Today must be the day of Apple stories. According to the Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs himself has confirmed that the iPhone has a “kill switch” to disable potentially harmful applications:
“Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,”
He said this at the same time that he let it slip that Apple sold an average of $1 million a day in applications from the iPhone App Store for a total of about $30 million in sales over the last month. Not too shabby. But back to the “kill switch” for a moment. I was under the impression that apps that went into the iPhone App Store were supposed to be vetted by Apple prior to release. That way there would be no need for a kill switch of any sort. I guess that the vetting process has flaws seeing as apps such as the infamous “I Am Rich” application (which does nothing other than display a red icon on your phone) popped up on the store for a price $999 and was later pulled.
What do you think of Apple’s iPhone “kill switch?” Is it a necessary control or is it a bit Orwellian? Leave a comment and give us your two cents worth.
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This entry was posted on August 11, 2008 at 11:30 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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“The Steve” Has A “Kill Switch” For Your iPhone
Today must be the day of Apple stories. According to the Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs himself has confirmed that the iPhone has a “kill switch” to disable potentially harmful applications:
“Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,”
He said this at the same time that he let it slip that Apple sold an average of $1 million a day in applications from the iPhone App Store for a total of about $30 million in sales over the last month. Not too shabby. But back to the “kill switch” for a moment. I was under the impression that apps that went into the iPhone App Store were supposed to be vetted by Apple prior to release. That way there would be no need for a kill switch of any sort. I guess that the vetting process has flaws seeing as apps such as the infamous “I Am Rich” application (which does nothing other than display a red icon on your phone) popped up on the store for a price $999 and was later pulled.
What do you think of Apple’s iPhone “kill switch?” Is it a necessary control or is it a bit Orwellian? Leave a comment and give us your two cents worth.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
This entry was posted on August 11, 2008 at 11:30 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.