Tag: apple

Sock(-puppet)ing it to Apple’s iPhone App Store

Sometimes Apple is not to blame for everything, though I would like to think there is a way they can put a sock in this problem.

Gagan Biyani writing for MobileCrunch reports on the latest problem to hit Apple’s iPhone App Store: completely fake reviews planted there by PR firms.

Reverb Communications is a PR firm retained by some of the companies which sell iPhone applications in the App Store. The firm touts “first party” and “personal” relationships with Apple. Those claims, of course, are spun so much, most of us mere mortals that don’t work in PR risk nausea from the resulting dizziness embodied therein. Because what Reverb actually means is that they have a bunch of fake identities that can log into the App Store and post fake reviews. Yeah, that’s not exactly what comes to mind when I hear of “first party” and “personal” relationships.

How did we finally find out that Reverb lacks scruples and decency? Through an anonymous developer referred to in the article as only “Developer Y” (assumably because “Publisher X” had just been used in the preceding paragraph). From a document sent from Reverb to Developer Y (quoted in the original article):

Reverb employs a small team of interns who are focused on managing online message boards, writing influential game reviews, and keeping a gauge on the online communities. Reverb uses the interns as a sounding board to understand the new mediums where consumers are learning about products, hearing about hot new games and listen to the thoughts of our targeted audience. Reverb will use these interns on Developer Y products to post game reviews (written by Reverb staff members) ensuring the majority of the reviews will have the key messaging and talking points developed by the Reverb PR/marketing team.

But it gets even better. Reverb actually works with Apple, having done at least one TV commercial for them. Further, at least one of Reverb’s referrals actually came from an Apple employee.

Reverb’s official statement when confronted with this? Hang on tight, because the Tilt-a-Whirl is starting up again. Doug Kennedy wrote back to MobileCrunch in essence fingering a “disgruntled former employee who is violating his confidentiality agreement.”

I’m pretty sure confidentiality agreements don’t cover illegal activity, and what Reverb is doing here at least borders on fraud. At the very least it’s patently devoid of any scruples, honesty, and ethics. And PR firms and the people that work for them wonder why they are sometimes viewed as less trustworthy.

Shame on Reverb. If you work in PR, please don’t do what they did. The world, and the reputation of your profession, will be much better off.

The Ninjawords slice-and-dice

Yet another nice little gaffe on the part of Apple.

John Gruber (daringfireball.net) reports on the recent flap regarding an iPhone app called Ninjawords (note: Gruber’s blog entry does contain profanity). Part of this is a case of unfortunate timing on the part of Matchstick (makers of Ninjawords), who wanted to release an app prior to Apple’s rollout of age ratings.

The other part is where Apple drops the ball. Other apps contain the not-so-nice language reviewers objected to in Ninjawords, yet do not have a 17+ rating. In general, I find it silly to rate an entire dictionary “adults only” for its inclusion of profanities. And apparently Phil Crosby of Matchstick agrees. Quoting from Gruber’s article:

Regarding this discrepancy between the ratings for dictionaries, Crosby said to me, “Apple may slap a 17+ rating on our app and wash their hands, saying ‘you’re not required to censor your app’, but at the same time, they’re putting a great deal of pressure on us to do so. Who wants to be the only illicit dictionary on the App Store? That may work for Urban Dictionary, but not us. I think that applying parental ratings inconsistently is tightly related to censorship in our case, and will be true for other apps as well.”

A certain parallel can be drawn here between the MPAA’s NC-17 rating and Apple’s 17+ rating. The MPAA claims their ratings board does not actually censor. While the letter of this is true, the spirit of an NC-17 is that distribution becomes much narrower and most theatres will not show an NC-17 film at all. So it is de facto censorship in that most producers who actually want to turn a profit wind up cutting or editing movies to get an R rating.

I’m not quite as well versed in the iPhone App Store, but from a cursory browse it appears that the 17+ rating definitely changes the way people look at a given app, and it’s entirely possible company-owned iPhone users may be restricted by company policy from using a 17+ rated app. In the past Apple has treated 17+ apps differently (not allowing promo codes for 17+ apps for a short while) and may yet decide to do so again.

