9to5 Staff

 Tap Tap Revenge maker Tapulous has reached a deal with Trent Reznor and cult act Nine Inch Nails which will see a band-branded game appear on the Apple iPhone.

The game will be a premium edition of the hugely popular Tap Tap Revenge franchise, a report claims. This latest digital initiative from Nine Inch Nails is expected to make its debut in mid-October.

It appears the application will include a Nine Inch Nails-centric theme, and include more than a dozen of the band’s songs taken from the last two albums. 

If true, this is a highly significant move that underlines the strategic importance Apple’s now six million-strong iPhone ecosystem (and never forget the iPod touch), this deal will likely herald a string of similar initiatives to bring sundry forms of content to the iPhone.

 I should have sold at 200. Apple stock today plummeted 23 points to a year-low amount per share of 105.26. The reason it dropped so dramatically can be attributed to terrible timing. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty and RBC analyst Mike Abramsky both downgraded to equal-weight from overweight, leading Apple’s stock to take a dive. However, to make matters worse, Wall Street dropped 777 points on the news that the bailout plan proposed was voted against. 

I’m gonna take a break from Apple to address an issue I find extremely important. I believe the parties are slowly dividing America. Lawmakers are voting for the opinion of their party rather than their true beliefs. Today we saw this in full effect. Democrats voted against the bailout today, not necessarily because they didn’t agree with it, but because it was proposed by George Bush. They figured that because George Bush has made mistakes in the past, he has no chance of doing anything right, and subsequently voted no to the bailout that could’ve helped a ton of people. Case in point: read this comment from AOL.

“IF BUSH WANTED IT TO PASS, I AM AS HAPPY AS HELL IT FAILED.”

No thought as to what he was proposing, no consideration that perhaps the man America elected two terms in a row might do one thing right, simply a rejection of his proposal based on the current public perception that Bush is a complete, and utter, failure in every aspect of life. I feel sorry for Bush right now: no matter how much he wants to help the country at this point, I don’t think he can. I think he has reached a point, no thanks to the media, in which America will immediately disagree with whatever he says, without even considering what he proposes. I want to make it clear to everyone that I am not a Republican, or a Democrat. I am not pro-Bush or anti-Bush. I don’t believe decisions should be made based on pre-conceived notions regarding a party or person: every politician wants to help the country as much as the other. Bush is not a complete idiot: he may not be a good public speaker, but just because he has a Texas accent doesn’t mean he’s a dumb cowboy. Think back to things Bush has done right: think of the surge, the immediate reaction to 9/11. Yes, he’s made some mistakes, but he’s only human. Yes, he’s misspoken, but you can’t be prefect grammatically all the time. I find it extremely unfortunate that the bailout got rejected, because it shows that politicians no longer pass laws based on what is right for the country: they pass laws based on what is popular, based on their party’s opinions, based on not voting with the other party’s members. As a result of this, we saw today a bad sign of things to come. Unless Washington gets their act together, this may very well be the beginning of the end.

I apologize for the political rant, but I think it needs to be said.

Let’s face it, the US and to a lesser extent the global economy is a shambles right now.  People are spending less because they have less disposable income.  Morgan Stanley and other analysts are pointing to that reason and by extension consumer product ordering drops for bringing Apple’s stock price targets down.  While the wider market is also down AAPL is down over 15%, the lowest price it has seen in over a year and its biggest percentage drop in over 8 years.   Some people think this might be a good time to buy, others think it has further to drop.  If it means anything the analysts in question have an extremely poor record on Apple forecasts..so says Philip Elmer DeWitt of Apple 2.0.

Apple, in its latest earnings call, forecasted a need to cut margins…

Will this lead to some very low margin MacBooks?  We think so…even though Apple, as a rule, doesn’t like to play in the low margin, highly competitive low end market.  

At the earnings call, Apple also said that they had innovated in ways that their competitors couldn’t touch.  Perhaps that innovation was in production of a laptop at low cost having very few parts.

We’d like to see MacBooks that line up with Mac Mini pricing.  That might help out the stock price, right? 

This one belongs in the "what will they think of next category". Some enterprising programmers managed to make a heart monitor out of the microphone in the iPhone headset.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1791560&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

While this is a cool idea and fun for most, we wouldn’t recommend it just yet for those with heart conditions.

