Are you sure? The wording of 401(d) visual works and 402(d) audio works regarding the notice is the same; the defendant must merely have "had access to" the work...
The problem is with the harper case, on appeal it was ruled that if a CD existed somewhere which the defendant could have "sought out and looked at" she should be aware it was copyrighted. Court rulings with regard to visual copies have ruled just the opposite, in cases where the copyright notice was covered or cropped.
Their Censorship of the App store makes them responsible for the content.
Every publisher is responsible for what they publish.
They cannot say "We control everything that gets sold, but we're not responsible for it."
No, nor can other publishers. What Apple can do is say, "we did not know the person submitting it did not own the rights to the code but was sublicensing. So we're an innocent infringer, pulled it as soon as we were notified, and liable only for real damages, not punitive damages going forward.
Plenty of legal wiggle room for both the developer and apple to get screwed.
Well, they both have legal liabilities, the former more than the latter.
Whether or not the FSF will sue an individual or corporation or both is up to them.
The FSF must have standing, i.e. own the code or be acting as an agent of the copyright holders. The FSF never sues over infringement unless it is willful and the company in question refuses to make changes to come into compliance. They notified Apple and the developer and Apple already acted.
It's always great when some random guy on Slashdot who probably knows nothing about the topic espouses exactly the opposite of what all the experts say. Apple has a price to earnings ratio over 20. Microsoft's is 13, and Exxon's is 13.5.
It seems to me that you could freely distribute the source code under the developer agreement, you just couldn't distribute the binaries other than on Apple's App store.
That is what makes this incompatible with the GPL. You cannot legally restrict distribution of the binary and still be covered.
This is prohibited under the App store, each download is code signed to only work for one account. Thus it is a prohibition on the user, not the developer.
Actually that is fine. They are not required to give you the keys to make it useful or even help you get it off of your iPhone and onto something else. What they can't do is tell the developer or anyone else they can't distribute the binary elsewhere.
For some reason not understandable to normal people the law was changed with regard to only phonorecording in 1988 (17-4-402 of the legal code) to make a copyright notice on a physical CD mean that people who download a file off the internet and who may have never even seen the CD let alone notice, have been notified and do not qualify as "innocent infringers". For all other types of copyrights, normal innocent infringer status still exists.
You can't sue for statutory penalties unless the copyright is registered, that's all.
While having a copyright registered does effect statutory damages it does not preclude other punitive damages.
Apple also needs to open osx to all pc's as well. As it they get bigger then[sic] M$ they they may be forced to.
Apple might be forced to separate their desktop OS and desktop computer businesses, but not until they have dominance in one of those markets, we're talking 70% or so as a general guideline. It's unlikely they will ever reach such levels.
But you can't do this without the Apple Store's involvement, which is the point. Stop being deliberately obtuse, TJ.
Actually, distributors are not bound to help you transfer files, just not prevent you. Apple doesn't have to show you how to move app files off your iPhone, they just can't legally prevent you from so doing if you figure it out. It's just like Tivo not being responsible for showing you how to copy binaries off their devices and onto a PC.
They weren't leveraging their dominance against the RIAA, they were leveraging their dominance OF the RIAA against potential competitors.
Allegedly, Apple threatened to retaliate if any music label participated in Amazon's 'MP3 Daily Deal' promotion, which offered early access to some MP3 tracks.
Which is great and all, except Amazon is already being charged differentially less than Apple in music royalties by the RIAA as a way of intentionally decreasing Apple's market share so they have less influence compared to the RIAA. Amazon is a stalking horse as much as a competitor here.
If Apple has distributed something derived from GPL'd code, without complying with the terms of the GPL, then they are liable for copyright infringement (for profit, potential large statutory fine).
Actually, you can't claim damages beyond what you can prove you lost as a result of copyright infringement unless you notify the offending party first and they do not stop the copying. Since Apple did, no large fines unless there are some weird new laws I haven't heard about.
