Apple's Apps policies

I have just found a note on Apple's policy for Apps developers who made Apple's iPhone the huge success it has become. Looks like Apple is another "19th-century gamekeeper":

Section 7.2 makes it clear that any applications developed using Apple's SDK may only be publicly distributed through the App Store, and that Apple can reject an app for any reason, even if it meets all the formal requirements disclosed by Apple. So if you use the SDK and your app is rejected by Apple, you're prohibited from distributing it through competing app stores like Cydia or Rock Your Phone.

Furthermore:

Section 10.4 prohibits developers, including government agencies such as NASA, from making any "public statements" about the terms of the Agreement. This is particularly strange, since the Agreement itself is not "Apple Confidential Information" as defined in Section 10.1. So the terms are not confidential, but developers are contractually forbidden from speaking "publicly" about them.

Besides the developers, I am also wondering about the possible impact on Apps users:

Section 8 makes it clear that Apple can "revoke the digital certificate of any of Your Applications at any time." Steve Jobs has confirmed that Apple can remotely disable apps, even after they have been installed by users. This contract provision would appear to allow that.

Imagine what would happen if you use an App that is key to running your business and Apple decided to terminate it. I think the Grigorieff lab should also have such a policy. This way we can easily disable our competitors if they use our software!

In reply to by Alexis

Sorry, I have to do the anti-Mac thing here, if only to proselytize about how they are evil (and so is Nature, much in the same way). Or I'll just let people who know a lot more about technology than I do do it.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/06/14/the-futurist-why-the-iphone-reeks-…

http://www.npr.org/blogs/bryantpark/2007/09/planned_obsolescenceinduced…

http://www.pcmech.com/article/what-will-the-planned-obsolescence-be-for…

In my mind, the business model of Cell, NPG, and AAAS and Apple is very similar. Sell yourself well, create demand by somehow associating success, status and value with the product you are selling (it's all in how people see the product, not in the truth behind its design and execution). Once people start buying into it, you have a self-reinforcing system (people don't like to admit that they spent 2000$ on a disposable plastic toy they could have gotten for 1000$, just like they don't like to admit that they spent 5 years working on a high impact paper published right next to the one in which the figures were edited with photoshop), and you're content to count your cash until the cows come home.

The irony is that the only way to change the system is to buy into it.

I have never been a fan of the Apple ecosystem business model, but to play devil's advocate...

Seems to me the way Apple keeps people coming back to them is by building very desirable hardware and easy-to-use, reliable and high-quality software. In other words, Apple provides a great products (or so I hear).
On the other hand, scientific for-profit publishers themselves do not provide any added value beyond editing and subjective decision-making re. the worth of papers, which of course not-for-profits (could) do equally well.

I think Apple looks like a good guy compared to NPG & Co.!