March 9, 2011

It turns out that Apple’s Application Store is evil.

We all know that Apple individually reviews applications, and rejects those that it deems too risque for its brand, or those that compete directly with native applications, or those that make money for their owners without giving Apple a healthy cut.

This causes long lead times for those applications which users are anxious to download, and for critical updates to applications. It leads to censorship (which is generally unwelcome). It allows Apple to hold publishers over a barrel and force them into deals that can only be described as “unfair”, given that they depend wholly on Apple’s stranglehold over a large portion of the market.

Users put up with this, however, because the process gives us a more secure device that an open marketplace cannot guarantee as neatly. Apple’s App Store is also incredibly convenient for users of their devices.

One of the many applications available on Apple’s devices is called Talking Carl:

Here at the Big Bad Blog, we are fans of Talking Carl, an application for kids.

The application consists of two features:

• Talking Carl repeats what you say in a funny voice.
• Talking Carl reacts to being poked.

Maggie loves it when people make funny sounds. And she loves it when people repeat what she says. Repeating what she says in a funny voice? Could not be more awesome.

So imagine my surprise the other day when I open what should be Talking Carl and see instead Talking Carl Challenge:

Apparently the developer and publisher had a falling out, and the publisher pushed an “update” through Apple which changed Talking Carl into Talking Carl Challenge. This was dutifully approved by Apple’s App Store, despite the fact that, rather than an update, it was a complete decimation of the product.

Furthermore, Maggie swiped at the screen and this happened:

Seriously, people? This is on an application targeted at children too young to read. And they are permitted to click on things and buy them.

Luckily, I found the original Talking Carl application, from a new publisher. But this suffers from a similar problem:

Annoying, but at least they have also added a “Baby Mode”, which removes the crap. We are still uncertain why one would toggle “baby mode” off, on an application for babies, where the non-baby stuff is advertising. But there you have it.

And then we see that we have it lucky. Apple regularly approves children’s games that have large in-game costs without any safeguards to them. These, of course, rack up huge bills for the parents.

One is forced to wonder how Apple thinks that a game in which a child can spend $99(!) on safari animals is OK to approve, while claiming that a web browser should be restricted to those seventeen or older.

The hypocrisy is evident, given that Apple requires a 30% cut of all in-app purchases.

And the security we believed we were receiving? Gone.

There is a difference between a malicious Android application that steals our credit card information and racks up $1,000 in credit card charges and a kid’s game for an Apple device that surreptitiously fools our children into spending $1,000 without realising it as part of “game play”.

The difference is that Apple purports to protect us from such behaviour, while Google does not. And Apple profits from the malicious applications, where Google feels suitably embarrassed and nukes them from orbit.

Apple’s screening process is supposed to be a trade-off.

What we trade in is evident. What we receive in return is not.

August 3, 2010

I read a lot of blogs, and follow a lot of people on Twitter. While the vast majority of these defy easy classification, for some the taxonomy is easy — they are friends, skeptics, comedians (whether they know it or not), science bloggers … and social media/technology “gurus”.

There is a reason why I follow this last group — while social media gurus spout no end of bullshit, as a group they are very tuned in to new technologies and have an excellent nose for finding interesting new technologies and news stories involving current technologies. This sometimes (but sadly not always) outweighs their tendency to be blowhards — they are too often self-proclaimed experts who lack any particular expertise. The requirements for being a social media guru are to be plugged into new technology (and its jargon) and to talk a good game.

So I was a little shocked when one of these gurus — “a consulting firm specialising in emerging technology & digital media” — wrote the following:

Apparently the fact that you can legal break your phone in the US is a cause for much jubilation, well at least for US geeks. How strange.

This particular guru is interesting, as they have a tendency not to take the popular viewpoint — for instance, they think that the Times paywall is a good idea. Because of this, they make for an interesting counterpoint to the constant wall of alleged gurus who do not appear to think for themselves.

Still, not understanding the importance of the decision allowing jailbreaking seemed quite odd to me — it was a tacit admission from this guru that they do not understand the issues involved.

As we are nothing if not kind and understanding know-it-all smartypantses here at the Big Bad Blog, we have decided to explain this geeky jubilation in three steps.

