Apple playing hard to get with iPhone

Your perception of Apple’s iPhone probably has a lot to do with your personal philosophy of computing.

Do you want unfettered freedom to run anything, whenever and however you want it? Or do you only need a few vital applications to make you happy, and really just want the damn thing to work reliably?

In these, the early days of the iPhone, it’s very clear that Apple has taken a very cautious approach to independent iPhone developers and software development. Contrast that approach with Microsoft, which built a PC empire catering to developers’ needs, and would like to expand that into the mobile realm.

Some developers are peeved that Apple isn’t giving them as much access to the iPhone as they’d like.

However, developing software for mobile devices has been, and seems like it will be, very different from the development process for PCs and Macs. How this give-and-take between operating system developers and application developers evolves–not just at Apple, but for smartphone development in general–could dictate the evolution of truly mobile computing.

If limiting the role of independent developers helps create secure and reliable computers, doesn’t that seem worth it to everyone? (Except, of course, to the developers.) That seems to be Apple’s position, although the company declined an interview request in search of a clearer picture. The vast majority of developers are professionals or hobbyists who wouldn’t dream of writing inferior or malicious code, but viruses, malware, and poorly written applications still proliferate.

On the other hand, imagine how you’d feel if another company controlled everything you can or can’t do with its product after you brought it home. I don’t think people would be too thrilled if Honda decided that the after-market installation of a third-party stereo voided the warranty, based on the rationale that the car is now much more likely to be stolen.

Such is the hubbub over the iPhone software development kit, which is still a work in progress. Some developers, captivated by the promise of the iPhone’s unique combination of touch screen, accelerometer, and Mac OS X goodies, have been chastened to learn that they won’t be able to create applications the way they want because of restrictions imposed by Apple on development tactics.

There are several bones of contention, but the primary concern seems to be the decision to prohibit third-party applications from running in the background. Apple warned developers of this restriction in the iPhone SDK documentation, and urged them to develop applications that are capable of quickly saving information, and then closing, when the user decides to switch to another application.

This policy makes it extremely difficult to create Web-aware native applications, wrote Hank Williams, a blogger working on mobile-software development. “The issue of background processing is *the* issue for a mobile device because it is key to two things: telling the world about your status in some ongoing way, (and) receiving notification of important events.”

That makes sense; remember that friend or relative who got a mobile phone but never turned it on? That practice greatly diminishes (although some might say it enhances) the value of a mobile communications device, and one-way communication is not what has made the Web so interesting in its second decade.

The thing is, you can’t expect everything from the PC Web world to work the same way on a battery-operated device. Craig Hockenberry, another developer, agrees that background processing is nice to have, but impractical right now on anything with a battery. (Thanks to John Gruber at Daring Fireball for the links.)

Hockenberry built an unofficial iPhone version of Twitteriffic, a Mac application he wrote that gathers “tweets” from people you’re following on Twitter. An early version for the iPhone had a component that ran in the background to automatically gather tweets every five minutes.

The result? “Both the EDGE and Wi-Fi transceivers have significant power requirements. Whenever that hardware is on, your battery life is going to suck. My five-minute refresh kept the hardware on and used up a lot of precious power,” Hockenberry wrote.

Other mobile operating systems such as Symbian, however, don’t restrict processes from running in the background. And Nokia’s N95, which runs Symbian, can browse the Web for longer periods of time than the iPhone, according to one test.

So what is this really about? Maybe it’s about avoiding the mistakes of the past.

Software developers were the lifeline for PC users before broadband Internet became pervasive. If you wanted to do anything interesting with a PC, you needed application software, and so developers of both consumer and corporate applications were endlessly courted by Microsoft.

People want more applications than Apple can deliver. But how open should the process be?

That brought the world tons of great applications. But it also brought security nightmares, blue screens of death, and sluggish computers that hog resources. The mobile world can’t afford to let that all happen again; people have gotten used to a bit of “funk” from their PCs. They don’t tolerate that from their phones.

So, don’t expect to see Apple CEO Steve Jobs pacing the stage at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June while screaming “Developers! Developers! Developers!” At times, Apple seems to treat software developers like a necessary evil, acknowledging that they have a role to play but wary of letting them damage the product. Much of Apple’s pitch for the Mac is that everything works, and it’s easier to make that pitch when you retain so much control over what runs on the platform.

