Yeah, it also depends on how complex the desktop effects are, I'm sure. What's involved in iPhone OS? They map the window as a texture to a flat plane, and then do some quick low-quality scaling and rotation of the plane. Maybe there's some transparency effects here and there? For a modern computer, even the computers we call "smart phones", those are not particularly complex calculations. And as you mention, the display and wireless networking are going to account for a large percentage of the battery usage anyhow.
And remember, we're talking about devices that we generally expect to be able handle rendering of complex web pages, playback of audio and HD video, and in some cases even video encoding for video chat.
Copyright doesn't actually give profit per anything. The aim was to allow authors to receive a fair portion of the publisher's profits, but it doesn't work that way.
Yeah, I think that the Slashdot situation is that you agree to allow Slashdot the right to republish your writings when you sign up for an account... though I don't know if there's anything particular when you post as an AC. Most sites have some page somewhere where they say, "By posting on our site, you agree that we have [such and such rights] over whatever you post." You're not giving Slashdot the copyright, you're effectively giving Slashdot a license to publish and distribute. Of course, there's rarely a good way of being sure that anyone has read that stuff or actually agreed to it before posting.
But all that stuff is just an attempt at a legal CYA maneuver; none of it actually makes sense with how we think about the Internet or how the Internet works. Stuff gets copied and cached everywhere. People post links and copy little bits of text or even whole articles. Viacom complains about people posting their stuff on Youtube, but don't think that it prevents them from using Youtube clips in the shows that they own. I doubt they bother to attain a license, either.
What I suspect executives have actually thought about these things, over time:
1. Youtube is distributing video content on this Internet thing, but it's mostly stupid user generate stuff and doesn't seem like a big deal.
2. Oh, wait, there's some of our content up on this YouTube thing. We'd better make a big stink and get them to take it down.
3. Requesting takedowns is too much work. We should try to force Youtube to do it for us. After all, we have a lot of leverage here. I'm a big important movie executive.
4. Oh crap. People keep visiting this site even with only user generated stuff. We should think about how to force our way into that market. After all, we're supposed to own all video. But... no... there doesn't seem to be any money in it yet, and the whole Internet fad may die off anyway.
5. Huh, maybe there's something to this Internet thing. We should consider...
6. OH CRAP! Did you see what's happening to the music industry?! This Internet thing is dangerous. How can we kill it?
7. Ah... nevermind. Let's follow the RIAA's lead and blame piracy so we can get strict laws in place that allow us to control all content distribution. If we can turn the Internet into a broadcast network, then we can continue owning all video, plus we'll cut costs.
8. Oh crap, this "blaming piracy" thing isn't working so well for the RIAA. What to do, what to do.... I don't know. Let's stick to our guns: keep trying to kill the Internet, keep lobbying to have it turned into a broadcast network, and keep trying to extort money out of anyone we can. Maybe we'll stumble into a new business model one of these days.
I think it's more like, "sorry, you don't have some inherent right to have special laws for yourselves." I think the problem is that these companies don't think copyright protections should apply to authors and individuals and tech companies. In the minds of the "content industry", all copyright protections are devised to uniquely benefit them and provide them with a guarantee of profitable business dealings. I'm sure Viacom will only really be happy if they manage to get copyright law rewritten to say, "If you enjoy any piece of video, you must pay Viacom. Viacom is permitted to use material which you produce however they want."
Part of copyright is that one should be watching out for their own material, and have any documentation to back it up.
Right. The thing that people *need* to understand is that displaying copyrighted material is not necessarily illegal, even if you're not the copyright holder. I swear, really it's not. In fact, most stuff on the Internet is copyrighted and owned by someone, and a lot of stuff is hosted in various places without any violation. For example, I believe the terms of use for Slashdot are such that I remain holder of the copyright of this post, yet Slashdot will continue to display this post on their site.
Putting the responsibility on every website to prevent copyright violations would be *insane*. For example, is Slashdot supposed to go through every post on this site with a group of lawyers, researching and vetting the content of the post for copyright infringement? And what if I quote part of an article from a copyrighted news article? It's probably "fair use", but it's hard to know where to draw the line. Sometimes when a site has been slashdotted, someone will post the contents of the entire article. That's probably not quite fair use, but it's far from being malicious, so do you need to take that to court every time it comes up?
