Slashdot Mirror

If you can't identify an Apple fanboy, chances are that you are one.

Here are two of the most-well-known ones:
http://techcrunch.com/author/tcparislemon/
http://daringfireball.net/

And your apps would get rejected because Apple does not allow applications that weren't developed in the native languages. Cross compilers are against the developer program license agreement.

http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/iphone_agreement_bans_flash_compiler

Great summary at http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions

That is a terrible article and you should feel ashamed for using it.

Key here is, HTML5 was supposed to at least partially break Adobe's stranglehold on the web by moving some content away from Flash.

No it's not, HTML is designed to be an open standard that enables anyone to create content on the internet that can be read by any device or software that is designed to interpret the HTML tags. HTML version 5 is no different. Please leave your Adobe hate at the door when defining what is a standard.

Now I'll address why Gruber is full of it.

1. In addition to supporting H.264, Chrome currently bundles an embedded version of Adobe's closed source and proprietary Flash Player plugin. If H.264 support is being removed to "enable open innovation", will Flash Player support be dropped as well? If not, why?

Relevance?

Simple fact is, Google does not need to pay per-install for flash due to it's free to distribute licensing agreement. H.264 does not have a similar agreement. So this is a strawman at best, Flash and h.264 have little in common in terms of licensing.

If you think it's fair that Apple does not have to support VP8 by default in Safari, why is it unfair that Chrome does not support H.264 by default in Chrome?

2. Android currently supports H.264. Will this support be removed from Android? If not, why not?

Another Strawman because Gruber does not understand how licensing works. The manufacturer pays per device for a H.264 license. Google does not license H.264 in Android.

3. YouTube uses H.264 to encode video. Presumably, YouTube will be re-encoding its entire library using WebM. When this happens, will YouTube's support for H.264 be dropped, to "enable open innovation"? If not, why not?

YouTube also uses VP8. It is Google's goal to drop H.264 completely. I know Gruber lives in Fantasy World but in the real world chang-overs like this do not happen overnight. You cant simply cut over from System A to System B withuot some time to acclimatise users to System B (this is why Facebook hasn't foisted the new interface on everyone just yet).

Why does YouTube use H.264, well if you haven't figured that one out you're retarded, because there was no other decent alternative, this is not the case anymore.

4. Do you expect companies like Netflix, Amazon, Vimeo, Major League Baseball, and anyone else who currently streams H.264 to dual-encode all of their video using WebM? If not, how will Chrome users watch this content other than by resorting to Flash Player's support for H.264 playback?

He's asking two questions, not entirely intelligently either.

1. What Netflix, Amazon, Vimeo or anyone else does is not Googles responsibility.

2. Google didn't ban H.264, they just removed it from the default configuration. Chrome can still use H.264, it's just not installed by default. Gruber should have been smart enough to realise this is a non issue thanks to Chrome Extensions. Google just wants to stop paying for H.264. This is question disingenuous and hypocritical of Gruber, first he derides Google's decision to include Flash by default and not as a separate plugin then he derides Google for not including H.264 by default when it can and will be available via a plugin.

5. Who is happy about this?

Who calls this a legitimate grievance, gripe or complaint?

This is nothing but a filler comment to make it look like Gruber has a point, which he does not. You really need to read what Gruber writes rather then assume he is correct. But I'll answer, I'm happy because it's a giant step towards being able to host videos from

When the Motorola RAZR dropped in '03, the OS mimicked Symbian. In fact, until the iPhone, most everyone was playing a game of copy that UI and everyone targeted Symbian. Except RIM(who got mimicked by Google with Android(look up the original reference designs), and Microsoft.

The fact that the N8 and the N97 and other Nokia phones(and Android phones) have aped the iPhone form factor means that yes, Nokia doesn't matter.

Will they be the biggest? Maybe. But will they be the most profitable(no, and they aren't by a long shot)? What innovations will they bring to the mobile world that Android or Apple won't?

The Ovi Store says it all. Gruber's take says it all. Nokia might not be done selling smart phones, but they're not the market leader anymore and probably will never be again.

