Sigh. Just as we thought Apple's
ridiculous App Store approval process was about to get better with the
advent of parental controls in iPhone OS 3.0, it goes and pulls another boneheaded move that makes us wonder if the entire system isn't hopelessly broken forever. This time the company's rejected Maza's Drivetrain, an app that allows users to remotely control the Transmission Bittorrent app, because "this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights." Right, "this category of applications," apparently meaning any app that has anything to do with Bittorrent at all -- Drivetrain doesn't actually upload or download anything, it's just used to manage Transmission running on your desktop. That's an awfully paranoid and restrictive stance towards one of the most popular file-transfer protocols around, especially since there are millions of legit torrents available, but somehow we're just not surprised -- this type of
foolish,
petty,
and capricious behavior from Apple has sadly become par for the course with the App Store.
[Via
iLounge]
posted May 11th 2009 12:03PM
But seriously, Microsoft is the evil one.
I don't think you can classify any body in the computing business as "evil"
Apple is just as evil as Microsoft, it's just sexier. I frequently over-tip the waitress at my local pub because she shamelessly flirts with me. She's evil, but she's sexy, so I don't mind getting screwed so badly...
Except spellcheckers that separate words when you type 'anybody' maybe?
You should only use 'any body'when you are < fill in famous female trashy star >
Ryan,
It sounds like you're screwing yourself.
Actually, ignorant people like you are evil. Apple is the one filtering the apps that get approved. This is soo anti-competitive with their closed app market. I cannot wait until the EU goes after them. It might be a few years, but it will happen. Microsoft has always supported developers to the utmost degree, they are not nearly as controlling as apple is. You have NO idea what you are talking about, but this is the interwebs, so no one will realize... keep posting
@ryan
Apples into BDSM?
Who gonna buy Songs from itunes when they can just torrent it in there iphone/ipod touch?
And shut up you liars who pretend to buy music everybody knows that you properly buy only 10% of what you hear on your laptop
So apple did the right thing unless you want my business to die (I work on the music industry)
Pleasecthis app in the jailbrake store
@ DR House
Read the article again to find the text below:
Right, "this category of applications," apparently meaning any app that has anything to do with Bittorrent at all -- Drivetrain doesn't actually upload or download anything, it's just used to manage Transmission running on your desktop.
@wtf,
I'm afraid not buddy. The European courts have already gone after Apple and it's iTunes pricing police, Apple agreed to reduce it's prices as they charge the exact same in Europe as in the US in numbers, I.E. 99 cents in the US, 99 pence in the UK so obviously ignoring the value of cents to the pound.
Anyway, Apple said yes, left the court, thought about it, then they stuck the middle finger up at the European court U turned and said they would NEVER change their pricing policy in Europe so we just continue to get screwed.
And was any action taken? No, none as far as I know so don't expect Apple to be in court anytime soon in Europe for it's app store policy's anytime soon.
Yo DR,
I am making applications for the music business. They won’t let us embed songs, because they feel that it confuses iTunes users. The music industry needs new models, and it is nice that labels are actually able to make a living on the iTMS. That does not make everybody feel better after their applications get rejected to further Apple’s self interest.
Apple will have to do something to regain trust. People are quite unhappy about all of the silly control issues.
@apolloa
I think you may be misremembering... The EU told Apple that they had to have the same pricing structure in all EU countries. No action was taken because shortly after that ruling, the economy started to collapse and 99 euro-cents became equal to 79 pence, so they didn't need to change anything.
If they had "stuck their middle finger up" at the court they wouldn't be trading anywhere in Europe.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to partially agree with DR House above. His wording is poor, but he makes the point of why apple is doing this. Apple is controlling this app. for what I believe are purely business reasons that the company believes will affect is bottom line. This article makes it sound as if apple is rejecting this app on moral reasons that piracy is bad and that it Apple's behavior is "foolish" and "capricious".
Apple's behavior is anything but capricious. While I may not agree with what they are doing, they are trying to make sure that you use their content delivery system (iTunes) to make your purchases of music and other media. They do not want you to have access to any other delivery methods, and they will cut off that access in any way they can. Although their statement makes it sound as if they are doing this on the moral grounds of third party rights, this is really about controlling you and doing everything possible to ensure that you purchase your music through them, and they will shut down any tool on their system that could even POSSIBLY be used to obtain content through another means.