Fring, easily the best mobile IM/VoIP client out there is coming to the iPhone.  So says their website (OK that was premature– but it is still coming any…second…now…).  It probably has been submitted to the App store and they are nervously awaiting Apple’s approval/random denial. Good luck Fring!

Fring is now available on the iPhone App Store making it easy for anyone to use fring on the original iPhone, iPhone 3G or iPod touch.

All you need to do is download fring here on the iPhone App Store and within minutes you can make free calls with other fringsters™ or via fring using Skype, Skype-out or any SIP providers you choose.

You will have one searchable contact list with all your instant messaging buddies from Skype®, MSN® Messenger, Google Talk™, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo!™ and AIM® so you can easily see whose available and where they can be reached before dialing or starting a live chat session.

In short, you can finally interact with all your favorite internet applications, services and communities from your iPhone.

Now that’s fringing freedom!

Obviously, it won’t be able to operate in the background like the jailbroken version did so well – hopefully they’ll update when the Push Notification goes live.  No word yet on pricing, but unless it costs more than the I am Rich application, we are all over it. 

We’ve fielded a couple of tips (some more sketchy than others) about EVDO iPhones floating around Cupertino in the past, but today’s tipster seems a little bit more sure of himself.  Besides having some Verizon insider credentials, he seems to know way too much about Verizon-Apple politics.  According to him, Apple will be announcing iPhones for Verizon Wireless in 2009, perhaps as early Macworld 2009.  Negotiations between Apple and Verizon are ongoing but they expect to hammer out agreements by the end of the year. 

This isn’t a huge surprise for a number of reasons:

1. Apple has been scouting out EVDO and CDMA Engineers for months in their online iPhone job postings (here, here, here and here).  Yes, some of these skills overlap with UTMS and CDMA can also refer to the broad swath of 3G Technologies…but come on…don’t put "EVDO" on the job description if it ain’t true.. (BTW, WiMax is also littered throughout Apple’s Job postings…interesting/digress)
2. No matter how big AT&T is and how much range they cover, leaving out Verizon and to a lesser extent Sprint, will be eliminating a broad swath of the US wireless market.  If Apple is serious about competing with Blackberry, Symbian and Android, they will have to broaden their carrier footprint.  One carrier does not a platform make.  Apple will need a way to grow its market after AT&T is saturated.
3. LTE technology won’t be mature until well into 2010.  Apple can’t afford to wait that long to broaden its carrier footprint
4. Who is happy with Rogers in Canada (*crickets*)?  EVDO opens up to new carriers there as well.
5. Verizon wireless is a partnership between Verizon communications and Vodafone.  Vodafone, you’ll recall, has contracts with Apple for iPhones in around 15 markets around the world.  Apple has a working relationship with Vodafone (and Tmobile obviously).
6. Apple has just started going "Open" in a few markets, including Hong Kong. This will likely increase the number of unlocked 3G iPhones on the world market (South Africa is also open).  While this won’t benefit Verizon directly, it certainly shows that Apple is considering being more "carrier agnostic."
7. Tim Cook, famously said that Apple wasn’t married to the one carrier/country model.  As Apple expands, it is going more and more open.
8. Verizon’s iPhone Cheat sheet was weak and their arguments about Stevo getting old were silly.  They’d rather play ball with Apple than try to defend itself against it.
9. Apple originally wanted to go with Verizon for the iPhone.  Some of the original disagreements included "not carrying the iPhone at Best Buy and hardware reliability" – see quote below.  AT&T was a second choice.  When Verizon balked, Apple went to AT&T…Think Verizon is happy about that decision (no) or willing to reconsider Apple’s overtures (yes)?

According to Verizon, Apple CEO Steve Jobs insisted that he have hard control over iPhone distribution.

The problem? While Apple and Verizon stores would have it, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other Verizon distributors could have been left out. "That would have put our own distribution partners at a disadvantage" to Apple and Verizon stores, Gerace said.

Customer care was another hitch: If an iPhone went haywire, Apple wanted sole discretion over whether to replace or repair the phone. "They would have been stepping in between us and our customers to the point where we would have almost had to take a back seat … on hardware and service support," Gerace says.

