The only concrete examples for your argument that you've offered up to this point are Flash games. Flash games aren't a good reason to abandon decades of work in fast, native APIs.
Wake me up when Crysis is worth playing. Crysis is the game every single PC gamer cites when mocking the Mac, but it's not even a good game. The days of graphics demos disguised as games died in the late 90s. Visuals are a solved problem. More people play 2D FarmVille than all the copies of Crysis ever sold because most people don't care anymore about high-end graphics. Gamers like you are now a smaller niche than the Mac userbase itself.
He's also the guy who said that only people who have something to hide care about privacy.
The submitter ignored the most ominous part of the article, where Schmidt says that Google will eventually perform searches on your behalf and provide suggestions of tasks to do in your life, claiming that people want Google to tell them what to do in life, not answer their questions.
So your entire argument for abandoning native APIs is Flash games?
You cite zero evidence that users find contradictory interfaces "more fun," and your disdain for security prompts is bizarre since web apps that access personal information or require a secure connection do the same thing.
You don't offer a single example beyond Google Earth of how it's "substantially more difficult" to use a native application instead of a web application. Give me a break.
The opposite is true. Web apps are slower, break the Back button, and are vastly more limited in functionality. There is no HIG for web applications, so they all re-implement things differently, look differently, behave differently, and use different hotkeys.
What is upsetting everyone is that Google was very vocal about net neutrality for wireless just a few years ago--when they thought it would help them compete with the iPhone. Now, they're crippling what they were fighting for. Not that I'm opposed. "Net neutrality" is more big-government legislation that we don't need. Sysadmins at private companies can run their networks however they want. Internet access isn't a constitutionally protected right.
Really, the only reason its become a big deal is because no matter WHAT google does, proposes, or says, people want to make a big deal of it and find conspiracy theories about how Google intends to steal your identity, your life, and who knows what else.
Most people are running accounts with installation capability. If you're running a system that you're not an administrator on (i.e., a corporate desktop), chances are the web application you run would be an enterprise app that requires a username/password too.
All three examples you gave were startups bought by Google, reinforcing the point of the article.
Your Apple bias claim in story submissions is the only selective memory in this situation. Slashdot is the site that posted an article accusing Apple of "mining" app store submissions for patent ideas while not even reading the actual patent to see that it had nothing to do with the app in question.
Apple absolutely innovates. They don't "scrape the internet"--whatever that means. What they do is apply graphic design and usability aesthetics to their product's hardware and software to ensure that the experience of using it is as smooth as possible. Touchscreens weren't new technology, but the iPhone made it feel new because of the way it was used and how much effort Apple spent guaranteeing that it was absolutely responsive. MP3 players weren't new either, but they did the same with the iPod.
Apple products aren't the first to market, but they're often the first to market that doesn't suck. Where they innovate is in making products that people want to use, which is the purest form of business success there is. They don't even need a monopoly to do it, and there's a bigger non-iPod section at my local Wal-mart than there are iPods. People naturally want their products anyway. Even in the face of 20+ years of Windows domination, Mac sales are climbing to record highs and have made huge inroads in academia. One wonders how many more people would be using Macs post-2000 if Windows didn't have the momentum of its 1990s monopoly.
You sound like another one of the bitter Apple-haters who has taken over Slashdot's comment section lately. You can dislike their products, but to outright dismiss their success as "better press management skills" is really stupid and stereotypical. I bet you cross your arms and act too cool for the room when an iPod commercial comes on TV.
Your post is full of falsehoods. KHTML wasn't "ripped off." It is LGPL-licensed code and was forked. Apple was always compliant with the LGPL and was not influenced by "serious legal prodding" to open source WebKit. WebCore and JavaScriptScore were always open source. WebKit is the layer of rendering frameworks wrapping WebCore and JavaScriptCore that initially provided Objective-C APIs and, later on, cross-platform C++ APIs for utilizing WebCore in the platform's native environment (e.g., rendering a webpage in a native window). WebKit was made available in a public CVS in the spirit of cooperating with KHTML developers and the rest of the open source community.
