People seem to be forgetting Apple is a business. Not a charity.
I think Apples biggest mistake was to launch the app store in the first place. I'm not interested in pretending my phone is a light saber, or using it as a flashlight. For me, it sort of "dumbs down" the phone. There are some apps that look well written, like super monkey balls etc, but most of them are just idiotic. Wastes of time, and money.
Apple is there to make money, and give users what they want. Not developers. If there's an app in the store that does something similar to an app Apple does, but a bit better, guess which one I want as a user? The Apple one. I want to know Apple will support it, be behind it, make sure it works for everyone etc. The other app could be a 1 man band who isn't that bothered.
I don't think Apple should have opened the app store, they should have just exposed all the hardware to javascript, as they did with the multitouch, orientation changes etc. The only thing the app store has going for it is a willingness from users to pay money for novelty apps, but I think that will soon wear off.
In this particular case I can't see why anyone would want the app anyway. What does it offer above the standard mail app? Do Apple really need the extra hassle of providing support - "My mail doesn't work Apple!!! Oh um by the way I'm using some weird app I installed"
Take some activity we might consider disgusting -- like chopping down a productive fruit tree, or shooting a milk-producing cow, shitting all over the people who give you 30 percent of their sales and help make an economic engine that feeds you, etc -- it is not disgusting if a robot does it.
If a tree-harvesting robot cut down productive fruit trees instead of the pine lumber, we'd say, "Hey, broken robot there -- fix it." But if a group of PEOPLE did that, we'd call them stupid and disgusting, and be fearful of what they were doing to the economy. If they formed an LLC and did it, they would be stupid and disgusting. If they formed a cult and selected a guru and did it, they would be stupid and disgusting.
"Apple" is just a name for a bunch of stupid and disgusting people. They could dissolve the corporation, and they would still be a few tens of thousands weirdos, with a creepy turtle neck wearing "design guru", and probably be trying to sell you overpriced crap that you could not modify, based on a subtle implication of elitism if you joined by buying.
I think the only reasonable phone to consider at this point is the OpenMoko. Unlike Android, it's here now. People are doing stuff like http://www.neopwn.com/ with it.
Unfortunately, as near as I can tell, there are simply no cellular providers that meet basic standards of reasonable behaviour, such that I would sign up with them. They all seem to be run by people like axod, and probably think it's OK to have sex with children as long you form an S corp hire yourself to rape them, to insulate your soul from it like a kind of ethical condom.
Both corporate behaviours have incited this kind of deeply emotional response. So it's interesting to ask someone if they have the same emotional response to each corporate behaviour.
It would be very interesting to me if someone says they find patent trolling to be businesses making money according to the rules of the game as they are written but that same person thinks of Apple's behaviour as "disgusting."
I am not suggesting anybody here has that response, just that I see that the question is interesting.
If neither of these behaviours are 'disgusting,' what is? IE if you don't find these disgusting, then you probably think that no business behaviour qualifies for this title.
In that case, that comment is out of place. Why say 'why is this disgusting?' What you mean is 'There's no such thing as disgusting in business.
No, there isn't. Business is amroal for the simple reason that corporations are not people.
However, there is such a thing as disgusting when people make business decisions. The fact that someone owns a business or works for a business does not relive them of personal moral responsibility.
A business is perfectly correct to decide that offshoring shoe manufacturing to copuntries with child labour is the right choice. A business is perfectly correct to decide that offshoring chemical manufacturing to countries with lax safety standards is the right choice.
The people working for those businesses, on the other hand, are not off the hook. They cannot invoke the Nuremburg defence, for can they assert that since the business is devoid of responsibility, and they work for the business, their decisions while on the job are devoid of responsibility.
Thus, speaking to another post here, I have no ethical problem with a firm that exists to commit patent extortion. However, I find the actions of its founders and employees disgusting.
When people own computers, they want applications available -- the more the better. Remember the "10,000 programs" television ad for the Apple II?
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22apple+ii%22+%2210%2C000+pr...
The decision to buy a computer is mainly based on the size of the application-base. The early-adopters are anticipating rapid application-base growth. To grow the application base, one needs developers. As Steve Balmer said:
I disagree about people wanting native installable apps. I don't think they particularly do any more.
I'd be really surprised if anyone bought the iPhone because of a certain app in the app store.
The trouble with browser-based iPhone apps -- around here, anyway -- is that you can't use them on the subway. The GMail client on my old blackberry was like that and it was totally worthless during most of the time I was mobile.
I do think that web apps with the HTML 5 database ( http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#sql ) and clever caching would cover most use-cases. It does still leave email-outbox style functionality out of apps, but a simple message-passing service in the API would solve that.
Apps were essential even before the app store opened. Jailbreaking, yo, remember?
So would I, which is why I said that people want the availability of a wide variety of applications, not any particular application.
The App Store is for business. If I want to do something more exploratory or academic I do it in an open system.