A good point here - Google has a lot of "green" initiatives (reduced-power computing, huge solar cell farms on their roof, etc.)

This approach is NOT a "green" approach - a "green" approach is one that makes use of the large amount of hardware acceleration infrastructure now deployed for the existing standard codecs.

WebM/VP8 will force a non-accelerated CPU-only rendering path on ALL existing hardware. This eats power compared to hardware acceleration. (Look at how well most Android devices handle H.264 thanks to hardware accelerated decoding.)

Google is being hypocritical and inconsistent here. Great summary at http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions - Key here is, HTML5 was supposed to at least partially break Adobe's stranglehold on the web by moving some content away from Flash. Google just killed any hope of that - They talk about supporting open codecs, but they still bundle Adobe Flash (which includes H.264 support) with Chrome?

As a result of this mess, content providers are starting to shy away from HTML5 and stick with what "just works" (for the most part) - SmugMug was starting to consider HTML5, but Google's latest decision has them moving back to Flash.

I'm not familiar with the details, but your list of required things sounds remarkably like the current feature list of, say, Mobile Safari.

I haven't been able to find any evidence that Mobile Safari supports WebGL (tried Google mobile safari webgl) or the camera (tried Google mobile safari camera). I checked for how big a web app could be (tried Google mobile safari offline limit), and it appears to be limited to 5 MB. The localStorage object is likewise limited to 5 MB (tried Google mobile safari localstorage limit). Nor does Mobile Safari appear to JIT compile the JavaScript due to iOS's especially strong flavor of W^X (tried Google mobile safari javascript jit). Even accelerometer support wasn't added until iOS 4.2 (came up during the camera search), which wasn't jailbroken until this week (per Wikipedia).

Good luck, you are going to need it. Like Gruber said (about Theora) "Put another way, 'open and better' is a recipe for success; 'open but worse' is a recipe for obscurity." With the current lack of hardware support, especially on mobile devices, the latter looks more likely. Even if eventually it'll be "open and as good", that's probably not going to cut it with so many companies already aboard the h.264 train.

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball asks some very relevant questions about this. The most interesting is: if Google is so concerned about open standards, will they also be dropping the embedded Flash player from Chrome?

>> Which one has a richer appstore? Which one has the apps you're looking for?

> Umm, both have the same apps? Seriously, besides a handful of high profile games, what does Apple have that Android doesn't?

For the answer, see here and here.

Let's sort all Android apps into the following categories:

1. Apps from Google.
2. Third-party apps that also exist on iOS.
3. Third-party apps that are exclusive to Android.

From my time spent with the Nexus One early this year, I know that Google's Android apps are pretty good. These include both the core system apps, and the closed-source "Google Experience" apps like the dedicated Gmail client and Google Maps.

There are definitely a fair number of apps in the second category -- those ported to both iOS and Android. Examples: Amazon's Kindle client, Pandora, and a few popular games, such as Angry Birds and Doodle Jump.

But what I find striking is that the apps in the third category -- those exclusive to Android -- are almost entirely unappealing or irrelevant to iOS users.

That's not to say there's nothing in Android, as a system, that appeals to iPhone owners. Built-in turn-by-turn navigation on certain models. A system-wide notification system. Widgets on the homescreen. Over-the-air system updates. Unrestricted background processing for third-party apps, battery-life be damned. But those are things that are built into the system itself, or which otherwise come from Google. What I'm questioning is the strength and depth of Android's third-party developer support.

Which are the apps, from developers other than Google, that I should feel like I'm missing out on because I don't have an Android device? Where are the killer apps for Android?

Turn the table and we could be here all day running down the list of high-quality, interesting apps which are exclusive to iOS.

I didn't see an easy way of disabling Flash in Safari

John Gruber just posted a discourse on how to do that, along with a simple workaround to view those Flash pages that you really want to see.

You could have just linked to the daringfireball post... or at least cited it :P

John Gruber wrote a 1,000-word article that says much of what you're saying.

