Smartphone," so it's not "cell phones."
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Because it's "free." Wait till Google can no longer keep up the costs of development and starts charging for each copy, or throws in special ads when you start using it -- nice, big fat full-frame Flash animations.
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This is something the GP didn't understand. There will be no "explosion" of sales for Android, it will be a slow and steady growth with more and more Android devices hitting the market.
When Android sales eclipse iphone sales there will be litt
Google Guy vs. Mac Guy (Score:4, Funny)
So who will be Google Guy? I mean, they have an actor who basically looks like his only sexual experience has been with his mom's pantyhose for Windows Guy. I'm thinking a flamboyant show-tune singing cross dresser or, even better, a guy in a trenchcoat with a heavy German accent who insists he's from Argentina.
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And all those devices will be different in some way: screen resolutions, communications (bluetooth/WiFi or not), storage, computing power (CPU), etc. etc. Sure, they'll sell tons of units, but will a developer be able to write an application that is expected to work on every released device, all at once, without any fuss? (hint: look at the Windows Mobile application situation: it's not so hot).
So Android might be able to move units, but if they keep fragmenting the devices like they are currently, I think
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I beg your pardon? (Score:4, Insightful)
Android was not something built on hype like the iphone.
The iPhone was not built on hype, though it benefitted from it. It was built on damned strong innovation.
Google, HTC and the other OHA members planed for Android to have a slow release and ramp up which is exactly what has happened. Many tech products use this approach, creating a small market of early adopters, using this market to refine the product and come back with an R2. Also this has the added advantage of creating a support network as well as word of mouth campaigns as opposed to Apple's "blanket of hype" marketing.
There you go again with that "hype" word. Actually Apple is so respected for their ability to innovate that they benefit strongly from the word-of-mouth you speak of. The iPhone made the cover of Time magazine, as the "best invention of the year", total cost to Apple: Zero. The Steve was named by Fortune magazine as the CEO of the decade. Cost: Zero. Those represent the top of a mountain of free press coverage that Google simply cannot match. So of course their strategy is different; but not by choice.
The plan with Android is not to flood the market at once with "sales explosions" but to slowly seep in and take market share piecemeal.
Yes, that's "the plan". It's the only strategy that stands a chance in hell of working.
Slow and steady wins the race. Analysts are predicting 2012 for Android to routinely outsell the iphone.
Analyst. The Gartner research firm, last month, to be specific. They did not reveal any details about how they arrived at their numbers. They did not say that Android would eat marketshare away from Apple, either. They claimed that, three years from now, about 14% of smartphones would run the Android OS, and that about 13% of smartphones would be sold by Apple.
Don't hang your hat on what one analyst says. Another research firm, Canalys, has already pegged the Apple smartphone marketshare at 17 percent in Q3 2009.
Even if the iPhone marketshare were to SHRINK in three years down to the same level that Gartner promises the Android, Apple would still be making one hell of a lot more money off smartphones than Google would. And do you have any idea how long three and a half years is in this market? The iPhone had not even been released three years ago. What's Apple going to be rolling out three years from NOW? If you think the Android platform is going to destroy or even damage Apple's smartphone business, you still Have Some Splainin' To Do.
For those playing along at home Apple's sales ebb and flow with the level of marketing Apple produces, right now the level of iphone marketing is low so iphones are not selling much
7.4 million units sold in Q3 2009. That is roughly twice the number of units sold running Windows Mobile, and dangerously close to the number of BlackBerries sold in the same time frame. Explain your usage of the phrase "not selling much".
as of July 2010 it will have been released in every western nation for two years which is the standard plan length in our nations. This is going to affect iphone sales a lot.
Explain how.
the iphone didn't take that much away from competitors, certainly the likes of RIM and NOKIA aren't hurting, the iphone hasn't taken much from the smart phone market, most of the iphones market share comes from the consumer phone market.
... Which is where the smartphone market gets its growth from. And this is exactly why RIM and Nokia _are_ worried. The majority of the customers newly attracted to the smartphone market are being diverted to iPhones. Nokia's smartphone sales figures have been flat for the last three years. That is what we in the biz call "hurting".
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There you go again with that "hype" word. Actually Apple is so respected for their ability to innovate that they benefit strongly from the word-of-mouth you speak of. The iPhone made the cover of Time magazine, as the "best invention of the year", total cost to Apple: Zero. The Steve was named by Fortune magazine as the CEO of the decade. Cost: Zero. Those represent the top of a mountain of free press coverage that Google simply cannot match. So of course their strategy is different; but not by choice.
To be
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Small nitpicking: Nokia has 50% of smartphone market ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone [wikipedia.org] ).