Again, I don't necessarily agree with their view, but let's first be clear on why they are doing this -- control.
NewsFlash: Apple Discontinues sales of all iPods and iPhones beacuse they may be used to listen to infringed material.
Wake up. Apple is giving Micro$oft a serious run for the money when it comes to being evil.
Who'd waste bandwidth downloading legal torrents. Only the pirated illegal stuff makes it all worth the while. Apple is right to reject the app since Transmission can be controlled through a browser window. That's one less useless app in the App Store. Makes room for more fart apps.
Yes, but transmission already has a very nice web interface that you can access from safari and link onto your home screen anyway if you want to, so this is a completely pointless effort! Only bad PR
Someone at apple is being a dick again!
Apple is evil. It's for lemmings, and it's building an army of dolts. When are people going to realize that you're paying more for garbage?
^Microsoft fanboi douchebag
@joshua you know nothing about computers, please for the love of god SHUT UP.
Again ? Every time something on my MBP screwed up they were being dicks...
This is a no-brainer for Apple. The cost to simply defend a file sharing lawsuit (or take the time to get a frivolous lawsuit dismissed) far exceeds any profit they will see from this application or any others like it at this point in time. Now, if BitTorrent becomes THE method to transfer files of all types and Apple can sell millions of similar apps then they may change their mind.
Lets ban safari aswell then?
Yah again....because there were periods in between where Apple wasn't being a dick....not. The difference between now and all those other times is that its much more in the open. If you think Apple wasn't being a dick to their partners, to their developers, and pretty much anyone who did business with them in the past I have an island called Atlantis to sell you.
@American
Joshua never even mentioned anything relating to Microsoft. He could have been a Fedora, Unbuntu, FreeBSD, or any of the linux distributions, Android, r SkyOS, etc... So where did you get your assumption from... Talk about jumping to conclusions or stereotyping anyone who's not a believer of the Jobs...
Talk about jumping to conclusions or stereotyping anyone who's not a believer of the Jobs...
what about stereotyping all mac users are lemmings, dolts and macs are garbage? whats worst than fanboism is people hating a company just for the sake of it. im not going to argue with nerds anymore.
There's a similar app on the Android marketplace that hasn't been removed.
If Apple App Store is the problem, then Android Market is the solution. Perhaps Apple will ban text messaging from the iPhone because terrorists could use that to communicate...
And it's phone ability, because that can be used to remote detonate a bomb.
Yeah, it's called ConnectBot. You can easily use it to SSH to your home machine and view/control your rtorrent downloads. I'd imagine if there's an SSH client for the iPhone you can do the exact same thing. You don't need Transmission at all do accomplish this, just Bash, rTorrent, and SSH.
Take THAT Apple.
There is an BitTorrent client for Symbian OS. It can download multiple torrent files at a time. Nokia isn't bickering about it like Apple.
http://amorg.aut.bme.hu/projects/symtorrent
Perhaps that the reason why Nokia and Samsung include GBs of storage on their mobiles.
he's right. just went to market->all apps->by date-> scrolled like twice and bam. "Torrent-fu".
I am developing music products for the iPhone, and am beginning to be involved with the Android groups so that we can seriously consider moving the technology. We could actually do things on the platform that Apple will not allow, but will make a better experience for the user.
Apple will ultimately suffer from this behavior. As with Sony, people will recognize a power play for what it is, and begin to make Android increasingly viable,
@LondonConsultant...
cute but terrorists don't have a powerful lobby in Washington.
Actually, the iPhone has an app just like this...
Transmission has a remote option built in. Just use safari to access the web interface, and you have control over your torrents.
i love apple but thank god i dont have an iphone. ipod classic + blackberry is where its at. apple used to make all these wonderful exclusive products, but now, thanks to their commercialization and popularity, everything seems to be going downhill...including steve jobs himself. apple's really gona have to rethink their strategies
You telling me your Blackberry can do this?
Don't get me wrong, I love my Blackberry - but it has nowhere near the 25,000 apps that the Apple App Store has....
It doesn't have as many, but it does have almost all of the most popular iPhone applications that the majority of people use.
and the iphone doesnt even have the 80 gigs of storage needed to play all my music. 32 gigs aint enuff.
i can haz roomba?