Flash for the Mac is so terrible that an Adobe evangelist actually recommended using a Flash blocker in response to people's complaints about its instability. I'm not sure if Slashdotters criticizing Apple for antagonizing Adobe are aware of how slow and buggy the non-Windows version of the plugin is. Apple is eager to replace its functionality with open web standards. Adobe is so deluded that it accused Apple of being closed and of Flash being open simply because it's a commonly-installed plugin.

Here's a John Gruber article explaining the situation between Apple and Flash better.

Ahem

500? More like over 8000.

Windows Phone 7 could sell, 9, maybe 10 thousand units. Which given their previous outing, would be a success.

Apple gave their employees free iPhones.

Google gave their employees Dream phones as a holiday bonus:

So according to you I suppose all these phones suck so much that they had to give them away.

Gruber, is that you?

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/07/17/nokia

It does work very well. I have an iPhone 4 (got it on launch day) and I can replicate the "signal loss" by bridging those pieces of metal. I do lose bars (so my signal wasn't fantastic to begin with).

I've been watching this whole thing with interest. I've seen a ton of reports that the 4 is better at keeping calls when in a low signal area, at that seems to match my experience. It's a flaw, but really it's not that big. I've learned to keep my left hand (which I usually hold my phone with) about 1/2cm higher, and I don't have problems. A bumper would almost completely fix it.

Mostly, this is a huge black eye on Apple's part. The phone works very well, and I'd imagine the problem will only really effect you if you live in an area with poor reception (which I don't seem to). If there wasn't such a simple physical action people could do to trigger this (say you had to hold you hand over the back in a certain way), I don't think we'd hear nearly so much about this. It' just so easy for people to trigger and associate with an action, it seems much worse than with other phones that drop your calls where you can't be sure why your signal is being lowered.

I like my phone. I won't return it, it works fine for me. It's kind of sad to watch. Consumer Reports says there is no reason not to buy. I'll admit if I didn't have one launch day, I would probably wait a little longer to see what happened. But I'm in love with my retina display.

Basically: much ado about something that's not that bad. See chart.

Also, for a good humorous take on all this, I highly recommend John Gruber's hilarious translation of Apple's "apology" letter.

It does work very well. I have an iPhone 4 (got it on launch day) and I can replicate the "signal loss" by bridging those pieces of metal. I do lose bars (so my signal wasn't fantastic to begin with).

I've been watching this whole thing with interest. I've seen a ton of reports that the 4 is better at keeping calls when in a low signal area, at that seems to match my experience. It's a flaw, but really it's not that big. I've learned to keep my left hand (which I usually hold my phone with) about 1/2cm higher, and I don't have problems. A bumper would almost completely fix it.

Mostly, this is a huge black eye on Apple's part. The phone works very well, and I'd imagine the problem will only really effect you if you live in an area with poor reception (which I don't seem to). If there wasn't such a simple physical action people could do to trigger this (say you had to hold you hand over the back in a certain way), I don't think we'd hear nearly so much about this. It' just so easy for people to trigger and associate with an action, it seems much worse than with other phones that drop your calls where you can't be sure why your signal is being lowered.

I like my phone. I won't return it, it works fine for me. It's kind of sad to watch. Consumer Reports says there is no reason not to buy. I'll admit if I didn't have one launch day, I would probably wait a little longer to see what happened. But I'm in love with my retina display.

Basically: much ado about something that's not that bad. See chart.

Also, for a good humorous take on all this, I highly recommend John Gruber's hilarious translation of Apple's "apology" letter.

...even when held the same way?

I thought not.

Yes, people with no direct experience who claim to offer understanding generally in fact are not thinking as you note in your own status.

Read 'em and weep, Apple Hater

Better data rates EVEN WHEN HELD.

Upload speed 4-10x faster, for example (which has really been nice posting photos and makes posting HD videos practical).

And as I (and anandtech) said, in every day use the phone DOES GET BETTER RECEPTION WHEN HELD NORMALLY. As in, better call quality and fewer dropped calls.

I figured I'd yell there since multiple posts making that very point seemed unable to breach your skull, either it's awfully thick or I'd take off the tinfoil hat if I were you (guess you can't do anything about the thick part, sorry).

