In another of Apple’s regular, unheralded announcements, the firm has opened up the ap.pl Store, a URL shortening service that can be found at ap.pl or via me.com or apple.com. Shortening services let you take a long URL and turn it into a short one appropriate for use on Twitter or other compact messaging services. Coming swiftly on the heels of the announcement that tr.im would be shutting down, Apple clearly hopes to become the dominant player in this fractured market.
Unlike other shortening schemes where URLs are quickly shortened via a web input page, Apple’s scheme will first require “URL developers” to submit their URLs for approval. In a press release, CEO Steve Jobs noted that this step is necessary because “a bad URL can take down the entire Internet and consequently all of western civilization.”
“We didn’t want to get into a shortening service until we had something entirely new to bring to the table,” said Apple’s worldwide marketing chief Phil Schiller. “With the ap.pl Store, we’re bringing features that no one else has. Like ShortStop, our patented guarantee that all destinations will be verified free of phishing, malware, viruses, pornography, Lindsay Lohan, inappropriate words, phrases, gestures, implications, thoughts or steganography.”
“Not that Macs have trouble with malware and viruses, of course,” Schiller chuckled, before reciting a 10-minute disclaimer about that statement and asking reporters to sign a release.
To use the ap.pl store, you simply download and install iTunes 8.3, click the ap.pl Store link in the left sidebar, and agree to terms and conditions. Then you need to fill out a profile about how you will be using the service, provide a credit card number and a bank account, and place your retina near any iSight camera (other cameras won’t work).
In an average of 3 to 7 weeks, you’ll get a message from Apple that your ap.pl Store is available, at which point you install a new ap.pl Store Utility, which will help you download and create the digital certificates you’ll need to create ap.pl links. Each URL requires a separate digital signature, which the program can manage for you.
When you see a URL you want to shorten, you copy or select it, use a keyboard shortcut you can set, and that puts the URL in queue for approval by ap.pl Store reviewers. When an ap.pl link is clicked, a Web browser first redirects to a page in which the user accepts the terms of use and may be asked to acknowledge that the content of some web pages – like Wikipedia, the Bible or the Jonas Brothers Fan Forum – may contain foul language. A link on that page takes the user to the destination page.
“We’re building on what we learned with previous efforts to have a direct impact on the Web experience, including Apple Cards, whitelisted Web sites, Homepage, Cyberdog, eWorld and other efforts,” Schiller said.
URL developers can sign up for the program for free if they only wish to use the shortened URLs themselves. Otherwise, a yearly $99 charge will allow for the development and distribution of an unlimited number of URLs.
“No one before us has figured out how to monetize this,” Schiller said, adding that in iPhone OS 3.1, only ap.pl links will be allowed on Web pages and in applications. “That might cause a little backlog, so we’re shifting key resources from the App Store over to the ap.pl Store.
“And by key resources I mean Gordy.”
URLs are not allowed to compete with existing Apple URLs, so links to competing products or services will be rejected. In fact, URLs can be rejected for any reason, based on the understanding of a 400-page specification document by Gordy, the one intern who will be reviewing all URLs.
“I look forward to inexplicably rejecting your URL soon!” an enthusiastic Gordy said.
“And then just as inexplicably approving it!”
“I’m bipolar!”
First!
Secondist.
Sorry.
I meant: sec.on.dist
…
Hang on…
sho.rt
John Gruber just wrote about this. This is obviously more proof that John Moltz is John Gruber.
Each CARS post lifts my soul one tiny step out of my miles-deep pit of despair.
Gordy rules!
Chuckle…
It’s good to see, Moltzy old chap, that you’ve not lost your touch.
Moltzy lost his touch? If you find it can I have it?
In the running……..
My comment goes to eleven!
Could someone explain why all the emails I get are about lengthening my URL, but Moltz and Gruber and Nate are all yakking about shortening it. What gives?
Lucky Numbah 13!!
Okay, reading now.
Unfortunately, ap.pl is already taken by a Polish art production company.
Unlike other shortening schemes where URLs are quickly shortened via a web input page, Apple’s scheme will first require “URL developers”
I still say there’s a market for a URL lengthening service. I’m pushing ahead with it anyway. Find me at
Ace, I think they’re all in this together: one to get you to shorten it, so you’ll need the other one to lengthen it.
Dammit Gordy, get to work. Who unchained Gordy? His Steveness (not me) is going to be pissed.
Will ap.pl be shiny?
