Apple Outsider

Industry News, Exploits and Hacks from a former Apple Insider

Mark

Hello, Lua

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Under the radar of this week’s WWDC news is a small but very significant change to the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. The change is in the oft-controversial section 3.3.2. Here is the last sentence of the old copy:

No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s).

Here is the new copy:

Unless otherwise approved by Apple in writing, no interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s). Notwithstanding the foregoing, with Apple’s prior written consent, an Application may use embedded interpreted code in a limited way if such use is solely for providing minor features or functionality that are consistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application.

I’ve said before that Apple’s aversion to interpreted code and external runtimes is the potential for someone else to take the platform over. That’s not the whole story, though. Games in particular tend to use engines and libraries that leverage interpreted languages such as Lua. Many of these applications pose no threat, neither implicitly nor explicitly.

While explicit approval from Apple is still required, these new terms seem to acknowledge that there’s a difference between an app that happens to have non-compiled code, and a meta-platform. It’s a step that should allow for many new possibilities.

What if iPad Came First?

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The most interesting revelation from Tuesday’s D8 talk with Steve Jobs was that Apple started with the iPad, and shelved it to build the iPhone first. Many people suspected this was the case, but it was surprising to hear Jobs personally confirm it.

It’s tempting to wonder how differently things would have gone if the iPad did in fact come first. Whether by chance or by design, it seems quite clear that the order in which things ended up happening was the right one.

Many already believe that iPad will end up having a greater impact than iPhone has had, as it aims to redefine personal computing for the first time in more than two decades. But without the introduction and success of iPhone to pave the way, iPad may well have been too disruptive on its own to be anything close to a hit.

Apple’s success is largely rooted in the way it embraces familiarity, even with “revolutionary” products like iPad and iPhone. Remember how iPhone was positioned when announced in 2007:

  • An iPod
  • A phone
  • An “internet communicator”

Everyone knew and understood the first two. iPod was already a hit. Many people hated their phones and were waiting for someone like Apple to reinvent the experience. These traits were not only familiar, but anticipated.

The third—internet communicator—was much more foreign, and drew a lukewarm response compared to the other two as they were announced. But we know now that that third, unfamiliar trait is the one that has defined iPhone as a product and a platform. “iPod” and “Phone” are now but two icons among hundreds of thousands.

This is what Apple does so well: it brings you aboard with something familiar or intuitive, and then takes you someplace you wouldn’t have gone otherwise. It is also what Apple’s competitors and detractors never seem to understand. With every product launch, naysayers inevitably turn to a PowerPoint slide and note that company X’s product overview has more bullets. It’s not about the bullets. It’s about people wanting to use the product. Tapping into that is very, very hard—especially when refusing to acknowledge its importance. How they can continue to ignore it as Apple’s sales and market cap soar is a mystery.

iPad is neither an iPod nor a phone. It’s positioned as something entirely new between a laptop and a smartphone. iPhone gave users a much softer transition to this new interaction model, and built a tremendously successful platform off of it. People immediately understood iPad as a result. Without that transition, it risked being completely misunderstood: a new platform, form factor and interface that intentionally does less than a PC and has no third party apps. Not only would this have been a harder sell, but any lackluster reception would have completely tarnished an iPhone introduction later. We could be living in a much different world today.

Decisions like these also explain why Apple doesn’t talk. It not only has the stones to shelve a project like iPad, it has the patience to keep quiet until the goods are real—so that whenever it does come out, it’s special rather than just late. Imagine a company blabbing about a new computing platform and floating contrived After Effects demos to the press, only to cancel it and instead release something entirely different much later. Actually… there’s no need to imagine.

Whatever thinking went into the decision, iPad is unquestionably a stronger product thanks to those few years on the shelf.

Analytics and Unannounced Products

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Video excerpts of last night’s D8 interview with Steve Jobs have been trickling out at a steady pace. (An unofficial transcript from John Paczkowski is here.) A number of the excerpts are worth watching, including this exchange on how the latest SDK terms and conditions affect analytics packages.  In the video, Jobs expresses his displeasure with analytics packages that transmit usage information without the user’s permission—especially when the transmitted information identifies unreleased Apple products and prototypes.

The conversation immediately reminded me of this cheesy sales pitch last summer from Pinch Media boasting about discovery of a not-yet-released iPod touch through their analytics reporting. This sort of thing never goes over very well in Cupertino. Tonight’s interview seems to confirm that the new restrictions on analytics are as much about Apple’s privacy as ours.