If you are going to bring up the anandtech study, you may also want to mention that the article states when signal quality is low the iPhone 4 is much better at keeping calls alive:

From my day of testing, I've determined that the iPhone 4 performs much better than the 3GS in situations where signal is very low, at -113 dBm (1 bar). Previously, dropping this low all but guaranteed that calls would drop, fail to be placed, and data would no longer be transacted at all. I can honestly say that I've never held onto so many calls and data simultaneously on 1 bar at -113 dBm as I have with the iPhone 4...In reality, reporting based on SNR makes a lot more sense, since I couldn't make calls drop driving around an entire day cupping the phone, despite being at -113 dBm (1 bar) most of the time.

I've not had dropped call issues from the iPhone4. That's not to say you will never have a dropped call, this is after all AT&T we're talking about here. But I have had much better results in making and keeping calls compared to the older phone, so people who are holding off buying an iPhone worried about dropped calls are doing themselves a disservice.

For me, tightly gripping has more of an impact on data speed than calls - and even then, it doesn't always affect data speed. But it's again a worthwhile upgrade, because the phone has better latency and so network use feels more responsive as per DaringFireball.

Nonsense, Zogby is the Rob Enderle of polling.

It was stupid then and it's stupid now. I haven't seen many excuses yet.

How about the aformentioned Paul Thurrott:

http://www.winsupersite.com/mobile/wp7_love.asp

The multitasking is limited. Users will only be able to get apps from the Marketplace, and not from third parties. Gasp! Is it true that there's no copy and paste?

No matter. Windows Phone combines those very few things that were right about Windows Mobile -- primarily some business functionality -- with a much wider set of new functionality that is exciting in both scope and possibility.

You can read what Paul thought about Apple's lack of Cut & Paste at Daring Fireball

I don't think Apple uses those to make money though

Microsoft didn't "make money" with Internet Explorer. It was and is a free app. It was still part of the primary evidence for Microsoft's illegal monopoly behaviour.

Didn't you read the Gruber link from the message almost immediately before yours? If even a notorious Apple Polisher like Gruber thinks something like this is worth calling out Apple on, then I for one am impressed. Undocumented API functions apparently do exist, and Apple lets favoured corporate partners use these APIs for competitive advantage. In other words, outside of the *public* terms of its developer contracts, there's obviously a whole less public sphere where influence and favours are being traded for access to the Iphone's innards. Apple is playing favourites and preferentially granting access to an effective monopoly to create a syndicate or cartel network. This is the same shite Standard Oil was doing back in the day, and it's the same shite Microsoft was pulling in the 1990s, and part of what eventually resulted in the entire company of Microsoft being judged a criminal monopoly. It's not crime to become a monopoly through fair competition, the crime emerges when you use that monopoly illegally to maintain market dominance for you and your cartel buddies through unfair competition.

To advantage which of it own Apps does Apple use its OS advantage ?

On the iPad, only Apple software can multitask (this article has a list: email client, SMS text client, and other apps). On any of their platforms, only Apple software may use the APIs that let you customize the way the UI widgets display. Only Apple software can use the full functionality of the accelerometer. Here is a blog post discussing some undocumented OS X features that made Safari much faster than Firefox 3. And here is a blog post discussing how several apps were rejected for using undocumented functionality. And here is a whole article discussing undocumented Apple APIs, with examples of cool stuff that only Apple's own software is allowed to do. And here is an article discussing cool things that Safari can do, that Firefox isn't allowed to do. And here is a column that claims that Apple inserts undocumented APIs and uses them in its own code for years, without ever documenting them (but presumably without breaking them because it would break Apple's own code). Even the APIs for the WiFi are undocumented.

I understand the argument that Apple doesn't want to commit to supporting these APIs forever, like Microsoft has had to do with even obscure APIs in Windows. If you use these undocumented APIs to do cool things, and Apple revises the OS, your app may break. And Apple doesn't want the customer to think it's Apple's fault that your app broke.