If you wrote a program to do this on a blackberry they couldn't block it. (Sure they might not approve it to be part of their appstore) But my favorite blackberry feature is the fact that it's open without having to jail break it or pay for a developers license.
I downloaded a dice rolling simulator this morning that also has the ability to use 'dirty dice', no way would that ever be approved for use on the iPhone.
I agree the development platform on the Blackberry is more open and without restrictions (except App World).
SO - why aren't there more applications for Blackberry?
@b
maybe blackberry users arent stupid enough to download utter garbage such as fart apps and light saber shit?
I don't like the AppStore policies, but seriously, BT is only used for warez.
Do you have a Mac?
Most game demos for Mac are shared with BitTorrent.
Seriously, the amount of legitimate file-sharing on any given torrent provider/tracker/service is miniscule compared to the amount of piracy that's going on. Do I agree with the anti-piracy measures by the RIAA and MPAA? No, but should Apple piss off content providers (who they work with on iTunes stuff) by letting you control your MASSIVE BT downloads while you're not at home? No.
Sensible move on Apple's part and a good point. Anyone who thinks otherwise can't see the forest for the trees.
Ubuntu's release stats say otherwise.
On top of that almost every linux distro is shared via P2P, including very popular free software such as OpenOffice and many other things that people want to distribute without the costs of going through the more 'mainstream' channels, hell now even artists are releasing music for free on bit torrent sites to get attention/ticket sales so although while a large proportion is copyright infringement there's a LOT out there that's for legitimate use.
Brian was referring to Mac demos, not linux. Nobody said Mac demo downloads > Ubuntu downloads.
Pmow, Matt wasn't talking to Brian. Matt was talking to Lundmark.
And World of Warcraft updates.
A large portion of web traffic (the HTTP type) is generated by fraud, pornography, piracy and viruses. Should Apple stop allowing Internet access?
Alright guys. I sincerely believe now that you will only use this for Linux and mac demos.
Tell that to NASA, who had made Bittorrent the only available method of downloading their "Blue Marble" satellite image dataset (about 4GB I think) when I last checked.
That's what the RIAA, MPAA want you to believe. Linix iso's and, game demo downloads, and open source projects use bittorrents, just to name a few. It's not all warez and copyrighted material.
Http, ftp, and pretty much every other protocol can/have been used for piracy, as well. Should Apple ban those? We don't need to have yet another conversation about the benefits of Bittorrent here, but let me just reiterate there are huge benefits for legitimate websites in using it.
what if someone uses the Facebook app to stalk someone? Where is the line drawn? Oh right, when the right people are profiting, that's when.
I'm not gonna do that, I'm just saying..
Don't look at me that way.
they dont want people downloading movies and music that can be bought from them
I hope apple's kidneys fail
haha.. Sykes she was awesome
This app sounds awesome! Let is through.
yeah, i could actually use this one, this better get pushed through
There's a web interface for Transmission already. Just check outs its documentation and preferences :)
(Unless the Mac version is behind the Linux one, which I don't think it is).
Blaming Bittorent for piracy is like blaming spoons for Rosie O'Donnell being fat.
Bittorrent is just a file sharing medium. Before that it was Kazaa or Napster and IRC before that. It is just another evolution in the file sharing technology. Piracy would go on if all Bittorrent networks were to go dark today a new technology would just crop up. I think their are even more legit uses of Bittorrent now than ever before. The only way to stop piracy is provide a product people are WILLING to pay for.
this looks like a time for a game:
Blaming Bittorent for piracy is like _____.
like blaming heroin for a drug addict overdosing.
New iPhone commercial.
Managing Torrents? Yeah, we've blocked an app for that.
Tethering your iPhone so you don't need to have a separate air card? Well, we've blocked an app for that too.
Want to show your friends how rich you are with a superfluous app purchase? We've even blocked an app for that.
http://www.iphonestalk.com/visit-the-graveyard-for-rejected-iphone-apps/
Haha. :D
yea seriously. samsung or sony or something should launch an ad campaign
Sounds more like an Android commercial to me.
@subfuze: you, sir are an idiot. Google removed wifi tether because it broke the T&C of the marketplace by overtly violating the T&C of T-Mobile's service(it's only blocked for phones on T-mobile in the US). Besides which it's not even blocked since you can freely download it off the developer's web page or xda-developers and install it. And finally, that's the only major app that's been removed from the android marketplace.
tethering coming soon on 3.0. but it's up to the networks.