A criminal provision

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes circumventing a digital lock a criminal act. Until last week, the generally accepted interpretation was that any digital lock picking, from the use of a felt tip marker to a complicated hack was a violation of this law.

The penalty? Up to five years in prison and a $500,000 fine for the first offense. Double that for repeat offenders.

Just to be clear: If you chain your bicycle to a fence and lost the key, you can cut the chain. Your chain. Your bicycle. Not a crime.

However, under the DMCA (and the above interpretation), if you locked your mobile phone, forgot the code, and hacked it — up to five years in prison. That’s a digital lock you broke.

While it should have clearly delineated the difference between breaking a digital lock in the commission of another offense and breaking a digital lock to get at something you own, it did not.

Perversion of the law

We can see already that a law (however flawed) designed to enforce copyright online — the DMCA — actually applies outside the realms of copyright, and prevents the removal of digital locks for any reason.

With this in mind, several businesses made an ingenious move — they built a business model using the DMCA’s protection of digital locks as their basis.

Phones are locked into a particular provider of phone services, and it is against the law for the owner of the phone to unlock that phone so it can operate under other providers. This increases the cost of switching providers (as law-abiding users need new phones) and creates an artificial financial barrier locking customers in with their current provider.

But Apple is the master of this strategy. Their devices are digitally locked — phones, music players and tablet computers — but not just to a service provider. They are locked into a software package, and require the use of Apple’s iTunes software to operate. They are designed that new software applications can be loaded to them, but locked so that those applications can only be bought in one place.

Apple profits tremendously from this artificially limited competitive landscape, but a large portion of their customer base loses out, as Apple heavily censors what is available from their store.

These tactics appear to have the backing of copyright-protection legislation, despite the locks being ineffectual and there being no copyright to violate in this situation. Circumventing the locks was considered a crime in the United States, and still is considered a crime elsewhere.

The business strategy, however, is rooted in perverting a law meant to protect copyright owners.

Ownership

Finally, as in the bicycle example above, it comes down to ownership.

If I lose the key to my bicycle lock, I am perfectly entitled to saw the lock of my bike. If I lock myself out of my car, I am perfectly free to call somebody to pick the lock on my door, break the window, or use some other means at my disposal to get into the car.

My bike. My car. My stuff.

I can break it, break into it, and use it how I see fit — so long as I am not committing some other crime by doing so. It might look suspicious, and result in a question or two from a police officer — at least, I hope it would — but it’s all perfectly legal.

Applying that same logic in the digital world, the question becomes who owns my iPhone?

If the answer is Apple owns my iPhone, then fair enough — I should not be allowed to break the locks within the device. I should also have to pay them if I put it in a blender. I would be destroying their stuff, after all.

But if I own my iPhone, then I should be able to do what I want with it, including downloading an alternate Operating System, or unapproved applications. So long as all this software is legally obtained, it should not be anybody’s business but my own. And I should not have to worry about going to prison for it.

This change is good

An all-out, take-no-prisoners digital lock rule was wrong. And rules that are wrong should be changed — this change simply makes breaking locks illegal only when the lock was protecting somebody else’s stuff. Which is how it is with analog locks.

It is hard to see this as a bad thing.

But this is not why the decision makes people happy — courts were not, after all, clogged with bizarre prosecutions under this law.

The decision makes people happy because it tears away the basis of the business practices of companies like Apple, and puts the right to decide what to do with hardware back in the hands of the consumer.

It allows jailbreaking to be something other than the domain of activists protesting against the status quo, and opens up a world of possibility to those who were willing to respect a law, even if it did not make sense.

In short, the jailbreaking geeks were not just geeks — many were making a conscious act of defiance (and risking prison, however faint that risk might have been) in response to a business practice based upon a perversion of law. And they won — this battle, anyways — and winning tends to bring happiness.

April 5, 2010

Are you considering the purchase of an iPad?

If so, you may be a bit late — the things are moving like hotcakes would, if hotcakes were popular electronic devices. But Apple is surely producing more of the things, so it remains a valid question — and one that you have some time to ponder.

