There is no reason beyond Apple's software lockdown that the iPhone could not run VLC, VNC, a terminal, emacs, vi, TextEdit, Skype, or any number of games.
It would reassure me that Apple was more interested in serving its customers than caving to the greed of cell phone companies. I don't think I have to explain why this might be the case -- I'll start with "WiFi" and "Skype" and let you figure out the rest.
(There are NO "good" cell phone companies in the United States, in case you don't live here.)
I disagree that stability is a lame excuse for the lack of an SDK because Treo and Blackberry owners have seen firsthand how unstable those platforms can be, particularly with poorly written apps.
No, it's still a lame excuse.
Bob makes a computer for Mike. John writes a program for that computer. Mike loves his computer. As soon as he installs John's program on his computer, it starts crashing. When he removes John's program, it stops crashing.
Why the Christ would Mike blame Bob for his computer crashing?
All Apple has to do is say from the outset, "we can only guarantee the stability of the iPhone with programs that have gone through our quality assurance process." "Stability" problem solved.
Even a Java VM is still crippleware. Give us Cocoa ffs, Apple.
Obviously, Apple has limited resources. No one should expect them to release a fully-featured SDK for a brand-new product at the same time as they are feverishly developing the next version of OS X (which, from the looks of it, has quite a constellation of new features and is likely to need a LOT of debugging before release). I understand this fully. They simply don't have the budget of Microsoft to do something like that.
It's easy to make demands. But how much value will be immediately delivered by the release of mobile-Cocoa on the iPhone? How much risk? If your position is that it would be all win and no lose, then please explain why delivering Safari on Windows was immediately met by scorn and criticism. Safari is a web browser, not a mobile platform!
I'm not quite sure I follow your logic here. What does Safari-on-Windows have to do with value added to the iPhone by mobile Cocoa? You are precisely right, Safari is a web browser, not a mobile platform. There is some speculation that the Safari implementation on the iPhone will be capable of running AJAX applications locally, using a framework like Google Gears. Unfortunately, that has not been confirmed.
What bothers me is that there is no indication they are even thinking about releasing an SDK ever. It's fine to say "hey, you can just write stuff for the web and be guaranteed that it will also work on the iPhone, no matter what it is," but for God's sake, say something like "we have several application development paradigms in mind for the iPhone. Among them, we're really excited about the ability to Web 2.0 blah blah blah." If we are meant to understand that eventually there will be a native SDK, ffs let us know.
Certainly you can imagine that the Apple Trolls and Black Hat hackers--who already have a bone to pick with Apple over being exposed as frauds--would pounce upon even minor security issues on the iPhone exposed by a wide open, full access API, just as they do so over the ability to crash the new beta Safari 3.0 browser.
I don't see this as being particularly important. It would be fairly trivial for Apple to make it so that you had to do something specific on the PC side to even enable the running of 3rd-party applications of any kind (turn "Unsupported Application Framework" on, or something like that). It is a truism that if you write code for a system, it is possible for the system to get viruses. As for Safari -- so what? It's a beta.
While I'd be happy to hear alternative viewpoints based on reason and logic, I'm a bit tired of hearing a nothing but a mixture of tired stereotype and cliche to explain why Jobs and Apple are persecuting the innocent just because Jobs is a maniac and Apple is a monstrous entity threatening the freedom of people who are happy to be monopolized.
I don't think they're persecuting anyone. Moreover, if I've made you think that I am saying the iPhone will be a failure, this is a false impression. I don't think it will fail at all. I just don't think it will be as successful as it could have been if they had thrown us a bigger bone than AJAX to chew on.
Your pages-long rants reveal you as a complete lunatic. Good job.
If there were anyone other than you reading this thread, they would now understand eeeeverything about you. But since there isn't, guess I get to just look back and laugh!
Thanks! And this was going to be such a boring Tuesday!
Don't presume this was a brilliant business decision made by their infallible marketing oracles. I think a lot of it comes down to Steve's ego rather than practicality.
