Interesting Links for 30-04-2012

[andrewducker]

• Defendant's gender affects length of sentence (and believability of evidence)
  (tags: psychology law stereotypes gender )
• German manufacturing shrinks at fastest pace since 2009
  (tags: europe germany economics )
• The security around the 2012 olympics has left reality long behind it
  (tags: london olympics securitytheatre charlesstross )
• The planned obsolescence of the Apple ecosystem
  (tags: software technology apple )
• A longer version of Neil Gaiman's interview of Stephen King
  (tags: interview writing stephenking neilgaiman )
• CISPA is a threat to the world
  (tags: internet law usa security cispa )
• It is, apparently, possible to think that Animal Farm had a happy ending
  (tags: politics writing stories communism )
• The only bisexual in the village
  (tags: rolemodels sexuality lgbt )
• Judge Dredd – The Complete Case Files 01 (a review)
  (tags: JudgeDredd comics review )
• UK Border Authority accused of covering up airport delays, tries to ban photographs of queues
  (tags: censorship travel immigration uk )
• Tax is complicated - a reasonable suggestion for the Pasty Tax.
  (tags: food uk tax )

Comments

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Any phone's hardware is eventually not going to be good enough to run the latest hardware, and Apple hardware is no exception to that rule. The first-gen iPod touch was released almost five years ago, and was released with deliberately lower specs than the first iPhone to make it cheaper and more affordable. Since Apple designs iOS to take advantage of the latest hardware, that will inevitably lead to apps using features that just aren't available on older operating systems.

The iPod touch is almost five years old. My officemate's HTC Android phone, which is still under contract, is suffering from exactly the same problem due to Android fragmentation, and he can't replace it because it's too recent. When comparing a company that doesn't support five-year-old hardware and a company that doesn't support still-in-warranty hardware, it would seem obvious which has the greater problem with obsolescence.

[andrewducker]

Oh, there's always going to be problems with different bits of technology not being able to run different bits of software.

The advantage the iPhone has in this situation) is that there are fewer combinations of hardware/software to deal with.

The advantage Android has is that you can make older versions of the software available on a website, if the publishers wanted to.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

But I don't see a benefit from a developer perspective of doing that. Even if you're not providing new features for legacy apps, you'd have to provide support and patch any holes still present in older versions of the code, hugely multiplying the amount of work. And then's the issue of revenue - do you charge for a legacy version? And if not, what's to stop people getting it instead of the paid version?

Marco Arment, the Instapaper developer, wrote that requiring iOS 4 was a good idea. He concludes "iOS 4+ adoption, now at 98.8%, is so ubiquitous that it’s very safe to require it." All devices other than the original iPhone and iPod can run iOS 4, and so for most developers there's no benefit to providing a concession for people running versions beneath that.

The author of the article you link to is using a first-gen iPod Touch, which accounts for 0.16% of the traffic described in that article. That just isn't a worthwhile investment for any developer, and anyone still running an iPod touch is going to have to be aware of that.

I do wish that the App Store could limit searches to what will work on your device though - it removes apps that are for different iOS devices, so why it couldn't work for different iOS versions is beyond me.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, it seems like a fairly obvious thing to do.

I agree that it may well not be worth it to support older versions - sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but having the option would be good.

After all, some people are happy to make apps available purely because they scratch an itch, and if it's just an install file sittign on a webserver, taking up a negligible amount of space, you might be happy to leave it there.
(Particularly with open source or ad-supported apps)

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

In that case the legacy app can be listed separately on the App Store, should the developer wish to do so.

[andrewducker]

Aaah, well if Apple are happy to do that, then it's not a problem!

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

My friend that I sold my iPhone 3G to a few months ago would like this. She hasn't been able to find a ePub reader that works (well, is loadable), and is stable. At least the Kindle app is ok, but having to do file conversions on a PC is a pain. And my gf is annoyed that she can't use her iPhone 3G to provide signal to her iPad ever since she 'upgraded' the ipad's OS version.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Women's Hour on Radio 4 had a short piece about bisexual women this morning. As usual I ended up shouting at the radio, this time because the presenter made the classic mistake of thinking you stop being bi when you're in a monogamous relationship. The bi woman from Diva magazine really wasn't helping matters with her explanation that she still identifies as bi despite a female partner because to do otherwise would be to deny her previous relationships with men. When will people accept that bisexuality is about more than who you sleep with?! Why can't we acknowledge still being attracted to other people even if we don't, and have no desire to, act on it.

[andrewducker]

Yes, absolutely. I am somewhat baffled that people think it needs to be justified too. You are attracted to whatever you are attracted to - having to justify to other people why you might be attracted to that particular thing just seems silly.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"It is, apparently, possible to think that Animal Farm had a happy ending"

Wow. I thought "Animal Farm Napoleon = Stalin = bad" was the one interpretation no-one could disagree with. Apparently not!

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I like Charlie's idea of a Diego Garcia Olympics.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

In re the Dredd review; there is an ongoing review of all the Dredd available in collected form going on at Dredd Reckoning which I'm finding quite interesting.

[andrewducker]

Thanks! I've bookmarked it for later!

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

Once again, I am glad that NZ took the 'make it as simple as possible' option when setting up GST (VAT). We just don't have the hot vs cold food disputes, because it is on everything!

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

3 hours delays! Pah, we once waited almost 5 hours to get through immigration at Miami and we weren't even trying to enter the USA, just change flights.