When Robots ruled the app stores
Published by Ewan Spence at 19:38 UTC, November 20th 2009
Remember all the fun developers had (still have) with certification and Symbian Signed to get an application through testing? Lots of automatic tests as well as a human eye checking for compatibility and compliance in the name creating dependable applications? It's going to be interesting comparing the reaction of Symbian developers to Apple devlopers now it appears the same system is in place for their App Store.
Okay the Gizmodo headline of "having to be approved by robots" might be a bit b-movie ish, but this is down to the volume and security game. Steve's already talked about the issue of volume in an App Store, but no matter what solution comes out of arguments like that, there's still a certain level that applications should be reaching in terms of code - don't crash; don't brick the machine; don't do anything that costs the user something without asking them; and so on.
To be honest the howls of protest can just stay as that - howls. If you use undocmented features and put a phone at risk, then that's fine... if it's just your phone. You should be allowed to do that. But to release that into the wild? I'm not so sure.
Categories: Links of Interest
Platforms: General
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Hardeep1singh
Symbian Signed is a nuisance because its not implemented properly. When I buy a device, I 'OWN' it. You can't lock me out of certain areas of the device just because 'you' think I can't handle it.
How about giving them guidance on how to make this non-intrusive instead of simply cheerleading, for a change?
Why can't they add an Advanced mode to their phones, it could be locked behind a security code which can only be obtained from symbian website, after singing a terms of use agreeement. It should be that people using the advanced mode should have free access to all areas of the phone and should be able to tweak whatever they want. That would truly be 'Open Source'.
Hardeep1singh
And whose bright idea was it to put expiry date on symbian signed certificates? do they really think that a certified application can suddenly become a virus after a certain period of time that they have to add an expiry date to the certificate? Even in that case its a badly implemented idea as you can simply bypass it by changing the date. It only adds to nuisance and does nothing productive.
*Edit* I have just submitted both the entries on ideas.symbian.org please go there and support it if you agree with my views.
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