But I also understand the argument that some of these APIs allow for really cool stuff, which is currently reserved only for Apple. People don't like this.

As for me, give me Linux anyway. No such thing as an "undocumented" API, and there is no entity that has an unfair advantage over everyone else, and I can install any software I want.

steveha

No, I was talking about the iPhone. It's not just Objective-C or GTFO. From this page (haven't seen the agreement itself, it's surprisingly difficult to get if I don't want to actually become an iPhone developer):

Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine...

So it's Objective-C, C, C++, JavaScript on WebKit, or GTFO.

Still sucks, but it's at least theoretically possible to develop a cross-platform C or C++ app, assuming the other platforms allow them.

Which still sucks sucks -- basically, your UI gets to be rewritten entirely for each platform, and your "business logic" has to be written with the "native toolkit", in one of the lowest-level languages you could use, which is the exact fucking opposite of how it should be.

From John Gruber: Adobe Flash: Almost as Open as Microsoft Office ...let's concede that Flash is "open" because Adobe has published the partial SWF 10 file format spec. Microsoft published the OOXML file format specs for its Office apps. And not only did they publish the specs, they submitted them to a widely-respected industry standards organization, and now they're ISO standards. Adobe's Flash specs have never been submitted to a standards body, let alone accepted, thus, anyone who argues that Adobe Flash is open would agree that Microsoft Office is even more open."

From Christina Warren: Adobe and Apple: Please Spare Us the Platitudes About "Open" While Adobe can argue that elements of Flash (through its Open Screen Project) are indeed open source, Flash itself is not an open standard. While Adobe cites some open source implementations in its "truth about Flash", like Gnash -- the open source Flash alternative -- those same runtimes cannot achieve parity with the closed-source alternatives [emphasis added] because parts of Flash associated with DRM and other content controls aren't available... Unlike HTML5 and CSS3 and related technologies, Flash is not an open standard on the web. Adobe might license some of its technology free of charge, and it may have some of its SWF spec available, but the entirety of the Flash ecosystem is not open, nor is it a web standard.

From GNU Gnash page - Gnash is based on GameSWF, and supports most SWF v7 features and some SWF v8 and v9.

From Wikipedia - SWF v7 (the one that Gnash supports "most of") came out in 2003--SEVEN YEARS AGO. They support "some" of the new features in v8 and v9 and, based on the omission, none of the features that are new in v10.

What's understandable about it?

See Job's open letter on the subject.
Also see http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331
Personally, I find every point understandable from Apple's point of view.

To the best of my knowledge, this is, in fact, the first time a company legally restricts what tools can be used to extend its computing platform...

Possibly. Though of course companies such as Nintendo and Sony retain both complete discretion and secrecy of process over what games are published to their platform. The can prevent publication of software for whatever reason they like, the same as Apple.

...

We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web. ...

We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.

via Our thoughts on open markets I Adobe.

Here, Chuck Geschke and John Warnock are simply dishonest.

One playing field is the open web which Apple is clearly and strongly fostering with it's development of WebKit as a leading standards supporting rendering engine now seen in use by all major mobile operating systems save Microsoft's. Apple is clearly supporting web standards which actually do run on any device you choose. Adobe on the other hand is clearly digging a Flash pit wherein everything remains the same. It's been talk talk talk about a version of mobile flash. I'm glad web standards are stepping up to the plate and being moved forward by Adobe's inability to deliver.

The other field is in regard to native applications. This is a very different war then claiming Apple is attempting to "undermine this next chapter of the web. I find myself strongly agreeing with Apple on one hand — I have used platforms held hostage by companies other than the original vendor and have seen the lack of progress ceding control, the control Apple is enforcing with section 3.1.1 and like Steve Jobs agree that John Gruber really nails it in his post which walks a line of rationality not seen in most corners of our daily lives. On the other hand I find some agreement with another premise – that a developer should be able to deliver a product in any

You can't publish such a weighty document full of error, sign it, post it with your chuckling portraits and believe you've won the day. This is desperate.

