You are assuming that app profit was suggested as the ONLY motivation for Apple. It's not even the most important. Nevertheless, no app published for the iPhone is free; developers have to pay just to have their apps available. Apple is not doing charity work here.
I guess it wouldn't to someone who thinks that HTML5 allows "the same thing" as native apps.
Apple specifically disallows anything that would enable downloading and executing any program bypassing the app store. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's the stated policy.
Calling someone out on a lie isn't nitpicking. Apple hasn't had any single day iPad sales of 300,000 no matter how you view it. They didn't sell 300K on their first day of presales, they didn't sell 300K of first day of store sales, and delivery of 300K's worth of presales doesn't count toward first day sales.
400K in one month is a LOT different than 300K in one day. They won't sell 400K more next month, much less the 10 million/month run rate the original fanboy was suggesting.
"And if you compare iPhone browsing experience to that on the desktop (or netbook), it still sucks big time."
And that is a substantially bigger issue with the iPad since it's essentially the same sucky iPhone browsing experience with a larger, less portable screen.
"So, why would Apple want to give up control over the API of the devices they've made, while simultaneously throwing away any competitive advantage they might be able to bring in the native toolkit ?"
They wouldn't but that couldn't happen. Apple controls the API regardless, the developer doesn't. Since Apple approves each individual application anyway, why not just refuse apps that have poor, "lowest common denominator" problems directly? Apple does that sort of thing anyway. It would seem that you are looking for a way to cast Adobe as the evil villain by trying to support their customers on a platform that Apple is denying flash access to.
"This isn't *quite* as bad as Palm lying about their USB id's in order to piggy-back on Apple's success, but it's pretty darn close."
Fanboy alert.
"I don't think this is a bad thing for the users - developers are flocking to the platform. "
Fanboy alert 2.
"If Adobe want to play, they need to bring something that excites the user-base, and that Apple can't refute. So far they've *not* done that, and childish rants aren't going to persuade me that they can, in fact, do that. I do love the "comments are disabled because someone might disagree with me" as well [grin] - that just smacks of someone firmly convinced they're in the right... "
I fail to see how banning an Adobe developer tool does anything to accomplish this. If Adobe is slow to support useful APIs then developers won't use the tool. Problem solved.
No, this isn't about Apple controlling their own destiny. They do that by providing quality tools themselves, not by locking out other tool vendors. This is about screwing Adobe. Name a single instance in the past where something analogous to this has been done to advance a platform. What interests of Apple's are advanced by eliminate all development tools other than their own anyway? Can you name one other company that has done that?
And BTW, IBM would have made competitive G5s had they been able to sell enough to matter. IBM isn't lacking in processor design skill.
"Adobe even used Premiere as leverage against Apple, threatening to stop its development for the Mac, something that would have essentially kicked Apple out of the video editing market. That's why Apple bought and started heavy development of Final Cut (1999?). Adobe in fact pulled the plug from Premiere (2003?) until they realized that this has backfired on them making them loose a lot of the video market (2007?)."
What nonsense. Premiere, though the highest volume seller among editing suites at the time, was not preferred among professionals and had little marketshare on the Mac. The Mac was losing ground rapidly to NT because the PowerPC sucked and MacOS sucked. The apps that gave MacOS its video-editing swagger were leaving Mac for Windows. Apple had to introduce it's own suite to salvage any hope of remaining relevant in that market. Adobe was going to drop Premiere for Mac eventually anyway, the Final Cut move just made it obvious.
When marketshare sucks as bad as Apple's did at the time, and the platform technology hopelessly behind as well, companies like Adobe are looking for leverage against a dying partner, they simply don't give a crap.
" But somewhere in the late 90s Adobe started to drop the ball on Apple as they saw greener pastures in Windows Land. They started to invest much more in the development of the Windows versions of many of their products and Mac versions started to become second-class products."
Here you've given away your fanboy perspective. Wouldn't you invest more into a market that's generating the bulk of your sales? What do you think they owed Apple anyway?