You make the common mistake of assuming a person or business cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. What is attractive about the iPhone is the following:
1) Extremely shiny and effective UI 2) Full implementation of WebKit on the device 3) Visual voicemail 4) iPod/iTunes functionality
There are things Apple HAS SAID about this device that would also make it attractive if they were true or MEANT anything to the user, such as:
5) It runs OS X! It has Cocoa!
Note that the "Cocoa" bit has since been stripped from the Apple website. However, the point is that there is nothing about "open API" that is mutually exclusive with 1, 2, 3, or 4.
This is a classic Steve Jobs "I want absolute control regardless of the good of the consumer" move. Nothing more, nothing less.
Had Apple released a proprietary "mobile-Cocoa," would you be happier as a FOSS developer?
Yes.
Would your iPhone apps run at something closer to "full speed"?
Yes.
Would you even write apps for a proprietary mobile platform if you called yourself a FOSS developer?
FOSS developers write apps for proprietary non-mobile platforms (c.f. Windows and Macintosh). Why should they not write them for proprietary mobile platforms -- especially one that is so amenable to having existing OSX programs recompiled for it? Hell, ever head of TCPMP? Yes, clearly no one writes open-source software for mobile devices.
Can you say "GNU toolset?" i.e. Fink / MacPorts and all of the stuff that comes with OSX. How about just "Terminal?" Or "SSH?" Maybe even "NetHack?" VNC, VLC, any other media players, any games that take advantage of the iPhone's graphics hardware -- all of these things are now impossible on the iPhone barring some kind of miraculous hack (miraculous because there is no available compiler/linker/UI toolkit/ANYTHING).
You told me I was "too young to be in grad school." Don't you remember, Alex?
I don't think "everyone" is you. I KNOW that only you are obsessive enough to keep this going and keep rambling on and on about whether or not I have credentials in one thing or another.
This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. The natural instinct of most shoppers is to look for the cheapest thing that fits into the category they want, regardless of quality or bang for your buck.
I'm just wondering how long it's going to be before the "ATTN: SWITCHEURS" guy comments this story.
a normal person (i.e. "not APK") would have stopped replying to me by now, or at least stopped making speeches.
You just can't stop making speeches, though, can you? It's part of how you're wired: anything perceived as an "attack" MUST BE MET with allllll the reasons the attacker is wrong, stupid, and evil. You can't ignore anything.
Such a sad, pathetic, 50 year old little boy you are, Alex.
I know you quite well, APK. You've let your own true colors shine through over and over again.
Move out of your dad's house. Really. You'll feel so much freer!
Why did you start this up again when you claim to feel so put upon if someone trolls you? I didn't go looking for you again, you came to me.
Is it because I'm the closest thing you've ever had to a friend? Wow. That is really, really sad.
Hey, whatever happened to that "online stalking" lawsuit you were going to file against me? It's a month later and no papers served! I'm starting to get bored over here!
I do realize that internet psychiatrists who did not go to university for psychiatry that make psyche evaluations of others without educational certifications end up wearing egg on their faces when they are shown to be just delusional thinking they are.
You just can't resist using your own talking points over and over again, can you? No wonder you're a homophobic conservatard, Alex.
would this theoretically let you transmit information from point A to point B at the speed of light if, for example, point A was entirely isolated from point B (by a 400-foot thick hollow globe of lead, for example)?
Slashdot Mirror
what is meant by some people by "real apps."
There is no reason beyond Apple's software lockdown that the iPhone could not run VLC, VNC, a terminal, emacs, vi, TextEdit, Skype, or any number of games.
You're boring. Bye.
you judge everyone and anyone replying to you calling the apk or alex (whoever that is)
I judge you to be incapable of communicating in English, APK.
but for some reason the link didn't work. Maybe I forgot to close a tag.
But algae is still your friend.
Algae is your friend.
