Slashdot Mirror
Apple Allows Lotus On iPhone (After Banning Competitor)
ImNotAtWork writes "Apple is allowing IBM's Lotus
to be installed on iPhones. Recently it killed a developer-submitted program that was deemed competitive with Apple's product."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Or maybe it's because it's not a product being sold in the iPhone App Store, it's just a web application they point Safari at.
Advanced users are users too!
Lotus Notes for iPhone is just a plain old Web app. You can't stop the web.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
Lotus notes is not the same as using Mail and iCal on the iPhone. The program that was denied by Apple usurped those apps into its own app. To my knowledge Mail or iCal have no Lotus syncing features.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Did the poster even read this article before posting it? It clearly says that it's a web based application that will run through the Safari browser. Nothing gets installed on the iPhone. Try reading it next time before posting, that way the headline you choose might make sense.
The IBM system is just a web app i.e. a web page with AJAX, viewed via Safari on the iphone. Of course Apple can't ban it, anymore than they can ban you from visiting gmail with an iphone.
The whole AppStore NDA issue is important, and worthy of discussion, but can we at least avoid FUD ridden straw men like this one.
it could also be that Lotus sucks, so Apple's app has no real competition. (yes, i HAVE to use lotus at work)
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Gah. That's what I get for believing a Slashdot summary. :^P
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Lotus is a brand, not a product. As far as I know, the product IBM Lotus is releasing for the iPhone is iNotes, the webmail interface to a Lotus Domino mail server. This isn't a Notes client for the iPhone.
I cannot understand the reason why the parent is a troll. The "application" in this case is a web application, not a native installed application.
The post, states clearly:
"Apple is allowing IBM's Lotus to be installed on iPhones. Recently it killed a developer submitted program that was deemed competitive with Apple's product."
Which is wrong. I cannot see that the parent is a "troll". IT could even be argued the actual Slashdot post is a troll (patent lie, followed by a heated "angle" to start a flamewar)
Have a nice day!
Or maybe it's because it's not a product being sold in the iPhone App Store, it's just a web application they point Safari at
Hence, it's entirely out of Apple's control, hence this is entirely non-news (just incase anyone was curious what the significance of this is).
The inherent reason to allow lotus notes on the i-evil-phone is to penetrate into the corporate IT infrastructure to replace the crackberry. As most of the readers here know, IBM's Lotus Notes still hold a chunky size of enterprise messaging market, to the dismay of Redmond. By allowing Lotus notes, they are making the inroads.
Also whoever thinks Lotus notes has a better UI than any mail app, is insane in my opinion. People use Lotus notes because they have to by corporate policy. When they add it to their i-phones, it is not going to replace the use of mailapp by no means, with the exception of 3 masochistic i-phone owners. Whereas the addition of a better functioning maill front end, might force Apple to revisit theor own mail app, which means money out of Steve the conman's pocket. It is intolerable...
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
A single bug in Safari for iPhone can prevent it from running and all Apple has to say is "oops". As it doesn't even allow other browsers like Opera, you will be in big trouble.
iPhone is not a business device as long as it is run by a fascistic policy. I pity the businesses who buys Apple's claims with 2-3 poster child apps and I _run_ everything on OS X/XServe.
There is no grounds for comparing the app that was banned (essentially a Gmail front end as an app) and "allowing" iNotes ultralite that is actually a web page on your Notes/Domino server. This is just bad journalism on behalf of NY Times and seconded here.
Also - apple "allows" gmail web front end on iphone just exactly the same way it "allows" iNotes ultralite.
There is no grounds for comparing the app that was banned (essentially a Gmail front end as an app) and "allowing" iNotes ultralite that is actually a web page on your Notes/Domino server. This is just bad journalism on behalf of NY Times and seconded here.
Also - apple "allows" gmail web front end on iphone just exactly the same way it "allows" iNotes ultralite.
Did you hear? I just found out that they are also allowing slashdot and digg! This is great!
That's not what I read at Ed Brill's site...
What I read was lots of iPhone fanboys screaming that there was no enterprise sync with Domino/Notes, and that this would single-handedly kill the product as Corporate America spent the next month doing nothing but throwing out all phones for iPhones, and all mail systems for Exchange.
(That's why I call them fanboys - their reasoned analysis and reaction identifies them as such to me.)
IBM's response was (and had to be) "Apple didn't approach us about it, and we can't do it on our own as the SDK as shipped doesn't have the appropriate APIs exposed".
Basically, Apple chose to work with Microsoft only when it came to synching with Enterprise systems, and IBM has little control over that.
Now, IBM had _already_ been developing the iNotes Lite system that the NY Times article refers to.
The full iNotes webmail system is pretty good, but it's also a pretty complicated web application which only ran on a couple of supported browsing platforms - all desktop. (For example, until recently, it was actually IE only, with ActiveX components.)
To give people access to the basics no matter what the (modern) browser someone was using, iNotes Lite was developed. (The betas have been shown to work on the Opera browser of a Nintendo Wii, amongst other things.)
So this wasn't even really developed specifically for the iPhone. It's just the first thing that IBM have shipped which can work on an iPhone.
IBM may or may not be working with Apple to get more native integration working on the iPhone. But given how open and public Apple are, we likely wouldn't know until it ships.
But let's be clear - the real blocker is the lack of support from Apple. This isn't specific to IBM - my understanding is that if you wanted to write something that used SyncML to synchronise an iPhone and a Funambol server, you couldn't do it either. The SDK has no documented ways of doing access to the mail/calender/to-do application storage that would allow integration, so unless you can work with Apple directly you're stuck.
What's really interesting is that IBM's marketing is now spinning it as "The iPhone wasn't secure, this is".
That could be IBM giving up on Apple and just going with what they've got. Or it could be IBM toning their public reaction down from "Apple are crap and don't want to work with us" because they are working with Apple now.
Only time will tell.
I feel pretty sorry for IBM on this whole affair. The sheer hype around the iPhone makes this somehow a major story, when in the grand scheme of things - even within the computing world - it's actually rather a non-event...