Well, according to http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/iphone-finder/

"The person who found and sold an Apple iPhone prototype says he regrets not doing more to return the device to its owner, according to a statement provided by his attorney Thursday in response to queries from Wired.com."

"A friend of Hogan’s then offered to call Apple Care on Hogan’s behalf, according to Hogan’s lawyer. That apparently was the extent of Hogan’s efforts to return the phone."

And from http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/gizmodo_prototype_iphone

"California’s penal code, section 485: One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft."

So the phone was stolen and sold...I'm not clear how the theft of the phone was "Apple's fault"?

The developer agreement does not make it illegal for someone to work on other projects. It doesn't even make it illegal for you to install Pascal apps on your iPhone. It does mean that Apple won't approve Pascal apps on the iPhone, and you won't get them into the app store. But you are being a bit hysterical to think that joining the developer program in any way affects what else you do.

The new agreement forbids using the SDK to compile programs that are not originally written in any of the approved languages:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

(emphasis mine). Of course, Apple cannot check what I do if I don't submit any apps to the AppStore, but I would definitely be in violation with the new SDK agreement if I first agreed to the new terms and then continued compiling and running Pascal programs on my iPod.

I doubt it does much good. Apple has taken it stance, and they have a very clear reason to do so: Apple is building a replacement for Flash.

Throw away all that hypocrisy where Steve Jobs said H.264 is "open, free and non-proprietary", and their "humble" goal to open up the internet (while their devices are closed as hell), and welcome to the masterplan. It's not about open standards or supporting HTML5 (and funnily closed H.264), it's because Apple wants to compete with Adobe. Talk about backstabbing, at least I knew Mac's because artists always used a Mac with earlier Photoshops.

Obviously you can only develop software for this Flash-lookalike using Macs and if you want to develop for iPhone or iPad you are required to buy a pricy developers license. So much for hobbyist creating interesting programs and fun games? It makes perfect sense now why Apple doesn't want to allow even cross-compiled apps.

Get ready for Apple fanbois coming in and commenting on this on why it's "innovative" and why suddenly "Apple shouldn't support HTML5".

You didn't get away with paraphrasing the encyclopedia in 5th grade.

Why did you think you'd get away with paraphrasing Gruber today?

I don't think this is really true. Apple has specifically said tools that allow programming in other languages are allowed.

Um, yes it is true. They have a very short list of 'approved' languages.

Specifically, this:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Emphasis mine. This bans anything not coded in Objective-C, C, or C++ (as far as native code goes -- and only JavaScript in WebKit for interpreted languages), as well as banning any third-party toolkits, frameworks, and most libraries (even if they're written in one of the 'approved' languages). About the only thing they haven't dictated (yet) is what text editors you can use to write the code.

Although John Gruber is one of the worlds biggest Apple fanboys (and can, therefore, be a tad biased at time) he hit the nail right on the head with this post called Herd Mentality.

In short, the only way to win is when you control both the hardware and the software. Companies who do not, generally get locked into a price war with little to nothing else to differentiate with.

Why be another Android purveyor when, if you get it right, you can be something much bigger and better? Of course, whilst owning both means you get a chance to win, it doesn't mean you can't lose (as Palm has shown).

Granted, HTC have done well, but they're still ultimately constrained by third parties who may or may not share HTC's best interests and aspirations.

Even though the editor did "try", after they opened it up, to return the prototype to the owner by calling Apple and the engineer, because they did not turn it in to the local police department, they have broken civil law. They could have also taken the phone back to the bar and placed it in the custody of the bar owner, whose bar had received many calls from the owner of the prototype—even though that option, while practical, did not comply with the law.

Secondary source: Gizmodo and the prototype iPhone

That's a red herring. See this post. That only effects H.264, and only on a handful of Macs (although it probably works on the new laptops Apple just released).

But that doesn't explain my Mac (which lacks video decoding acceleration), non-H.264 video, non-video flash, etc.

Why are you doing your own video decoding anyway? That's the point of QuickTime, that it does that stuff and optimizes it for you. It's the system component designed for playing media.

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball seems fairly clear that Gizmondo's use of "found" is somewhat disingenuous and "nicked" might be closer to the truth.