The number one reason people think AT&T is the only US carrier that Apple will visit is because a couple of falsely reported rumors by USA Today that "revealed" Apple has signed exclusivity deals with AT&T.  Depending on whether you trust the original article which said it would be five years or the latest article which says two years, or any of the other speculation out there (CNN says 2009), nothing public has ever been uncovered that has specified the length of AT&T-Apple exclusivity deals.  At the original iPhone announcement at Macworld 2007, Cingular’s CEO Stan Sigmund indicated that Apple and Cingular had signed a multi(2?)-year deal.  A Macworld 2009 launch would put the AT&T-Apple exclusivity at 18 months from mid 2007 launch, WWDC 2009 would be 2 years from launch.  Add 6 months for time since the announcement.

There is no reason why Apple wouldn’t also be chatting with Sprint and T-mobile about possible deals as well.  We welcome some carrier competition in the US iPhone field. 

The sooner the better.

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/AdCNL46hQQ]

 Last.fm has introduced a second version of its Last.fm application for the  iPhone, and this release is feature-packed.

Here’s the feature breakdown:

– Vastly improved user interface all around (tap to zoom album art included)

– Ability to tag songs

– Personal tag radio

– Calendar based events view

– Common artists when viewing a user profile

– Many other usability and back-end features

"We’re working to release the app in as many countries as possible and this version is available now in the following: US, UK, Canada, Germany, Spain and France. We’re also working on some back-end changes that will make streaming more reliable on slower connections, so stay tuned," revealed Toby Padilla on the Last.fm blog.

"This version is a great improvement from the first, but it is by no means the end of the line, so please send us feedback! We’re looking forward to making the app even better with your help," he added.

Here’s a YouTube clip showing an earlier build of the application – there is a more up-to-date clip now available from Last.fm, but we can’t embed it, sorry. 

Via: Distorted-Loop

The weekend Apple rumour machine has clipped across to the Apple TV, with venerable website TUAW reporting insider sources who claim existing versions of that product are set to be removed from sale by September 30.

The report adds "Additionally, the e-mail says that there will be a webcast "kick off" on September 30". A Tuesday. Is this an Apple-Tuesday?

Naturally, the report then speculates the move could see the introduction of a new model Apple TV, perhaps even a combined machine expressing elements of both the Mac mini and Apple’s "in your den" ‘hobby’ product.

Is this related to the brick?

Updated to add: Some reports now indicate that the retailers are simply being asked to remove their point of sale display material for the product, suggesting the Apple TV will be unchanged, just in receipt of new advertising. Ah well..

 Yet more claims as to what to expect from Apple’s future MacBook range….

This new set of claims tally with those we’ve been picking up, but news of the brick remains small. (Image here is not of the new device, by the way)

– New MacBook Pro won’t have the tapered edges of the MacBook Air, but will keep the current basic shape.

– MacBook Pro will be thinner and "as much as a half-inch narrower than the current model with less bezel around the screen".

– Glossy screens. 

– New black keyboard keys as used in MacBook Air.

– Glass trackpad will offer MultiTouch

– Split trackpad? (Good for contextual menus and Windows virtualisation).

– Some claim FireWire 800 as standard.

Via: Jason O’Grady.

 Pacific Crest analysts believe Apple to have reduced its planned iPhone production targets by up to four million units, though reasons for this have not been given. Some speculation exists suggesting the production reduction is a response to continues stale mate in plans to launch the device in China, for example.

Apple will now build a total of 14 million to 15 million iPhones in the second half of the year, the analysts said. Pacific Crest also raised its second half iPhone unit sales projection to 11 million from 8 million.

Despite the reduction in production, these figures still put Apple in seventh place for sales in the global smartphone market, prompting Forward Concepts analyst Will Strauss to tell EE Times that he is confident that Apple will make it into the top 10 handset makers this year. "A remarkable achievement," he said.

Apple has achieved strong sales in most global territories it has introduced the iPhone in, with one previous report claiming sales in Japan to be slim (a report widely-reported by based on ‘guessing’) clearly trounced by Eurotechnology Japan analyst Gerhard Fasol in mid-August, as revealed by The Australian. He estimates Apple "shifted between 75,000 and 125,000 units in July. At that rate, he thinks 2008 sales could total between 645,000 and 1 million." that month-old report informs.

 Nokia will launch its very own iPhone-killer next week, a touchscreen device until now called the ‘Tube’.

The new handset will be introduced at a special event in London next week on October 2. 