Heh, investigating Apple for leveraging dominance against the RIAA, A cartel convicted of antitrust abuses several times? How about dealing with them effectively first?
If I were Apple, I would just pull the app and call it done. Why bother mucking around with the GPL and the like? Why run the risk of having to deal with demands for access, etc?
That's probably what they will do, but you never know. More apps in the app store means more happy customers and may lead to more iPhone sales. Apple is a pretty OSS savvy company and knows the value of cooperation with the open source community. They also happen to have a lot of OSS geeks working there. It is possible Apple will take the harder, but more conciliatory approach of adding a license clause to exempt GPL software from the no-redistribution clause and in so doing open the way for GPL code to make it's way through the app store. Apple already has mechanisms in place to deal with requests for source for their own applications and they have the source for submitted apps, so it is doable.
What a software license breach and someone doesn't threaten with lawsuits and horse whippings?!
The FSF almost invariably tries to contact companies and take a non-litigious approach first. Their goal is to promote OSS and they can do that a lot better by contacting companies and convincing them to comply and contribute, rather than costing those companies cash out of pocket and making them scared of OSS in future.
Apple will pull the app from the store LONG before they allow actual open software to slip through their stranglehold on content.
My understanding is that to comply, Apple would just have to remove the clause that says if you create an app with their SDK you can't distribute that same version elsewhere, as that is what conflicts with the GPL. So all they'd have to do is add an exception for GPL apps and it would be of no real detriment to Apple. They probably will not, but they certainly could.
You wouldn't know it from the summary, but mostly, this is an issue with some people taking a GPL app and violating the license and in the process authorizing Apple to redistribute and violate the license as well in the process. It's really no different from someone submitting a closed source app they don't have license to to Apple's app store.
Apple's move to support HTML5 is commendable, but don't doubt for an instant that they also have an interest in breaking the back of Flash.
Of course they do. I already explained some good reasons why. Getting rid of Flash gets rid of a proprietary component and replaces it with an open standard one. It's good for Apple and good for end users. Where's the problem?
Apple's mindshare with casual users is tremendous.
That doesn't really matter in terms of application development. What matters is what application developers think, and while I'm sure some of them don't research markets before deciding what to target and how, I don't think that is the norm.
The big fight right now is not among Apple, Android, RIM, Nokia et al, but rather between Apple and Android. The latter two have traditionally targeted the business and prosumer markets and have mature offerings there.
Listen, I know geeks care a lot about cool and new technology and whatnot and focus less on older more established tech. That doesn't mean you can discount the largest players as not important to a market. Apple only has about 15% of the worldwide smartphone market. Making it harder for developers to target the iPhone and other phones at the same time is only going to hurt Apple unless there are other benefits in that same action.It would be like Microsoft making the Zune less compatible with iPod accessories, not going to help in and of itself.
Your argument that Apple's exclusion of Flash is based exclusively on concern about application quality is a little naive, I think.
But you haven't presented another motivation for Apple that makes any sense or has any supporting evidence.
If applications developed with Adobe's tools are lower in quality than the native offerings, consumers will recognize that and opt not to use them.
How will users do that? Are most users going to know which applications are eating up their battery life? Are users going to blame Adobe if their security is compromised and they get a virus? Even if they do, does that mean it won't lead to Apple losing a sale next time the user buys a phone? Are users going to recognize that it is Adobe's fault a large swath of applications don't have functions they've never heard of, or will they simply think iPhones and other phones have about the same level of functionality, not recognizing that functionality offered by Apple is being filtered out? Users can be counted on to act in their own best interests and while blame is great and all, it doesn't mean they will buy iPhones because it is Adobe's fault iPhones are no better than Android phones.
Additional choices are a win for consumers here, the only one who stands to lose is Apple. Denying that their actions here are not motivated at least in part by unadulterated self-interest is disingenuous.