Well, it is. Using the web as a platform for applications is adding a completely pointless, slow-performing layer on top of native APIs that companies have spent decades creating. The story behind the iPhone SDK (how Apple initially offered web-only application development, but developer protest led to a native SDK) is an example of how native application development is superior to the web. Hell, web apps haven't yet figured out how not to break the functionality of the Back button.
The bottom line is this: Google was only in favor of net neutrality when they thought it would help them compete with the iPhone. Now that they don't think they need it anymore, they're reversing position. People who cheered Google for their initial stance got suckered.
So is this finally the last straw? After Google's CEO told everyone that if they care about privacy, they have something to hide...after Google "accidentally" scanned and archived people's WiFi networks...after Android phones were bundled with closed source software from the carrier that renders the phone nonfunctional if removed...after Google sent a cease and desist to CyanogenMod for using Google's "open" Android software...is Google's reversal on "net neutrality" going to finally turn Slashdot against Google?
I've wondered for years when people were finally going to wake up and realize that Google is not some friendly open source company--that their search engine and advertising platforms are as closed source and proprietary as Windows, and that Google uses free services like Gmail to get everyone's data indexed for advertising purposes.
The Source engine, while lacking the technical features of id Tech 4, looked better because the map editor pre-calculates radiosity. Based on my memory of interviews at the time, I think Carmack was interested in the technical elegance of a unified lighting path with no tricks (e.g., Quake 3's character shadows) but unfortunately, it didn't look very good.
I didn't mind the dark atmosphere for the first thirty minutes, but after it lasted almost the entire game, I was totally burned out. The hell levels were an amazing breath of fresh air after so many generic, dimly lit rooms of silver and brown tech walls.
I wish the constant benefit of the doubt given to Google by many Slashdot readers would end. CEO Eric Schmidt came out and said that only people who have something to hide care about privacy. They "accidentally" scanned and archived WiFi network data. It's an ethical issue, if not a legal one, and it never hurts to be diligent when a single entity has so much power and gathers data on millions, if not billions, of people.
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Tepples, no need to post anonymously.
The only concrete examples for your argument that you've offered up to this point are Flash games. Flash games aren't a good reason to abandon decades of work in fast, native APIs.
Wake me up when Crysis is worth playing. Crysis is the game every single PC gamer cites when mocking the Mac, but it's not even a good game. The days of graphics demos disguised as games died in the late 90s. Visuals are a solved problem. More people play 2D FarmVille than all the copies of Crysis ever sold because most people don't care anymore about high-end graphics. Gamers like you are now a smaller niche than the Mac userbase itself.
He's also the guy who said that only people who have something to hide care about privacy.
The submitter ignored the most ominous part of the article, where Schmidt says that Google will eventually perform searches on your behalf and provide suggestions of tasks to do in your life, claiming that people want Google to tell them what to do in life, not answer their questions.
So your entire argument for abandoning native APIs is Flash games?
You cite zero evidence that users find contradictory interfaces "more fun," and your disdain for security prompts is bizarre since web apps that access personal information or require a secure connection do the same thing.
You don't offer a single example beyond Google Earth of how it's "substantially more difficult" to use a native application instead of a web application. Give me a break.
The opposite is true. Web apps are slower, break the Back button, and are vastly more limited in functionality. There is no HIG for web applications, so they all re-implement things differently, look differently, behave differently, and use different hotkeys.
What is upsetting everyone is that Google was very vocal about net neutrality for wireless just a few years ago--when they thought it would help them compete with the iPhone. Now, they're crippling what they were fighting for. Not that I'm opposed. "Net neutrality" is more big-government legislation that we don't need. Sysadmins at private companies can run their networks however they want. Internet access isn't a constitutionally protected right.
What a load of fanboy defense bullshit.
Again, that's really your entire justification for avoiding native APIs?
Your justification for web apps is break room and library PCs?
Most people are running accounts with installation capability. If you're running a system that you're not an administrator on (i.e., a corporate desktop), chances are the web application you run would be an enterprise app that requires a username/password too.
All three examples you gave were startups bought by Google, reinforcing the point of the article.
Your Apple bias claim in story submissions is the only selective memory in this situation. Slashdot is the site that posted an article accusing Apple of "mining" app store submissions for patent ideas while not even reading the actual patent to see that it had nothing to do with the app in question.
