Linked List: February 17, 2012

Friday, 17 February 2012

Steven Frank:

But I can’t find it in me to disparage this goodwill effort that Apple has undertaken to not turn every third-party developer upside-down with regard to app distribution. To me it’s a great sign that they’re aware and at some level sympathetic to our concerns, while remaining committed to a high-security experience for users.

Further cementing this feeling is the fact that we were invited to a private briefing at Apple about Gatekeeper a week before today’s announcement. Cabel was told point-blank that Apple has great respect for the third-party app community, and wants to see it continue to grow — they do not want to poison the well. I think their actions here speak even louder than their words, though.

Talk about doing things differently.

Wil Shipley’s November 2011 Call for Apple-Signed Mac Developer Certificates ★

Wil Shipley, back in November:

There are three primary ways Apple increases security of applications running on the Mac and the iPhone: Sandboxing, Code Auditing, and Certification. While all these are incrementally valuable, none is perfect on its own.

The problem Mac developers are facing is that the two that Apple is enforcing on the Mac App Store (Sandboxing and Code Auditing) are implemented currently to be actively bad for developers and not particularly good for users. And the method that would provide the most benefit for developers and users (Certification) isn’t enforced broadly enough to be useful.

When I linked to this then, I wrote, “Let’s hope Apple is listening.” Looks like they were, because Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper is very close to what Shipley asked for.

Farhad Manjoo: Apple’s Stock Price Is Still a Bargain ★

Farhad Manjoo:

Not only is Apple not peaking, it is likely not even close to reaching its potential earnings in its two biggest markets, smartphones and tablets. Indeed, I suspect that one of the reasons Apple’s share price is so low is that it has been difficult, on a purely perceptual level, for investors to understand the financial opportunities the company is poised to realize. The numbers are just too big; it simply doesn’t seem possible that a single company could capture such a large part of the market. But not only is it possible — it is happening. The iPhone accounts for only 9 percent of the market share in smartphones, but Apple is earning 75 percent of the profits in smartphones. Its dominance in the tablet market is even more staggering.

I think one reason why Apple’s stock price has started to rise again regards the rule of thumb that investors dislike uncertainty. Especially in broad, simple terms. Steve Jobs’s health was uncertain. Apple’s ability to thrive without Jobs was uncertain. Tim Cook’s leadership was uncertain. I think we’re getting to the point now where the market, collectively, thinks Apple is going to do just fine with Cook as CEO.

Apple Sold More iOS Devices in 2011 Than All the Macs It Sold in 28 Years ★

It’s getting harder and harder to put iOS’s success in perspective. The lesson: simplicity sells.

Update: Another thought: this fact is the definitive response to those arguments that Android is going to do to iOS what Windows did to the Mac. iOS is in uncharted territory for Apple.