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Hooray! Apple’s iPhone developer NDA will no longer cover released software.

It seemed inevitable that this NDA change would be made, but I admit I thought the change would come in January 2009.

It’d be easy to overlook that this doesn’t include an App Store policy change, but maybe that’s on Apple’s schedule too.

Duplicating Apple functionality? Well, not so much.

The new Microsoft commercial starts with a John Hodgman dressalike (You can’t really call him a lookalike, but at the distance the camera is at it doesn’t matter) saying “I’m a PC and I’ve been stereotyped.” It then goes to various people asserting they’re a PC. It’s interesting at first, but after a few seconds you realize: This is all Microsoft’s got for this commercial. After a minute of droning, the commercial blissfully comes to an end.

It makes slightly more sense than the Gates & Seinfeld commercials, but replaces the quirkiness of those ads with banality.

The commercial shows Microsoft doesn’t get the concept behind Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads. Hodgman is not the personification of Windows, and Justin Long is no the personification of Mac. Hodgman is a PC, like he says. Long is a Mac, like he says.

What does that mean? Well, it means that the difference between Long and Hodgman is the ability to run Mac OS X. Long can, and Hodgman can’t. PC’s secret motivation — an undercurrent running through all the commercials that Apple will never vocalize — is that he’s jealous. He knows he can do all the things a PC can do. He wants to do all the things a Mac can do, too. His motives, then, are minimizing the value of Mac OS X: It isn’t really that simple. It isn’t really that easy. You don’t really need that, you can do it without a Mac.

But PC doesn’t really believe it. He knows he can do everything Mac can do. He just also knows he can’t do it as easily. So the secret behind the motivation he won’t state is this: He wants to run Mac OS X, too. And Apple will never vocalize this, because it inspires the question to the masses: Why can’t PC run Mac OS X?¹

So Microsoft runs this ad, showing all the things PC can do. Great. Each one of them is something Mac can do, too.

Microsoft needs to focus on promoting their product, not someone else’s product. And Microsoft does not sell generic PCs. But what does Microsoft sell, really? What are they going to brag about on Windows? Why do they need to?

Every time Microsoft puts out a commercial, they blink. And they don’t have to at this point.

1. Sure, there’s lots of good reasons. I’m not denying that. I’m also not denying they are probably all solvable. I’m just pointing out that Apple doesn’t really want people choosing between a Mac and a PC to ask the question, but just to take it for granted. [↩]

I hope he’s wrong, but it’s probably a vain hope. Some Geek In Tennessee recaps the disappointments Apple’s App Store.

Fraser Speirs is dropping out of new application development on the iPhone, and I don’t blame him:

Apple’s current practice of rejecting certain applications at the final hurdle - submission to the App Store - is disastrous for investor confidence. Developers are investing time and resources in the App Store marketplace and, if developers aren’t confident, they won’t invest in it.

This is something I’ve been struggling with as well. Every time I convince myself that I have a good product idea, another developer goes public with an iPhone application rejection. You’re fooling yourself if you think we’ve heard all of the rejections.

Apple has really screwed this up.

I first started developing an application for Palm in 2000 with the Palm IIIc. I was amazed at how well-though the API was. A few things were missing, such as POSIX-compatible routines.¹ The API looked a lot like Carbon, which was a perfectly reasonable way to develop applications. CodeWarrior was a decent-enough tool, and growing in capabilities. New hardware, while not announced or even previewed yet, was on the horizon that could take away most of the nastiest problems with Palm OS, which were rooted in the 680×0 architecture.

I estimated at the time they were at least four years ahead of the competition in terms of an operating system.

But since then?

Buying and selling themselves to… themselves.
Absolutely nothing on the OS front.

Since then? Windows CE and successors have caught up in many areas, exceeded Palm in others. Blackberry, and iPhone exist, both of which make Palm look pathetic.

Loss of professional-level development tools.

Hardware quality control problems.

It’s hard to believe that Palm has thrown away this much of a lead. But they have.

1. Expecting full POSIX support on a Palm back then was maybe a little unrealistic, but expecting the available routines to match POSIX definitions is quite a bit more reasonable. [↩]

I don’t usually like to report anything John Gruber posts, because everyone will have already seen it. But I’ll make an exception: Michael Tsai is right: What Apple delivers in the iPhone is less offensive than the spin as it’s been delivered. (via Daring Fireball.)

I’m not so upset at the iPhone’s lack of openness as I am concerned it could be the start of something on Mac OS X. And the only reason for that is that in spinning all these restrictions as good things on the iPhone, Apple has made me start to worry that they might consider them good on Mac OS X 10.6, too.

I’ve been putting this off, because I really don’t want to clash horns with The Macalope. Mostly because he’s got, well, a nice rack. And I don’t. But a recent tweet by the horny one meant I have to get this off my chest.¹

I live in Canada, so I only wish I had the prices and plans available that AT&T offers. But even then, I note an interesting consequence to the way the new iPhone costs you money:

Assuming the Macalope’s numbers are right, sure, the iPhone 3G is $40 more expensive. But that’s over two years! On the day you sign the contract and leave the store with a nice, shiny box on your way to your “unboxing!” photo shoot, you’ve got an extra $300 in your pocket.

All of which begs the question of what you’re going to do with that extra $300 until then. I suggest that instead of blowing it on a Wii² you consider how to turn it into $340 by the end of the contract. That’s only 13% over two years. I’m no financial whiz and I’m not even sure how to spell “whiz,”³ but I bet even I could manage that one. If you don’t think you can, maybe you should step away from the computer long enough to think of something.

Sure, it isn’t cheaper. But if you play your cards correctly⁴ it may turn out to be to your benefit anyway. For the record, I don’t give credit to Apple for that. I’m sure no one there said “Hey, let’s hike the price, but we’ll make them pay the extra over two years. Our customers will be able to invest the money they save on the initial purchase and end up ahead!” It’s just the way the numbers work. Hooray for math!

1. Wow, it would be fun to be paid to write like this. [↩]
2. Because, let’s face it, you either already own one or are mocking the people who do. [↩]
3. I guessed financial, too. [↩]
4. And odds are you won’t, but whose fault is that? [↩]

In Canada we have two GSM cellphone providers: Fido and Rogers. Well, actually, we don’t really. A few years ago, Rogers bought Fido. So these days, I’m used to Fido getting the short straw out of every cup.

I called service a few days ago for an unrelated reason was surprised to hear “If you are calling about the iPhone, press 2.”¹ After completing that call, I tried 611 again and hit 2.

I was expecting “The iPhone will not be available to Fido customers,” but I was surprised. The iPhone will be available to Fido customers. Don’t believe me? There’s actually a news story on CBC. This seems to be a big turn-around by Rogers in offering Fido customers a good phone.

I don’t know how affordable the data plan will be, though.

1. The message has since been removed; I guess the rush died down. [↩]

Via The Macalope, Microsoft’s leaked reaction to Mac OS X’s new search capabilities:

Lenn Pryor:

You will have to take Vic’s disk…I am not giving mine up. Tonight I got on corpnet, hooked up Mail.app to my Exchange server and then downloaded all of my mail into the local file store. I did system wide queries against docs, contacts, apps, photos, music, and my Microsoft email on a Mac. It was f*cking amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn land today.

Jim Allchin:

Yes. I know. It is hard to take. I don’t believe we will have search this fast.

The funny part for me as I read this is that they’re talking about Mac OS X 10.4 search. Mac OS X 10.4’s search worked, but it was very slow. Yet apparently, even that blew away what they had.

Still, it isn’t all bad for Microsoft: It looks like they at least realized the speed of search was important.