Apple, Google or Palm? - The UpStream

Apple, Google or Palm?

posted Sunday Aug 1, 2010 by Scott Ertz

Apple, Google or Palm?

The mobile landscape is changing and we owe a lot of that change to mobile apps, or more realistically, the advertisement of mobile apps. These applications have been in existence for decades, but no one has made a big deal about them until Apple, who infamously advertised just that aspect of their products for a long time.

In the app world, there seems to be three distinct approaches to policing content: Apple, Google and Palm. Apple has been known for policing their apps too much, Google doesn't have any approval process to speak of and Palm only looks for malicious or broken code to approve apps. Who has the right idea?

To see evidence of who might be right and whose approach is wrong, hit the break.

It would appear that Google's un-policed Android Marketplace has created an environment perfect for phishers. At the recent Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, the chief executive and chief technology officers for Lookout, a security firm, discussed a pair of wallpaper apps released on the Android Marketplace that had been stealing information.

It seems that Google's open marketplace idea isn't as great as they expected. On the other hand, Android does ask when you install an app whether you want to allow it to access your information. Who would say yes to a wallpaper app that asks to access your phone calls?

I believe both parties have responsibility here. My only problem is that it has kind of confirmed that Apple might be doing something right. I think they are just doing it too hardcore. Palm, however, seems to have struck the right balance between safety and open content.

What do you guys think? Let us know in the comments section.

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