Apple: Be more transparent!

Apple is a very secrative organization, they value their secrecy because it builds up a hype around the products. I love Apple products, I am what most people call a Apple fan-boy. But I think recent events regarding the App Store aproval process must be addressed in a negative fashion.

I love the fact that Apple have created great development tools for the iPhone and they have done so for free. This have given the iPhone eco-system a great boost and in less than a year they have succeeded in creating a development community that it’s competitors haven’t succeeded with yet.

I really believe that the App Store is a big reason for the success, all applications gathered and easy to browse / search. But the App Store is also the big sign of weakness in the iPhone eco-system. As you might already know, Apple is the gatekeeper for everything going into the App Store to make sure that “malicious” and “offensive” applications stay far away from the iPhone. While this makes sense (you don’t want viruses spreading via the App Store) in some ways the big problem is actually that Apple have so far refused to share any details on the approval process.

This creates big problems, not only because it’s hard for developers to know if their application will ultimately be accepted or not, but also because currently it seems like the process is very random, some of them have gotten a lot of attention. The latest application that have gotten the metaphorical cold hand was Nine Inch Nail own application. The application was actually first accepted (and put on the “featured” page in App Store), when NIN then submitted a minor update it was rejected because of “objectionable content”.

Probably this occurred because different people reviewed the first submission and the update. This really makes the flaw in the process really apparent, the developer can never trust the Apple approval process. If this continues I wouldn’t be surprised if small indie developers think twice before they start develop iPhone applications and that would really be a shame, because it will in the long run kill the community.

I think that Apple have to be more transparent, really post the guidelines that are used for the approval process or even better, small developers should be able to “test drive” their idea and get a pre-aproval. That would make it easier for the small developer to justify the investment they need to do to create a iPhone application.

Maybe another solution would be to “do a Maemo”. Maemo have a staging area called the “garage” where third party developers can upload basically anything they want, users needs to manually install them. This would allow Apple to review applications for the App Store, but applications that are deemed “offensive” can still be installed on willing users iPhones.

Please Apple, don’t destroy a good thing you have going on here, a free SDK was a great idea, the App Store was a super idea as well but your approval process can throw it all overboard. Be transparent, let the developers in on the secrets in this case.

Less than a week with the Air

I got my Macbook Air last Friday and now I have had some time to migrate and use it in my everyday work, so let's cut to the chase: This was the laptop I was waiting for! This might not be the laptop you are waiting for, but for me it's perfect. It's thin (you've got to see and feel it for yourself before you understand), light and don't have a lot of unnecessary ports and things I don't use (like DVD and firewire).

I switched from a 1:th gen Blackbook to this new gadget, and performance wise I don't feel a big difference, a full compile of the xmms2 tree with c++ bindings takes around 2 minutes when using both cores, this is not very long time. I haven't noticed the slow harddrive (no I didn't go for the SSD version) that much yet, only when Mail.app decides to write a lot of changes to disk (try to remove a whole folder sometime). When compiling Qt it got a bit hot at the left corner and the fan's where running but otherwise it has been very quiet and cool.

The lack of a Etherenet port is just a small inconvience, I use the Ethernet port at two different customers, that's all. Rest of the time I am wireless with wlan or 3g via my phone (why do people cry about no-built in 3g, the phone via bluetooth works just fine!).

Keyboard, screen and trackpad are fantastic, feels like working with a big laptop and you never feel confined to something that doesn't really fit you. I had the chance to try it on the Airplane the other day, while it still have a big footprint (because of the 13.3" screen) it's really a lot easier to handle, it fits into the pocket infront of you and it doesn't feel clumpsy to have in your knee (like the blackbook did).

I think Apple had me in mind when creating this laptop. A thin, light OSX laptop that is designed to bring everywhere.

Oh, and I will use it as my only computer (of course storing and stuff like that takes place on my mac mini at home), I don't have the need for something with more power or storage, I just need to bring it all the time.

Update: Something I don't like is that the battery is not user replaceable, it's a shame. But I guess the laptop wouldn't have been this sweet with it. I hope the figure something out for later revs of it though.

