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Tag: developers (Page 1 of 2)

‘Glue’ is a Cloud Conference That’s Different – It’s for *Developers* (and some interesting new twists on the next one)

GlueConf-logo You may know I've attended the Glue Conference in Denver since its inception.  I've reported on both of those great events, in May 2009 and May 2010.  The last one I live-blogged, and that is luckily archived here.  The '09 event, however, I only covered by live tweeting — i.e., all my coverage was done on Twitter — so good luck finding that archive. And it was probably a couple-hundred "posts" long, too. Shees…

Anyway, the next Glue is coming up in May 2011, and I certainly plan to be there — live-blogging, not live-tweeting!  So, why would I be talking about that event now, when it's several months out?  Well, because I have some important *advance* news about it for all my developer friends, whether you're involved in a cloud-based startup or not.  Here's the deal:

Eric Norlin runs the event (and sister event Defrag, this month), and makes clear Glue is aimed at developers. That makes it different from other "cloud computing” conferences, which he thinks is a big echo chamber. "Glue seeks to explore the connective tissue of the web and IT infrastructure," says Norlin. EricNorlin-Defrag2007 "That connective tissue can be called a lot of things — service oriented architecture, web services, APIs, cloud computing, etc. Call it what you will, developers know that it’s not the name that counts, it’s the building of the application, and the underlying infrastructure that supports it."

Norlin says his goal with Gluecon has been really simple: to make it *the* gathering place for developers in the API/cloud space. "With that goal in mind, we’re setting out this year to change the game for developer conferences," he says. "And the only way that I know to change the game is to open things up in such a way as to get maximum involvement from the community. As such, I’m extremely happy to announce that Alcatel-Lucent is signing on to be the Community Underwriter and Partner Sponsor of Gluecon 2011."

So, what does that mean for the event?  It's this: Alcatel-Lucent (which runs OpenAPIservice.com) will be underwriting 15 companies to have demo pods at Glue 2011. The participation of these companies will be based solely on merit, not the ability to pay for an exhibit, says Norlin.

"We’re announcing that 15 companies will be selected to have completely free demo space at Gluecon. The demo pod will include passes to the show, signage, Internet — everything you need. Just show up with a laptop."

To select the companies, Norlin says he and Alcatel-Lucent have put together a top-notch selection committee: Chris Shipley (Guidewire Group), Mathew Ingram (of MESH and GigaOM), John Musser (Programmable Web), Laura Merling (Alcatel-Lucent), Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb), Jeff Lawson (Twilio), Jeff Hammond (Forrester), Ian Glazer (Gartner), Ben Kepes (Diversity.net), Krish Subramanian (CloudAve), Vinod Kurpad (Best Buy), Seth Levine (Foundry Group), and Eric Norlin.

"The process will be simple," says Norlin. "We'll accept applications for the 15 spots, and every person on the selection committee gets to vote for their favorite 15 companies. The top 15 vote-getters will have a demo pod."  He points out that Alcatel-Lucent will have just one vote (two if you count Programmable Web, which is owned by Alcatel-Lucent), but not nearly enough to swing a decision. The company wants to maintain the credibility and neutrality of Glue, Norlin says.  He points out the selection committee purposely includes analysts (Guidewire, Gartner, and Forrester), journalists (GigaOM and ReadWriteWeb), a manager inside a large corporation (Best Buy), and even other company CEOs (Jeff Lawson of Twilio) to help run through this process. Alcatel-Lucent’s involvement, he says, is altruistic: enlarge the size and interaction around this developer community — "and everyone benefits."  Other exhibitors will be still be able to secure exhibitor space, Norlin adds.

But wait — there's more. "We’ll be doing some awesome things leading up to Glue — like holding 'hackathons' around the country, and then flying the winners to Gluecon to participate in a major league hackathon at the conference. And that’ll just be the beginning – stay tuned," he says.

PREDICTION:  Minnesota friends, I'm going out on a limb and predicting that one of these hackathons will be held right here in the Twin Cities.