No. Copyright has always been something where it's up to the copyright holders how strictly they want to enforce the copyright. I could produce a movie, copyright the movie, and purposefully choose not to enforce that copyright. Even if I never choose to license it to anyone under any circumstances, I can allow it to be distributed widely simply by refusing to prosecute. Without a license, anyone distributing the content is opening themselves up for legal action should I choose to enforce the copyright, but those people are safe so long as I never ask them to stop or bring legal action.
Umm... Exactly...? It's a limited-use device with thousands of 3rd party applications. That's remarkably open when compared to a Sony TV or other ebook readers or many other limited-use devices. If there are any points that I actually didn't address, it's probably because i didn't think they worth addressing. I think it's more likely that I did address it but you just didn't like the way I addressed it.
And don't pretend to be chuckling. You and i both know you're angry that I'm daring to contradict your world view, and any talk of chuckling is meant to intimidate me by being condescending.
I agree, but at least part of the problem is that we have a culture that values cheap disposable things and won't pay for high quality.
On the other hand, yes, part of it is companies simply hoping that no one will notice or care that they've skimped on quality, and instead they put their money into advertising and CEO bonuses.
But your Sony TV supports standard video via it's built-in inputs. What would you say if Sony said that playback of recordings from non-Sony devices voided your warranty?
And you can transcode video to H264 and it will play on the iPhone/iPad without voiding your warranty.
What I was trying to point out was that we have a lot single-use (or limited-use) computers all over the place which do not support Flash in any way. Sony and LG have released TVs with enough built-in computing to run Netflix, but they don't support every single possible application and development framework. They don't support every Flash/Silverlight video site. I don't believe they even support 3rd party applications or add-ons *at all*. Neither the Kindle nor the Nook support Flash playback either.
And nobody really complains. There are lots of single-use or limited-use computing devices which don't offer any expandability at all, and we accept it because we expect it. However, whenever Apple releases a limited-use computing device (iPod, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV) everyone flips out because people insist on thinking of Apple devices as general computing devices.
I don't think the idea is to go back to personal websites. Instead the idea is to allow Facebook and MySpace and [insert social networking site here] to talk to each other so that you can pick which site you want to use based on it's own merits rather than being forced (I know you're not really "forced", but still...) into using a particular site because it's the one all your friends are using.
Of course one of the benefits would also be that it would allow you to set up profiles or even your own little social networking site, which would eventually include open source social networking software. But it won't be a return to normal personal websites.
That's the way our (the US's) entire society is being run. Give tax cuts so people can buy yet another HDTV, and meanwhile sit around watching our infrastructure crumble. Spend $10 on a blender that will break in a year rather than spending $30 on a blender that will last 10 years. Reward CEOs who can get big returns for next quarter, even if it means sacrificing the long-term viability of the company.
Someone already mentioned that Google is rumored to be planning to open source VP8, which has been expected since the acquisition. IIRC, the original press release cites a need for open video standards on the web as the reason for the acquisition. It can take some time to open source things, though. They pretty much need to comb through the code and evaluate it for licensing issues and patent issues. They might even be doing some code cleanup along the way to make sure everything is fit for public consumption. I wouldn't be surprised if Google also wants to get the ball rolling on getting it certified as some kind of standard as well as getting some partners on board. When Google issues the press release, it'll make a bigger splash if they can say something like, "This new codec will be open sourced, certified as a valid version of MPEG4, and supported by Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Mozilla, Android based phones, and various major brand set-top boxes," instead of "This new codec will be open sourced. But you kind of still need to use H264 because no one has agreed to support the format yet."
Etherpad's tech has been used in Google Wave for a while, I believe. Google recently enabled collaborative editing in Google Docs word processor documents, using the technology from Etherpad. Plus Etherpad is open sourced and hosted on Google Code.
It's the antithesis to the democratic way of life - namely that the people should be free to make their own choices
I guess so, but Apple isn't the government, so I'm not sure why you expected them to be "democratic".
