Okay, this technically isn’t an “Apple sucks” story. Actually, it’s more about how Apple users can suck.
According to an article in today’s issue of the British newspaper The Sun, the wife of an iPhone user apparently went sniffing around on her husband’s phone and, in his Sent Items folder, found some interesting photos of her husband “pleasuring himself.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld would say.)
While the husband couldn’t deny that he took the photo, he did deny having sent it … and blamed the iPhone instead. “He claims that he went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store,” said the unnamed and soon-to-be-ex-wife. “They told him that it is an iPhone glitch: that photos sometimes automatically attach themselves to an e-mail address and appear in the sent folder, even though no e-mail was ever sent.”
The woman then checked Apple’s support forums, only to find that — surprise! — nobody had ever heard of such a thing.
Dude, don’t blame Apple for your lack of self-control. Besides, everyone knows you should clean out your Sent Items folder routinely!
Not to beat a dead horse… but here goes. I WANT TO TETHER and if Apple didn’t suck, I’d be able to do it right now. As a matter of fact, Apple even had an app in its app store on itunes that did just this. Of course after they PUBLISHED IT, they quickly said “OOPS” and took it back.
The application is called NetShare by a company called NULLRIVER. You can see a demo of their app here below.
Anyway, like many other people I immediately went to the iTunes Music Store when I hear about NetShare. I was glowing with anticipation - even though I didn’t own and iPhone I was going to get this right away and make it my reason to get one!
Anyway, I quickly located the app in the store, went to click the purchase button, I could feel the hairs on my back stand up and do the wave as I brought by cursor over to the buy now button, as I let gravity take my finger and the mouse button began to depress a grin came to my face because I was thinking of all the mischief I could do, the mouse clicked…. Doh! Guess What?
APPLE SUCKS THATS WHAT! A message appeared saying, “THIS APP WAS REMOVED FROM THE APP STORE”. So i started looking for more info about this and went to the Nullriver web site and imagine what i found?
The NetShare info page was down, with only a comment from Nullriver stating:
“NETSHARE, BANNED FROM THE APPSTORE”
Anyway, my hopes were dashed. And since then it looks like Apple has decided they will not be allowing any tethering applications in the AppStore even though they do not violate the developer TOS. We are seeing a lot of similar reports from various developers who’s applications were abruptly removed and banned from the AppStore without any violations of the terms of service. This is all unfortunate news for the iPhone platform end-users.
I really don’t get it Steve. Its my iPhone - I should be able to do anything I want with it. This means ANYTHING. Sure, I might do things with it that nobody else would do, or things that you would not like… but the fact is that I own it and I should be free to do what I please. Otherwise, its like if next time you went into Macdonalds for a Big MAC, then after you bought it - I told you that you can’t eat it. You can only use it to brush your teeth and as a mode of transportation.
Why would Apple do this? Lets see, hmm, there is a restrictive license for iPhone developers, ok, so because of the License terms developers cannot create applications that sends / receive MMS (no matter the iphone doesn’t have it). They cannot create a video recording application (it doesn’t matter if the phone is capable or not).
Its so bad that developers are filling a petition online with the following message:
“To: Apple Computer
Dear Steve
As iPhone users we would like to express our dismay at Apple’s ‘vaguerisms’, ineptitude and arrogance in it’s recent dealings with ‘App Store’ developers.
We are of the opinion that Apple’s lack of communication and clarity over rejected apps and inappropriate use of ‘NDA’ Non Disclosure Agreements has become completely indefensible. Furthermore Apple’s reluctance to comment publicly on these very public issues is fast becoming a stain upon its character.
As your customers we have great concerns over the future of the iPhone and you should be aware that if ‘App Store’ developers decide to desert the iPhone platform en masse we will have absolutely no qualms in following them.
A positive statement from Apple on this subject is long overdue.
In 1984, Apple released the following compelling advertisement - implying how open and free their platform was going to be:
Since then we have seen many versions of the mac platform and mac ideals, that for all intense purposes, have lived up to the moniker of freeing people from their platforms. OS X was the biggest step Apple Computer ever took toward that goal. OSX not only embraced the idea of open source - it was built using many open source standards, and offered direct support of almost any open source software that one could imagine. The concept of this was embraced by developers everywhere. The concept that the mac plaform could now accept many types of standard apps and open source apps opened up worlds of possibilities for developers and users alike…. that is until - the iphone. Apple is reverting back into greedy, big brother-like corporate monstrosity with its iphone platform. We think the type of limitations that Apple is placing on its platform is not only discouraging - but Microsoft would even think better of it. Apple has gone too far, and now we have the results to prove it:
Apple has recently started rejecting perfectly valid software from its Itunes app store simply because it is in conflict with other software that they support. Now we don’t mean a technical conflict - more along the lines of a fiscal conflict. Apple doesn’t want anyone competing with them and thats the story.
A prominent case of this practice was noted by a developer who created an application called Podcaster. Podcaster offers simplicity in subscribing, managing, streaming and downloading podcasts directly to your iPhone and iPod Touch. Podcaster was rejected for very strange reasons in our opinion, Apple told the developer, “Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.”
Developers all over the web began to post their maddening rejection letters until most recently Apple began slapping a big fat NDA on the cover of all rejections.
This, in our humble opinions(IMHO), is completely unacceptable. Imagine if they did this on their own macintosh computers? Imagine if they told Microsoft, sorry we are rejecting “Word”, because we have “AppleWorks”?
Come on Steve! Take the lead pipe out of your ass - and loosen up. If Google can develop a completely open software platform - then so can APPLE! Forget this whole iphone Nazi thing and make something that everyone can embrace. Otherwise - we predict, that the iphone will have its day, but will have to make way for the next great thing that comes. The iphone can’t truly be great - without the assistance of its user community. In other words… “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you Steve”.
I don’t think I need to explain much more, this video does a pretty good job at showing our frustrations with the iphone sales process… or there lack of.
Okay, to be fair, this one’s not totally to blame on Apple — AT&T can take part ownership of this suckage: The iPhone can’t be tethered to act as a high-speed modem for my laptop, and that would be more than half my reason to buy an iPhone in the first place. If I were to be one of those people who has a laptop simply to check email and browse the web, that’s one thing; I could use the iPhone just for that, and leave the laptop at home.
But that’s not me.
For the high cost of ownership (consider the cost of the voice and data plans, plus the phone itself), it’s amazing to me that Apple has the nerve to market the iPhone as a complete business solution without the tethering capability. Even my cheapo cell phone from Verizon lets me do it! For companies that supposedly are all about “the future,” Apple and AT&T both missed the boat on this one.
Could I hack the phone? Sure. But I shouldn’t need to. And heaven forbid I try to modify the phone … that would break my user agreement, so, if when one day something goes wrong with the phone, the folks at AT&T can refuse to help me out? (Actually, I can get into AT&T’s customer service record here, but that’s another topic for another post, perhaps.)
The current iteration of the iPhone is like a laptop that can’t be hooked up to an external hard drive: totally hobbled by its lack of a major feature.
I don’t get it!
Hello? Steve Jobs? Folks at AT&T? Are you listening?
Okay, this technically isn’t an “Apple sucks” story. Actually, it’s more about how Apple users can suck.