No, it's not the fairest place. How about tolls?
Reduce the price of fuel and charge more in road tolls. Now you don't have to worry about discouraging people from using biofuels.
It would reassure me that Apple was more interested in serving its customers than caving to the greed of cell phone companies. I don't think I have to explain why this might be the case -- I'll start with "WiFi" and "Skype" and let you figure out the rest.
(There are NO "good" cell phone companies in the United States, in case you don't live here.)
I disagree that stability is a lame excuse for the lack of an SDK because Treo and Blackberry owners have seen firsthand how unstable those platforms can be, particularly with poorly written apps.
No, it's still a lame excuse.
Bob makes a computer for Mike.
John writes a program for that computer.
Mike loves his computer. As soon as he installs John's program on his computer, it starts crashing.
When he removes John's program, it stops crashing.
Why the Christ would Mike blame Bob for his computer crashing?
All Apple has to do is say from the outset, "we can only guarantee the stability of the iPhone with programs that have gone through our quality assurance process." "Stability" problem solved.
Even a Java VM is still crippleware. Give us Cocoa ffs, Apple.
Twelfst?
Obviously, Apple has limited resources. No one should expect them to release a fully-featured SDK for a brand-new product at the same time as they are feverishly developing the next version of OS X (which, from the looks of it, has quite a constellation of new features and is likely to need a LOT of debugging before release). I understand this fully. They simply don't have the budget of Microsoft to do something like that.
It's easy to make demands. But how much value will be immediately delivered by the release of mobile-Cocoa on the iPhone? How much risk? If your position is that it would be all win and no lose, then please explain why delivering Safari on Windows was immediately met by scorn and criticism. Safari is a web browser, not a mobile platform!
I'm not quite sure I follow your logic here. What does Safari-on-Windows have to do with value added to the iPhone by mobile Cocoa? You are precisely right, Safari is a web browser, not a mobile platform. There is some speculation that the Safari implementation on the iPhone will be capable of running AJAX applications locally, using a framework like Google Gears. Unfortunately, that has not been confirmed.
What bothers me is that there is no indication they are even thinking about releasing an SDK ever. It's fine to say "hey, you can just write stuff for the web and be guaranteed that it will also work on the iPhone, no matter what it is," but for God's sake, say something like "we have several application development paradigms in mind for the iPhone. Among them, we're really excited about the ability to Web 2.0 blah blah blah." If we are meant to understand that eventually there will be a native SDK, ffs let us know.
Certainly you can imagine that the Apple Trolls and Black Hat hackers--who already have a bone to pick with Apple over being exposed as frauds--would pounce upon even minor security issues on the iPhone exposed by a wide open, full access API, just as they do so over the ability to crash the new beta Safari 3.0 browser.
I don't see this as being particularly important. It would be fairly trivial for Apple to make it so that you had to do something specific on the PC side to even enable the running of 3rd-party applications of any kind (turn "Unsupported Application Framework" on, or something like that). It is a truism that if you write code for a system, it is possible for the system to get viruses. As for Safari -- so what? It's a beta.
While I'd be happy to hear alternative viewpoints based on reason and logic, I'm a bit tired of hearing a nothing but a mixture of tired stereotype and cliche to explain why Jobs and Apple are persecuting the innocent just because Jobs is a maniac and Apple is a monstrous entity threatening the freedom of people who are happy to be monopolized.
I don't think they're persecuting anyone. Moreover, if I've made you think that I am saying the iPhone will be a failure, this is a false impression. I don't think it will fail at all. I just don't think it will be as successful as it could have been if they had thrown us a bigger bone than AJAX to chew on.
Your pages-long rants reveal you as a complete lunatic. Good job.
If there were anyone other than you reading this thread, they would now understand eeeeverything about you. But since there isn't, guess I get to just look back and laugh!
Thanks! And this was going to be such a boring Tuesday!