"But with all this, it is not surprising that Apple doesn't want flash anywhere near their new products even if this kills their former ally."
You haven't even touched on the reasons for this. It's not about lack of loyalty, business infidelity, or product bugginess, it's about Jobs's need to control all software that runs on the platform. With flash, applications can be downloaded and run on demand inside a browser. Apple can't have that.
They did that back when Apple was hopelessly uncompetitive with the PowerPC. Apple also brought a competitive video suite to market causing them to drop Premiere on the Mac. Those where good business decisions for Adobe at the time and anyone else in Adobe's position would have done them as well. As for their current UI not being Mac-oriented, a common UI across platforms is also good business and Windows delivers a lot of Adobe's profits.
The claim that graphics designers prefer Macs is a myth anyway.
If you can prove prior art then you can invalidate a patent. There is no race to patent a technology---you don't have to patent something just to get the patent before someone else does.
IBM publishes technical articles all the time. The purpose of those is to prevent others from getting patents on stuff that IBM doesn't think is worth the investment but doesn't want to have to defend against either. You don't have to patent, you can simply produce clear prior art.
Pulling for Apple in this case says a lot about you and it's not good.
So you are saying that code owners should be forced to release all future code as open source because they have released some as open source in the past? That may be Stallman's wet dream but the GPL does not and cannot do that. Property remains property; GPL fanatics love to preach that when it suits them. It cuts both ways.
It would seem that the goodwill of a for-profit company remains goodwill even if their future contributions aren't so good. There is no "bait and switch".
"Always felt awkward to close apps only to discover that they were not really closed."
Just like OS X!
"Most people don't need mult-tasking on a phone, and most people will be annoyed by the implementation unless it is super transparent and simple."
Most people who use an iPhone would be pissed if it didn't offer multitasking. The iPhone multitasks, just not for YOUR apps. Apple's apps can get it when they want it, and people definitely want it.
I had plenty of problems with Windows Mobile. That wasn't one of them, unless by "constantly" you mean once or twice a month.
I also used a number of other smartphones with multitasking. The problems that the Apple faithful claim are intractable with multitasking never effected me. It's just another fraud perpetuated by Apple. What did they say about 3rd party apps on an iPhone when it was first introduced? What do they say now? Nothing but BS.
"There is no need for Flash on a touch phone for starters (it just doesn't work), it kills the battery on pretty much any non-ac powered device, and HTML 5 looks far more promising to me."
That's the Apple line anyway. I see you bought it and are regurgitating it.
Flash works fine on a touch phone, just not on one made like Apple's. Apple broke the browsing metaphor that had existed on every platform up until the iPhone. That's what broke flash, not the fact that it's a phone. Apple is responsible for this, they are not the victim.
That said, I'm fine with getting a non-flash version of reality in the future, I'm just annoyed that Apple claims it offers a first class browsing experience when in reality it is more incompatible than those that came before it (and that choice was deliberate).
Perhaps this is an example of how patents are a minefield but there's no example here of a legitimate innovator suffering. Apple uses its patents to implement as aggressive a "minefield" for others as anyone in the industry and, in this case, Apple's patents were purchased. It did not create the innovation itself.
Glad someone has the same reaction as I do. The purpose of cars and roads is to get somewhere. The goal is to do that effectively and safely, not to render it ineffective using any number of secondary goals as an excuse. We could all just walk, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
I love how people like to make up the history of Stallman and the GPL.
"...they can be sure that their contributions won't be gobbled up by some company and then used against them."
How so? Used against them in what way?
"His own contributors gave him grief when they found out that their work had been commercialized without their knowledge."
I won't be looking to you for any history lessons. ;)
You are assuming that app profit was suggested as the ONLY motivation for Apple. It's not even the most important. Nevertheless, no app published for the iPhone is free; developers have to pay just to have their apps available. Apple is not doing charity work here.
You couldn't be more wrong both in the iPhone's reason for existence and for suggesting that it has a fully functional browser.
