Dan Cameron - Latest Comments in Third Party Applications on the iPhone - Steve Jobs

Re: Third Party Applications on the iPhone - Steve Jobs

Jared — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:34:21 -0000

Dan, your quote above was a reference to what Nokia is doing. Apple may or may not implement things differently. That's a side note, though.

The relationship to TPM that I was referring to is that the end goal is to limit what software is able to be run on a particular piece of hardware. Of course, they may accomplish this goal in different ways, but it's the act of enforcing the restriction (in a manner that the user cannot override or bypass) that is the problem.

Like I said before, (and to address Nathan's point as well) if *anyone* can write an application and put it on phones (without review), then their claims of preventing things like viruses are invalidated, in my opinion.

My initial impression was that every app would have to be reviewed by Apple. If that's not the case, but rather that individual developers only have to be certified in order to publish, it's not quite as bad, but still bad in my opinion.

Will those individual developers be somehow liable for bad code that ends up getting distributed to phones and crashing them, etc.? If not, then (again) where is the protection? If so, then it will prohibit many individuals from writing applications in the first place, because they won't be able to afford the liability if something were to go wrong.

Re: Third Party Applications on the iPhone - Steve Jobs

Jared (not really) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:04:25 -0000

Bogus! Deplorable! Must ... resist ... desire ... for iPhone

Re: Third Party Applications on the iPhone - Steve Jobs

Dan Cameron — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:52:13 -0000

unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer

I don't see this statement saying they're going to restrict any apps but I do see it deterring malicious developers from even trying to release their code since it would be traced back to them.

TPM relies on key pairings generated by hardware signatures, so software can only be tied to a specific piece of hardware after activation or installation. The above statements talk about certificates, like SSL certificates or more similarly those certificates used in windows when installing "certified" drivers OR exactly like how Nokia and Blackberry have signatures for their applications.

Re: Third Party Applications on the iPhone - Steve Jobs

nstryker — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:00:53 -0000

i think the breaking point for me is if they charge for "certification," and if so, how much. this kinda reminds me of sample clearances introduced by an act of congress. in order to use a legally "fair-use" sample now, you have to have that sample approved by the (p) owner, so they can ensure that your sample really meets the fair-use requirements. of course, it's really just a way to charge for fair-use samples since anyone not following the rules wouldn't be paying the fee to begin with!

anywho, i don't think that if anyone can get certified, then "all their claims of an extra layer of protection are invalidated." anyone can walk through a metal detector without it going off, but that doesn't mean that a metal detector doesn't give some layer of protection against certain kinds of threats.

Re: Third Party Applications on the iPhone - Steve Jobs

Jared — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:35:53 -0000

Maybe you need to read up more on TPM then, because only allowing signed / certified applications is exactly what it's based on. Perhaps you can explain to me how this is not doing that; it definitely sounds like it to me.

The fact that they're filtering publishers at all is the problem. Have they stated the process and criteria by which your application can be "approved"?

If it's the case that *anyone* truly can get a signed application, then all their claims of an extra layer of protection are invalidated. If it's not, then that means they are exerting control over who can or can't put an app on the device. Seems pretty clear cut to me.

Re: Nokia and the sidekick - I think it's bad no matter who's doing it. Sure, they can, just like Apple can but I still don't like the idea.

The whole guarding against crashing thing is totally bogus too; here's why: if they wanted to support signed / certified apps for the sake of a more stable environment, they could do that by making the device only accept those types of apps by default, but also allowing the user to turn off that restriction if they wanted to. That would protect everyone they're worried about, and the users that turned it off would accept the risk of dealing with apps that might crash.

Since (as far as I know) they aren't doing it this way, I maintain my position on that particular issue. Let me know if they do end up making this a user configurable option, because then it would be a different story.

Re: Third Party Applications on the iPhone - Steve Jobs

Dan Cameron — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:01:56 -0000

TPM is nothing like approving or in this case certifying applications.

And yes, if Apple makes developers make their applications live up to a standard, I'm all for it and I'll have a happy face. Only until they only permit certain publishers will it be "deplorable" but they're not doing that, they're just requiring signatures.
Personally I was tired of applications on the Pocket PC, Palm/Treo and Blackberry that weren't published with the basic standard of not crashing the device; if Nokia and the sidekick can't apple?

Re: Third Party Applications on the iPhone - Steve Jobs

Nate — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:47:45 -0000

When I first saw this news elsewhere and also the the news about the price changes at iTunes I was wondering if you were still alive since I didn't hear about it from you first, but now I see your back on top of things and also I see you're calculating disaster costs in terms of iPhones so yeah, I guess your ok.

Re: Third Party Applications on the iPhone - Steve Jobs

Jared — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:13:49 -0000

Well, the good news is that the SDK will have to include a very accurate iPhone emulator, since if you still won't be able to add random apps to your phone, you'll need the emulator to be able to do any kind of development and testing.

The whole virus thing is a bogus point, just like the fear of overloading the cell data networks was in the first round.

The whole approved-application-only thing is deplorable, and they should be ashamed of it. This concept, using various names (such as TPM) has been around for a while now, and keeps resurfacing.

It is widely criticized by free software advocates, and probably by many Apple fanboys (since Microsoft was behind an implementation of it), but I'm sure they'll gladly take the exact same poor treatment from Steve, with smiles on their faces.