Don't presume this was a brilliant business decision made by their infallible marketing oracles. I think a lot of it comes down to Steve's ego rather than practicality.
You make the common mistake of assuming a person or business cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. What is attractive about the iPhone is the following:
1) Extremely shiny and effective UI
2) Full implementation of WebKit on the device
3) Visual voicemail
4) iPod/iTunes functionality
There are things Apple HAS SAID about this device that would also make it attractive if they were true or MEANT anything to the user, such as:
5) It runs OS X! It has Cocoa!
Note that the "Cocoa" bit has since been stripped from the Apple website. However, the point is that there is nothing about "open API" that is mutually exclusive with 1, 2, 3, or 4.
This is a classic Steve Jobs "I want absolute control regardless of the good of the consumer" move. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of your Windows IT Pro trainwreck.
That's all I really have to say to this.
Had Apple released a proprietary "mobile-Cocoa," would you be happier as a FOSS developer?
Yes.
Would your iPhone apps run at something closer to "full speed"?
Yes.
Would you even write apps for a proprietary mobile platform if you called yourself a FOSS developer?
FOSS developers write apps for proprietary non-mobile platforms (c.f. Windows and Macintosh). Why should they not write them for proprietary mobile platforms -- especially one that is so amenable to having existing OSX programs recompiled for it? Hell, ever head of TCPMP? Yes, clearly no one writes open-source software for mobile devices.
Can you say "GNU toolset?" i.e. Fink / MacPorts and all of the stuff that comes with OSX. How about just "Terminal?" Or "SSH?" Maybe even "NetHack?" VNC, VLC, any other media players, any games that take advantage of the iPhone's graphics hardware -- all of these things are now impossible on the iPhone barring some kind of miraculous hack (miraculous because there is no available compiler/linker/UI toolkit/ANYTHING).
You told me I was "too young to be in grad school." Don't you remember, Alex?
I don't think "everyone" is you. I KNOW that only you are obsessive enough to keep this going and keep rambling on and on about whether or not I have credentials in one thing or another.
I have this phone and I'd love to see that.
This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. The natural instinct of most shoppers is to look for the cheapest thing that fits into the category they want, regardless of quality or bang for your buck.
I'm just wondering how long it's going to be before the "ATTN: SWITCHEURS" guy comments this story.
a normal person (i.e. "not APK") would have stopped replying to me by now, or at least stopped making speeches.
You just can't stop making speeches, though, can you? It's part of how you're wired: anything perceived as an "attack" MUST BE MET with allllll the reasons the attacker is wrong, stupid, and evil. You can't ignore anything.
Such a sad, pathetic, 50 year old little boy you are, Alex.
that you are still replying to me proves you are APK.
Get a life, Alex. Then get help.
I know you quite well, APK. You've let your own true colors shine through over and over again.
Move out of your dad's house. Really. You'll feel so much freer!
Why did you start this up again when you claim to feel so put upon if someone trolls you? I didn't go looking for you again, you came to me.
Is it because I'm the closest thing you've ever had to a friend? Wow. That is really, really sad.
Hey, whatever happened to that "online stalking" lawsuit you were going to file against me? It's a month later and no papers served! I'm starting to get bored over here!
I do realize that internet psychiatrists who did not go to university for psychiatry that make psyche evaluations of others without educational certifications end up wearing egg on their faces when they are shown to be just delusional thinking they are.
You just can't resist using your own talking points over and over again, can you? No wonder you're a homophobic conservatard, Alex.
but I'm pretty sure you get a Cunning Stunt Bonus for it.
Narcissists wear their twisted little black hearts on their sleeves.
would this theoretically let you transmit information from point A to point B at the speed of light if, for example, point A was entirely isolated from point B (by a 400-foot thick hollow globe of lead, for example)?
YOU COULDN'T RESIST, COULD YOU?
You just couldn't do it! You couldn't stay away! You HAD to start it up again!
Oh, man. Alex, you are the losingest loser that has ever lost.