Here at the Big Bad Blog we read quite a few tech blogs, and have read numerous reviews as a result. The two best reviews — one positive, one negative — both come (surprisingly enough) from the same source: Boing Boing.

The good

The first of the two reviews is by Xeni Jardin, and is titled Apple’s iPad is a touch of genius. You may not be surprised to learn that it is the positive one.

If you want a look at the iPad’s browsing experience, what it can do, and what it feels like, this review is for you — and it’s glowing. The gist of the review is that Apple has not just taken it’s revolutionary hand-held device interface, and given it a larger format. Instead, they have actually put some thought into how that interface functions on the larger device.

The result is what you have come to expect from Apple — an excellent user interface, and an interaction with the device that is slightly inexplicable in that it is new.

If that conclusion is not apparent on reading her review, find the follow-up reviews on BoingBoing, of specific apps. The particulars come out when she drills down into actual interactions using the device.

The bad

The flip side of the iPad is given by Cory Doctorow, titled why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t either).

Not surprisingly, given the glowing initial review, Mr. Doctorow’s concerns are not about the device’s performance but about Apple’s closed approach. No sharing. A device design so closed that Apple will not even allow the battery to be swapped out.

It is, Mr. Doctorow asserts, a device for technophobes. The iPad moves us away from being familiar and comfortable with technology, and insists that all users be blind to what happens under the “hood” of the device we are using.

What will we do?

Ms. Jardin’s review make it clear that Mr. Doctorow is wrong on at least one count. Mr. Doctorow claims — or at least implies — that the iPad cannot be revolutionary because it comes from a large corporation.

This is simply not true. It is not true in the abstract, and it is not true here.

Mobile technology has long been about taking what we do on large scales, and putting them on small devices. From the basic idea of having a phone you can put in your pocket, to QWERTY keyboards and spreadsheet editors, phone makers and manufacturers were long trying to figure out how to fit the full-size computer (or telephone) experience in a handheld device.

Apple solved that problem for many computing activities, not by finally succeeding, but through a new way to interact with the device.

Now Apple is attempting to reverse that flow. Instead of looking how we interact with large devices and trying to apply it to small devices, Apple is instead looking at how we interact with small devices, and trying to apply it to a larger one.

As small an idea as that might be, it is significant, and has the potential to revolutionize the manner in which we interact with larger devices (regardless of the success of the iPad).

Ms. Jardin’s review makes it clear that they have found some level of success. The user experience is more than just the iPod experience in a larger package — there has been some thought put into how it should be different. This is positive.

But the remainder of Mr. Doctorow’s statements ring true.

Apple is creating a sterilized environment. Only those applications approved by Apple can be loaded to the device, and it cannot be opened for hardware modifications (or even battery changes). This closed environment is more easily accepted on the iPhone; your traditional phone does not need to be “open”. When you move closer to a pure computing environment, it becomes harder to accept a closed environment.

Due to this, in our final analysis Mr. Doctorow’s arguments win the day — we will not be purchasing an iPad. As revolutionary as it may turn out to be, at the end of the day it is only a gadget. There will be second and third generation iPads, where Apple might (we can hope) move to a more open approach. There will be similar devices that run on Operating Systems that are based on Linux or Google technology.

These devices, which are probably a year or two from surfacing, will be different from the iPad. The most notable difference is that we will be able to own them. We will have permission to open them, put what we want on their hard drives, change the batteries.

You can buy an Apple iPad, but you cannot own one.

And that is reason enough not to buy.

February 9, 2010

The iPad. A few weeks ago, Apple announced their latest new product to much fanfare, and the Internet went wild. Some were saying it would be a “game changer”. Some thought it was a bust. Some made sanitary napkin jokes. Few said nothing.

But what is the iPad? Does it really change the game — and if so, what game? And how?

Apple’s previous game changers

The previous game changers from Apple have been the iPod and the iPhone. Each of these changed the way we interacted in a particular market.

The iPod was the first popular MP3 player, and its existence — together with the iTunes store — brought music lovers away from their CD collections and into the world of MP3s. It legitimized the format, and was the beginning of the end for the music industry’s status quo. The ripples from this are still being felt, with the RIAA launching regular lawsuits against customers who download music illegally.

