A developer whose app has been chosen as a finalist in a contest for the Android, wanted to leverage this fact in their sales pitch for the App in the iPhone App Store.   However, as you can see from this blog post by the author, that was a no go.  Apple wont have any part of it and seems to be taking an approach not unlike Microsoft of the 1990’s.  Take a look at the post : http://flash-of-genius.com/blog/?p=8

Over the past several years, several people have accused Apple, Inc. of copying their works or blocking their works and then introducing the Apple version of the app in question.  This ugly side of Apple, Inc. has once again raised it’s ugly head in the software realm.  It makes everyone think of Apple as the Borg and that all our software will be assimilated. This moniker has long been associated with Bill Gates and Microsoft, however, these days, with the rise of Apple to the forefront of the computing realm, it is now being associated with Steve Jobs and Apple.

Many of us who are long time Mac users already know which app we are referring to when we talk about the blatant copying that Apple did with the iPad introduction.  I have been using Delicious for a long time to manage my books and while I dont think it is perfect, it is a nice app.  Obviously Apple thought so too when they introduced  their book shelf at the latest release conference.  Many of the people i was with at the time said, “oh, did Apple buy Delicious?”

According to twitter complaints by Wil Shipley, the author of Delicious, Apple, Inc. has not approached him nor have they offered to buy his software.  Instead this is a case of them seeing something they liked and taking it.  Of course, with many of the former employees of Delicious working for Apple now, this is no real surprise.  However, the real surprise is that they would try to display something like that when almost anyone who has a Mac likely also has Delicious installed on their machines.

Apple really needs to do the right thing here and either confess their sins or buy the Delicious software rights from Wil. I doubt however that this will happen and once again another developer will have wasted his time writing a wonderful program for the Apple platform only to have Apple, Inc. steal it from under their noses.  Not Cool Apple!!

A great new application for the iPhone, Siri, is not only an application that you can talk to, but it is one that essentially will listen to you and provide your every whim.  (Sounds like everyone’s dream of what a computer should be, right?).  This little app, takes your voice instructions, translated the input to text, confirms it, and follows your instructions, doing everything from checking the weather for tomorrow to making dinner reservations at your favorite restaurant.

While most apps that perform the basic tasks you need done each day provide you with the information, Siri does it on the fly and bases the information that it produces on your location or by your requested location.  If you ever wanted someone to take the load off of your shoulders when it comes to doing things, well that someone is Siri. ( http://siri.com/ )

The best part of the app besides being really useful (we dont say this about too many apps these days), is that it is Free!!  Yes, thats right, it is a free download from the Siri site.

Rating: 5 Stars out of 5

Welcome to my blog.  This is where I post things that I find in my browsing the internet.  The focus of our blog is technical items related to the iPhone, iPhone Touch, and the iPad.   This includes end user apps, development tools and hardware announcements.