No, what's twisted is saying Apple is breaking cross-platform compatibility to hurt other platforms when that doesn't even make logical sense. I've explained ways in which Apple's actions make sense and are benefitting Apple. You've just asserted that somehow breaking cross platform compatibility helps Apple and is in their best interests. Clearly Apple acts in its own best interests, but you have to present what those interests are and show how an action benefits them if you want me to take your hypothesis of Apple's motivation seriously. All you have so far is an assertion and a non sequitur.
The reason you cant understand this is because you dont account for the fact that Apple wants to lock users and developers into their prductlines[sic] wholely and solely.
You're right, I don't "account for that" or rather I don't just blindly accept it as true without any evidence. But then, you haven't presented any evidence as yet.
If you want to develop for the Iphone, you have to use a Imac, end of story and they will be checking.
Citation? I have a friend who develops on a MacBook (a Mac, not an iMac) and I know another guy who uses a Hackintosh. How are they checking and do you have any support for this assertion?
If you want to use the internet on your Iphone you have to use Safari and it's implementation of web standards/frameworks, end of story and they will be checking.
You know that the internet and the Web are different things, right? As for accessing the Web you can use the built in Webkit with any browser that wants to use it or you can use browsers like the one offered by Opera that perform server side rendering. Or you can jailbreak your device and use whatever you want. But I fail to see how this locks developers into developing only for iPhones. The Webkit engine is open source and in use by lots of major browsers including Chrome and being used to render all applications on WebOS. It is a very cross platform layer.
More important then selling Iphones is making sure existing customers cant leave...
So Apple doesn't want to make money? Selling iPhones gets Apple cash. What does locking in users get them? Small amounts of additional revenue from the services they run only slightly better than break even?
Many fanboys have pointed out that Apple cant[sic] compete with other vendors, so they need to lock in their entire supply chain and userbase.
Yeah, and many fanboys have pointed out that Microsoft is not a monopoly and that Barack Obama is muslim. What's your point? Many people make unsupportable assertions all the time. I don't believe everything asserted by random individuals.
Yeah, pretty much... unless you want to write HTML5 apps according to Apples implantation of course.
There, fixed that for you. Such a glaring omission.
What are you twelve or something?
HTML5 is not yet a standard and Apple is tying[sic] to take control of it and force all users on all platforms into Apple's implementation of a standard.
Apple was one of the founders of HTML5 but they're collaborating on making it. I've heard no complaints from Google and Opera and Mozilla about Apple's involvement or their trying to take over. The working group has had disagreements and made compromises with one another, but if you're going to assert Apple is trying to take over the standard, you need to support that with actual facts.
. That means using Apple's chosen codec and how Apple chooses to interpret tags such as video and canvas.
HTML5 does not specify a codec. That was a compromise made when Apple and Google wanted one codec and Mozilla wanted another. As for video and canvas tags, I follow the developments. I've seen complaints about Adobe and Microsoft (not group chairs) attempting to slow progress with those tags or make them less useful, specifically the Adobe procedural issues brought up by Hickson. Those issues were then resolved and everyone moved on. I've heard not a single complaint about Apple. So, where's your evidence that Apple is trying to take control of HTML5 and prevent it from being a useful cross platform application layer? I can provide citations about the huge amount of OSS code they've donated with regard to Webkit interpreting HTML5 and on free HTML5 application development tools if you want.
To say that competing in a marathon or two is "likely" to damage someone permanently is just plain wrong. It's only "likely" if you doing something completely wrong.
Competing in marathons is doing something wrong from an exercise standpoint. Unless there are changes made to the way marathons are conducted, they take place on paved surfaces in a single run. That is a high impact exercise that is very bad for the joints. Will most people who run a marathon have a medical problem as a result of training and doing it? I don't know. Probably not. But then, just playing russian roulette twice is unlikely to kill you either, but not many people recommend it as an activity to kids. There are plenty of methods of exercise that are much, much safer and better designed to not cause long term harm.
Apple wants to control the development platform because it locks developers into supporting only Apple's end user hardware...