The iPhone was the first non-business phone to truly integrate the web into a mobile device. The Blackberry might have been there first, but their business-oriented approach limited the audience. Suddenly, we are all walking around with the Internet in our pocket.

We might not all have iPods and iPhones. We may have Zunes, Droids, or a Nexus 1. But the fact that we have these things — and the reason for Apple’s primacy in these markets — is due to Apple either creating or recognizing unseen markets for these types of devices, and having those markets seemingly appear out of nothing, overnight.

What is the iPad?

In order to figure out if the iPad is a game changer, we first need to understand what it is. The iPod is a music player. The iPhone is a phone. While portable music players and mobile phones had been around for a long time, Apple’s approach to these changed our approach as consumers. If the iPad is to change a game, that game needs to be identified first. Apple does not have a history of new ideas, but of new, intuitive, approaches to old ideas.

A few things that the Internet tells us when we ask what the iPad is:
PC Magazine calls it “a gigantic iPod touch.”
This Is London calls it “a tablet PC.”
As a “tablet PC” is rather nondescriptive, was can turn to MTV, who call it “a hybrid between an iPhone and a full laptop”.

Apple themselves do not describe it. They instead talk about how good it is for web surfing, how thin it is, and how many Apps are available.

Given Apple’s approach, we at the Big Bad Blog tempted to declare it a “bust”, rather than a “game changer”. If it is only a big iPod Touch, then we already have those. Making a bigger one is not revolutionary, and will not change any games. Lacking true laptop functionality (which cheaper netbooks tend to have), while providing few (if any) features unavailable on the more portable pocket-sized versions of the device mean a niche market and little appeal.

However, things change if we stop defining the iPad based on features available in other Apple devices. If we stop considering it to be a big iPod, or a “tablet” device — variations of which have been around since the 1970s, and never found traction — and begin to consider it to be an eBook, things look different.

Now, eBooks might be a small game to change, but they are a game. The iPad has a 9.7-inch display, the same as that of Amazon’s Kindle DX (but larger than other Kindles and the Sony eReader, seen on the right), and comes with plans for an Apple bookstore similar to the iTunes music store. This is different. This has a target.

Why do the Kindle and the Sony eReader not interact with the internet? Allow you to use e-mail? Allow you to copy a quote and save it in a document file, spreadsheet or to Tweet it to the world? These are things that we would like an eBook to do. The iPad does this.

In fact, when we look at what’s new — a screen that is the same size as that for other eBooks, the book store plans, and the long battery life — they all seem designed to compete with the other eReaders out there, as opposed to having been by chance.

So the Big Bad Blog is declaring the iPad a game changer — but we might not notice, because the game is small and Apple seems afraid to call the iPad an eReader.

The future of the eBook

Which brings us to the eBook and the game that is to be changed. The publishing industry is already in upheaval — the Kindle and Sony eReader have gained enough of a market share (of avid readers) that book publishers are now beginning to worry about those same things that the music and movie industries have been worrying about for years. But they are also still fairly rare — you might not even know anybody who has one.

The reason is that they are expensive and limited in functionality. If you only read Twilight books and Dan Brown novels, it’s a waste of money — particularly given that publishers are pushing for new eBooks (meaning the content) to cost $14.99, on top of the price already paid for the reader itself.

The iPad might be expensive as well — in fact, even moreso — but there’s an intermediate level of reader out there — ones who do not read a new book every week, but do read regularly beyond the bestseller list. A flashier, fancier device could cause these people to consider making a purchase that they would not have made otherwise.

Here at the Big Bad Blog, we think this will happen. While the change will not be as fast as with the ubiquitous mobile phone — many are still hesitant to leave paper behind — in ten years, people will think that books that do not allow their readers to send an e-mail or make a call on Skype are primitive.

Students will lead the change

Why ten years? Because we need a group of students who move through University with eBooks in their pockets to enter the workforce and disperse.

The huge advantage that eBooks have is with those who carry around multiple books. One book? No different. Five books? Big difference. University students have reading lists, textbooks, books checked out of the library for research on a paper. Books that they have to stay in the library with in order to research a paper.

