{"id":712,"date":"2009-04-24T11:48:50","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T09:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=712"},"modified":"2009-04-24T11:48:50","modified_gmt":"2009-04-24T09:48:50","slug":"baby-shaker-shakes-apple-itunes-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=712","title":{"rendered":"Baby Shaker Shakes Apple iTunes Model"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iPhone\"I have an expression that I have ruthlessly stolen from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home<\/a>, and it is,\u00a0 \u201cA double dumb-ass on you!\u201d\u00a0 Today I say that to Apple, for walking into a minefield with iTunes, and controlling what applications they allow on the iPhone and iPod Touch.\u00a0 It seems that someone wrote an game called Baby Shaker<\/strong><\/a>, in which the idea is to cause the baby on the screen brain damage.\u00a0 The game is sickening and tasteless, which I generally like, but in this case, it even turned me off.<\/p>\n

So why is Apple in trouble?\u00a0 They approved publication of the game and then after parental outrage they withdrew the approval.\u00a0 Oops!\u00a0 Somehow to Apple this debacle was not predictable.\u00a0 Here is a lesson that many in the print media as well as the networking business already know.\u00a0 If you attempt to control content at all, you take some responsibility for that content.\u00a0 In no way can the iTunes store be viewed as an open market, in the same way, say as eBay<\/a>.\u00a0 And even eBay caves into pressure to remove some items<\/a> from auction.<\/p>\n

This is only the latest in a series of minor goofs they’ve made, the last one being the other side of this coin- they had a backlog of applications that people wanted approved for release on iTunes.\u00a0 Instead of simply hiring more people they seem to have relaxed their standards.\u00a0 Good news for developers, but bad news for consumers who are not careful, and bad news for Apple’s image.<\/p>\n

The purpose of Apple’s review is nominally to ensure that an application does not interfere with the proper functioning of the consumer device.\u00a0 When you have millions of these things out there, the last thing you want is to increase your support costs (such as people clogging Genius Bars) due to a poorly written application.\u00a0 Of course, that’s not the only reason Apple has control.\u00a0 They want a cut of the money for for-profit apps.\u00a0 And indeed they would have profited from the distribution of this app, which sold for $0.99.\u00a0 But if you want a piece of the action you have to work for it, and in this case Apple did not.\u00a0 Even though the iPhone and iTunes largely sustained<\/a> Apple’s top line growth, the company cut corners on the editorial review that they seemingly hold so dear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have an expression that I have ruthlessly stolen from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and it is,\u00a0 \u201cA double dumb-ass on you!\u201d\u00a0 Today I say that to Apple, for walking into a minefield with iTunes, and controlling what applications they allow on the iPhone and iPod Touch.\u00a0 It seems that someone wrote an … Continue reading “Baby Shaker Shakes Apple iTunes Model”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":715,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions\/715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}