That stance naturally doesn’t sit well with the developers, who are used to different treatment from the likes of Microsoft, Symbian, Palm, and others. But what if that’s what it takes to produce a reliable product? After all, the fewer things you install on a PC or Mac, the more reliable it tends to be.

That’s the tradeoff Apple is trying to make with the iPhone as it evolves. There’s no doubt that the iPhone needs third-party applications. But do smartphone owners need the flexibility and breadth of applications that are available for the PC and Mac?

Apple is arguing through its SDK restrictions that, at the moment, they don’t, and I’m inclined to believe them: for now. If smartphones really do turn into mobile computers, Apple will have to acquiesce–at least somewhat–to the need for broader third-party development that can truly exploit the iPhone. After all, that unofficial parallel iPhone development path doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, meaning that people really do want more than just Apple’s stock applications, and they’ll want some things Apple’s not inclined to provide.

So for now, if you want to run anything and everything on an iPhone, buy one and jailbreak it. If you want a more stable controlled experience, only install what Apple and the App Store provides.

However, what we really need is both. And that’s something Apple will have to tackle during the second year of the iPhone. There’s no shame in taking baby steps while building a business from scratch, but you’ve got to take the training wheels off at some point.

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Test Center Guide to the Vista and XP Service Packs

San Francisco - As you read this, Microsoft is getting set to deliver the final bits of what has become an increasingly controversial patch cycle. Windows Vista Service Pack 1, which went “gold” a few weeks back, was finally made general available via Windows Update yesterday. Meanwhile, Windows XP Service Pack 3 is nearing its final release, with the RTM drop rumored to be making an appearance sometime this week.

[ Does Vista have what it takes to knock XP off the enterprise desktop? Grab a ringside seat for “Death match: Windows Vista versus XP” ]

The controversy stems from the relatively lukewarm reception of Vista in the enterprise. As I noted in my Enterprise Desktop blog, the vast majority of IT shops will be sticking with Windows XP for the foreseeable future, giving Service Pack 3 a higher profile than would normally have been afforded to a set of patches for a now “obsolete” OS. At the same time, Service Pack 1 for Vista has been drawn, measured, and found wanting, putting yet another nail in the coffin of the would-be replacement for XP.

As we wait for that next Service Pack to drop, let’s take a look at what you can expect from Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Windows XP Service Pack 3
Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been the recipient of copious undue attention. After all, it’s just another compilation of patches and minor tweaks ??? for an obsolete OS, no less. However, with so many shops bypassing Vista, the release of Service Pack 3 has taken on new levels of importance: This may be the last Service Pack they see for their chosen platform before Windows 7 arrives in late 2009.

Fortunately, SP3 manages to deliver. For starters, there’s the usual roll-up of fixes. Currently, Windows XP SP2 users face a deluge of “high priority” patches when they first connect to Windows Update. Maintaining a current installation image ??? with all of the required patches “slipstreamed” into the mix ??? has become a job function in and of itself. Having SP3 as a starting point will reduce the support hassle and minimize the security exposure for newly minted (and, as yet, unpatched) systems.

Feature-wise, XP SP3 is short on headliners (view a table of highlights). There’s the revised network stack with better Black Hole router detection (lower overhead, on by default). Some new cryptographic modules allow developers to better secure their driver code. And you’ll find Network Access Protection (NAP) support so that Windows Server 2008 environments can lock out unpatched PCs or systems that otherwise are not up to standards. There’s nothing earth-shaking here, just solid fixes to basic limitations in the OS core.

Of course, one feature IT shops weren’t expecting ??? a 10 percent performance advantage over SP2 ??? managed to slip in as well. And while the performance boost measured by an independent testing entity (see my blog entry “XP Widening the Gap vs. Vista”) may be nothing more than the accumulated impact of all those post-SP2 Hotfix tweaks, it certainly doesn’t hurt and helps make the case for sticking with Windows XP that much stronger.

Verdict: Windows XP Service Pack 3 is a must-have update for IT shops seeking to extend the life of Windows XP.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1
Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista was a disappointment long before the final bits were frozen. Preliminary tests of a Release Candidate build ??? and later confirmed against the RTM code ??? showed that SP1 would do nothing to address the myriad performance issues that Vista’s early adopters warned us about. Those areas that it did address (file copy operations between local and/or network volumes), while important, were highly specific and had no impact on the general sluggishness and poor overall application throughput that frustrates users to this day.

