Twitter has angered a good number of software developers who make apps for their platforms. Twitter is cutting off the numerous “client” apps that sprang up around their API, thus rendering the investment in those apps worthless. Here’s a Mashable.com story: “Twitter to Devs: Don’t Make Twitter Clients… Or Else“.

Angry coders are contemplating rebellion by launching a Twitter rival. They are pinning their hopes on App.net: “The Twitter Rebellion: App.net Offers a Hacker’s Alternative“.

Can the rebellion succeed? I don’t know, but with tech superstars like Dave Winer involved, Twitter has cause for alarm. Mr. Winer is not working on a Twitter clone himself, but he is providing wisdom to those who are. From his blog: “If I were making a Twitter clone…“.

Twitter says that they are not going to do an IPO anytime soon. However, by killing off client apps, it seems obvious that they are wanting to monetize their service by corralling all the eyeballs. In any case, if the rebellion gains traction, and Twitter rushes an IPO to market, investors would want to evaluate whether or not Twitter is trying cash-out before it’s too late.

Some Mac developers have pulled their apps out of the Mac App Store due to “sandboxing”. Apple wants to make their computers safer from malware, and sandboxing is one way to do that because it restricts apps from accessing the entire computer.

For example, web apps that run in your browser have always been sandboxed. A web app written in JavaScript is not allowed to rifle through your files and upload your info to a hacker site. Your browser won’t let it because it enforces sandboxing rules.

So now Apple wants to restrict the activities of all Mac apps. And that’s a big deal because many important apps were developed with the assumption that there would be no sandboxing, as had been the tradition since the beginning of personal computers.

Needless to say, this has angered many developers. Perhaps this is an opportunity for Microsoft, or other platforms, to poach some developers from Apple. If you want to follow developments, one way to do so is to listen to the “Core Intuition” podcast. The hosts are both Mac developers. Episode 52: “The Potential For More Confusion”, is a good place to start.

I don’t know if this will have any investment implications for Apple. However, dumbing down the Mac to make it stupid-proof for the masses will be, at least, irksome for people who are used to real computers.

I just posted the first edition of my “Top Technology Bloggers by Alexa Rank” page.

You can install the Windows 8 Release Preview anytime you like, but you can never uninstall it. And then it will stop working, and you will be forced to buy the final version to “un-brick” your PC.

I don’t know if Microsoft will take the gold in the Corporate Evil Olympics, but they sure are giving a good account of themselves.

In any case, here is an excellent video of this Windows 8 thing:

Read Michael Mace’s excellent story: Fear and Loathing and Windows 8. This is an in-depth analysis, so set aside some time for it; you will want to read the whole thing.

One of the interesting things that you will learn is that those horrible “Dick and Jane” style “tiles” on the home screen are daggers aimed at web services such as Facebook, Google, and Yahoo.

My guess is that Windows 8 is going to flop – hard. However, just this morning, I got an email from somebody, and at the bottom it said: “Sent from my Windows 8 PC”. So, somebody likes it.

Or maybe his feet are just stuck on some sticky stuff…

In “bread and circuses” America, the bread comes in the form of food stamps, and the circuses are delivered by BitTorrent. When the Jobs Czar sends a pleb’s factory job to China to increase corporate profits, the pleb can’t afford to go to the movies anymore. But he is still diverted from joining OWS because he is now occupied (ha, ha) downloading movies.

Until July, that is.

Because in July, US ISPs will begin monitoring the content of your download traffic, and administering harsh penalties to infringers. See the CNET story here.

Could this possibly work out better than SOPA?

Personally, if I worked for an ISP, I would seriously be thinking of finding other employment. I don’t need to be lynched, right?

The CNET story also says that the White House supports this initiative. Can you imagine? Obama is already getting dinged by high gasoline prices, and he’s on-board with this? In an election year? Wow. Why not just turn the keys over to the Republicans right now and save that billion dollars in campaign spending?

Note: BitTorrent accounts for a huge chunk of internet traffic. Estimates range from 20-40%. And BitTorrent isn’t the only torrent program.

Note: I don’t know what all the ISPs are doing since they have been keeping things quiet. But it is possible that they are going along with this because they know that their users will just evade the system by using things like SSL and VPNs.

Is AAPL soaring because of the iPad 3, or because of the impending train wreck of Windows 8? In the video below, you can see techie Chris Pirillo torturing his poor father with Windows 8.

Do not try this at home.

Judging by the preview version just released, Windows 8 is going to be Microsoft Bob all over again: a train wreck.

In his review, Matthew Murray writes:

“Never — and I’m going to repeat this for additional emphasis, never – have I been as horrified by one of the company’s products as I am by this one.”

Me too. I can hardly believe Microsoft is doing this. They are slaughtering the cash cow. Maybe “Metro” is fine for tablets and phones. But on the desktop?

Insanity.

Only morons will upgrade to this, and certainly not any organizations.

I wouldn’t hold MSFT if you put a gun to my head.

Gadget fashion designer Steve Jobs has once again lashed out at bloggers:

“I don’t want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers, myself. I think we need editorial more than ever right now.”

Jobs’ attitude is that if Corporate America is not paying you to express your opinion, then you should just shut the hell up.

Note to Jobs: piss off.

Jobs’ anti-internet attitude explains why Apple has been amazingly clueless during the rapid growth of the web. Where was Apple when browsers were invented? What about Linux? What about search engines? What about social networking?

Nowhere; that’s where.

Jobs just watched as huge companies came into being: Netscape, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, YouTube, eBay, PayPal, etc. Mr. Jobs wanted nothing to do with anything that might empower the little people.

It would be a cold day in hell before Jobs assigned his programmers to develop free blogging software like WordPress. But as successful as Apple is, WordPress.com has a higher Alexa rating, ranking 16th to Apple.com’s 47th at the time of this writing. Any Apple programmer caught working on such a project would be re-assigned to a Foxconn sweatshop in China making iPads at suicidal speed for Chinese minimum wage, which is less than what convicts in the USA get paid to make license plates.

(Note: the preceding may not be a true fact. I do not have a fact-checker on staff, so I am forced to just make things up. Note to Steve Jobs: the preceding commentary was a joke.)

Jobs also stated:

“Any democracy depends upon a free, healthy press.”

Is that so Mr. Jobs? Then why was the Zapruder film locked up in a vault at Life Magazine for 12 years? President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and the American people were not permitted to see the film until 1975. How did that help our democracy? When the powers-that-be want to cover something up, Big Media is only too cheerful to help.

Not only is Steve Jobs pompous, but he has it exactly wrong. It’s critical that we have a counterweight to Big Media.

And so, the great man will now “save” The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal by figuring out a way for them to “get paid” for their content. Sort of ironic coming from a man whose iPod became wildly popular because it could play bootleg MP3 music files, is it not? And last I checked, newspapers have been getting paid for centuries.

Note to Steve Jobs: I dare you to disable MP3 capability in your music-playing devices so that artists can get paid more through iTunes. I double-dog dare you!