Much Ado About Nothing

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This morning, the New York Times published an article entitled "Apple Moves to Tighten Control of App Store".

The company has told some applications developers, including Sony, that they can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App Store.

Apple rejected Sony’s iPhone application, which would have let people buy and read e-books bought from the Sony Reader Store.

Apple told Sony that from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division.

Am I missing something? From reading the article, my understanding is that Sony tried to submit an app to the store that would allow in-app purchases. The Kindle or Nook apps, for instance, currently do not allow this either. When users click the various "store" links within these apps, it redirects the user to Safari. In other words, no ebook apps currently allow in-app purchases. It is my understanding that this has always been Apple's policy. Nothing has changed. Why is the New York Times feigning ignorance on this? Or are they really just that, ignorant.

The writers of the article, Claire Cain Miller and Miguel Helft go on to say:

The move could affect companies like Amazon.com and others that sell e-book readers that compete with Apple’s iPad tablet and offer free mobile apps so customers can read their e-book purchases on other devices. An iPad owner, for instance, has not needed to own a Kindle to read Kindle books bought from Amazon.

That may now change.

No, it will not.

Why have so many bloggers followed along with this incorrect narrative this morning? This is just Apple enforcing th same policy they always have had and Sony probably whining to the Times because they want special treatment.

On Google's Announcement That Chrome Will Drop Native h.264 Playback Support

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I haven't written about what I think is the 2nd biggest news story of the week yet, but I've tweeted about it quite a bit. On Tuesday, Google announced that in a future version of Chrome, to come out later this year, they would drop h.264 playback support. And then, on Twitter, I announced that I would cease using Chrome & move back to Safari.

In short, I think this is an incredibly idiotic move on Google's part. I think this is a purely evil and corporate political move in order to try to do harm to iOS devices. I think that Google is outright lying when they try to claim the reason for this decision is a commitment to open standards and I do not think its a coincidence that they made this announcement on the day of the Verizon iPhone announcement.

Why do I feel all of these things? Rather than do a poor job of articulating my thoughts, as I am a horrible writer, I will instead link you to John Gruber's piece he wrote today. He called it, "The Practical vs. Idealistic Scenarios for the Near-Term Future of Online Video (OR: HOW GOOGLE’S DECISION TO DROP NATIVE H.264 PLAYBACK FROM CHROME SERVES TO PROP UP FLASH PLAYER)".

I see this as coming back to bite Google in the ass. I also see this as the final move, in a steadily crescendoing series of moves that Google has made in recent years that has made me completely lose trust in them as a company. Also on Tuesday I began searching for a way to migrate off of gMail (which I probably will do soon to MobileMe) along with other Google services I use. I no longer want to have anything to do with them as a customer. Google is the new Microsoft. Microsoft is now the new IBM. And IBM is now an irrelevant behemoth of a bureaucratic consulting company that no longer makes anything of value. And I guess Apple is the new...Apple? See, horrible writer.

But Who Is Going To Setup Their Own Email Server?

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From The Old New Thing:

Many many years ago, back in the days when Microsoft's email address had exclamation points, an internal tool was developed to permit Microsoft employees to view and update their Benefits information from the comfort of their very own offices. Welcome to the paperless office!

One of my friends noticed an odd sentence in the instructions for using the tool: "Before running the program, make sure you are logged onto your email server."

"That's strange," my friend thought. "Why does it matter that you're logged onto your email server? This tool doesn't use email."

Since my friend happened at the time to be a tester for Microsoft's email product, he tried a little experiment. He created a brand new email server on one of his test machines and created an account on it called billg. He then signed onto that email server and then ran the tool.

Welcome, Bill Gates. Here are your current Benefits selections...

"Uh-oh," my friend thought. "This is a pretty bad security hole." The tool apparently performed authentication by asking your email server, "Hey, who are you logged in as?" The answer that came back was assumed to be an accurate representation of the user who is running the tool. The back-end server itself was not secured at all; it relied on the client application to do the security checks.

My friend sent email to the vice president of Human Resources informing him of this problem. "You need to shut down this tool immediately. I have found a security hole that allows anybody to see anybody else's Benefits information."

The response from the vice president of Human Resources was calm and reassuring. "My developers tell me that the tool is secure. Just enjoy the convenience of updating your Benefits information electronically."

Frustrated by this, my friend decided to create another account on his test email server, namely one corresponding to the vice president of Human Resources. He then sent the vice president another email message.

"Please reconsider your previous decision. Your base salary is $xxx and your wife's name is Yyyy. Would you like me to remind you one week before your son's tenth birthday? It's coming up next month."

A reply was quickly received. "We're looking into this."

Shortly thereafter, the tool was taken offline "for maintenance."

Memo to Andy Rubin: Steve Jobs Is A Better Marketer Than You

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From Matt Drace at Apple Outsider:

The Definition of “Echo Chamber”

Google’s Android VP Andy Rubin was apparently so hurt by Steve Jobs’ earnings call comments about Android that he created a Twitter account. The result was classic: A socially awkward outburst about open source software… on a closed source social network. No news on when we’ll be able to clone AdWords from GitHub.

It’s particularly awkward because it’s obtuse and evasive. Jobs wasn’t debating definitions; he said Google’s use of the word was a smokescreen. So Rubin responds with a smokescreen. Nothing in his tweet, or in his recent defense of the carriers (!!!), explains why “open” automatically means “better.” Google is so drunk on its keyword that it has lost the ability to explain it.

In essence, Apple turned the propaganda tables and put Google executives on their heels within ten hours. Steve Jobs doesn’t write code. Andy Rubin shouldn’t do PR.

So Andy Rubin fancies himself as up to the task of winning an argument with Steve Jobs? Good luck with that.

Just How Bad Is Flash On Android? This Bad.

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Ian Betteridge:

What does this demonstrate? Simply that the idea that Apple could simply magically put Flash on the iPad (which runs a processor in the same class as the Nexus One) is fantasy. Ignoring the broader reasons for Apple wanting to keep Flash off its platform, it’s clear that Flash is simply too processor-intensive to work properly on mobile-class processors as currently specified.

Go watch for yourself.