"I’m excited because I feel like we have the ability to really change the game with this one." says Norlin.  "If you take away the company-specific conferences — Google I/O, Twitter, F8 — there really just aren’t that many national-level gathering spots for developers in the cloud/API space. There are a lot of 'business level' and 'workshop' conferences that happen around cloud computing, but we’re talking about developers.  And even where there are developer gatherings in the cloud/API space, the ability to pay has always been a limiting factor for startups and companies wanting to show their wares and exhibit. That ends with Gluecon 2011!  Now, developers in the cloud/API space will have the ability to participate in a pure meritocracy. Wow the selection committee, and you’re in."

Norlin sums up: "At the end of the day, what I want to see is 500-plus developers coming to Gluecon to build apps, figure out cloud infrastructure, scaling, security, and solve the tough problems around API construction, usage, and maintenance."

How does one apply?  The process starts here.

Gluecon 2011 will cover a broad spectrum of cloud/API topics that matter to developers — "from Hadoop to Clojure to Active API event processing to Cloud Scaling to Big Data databases (of both the NoSQL and SQL variety) to web protocols (activity streams, PUSH, etc)," says Norlin. "We’re going deeper, getting more technical than ever, bringing in a third day of workshops, just generally stepping up and kicking ass."

So, my developer friends, you think you can hang with the big boys and girls at Gluecon? Well, now you can apply for a Gluecon demo pod, and prove it.  (Want more info?  Email Eric at enorlinATmac.com.)

See you at Gluecon in May!

UPDATE: Just after I posted, this popped up on ReadWriteWeb: Weekly Poll: What Cities Should Be Chosen for GlueCon Hackathon Tour?  So, get busy all you Minnesota tech supporters out there, vote for the Twin Cities!!

 

 

Minnesota’s W3i Lights Up the ‘Net with Its Latest App News

(This post first appeared on Minnov8.com, a site about web & Internet innovation in MInnesota.)

Okay, so there’s this company named Apple that I hear makes phones. And people tell me there’s been, uh, a bit of news lately about some new phone of theirs? 
IPhone4-FrontBackSide
Well, that media firestorm didn’t stop Minnesota’s W3i from deciding to jump in with some news of its own, which is actually related to the exploding ecosystem around Apple mobile devices.  That would be apps.

St. Cloud, MN-based W3i is in the app distribution business — in a big, profitable way (33 successive quarters thereof).  But till now that business has been all about desktop apps, and Windows only. Well, mark down yesterday as the day they entered the world of mobile, with this bombshell: W3i Launches New Incented Mobile App Distribution Service for iOS App Developers.  A separate version of the release, for consumers, gets more to the benefit: Consumers Can Now Earn Rewards for Installing Apps.  Those rewards, my friends, would be cash — for consumers who register at a W3i site called Apperang.com

Naturally, app fanboys and girls everywhere loved the news — after reading about it on some of the sites they frequent the most.  TechCrunch (MobileCrunch) ran this story: Apperang Pays You Cash to Download iPhone Apps… Ka-Ching!  And VentureBeat (MobileBeat) ran concurrently — amazing how that happens — with their take: Get paid to install apps with W3i Mobile Solutions and Apperang
W3i-logo+tag Numerous other sites and blogs picked up on it immediately, and Twitter was going crazy on it (just search on hashtags #apperang and #w3i).  [Oh, sure, there was a story in the Mpls StarTrib last week, too, but that didn't light up much of anything… <rimshot>]

Apperang-screenclip I asked the CEO of a local app development company for his reaction to this W3i news, from a business perspective:  ”The model and integration W3i has developed for desktop distribution has been a huge success in the past, so I wouldn’t bet against them on making their mobile version a success,” said Wade Beavers, CEO of DoApp Inc. “For developers wanting to get a core base of users fast, it makes sense to use this service. The key will be how long those users keep your app, because that’s where the return on investment is.”

I also asked one of Minnesota’s most experienced iPhone app developers for his reaction: “Will app publishers readily jump to use this type of service? Small developers, maybe,” said Bill Heyman of CodeMorphic. “But small developers may not have budget to support this type of promotion… Will it be enough to hit the tipping point for more organic sales because of a higher App Store ranking? Well, ultimately, it would depend on how much a company wants to spend to buy a ranking.”