That's just your speculation and not supported by the facts. Why are they dumping so much money into free HTML5 dev tools and support for HTML5 apps in Webkit if their goal is to prevent cross platform apps? Also, why would taking steps that make cross platform development in and of itself help Apple instead of hurt them. Generally, breaking interoperability only helps when you have dominant market share, otherwise it hurts the bottom line. So basically, your hypothesis has no support.
So I'l change my statement to be that there are some elements of journalism that I don't understand.
Actually there seem to be elements of the english language you don't understand, specifically tense. Just because there used to be something larger doesn't mean this isn't the largest currently in existence. What you're confusing is "the largest" for "the largest that ever existed", or the record holder for the largest size. The article is correct. It just doesn't mean what you seem to have thought.
I'm not saying proprietary is a better way to go but current standards don't cut it. Design by committee doesn't work.
Isn't that kind of like saying bars not owned by the mob suck because they always have shattered windows, light on fire regularly, and the bartenders all have broken fingers? Design by committee can work well, unless all progress is halted for a decade by a single monopolist who illegally leverages their position to prevent cross-platform Web apps from being viable. Web standards and progress stalled because MS outright refused to implement any of them in IE and IE has an artificially inflated market share from being bundled with a desktop OS that has monopoly influence on the market. Several different Web standards were put forward and a reference implementation created over the years but they all died because developers couldn't use them because 60%+ of users were on IE and MS refused to play ball.
Another reason Apple is so dead-set against using Adobe Flash on their iPhone/iPads is because they would lose their exclusive development platform of XCode on their custom Mac hardware. And if Apple is anything, they are a hardware company.
I'm trying hard to understand what you're trying to say here. Apple makes piles of money selling iPhones. They make next to nothing selling Macs to iPhone developers. There simply aren't very many app developers compared to iPhone users. You'd have to be dim to make architectural decisions about the iPhone with that tiny amount of profit as a motivator instead of iPhone profit. I agree Apple wants to control the dev tools, but I think that's because they want to be able to sell more iPhones. They sell more iPhones by making the iPhone platform better for end users and part of that is adding new features other phones don't have and getting developers to use them. Third party dev tools are a tollbooth run by another company in this process.
Basically what they are saying (after they changed their licensing agreement for iPhone/iPad developers) is that if you want to write software for us you will type in code in XCode and compile it using that compiler and submit it to us for approval.
Yeah, pretty much... unless you want to write HTML5 apps, of course.
If they allowed native compiled code from other software developers, then anybody with Adobe's latest CS5 Flash (even on Windows!) could create native iPhone binaries using the well-known Flash dev environment.
Yup, that was Adobe's plan. Apple doesn't want that to happen. Think of it from Apple's perspective. You dump a few million into doing something cool for the iPhone, say just in time compiler improvements and a battery saving architecture. Suddenly apps use 20% less battery and the iPhone effectively has a 20% longer battery life than competitors with the same hardware. Score! But wait, while this is built into the iPhone and Apple's developer tools, requiring just a recompile for app developers to make it happen for their app, what about third party tools? Suddenly you've got thousands of apps made with Adobe's tools and those don't get the improvements until Adobe gets around to implementing them in their Flash suite, if they ever do. Apple already has this problem on OS X, with many major cross platform apps completely failing to support the cool features offered by the OS. So now, despite spending millions on R&D to differentiate their platform from other phones and make something better, Apple is waiting on Adobe to get around to doing work before their investment pays off. And meanwhile other companies are copying Apple's improvements. Will Adobe even get around to implementing it until it is on pretty much every platform and is no longer a differentiator to drive sales? Will they ever get around to it? They sure don't have a great track record so far, with Flash apps performing abysmally on OS X and Linux. So what is Apple to do? Clearly, they ban third party dev tools that can be blockers.
And porting Flash games over would take work, but not nearly as much as buying a Mac and re-writing everything in Objective-C.
This is true and is a detriment to Apple and their platform, but they seem to think it is worth it to deal with the problem above. The market will decide in a few years if they were right.
