Andy Baio:
Nonetheless, I found his other blog in under a minute — a thoughtful site about technology and local politics, detailing his full name, employer, photo, and family information. He worked for the local government, and if exposed, his anonymous blog could have cost him his job.
Kind of amusing.
Reinforces what I’ve been saying for years – if you don’t have the stones to say something and account for it, shut the hell up.
In cases like this, absolutely. Hurling childish insults at people anonymously is just cowardly. But what about corporate whistleblowers who have their jobs, or lives at stake?
In my opinion, Andy Baio did the right thing by not revealing his identify. He did him and every other anonymous blogger a favour by telling them that they’re not as anonymous as they think they are.
This is exactly why I don’t bother being anonymous. Pretty much for the same reason that Peter outlined above.
Screw you, you piece of crap, you know nothing!
I have to remain anonymous so that Peter Cohen doesn’t knock on my door demanding the return of the Jade Monkey.
You do realize my “screw you” comment was a tongue in cheek remark, right? I should have signed it Jim. 🙂
Good advice from Baio and he showed a lot more class than the Gizmodo jackasses during the iPhone 4 debacle.
I would’ve loved to see the face of this blogger, when Baio contacted him, showing him just how ‘nonymous’ he really was.
I’m guessing Apple themselves, had no issue with the app, but the carriers(who’s bottom line would be affected), are to blame.
Perplexed as to why they released it even for a few hours though
Native tethering ability would be a great selling point for the iPhone in the future, actually. And if the carriers don’t like it, what are they going to do, drop the iPhone?
It could be sold as an iPhone-to-Mac feature only to spur Mac sales.
Since native tethering is already installed on the iPhone, it appears the carriers are indeed the barrier. Here in Canada the Personal Hotspot function of the iPhone works perfectly, and with the carrier’s blessing; in the USA and UK apparently not so.
Quit yammering and whining just because your tethering pipe dreams got shot down again.
Cellular network data traffic has GOT to be well controlled for the benefit of all of us. With good control and good administrative policies in place, those who tether will help pay commensurately for both the service and the continuing upgrades to the carriers’ systems.
The real question is what is Apple doing about these initial approvals. It looks bad when someone at Apple tells them it’s ok, approves the app, only later to have it pulled.
Apple is not for tweakers or techies. Is for the rest of us. I didn’t understand that clearly … Then I read Steve Jobs the book and to be honest I get it! If you want to hack, tweak or change something your device is or isn’t doing.. Buy a Microsoft or google device or even an ubuntu machine just for that. Apple? Nope. Never.
Native tethering works perfectly well on the ‘3’ network in the UK here too and they require no additional packages, etc. It’s definitely carriers who object.
What does that have to do with this app?
Maybe Apple wanted to allow the app.
I agree with your sentiment when it comes to unlimited data plans. “All you can eat” can reasonably be limited to one device, just as you can’t go into an all you can eat buffet and share your food among a group of people. On the other hand, if mobile customers are paying for a fixed amount of data, how that data is consumed should make no difference at all to the carrier. The carriers are wrong here when it comes to limited data plans.
No they aren’t. You don’t think carriers would happily let everyone have unlimited data if they could as long as it was paid for? Well, they can’t–because of bandwidth limitations–which is why AT&T’s purchase of T-Mobile is a good thing. AT&T would be able to increase its bandwidth for a while without having to build new towers. It would be a stopgap measure.
Pipe down!
Do not respond to trolls…
You haven’t answered Todd’s comment, so I’ll repeat it: if customers are paying for a fixed amount of data transfer a month, then they should be entitled to use it, be it by surfing through the iPhone Safari browser, or through attaching an external device that tracks bird movements in Mars.
Shut up, if you haven’t got anything to contribute!
I love how every time some one says something they don’t agree with they are automatically a troll. It’s to hard to accept that i might actually be asking.
We don’t know why the app was pulled, plain and simple.
Both Apple and carriers have to maintain control of their respective spheres.
Guessing about reasons is pointless.
It’s not a troll, it’s spot-on (as someone who’s read the Steve Jobs biography). Steve went way out of his way to make sure that the end-user couldn’t modify the guts of the machine, and that starting with the Macintosh.
I don’t think it’s really here nor there in the argument, though; it’s more likely that Steve would support the decision in this case because it was rebellion against the carriers whom he despised.
wow, so eloquent…
we don’t care about the reason — if I paid a fixed amount for a fixed amount of data, I should be free to consume said data however I wish.
Funny though given that Woz and Steve were amongst the original phreakers and tweakers and Bill was a rich kid who’s dad wouldn’t give him the keys to the mansion so he had to find his own get rich quick scheme which amounted to stealing other companies ideas and blowing them out of the water with legal costs they couldn’t afford.
Todd contributed with grace one very good case for a ‘fair’ use of one device’s (fixed) bandwidth on more than one device. VGI just wants to scream, I think. Todd++ VGI–
Actually, in the US, both AT&T and Verizon support iPhone tethering for an extra fee.