{"id":173,"date":"2010-06-02T03:39:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-02T03:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/?p=173"},"modified":"2020-08-07T03:27:59","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T03:27:59","slug":"analytics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/2010\/06\/02\/analytics\/","title":{"rendered":"Analytics and Unannounced Products"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Video excerpts of last night\u2019s D8 interview with Steve Jobs have been trickling out at a steady pace. (An unofficial transcript from John Paczkowski\u00a0is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/d8.allthingsd.com\/20100601\/steve-jobs-session\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.)\u00a0A number of the excerpts are worth watching, including\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/video.allthingsd.com\/video\/d8-steve-jobs-on-iads-restrictions\/C8B21003-0B0E-4809-8D6A-DAE9EEC50A41\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this exchange<\/a>\u00a0on how the latest SDK terms and conditions affect analytics packages. \u00a0In the video, Jobs expresses his displeasure with analytics packages that transmit usage information without the user\u2019s permission\u2014especially when the transmitted information identifies unreleased Apple products and prototypes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conversation immediately reminded me of this\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pinchmedia.com\/blog\/ipod-31\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cheesy sales pitch<\/a>\u00a0last summer from Pinch Media boasting about discovery of a not-yet-released iPod touch through their analytics reporting.\u00a0This sort of thing never goes over very well in Cupertino. Tonight\u2019s interview seems to confirm that the new restrictions on analytics are as much about Apple\u2019s privacy as ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ironically (or not), Pinch last December\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pinchmedia.com\/blog\/pinch-media-flurry-to-merge\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">merged with Flurry<\/a>, the company that Jobs explicitly names in the D8 interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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\u2019s a wealth of information that traditional surveys or feedback mechanisms will never match. The challenge, as Jobs notes, is ensuring these packages don\u2019t cross the line of transmitting sensitive information about the user or their device. It shouldn\u2019t be too difficult to find that common ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Video excerpts of last night\u2019s D8 interview with Steve Jobs have been trickling out at a steady pace. (An unofficial transcript from John Paczkowski\u00a0is\u00a0here.)\u00a0A number of the excerpts are worth watching, including\u00a0this exchange\u00a0on how the latest SDK terms and conditions affect analytics packages. \u00a0In the video, Jobs expresses his displeasure with analytics packages that transmit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}