The Problem with the iPhone App Store

It has been all over the news about the apps that are removed (or denied access to) the Apple App Store.  Porn has been a big deal, as has been fart apps.  Every time it happens, someone has to bring up that the Apple App Store is a private store and they can do as they please.

The problem isn't what Apple is doing by removing or denying, it is that there is no other alternative.

Think about grocery stores.  If you go through one with your young child and it prominently displays porn right when you walk in the door, you're likely not going to return (with your child, at least), are you?  You would go to a different grocery store.  Depending on your values, you may NEVER return to that store, or you may return only when you don't have your young child.  Heck, if you have certain values, you may return (likely without your child), and buy some of it.

That scenario above is exactly why the Apple App Store should NOT be the only store.  iPhone users should have the power to choose a different store if they want a different selection.

Will it happen?  No, of course not.  Apple wants the profits from the App Store.  They want control over the iPhone.  Unfortunately, people aren't voting with their dollars on this one.

Uneducated Journalism: Why Apple's Porn Purge of Sex-Themed Apps isn't a Smart Move (ABC News)

This is the epitome of uneducated journalism and pandering to stupidity.

First off, the uneducated part.  Evidently the author hasn't read around at the thousands of news articles discussing apps that were removed from the App Store that were not used to deliver porn, but to, say, sell swimsuits.  The author also didn't look at another article from the same magazine, PC World, that brings up the fact that Sports Illustrated and Playboy are still available as apps in the app store.  If Playboy isn't within their criteria of "sex-themed", then I would question what criteria they are using.

Second off, the pandering to stupidity.  Sometimes people must understand that in the wild world of life and the Internet, there is going to be porn and smut.  It isn't Apple's job to police that, mostly because everyone's values are different.  Apple SHOULD compartment questionable apps, like Playboy and the SI Swimsuit edition (perhaps by using age controls and a special section of the app store).

I know the big argument to this is "Apple is hosting the App Store and therefore can control what's in it".  That argument has a few flaws which I will discuss in a future post.

Why I Carry a Blackberry and NOT an iPhone

This is pathetic.  Apple must sell to absolute "prudes" to call simplybeach.com's bikini pictures "overtly sexual".

I carry a Blackberry because I don't want Stevie controlling what I put on MY phone.

Link to full story: AppleInsider | Swimwear seller hit by Apple's removal of 'sexual' apps.

Software Development: On Testing and Comparing to Old Versions

One of my major tasks at work has been porting our old Fortran based distribution and mode choice software to Cube Voyager.  During this process, I have been testing and re-testing to ensure that my results from Voyager match the results that came out of Fortran.

The reason I am continually testing to match is because despite being old and having some bugs that I've had to fix, the mode choice process is technically sound.  If I started from scratch, I probably would not have done something nearly as in-depth as this.

One of the other tasks I've done was a new transit model.  Our old transit network, skimming, and loading models were in TranPlan, which is way old and outdated.  While programming the Voyager upgrade, I did settings and parameters to get things in the range of the what was coming out of the old TranPlan model.  This means that when I actually get the new mode choice ready, I should be close to still having a calibrated model (not! and why in a paragraph!).

The experience with the new mode choice and distribution has enabled me to find bugs in the old mode choice and distribution software.  The bugs include:

• Incorrect file reading format


• Failure to reset certain variables to zero causing transit trips to be assigned when there is technically no transit available


• Potentially incorrect script to calculate auto operating cost in park-n-ride and kiss-n-ride situations

That "not!" from above has to do with that very first bullet.  There was an extra field in the read script causing a fixed file format input of:

ZONE    HH1    HH2    HH3    HH4
  10     33    147    301    132

To be read as:

ZONE    HH1    HH2    HH3    HH4
  10   33.1   47.3    1.1     32

This caused transit trips to drop by about 25%.  Re-calibration, here I come!

Tags: cube, voyager, fortran, programming, software, testing

Google Buzz... Good or Bad?

I've been reading a lot about Google Buzz.  I've heard more than I've tried, but it sounds like a replacement for Twitter, just integrated with GMail.

I haven't considered using it.  I just dropped MySpace (which is crap anyway), and I am active on Facebook and Twitter, and semi-active on LinkedIn and Flickr.

My concern with it is that based on some posts on Lifehacker (see this post and this post)that the security settings are difficult and not always intuitive - there was a post that likened Buzz to a megaphone.  Reading the comments, it sounds like Buzz is doing some stuff that it shouldn't (posting tweets in conversations)... the comments on the two posts are quite interesting and worth a read as much as the articles.

Me?  I'm not passing judgement, but I've turned it off.

Turning off Buzz: log into GMail, scroll to the bottom, and click on the link in dinky print that says "turn off buzz".