"The conspiracy theory doesn't add up."
I guess it wouldn't to someone who thinks that HTML5 allows "the same thing" as native apps.
Apple specifically disallows anything that would enable downloading and executing any program bypassing the app store. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's the stated policy.
Apple sold 700,000 iPads the first day? How did they end up with only 400K for the month then?
Calling someone out on a lie isn't nitpicking. Apple hasn't had any single day iPad sales of 300,000 no matter how you view it. They didn't sell 300K on their first day of presales, they didn't sell 300K of first day of store sales, and delivery of 300K's worth of presales doesn't count toward first day sales.
400K in one month is a LOT different than 300K in one day. They won't sell 400K more next month, much less the 10 million/month run rate the original fanboy was suggesting.
"Oddly, the vast majority of the (millions) people who have bought iPhones don't appear to give a shit if there's no flash on them."
What evidence do you have that says that?
"And if you compare iPhone browsing experience to that on the desktop (or netbook), it still sucks big time."
And that is a substantially bigger issue with the iPad since it's essentially the same sucky iPhone browsing experience with a larger, less portable screen.
I liked this analogy better when Apple was a BMW. Still bullshit, just a different flavor.
"... without suffering any ill..."
Not true. Loads of useful web content needs flash to work. This is a personal opinion of questionable motive stated as fact.
They only want lean, mean, fart apps coded directly in C?
"Developers for games consoles have to use the official SDK, why should a handheld gaming platform (that is also a phone) be any different?"
What game consoles have alternative SDKs that have been banned by the platform provider?
"So, why would Apple want to give up control over the API of the devices they've made, while simultaneously throwing away any competitive advantage they might be able to bring in the native toolkit ?"
They wouldn't but that couldn't happen. Apple controls the API regardless, the developer doesn't. Since Apple approves each individual application anyway, why not just refuse apps that have poor, "lowest common denominator" problems directly? Apple does that sort of thing anyway. It would seem that you are looking for a way to cast Adobe as the evil villain by trying to support their customers on a platform that Apple is denying flash access to.
"This isn't *quite* as bad as Palm lying about their USB id's in order to piggy-back on Apple's success, but it's pretty darn close."
Fanboy alert.
"I don't think this is a bad thing for the users - developers are flocking to the platform. "
Fanboy alert 2.
"If Adobe want to play, they need to bring something that excites the user-base, and that Apple can't refute. So far they've *not* done that, and childish rants aren't going to persuade me that they can, in fact, do that. I do love the "comments are disabled because someone might disagree with me" as well [grin] - that just smacks of someone firmly convinced they're in the right... "
Strike 3.
I fail to see how banning an Adobe developer tool does anything to accomplish this. If Adobe is slow to support useful APIs then developers won't use the tool. Problem solved.
No, this isn't about Apple controlling their own destiny. They do that by providing quality tools themselves, not by locking out other tool vendors. This is about screwing Adobe. Name a single instance in the past where something analogous to this has been done to advance a platform. What interests of Apple's are advanced by eliminate all development tools other than their own anyway? Can you name one other company that has done that?
And BTW, IBM would have made competitive G5s had they been able to sell enough to matter. IBM isn't lacking in processor design skill.
"Adobe even used Premiere as leverage against Apple, threatening to stop its development for the Mac, something that would have essentially kicked Apple out of the video editing market. That's why Apple bought and started heavy development of Final Cut (1999?). Adobe in fact pulled the plug from Premiere (2003?) until they realized that this has backfired on them making them loose a lot of the video market (2007?)."
What nonsense. Premiere, though the highest volume seller among editing suites at the time, was not preferred among professionals and had little marketshare on the Mac. The Mac was losing ground rapidly to NT because the PowerPC sucked and MacOS sucked. The apps that gave MacOS its video-editing swagger were leaving Mac for Windows. Apple had to introduce it's own suite to salvage any hope of remaining relevant in that market. Adobe was going to drop Premiere for Mac eventually anyway, the Final Cut move just made it obvious.