I think people overblow Apple's closed nature *just a bit*. I mean, yes, I find it frustrating that you can't publish iPhone/iPad apps except through their store, but it's not entirely unique.
Here's the thing: if you think of the iPad as a computer, it's remarkably walled-off. However, if you think of it instead as a consumer device-- like your TV or cable box, or the in-dash GPS/media center in your car-- then those devices are remarkably open for allowing 3rd party apps at all. Until my iPhone, I never had a cell phone that allowed me to install 3rd party apps, at least not in an easy fashion that was accessible enough for me to even be aware of it, and I think that's worth mentioning.
Before you start thinking I'm a total Apple shill, I just traded in my 1st gen iPhone for an HTC Incredible. I'm not a devoted and unquestioning Apple fanatic, but I think it's worth being fair and keeping some perspective.
I don't think Jobs is saying that those languages are the only languages that can be used to write good applications. I think it's more that Apple doesn't want developers taking random desktop applications and web applications and porting themover without optimizing them or redesigning the UI.
Yes, Steve Jobs published his open letter. Then he promptly made a deal with EMI to sell tracks at $1.30 without DRM versus $0.99 with DRM. Then Amazon announced tracks at $0.89-$0.99 without DRM. Whether it was a conspiracy against Apple or not does not matter -- Amazon achieved DRM-free music at the standard $0.99 price point.
DRM-free files were cheaper on Amazon first, but the whole point here is that Amazon would never have been able to swing that deal if not for Apple. You talk as though Apple had the option to drop DRM and lower prices for years, but they refused because they were a bunch of greedy bastards. In fact both the DRM and the price points have been contractual obligations of the record labels from day 1.
This is not my opinion. This is historical fact. Jobs had been anti-DRM since the iTunes store opened, but the record labels would not allow their music to be sold without DRM. Apple had to choose: create a DRM scheme, or have no channel for providing content for the iPod.
Apple had been arguing for dropping DRM and lowering prices, and the record labels always refused. The record labels wanted Apple to allow their DRM applied to *ALL* music sold on the Internet from any store, and Apple refused. Finally record labels agreed to give Amazon a better deal to hurt Apple, and Amazon got DRM-free $0.89 tracks. Apple wasn't legally allowed to sell their tracks DRM-free for $0.89 even if they were willing to sell them at a loss. Finally Apple agreed to the variable pricing that the labels wanted, and suddenly Amazon's prices shot up to match Apple's prices. Only recently they've come back down.
Amazon didn't break down anything. Amazon was the company that the labels happened to pick to get leverage over Apple. If Apple had agreed to license Fairplay, Amazon would be selling Fairplay-wrapped AAC files right now.
That's not a problem with that reasoning. As I said, "Apple *wants* developers to develop apps specifically for the iPhone/iPad because they believe they'll get better apps that way." They don't want people simply porting over existing crappy Flash/Java apps because they think it will overload their approval process with horrible applications. The idea of making concessions for good apps that have been developed well isn't really a contradiction.
Your problem in understanding us is that you see it strictly as "pro-Apple" vs "pro-Adobe", and are confused when a position is advanced which seems to be anti-both. In truth, it's simply "pro-freedom" vs "anti-freedom".
Fine, then talk about any one of the various examples where Apple's lock-down is actually bad for Apple's customers. There are much bigger and more important issues of freedom to talk about, but instead you're piling on Adobe's astroturfing campaign.
Yes, which is part of how they killed DRM in the music industry...
Do I really need to explain? Aren't we all aware of the history of these things?
Fairplay did not kill DRM in the music industry. Amazon [wikipedia.org] killed DRM in the music industry.
Ok, apparently we don't all know the history of these things. Amazon didn't kill DRM. Apple successfully persuaded EMI to drop DRM, and Jobs published an open letter asking them to drop DRM. The record labels were so frightened of the power that Apple was amassing that they allowed Amazon to sell music without DRM while still refusing to allow Apple to sell DRM-free files. It was a strategy by the record labels to hurt Apple's market share.