FOSDEM 08

I am going to my first FOSDEM this year. I am not that excited about the tracks given this year, but I am looking forward to meet a couple of XMMS2 developers. So far it seems that we are going to be 8 regulars at the FOSDEM conference. We are living at the NH Atlanta downtown. Keep in touch if you want to grab a beer with the XMMS2 guys (or even buy us a beer :-)).

Hope I will get my Macbook before I am leaving :-)

My take on Macbook Air

To each it's own. I have been holding of upgrading my current laptop to see what Jobs pulled out of his hat at the conference. I love my Blackbook with just one exception, it's a bit heavy and bulky. Since I have around 180-200 travel days a year I have long craved something smaller that still runs MacOS X.

Enter the Macbook Air. Reading peoples comments on this new laptop it seems that more people are disappointed than people who are happy about it. I just think that people are expecting wierd things. A small laptop like the Macbook Air are not for everyone. It's not a powerhouse, it will not have the latest features in terms of innovation, it's innovation will be that they have managed to fit all that silicon into a small case.

Jobs where talking about compromises, he said that all the other companies that makes subnotebooks make compromises with the screen, keyboard and size. Apple also had to compromise to get it that thin. The compromises was: non-user replaceable battery, no ethernet jack (and no firewire, mini-dvi) and just one USB 2.0. When you are buying a subnotebook you compromise yourself to get the small form factor and the light weight.

I think the Macbook Air will fit me perfectly, I don't have a problem with using a ethernet dongle, I only use ethernet when I am at customers that doesn't have wifi (which of them I know two :-)) so that won't be a big problem. The non-user-replaceable battery on the other hand is a downside that I don't like but I can live with.

I am biased, I like Apple products, but I think that in this case people are expecting something else than they got. If you don't like the small size, the underpowered cpu or the lack of connectors, go for a macbook or a macbook pro, they will make you happy.

Now if I just could get that approval :-)

Broken free!

I just jailbroked my ipod. It worked without a problem with the iJailbreak application. The only thing to keep in mind is that when they say "this will take a while" they are not kidding. It takes forever to retrieve and upload the new firmware, just give it some time, it will work. But now I have a working calendar (with input events feature!), mobilemail and google maps. Works just great! Thanks internet to make this available.

Damn you Apple.

Why do you have to introduce a product that obsoletes my N800? STFU and so on.

Working on getting the new Qtopia 4.3 to work on the N800. My plan is to create a flash image that gives you all the Qtopia neatness. Stay tuned.

Post-honeymoon review of the black MacBook

By popular demand I will write the follow-up on my old post.

To make a long story short: 5 months later I am still in love.

I compile xmms2 and c++ code so much faster, make -j 2 really makes your day on a dual-core system. The overall speed is still great, but I have also understood by talking to other macbook owners that you should put in as much memory as possible. Using less then 1Gb in two sticks seems to be a waste of CPU. This might not be true for other OSes then MacOSX, but I don't know since I never installed anything else.

The glossy screen doesn't really create any visible problems. The widescreen is of course great for movies and I don't really have anything negative to say about the screen in whole.

Some of the things that I have had a problem with, the airport in particular has been corrected with macosx updates. The current version 10.4.8 seems to have fixed all things I have been irritated at. The heat was a issue until recently when they released another update to the firmware and it has gotten a lot better.

The battery-time is about 4 hours which is very ok for a powerful laptop with a big screen like this.

The only negative thing I have noted is a quirky sound when I move the screen, it seems to be related to that the whole thing is in plastic :-) But I don't really mind.

Haven't noted any discoloration or any high-frequent sounds. I take it that the black model doesn't have the same problems as the white one with discoloration, and the sounds might just be me that is deaf, but I can't hear anything that is annoying.

All in all, the macbook is a very fast and nice laptop. It's a tad to big for laptop-on-airplane but otherwise I happily trade the extra size for the nice screen. I have also been blessed and have not encountered any of the "normal" problem for this line. I recommend anyone that want a mac computer to go for the macbook. The only reason I see you would like a pro over a macbook is that you want the better graphics card for games, for everyday use it works just fine.