And as a side note - they will grow big time, IMHO. They're pushing Symbian more and more towards the dominant mobile phone platform of this planet, the Nokia S40 (well, ok, they're selling lots of S30 too, perhaps more). They are the only ones with a product for this segment - cheap, reliable candybars, not that much different from what majority of their market is already using. Most smartphone makers even don'
Utter tripe. (Score:3, Informative)
Cas
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What does "roughly twice" mean on the planet where you're from. The numbers tell an entirely different story [engadget.com] with Winmo outstripping Iphone by 2 to 1.
Hey dumbass: Your link points to an article written almost TWO YEARS AGO, and the statistic it gives is for SIX MONTHS, not a quarter.
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For those playing along at home...
Dude, is there an app for that?
Android is more potentiality for now (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A serious black eye (Score:5, Insightful)
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Thanks goodness the Nokia n900 is coming out - in spite of all the rough edges I'm sure it'll have, that's the one I'm going for
Just don't expect to be able to easily download quality games, utilities, navigation apps, etc. and you'll be fine.
As much as I hate the closed ecosystem around the iPhone, it's thriving at the moment -- at the total and utter expense of others.
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Apple took a beating precisely because they chose to dabble in the Mac clone market. That's a mistake that Steve Jobs will never make, hence why you will not see Mac OS X licensed and sold for generic non-Apple x86 PCs.
You'd be a complete fool to sell Apple stock now. Apple is set to get stronger than ever before.
Apple isn't doing anything different than what it has been doing ever since Jobs came back to captain the ship. It's the epitome of Steve Jobs' business strategy: make high quality, premium product
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I do. But Jobs has been at Apple since day one, with an enforced break in the middle when he obviously also took a great personal interest in what Apple was doing. So he DOES know the history. History related to Apple - better than anyone on earth in fact. They HAVEN'T been in exactly the same situation before. Hardware is not the same as software. If YOU look at the history of the console you'll see that having t
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Up until now, it's all been good for them because of the lack of serious competition. With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?
The competition from Nokia (40% market share), Samsung, LG, Motorola and RIM, all of whom have larger market share than Apple, isn't "serious competition"? :) I'm sure Apple are enjoying the revenue from the product - you don't need to be one of the biggest in the market to make money.
Don't get me wrong
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I don't know what Apple is thinking. Up until now, it's all been good for them because of the lack of serious competition. With Android-based phones cranking up, how long will it be before Apple loses their market share due to these shenanigans?
Android is not and was never intended to be an iPhone competitor. Check out the specs and you'll see that it's really targeted as a replacement for Windows Mobile and was specifically designed to run on existing hardware that's currently running WM.
As far as software stores goes, Android is no threat to the iPhone. By design, apps for Android have to fit into onboard storage; they are not allowed to run from add-on memory cards. Since Android itself uses up over 300MB, users are pretty limited in what they
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I'd seriously dispute that. People who are aware of programming, linux, free software -- who have a serious knowledge of computers, they might find this onerous, or a "black eye." Those who haven't heard of it, and that is the great majority of a consumer device's market, don't really give a damn. I know five people like that -- not that "I know x people" is any proof.
The iPhone software market locked up tight? Is that why there's 100,000 apps? With AT&T, you have a point. But the exclusivity deal is co
Hello Editor. Did you RTFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary implies that the website is going to be a home for rejected apps.
TFA shows that the site is there to collect information about why Apple rejected apps.
1000 bucks on (Score:3, Interesting)
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I would agree with that based on the summary, but TFA and TFS don't seem to be talking about the same thing.
kdawson FTW!
UNamerican (Score:4, Funny)
I mean, by exactly doing this you are UNfriending yourself. Apple Inc will lose dollar$ because of this and will have less influence to set the desired norms, values, regulations, etc.
All of this might even be illegal. Yes, you are going against the will of the owner of the platform and you might be breaking certain laws while going this route.
Has this world become an area with revolutionarists?
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What do you have against the University of Nebraska?
Ther's an App for That? (Score:2)
There should be an app for getting rejected apps. But then it would be rejected, and I'd have to use the app to get it. Wait...my head hurts.
It's like the chemistry.com (Score:2)
for apps
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There's actually a recent "Misfit" spoof ad bashing iPhone's coverage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JgrBtn8XdU [youtube.com]
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Bass and Rankin FTW! (Score:2)
...that things from the Island of Misfit Toys probably weren't a good idea to begin with.
I came here for that reference! A Bass and Rankin Christmas Special theme would be more interesting than what they have up there now, anyhow.
It would be seasonal, too!
It should be iSummons... (Score:2)
...you insensitive clod!
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I can see the problem with "slashdoted," but "horn in" isn't a typo.