Recognizing that SP1 is not, and never will be, a performance silver bullet, IT shops are now trying to take stock of what the Service Pack does offer. As with XP Service Pack 3, there are no real headliners. The kernel has been upgraded to the same revision level as Windows Server 2008 (including the built-in backdoor for anti-virus vendors). BitLocker now supports more drive types and configuration scenarios. There are the usual bug fixes and compatibility tweaks. Windows Update has many more drivers available for a better out-of-box experience. Battery life should improve for certain classes of notebook PCs.

Overall, Vista SP1 is an unimpressive release (view table of highlights). In fact, the whole SP1 experience seems a bit anticlimactic. After a year of hush-hush denials and a general refusal to discuss anything Service Pack related, Microsoft’s finished effort seems, well, unfinished. Redmond still has huge performance issues to resolve, even on state-of-the-art hardware. More mysteriously, Microsoft’s own server team has churned out a version of Windows ??? using the same kernel and core SP1 bits — that clobbers Vista across a range of benchmark tests.

Verdict: Deploy Windows Vista Service Pack 1 for the Hotfix consolidation value. You might also get a much-needed driver in the bargain; just don’t expect much in the way of performance improvements.

COD4 GOTY edition confirmed for US

Upon its initial deployment during the first part of November, Activision and Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has been peerless in the sales charts, wresting control of the top slot away from Microsoft and Bungie’s Halo 3 and never looking back. With Activision claiming the crown of best-selling game of 2007 for COD4, the publisher will be stop-lossing the modern-day shooter for another tour with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Game of the Year Edition, scheduled for release for the Xbox 360 on April 3.

As noted by leaks from UK news outlets earlier this week, COD4: GOTYE won’t include any new or upgraded features. However, it will come packed in with a redeemable token for the Modern Warfare Variety Map Pack, which will add four new multiplayer maps to the game’s lauded online component. The four new player areas are: Creek, an open village area; Broadcast, a close-quarters in-door environment; Killhouse, an abandoned warehouse; and Chinatown, a low-lit map set in the not-so-war-torn city of San Francisco. Those who already own the game will also be able to purchase the map pack on April 3 through Xbox Live for 800 Microsoft points ($10).

In anticipation of the map pack’s debut on Xbox Live, GameStop will be hosting a live, preview event at two locations in New York City and San Jose. To the first 100 attendees will go a free token to download the Variety Map Pack, and the first 250 people to arrive will have a chance to compete for various prizes, including GameStop gift certificates.

Activision did not indicate whether the COD4: GOTYE rerelease or the Variety Map Pack would also arrive for the PlayStation 3 or PC, and had not responded to requests for comment as of press time. However, Infinity Ward did say on its official Web site for the game in February that the then unnamed map pack would be available for XBL and the PlayStation Network this spring.

Microsoft’s latest interoperability pledge: How free is ‘open’ now?

No move by Microsoft to share information with its competitors will ever be taken at face value, and certainly yesterday’s new Interoperability Principle will come under very close scrutiny. Is this the opening of the floodgates the EC has been demanding?

In incremental, measured, if slow steps, Microsoft has made some efforts to comply with directives from the European Commission to make its software and protocols more interoperable with products from other manufacturers. Yesterday, the company surrendered one more boundary between its interoperability policy and the EC’s dream situation, making a huge chunk of the information it published in response to the EC’s order available to developers free of charge.

“We’re announcing that developers will not need to take a license, or pay a royalty, or other fee to access any of that information,” revealed CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday (according to Microsoft’s transcript). “As an immediate first step to apply the principles today we’re publishing to the Web over 30,000 pages of documentation for Windows client and server protocols that were previously available only under a 4D trade secret license. In addition, protocol documents for additional products like Office 2007 will be published in the upcoming months.”The company’s newly published Interoperability Principle spells out the terms to which Ballmer referred: “Microsoft will publish its documentation for these Open Protocols and Open APIs on its website so that all developers will have the benefit of this technical information in a manner that takes advantage of the nature of open discussion on the web. Microsoft will not require developers to obtain a license, or to pay a royalty or other fee, to have access to all this information.”