I do find it distasteful that Apple may, on one hand, say “you’re not required to censor your app” but engage in de facto censorship of that app after it’s on sale.

Rootkits in a keyboard? Really?

A recent ZDNet blog entry mentions probably the most bizarre type of exploit I have ever run across in about a quarter-century of computer use. Apparently, a firmware update for an Apple keyboard can be infected with such things as keystroke loggers and nearly undetectable rootkits.

From the post:

Chen, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, said malicious code embedded into the firmware would be immune to the typical rootkit detection methods which examine the integrity of the filesystem, check for hooks or direct kernel object manipulation, or detect hardware and/or timing discrepancies due to virtualization in the case of a virtual-machine based rootkit.

Now, this may sound pretty damned scary to those of you who usually glaze over the technology-related articles I write and happened to land on this, and yes, it’s pretty scary stuff. What I really find scary about this whole thing, is the question that goes completely unanswered in this article and the other articles I have read about this.

That question is: Why the hell does a keyboard need to have a software-updatable firmware capability to begin with?

The function of a keyboard is so simple that it barely needs to have a microcontroller. There has traditionally been no way for PC keyboards with PS/2 connectors to have their firmware updated. I don’t get why Apple would open up their customers to such a gaping security hole, either knowingly or recklessly.

This security exploit highlights the very real risk of having updatable firmware where it is not needed. If Apple’s engineers get firmware programming wrong to the point where keyboards have to be software updatable, I think a manager at Apple needs to start firing engineers and replacing them with people more capable of doing their jobs in a competent fashion. Unfortunately, I don’t see any revolving door installations happening in Cupertino any time soon, as badly as they may be needed.

FCC takes aim at Apple and AT&T re: Google Voice app rejection

Fred von Lohmann, writing for the EFF Deeplinks blog, reports on the FCC’s investigation regarding the highly dubious and potentially anti-competitive rejection of a Google Voice app for the iPhone.

And my not-so-humble opinion, of course, can be summed up thusly: About damn time. Hopefully, a decision on this will be at least useful as some kind of precedent so that Apple’s out-of-control rejections of iPhone apps are at least reined in a bit.

One of the more interesting quotes from the blog entry:

When a dominant hardware platform vendor teams up with a dominant network services provider, and then selectively blocks or hobbles software applications on the platform, consumers should smell an anticompetitive rat. After all, if Microsoft had a veto right over every app that ran under Windows, and used that power to selectively ban competitors who “duplicate” functionality offered by Microsoft’s own apps, we’d expect competition regulators to be up in arms.

Indeed, even Microsoft knows they would never be able to get away with locking down Windows to the extent Apple has locked down the iPhone platform. Of course, it’s much easier and nowhere near as risky (legally and otherwise) to install an alternative operating system on a PC compared to jailbreaking an iPhone.

Hopefully, the FCC will see Apple’s shenanigans for what they are: anticompetitive, unfair, and unacceptable.

Apple demands silence from exploding iPod victims

Yet another censorship-related story: The London Times reported on the case of a father and daughter seeking a refund from Apple for an iPod which literally exploded after the father accidentally dropped it. The drop apparently set off an electrical and/or chemical reaction which caused the device to explode going several feet into the air.

After contacting both Apple and the UK electronics store Argos, Ken Stanborough finally got through to an executive from Apple. The company then sent a letter to the Stanboroughs, which offered a refund but did not accept liability. The disturbing part, however, are the strings attached to the refund. From the article:

The letter also stated that, in accepting the money, Mr Stanborough was to “agree that you will keep the terms and existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential”, and that any breach of confidentiality “may result in Apple seeking injunctive relief, damages and legal costs against the defaulting persons or parties”.

“I thought it was a very disturbing letter,” said Mr Stanborough, who is self-employed and works in electronic security. He refused to sign it.

This is purely shameful conduct on the part of Apple. It is one thing to not own up to a defective and dangerous product; it is another entirely to attempt to silence those who easily could have been injured or possibly even killed by the defect.

Mr. Stanborough did the honorable thing here, refusing the money and telling the story to the public, and he should be commended for that. However, he should not have to choose.

The intentional censorship of stories about a dangerous product is unfair, evil, and unacceptable in decent society.