Nokia will also launch its Comes With Music in the UK next week, along with another new Xpress handset, to be sold at Carphone Warehouse from October 17.

Speaking at an industry event this week, Nokia’s Comes With Music’s go-to-market head Tom Erskine promised an aggressive turf war with Apple for the consumer markets, "We’re going to put a very major marketing investment behind it indeed this Christmas," he said. "We’re going to bring some investment and focus. Nokia is a big and powerful company – music is right at the top of our agenda at the moment. We’ll be looking to make the market bigger in the next couple of years."

Nokia has made some major investment in the space, acquiring the rest of Symbian earlier this year and promising to license out its new touch-based OS.

A demo of what to expect from earlier this year.

Via: Distorted-Loop

 In a positive step , Apple has reached a deal with leading groups to make iTunes, the iTunes Store and iTunes U more accessible to the blind.

The move follows the release of iTunes 8 this month, which contains significant accessibility improvements – but these are to be extended under the new deal Apple’s reached with The National Federation of the Blind and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

Apple will now make iTunes fully accessible by December 31, 2008, and will ensure the full accessibility of the iTunes software and the rest of the iTunes Store to blind people using both Mac and Windows operating systems by June 30, 2009. Over the next three years, Apple will continue to work with officials in the office of the Massachusetts Attorney General and the National Federation of the Blind to ensure that the iTunes services remain accessible to the blind and that accessibility issues are resolved. Apple has also agreed to contribute $250,000 to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind to assist the agency in providing adaptive technology to blind residents of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Computer technology is a critical means of access to business, education, information, and entertainment in the twenty-first century, and the blind must have equal access if we are to be equal participants in society. By making its extremely popular iTunes service fully accessible to the blind, Apple is setting an example that should be followed by the entire information technology industry. The National Federation of the Blind is pleased to have worked with Attorney General Coakley and her staff to reach this important agreement with Apple, and we will continue to work tirelessly until the blind have equal access to the full range of products and services available to the public through the Internet and other information technologies.”

“Our office is committed to providing equal opportunity to all citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” said Attorney General Martha Coakley. “This agreement will benefit blind Commonwealth citizens and all blind Americans by making one of the most widely used computer applications accessible to them. I applaud Apple for its commitment to accessibility and look forward to continuing to work with the National Federation of the Blind to ensure that rapid progress is made in making the iTunes software and services usable by everyone.”

Here’s an image found on Banksy’s website…

Banksy is a UK street artist who made his name through a series of high-class graffittioids. His work commands ever-increasing value in the art collector’s market, but despite his success no one really knows who the artist is. This image – originally taken from his site and first found by one Steve Clayton – confounds the Adam and Eve myth with Apple Inc. – and, by association – The Beatles and their Apple imprint. Well, Banksy is nothing if not a pop culture icon.

There’s numerous samples of the artist’s work available both on his website and also in an extensive collection on Flickr. Thought it worth a mention in passing.

Microsoft’s suave CEO Steve Ballmer thinks Apple’s iPhone will fail in the next five years, he said, speaking at a dinner at the Churchill Club.

You got to give him credit for optimism – Ballmer also thinks Nokia and Research In Motion will feel the crunch in the next five years, saying all three companies will suffer because they design their own proprietary hardware which they tie to their software. He reckons Windows Mobile is the ring to rule them all, or something (is that from the wrong movie?)

Ballmer thinks the same strategy that helped Microsoft become the leader on the desktop will let it win out on smartphones. Long term, he said, the battle will be between the Symbian OS, mobile versions of Linux and Windows Mobile. We don’t think so….but he’s the boss of the world’s largest software company, so he gets to say what he wants, we suppose – even when it flies in the face of the evidence.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5oGaZIKYvo&hl=en&fs=1]

Take his next point – that Apple won’t boost its slice of the PC market in the consumer or the enterprise space because it won’t license its software to other PC manufacturers. We say that  other than to point to endless surveys and oodles of analyst reports which show Apple to be expanding its slice of the PC market in both, erm, the enterprise and consumer markets, Ballmer has probably just offered Apple an alternative strategy should its continued market growth grind to a halt.

Oh, but Ballmer’s equivocal…"Apple’s a good company, I won’t take anything away from them, but they have a certain kind of strategy. They believe in putting the hardware and software together, they don’t believe in letting other people make it."