But free access, the Principle makes clear, does not mean free use. While Microsoft will no longer charge fees or royalties for parties seeking information on how to make their software interoperable, it may yet charge royalties for the way others use that information.

“Some of Microsoft’s Open Protocols are covered by patents,” reads the Principle. “Microsoft will indicate on its website which protocols are covered by Microsoft patents and will license all of these patents on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates. To assist developers in clearly understanding whether or not Microsoft patents may apply to any of the protocols, Microsoft will make available a list of the specific Microsoft patents and patent applications that cover each protocol.”

The use of APIs to access those protocols, however, will not require a license, even if the service with which software is communicating is itself protected by Microsoft patents. So the company is making it clear, interoperability will not require licenses or incur fees, but like operability (building a product using a design inspired by Microsoft’s patented IP) may very well.

The Principle does specify the products to which it applies: “Windows Vista including the .NET Framework, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007, and future versions of these products.” Previous editions of those products were not listed.

But while Ballmer and others referred to Office 2007 interoperability yesterday, there actually was no mention of Open Document Format, the basis of competing applications suites and the first such format to receive international standardization. Microsoft did open up access — or at least, open it up somewhat more — to its principal current products, so it did specify the “to what” part of the change argument, to borrow Rep. Barbara Jordan’s famous phrase once again. But it did not specify the “from what.”

Thus the status of an ODF plug-in for Office 2007 was not clarified yesterday, even though some got the impression that’s what Ballmer was referring to.

More calls on Microsoft to open up even more

The absence of any such mention was not lost on Red Hat chief counsel Michael Cunningham, in a response posted to his company’s Web site yesterday afternoon.

“Rather than pushing forward its proprietary, Windows-based formats for document processing, OOXML,” Cunningham wrote, “Microsoft should embrace the existing ISO-approved, cross-platform industry standard for document processing, Open Document Format (ODF) at the International Standards Organization’s meeting next week in Geneva. Microsoft, please demonstrate implementation of an existing international open standard now rather than make press announcements about intentions of future standards support.”But Linux Foundation board member and attorney Andrew Updegrove thought yesterday’s announcement was about ODF, in a sense…for the way in which it skillfully omitted mention of it.

“With respect to ODF, it will be important to see what kind of plug ins are made available, how they may be deployed, and also how effective (or ineffective) those translators may be,” Updegrove said yesterday, in a statement shared with BetaNews. “If they are not easy for individual Office users to install, or if their results are less than satisfactory, then this promise will sound hopeful but deliver little. I am disappointed that the press release does not, as I read it, indicate that Microsoft will ship Office with a ’save to’ ODF option already installed. This means that ODF will continue to be virtually the only important document format that Office will not support ‘out of the box.”‘

The fact that Microsoft’s making any movement in this direction at all, Updegrove added, is an indication to him that “multiple market forces” — which, he said, included the EC investigation and the popular uprising of ODF support — “are pushing and pulling Microsoft in a direction that it would have been highly unlikely to travel otherwise.”

Yesterday’s statement from the European Commission apparently was intended to serve as a reminder to everyone, including Microsoft, that its definition of “interoperability” is deeper than the mere dissemination of APIs. It said its current investigations are focused on “the alleged illegal refusal by Microsoft to disclose sufficient interoperability information across a broad range of products, including information related to its Office suite, a number of its server products, and also in relation to the so called .NET Framework and on the question whether Microsoft’s new file format Office Open XML, as implemented in Office, is sufficiently interoperable with competitors’ products.”

Microsoft’s APIs, as defined yesterday, provide open access by software with other software for the purposes of sharing information and functionality — which is actually the way professional developers typically understand APIs and interoperability to work. But the legal definition is often fuzzier, as indicated by the EC’s reminder yesterday that Microsoft needs to make its OOXML file format — as opposed to Office 2007, the software which utilizes the format — “sufficiently interoperable.”

That would require not an API as Ballmer describes it but a plug-in as Updegrove describes it. Microsoft has said it is participating with open, community efforts to produce such plug-ins, though critics continue to question why the company doesn’t just produce one on its own. Backers of Microsoft’s efforts pose the counter-argument that it shouldn’t be Microsoft’s responsibility to ensure one-to-one correlation between its own format and every other one that comes along, whether or not it’s an international standard.