When it didn't really work, Apple successfully negotiated with the labels to allow DRM-free files. What Apple gave up in the deal was the $0.99/track $9.99/album price point. The labels wanted $1.30 price point for some tracks.
How much RAM does it take to cache a web page? It's not as though I have loads of background applications. Can't it maybe use some of the monster SSD for swap?
I don't know. Seems retarded.
Re:Confusion Over Source of Ire
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Flash Is Not a Right
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Sorry, I don't think that Flash on the iPad is quite at the same level as freedom of speech. My Sony TV also doesn't support playing Flash video, nor does the GPS unit in my car. My firewall at work doesn't decode Flash either. My rights have not been violated by any of this.
Re:Confusion Over Source of Ire
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Flash Is Not a Right
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The outcry is not that Apple is revoking a right but simply that they are deliberately crippling a product... and for what reason?
There are apparently a number of reasons and Jobs gave them. You may not like those reasons, and you may think those reasons are stupid, but I don't really see a lot in the way of grounds to disbelieve that those are the main reasons. To boil it down to what's probably the biggest reason: Apple *wants* developers to develop apps specifically for the iPhone/iPad because they believe they'll get better apps that way. They don't particularly want cross platform apps that have been ported over, because Apple's belief is that they'll get flooded with tons and tons of crappy applications that don't work well and don't take good advantage of their devices' capabilities.
Personally, I think a lot of this anger against Apple for refusing to allow Flash comes from two factors: latent anti-Apple sentiments and successful astroturfing by Adobe. You have tons and tons of people who, a few monts or a year ago, would be complaining loudly about how Flash is a horrible blight on the free Internet, and instead today they're complaining about Apple's evil plot to damage the beautiful and perfect Flash platform by forcing people to use the terrible proprietary H264 format. It's kind of dumb.
If you want to complain about Apple's lock-down, I say go ahead, but pick some better examples. Let's talk about the fact that they're still using DRM on their video purchases. Let's talk about how they rejected the Google Voice app. Let's talk about how you can't put the iPhone or iPad into "disk mode" and copy your files on and off. Those are all instances where Apple is actually restricting functionality. But Flash? Apple's doing us a favor. They're not saying, "You can't build an application that does [such and such]." They're saying you can't build an application using a crappy tool that crashes constantly and causes everyone various problems.
Yeah, I don't agree that it's "the perfect web surfing device"-- but not for the reasons you're going to get flamed for. People are going to call you crazy because it's a little screen, no Flash, no physical keyboard, etc., but after using an iPad for a while, that's not the stuff that bothers me.
The real problem with the iPad as a web browsing device is in how it handles tabbed browsing. I browse the web in a particular way, and it's not quite linear. When I'm reading through a page, if I come across a link that interests me, I open it in a new tab in the background. Then I continue on reading the page until there's nothing else I want, and I close the tab. That automatically brings me to the next tab, from which I do the same thing. It's a very easy and natural way of processing things, and I barely understand the point of having multiple web pages open at the same time if you're not managing things that way.
On the iPad, however, you don't really have tabs. Instead you can back into some other screen where all your open pages appear as thumbnails. Not only is the transition of moving in and out a bit slow and aggravating, but there's no way to open a new page in the background. If you "Open in New Page", it automatically zooms you out, opens a new page, and zooms into that page. Worse yet, a lot of times if you have multiple pages open and you switch from one to another, the page you've just switched to will automatically reload itself. ??!! The whole reason I'd want to be able to keep pages open in the background is so that they'll be all loaded up and ready to go. If I have to wait for them to load each time, then I may as well just bookmark them and avoid the whole shrinky-zoomy animation.
Apple needs to fix that experience. Along with everything else, they have these nice big touchscreens, and the best way they can come up with to change between web pages is to press a button that zooms you out to look at thumbnails? We can't get functionality to have a quick 3-finger swipe take you to "next tab"?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, it also depends on how complex the desktop effects are, I'm sure. What's involved in iPhone OS? They map the window as a texture to a flat plane, and then do some quick low-quality scaling and rotation of the plane. Maybe there's some transparency effects here and there? For a modern computer, even the computers we call "smart phones", those are not particularly complex calculations. And as you mention, the display and wireless networking are going to account for a large percentage of the battery usage anyhow.
