Apple’s App Store is a wonderful thing. When it launched in 2008, it opened up a world now home to 450,000 apps and games available to our iOS devices. There was nothing else like it. Never before had it been so easy for customers to discover and download mobile software, and for developers to distribute and sell it.
Developing for the App Store and the iOS platform isn’t without its flaws, however. As one iOS developer has recently learned, one of the biggest downsides to iOS development is piracy.
Apple’s recent patent that would block piracy at concerts via an invisible infrared sensor has been more hotly contested than a bootleg Beatles’ concert performance.
The SavetheInternet.com Coalition, which claims some two million members plus charter members including Lawrence Lessig and the ACLU, wants Steve Jobs to reconsider. And they want you to sign an online petition to get his attention.
Apple’s new iTunes Match functionality is an incredible boon to music lovers, effortlessly matching your local music to Apple’s cloud servers, but it doesn’t happen by magic. Instead, iTunes Match is the product of numerous inked deals between Cupertino and music publishers: no deal, and iTunes Match can’t mirror tracks from that label.
So bad news, soul and R&B fans. Numero Group has just vocally drawn a line in the sand: iTunes Match legitimizes piracy, and they won’t be part of it.
The Mac App Store has been live for less than a day, but already pirates have figured out how to circumvent its DRM to install and run unauthorized paid apps. It’s not Apple’s fault, though: instead, it looks like developers just haven’t been paying attention to Apple’s own app validation advice.
