The Sky is Falling

First a couple of quick hits.

The world of financial analysts and other clueless people have some speculation on things Apple-ish.

Cringely: Apple is holding back Blue-Ray because they're gambling that HD downloads will overtake the market. In other words, Apple is playing a high stakes game of chicken with Sony and the Studios. I don't buy it. Apple, as I recall, was on the Blue-Ray Worldwide Committee of Decision Making and Policy Establishment (I don't recall the real name of the thingy, and no, I'm not going to look it up, but Apple was on it).

My guess is, His Steveness doesn't think Blue-Ray can make Apple enough money to justify the cost of adopting it, yet.
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Over on CNN Money there's a thing from Dow Jones Average that says the iPhone Dev Team is going to really hand Apple their asses with a feature called "Pwnage." Apparently, if you're willing to completely surrender your iPhone function and security to hackers, Pwnage will let you download and run unsanctioned apps to your iPhone.

Once your iPhone has been pwned by the iPhone Dev Team, it's really pwned. You'll be off the EULA. Anything you buy from them is potentially toast every time Apple upgrades the iPhone version. Apple can build an upgrade that specifically fries those apps periodically. As an absolute minimum, every upgrade of iPhone software could leave you with a screwed up experience with the whole phone, and it won't be Apple's fault. Once you violate the EULA, you are on your own.

Or, if Apple wants to, they can sue the britches off the iPhone Dev Team. I've heard Apple has some experience with lawsuits. I'll bet Apple can pay more lawyers for longer than IPDT. Wanna talk about pwnage?

My guess is that Apple won't even notice a loss of money. On top of that, they'll keep enough lawyers on retainer so that when they cherry-pick the best "Pwnage" apps for inclusion as Apple products, the hackers that built them won't have a legal leg upon which to stand.

The developers/hackers will scream for the moral high ground. Sorry, kids. You can only beat the system from the inside. If you use guerrilla tactics from outside the fence, you'll lose. You'll lose bad.

What I said last night wasn't a theory. If the iPhone Dev Team is smart, they'll develop their apps from the inside. If they don't, they ain't.
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The iPhone Developer program is in beta. Chill. Apple isn't going to "reject" developers. Developers. Developers. There's no way The Master is that frigging dumb. It's easy to understand the fear, though. Lots of new developers coming over from the Microsoft world. They're used to a different reality. We should be kind to them.
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Eric Zeman wrote some more drivel over on InformationWeek today – yammering on about Apple rejecting developers in droves. DROVES. This, he says, further tarnishes Apple's image.

Tonight's homework assignment:

Find original writing on InformationWeek that was NOT prepared by an assclown.
Be prepared to defend your assessment.

Also, the next time you're chewing tobacco in class, you'd better bring enough for everyone, young man.