Apple absolutely innovates. They don't "scrape the internet"--whatever that means. What they do is apply graphic design and usability aesthetics to their product's hardware and software to ensure that the experience of using it is as smooth as possible. Touchscreens weren't new technology, but the iPhone made it feel new because of the way it was used and how much effort Apple spent guaranteeing that it was absolutely responsive. MP3 players weren't new either, but they did the same with the iPod.
Apple products aren't the first to market, but they're often the first to market that doesn't suck. Where they innovate is in making products that people want to use, which is the purest form of business success there is. They don't even need a monopoly to do it, and there's a bigger non-iPod section at my local Wal-mart than there are iPods. People naturally want their products anyway. Even in the face of 20+ years of Windows domination, Mac sales are climbing to record highs and have made huge inroads in academia. One wonders how many more people would be using Macs post-2000 if Windows didn't have the momentum of its 1990s monopoly.
You sound like another one of the bitter Apple-haters who has taken over Slashdot's comment section lately. You can dislike their products, but to outright dismiss their success as "better press management skills" is really stupid and stereotypical. I bet you cross your arms and act too cool for the room when an iPod commercial comes on TV.
Your post is full of falsehoods. KHTML wasn't "ripped off." It is LGPL-licensed code and was forked. Apple was always compliant with the LGPL and was not influenced by "serious legal prodding" to open source WebKit. WebCore and JavaScriptScore were always open source. WebKit is the layer of rendering frameworks wrapping WebCore and JavaScriptCore that initially provided Objective-C APIs and, later on, cross-platform C++ APIs for utilizing WebCore in the platform's native environment (e.g., rendering a webpage in a native window). WebKit was made available in a public CVS in the spirit of cooperating with KHTML developers and the rest of the open source community.
Well, it is. Using the web as a platform for applications is adding a completely pointless, slow-performing layer on top of native APIs that companies have spent decades creating. The story behind the iPhone SDK (how Apple initially offered web-only application development, but developer protest led to a native SDK) is an example of how native application development is superior to the web. Hell, web apps haven't yet figured out how not to break the functionality of the Back button.
Indeed. "For fuck's sake" really is the best response to that.
- Controlled by Microsoft
The bottom line is this: Google was only in favor of net neutrality when they thought it would help them compete with the iPhone. Now that they don't think they need it anymore, they're reversing position. People who cheered Google for their initial stance got suckered.
So is this finally the last straw? After Google's CEO told everyone that if they care about privacy, they have something to hide...after Google "accidentally" scanned and archived people's WiFi networks...after Android phones were bundled with closed source software from the carrier that renders the phone nonfunctional if removed...after Google sent a cease and desist to CyanogenMod for using Google's "open" Android software...is Google's reversal on "net neutrality" going to finally turn Slashdot against Google?
I've wondered for years when people were finally going to wake up and realize that Google is not some friendly open source company--that their search engine and advertising platforms are as closed source and proprietary as Windows, and that Google uses free services like Gmail to get everyone's data indexed for advertising purposes.
Hard to argue with such a well-researched, fact-based conclusion.
I wonder what effect this may have on a future source code release of id Tech 5.
The Source engine, while lacking the technical features of id Tech 4, looked better because the map editor pre-calculates radiosity. Based on my memory of interviews at the time, I think Carmack was interested in the technical elegance of a unified lighting path with no tricks (e.g., Quake 3's character shadows) but unfortunately, it didn't look very good.
I didn't mind the dark atmosphere for the first thirty minutes, but after it lasted almost the entire game, I was totally burned out. The hell levels were an amazing breath of fresh air after so many generic, dimly lit rooms of silver and brown tech walls.
Supposedly, Modern Warfare and its sequel are running on modified versions of id Tech 4.
One cable channel versus CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, MTV, and so on...
I wish the constant benefit of the doubt given to Google by many Slashdot readers would end. CEO Eric Schmidt came out and said that only people who have something to hide care about privacy. They "accidentally" scanned and archived WiFi network data. It's an ethical issue, if not a legal one, and it never hurts to be diligent when a single entity has so much power and gathers data on millions, if not billions, of people.
It's interesting because Google has been such a proponent of "net neutrality."