So links to Hansen are ok? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-bop
@ace… could you turn your comment down? I can’t hear myself thinking!
@Steve… Shiny, yes. Sparkly, no.
@derekm.. Sorry… Links to Hansen are *never* ok.
And put that bop back where you found it.
So what happens when the URL lengthening service and ap.pl target the same URL?
Okay, I turned my comment down from eleven to about two, but now *I* can’t hear myself think. I wonder why that is?
What is the sound of one lobe thinking?
Which lobe? Left or right?
And what *is* the airspeed of an unladen swallow?
If John Gruber is Moltz and Moltz is Gruber, who is this Obama we keep hearing about in Europe? Are the two Johns neither of them or all three?
Oh, jolly good! Most amusing!
I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. When I click on an ap.pl url, it first opens iTunes, where I get a short video introduction to urls (they are web addresses, the video explains, a bit like a phone number, but for Internet sites). Then I get a list of sites that other people who clicked on that ap.pl link also clicked on, and a URL Genius asks whether I want to send my web browser history to Apple. At this point, I can opt to open the web page I originally clicked on right inside iTunes, for my convenience.
An additional feature is that Apple has now decided to randomly remove previously approved links from its database, making sure that even if a previously-good page suddenly becomes evil due to the shifting political climate, it will eventually be blocked for our own good.
I love it!
Tr.im is shutting down??
If you wrote an article about life we’d all reach elnighentmnet.
Thank God for that. I’m so sick of Lindsay Lohan getting all up in my shizz.
Shizz being twenty-sixth, of course.
Not my Pants™.
I heard there was shiny here! YAY
Thanks Moltz for helping us celebrate the world domination of the TerrorPost by posting a new CARS article.
I’m letting my Pants™ stay on hiatus, until Moltz comes back from hiatus.
If he can pull off at least two more posts this week, I’ll reconsider.
Also check out Apple’s new John Gruber Special Edition Note App:
Also, there are rumours, that the Tablet will be foot-operated:
Not just any shiny, Del… **fresh** shiny!!!!
If someone is bipolar, they must have extremely long legs.
I thought it meant they were a white bear who was open to all sorts of relationships?
*facepalm*
@Ace In the immortal words of Dave Barry, “Longer? Why would I want to make [my url] longer?”
Well, they’re mostly Dave’s immortal words.
Also, I’m a little disturbed that both Johns and I all posted on this on the same day. Maybe we’re all the same person!
We could all be the same person………….AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
Not me. I’m not the same person. Not no how, no way.
I’m not the same anymore. I’m a changed man.
No, not that kind of changed man! You’re a strange one, you know that?
And if Huh? shows up one more time without his Pants™ I will call the cops.
Nxxx:
Extremely long legs.
Or a very cold willy.
Or possibly really good at the splits. His willy would not be cold as it would be on the Equator.
I was thinking more along the ‘bi’-lines.
North, South . . . he’s not fussy…
The filthy hoar.
I’m sorry, Sweetheart… What did you say? I missed everything after “simply.”
[...] “With the ap.pl Store, we’re bringing features that no one else has. Like ShortStop, our patented guarantee that all destinations will be verified free of phishing, malware, viruses, pornography, Lindsay Lohan, inappropriate words, phrases, gestures, implications, thoughts or steganography.” Apple Releases URL Shortening Store [...]
Hoar is a frost over here. Frosty icing. Mmmmm. Cake. Shiny cake…………
OK, there’s now some shiny cake here. What about shiny pie? Mmmm; pie….
The cake is a lie.
No Pants™ for you!
“Uh, hello? … Is this the police? … Yes, well, I’d like to report a disturbance. This creepy guy keeps showing up around here without his Pants™… What? No way! … He can do that? … Yes, I could look the other way, I suppose, but I was taught that going without Pants™ destroys the moral fabric of society! … There must be an ordinance, I’m sure … Listen, I pay taxes — I pay your salary … Okay, let me talk to the Captain … He took his Pants™ for a walk? … Oh, for crying out loud! Forget the whole thing!”
Do not give up, Ace.
Right will win in the end, unless his left is bigger.
Pants™ are for Chumps®. ©2009.
In American football, punts are for champs, and the lady chants in pumps.
In the rest of the world, pints are for chimps, and pimps wear chintz.
Okay, okay, I’ll desist, since you insist.
Pints are for drunkards, unless it is sea food is being served in Imperial Pint quantities, when it is usually for ptomaine poisoning.