Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba has posted a list of bug reports that he’s filed against Apple’s Bug Reporter. “Bug” is the wrong word here since these are all enhancement requests but enhancement requests go through the Bug Reporter, too, so it’s all pretty much the same in the end. I haven’t played around with the SDK much but I thought I’d offer my insights into his enhancement requests.

“Allow applications to be installed at the user’s discretion, not Apple’s”

I know this one is kind of a big deal for a lot of people but I simply think that this is a platform issue that we either need to get behind or move on. Apple has made it clear that they are taking the iPhone under their wing and protecting it from anything they can. They’re imposing restrictions (no porn, no VOIP over cell bandwidth, etc.) as well as imposing an actual human interface guideline. They will actually refuse apps if they don’t look like they belong on the iPhone. They also have the app store in iTunes. All of these things are moot if users can install their own applications.

If users could install their own applications, there no point in having restrictions or a human interface guideline. People could ignore them at will. The app store is also much less necessary as developers could sell their own applications (complete with registration schemes). I think that the iPhone as an all-in-one device benefits from having some control over what goes into it. Apple wants a unified appearance for the iPhone. Everything should look similar and just work. That’s the best possible experience for the user on a device like this. Also, registration schemes are a pain in the ass, especially on a device without copy and paste. I’m supporting the iTunes store wholeheartedly on this one.

I don’t see much point in Apple restricting things like porn and VOIP. One is a moral call and the other smacks of Apple pandering to AT&T. However, I think Apple is probably right by saying that there won’t be anything illegal on their iPhone. I can’t imagine what one could do with an iPhone that’s illegal, but I don’t mind Apple blocking on that front. Of course, people who want illegal things will just jailbreak their iPhones and install them another way.

I’m just curious how Apple defines “illegal.” Is bittorrent illegal? Of course the protocol isn’t illegal but it has a bit of a reputation for downloading illegal content. Wouldn’t a bittorrent client on your iPhone be cool? You could download illegal content at work and watch it on the subway ride home!

Allow applications to run in background on iPhone

Agreed, especially considering that whole bittorrent thing I have going above.

I can understand that Apple doesn’t provide a force quit on the iPhone (or do they?). The apps that run in the background are Apple’s apps. They can be reasonably assured that they’ll run without significant problems. But they can’t trust you. I think that restricting this is probably a good move for a device like the iPhone. Imagine how fast battery life would drain if a dozen apps or so were all running background processes. The iPhone has limited resources: think of how much memory a leaky background process would eat. Finally, how do you kill a background process? There’s no Activity Monitor.

Like the first point Paul makes, I’d like to have that freedom as a developer but I just can’t really justify it for users. It adds a huge degree of complexity that I don’t think is worth it.

Allow access to root user on iPhone

I don’t know offhand why someone would need to be root user on an iPhone, but I don’t oppose it. I would hope things would be sufficiently complicated that the average user wouldn’t accidently turn on root access. Only those who need root access should be able to get it. Perhaps a 3 month correspondence course?

A MediaPicker API for accessing the iPod music files is needed

This is pretty well necessary. It’d be kind of stupid to have music there but be able to use it. Paul is talking about Airfoil but I’m thinking of games. Why should you have to include music with your game when the user probably has music they actually like already on the iPhone?

Add option to allow iPhone applications to access entire filesystem

I’m not keen on this one. This goes against the iPhone as a device philosophy that I have in my head. I think that Paul makes a good point that one app can’t access another app’s data. If you’re getting into the type of complexity that requires multiple applications, you probably shouldn’t be writing an iPhone app. However, I will concede that I think it’s a good idea to offer some way for one application to negotiate with another application. Instead of opening the entire filesystem, I wouldn’t mind if AppX had a key in it’s info.plist file that designated that AppZ could see its files. That’d keep it sandboxed enough for me and hopefully appease people who want to write suites of iPhone apps.

Allow iPhone applications to access the host computer when docking

Apple ought to know that syncing is the next big thing in computing. Frankly, it’s not easy enough. Apple needs to create a CoreSync technology. And it ought to be part of the iPhone. Robust syncing to a data store from the iPhone needs to be standardized. And the CoreSync technology should be available to Cocoa developers so that their desktop apps can get info out of the synchronized storage and update it when necessary. If CoreSync shows up in a future OS release, you can buy me a beer for calling it first.

Permit Voice over IP on the cellular network

This is a philosophical thing that, frankly, I’m not too gung-ho about. I agree fundamentally with the argument that this is similar to Net Neutrality. Unfortunately, I’m also pragmatic. Apple has made a deal with AT&T. That deal is secured by a contract. Until that contract ends, Apple has to hold the line on this one. I won’t push it.

Allow iPhone applications to access the docking port

I don’t think this is really opposed by Apple. Sure, the SDK doesn’t allow direct acceess, but I don’t think it’s entirely off limits. The iPod had a decent number of dock accessories from third parties. Why wouldn’t Apple do the same for the iPhone? It may not be available to every programmer that comes along, but Apple might allow certain folks to have access.