Apple has no problem with TLL doing downloadable code - because all of the code TLL would offer has to be vetted the same way codea proper is.
Apple has problems with your code. Yours. And mine. We might be bad guys out to replace Apple’s app store with our own, or trying to swindle their customers, or write code that Apple has promised someone or other wouldn’t be in the App store (say a tethering app, or simply something that uses too much bandwidth, no really). Apple will willingly prevent us from doing what we want, what might be good for the community or our friends (like “sharing” - not piracy, simply sharing our own code) on the off chance what you want to do is something they don’t like.
Like all Digital Rights Management - and this is a DRM issue, for certain - it’s about control of what end users do with what they bought and paid for, and is for the benefit of Apple and it’s partners (the cell carriers and “content providers”) - not yours or mine. Indeed - the people screwed worst by DRM are the legitimate end users, people doing none of these things - because the bad guys (and a whole bunch of good guys) simply bypass the DRM.
True Story: bought a few “Strawberry Shortcake” DVDs for my daughter some years back - she was (and is) a big fan. There was one, though, that she didnt like - confused, I looked into why. Turns out the beginning of the DVD had an (unskippable) anti-piracy ad, one that showed a robber and guns and a back alley at night - something some idiot thought might discourage a teenager from “stealing that disc” - except Gracie was 3, this was Strawberry Shortcake, and it scared her. Now - daddy saved the day by ripping the disk - bypassing the DRM, of course - and removing the crap at the beginning. Point is - if you have ever downloaded a movie, you’ll be aware that the distributors do exactly the same - pirates are rarely if ever inconvenienced by DRM. I serves to punish only legitimate users.
(pop quiz: do you think this made me buy more strawberry shortcake DVDs? Do you think the anti-piracy ad at the beginning was effective, whatsoever? Compare and contrast the experience of a legitimate DVD buyer with someone who paid nothing and torrented it)
So you can see why I have little patience or appetite for playing Apples little games. Stupid part is, Apple stumbled - accidentally, I might add - on the real solution to piracy; reasonably priced software (including music) easily obtainable from a trusted source. I love the walled garden when it benefits the end user, and most of the time it does - the problem is when an end user is also a developer, Apple feels free to dump on them - and that needs to stop, or they’ll pay in the long run with an exodus of talent and power users. The only reason it hasn’t happened yet is the poor quality of the competition - at some point one of Apple’s competitors will understand, “click”, and the decline of Apple will begin, unless they change their ways. Very Dickens, but there you go.
I wait with anticipation for the Apple competitor - I was hoping for google, but they seem to have brain damage, they think what they want is what real people want - who makes a tablet similar to the iPad, but where the SOLE criteria for inclusion in their walled garden is quality - someone who provides a store customers can trust (the current android store isn’t it) and doesn’t apply silly restrictions on inclusion other than solid, stable, “fair” code (ie no Trojans or “angriest brids 3”) will attract both end users and quality developers. The flip side is that the walled garden can not be the sole means of adding software - allow end users to side load home brew or third party apps with proper warnings. Piracy will Not be an issue when the walled garden apps are reasonably priced, and people like me won’t feel the need to “pwn” the system to do what we reasonably expect to do with our own hardware.
TL;DR - Tom rants at 12:30 am on the iPad about DRM - turns out he’s “against”.
I blame the drugs (I have a bad ear/sinus infection - the meds have knocked me silly, silly enough to type all that on a soft keyboard with one finger.)