And all those annoying Flash banner ads! I'm glad they're gone... I mean being replaced by Apple iAd so they can control the entire advertising "experience" for your online devices.
Umm, I don't think Flash ads and Apple's iAd program are really comparable. It's more like an adwords competitor aimed at the mobile market.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you sure? The wording of 401(d) visual works and 402(d) audio works regarding the notice is the same; the defendant must merely have "had access to" the work...
The problem is with the harper case, on appeal it was ruled that if a CD existed somewhere which the defendant could have "sought out and looked at" she should be aware it was copyrighted. Court rulings with regard to visual copies have ruled just the opposite, in cases where the copyright notice was covered or cropped.
Their Censorship of the App store makes them responsible for the content.
Every publisher is responsible for what they publish.
They cannot say "We control everything that gets sold, but we're not responsible for it."
No, nor can other publishers. What Apple can do is say, "we did not know the person submitting it did not own the rights to the code but was sublicensing. So we're an innocent infringer, pulled it as soon as we were notified, and liable only for real damages, not punitive damages going forward.
Plenty of legal wiggle room for both the developer and apple to get screwed.
Well, they both have legal liabilities, the former more than the latter.
Whether or not the FSF will sue an individual or corporation or both is up to them.
The FSF must have standing, i.e. own the code or be acting as an agent of the copyright holders. The FSF never sues over infringement unless it is willful and the company in question refuses to make changes to come into compliance. They notified Apple and the developer and Apple already acted.
Irrelevant.
You brought it up, or were you just planning on making an insinuation with nothing behind it?
Is that AAPL is grossly overvalued.
It's always great when some random guy on Slashdot who probably knows nothing about the topic espouses exactly the opposite of what all the experts say. Apple has a price to earnings ratio over 20. Microsoft's is 13, and Exxon's is 13.5.
Apple is the second most valuable company in the world behind Exxon. Look it up.
Actually, it's the second most valuable American company in the world, not second overall.
It seems to me that you could freely distribute the source code under the developer agreement, you just couldn't distribute the binaries other than on Apple's App store.
That is what makes this incompatible with the GPL. You cannot legally restrict distribution of the binary and still be covered.
This is prohibited under the App store, each download is code signed to only work for one account. Thus it is a prohibition on the user, not the developer.
Actually that is fine. They are not required to give you the keys to make it useful or even help you get it off of your iPhone and onto something else. What they can't do is tell the developer or anyone else they can't distribute the binary elsewhere.
Don't you mean or are the RIAA?
Pretty much, the law was amended in 1988 to not apply to phonorecordings.
What? Untrue
No, it i quite true.
This would wreck prosecution of filesharing.
For some reason not understandable to normal people the law was changed with regard to only phonorecording in 1988 (17-4-402 of the legal code) to make a copyright notice on a physical CD mean that people who download a file off the internet and who may have never even seen the CD let alone notice, have been notified and do not qualify as "innocent infringers". For all other types of copyrights, normal innocent infringer status still exists.
You can't sue for statutory penalties unless the copyright is registered, that's all.
While having a copyright registered does effect statutory damages it does not preclude other punitive damages.
Apple also needs to open osx to all pc's as well. As it they get bigger then[sic] M$ they they may be forced to.
Apple might be forced to separate their desktop OS and desktop computer businesses, but not until they have dominance in one of those markets, we're talking 70% or so as a general guideline. It's unlikely they will ever reach such levels.
But you can't do this without the Apple Store's involvement, which is the point. Stop being deliberately obtuse, TJ.
Actually, distributors are not bound to help you transfer files, just not prevent you. Apple doesn't have to show you how to move app files off your iPhone, they just can't legally prevent you from so doing if you figure it out. It's just like Tivo not being responsible for showing you how to copy binaries off their devices and onto a PC.
They weren't leveraging their dominance against the RIAA, they were leveraging their dominance OF the RIAA against potential competitors.