And remember, we're talking about devices that we generally expect to be able handle rendering of complex web pages, playback of audio and HD video, and in some cases even video encoding for video chat.
Copyright doesn't actually give profit per anything. The aim was to allow authors to receive a fair portion of the publisher's profits, but it doesn't work that way.
Yeah, I think that the Slashdot situation is that you agree to allow Slashdot the right to republish your writings when you sign up for an account... though I don't know if there's anything particular when you post as an AC. Most sites have some page somewhere where they say, "By posting on our site, you agree that we have [such and such rights] over whatever you post." You're not giving Slashdot the copyright, you're effectively giving Slashdot a license to publish and distribute. Of course, there's rarely a good way of being sure that anyone has read that stuff or actually agreed to it before posting.
But all that stuff is just an attempt at a legal CYA maneuver; none of it actually makes sense with how we think about the Internet or how the Internet works. Stuff gets copied and cached everywhere. People post links and copy little bits of text or even whole articles. Viacom complains about people posting their stuff on Youtube, but don't think that it prevents them from using Youtube clips in the shows that they own. I doubt they bother to attain a license, either.
What I suspect executives have actually thought about these things, over time:
1. Youtube is distributing video content on this Internet thing, but it's mostly stupid user generate stuff and doesn't seem like a big deal.
2. Oh, wait, there's some of our content up on this YouTube thing. We'd better make a big stink and get them to take it down.
3. Requesting takedowns is too much work. We should try to force Youtube to do it for us. After all, we have a lot of leverage here. I'm a big important movie executive.
4. Oh crap. People keep visiting this site even with only user generated stuff. We should think about how to force our way into that market. After all, we're supposed to own all video. But... no... there doesn't seem to be any money in it yet, and the whole Internet fad may die off anyway.
5. Huh, maybe there's something to this Internet thing. We should consider...
6. OH CRAP! Did you see what's happening to the music industry?! This Internet thing is dangerous. How can we kill it?
7. Ah... nevermind. Let's follow the RIAA's lead and blame piracy so we can get strict laws in place that allow us to control all content distribution. If we can turn the Internet into a broadcast network, then we can continue owning all video, plus we'll cut costs.
8. Oh crap, this "blaming piracy" thing isn't working so well for the RIAA. What to do, what to do.... I don't know. Let's stick to our guns: keep trying to kill the Internet, keep lobbying to have it turned into a broadcast network, and keep trying to extort money out of anyone we can. Maybe we'll stumble into a new business model one of these days.
I think it's more like, "sorry, you don't have some inherent right to have special laws for yourselves." I think the problem is that these companies don't think copyright protections should apply to authors and individuals and tech companies. In the minds of the "content industry", all copyright protections are devised to uniquely benefit them and provide them with a guarantee of profitable business dealings. I'm sure Viacom will only really be happy if they manage to get copyright law rewritten to say, "If you enjoy any piece of video, you must pay Viacom. Viacom is permitted to use material which you produce however they want."
Part of copyright is that one should be watching out for their own material, and have any documentation to back it up.
Right. The thing that people *need* to understand is that displaying copyrighted material is not necessarily illegal, even if you're not the copyright holder. I swear, really it's not. In fact, most stuff on the Internet is copyrighted and owned by someone, and a lot of stuff is hosted in various places without any violation. For example, I believe the terms of use for Slashdot are such that I remain holder of the copyright of this post, yet Slashdot will continue to display this post on their site.
Putting the responsibility on every website to prevent copyright violations would be *insane*. For example, is Slashdot supposed to go through every post on this site with a group of lawyers, researching and vetting the content of the post for copyright infringement? And what if I quote part of an article from a copyrighted news article? It's probably "fair use", but it's hard to know where to draw the line. Sometimes when a site has been slashdotted, someone will post the contents of the entire article. That's probably not quite fair use, but it's far from being malicious, so do you need to take that to court every time it comes up?