Imagine, if you will, the student with an iPad.

This student can choose a place to sit: The library, at home, the coffee shop, under a tree in the quad between classes. Wherever they are comfortable. They can pull out their iPad.

They check the assignment on the course’s webpage. They then do a bit of online research to find what references will be useful. They go to the Apple Bookstore — or even the University Library’s page of books that students can checkout as eBooks — and get the required references. They read them, occasionally flipping over to the word processing App to make notes or copy a quote over. They pull up e-mail again, before heading off to their next class, and send a note to their professor with a question that has come up about the assignment.

The student runs off to class, and pulls up the course textbook on their iPad. Or the reading material being discussed that day.

The iPad is the student’s dream. All their textbooks, in one 1.5 pound device. Plus interactivity, e-mail, word processing, the Internet. Add in games, YouTube and recreational uses and you have something that is well worth the asking price.

What needs to happen to win the race

We at the Big Bad Blog have yet to see the device that will clearly become the leading ubiquitous eReader. Amazon and Sony have a headstart, but Apple’s vision is closer to the one that might successfully repeat the experience of the iPod as the top portable music player, or of Windows as the top operating system.

We at the Big Bad Blog think the key is the student population. They are the ones for whom an eReader which does not limit itself to the reading of books can become a necessity, rather than an expensive bookshelf full of DRM-limited titles. As the students graduate into the workforce, the next generation of adults will be accustomed to eBooks and have already made a choice regarding their favourite brand.

The success story will not be easy. A few things need to be done to find the hearts of students, and bring eBooks into an academic setting as the norm, rather than the exception:

Versatility: This is where the iPad has a head start. Holding all the books you need is useful, but not enough — word processing, e-mail, and the Internet all need to be available if the eBook is to be the defacto portable tool for the student. Games and videos are needed if the eBook is expected to become something they love, rather than a versatile textbook.

Multitasking: Websites everywhere have taken Apple to task over the lack of multitasking on the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Apple has happily ignored them — it helps to make the devices secure, while not truly limiting their functionality. The nature of the way we use the small portable devices makes multitasking unnecessary, in the end. This will not be true for the iPad, or eBooks in general. A student will find themselves needing one (or more) books open, the word processor open, and perhaps a chat with other students they are working with. The device that will win a student heart needs this functionality. If the next generation of iPad does not introduce multitasking, it might be a device that changes the game by revealing the true potential of eBooks, but becomes irrelevant itself shortly thereafter.

NCBI, PubMed and Journals: There are certain sites and many publications that publish the research that students and academics need to use. eBook makers need to look at these, and ensure that these can be easily accessed by those using their products. The ability for a student to search through articles in academic journals cannot be undervalued.

The University Library: University libraries are the traditional source of material for students. Putting deals in place that allow for students to “check out” eBooks “owned” by their University library can give an eBook a strong leg up on their competition, along with potential revenue from the University library. Checked out eBooks could contain DRM, and only be accessible for a limited period — two weeks, for example — before they expired.

The Google Factor: Google has been leading the way at moving old books over to digital. Because of this, any successful courtship has to have Google as a partner. Or will Google step in with their version of an eBook, leveraging the work that they have already done? As much as the iPad looks to change the future of the eBook, old texts and searching technology will be valuable to the academic community. If we are right about the student population being the gateway to leading the market, Google could quite well step in with their own device and change the marketplace dramatically.

The Big Bad Verdict

The iPad is a game changer — but it could also be a bust, if it is not marketed properly, or fails takes on a life of its own beyond Apple’s current (apparent) marketing plans.

So long as it is viewed as a “big iPod”, a competitor to Netbooks, or a successor to the unsuccessful tablets that have occasionally surfaced over the past forty years, it will be a bust. It does too little that is new, at what is still too high a price point.

But other eBook makers will have taken note already. Eventually one of these — or an unseen competitor that has not yet revealed themselves — will create a device that properly meets the needs of University students. That device will gain traction and become a market leader.

And ten years after that, paper books will be like records. The connoisseur might prefer them. The collector might have shelves full of them. The rest of us — who are around now and reading — will remember them fondly. Future generations will not understand references such as “paperback”.