Allegedly, Apple threatened to retaliate if any music label participated in Amazon's 'MP3 Daily Deal' promotion, which offered early access to some MP3 tracks.
Which is great and all, except Amazon is already being charged differentially less than Apple in music royalties by the RIAA as a way of intentionally decreasing Apple's market share so they have less influence compared to the RIAA. Amazon is a stalking horse as much as a competitor here.
If Apple has distributed something derived from GPL'd code, without complying with the terms of the GPL, then they are liable for copyright infringement (for profit, potential large statutory fine).
Actually, you can't claim damages beyond what you can prove you lost as a result of copyright infringement unless you notify the offending party first and they do not stop the copying. Since Apple did, no large fines unless there are some weird new laws I haven't heard about.
it would be of no real detriment to Apple.
Except in the cases where the reason for the rule in the first place happen to apply of course.
And what do you surmise that is?
Nope. They'd also have to provide the source through the App store as well.
Umm, no. They just have to respond to requests for the source, but they already do that for numerous other OSS projects they contribute to.
Heh, investigating Apple for leveraging dominance against the RIAA, A cartel convicted of antitrust abuses several times? How about dealing with them effectively first?
If I were Apple, I would just pull the app and call it done. Why bother mucking around with the GPL and the like? Why run the risk of having to deal with demands for access, etc?
That's probably what they will do, but you never know. More apps in the app store means more happy customers and may lead to more iPhone sales. Apple is a pretty OSS savvy company and knows the value of cooperation with the open source community. They also happen to have a lot of OSS geeks working there. It is possible Apple will take the harder, but more conciliatory approach of adding a license clause to exempt GPL software from the no-redistribution clause and in so doing open the way for GPL code to make it's way through the app store. Apple already has mechanisms in place to deal with requests for source for their own applications and they have the source for submitted apps, so it is doable.
What a software license breach and someone doesn't threaten with lawsuits and horse whippings?!
The FSF almost invariably tries to contact companies and take a non-litigious approach first. Their goal is to promote OSS and they can do that a lot better by contacting companies and convincing them to comply and contribute, rather than costing those companies cash out of pocket and making them scared of OSS in future.
Apple will pull the app from the store LONG before they allow actual open software to slip through their stranglehold on content.
My understanding is that to comply, Apple would just have to remove the clause that says if you create an app with their SDK you can't distribute that same version elsewhere, as that is what conflicts with the GPL. So all they'd have to do is add an exception for GPL apps and it would be of no real detriment to Apple. They probably will not, but they certainly could.
You wouldn't know it from the summary, but mostly, this is an issue with some people taking a GPL app and violating the license and in the process authorizing Apple to redistribute and violate the license as well in the process. It's really no different from someone submitting a closed source app they don't have license to to Apple's app store.
Apple's move to support HTML5 is commendable, but don't doubt for an instant that they also have an interest in breaking the back of Flash.
Of course they do. I already explained some good reasons why. Getting rid of Flash gets rid of a proprietary component and replaces it with an open standard one. It's good for Apple and good for end users. Where's the problem?
Apple's mindshare with casual users is tremendous.
That doesn't really matter in terms of application development. What matters is what application developers think, and while I'm sure some of them don't research markets before deciding what to target and how, I don't think that is the norm.
The big fight right now is not among Apple, Android, RIM, Nokia et al, but rather between Apple and Android. The latter two have traditionally targeted the business and prosumer markets and have mature offerings there.
Listen, I know geeks care a lot about cool and new technology and whatnot and focus less on older more established tech. That doesn't mean you can discount the largest players as not important to a market. Apple only has about 15% of the worldwide smartphone market. Making it harder for developers to target the iPhone and other phones at the same time is only going to hurt Apple unless there are other benefits in that same action.It would be like Microsoft making the Zune less compatible with iPod accessories, not going to help in and of itself.
Your argument that Apple's exclusion of Flash is based exclusively on concern about application quality is a little naive, I think.
