App Store continues to be useless

Submitted by route on 2011, April 11 - 02:07
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Right now, I’m being reminded Apple’s restrictions make their App Store, and in consequence their products, pretty useless.

I want a copy of my website in my pocket, so I always have access to my work. I sometimes have the unexpected opportunity to read: I need full access to my work if I’m going to select poems appropriate in the context. Furthermore, I like to be able to revise, and see the results of the revision. For all of that, I need the webserver.

I used to own a Sharp pocket computer, a Zaurus. It did the job perfectly well: it ran Apache, and I’d have my website in my pocket whenever I needed it.

Apache is a perfectly good product, long established, highly reliable, which does exactly what I want. Indeed, Apple so like it they ship a copy on every iMac. However, their incomprehensible restrictions prevent it’s installation on my iPod. In consequence, I cannot keep a copy of my website on my iPod, so I cannot have a copy of my current work on me.

Of course, you might pretend, you can use the iPod’s wi&#fb01; to browse the web when you need to do this. But anyone who’s attempted to use public internet connectively will know how unreliable it is. Connectivity remains uncommon, and is rarely free, let alone reliable and e&#fb00;ective. I cannot depend on having access to my online website whenever I need access to my work.

Apple’s anti-web art attitude is very disappointing. For me, it makes their product pretty useless for much more than playing music, admittedly it’s core purpose. I’ve previously pointed out their app store is laid out to prevent comparison of product details … well, evidently, that’s because you can’t buy products with useful details anyway.

All I want to do is run up a webserver that can manage SHTML so I can exploit my poetry. It’s not rocket science, but it’s contrary to Apple’s mistaken paternalism.

My main mobile is falling apart; I need to buy a new smartphone soon. Guess who’ll carefully check Microso&#fb05; and Android. Gosh, you know, it took Google two seconds to show that you can run a webserver on a Windows 7 phone.