But, actually, W3i signed on some pretty successful big developers for its private beta before the announcement yesterday (the service is now in public beta).  That list of launch advertisers — just those that let W3i use their names for PR purposes — includes these firms, with the name of their app in parentheses: Big Stack Studios (Sigma), Inert Soap (FingerZilla), Booyah (MyTown), Gist (Gist), Thinking Ape (Kingdoms at War), Flixster (Movies), Slacker Inc (Slacker Radio), xCube Labs (My Health Records – Health n Family), and infinidycorp (Zombies vs. Aliens).

I’m sure we’ll be hearing about a lot more, as W3i tells me they are crazy-busy now following up with other app companies who are inquiring.

(Disclosure: the author has had a consulting relationship with W3i for providing PR services.)

Minnesota Mobile Developers Clocking Millions of Downloads

(Note: This post first appeared at Minnov8.com, on May 2, 2010.)

CrowdOfPeople-circle Local developers of apps for mobile devices, especially those
designed for Apple’s platform, are quietly amassing large numbers of
users for their creations, I’ve been learning.

This past week, I thought it would be an interesting little project
for me to do a survey of sorts as the basis for this blog post. What I
did (totally unscientific, I admit) was ask all the Twin Cities-area
mobile developers I happened to know just how many apps they have on the
two major platforms, Apple and Android, and how many users have
downloaded their apps to date.  It turned into a bigger project than I
thought!  It required a lot of back-and-forth emails to clarify all
their current offerings.  But I’ve sorted it all out as best I can, and
you’ll see the results of that survey in the second half of this post.

The two most-experienced mobile app development firms in Minnesota I
have known quite well for some time, having been a consultant to both in
the past: DoApp and CodeMorphic
These two firms began developing for the iPhone platform as soon as
Apple released the SDK in March 2008, and had their first creations in
the App Store from the get-go, in the case of DoApp (July 2008), and
CodeMorphic soon after. So, it was no surprise to me, then, that these
two have the largest numbers of downloads locally. But many more
Minnesota developers jumped in after them, and still are jumping in. In
fact, I learn about a new one almost weekly. Some publish apps in their
own name, some only for clients, and some do both. (For apps developed
for-hire for client companies, developers cannot track ongoing download
numbers in real time — only their clients know, unless they tell them or
otherwise publicize the numbers. But the developers can certainly make
educated guesses, which some of them did for me for my survey.) What
triggered this idea for a post was a news announcement one of the two
big local development firms just put out …

DoApp Inc. Announces One Million Downloads of Its “Mobile
Local News” App

Actually, it’s not one app; there are more than 100 of these DoApp “MLN”
apps out there, because that’s how many customers (media outlets) have
signed up with DoApp to date to use what is really an “app platform.” 
DoApp-Mgmt-250w
It allows DoApp’s customers — TV news stations, newspapers, online
publications, and radio stations — to easily brand the app for
themselves and deliver their content via smart phones and other mobile
devices, including the Apple iPad.  (DoApp has not yet submitted to
Apple an app designed specifically for the iPad, though its many iPhone
apps do work on that new device.)  In its recent announcement, DoApp
counted downloads for all its locally-branded Mobile Local News apps,
including both Apple and Android downloads, in saying they have
surpassed the one million number. The company first made the Mobile Local News
app available in April 2009. For more about all of DoApp’s products,
see the company’s web site.
  (In the photo: Joe Sriver, center, Founder; Wade Beavers, left,
CEO; and Dave Borrillo, VP-Software Development.)
I conducted an
email interview with DoApp founder Joe Sriver to learn more about the
current status of his company’s Mobile Local News app business.

First, here’s a map showing U.S. coverage of DoApp Mobile Local News
apps. For a list of all the
media properties that have the company’s app, see the lower portion of this page.


MobileLocalNews-map Minnov8:
Just out of curiosity, Joe, what percentage
of the one million downloads you’re announcing for Mobile Local News
are iPhone vs. Android?
Sriver: “Currently, the breakdown is about 60/40 in
favor of the iPhone. Android has really been gaining a lot of ground in
the last year. 2010 is a big year for Android.  We are seeing over 49
different brands of Android phones that are tapping our MLN app — a
challenge to maintain.”