Ironically (or not), Pinch last December merged with Flurry, the company that Jobs explicitly names in the D8 interview.

I agree with the audience member who asked the question: analytics are invaluable to developers who care about the user experience of their applications. They can find out how often a given feature is used (or cancelled, or given up on) and use that information to improve the area in question. They can de-emphasize features that are less popular, and make the more popular tasks easier to get to. It’s a wealth of information that traditional surveys or feedback mechanisms will never match. The challenge, as Jobs notes, is ensuring these packages don’t cross the line of transmitting sensitive information about the user or their device. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find that common ground.

James Duncan Davidson Comes Down From the Mountain

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You know it’s a platform war when the programming language debates heat up. Yesterday, Sam Pullara dusted off the old string comparison benchmark and dressed it up with a fresh click-baiting headline. It worked—enough to make Tomcat-and-Ant-creator-turned-photographer James Duncan Davidson put down his camera and give a history lesson.

Does Android’s Dalvik VM bring things to the table that previous JITs did not? It’s entirely possible. Duncan’s final point is the key one: all that matters here is whose users get the most done, and have the most fun doing it. It’s gonna be awhile before we know. In the meantime, grab your popcorn. This rivalry gets better by the minute.

Whither Verizon?

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Speculation over the iPhone coming to Verizon Wireless will continue until it actually happens. Loyal Verizon customers want iPhones, and AT&T continues to take it on the chin. The promise of a huge untapped market is enough to keep analysts and investors buzzing indefinitely.

Apple’s exclusivity deal with AT&T is the most obvious barrier, and it’s what most observers continue to scrutinize. But even discounting that obligation, there are still a number of obstacles to overcome before an iPhone shows up on Verizon’s network. Here are a few:

Simultaneous Voice and Data

Think about the number of iPhone commercials you’ve seen that demonstrate using apps while a call is active. Now imagine those commercials vanishing because the iPhone is on Verizon. The ability to—wait for it—multitask while on the phone has been a critical selling point of the iPhone experience since the iPhone 3G launch almost two years ago. CDMA’s answer for this long-standing weakness—SVDO—was only announced last August. Verizon seems to be betting on LTE, but we’re still waiting.

Apple is not the kind of company that takes huge steps backward just to win a few more customers. Don’t hold your breath for a Verizon iPhone until this problem is solved. I remain baffled as to why AT&T has not been more vocal about it.

Features and Services

Technical limitations notwithstanding, Verizon has a long history of forcing partners to remove or alter smartphone features, and add its own. Marco Arment talked about this just yesterday. The story appears to be improved in the Droid era, but it’s still a likely point of contention in any Apple-Verizon negotiations: iPhone either works the same on Verizon as it does everywhere else, or not at all.

Surely AT&T or Verizon wouldn’t mind boasting that the product can do more on its network, but it’s not AT&T’s or Verizon’s product. iPhone has spent three years defining itself in the US. To suddenly confuse that definition would be a problem.

Retail

Right now, every iPhone in the world uses GSM technology, regardless of the carrier. Adding Verizon would mean building, testing, and forecasting new hardware for a CDMA model. It would also have a significant impact on the well-oiled Apple Retail machine.

Every time a new iPhone launches, there are lines out the door. Add a CDMA phone to the mix, and you either have two lines, or complicate the process by waiting for each customer to decide between carriers. If the customer changes his mind mid-purchase, the Apple Retail rep has to go get the other model—adding time to the transaction and running tempers higher for everyone in line. In-store returns will inflate with gifted iPhones that were bought for the wrong carrier. The retail implications of a second wireless chipset are in many ways negative.

That may sound like a minor issue, but it’s the kind of thinking that makes Apple a different company. The Apple Store arguably boasts the best retail experience in any industry. Anything that compromises that experience is not likely to go over well.

Branding

Did you know Verizon invented the Blackberry Storm? Have you noticed it’s always listed before Google and [insert OEM here] in Droid ads? Like most carriers and telcos, Verizon believes it brings, well, everything to the table, and subsequently demands all the credit. Apple, meanwhile, is the only Intel partner on the planet that does not have an Intel Inside logo anywhere on or near its products. If any talks between these two have taken place, you don’t need a vivid imagination to guess how they’ve gone.

Apple: Sorry we haven’t talked in a while. Where did we leave off?

Verizon: We were discussing where our logo would fit on the back of your phone.

Apple: [click]

This will be a deal breaker if it isn’t already. Guess which company will have to give in.

As with any potential partnership, there are a lot of things to be worked out here if and when the time comes.