And it gets better, "I’m not saying there isn’t a threat" from Apple, he said. But if Microsoft and its PC partners "do our jobs right, there’s really no reason Apple should get any footprint in the enterprise." 

Oh yeah, Microsoft also committed to a five year strategy to "reinvent search" in its attempt to compete with Google. Sure…

Via: Industry Standard

"The alleged MacBook Pro (pictured at right) appears to have the characteristics described in early speculation with aluminum casing, glass track pad and rounded edges. The addition of the black trim around the screen looks amazing,” writes iPhone Saviour.

The new designed Mac laptops are expected to have a black surround to the screen, a la iMac – but given that this image appeared shortly after a speculative report exploring the new specs, we think the presence of an Apple logo-T-shirt-wearing element to the image actually suggests this is a Photoshop job. Well, we should know soon enough, come October, – and we’re curious about the ‘brick’…

 Apple’s notebook market share continues to grow at a remarkable rate – outpacing competitors across the industry – and the company seems set to maintain its success on news that Dell and HP have elected to slash their laptop research and development budgets.

DigiTimes has the story, reporting, "Notebook research and development personnel working at Dell and HP are assigned mainly to test the performance and reliability of new parts and components. This work overlaps that performed by R&D staff at ODM makers and so is an area vendors can afford to cut back on without impacting new product development, the sources noted," Wu and Shen report.

This news also means both Dell and HP (in common with most in the industry, bar Apple) are happy to pass on much of the development of new product across to their OEM manufacturers. Apple, converseley, likes to stamp its products with the slogan "designed in Cupertino". That’s possibly why it continues to innovate while other imitate, or fail to imitate. And there’s going to be more of the same in future.

Despite a down market, Apple’s share of the laptop sector is increasing. In the United States Apple’s share grew by 60 per cent, year over year, rising from 6.6 per cent to 10.6 per cent in the second quarter of this year. 

Apple is solidly in fourth place, behind Dell (21.9%), HP (21.4%) and Acer (14.4%, including its recently acquired Gateway and Packard-Bell brands).

During this period, Apple overtook Toshiba for the No. 4 position. In 2Q 2007, Toshiba had 11.4% of notebook shipments; in 2Q 2008, that fell to 9.0%.

"With the planned cuts, Dell and HP will no longer overwhelmingly control the procurement of parts and components needed for the production of their notebooks and instead will delegate purchasing power to manufacturers allowing the contract makers to purchase needed parts from the suppliers they chose," DigiTimes explains.

Apple is widely expected to imminently introduce a new generation of notebook Mac – perhaps they’ll look like this? Whatever the situation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has frequently said his company’s strategy when facing economic gloom is to invest heavily in new technology research in order to be ready to innovate itself out of recession, just as the company did at the turn of the current century following the Y2K blip and dotcom bust.

 A Mac version of popular BitTorrent client, uTorrent, has sneaked online – but it’s only a pre-release alpha, the developers have rushed to explain. In development since 2006 the software isn’t release-ready – many of its features don’t yet work, but application has been made available in order to prove that a Mac version is in development.

The news comes as AC/DC are widely reported to be moving to eschew iTunes, arguing that they want to sell their music as complete album bundles, rather than allowing music fans to cherry-pick tracks. While this is being reported as a shot across the bows for iTunes, similar moves to remove songs from UK artist Estelle from the US store saw that artist’s album chart position plummet, as her music was no longer available from America’s biggest music retailer.

AC/DC’s move won’t prevent file-sharing, however, and – as noted in this report – is likely to simply boost file-sharing traffic. "We live in a track world.  You can either admit it, or get run over by the future.  AC/DC’s album will be available track by track.  And that’s how it will be listened to.  The only difference is, they’re not going to get paid!" observes fiery music industry critic, Bob Lefsetz.

The debate concerning file-sharing continues, with a slow realisation hitting most non-millionaire artists now that suing individual file-sharers may actually be bad for business. UK singer Billy Bragg this week slammed the RIAA for litigating against music fans, saying, "You know who the pirates are? The pirates are our fans, when you sue our fans, you drive our fans away."

