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XML Co-Founder Joins Google, Blasts iPhone
XML co-founder Tim Bray has taken the job of 'Developer Advocate' at Google. Don't other companies call that position 'Evangelist?' Because he sure doesn't mince words against the iPhone in his first sermon: 'It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger.
XML vs. iPhone. I can't think of a better metaphor for "open but convoluted" vs. "closed but useable."
This is not a work-related "convenient opinion" of his. He's been critical of Apple's walled-garden approach to development for years, and an Android advocate since he got an Android phone in 2008 (see http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/12/18/Android-Diary for his chronicles using and programming it).
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
With the iPhone and iPad, Apple has become the Big Brother it railed against in the Superbowl ad of 1984.
As an owner of many Apple computers from the Apple ][ all the way to today, it's thoroughly depressing to have watched this happen. But I guess Apple's always been schizophrenic about opennness. One one hand you have Woz distributing schematics, the developer's signatures burnt into the Mac's first motherboard, embracing of open-sourced software & development tools, lack of copy protection on their OS, replacing drm music with watermarking, etc. But then you've got them suing Franklin & Pystar, suing HTC, their absurdly paternalistic App market, a closed-down iPad, etc. I guess there's always been a bit of hypocrisy and self-contradiction with Apple.
But when push comes to shove, I'm growing more convinced with the iPhone/iPad they really do see the future as being closed & proprietary. Google is the athlete running in swinging the hammer. And maybe it's Jobs' face on the big screen?
I guess Apple II isn't forever.
Another way to look at it is that iPhone provides a solid single platform that developers can concentrate on features rather than UI and input differences.
Yes, because if Apple allowed pictures of women in bikinis, uncensored dictionaries or mentioning the name of a competitor on the iPhone, the "solid single platform" would fragment into a dozen incompatible versions, right?
My opinion changed when they stopped releasing text-only copies of public domain works through Google Books.
I am rather concerned about Google and Apple, and primarily support alternatives.
I won't buy Apple products though and only grudgingly do business with Google these days.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I'm pretty sure you mean Nokia, not RIM.
No, he said smartphones. A smartphone is defined as being a device with few enough sales that the iphone looks like a serious competitor in comparison. Nokia do not make smartphones.
Not only can he vote with his wallet, but he's free to express his opinion to others who might vote with their wallets in the future. He's not forcing you or anyone else to do anything.
But then again, apple fanboi's will always try to herd a stray iSheep back to the iFlock. There's even an app for that!
Or maybe they just get tired of anti-fanboi idiots making statements that seem to equate:
"Um, you're not forced to buy it. You're perfectly free to buy, enjoy, and develop for something else."
with
"Apple fanboi's will always try to herd a stray iSheep back to the iFlock."
For some reason, for a lot of geeks, it's never enough to just like something else that's not Apple. They have to LOUDLY TELL EVERYBODY ELSE THAT THEY SHOULD NOT LIKE APPLE TOO and this despite the fact that nobody's ever been forced to buy Apple.
Tweet, tweet.
Apple has had absolute control of their standards (Quicktime, proprietary audio formats/encryption, device lockin (itunes only works with ipod, and will update itunes to break compatibility with any other device)... Apple has always been very aggressive about vendor lockin, and only uses "open" standards when it serves their purpose to break into a market, and quickly lose interest once they have a substancial market share (see also: embrace, extend, extinguish).
Quicktime uses 'normal' formats - H264, mp4, etc. Apple don't have any proprietary audio or video formats. You're confusing format with DRM, and there's none of that in their music either.
Palm decision to use someone else's software to manage their device is a bad move in every sense. They become reliant on the experience provided by someone else, and open themselves up to being locked out. When Apple also provide APIs for accessing the iTunes database (hell, it's just an XML file, any dev worth their salt can write a parser, and there are plenty of open-source XML parsers out there) then Palm's decision looks more like posturing and using their own customers as a weapon.
Still, many of the /. crowd fell for Palm on this, hook line and sinker. It became an issue of 'freedom' or something, and not just a shabby development decision that was almost certainly going to bite them later.
As for EEE, can you give an example? I can understand how Microsoft could do that with IE, as they had market dominance. I can't see how Apple can do that in any market but mp3 players, and clearly they've not done so in that market.
Unfortunately, chris.travers@GMAIL.COM, your Google boycott rings a tad hollow.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Interesting way to spin Apple's accomplishment... that it was somehow evil to unlock iTunes. Wow, how could anyone win with this kind of logic?
What actually happened was that Apple dominated the music business because of the popularity of their HARDWARE and the way it worked seamlessly with their SOFTWARE (iTunes). They made a music store that SELLS MUSIC, in an environment where it was almost as easy to anonymously steal the same stuff.
Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to the music industry where he essentially said, why don't we eliminate this DRM bullshit, because it doesn't work. One by one, they eventually relented, and now most music stores sell music without DRM. You can now buy music from iTunes that plays on any modern music device.
Yet you're convinced Apple only did this because they somehow are now "safe" with this iPod monopoly. Does this make any sense? They removed one factor that might lock someone into their iPod the most -- their music library's portability -- and decimated it. Yet, in your mind this was just a crock of shit or something?
Wow.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
lol you have a hotmail account