“Apple’s iPhone app platform is brand new, so developers have plenty of questions they want to ask each other, or tips to share. But they can’t — at least not without violating Apple’s non-disclosure agreement,” Dan Frommer reports for SIlicon Alley Insider.
“We understand why Apple would want to have an NDA on its software kit while it was in beta, perhaps so people didn’t get the wrong impression if bugs or half-baked apps leaked out. And maybe it even makes sense to have an NDA the first few weeks that the iPhone App Store is up and running, just to keep the lid on things if something blew up, say, a security hole,” Frommer reports.
“But now the NDA has outlived any purpose it once had, and is threatening to hurt, not help,” Frommer reports. “If the iPhone platform is going to be a long-term success, it’s going to involve not just software companies with a lot of resources, but thousands of garage coders whipping up inventive stuff. And Apple needs to keep them happy, not tick them off. We are two weeks into iPhone’s launch: High time to let developers ask questions, form communities, lease themselves as consultants, write books, share advice, etc. — and time to get rid of the iPhone NDA.”
Full article here.
Good thing the weekend’s almost here, Dan. From the overwrought tone of your article, it sounds like you need a break. That Frommer goes from “maybe it even makes sense to have an NDA the first few weeks” to “we are two weeks into iPhone’s launch: High time to get rid of the iPhone NDA!” in the space of three sentences is enough to make us scream TGIF!
“And maybe it even makes sense to have an NDA the first few weeks that the iPhone App Store is up and running, just to keep the lid on things if something blew up, say, a security hole.”
“We are two weeks into iPhone [App Store]’s launch.”
Lol.
He’s just pissed that it’s so hard to get insider info on the iPhone firmware/OS.
Or maybe he’s upset about his last name and the lack of traveling he does.
Dan I wouldn’t worry too much about Apple’s NDA. Go ahead and post. They’ve never been to worried about people violating their software development rules & regulations.
He needs to meditate.
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/index.html
@HMCIV “They’ve never been to worried about people violating their software development rules & regulations.”
Yeah, I agree. I mean, it’s not like they have a legal department or anything…
Sarcasm, ya gotta love it.
Way to attempt to get off subject MDN. He is right and you know it. The community doesn’t want to wait to grow. It wants to grow now and quickly. Things that Apple should be wanting.
Alley Insider is a fucking joke. Blodget is the worst Apple writer online.
I once wrote in the day’s of yore that Apple inc. are busy developing stuff that we didn’t know we wanted or needed until they released it, we have now gotten so used to that fact that when we do get stuff that we didn’t know we wanted or needed, we start complaining that it doesn’t do this, that or the other. Take what’sis name yesterday with his comment about mobile me.
I didn’t know that I wanted to sync. my iphone with my mac instantly until mobile me arrived, I didn’t know that I wanted to do the same with a PC & vice versa, but now that I can or we can, twits like him suggets that waiting five minutes for an upload from a PC or mac to an iphone is a shoddy job that needs improving yesterday. That particular issue lies in the licenced mobile telephony operators.
Just like us, they did not know what people wanted until Apple inc made it possible for us to realise what we have been missing so they haven’t upgraded their service to meet these new needs.
The trouble is that as soon as they decide they are loosing money failing us, they go to where the puck has been not where it will be.
We all need to be responsible for our own actions so that we can put our expectations into a proper perspective.
The Crabapple has spoken, thus says the Crabapple.
Of course there could be some “SONDAF = Securized Official NDA Forum”… Quite much securized though!…
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All I need is to be able to use my development iP as normal phone.
The problem as I see it is not so much that the new features aren’t working perfectly from the start, but rather that some of the old features that people had been depending upon for years (webmail, for example) went down for a large number of users.
Losing mail for 3 days was not on my calender, and ended up costing me time and money. If it were MS or Dell I would be used to it by now, but it was Apple so I expected more from them.
Is it me or is it a slow news week?
“Is it me or is it a slow news week?”
It’s both.
Ampar,
“It’s both.”
I got a chuckle on that one.
The way I see it, TALENTED programmers aren’t being held back, they are learning their way around the system as they go… much like the hacker community creates all their on libraries as they go along.
Somewhere between the hackers and the gifted non-hackers lie the whiners who want someone to hold their hand while they moan about how they can only get 10 fps while the next guy is getting 30 fps. They don’t want to do the work, just reap the rewards.
@Wrong Again,
You’re right in a sense, but wrong.
By not legally allowing people to collaborate, Apple is forcing each developer/team to re-invent the wheel, when there’s no reason to.
Web 2.0 is all about openness and collaboration, the Microsoftian days are over, and Apple must make sure they’re on the right side of the right side of the fence–alienating your developers, especially young ones who may be very interested but not yet willing to commit their resources and maybe next few years of their lives to coding for your platform, is the worst thing you can do.
This whole issue is the proverbial “mountain out of a molehill” and it’s being driven by the developers who are driven by their lust for cash.
Go over to TUAW and see some excellent responses (in the comments) the pot-stirrers behind this junk. Some of these same complainers in the iPhone dev community also have book deals that are waiting for the NDA to lift.
As someone who has been critical of Apple lately for all the fantastic screw-ups they seem to be engendering, I know that it makes little sense to then turn around and criticise them for “not going fast enough” on stuff like this. You can’t have it both ways.
“By not legally allowing people to collaborate, Apple is forcing each developer/team to re-invent the wheel, when there’s no reason to.”
What if you’ve got 4 developers, each one re-invents the wheel in a way based on their personal programming experience (instead of all opting to use the gimped “easy way out” version that dev 5 used). It actually forces truly original ideas, some of which, through code examples provided to Apple, may trickle into the next version of the OS.
“young ones who may be very interested but not yet willing to commit their resources”
They can go program for Open Moko or Android. You bring up a good point, though. This is an excellent way to legally weed out the undesirables. If you hear some bright young developer can’t keep his mouth shut and breaks the NDA… well, they’ll have a good learning experience about what NDA means and maybe that’ll make ’em a better dev in the future!
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Speaking to “Reinventing the Wheel” being a good thing…
http://apple2history.org/history/ah05.html
If Wozniak had used what other companies were using for disk controllers instead of “reinventing” it we may not have had soft-sectored drives! I still say that the brilliant ones see this as an inconvenience at best (like all NDA’s anyone has to deal with) and, the rest? This keeps them from sponging off other’s successes and becoming the millionaire their mother always told them they would be…
Those who can’t do… complain.
Wake up, people! Frommer is not the only person who’s unhappy with this. The so-well-respected-Tom-Yager-who-was-quoted-at-the-WWDC-by-Steve-Jobs-about-the-quality-of-the-iPhone-SDK has written an article about the same subject:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/yager/archives/2008/07/apples_iphone_c.html?source=NLC-AHEADOFCURVE&cgd=2008-07-24
The NDA should have been history as soon as the BETA expired!
After all, you people who can actually BUY an iPhone because you live in a geographical area where it is sold…DON’T YOU WANT your iPhone apps to work properly? How many times do you want your iPhone resetting itself because the developer community has been legally halted from actually being a community, prevented from exchanging useful information that could benefit YOU!
You know, I’ve never understood why all of the bitching and moaning from developers who make stuff for Apple products is always so highly publicized, while the constant screw overs that happen to those who choose to develop for MS go largely unnoticed except in the most extreme cases and where the screwee is large enough to be noticed. On the other hand, every up-and-coming Apple developer is given a megaphone.
At least Apple’s NDA doesn’t prevent developers from griping.