All your base are belong to Apple

In the Noodlely name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, wtf is Steve Jobs thinking these days???

Bricking unlocked iPhones (thus enabling AT&T's snitching to the NSA) was unforgiveable in itself. Now comes the news of the nasty little "gotcha" in the ballyhooed iPhone software development kit (SDK): Applications written with the SDK can only be distributed via the AppStore, presumably iTunes. In short, Big Brother Apple will decide whether what you write is "acceptable" for their platform.

Nuh-uh. If we (meaning programmers) want to be managed, we'll go to work and be paid for it. We're not putting up with that on our free time, 'spesh'ly not to put more money on Apple's balance sheet.

Moreover, how, exactly, is one supposed write iPhone apps for a real-world client? In that scenario, you would have to make the code (which more than probably includes the client's proprietary information) available to all. And that's if Apple gives your app. a pass. Good luck getting a paying customer to put up with those terms.

In the proverbial nutshell, Apple has created next to no incentive for anyone to add value to one of their flagship products. Your sweat, toil and head-banging as a programmer (for fun or profit) are rendered nil if Apple decides that your oeuvre doesn't align with their objectives.

This doesn't affect me personally, even with the trinket-temptation of a shiny new SDK. (Like Mordor I'd sell my users out to the NSA!) I'm just sort of gobsmacked at the fact that people whose salaries are orders of magnitude larger than mine can think that this sort of behavior will hang with the developer community as a whole. In fact, I can totally imagine Steve Wozniak--the tinkerer's tinkerer--going suborbital at the news. Who's to blame him?

Sure, Apple'll get some Mac fanboys and fangirls to risk their time and talent--cultists don't question, after all. But the rest of us? I find that dubious at best. Painting with a broad brush, many (if not most) programmers have a healthy libertarian streak. We like things we can take apart and make even better. Admittedly, the "cool factor" of a sparkling new gadget does have considerable pull--particularly from "the BMW of computer companies". But the cool factor shrivels quickly under ham-fisted police state tactics like Apple's employing. And that never bodes well for anyone who wants to build a "platform."

Microsoft (with occassional backup from Adobe) brasses me off as a developer on a fairly regular basis, so it's not like I'm short on aggravation in my professional life. Watching the leaders of the Apple cult drink their own Kool-Aid, however, is just plain disturbing.