No. Copyright has always been something where it's up to the copyright holders how strictly they want to enforce the copyright. I could produce a movie, copyright the movie, and purposefully choose not to enforce that copyright. Even if I never choose to license it to anyone under any circumstances, I can allow it to be distributed widely simply by refusing to prosecute. Without a license, anyone distributing the content is opening themselves up for legal action should I choose to enforce the copyright, but those people are safe so long as I never ask them to stop or bring legal action.
Umm... Exactly...? It's a limited-use device with thousands of 3rd party applications. That's remarkably open when compared to a Sony TV or other ebook readers or many other limited-use devices. If there are any points that I actually didn't address, it's probably because i didn't think they worth addressing. I think it's more likely that I did address it but you just didn't like the way I addressed it.
And don't pretend to be chuckling. You and i both know you're angry that I'm daring to contradict your world view, and any talk of chuckling is meant to intimidate me by being condescending.
It's very hard to buy quality anymore.
I agree, but at least part of the problem is that we have a culture that values cheap disposable things and won't pay for high quality.
On the other hand, yes, part of it is companies simply hoping that no one will notice or care that they've skimped on quality, and instead they put their money into advertising and CEO bonuses.
But your Sony TV supports standard video via it's built-in inputs. What would you say if Sony said that playback of recordings from non-Sony devices voided your warranty?
And you can transcode video to H264 and it will play on the iPhone/iPad without voiding your warranty.
What I was trying to point out was that we have a lot single-use (or limited-use) computers all over the place which do not support Flash in any way. Sony and LG have released TVs with enough built-in computing to run Netflix, but they don't support every single possible application and development framework. They don't support every Flash/Silverlight video site. I don't believe they even support 3rd party applications or add-ons *at all*. Neither the Kindle nor the Nook support Flash playback either.
And nobody really complains. There are lots of single-use or limited-use computing devices which don't offer any expandability at all, and we accept it because we expect it. However, whenever Apple releases a limited-use computing device (iPod, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV) everyone flips out because people insist on thinking of Apple devices as general computing devices.
I don't think the idea is to go back to personal websites. Instead the idea is to allow Facebook and MySpace and [insert social networking site here] to talk to each other so that you can pick which site you want to use based on it's own merits rather than being forced (I know you're not really "forced", but still...) into using a particular site because it's the one all your friends are using.
Of course one of the benefits would also be that it would allow you to set up profiles or even your own little social networking site, which would eventually include open source social networking software. But it won't be a return to normal personal websites.
That's the way our (the US's) entire society is being run. Give tax cuts so people can buy yet another HDTV, and meanwhile sit around watching our infrastructure crumble. Spend $10 on a blender that will break in a year rather than spending $30 on a blender that will last 10 years. Reward CEOs who can get big returns for next quarter, even if it means sacrificing the long-term viability of the company.
Someone already mentioned that Google is rumored to be planning to open source VP8, which has been expected since the acquisition. IIRC, the original press release cites a need for open video standards on the web as the reason for the acquisition. It can take some time to open source things, though. They pretty much need to comb through the code and evaluate it for licensing issues and patent issues. They might even be doing some code cleanup along the way to make sure everything is fit for public consumption. I wouldn't be surprised if Google also wants to get the ball rolling on getting it certified as some kind of standard as well as getting some partners on board. When Google issues the press release, it'll make a bigger splash if they can say something like, "This new codec will be open sourced, certified as a valid version of MPEG4, and supported by Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Mozilla, Android based phones, and various major brand set-top boxes," instead of "This new codec will be open sourced. But you kind of still need to use H264 because no one has agreed to support the format yet."
Etherpad's tech has been used in Google Wave for a while, I believe. Google recently enabled collaborative editing in Google Docs word processor documents, using the technology from Etherpad. Plus Etherpad is open sourced and hosted on Google Code.
It's the antithesis to the democratic way of life - namely that the people should be free to make their own choices
I guess so, but Apple isn't the government, so I'm not sure why you expected them to be "democratic".
I think people overblow Apple's closed nature *just a bit*. I mean, yes, I find it frustrating that you can't publish iPhone/iPad apps except through their store, but it's not entirely unique.
