I have been reading a lot of articles about iPhone 3G these days. Somehow I can’t get enough of it. A couple of articles made me literally roll on the floor laughing.
Let me talk about them.
If you own an iPhone 3G, you can buy third party apps for it, through iTunes. However there is a catch. All such third party apps need to be approved by Apple first. And guess who approves these at Apple? According to a report, probably a rumor – It is none other than Steve Jobs himself. Apparently he cannot trust any of his deputies to do this highly skilled mission critical job. Hail the dictator!
Ok. Maybe we should not believe such preposterous rumors. What is evident is that the team which authorizes these iPhone applications is very small and is commanded by none other than Steve Jobs.
As a fall out of this, there is an insane wait period for getting your application listed on the App Store. It is around seven to eight months! There are hundreds of wonderful Apps and games out there waiting to be listed.
But maybe this is all for the greater good. When you buy an App from iTunes, you are assured that it is a great App and that it is not Joker! Yes? Hell no! A very creative App titled "I am Rich" has found its way on to the impregnable Apple iPhone Apps store. This happens to be the most expensive App ever – with a price tag of 999.99 USD. (Why this price? Because that the maximum price limit set by Apple for iPhone Apps).
All that this application does, is to display a bright red ruby on your phone. When you click on it, it displays a message "I am Rich." The idea is that if you have this application on your phone, it signifies how rich you are. You have spent close to a grand to earn that title.
What can be sillier than this? Guess what! Eight people actually bought it. Some of them were perplexed, it seems, because the application did nothing much. They complained to Apple whining that they didn’t buy it intentionally and that it was a mistake. Last checked everyone needed to enter his or her password and confirm the purchase on the App Store. So how they ended up buying the App "unintentionally" is a mystery best left to Sherlock Holmes.
Well, finally Apple relented and pulled the application off the shelf. It reportedly refunded the amount too.
My opinion? It is a very creative thought by the developer. If there are people willing to buy the application why take it off the list? The application has already undergone a screening test conducted by none other than Steve Jobs!
"I am Rich" may not be missed by people but there are a couple of other applications that met the same fate as this one. There’s an app that allowed your iPhone 3G to be used as a Modem so that you could surf the net from your laptop. This is in direct contradiction with the contract Apple has with AT&T. (Such a blasphemy! Intelligent Customers are taboo!) So the application was pulled out.
Question to Steve Jobs: How did it get into the App store in the first place?
The so called impregnable App Store apparently has a secret passage or two. Nothing else can explain the need for the "Kill Switch" that Apple put on the iPhone 3G. The phone calls home (Cupertino, 1 – Infinite Loop) periodically and checks a list of "Harmful" applications on the iPhone. If there are any such apps, the Kill Switch swings into action and kills the application on your phone – All this without your knowledge. (Till date, this list is empty by the way.)
Questions to Steve Jobs again:
1. If every application on the App Store is authenticated by Apple (Steve Jobs in particular), what is the need for the Kill Switch?
2. When you said "Harmful" who exactly is it harmful to? AT&T or the actual consumer?
3. What is the policy for killing an App or approving an App to be on the App Store?
4. If Apple can sell Apps to Indian Consumers, what is stopping it from selling iTunes music to the consumers in India?
5. Why disable Podcasts for Indian consumers?
Steve Jobs again is the talk of the town these days… apparently for non-technical reasons. His health has been called into question. The rumor mill is working over time saying Jobs has cancer. The investors are tense. The problem is, there is no strong second-in-line for Jobs. And if Jobs himself has to approve each and every App that wants to get on to the App Store, I don’t know what will happen to Apple in the post Steve Jobs era. I hope Jobs is doing fine. May he live a thousand years healthily. But may he remove the dependency on him as soon as possible.
A hunch at the back of my mind tells me that the iPhone 3G is a great entertainment product… Not just for the users but for the entire media world. They are not going to stop talking about it for years to come. And there will be many a rich "I am Rich" App that will entertain us – iPhonians or Not!
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