public static final String MY_CONSTANT = "my_constant";and get on with my life. If I mistype MY_CONSTANT the compiler throws an error fairly early on, before I'm into stabbing at buttons and wondering why my new screen won't load. There's no way to reference string constants from XML, so you end up with a lot of debugging typos. Was I doing it wrong? Is there some secret to Android URIs that I just didn't get? It was kind of a death-march project, so it's entirely possible that I missed the part of the docs explaining how not to have this happen...
"For the moment though, given the above, I’m content that there’s currently no need for any AV protection on my iPhone."Sophos sells no iPhone AV software. Apple sells no AV software through the App Store.
That is not true. Is my Toyota a better car because I can tinker with it?-- grubiThis is a somewhat odd sentence. Who says you can't tinker with your Toyota? Toyota has a whole line of cars marketed as being tweakable and customizable: scions. Now, most people probably won't do much with them, but all their ads highlight how customizable they are.
I will point this out so you don't make the mistake again. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Tinker. I. Want. To. Simply. Use. -- grubi
Thank you. Count me in that group. I've jailbroken both my iPhone and iPad. I'm not opposed to tinkering.-- grubi
Maaan. Your hatred for anything not-apple is just getting hilarious. Macs aren't actually more secure then windows machines, they're just less targeted. And since most viruses and malware target windows XP it's not even as much of an issue for Vista and Win7 machines. If you were writing a virus targeting the iPhone you would obviously want it to work on OSX.And of course, there's no way that could be used as an attack vector, right?That's a potential issue for Windows users, definitely. But then I keep hearing about how you shouldn't run applications with admin privileges on a Windows machine, so maybe this isn't as much of an issue anymore, in theory. -- Blazecock Pileon
Absolutely, it could. Will it? Time will tell. But my argument was against the idea that Apple was definitely heading to obsolescence because it refuses to allow app-creating apps on its platform. -- grubiNo one said that. The argument is that it sucks. Although it's interesting that Apple started to really gain marketshare when they switched to the geek-friendly OSX, a fully functional version of Unix with a useable command line (a feature they actually advertised at the time)
Right. That's your opinion. But there's actually a difference between creating useful software and 'tinkering'. If a user needs "Particular thing X" done, and there's an easy way for them to do it, why wouldn't they want too, especially if there was a development environment that was actually easy to use? Because, you know, that's what this thread is about: The ability for people to write easy-to-code programs on their phone. Which they can't do because Apple has it locked down.What does that have to do with the rest of us? Just because that's how you feel doesn't mean it's how everyone else does.I pointed out -- repeatedly -- that the general public is not tinkerers, hackers, programmers, and gadget geeks. And that their lack of wanting to tinker means they don't care about open vs closed.--grubi
Because I wanted an informative lockscreen. If I can get that without jailbreaking, I would. -- grubiWhich, of course is tinkering.
Bullshit. If that were true, then there would be an appropriate number of viruses for OSX in ratio to the number that there are for Windows. -- grubiAgain, most viruses are for Windows XP and may not work on Vista or Win7, especially given the default setup. And more importantly virus writers target XP because there are tons and tons of poorly secured XP boxes all around the world and connected to the internet. If it's working for them, why would they switch? And anyway, completely beside the point of the thread.
But most users -- the non-geeks, mind you -- don't want to program these apps themselves. Some users want to do this. Most do not.Again, you only have your opinion, not any factual basis that "users don't care"? But even if they didn't, so what? It still sucks for the users who might be interested in, you know solving their own problems or those who are interested in tinkering with the device. And more impotently, there's no actual benefit to the user in locking it down
Again, you are just not getting it, because you have an irrational (and horribly ill-informed) opinion about Apple. I never defended the closed platform as a virtue. I have said a number of times that most people (myself included) just don't care -- grubi
If you don't think that what apple is doing is good and in fact you think what they're doing is bad or just neutral then what is the point of all this posting? What are you trying to prove here? Because it certainly seems like you're trying to defend Apple here. Why would you write all these posts if you don't care?you trying very hard to convince people that what Apple is doing is totally the right thingShow me. -- grubi
The App inventor is totally and completely cool. But I'm not sure it's going to take off quite the way people in this thread think, i.e. the general populace will use it in large numbers.I don't think we think that, we just think it's cool.
Apple isn't because I think Apple is the Holy Mother Church but because your assertions are FALSE. It's not my Apple preference that drives them as much as my dislike of falsehoods, misrepresentations, and downright lies.Uh... assertions have I made that are false? Let alone "Downright lies!!!!!!!"?
Christ almighty, is that the dichotomy you see? Because this issue isn't as simple as that.What dichotomy are you even talking about? I honestly have no idea what you're talking about here.
With you it's either you love Apple and it can do no wrong or you hate Apple and it can do right. That's the false dichotomy.Okay, well I certainly never said I thought that was the case. But certainly there are people who love apple and think it can do no wrong.
To be fair, ArtW, it's not like their aren't exceptions to the general trend (or that I've implied there aren't). Quite frankly, i wish *more* of the larger population would be curious to build their own apps.Exceptions? All you said was that people who don't like to tweak and hack their devices, which is entirely different from writing their own (useful) apps. It's not all that clear that the majority of people wouldn't be interested in writing their own apps if they were capable of doing it. You certainly haven't presented any evidence at all that it's the case.
"I spent around 90 minutes this morning cranking away on a few test applications in App Inventor, and while I’m very excited about it, this is not going to be a walk in the park for “ordinary people”. Unless you’re looking to make an extremely basic application — think “Hello World” — you’re going to have to read through the documentation, and in some cases even the existing tutorials won’t be enough."Bummer, but still neat. Puts a bit of a break on the whole "everyone will be doing it" idea that some have suggested.
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posted by empath at 6:38 AM on July 12, 2010