It’s been fascinating to read all the remembrances of Steve Jobs over the past couple of days, and all the inspiring eulogies written by those whose lives he had profoundly affected in some way.

I got into computers at an early age. I suppose it was only natural— my father had been involved with computers and programming since university in the mid 60’s, and by the time I was about 6 or 7 he was working with programming enough that he had a computer at home, on which I wrote my first BASIC program at the age of 8 or 9. My first real exposure to the whole world of computers, however, came through a BBC series called The Dream Machine.

An article on the Fun with Objective-C Tumblr today talks about learning Objective-C.

Apple’s Installer doesn’t do uninstallation. It could, since a certain amount of metadata is left around, but that could be extended to something truly useful and Apple-like in its simplicity.

Marco Arment: A rare disagreement

The root cause for so much of the subscription ruckus, I think, isn’t that 30% number — it’s that Apple pulled the rug out from under some major apps after the fact. … [T]heir months or years of hard work, and in many cases, their entire businesses — can be yanked by Apple’s whim at any time for reasons that they couldn’t have anticipated or avoided. … [I]f Apple breaks that expectation by changing an important rule in a way that we think isn’t justifiable, it’s perfectly reasonable for us to complain about it as loudly as possible in order to effect change.

Mike Cane makes the case that iBooks is download-only to avoid potential charges of unfair competition from the EU and/or the Feds:

I understand the publishers’ concern: buy an eBook, it lasts forever. It never needs to be restocked, and can be duplicated and backed up really easily. Previously, they had a reason to expect repeat purchases from libraries as they replaced stolen or damaged books. eBooks potentially cause their income from libraries to drop by a substantial enough amount that they would need to find new revenue streams in order to continue operating at the level they currently manage.

Earlier today, Mark Topham pointed me towards IAP ‘consumables’, a method by which a user could be billed, say, $4.99, but which would still bill them if we put through the transaction again (for a different $4.99 book).

Earlier today Mike Cane pointed me to an article comparing the hullabaloo upon Apple’s 30% cut to the lack of anger at Amazon’s former 70% cut.

The Wall Street Journal: Antitrust Enforcers Eye Apple Anew

The Justice Department and the FTC are both interested in examining whether Apple is running afoul of U.S. antitrust laws by funneling media companies’ customers into the payment system for its iTunes store—and taking a 30% cut, the people familiar with the situation said. The agencies both enforce federal antitrust laws and would have to decide which one of them would take the lead in the matter. … Apple’s rules don’t stop media companies from selling digital subscriptions on their own. But the company imposed restrictions that could make that option less attractive to customers, and steer more sales through its own system.