Here's the thing: if you think of the iPad as a computer, it's remarkably walled-off. However, if you think of it instead as a consumer device-- like your TV or cable box, or the in-dash GPS/media center in your car-- then those devices are remarkably open for allowing 3rd party apps at all. Until my iPhone, I never had a cell phone that allowed me to install 3rd party apps, at least not in an easy fashion that was accessible enough for me to even be aware of it, and I think that's worth mentioning.
Before you start thinking I'm a total Apple shill, I just traded in my 1st gen iPhone for an HTC Incredible. I'm not a devoted and unquestioning Apple fanatic, but I think it's worth being fair and keeping some perspective.
Any general purpose device that only allows programs that meet the approval of the manufacturer to be installed is by my definition crippled
Fair enough, but of course it raises the question: Is the iPad a "general purpose device"?
Now the mini has been pushed as the easiest way for a PC user to switch to a Mac.
The Mac mini is the cheapest way for a PC user to switch to a mac, but the iMac is definitely easier.
I don't think Jobs is saying that those languages are the only languages that can be used to write good applications. I think it's more that Apple doesn't want developers taking random desktop applications and web applications and porting themover without optimizing them or redesigning the UI.
Yes, Steve Jobs published his open letter. Then he promptly made a deal with EMI to sell tracks at $1.30 without DRM versus $0.99 with DRM. Then Amazon announced tracks at $0.89-$0.99 without DRM. Whether it was a conspiracy against Apple or not does not matter -- Amazon achieved DRM-free music at the standard $0.99 price point.
DRM-free files were cheaper on Amazon first, but the whole point here is that Amazon would never have been able to swing that deal if not for Apple. You talk as though Apple had the option to drop DRM and lower prices for years, but they refused because they were a bunch of greedy bastards. In fact both the DRM and the price points have been contractual obligations of the record labels from day 1.
This is not my opinion. This is historical fact. Jobs had been anti-DRM since the iTunes store opened, but the record labels would not allow their music to be sold without DRM. Apple had to choose: create a DRM scheme, or have no channel for providing content for the iPod.
Apple had been arguing for dropping DRM and lowering prices, and the record labels always refused. The record labels wanted Apple to allow their DRM applied to *ALL* music sold on the Internet from any store, and Apple refused. Finally record labels agreed to give Amazon a better deal to hurt Apple, and Amazon got DRM-free $0.89 tracks. Apple wasn't legally allowed to sell their tracks DRM-free for $0.89 even if they were willing to sell them at a loss. Finally Apple agreed to the variable pricing that the labels wanted, and suddenly Amazon's prices shot up to match Apple's prices. Only recently they've come back down.
Amazon didn't break down anything. Amazon was the company that the labels happened to pick to get leverage over Apple. If Apple had agreed to license Fairplay, Amazon would be selling Fairplay-wrapped AAC files right now.
That's not a problem with that reasoning. As I said, "Apple *wants* developers to develop apps specifically for the iPhone/iPad because they believe they'll get better apps that way." They don't want people simply porting over existing crappy Flash/Java apps because they think it will overload their approval process with horrible applications. The idea of making concessions for good apps that have been developed well isn't really a contradiction.
Your problem in understanding us is that you see it strictly as "pro-Apple" vs "pro-Adobe", and are confused when a position is advanced which seems to be anti-both. In truth, it's simply "pro-freedom" vs "anti-freedom".
Fine, then talk about any one of the various examples where Apple's lock-down is actually bad for Apple's customers. There are much bigger and more important issues of freedom to talk about, but instead you're piling on Adobe's astroturfing campaign.
Apple also refused to license Fairplay DRM
Yes, which is part of how they killed DRM in the music industry...
Do I really need to explain? Aren't we all aware of the history of these things?
Fairplay did not kill DRM in the music industry. Amazon [wikipedia.org] killed DRM in the music industry.