It seems it's the same phone - Engadget is quoting Gizmodo as the source of the story.

There is a third possibility - according to John Gruber it was stolen from Apple, not lost in a bar as stated by Gizmodo.

While the standard given reason is to kill competition from Flash and other stacks, this story speculates that the real reason has to do with the unusually large die size of the A4 processor inside the iPads.

This isn't a great summary. To quote the article:

This week Apple confined developers to a specific set of tools (XCode). A lot of people think this is to kill Adobe Flash. Sure, that is a tactical reason, but there are much broader strategic reasons. By telling developers to move to XCode tools, Apple is setting the stage to potentially switch architectures.

History often repeats itself: In 2003, Apple advised developers to switch to XCode tools. This was not a coincidental move--2 years later Apple moved to Intel across its entire Mac line. Developers who complied could simply press a button and applications would run natively (full performance) on new Intel Macs.

As John Gruber noted Adobe shipped Intel-native versions of Creative Suite 16 months after Apple began shipping Intel-based Macs (and about two years after Apple announced the Intel transition).

If you are going to switch architectures, the last thing you want is to be held up waiting almost a year and a half for Adobe to get around to updating their developer tools.

(Then there is a whole bit about the iPad possibly already moving away from ARM but I don't know enough about that to be able to comment)

The article mainly hinges on the possibility that the iPad isn't using ARM to be wild speculation instead of merely completely insane speculation. The fact that this is already known to be false is a pretty major blow to it. And the fact that this policy affects things that produce code in approved languages and even things that produce Xcode projects to go with it pretty much completely destroys the argument that it's some wise and enlightened choice they have made for the good of developers and not just a complete dick move. It doesn't help either that Jobs himself endorses this particular rationalization of it, which puts forth a completely different argument.

I don't think its nearly as simple as you claim. Having read this piece. It made me re-evaluate the point of it. To basically sum up, yes, this locks developers on the iPhone OS. On the other hand, these meta-platforms hurt Apple's ability to improve their devices. It makes them depend on a 3rd party runtime too to actually provide support for the new features. As we've all see with flash, Adobe has no desire to provide runtimes on time that actually work. So yeah, its platform lock-in. But it's also more than that. Apple hates being beholden to anyone else and this move could be seen as ensuring their independence.

And again, from the almighty Gruber:

I think the issue is a red herring, spin from Adobe intended to share the blame for Flash's Mac OS X performance with Apple. First, Flash performance gripes are not limited to H.264 video playback. Everything Flash Player does is slower on Mac OS X than Windows. What's Adobe's excuse for Flash's performance on non-H.264 video?
 
Second, even Apple's own QuickTime on Snow Leopard only makes use of H.264 hardware acceleration with a single graphics card: the Nvidia 9400M. If you don't have that graphics card in your Mac, you don't get H.264 hardware acceleration, period. That card is used across the board in current MacBooks and Mac Minis, but there are an awful lot of older Macs in use -- a majority I'd wager -- which don't have that card. It's also not present in current brand-new Mac Pros and most iMacs.

By the way, I love the way the Adobe guy says "Let's take for example the question of hardware acceleration for H.264 video..." OK, great. Got any OTHER examples of how Flash sucking is Apple's fault? Anything? *crickets*

Citation. Here's the relevant section:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Note "originally written" and the mention of translation/compatibility tools.

I thought that Theora fell under the cloud of the last of the submarine patents -- http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/on_submarine_patents.

Interestingly enough nobody seems to have mentioned this gem yet. To summarize, Apple has decided to forbid

Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool

While this is clearly aimed squarely at Adobe and their Flash compiler I can't help wondering what does it mean even for C++ libraries such as Qt or wxWidgets (that I'm personally most interested in) as, with a bit of bad faith (that Apple doesn't seem to luck), they could be construed to be "intermediary compatibility layers" too. And this definitely seems to exclude using Perl, Python, Ruby or anything else.

If anybody had any doubts about Apple openness, this should hopefully be enough to dispel them (although whom am I kidding... there will surely be people able to justify this as well).