Meanwhile, RIAA anti-file-sharing scare tactics took a setback this week when Judge Michael Davis recanted a $222.000 fine against Jammie Thomas for sharing just 24 tracks. The judge argued that key elements of the RIAA case was based on false premise, and also said the fine per song when levied against ordinary music consumers is far too high, arguing for a much lower ceiling. Regardless of the continuing legal actions of the major labels, now victims of their own size and unable to display the innovation on a budget required for true success in the digital age (cf. Radiohead) will musicians and music fans ever find a way to close the gap?

Apple has begun testing iPhone Software 2.2, releasing new beta software to its developers.Software packages for the iPhone SDK, first and second-generation iPhones and the iPod touch have been made available, as illustrated in this image from GearLive.

Apple is expected to introduce something closer to true ‘Push" email in this latest release, a sync feature the company declared the device offered for months before launch, backtracking only when users noticed the claim wasn’t completely true.

The wish list for other features within this release still includes must-have facilities such as copy-&-paste, tethering to get your Mac online and the capacity to send MMS messages. Many users would like to see Apple enable its device to capture video – a function the CCD inside the camera is perfectly well capable of.  But we ain’t holding out breath..What features would you like to see in iPhone 2.2?

 Apple has begun selling iPhones unlocked for use on any network in Hong Kong, setting a starting price of $695 on the deal, which is available through the local online Apple retail store. 

The company is selling its 8GB iPhone for HK$5,400 ($695), while the 16GB iPhone model costs HK$6,200, both with free shipping. 

"Simply insert the SIM [subscriber identity module] from your current phone into iPhone 3G and connect to iTunes 8 to complete activation," Apple urges on the store website.

"Customer response to the iPhone 3G has been off the charts, and we are thrilled to offer our customers in Hong Kong another way to get their hands on this revolutionary device," an Apple spokeswoman said.

The iPhone 3G has been available in Hong Kong since July 11 through Hutchison Telecommunications. 

Apple’s culture of secrecy and control around iPhone development may mean we now have a series of University courses preparing to spring up to train new developers – but continues to thwart more informal means to bring knowledge to the developer community – there’s not even a book – but there was going to be.

Publisher Pragmatic Programmers has a complete book on iPhone development ready and waiting. The title will be a huge boost to many iPhone developers, particularly one-person shops who crave a little help in what they are trying to do. The title seems likely to be very successful – except it will never make it to print.

Why?

Here’s why – and Apple’s culture of secrecy and control around the iPhone is squarely to blame, as the publishers explain (and thanks to John Gruber for the eagle eyes)…

"We’ve had the iPhone book ready to go beta for some months, but were prevented from publishing it because of the iPhone SDK’s Non-Disclosure Agreement (which affects all publishers regarding this material, regardless of whether the reader is a member of the ADC or not).

"Normally, pre-release NDA’s such as this one are lifted when the product finally ships. We expected that this NDA would be lifted when the iPhone 2.0 software shipped, but it wasn’t. The September announcement came and went, and still the NDA remains in place.

"It now appears that Apple does not intend to lift the NDA any time soon. Regrettably, this means we are pulling our iPhone book out of production. But all is not lost: we are actively looking at alternative ways of getting this content to you. It probably won’t happen anytime soon, but know that we are doing what we can."

This news is only going to add to the huge furore surrounding the way Apple has recently begun rejecting applications with ever-increasing enthusiasm. Seems an application only has to slightly duplicate one of Apple’s core functions for a rejection to take place. And that’s annoying many developers, as clearly described in Jason Snell’s report here. 

Delicious Monster developer, Will Shipley, believes Apple needs to remove its control over shipping apps – beyond ensuring security, protecting against scams and preventing illegal content – he argues that the market should decide which apps succeed or fail. And developer Brent Simmons says Apple’s insistence on maintaining control is "a mistake," calling the behaviour "definitely beneath the company".

There’s another complaint: Developers have been complaining that the terms of the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) Apple demands they keep to are so onerous they can’t even properly discuss what they are working on between different dev firms – even when developers concerned have all signed that NDA. The situation seems to be becoming ever more frustrating, driving some developers to quit iPhone and shift to Android.

And that is no good thing.

Should Apple open up here? Is it taking a wrong path? And sure, we know there’s lots of money to be made in App development, but is Apple over-playing its custodial role? Is it acting as a curate of opportunity, or a camp commandant of discipline and control? Choose your position in our poll, or spare your few cents worth in comments below….