When marketshare sucks as bad as Apple's did at the time, and the platform technology hopelessly behind as well, companies like Adobe are looking for leverage against a dying partner, they simply don't give a crap.
" But somewhere in the late 90s Adobe started to drop the ball on Apple as they saw greener pastures in Windows Land. They started to invest much more in the development of the Windows versions of many of their products and Mac versions started to become second-class products."
Here you've given away your fanboy perspective. Wouldn't you invest more into a market that's generating the bulk of your sales? What do you think they owed Apple anyway?
"But with all this, it is not surprising that Apple doesn't want flash anywhere near their new products even if this kills their former ally."
You haven't even touched on the reasons for this. It's not about lack of loyalty, business infidelity, or product bugginess, it's about Jobs's need to control all software that runs on the platform. With flash, applications can be downloaded and run on demand inside a browser. Apple can't have that.
They did that back when Apple was hopelessly uncompetitive with the PowerPC. Apple also brought a competitive video suite to market causing them to drop Premiere on the Mac. Those where good business decisions for Adobe at the time and anyone else in Adobe's position would have done them as well. As for their current UI not being Mac-oriented, a common UI across platforms is also good business and Windows delivers a lot of Adobe's profits.
The claim that graphics designers prefer Macs is a myth anyway.
You don't know much about that test then.
If you can prove prior art then you can invalidate a patent. There is no race to patent a technology---you don't have to patent something just to get the patent before someone else does.
IBM publishes technical articles all the time. The purpose of those is to prevent others from getting patents on stuff that IBM doesn't think is worth the investment but doesn't want to have to defend against either. You don't have to patent, you can simply produce clear prior art.
Pulling for Apple in this case says a lot about you and it's not good.
So you are saying that code owners should be forced to release all future code as open source because they have released some as open source in the past? That may be Stallman's wet dream but the GPL does not and cannot do that. Property remains property; GPL fanatics love to preach that when it suits them. It cuts both ways.
It would seem that the goodwill of a for-profit company remains goodwill even if their future contributions aren't so good. There is no "bait and switch".
"Always felt awkward to close apps only to discover that they were not really closed."
Just like OS X!
"Most people don't need mult-tasking on a phone, and most people will be annoyed by the implementation unless it is super transparent and simple."
Most people who use an iPhone would be pissed if it didn't offer multitasking. The iPhone multitasks, just not for YOUR apps. Apple's apps can get it when they want it, and people definitely want it.
I had plenty of problems with Windows Mobile. That wasn't one of them, unless by "constantly" you mean once or twice a month.
I also used a number of other smartphones with multitasking. The problems that the Apple faithful claim are intractable with multitasking never effected me. It's just another fraud perpetuated by Apple. What did they say about 3rd party apps on an iPhone when it was first introduced? What do they say now? Nothing but BS.
That's why Apple doesn't support it in OS X, right?
"There is no need for Flash on a touch phone for starters (it just doesn't work), it kills the battery on pretty much any non-ac powered device, and HTML 5 looks far more promising to me."
That's the Apple line anyway. I see you bought it and are regurgitating it.
Flash works fine on a touch phone, just not on one made like Apple's. Apple broke the browsing metaphor that had existed on every platform up until the iPhone. That's what broke flash, not the fact that it's a phone. Apple is responsible for this, they are not the victim.
That said, I'm fine with getting a non-flash version of reality in the future, I'm just annoyed that Apple claims it offers a first class browsing experience when in reality it is more incompatible than those that came before it (and that choice was deliberate).
Perhaps this is an example of how patents are a minefield but there's no example here of a legitimate innovator suffering. Apple uses its patents to implement as aggressive a "minefield" for others as anyone in the industry and, in this case, Apple's patents were purchased. It did not create the innovation itself.
Glad someone has the same reaction as I do. The purpose of cars and roads is to get somewhere. The goal is to do that effectively and safely, not to render it ineffective using any number of secondary goals as an excuse. We could all just walk, after all.