Minnov8: How many of your existing customers for
this app offer both iPhone and Android versions? Does our local WCCO-TV,
your first customer, offer both?
Sriver: “Our platform offers the native iPhone and
Android versions for all our media outlet customers — WCCO included. We
will also have a Blackberry WAP version debuting in the next month. 
We’re seeing a new influx of iPad users accessing the news, too, so
let’s just say we will have an iPad solution soon.”

Minnov8: Most all your customers for this app
appear to be TV stations. Are any radio stations or newspapers signed up
yet? Do you expect more of the latter two?
Sriver: “We have been signing newspapers as well.  In
the last few months, we signed Journal Communications, which includes
Milwaukee’s Journal-Sentinel, and the Los Angeles News Group, which
includes several newspapers in the LA area. Our SBT News app serves the
newspaper in South Bend, Indiana.  We have also signed Swift
Communications, whose properties include many newspapers in the western
and northwestern U.S.  With our recent announcements, a flurry of radio
stations are contacting us, and our first radio station app will be out
in the first week of May.”

Minnov8: How much are you seeing media outlets
developing their own custom, native apps for mobile devices — as opposed
to simply skinning your app and configuring it for use with their local
audiences?  What’s the difference in time and money with your approach?
Sriver: “We’ve talked to many media outlets. A few of
them have decided to do development in-house. Many of them call us back a
few months later after they realize all the development requirements
for iPhone and Android. They tell us our Mobile Local News solution is
the fastest, cheapest, and most efficient method to bring their content
to mobile. The money difference is huge for them because its the support
that kills them, and we have a solution that fits to scale.  We’ve done
nine major enhancements in 12 months already, and for a property to do
so is a huge resource drain.  It’s just tough to keep up with
technology.”

Minnov8: How does DoApp Inc. make money from this
app — licensing?  Revenue share? Where does your “Adagogo” ad platform
fit in here?  What portion of your customers for this app have ads
appearing on it?  What revenue do you make from ads that appear on the
app?
Sriver: “We offer a subscription model where stations
can receive 100% of revenue from advertisements, or an advertising
revenue share model, where news organizations pay a small set up fee and
then share advertising revenue with DoApp.”

Minnov8: Are all current customers for the app in
the U.S.? If so, any plans to pursue business in other countries?
Sriver: “Yes, all current news entities who use Mobile
Local News are in the U.S.  We do have plans for news organizations in
other countries. We can support translations right now, and we are
working to reach out to the growing Spanish-speaking consumer market.”

Minnov8: Your original partner for the Mobile Local
News platform was Inergize Digital Media of Minneapolis — and I remember
having the initial discussion with them on your behalf in the fall of
2008. What role do they play? What percentage of the media outlets that
have signed up to use your app were existing customers of theirs?  And
what revenue split does Inergize get from this partnership?
Sriver: “Inergize brought many of their existing
stations who used their web solution to the mobile platform via DoApp’s
Mobile Local News. We’re working to establish other relationships and
also extending our direct model to TV news/radio/newspaper properties. 
The relationship works like this: DoApp provides Inergize’s partner
stations with the DoApp Mobile Local News mobile publishing solution. A
percentage of ad revenue goes to the station or newspaper, Inergize, and
DoApp.”

Minnov8: What does 2010 hold for DoApp? What portion
of your overall revenues do you expect will come from the Mobile Local
News and Adagogo combined?
Sriver: “We will continue to build our base of news
entities who use Mobile Local News.  MLN is the most popular platform
for mobile news delivery in the U.S.  Our Adagogo ad platform is
currently being used on all Mobile Local News apps. We will continue to
grow Adagogo as well. DoApp is also focusing on mobile real estate. We
have created what is arguably the most advanced real estate solution,
combining cost savings capabilities for agents with simplicity for their
clients — allowing mobile access anytime, anywhere via smart phones and
other mobile devices.”

So, what about DoApp’s total stats, for all their apps?  Here are the
numbers I got from Joe:

What is the total number of apps DoApp has had accepted into the
App Store?
iPhone: 125 (all but about 15 are Mobile Local News
apps). Android: 110.
Paid vs. Free? iPhone: 4 are paid apps, the rest are free.
Android: all are free.
What is the total number of downloads of all your apps?
iPhone: 4.5 million. Android: 600,000.  Total= 5.1 million.

