| rss2email.ru |
 На пути к Успеху!  |  Удобные штучки  |  Аналитика и прогнозы рынка Форекс  |  Глум над рекламой и брендами  |
 |  TheAppleBlogNews, reviews, walkthroughs, and real-life application of Apple products http://theappleblog.com рекомендовать друзьям >> |
- The Feds Getting Curious About Apple
Apple may be the media and public’s favorite son, but to the FBI and FTC, Apple is looking more like a red-headed stepchild.
It’s no secret that Apple has seen an incredible turnaround since Steve Jobs took back the CEO chair in more than a decade ago, going from a record-low stock price of $12.75 in June 1997 to its current price around $250. Apple is doing so well, in fact, that the FBI and FTC are collectively looking into at least three anti-trust suits against it.
Is Apple Too Successful?
The FTC has announced that it is looking into allegations that Apple is engaging in anticompetitive practices in the mobile ad space. Omar Hamoui, the CEO of AdMob, a popular mobile ad platform, claimed on his blog that Apple’s new developer terms will force developers to use Apple’s new mobile advertising platform, iAd, and not competitive advertising platforms like AdMob and other offerings. Hamoui went on to say that this constitutes “an artificial [barrier] to competition [that will] hurt users and developers and, in the long run, stall technological progress.”
When reading these allegations, it’s important to remember that AdMob was recently acquired by Google, which makes Android, a mobile OS that is one of the iPhone’s primary competitors. Curiously, the accusation comes only two weeks after the AdMob acquisition was finalized, which makes Hamoui sound less like the expert in mobile advertising that he is and more like a Google mouthpiece.
The criticism is also curious considering the current competitive landscape of the mobile ad industry. For Apple to be anticompetitive, it’s necessary that it have a monopoly which it’s abusing to the detriment of the industry. That Apple even has a monopoly is a hard case to make after today’s announcement that Android-based phones have overtaken iPhones in ad clicks, and that even those two leading platforms still trail significantly to the overall leading platform in ad clicks, Symbian. And Apple doesn’t even have a monopoly over the more general mobile space, with the iPhone holding only a 28 percent market share overall. That the iPhone’s market share is still three times that of Android’s nine percent makes this accusation sound less like a legitimate concern and more like sour grapes.
This most recent announcement comes on the heels of word of two other impending antitrust investigations against Apple. In May, the DOJ and FTC mentioned two other investigations of anticompetitive behavior: one in Apple’s music download business, where it holds 70 percent market share versus Wal-Mart and Amazon’s 12 percent each; and the other over Apple’s recently-announced policy on how iPhone and iPad apps must be built.
FBI Begins Own Investigations
And if that’s not enough to keep Apple busy, the FBI is also looking into the recent bungle that exposed the email addresses of 114,000 iPad owners using a security hole on AT&T’s network. Considering the circumstances, the FBI investigation should land entirely on AT&T’s side of the fence, but the FBI is being understandably tight-lipped about its work, so for now it’s impossible to know for sure. And with the recent leak of an iPhone prototype, Apple probably already has the FBI on speed dial, especially considering the recent rumor that evidence from the case has been taken to an FBI lab. But even if this investigation doesn’t involves Apple at all, it’s still another distraction to the company.
What Will Apple Do?
It’ll be interesting to see how all these investigations play out. With all the big announcements from WWDC, Apple must have anticipated some new legal allegations from anxious competitors. And of course, Apple is no stranger to antitrust litigation, having finished its most recent bout with Psystar only last November. Since Apple has surpassed Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable technology company, there’s no question that Apple has the means to defend itself against these claims, so ultimately, Apple’s decision will boil down to whether the suits are too much of a distraction, whether it thinks it can win, and the company’s general attitude toward being sued.
Переслать - How-To: Build a Safari Extension
The best place to start with any new programming job is a simple "Hello World." With this walkthrough for creating a basic Safari extension, we’ll create a skeleton to build a toolbar button from. If you know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you are already 95 percent of the way to your first Safari extension.
To learn more about using Safari, check out our Safari 101 screencast on TechUniversity (subscription required).
Get Registered
Safari Extensions need to be signed to be installed, so before writing any code, head over to the Safari Developer Center to register as a Safari Developer. It's free to join, and binds to your Apple ID from your MobileMe or iTunes account. You will have to follow the steps in the online wizard to create your own signed certificate, which you'll use to create your extension. Once the certificate is created, just double-click to install it. Safari will automatically use this certificate when building your extensions.
Enable the Develop Menu & Extensions
Building Safari Extensions starts inside of Safari, but to get there you have to enable the Develop menu. To do so, go to Safari Preferences, select the "Advanced" tab on the end, then check the last option on the page, labeled "Show Develop menu in menu bar."
You'll see the new menu appear, click on it, check "Enable Extensions," and select "Show Extension Builder."
Create a New Extension
In the Extension Builder, click on the plus sign in the bottom left hand corner, then select "New Extension." Choose a place to put the source code for your extension; I always put my code in a "Code" folder under my home directory. Give it a meaningful name, like "Hello World." In the new form, fill out the "Extension Info" section, and change the Bundle Identifier under "Extension Details" to
com.theappleblog.helloworld. Under "Extension Website Access" set "Access Level" to All, and check "Include Secure Pages."Open the Project Folder
This is where it gets a little confusing. It seems like Apple would like you to be able to build the entire extension in Safari, but they only give you half the tools to do it. The next option on the list is "Extension Global Page," in a drop down menu, but there is no option to create one. Once the extension project folder is created (it’ll be in that folder you selected when you created your new extension), you need to open it up and add a couple of files to it. Since we are building a toolbar extension, you will need two files: an image in PNG format, and an HTML file which will hold our JavaScript. You can download both the HTML and the PNG file to use here. Add those two files to the project folder, and switch back to the Extension Builder. Now, when you click on the drop down menu under Extension Global Page, you should see the option for "global.html", go ahead and select that.
Next, in the "Extension Chrome" section, click the "New Toolbar Item" button. That should drop down a new form with seven options. Fill out the form like this example:
Write Some Code
Open the global.html file in your favorite text editor. In this file is all of the logic for the extension. When our icon on the Safari toolbar is pressed, it will send an event named "sayHello". Safari will parse our global.html file and see if that event is defined. Since we are checking for that event with the line
if (event.command === "sayHello"), our JavaScript will trigger whenever that button is pressed. It's important that the command defined in the Extension Builder matches theevent.commandwe are looking for in global.html. When the event is matched, Safari will run any JavaScript inside the if statement which, in our case, is a simple alert box.If you are familiar with JavaScript, you'll be able to tell right away what you can do here. If not, just know that you can replace the line
alert("Hello World");with whatever valid JavaScript you'd like.With the Toolbar Items menu is filled out, you should be ready to build the extension. Click on the "Build Package" button in the top right corner of the Extension Builder. Save the extension to your desktop, then double-click on it to install it in Safari. You should notice a new button on the toolbar sporting the nifty TAB logo. Click on it, and you should see an alert window pop up saying hello.
Debug Workflow
If you don't already have the global.html file open, go ahead and open it in your favorite text editor again. Change the text of the alert to say "Hello Jon," or whatever you would like. Save the file without closing the text editor, then switch back to the Extension Builder and click "Reload." Now switch to Safari and hit your button again, it should now display the new text in the alert window.
Build Something Awesome
This article has barely scratched the surface of what Safari Extensions can do. For more in-depth information, read through the Developers Guide on the Apple web site. I can't wait to see what awesome extensions creative developers come up with.
Переслать
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=6893&u=24004&r=311667163 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp |
