Sunday, February 8, 2009

So ya wanna code for the iPhone?

The good news is, maybe, you'll get to use a real relational database management system; sign up for more news here.

The bad news is, maybe, writing that killer iPhone app won't make you rich.

Apple might not let anyone download your application. And if they do, now, they might decide to remove your application at some later date... not just from the iPhone store, but from every iPhone out there.

"... imagine if Microsoft had adjusted Windows to act the way the iPhone and Facebook apps platforms do. WordPerfect would owe Microsoft 30% on sales of every copy of its word processor — if it sold any, since Word could be featured by Microsoft to its users much more readily, or rejected entirely as duplicative of Word.

... Of course, Microsoft could change that percentage owed at any time — or make it a flat fee. The makers of, say, Quicken, could find that they owe 70% or 80% on every app, take it or leave it. If they leave it, Quicken would stop working on every PC on which it had previously been installed."
- The end of the generative internet, Jonathan Zittrain, Communications of the ACM, January 2009
Ok, so it's true, I can't see a silver lining without immediately zoning in on the black cloud surrounding it.

I also can't see Apple's policy being used for evil... at least, not for much longer ( there's that black cloud again :).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm half way through Zittrain's book ("The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It"). It's excellent.

Self-promotion link: see here. http://iablog.sybase.com/tslee/2008/10/is-there-such-a-thing-as-an-operating-system/