So, where do other Minnesota developers stand as far as downloads? 
Well, here’s that unofficial survey of mine, with respondents in
alphabetical order, by company name.  The first happens to be the other
large player in the iPhone market I referred to earlier, who may in fact
have the largest number of downloads of all, although that cannot be
verified:

CodeMorphic
– Bill Heyman, Founder

What is the total number of apps you have had accepted into the App
Store?
50. (All under the names of clients.)
Paid vs. Free? 20 paid, 30 free.
What is the approximate total number of downloads of all your apps?
CodeMorphic provided a conservative estimate (because its clients have
the download figures): 3-5 million.  The most popular of CodeMorphic’s
apps has been the NPR Public Radio Player, which the firm said had 2.5M
downloads as of two months ago. It also did MPR’s app. Its other popular
apps include the “Smarter Agent” real-estate app. Some national brands
CodeMophic has done apps for do not allow the firm to publicly disclose
them as clients, but these apps have broad reach, too. To see a
selection of some of  CodeMorphic’s apps, see the firm’s portfolio page.)
Do you have apps available now in the Android Market? None
yet.

Mentormate
– Bjorn Stansvik, CEO

What is the total number of apps you have had accepted into the App
Store?
1 (“MigraineMate”).
Paid vs. Free? Free.
What is the approximate total number of downloads of all your apps?
858.
Do you have apps available now in the Android Market? None
yet. (“LocationMate app to be launched, for both iPhone and Android.”)

Mobile On Services Inc. (BuildAnApp.com) – Scott Pearson, VP-Business
Development

What is the total number of apps you have had accepted into the App
Store?
22. (“We’re still in beta.”)
Paid vs. Free? All free.
What is the approximate total number of downloads of all your apps?
4,000 iPhone, 500 Android. (“Will be a much different story in a couple
of months.”)
Do you have apps available now in the Android Market? Yes, 12.

MobileRealtyApps.com,
and Performant Design LLC – Aaron Kardell, CEO

What is the total number of apps you have had accepted into the App
Store?
4. (“Soon to be 5.”)
Paid vs. Free? 2 paid, 2 free. (“Soon to be 2 paid, 3 free.”)
What is the approximate total number of downloads of all your apps?
20,000.
Do you have apps available now in the Android Market? No.
(“But coming soon.”)

Mobile
Roots
– Lynn Smith, CEO/Founder

What is the total number of apps you have had accepted into the App
Store?
5. (Three are under Lynn’s name; two apps were developed by
Mobile Roots for clients: “Margaret for Governor” and “Brazelton for
House.” Two more apps are in development for political candidates.)
Paid vs. Free? 1 paid (“What the Funkytown!” – $0.99), 4 free.
What is the approximate total number of downloads of all your apps?
3,270.
Do you have apps available in the Android Market? No. (“But
releasing our first next week.”)

Recursive
Awesome
– Justin Grammens, Cofounder

What is the total number of apps you have had accepted into the App
Store?
7 public apps in the App Store; also 5 private apps for one
client, which are installed using the limited “AdHoc” distribution
method, whereby each app is manually installed on individual Apple
devices.
Paid vs. Free? 1 paid, 7 free.
What is the approximate total number of downloads of all your apps?
Estimate provided: 850,000.
Do you have apps available in the Android Market? Yes, 6 — 1
paid, 5 free, and 1 in private development. Estimated total downloads
for these: 60,000.

Refactr
Ben Edwards, Founder

What is the total number of apps you have had accepted into the App
Store?
2. (“And 2 more submitted.”)
Paid vs. Free? All free to date.
What is the approximate total number of downloads of all your apps?
One app built for Mayo Clinic: download number not known. The firm says
its own app, “Flashbang,” has been downloaded about 20,000 times.
Do you have apps available in the Android Market? None yet.