The older iphones and ipod touches don't get multitasking likely because they only have 128 MB of RAM.

I was disappointed to find out the ipad only has 256 (same as the 3GS). RAM is cheap, and there's no lack of space inside the ipad for an extra chip. With the way Safari currently works, it starts dumping web page caches as memory fills up. That means going to another "tab" (through an expose-like interface) can often mean re-loading the page from scratch, in practice. Word is the iphone 3GS does this a lot less, so it's definitely something they need to address for the ipad. Because the expose is two taps instead of the one required for tabs, and because of this reloading, I find myself using substantially fewer open browser windows on the ipad than on a desktop.

I'm starting to think they need to use part of the flash memory to cache things, especially with multitasking (that's what the "fast app switching" I presume does - save the full state of app memory on flash). The biggest downside to this is it wears down the flash.

I was a little disappointed to find out that the ipad release will be "fall". So far, though, the only time I've really wanted multitasking (or some pseudo-multitasking) is to play audio from Pandora or Magnatune while doing other tasks (and you can use the Magnatune website to stream since Safari's media player multitasks). Most of the other features are really for iphone users (ibook app, improved mail - though unified inbox will be nice).

By the way, anyone looking for an extremely thorough review of the ipad should look here. I have no relation to the author, but I found he covered things extremely well.

If there's one thing history teaches about rumors regarding upcoming Apple products, it's that nobody talking knows anything.

That's not always the case; sometimes, far from it. The source for this information comes from John Gruber over at Daring Fireball. It's well known, and John says as much, that he has sources inside Apple. As a reliable critic ('critic' as in Ebert, not hostility) of Apple, it seems his sources are either known to the company and the leaks are green-lighted, or else Apple simply doesn't care enough about smaller announcements to ferret out the mole. I'd bet heavily on the former.

John doesn't always make predictions of a declarative nature, but when he does, you can more or less take them as stated fact; for example, his "predictions" for last year's WWDC.

If there's one thing history teaches about rumors regarding upcoming Apple products, it's that nobody talking knows anything.

That's not always the case; sometimes, far from it. The source for this information comes from John Gruber over at Daring Fireball. It's well known, and John says as much, that he has sources inside Apple. As a reliable critic ('critic' as in Ebert, not hostility) of Apple, it seems his sources are either known to the company and the leaks are green-lighted, or else Apple simply doesn't care enough about smaller announcements to ferret out the mole. I'd bet heavily on the former.

John doesn't always make predictions of a declarative nature, but when he does, you can more or less take them as stated fact; for example, his "predictions" for last year's WWDC.

If there's one thing history teaches about rumors regarding upcoming Apple products, it's that nobody talking knows anything.

That's not always the case; sometimes, far from it. The source for this information comes from John Gruber over at Daring Fireball. It's well known, and John says as much, that he has sources inside Apple. As a reliable critic ('critic' as in Ebert, not hostility) of Apple, it seems his sources are either known to the company and the leaks are green-lighted, or else Apple simply doesn't care enough about smaller announcements to ferret out the mole. I'd bet heavily on the former.

John doesn't always make predictions of a declarative nature, but when he does, you can more or less take them as stated fact; for example, his "predictions" for last year's WWDC.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball also thought that the Macbook Air was "going to be a big hit." He proceeded to lay out why that product was going to be the next big thing.

http://daringfireball.net/2008/02/macbook_air_appeal

Only it wasn't. While Apple fans bought up the initial supply, sales in general seem to be lagging (though Apple doesn't release sales numbers, they certainly talk about their most popular lines at the keynotes, and you can get general sales information by talking to retail stores.) No one at Apple talks about the Air anymore. They keep it updated--kinda. The updates aren't great. They finally dropped the price of it--and I doubt it's because it was cannibalizing sales of their Macbook Pros. They dropped the price because Macbook Pro sales were cannibalizing the Air.

Everyone gets it wrong sometimes, but people who worship at the altar of Gruber can be more rabid than Apple fanboys. He's wrong, too, sometimes.