October 16th, 2008 |
by jneal |
published in
iphone | 6 Comments
Readers of FOI may recall the introduction’s focus on the iPhone as the book’s first example of a tethered appliance. The release of Android was viewed with some excitement as a challenge to Apple, in more ways than one. Google, and later the Open Handset Alliance, have touted Android as an open source alternative to […]
August 19th, 2008 |
by zittrain |
published in
iphone | 1 Comment
After praising the iPhone as wholesome as warm bread, Colbert takes to task the iPhone for its “kill switch” (“It actually kills you!”). In the meantime, Gizmodo reports that there’s a “BossPrefs” app to disable it, joining the more labor intensive method of tricking the iPhone into thinking that the Apple update server is found […]
August 4th, 2008 |
by zittrain |
published in
iphone | 2 Comments
I don’t mean to only talk about the iPhone apps system — Facebook apps, Google mash-ups, and plenty of other emerging platforms share the fascinating if troubling characteristics of iPhone apps — but it’s an example that’s continuing to expand. On the one hand is the NYT’s reporting that the iPhone Apps Store has pressured […]
August 1st, 2008 |
by zittrain |
published in
Generativity, iphone | 5 Comments
The iPhone has come some way since the days when Steve Jobs pledged that Apple would “define everything that is on the phone.” Yet even with a software development kit allowing for outside coding, Apple reserves the right to … define everything that is on the phone. Application makers submit their apps for Apple’s approval, […]
July 28th, 2008 |
by zittrain |
published in
Book, Future of the Internet, Generativity, iphone | 2 Comments
One of the more contestable claims of the FOI book is that tethered information appliances like the iPhone, that either block outside apps or subject them to much more gatekeeping by the platform vendor, will not only complement the more open PC, but overtake it — that PCs themselves will become appliancized. Already there’s talk […]
July 26th, 2008 |
by zittrain |
published in
Book, Facebook, Future of the Internet, Generativity, iphone, Web 2.0 platforms | 3 Comments
Macworld is reporting that some iPhone application developers are having a difficult time adjusting to having to distribute their software only through Apple. They’re apparently too afraid to go on the record (!), but: As developers update their applications — including bug fixes — it can take up to a week for a new version […]
July 11th, 2008 |
by bballou |
published in
Future of the Internet | 1 Comment
Tom Standage of the Sunday Times makes an interesting point in his review of The Future of the Internet: “Zittrain insists that generativity at the code level is the most important kind, but it is not clear that this is really under threat. In the early days of home-computing, most enthusiasts learnt the essentials of […]