Tiny
Mission
– Bekki Freeman, Founder

What is the total number of apps you have had accepted into the App
Store?
3.
Paid vs. Free? 2 paid, 1 free.
What is the approximate total number of downloads of all your apps
to date?
1600.
Do you have apps available in the Android Market? No. (But
“working on it as fast as we can type!”).

One thing that occurred to me as I was working on this survey over
the past few days: it isn’t just software development firms that doing
mobile apps — many of those being firms that do development-for-hire,
and some of which are doing self-publishing of their own apps.  But
there are also other types of local firms that are developing their own
apps, some in-house, including startups whose initial product is a
mobile offering, or has a mobile version. One such startup I just
learned about is this one, based in Stillwater:

Nibi
Software
– Troy Peterson, CEO

What is the total number of apps you have had accepted into the App
Store?
1. (“An educational app called Nibipedia, which mashes all
the educational Youtube channels with Wikipedia articles — so that, when
reading an article, the app recommends relevant videos. It also tracks
your research path for you so you can review later. We have several
other apps in the queue. Apple makes taking an idea from conception to
market so much easier than with traditional web apps. We’re stoked.”)
Paid vs. Free? Paid – $1.99. (“But we’re offering it to
teachers in our Facebook Group for free.” Presumably, that would be via
the AdHoc distribution method.)
What is the total number of downloads of all your apps? No
specific number reported. (“It was just released, and has not been
promoted. But we’ve had several hundred downloads already from people
who became aware of it in the educational marketplace. It’s really
designed for the larger display screen of the iPad, so we are setting to
work to promote that in the next few weeks.” Presumably, that would
mean an iPad-specific version of the app is coming.)
Do you have apps available in the Android Market? Not yet.
(“But we’re going to, for sure.”)

A footnote: I only contacted firms that I
know to be developing for the Apple or Android platforms, but I make no
claims that this is a complete list. One firm I contacted that chose not
to report its numbers at this time was Handcast Media Labs, creators of
the “SparkRadio” app (one of my personal favs), which is available for
both the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad platforms. Another developer I
contacted did not respond: Dan Grigsby, who was head of
MobileOrchard.com, a company he announced recently he was shutting down.

Now we want your input: Who have we missed?
Are you a developer doing mobile apps? Do you know of a Minnesota
company that has released iPhone or Android apps?  Is your mother doing
iPhone apps? How about firms based outside the Twin Cities? If so,
please tell us in the comments!  Also tell us what apps you like.  And,
lastly… is the iPad better than sex?

Note: See the comments to this post where it originally appeared (Minnov8.com) here.

Rejected iPhone Developers: Read the Agreement

We were just talking about this yesterday on the latest Minnov8 Gang podcast — the whining we’re starting to hear from some developers whose iPhone apps are being rejected by Apple.  Now today we’re seeing stories pop up on the topic: Of Course You’ll Keep Developing For The iPhone (TechCrunch) and Blockage on iPhone Apps Begins to Properly Annoy Developers (The Guardian), to name two. Appstoreicon

I would only say what I said yesterday: read Apple’s iPhone Developer Agreement. How many developer’s really do, I wonder? I’ve read it, and it’s not that hard to get through — though it is long (around 30 pages, as I recall). It’s written in very clear, simple English — not so much in "legalese," as you might expect. I can’t imagine there isn’t something in there that says Apple can reject apps that could be deemed competitive to them or damaging in some other way to their business. There is language in the agreement, as I recall, that Apple can reject apps for certain stated reasons — and, I suspect they also say somewhere it can reject them for no reason at all, at its sole discretion. That’s the kind of agreements lawyers write, and Apple has a very good legal department.

So, to all those who aspire to develop for this platform, and don’t wish to have their apps rejected — read the agreement and, if you don’t understand it, get legal help.  Knowing what you’re getting into up front is always a good idea. If you don’t like what you read, then don’t do it.  It could save you a lot of whining later.

 

 

Ranting on Apple: Not All Developers Are Happy

UPDATE 8/10/08:  Check out Apple’s Rotten Decision (via eWeek). It’s a report from the Black Hat Conference, where the writer says "Apple’s image was pilloried on the show floor."