Ok, apparently we don't all know the history of these things. Amazon didn't kill DRM. Apple successfully persuaded EMI to drop DRM, and Jobs published an open letter asking them to drop DRM. The record labels were so frightened of the power that Apple was amassing that they allowed Amazon to sell music without DRM while still refusing to allow Apple to sell DRM-free files. It was a strategy by the record labels to hurt Apple's market share.
When it didn't really work, Apple successfully negotiated with the labels to allow DRM-free files. What Apple gave up in the deal was the $0.99/track $9.99/album price point. The labels wanted $1.30 price point for some tracks.
How much RAM does it take to cache a web page? It's not as though I have loads of background applications. Can't it maybe use some of the monster SSD for swap?
I don't know. Seems retarded.
Sorry, I don't think that Flash on the iPad is quite at the same level as freedom of speech. My Sony TV also doesn't support playing Flash video, nor does the GPS unit in my car. My firewall at work doesn't decode Flash either. My rights have not been violated by any of this.
The outcry is not that Apple is revoking a right but simply that they are deliberately crippling a product ... and for what reason?
There are apparently a number of reasons and Jobs gave them. You may not like those reasons, and you may think those reasons are stupid, but I don't really see a lot in the way of grounds to disbelieve that those are the main reasons. To boil it down to what's probably the biggest reason: Apple *wants* developers to develop apps specifically for the iPhone/iPad because they believe they'll get better apps that way. They don't particularly want cross platform apps that have been ported over, because Apple's belief is that they'll get flooded with tons and tons of crappy applications that don't work well and don't take good advantage of their devices' capabilities.
Personally, I think a lot of this anger against Apple for refusing to allow Flash comes from two factors: latent anti-Apple sentiments and successful astroturfing by Adobe. You have tons and tons of people who, a few monts or a year ago, would be complaining loudly about how Flash is a horrible blight on the free Internet, and instead today they're complaining about Apple's evil plot to damage the beautiful and perfect Flash platform by forcing people to use the terrible proprietary H264 format. It's kind of dumb.
If you want to complain about Apple's lock-down, I say go ahead, but pick some better examples. Let's talk about the fact that they're still using DRM on their video purchases. Let's talk about how they rejected the Google Voice app. Let's talk about how you can't put the iPhone or iPad into "disk mode" and copy your files on and off. Those are all instances where Apple is actually restricting functionality. But Flash? Apple's doing us a favor. They're not saying, "You can't build an application that does [such and such]." They're saying you can't build an application using a crappy tool that crashes constantly and causes everyone various problems.
Just keep this in mind: Apple used Fairplay DRM to kill the use of WMA and DRM in the music industry. Apple's insanity isn't all bad.
Yeah, I don't agree that it's "the perfect web surfing device"-- but not for the reasons you're going to get flamed for. People are going to call you crazy because it's a little screen, no Flash, no physical keyboard, etc., but after using an iPad for a while, that's not the stuff that bothers me.
The real problem with the iPad as a web browsing device is in how it handles tabbed browsing. I browse the web in a particular way, and it's not quite linear. When I'm reading through a page, if I come across a link that interests me, I open it in a new tab in the background. Then I continue on reading the page until there's nothing else I want, and I close the tab. That automatically brings me to the next tab, from which I do the same thing. It's a very easy and natural way of processing things, and I barely understand the point of having multiple web pages open at the same time if you're not managing things that way.
On the iPad, however, you don't really have tabs. Instead you can back into some other screen where all your open pages appear as thumbnails. Not only is the transition of moving in and out a bit slow and aggravating, but there's no way to open a new page in the background. If you "Open in New Page", it automatically zooms you out, opens a new page, and zooms into that page. Worse yet, a lot of times if you have multiple pages open and you switch from one to another, the page you've just switched to will automatically reload itself. ??!! The whole reason I'd want to be able to keep pages open in the background is so that they'll be all loaded up and ready to go. If I have to wait for them to load each time, then I may as well just bookmark them and avoid the whole shrinky-zoomy animation.
Apple needs to fix that experience. Along with everything else, they have these nice big touchscreens, and the best way they can come up with to change between web pages is to press a button that zooms you out to look at thumbnails? We can't get functionality to have a quick 3-finger swipe take you to "next tab"?