The data iPhone data plan on AT&T is already $30. It seems the most they could charge for legal tethering and not be complete thieves would be $25 or $30. I don't like that price but I'd understand it. With all of the iPhones out there on AT&T's already taxed network, a bunch of tethering converts could really wreck shop.
Uhm, does not really surprise a lot.. In any case with transmission you can enable the control via web. It is even optimiZed for iphone. (or apple will ban safari?)
That is what makes this so incredibly ridiculous! There is an iPhone-optimized web app that allows you to do this.
Apple are really setting themselves up for a bag of hurt by being a police state. Legally, there is a lot of responsibility involved in holding all the keys.
This is a perfect example of why I won't by an iPhone. Don't get me wrong, I think it's pretty flipp'n awesome, I'm just not willing to support something with such customer unfriendly standards. If someone wants to make a program I want to be able to install it.
What I still don't get is how this on the iPhone is any different than actually using Transmission on an Apple Machine?
This is different from running transmission because this app just _controls_ transmission elsewhere.
It's not doing anything that transmission is doing (good or bad) just controlling it.
It's essentially a remote control for transmission.
Hopefully this will be released on Cydia or similar then. Looks like a good app.
Can't say I'm surprised, though. They're just covering their ass.
Hey, I've torrented plenty of files, but I think this feigned outrage is hilarious. Yeah, there are SOME legal uses for bit torrent... but we all know what the MAIN purpose is.
Exactly. The author should be ashamed.
So why should the (albeit small) population of legit BT users be punished because the majority use it for illicit purposes?
Should we ban TV remotes because some people use them to control TVs hooked up to stolen cable?
@ SpoonMSU
Because "the good of the many outweigh the good of the few...or the one"
- Capt. Spock
Now if Spock said this it MUST be logical and true!
..... still kinda asinine and shortsighted of Apple to do this though. I'm doing the same thing in a roundabout sort of way with VNC Lite which I did get at the App Store.......
It just seems like there is a knowledge gap in the people who approve Apps. I guess a couple of guys don't really know anything and reject iffy-sounding stuff. And then people complain and the applications end up being approved anyway?
I don't agree with Apple's move on this one either. However PirateBay didn't upload or download anything either. They only said where files where located. IE tracker. But they still lost the court battle and will be paying out a huge chunk. But for some reason don't have to shut down the webiste either. Somehow that doesn't make any sense either.
Apple is just watching their backside on this one I think.
TPB ran a tracker, which somewhat clouds the issue.
Was expecting Big Brother paraphernalia for the image. Utterly disappointed.
"What is the difference between a creator and a consumer? A creator BUILDS, a consumer asks 'Where's the free trimmings?' A creator CREATES, a consumer says 'Why won't this work the way I want it to?' A creator INVENTS, a consumer says 'Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of fanboys...'"
This is a confused message. Are you defending the creators who made the phone or the creators who made the app?
I have no idea. I haven't had my coffee yet. :p
I'm an app developer and I hate the shady approval process just as much as anyone but I mean come on, bit torrents are used like 99% of the time for illegal things and I don't blame apple for wanting to distance themselves from something like this. THe difference between this and transmission is that apple controls the entire app store whereas mac apps can be downloaded from anywhere, therefore if any legal stuff went down they would be 100% to blame since they control everything.
You've just made a very compelling argument for why Apple needs to enable sideloading of unapproved apps without hacking. Just put an on/off switch in the settings somewhere that enables installing apps that didn't come from the App Store, just like Android does. Problem solved.
This is not some moralistic statement about piracy, this is apple protecting their billions of itune title sales, money talks.
This is ridiculous! Not like this app will let you torrent stuff directly on to the iPhone!
Every not-sold itune makes the holy steve cry.
Clutch which is the webui that has existed for some time and is now bundled with Transmission works on mobile Safari. Also there are people working on the clutch config end to make enhancements for mobile safari http://forum.transmissionbt.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4452. This app wraps/duplicates this existing functionality but that's not necessarily a bad thing. XBMC Remote is a way better tool than using the XBMC webui on mobile Safari.
This is partially why i chose Android :D
Free to do what the hell i want, without Apple getting all up in my face :P