A smart friend of mine, who’s the founder of a startup with a successful online application/platform — and a longtime Apple user and developer — told me recently he’s really unhappy with Apple of late. I must say I was taken aback!  Rant
What, with all the hoopla about Apple’s latest consumer hits: the iPhone 3G and the wildly successful iTunes App Store (which I’m sure is up to 50 million downloads by now)?  Can Apple actually do wrong?  (Okay, with the obvious exception being the recent MobileMe launch, which they’ve already admitted they flubbed, and I have no doubt will be fixed soon — Steve will make sure of that.)

So, this was a real surprise to me — that such a longtime Apple believer and supporter could say something like this. I had to probe: "What on earth do you mean?"  I wanted to get at what could possibly be behind his newfound negative feelings toward Apple. 

Well, it turns out my friend has some very real concerns, and he makes a lot of sense — particularly because he speaks as someone who really understands the SaaS (software-as-a-service) business. So, here — unedited, in the raw — is his response to me:

BEGINNING OF APPLE RANT:

Graeme, I think part of the issue is that Apple’s culture is now at a mismatch with the SaaS and developer worlds. There certainly is a pattern here: arrogance and secrecy. Namely, SaaS and developer communities require transparency; Apple is more secretive than the CIA.

Ringtones
Apple tried damn hard to prevent people from making Ringtones of music they legitimately own. And you still have no mechanism for making Ringtones out of DRM’ed iTMS purchases without paying again for the song. And it is hard.

iPhone 3G Activation
In my opinion, the downfall of Apple (no, I am not really about to add myself to the legion of idiots predicting Apple’s doom over the years!) began with acquiescing to AT&T on the activation issue. I understand the legitimate business concerns involved, but the reality is that Apple re-invented the way a cell phone works with the original iPhone, and they gave away one of the coolest things about it with the iPhone 3G (the activation process). You can’t buy iPhones as presents any more!

But that was a nuisance.

MobileMe
So many things. One, the fiasco illustrates that Apple does not know a damn thing about web-based application hosting. They have iTunes working (more or less) right because it is so narrow in focus and so tightly controlled. But the MobileMe fiasco should not happen with any SaaS based system, ever.

And then their silence. They were silent for so long. When we finally heard from Apple, it was really just a note saying how Steve was forcing some dude who would give only his first name to blog about it every day or so. Contrast that with Amazon’s recent S3 fiasco. Amazon had updates every half hour for the duration of the outage, even if only to say we still don’t know any more than we did a half hour ago. For our online platform, we have a Twitter feed dedicated to system status so that our customers have ready access to what we know is wrong.

Every day or so? And saying nothing at all really in those communications. Inexcusable. The technical issues were about hard problems. The communication issues were easily fixed and never should happen in any scenario.

DNS Vulnerability
So, Apple knows about this vulnerability long before the rest of the world. The work of patching it is done for them. All of the major vendors of the world coordinate the announcement of the vulnerability and sending out patches.

Apple does nothing.

Weeks go by. Apple does nothing.

Exploits appear in the wild. Apple does nothing.

Eventually, Apple sends out a patch with the version of bind that is supposed to have the vulnerability patch. Somehow or another, it does not actually include port randomization features that protect against the vulnerability.

Apple does not send out the patch to non-server versions of OS X.

Apple never bothers to explain what it is up to or why it is failing to deliver timely patches.

I move my DNS off OS X for good. This was the final straw in the back that breaks OS X Server for me. I have been learning slowly over time that Apple is way too untrustworthy as a vendor of business services. This proved it.

In the meantime, Apple still has the vulnerability out there.

The App Store
Apple has proven the App Store concept is screwed up beyond belief. No ability to reasonably allow for trial use. No ability to reasonably have beta programs (the ad hoc deployment stuff is a fiasco in itself). But those are just feature complaints.

No one company should ever control what you can put on a device you own. If I want to pay $1,000 for "I am Rich", that’s my own damn prerogative. But even if we grant that right, the idea that they can remove apps from the store and tell no one anything about why it was removed? And what about if Apple corrupts my iTunes library and I need to re-install an app that I bought, but Apple later determined is not appropriate for their store? This is unacceptable.

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END OF APPLE RANT.  What do you think?  Please speak your piece in the comments below.

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