But you haven't presented another motivation for Apple that makes any sense or has any supporting evidence.
If applications developed with Adobe's tools are lower in quality than the native offerings, consumers will recognize that and opt not to use them.
How will users do that? Are most users going to know which applications are eating up their battery life? Are users going to blame Adobe if their security is compromised and they get a virus? Even if they do, does that mean it won't lead to Apple losing a sale next time the user buys a phone? Are users going to recognize that it is Adobe's fault a large swath of applications don't have functions they've never heard of, or will they simply think iPhones and other phones have about the same level of functionality, not recognizing that functionality offered by Apple is being filtered out? Users can be counted on to act in their own best interests and while blame is great and all, it doesn't mean they will buy iPhones because it is Adobe's fault iPhones are no better than Android phones.
Additional choices are a win for consumers here, the only one who stands to lose is Apple. Denying that their actions here are not motivated at least in part by unadulterated self-interest is disingenuous.
No, what's twisted is saying Apple is breaking cross-platform compatibility to hurt other platforms when that doesn't even make logical sense. I've explained ways in which Apple's actions make sense and are benefitting Apple. You've just asserted that somehow breaking cross platform compatibility helps Apple and is in their best interests. Clearly Apple acts in its own best interests, but you have to present what those interests are and show how an action benefits them if you want me to take your hypothesis of Apple's motivation seriously. All you have so far is an assertion and a non sequitur.
The reason you cant understand this is because you dont account for the fact that Apple wants to lock users and developers into their prductlines[sic] wholely and solely.
You're right, I don't "account for that" or rather I don't just blindly accept it as true without any evidence. But then, you haven't presented any evidence as yet.
If you want to develop for the Iphone, you have to use a Imac, end of story and they will be checking.
Citation? I have a friend who develops on a MacBook (a Mac, not an iMac) and I know another guy who uses a Hackintosh. How are they checking and do you have any support for this assertion?
If you want to use the internet on your Iphone you have to use Safari and it's implementation of web standards/frameworks, end of story and they will be checking.
You know that the internet and the Web are different things, right? As for accessing the Web you can use the built in Webkit with any browser that wants to use it or you can use browsers like the one offered by Opera that perform server side rendering. Or you can jailbreak your device and use whatever you want. But I fail to see how this locks developers into developing only for iPhones. The Webkit engine is open source and in use by lots of major browsers including Chrome and being used to render all applications on WebOS. It is a very cross platform layer.
More important then selling Iphones is making sure existing customers cant leave...
So Apple doesn't want to make money? Selling iPhones gets Apple cash. What does locking in users get them? Small amounts of additional revenue from the services they run only slightly better than break even?
Many fanboys have pointed out that Apple cant[sic] compete with other vendors, so they need to lock in their entire supply chain and userbase.
Yeah, and many fanboys have pointed out that Microsoft is not a monopoly and that Barack Obama is muslim. What's your point? Many people make unsupportable assertions all the time. I don't believe everything asserted by random individuals.
Yeah, pretty much... unless you want to write HTML5 apps according to Apples implantation of course.
There, fixed that for you. Such a glaring omission.
What are you twelve or something?
HTML5 is not yet a standard and Apple is tying[sic] to take control of it and force all users on all platforms into Apple's implementation of a standard.
Apple was one of the founders of HTML5 but they're collaborating on making it. I've heard no complaints from Google and Opera and Mozilla about Apple's involvement or their trying to take over. The working group has had disagreements and made compromises with one another, but if you're going to assert Apple is trying to take over the standard, you need to support that with actual facts.
. That means using Apple's chosen codec and how Apple chooses to interpret tags such as video and canvas.
HTML5 does not specify a codec. That was a compromise made when Apple and Google wanted one codec and Mozilla wanted another. As for video and canvas tags, I follow the developments. I've seen complaints about Adobe and Microsoft (not group chairs) attempting to slow progress with those tags or make them less useful, specifically the Adobe procedural issues brought up by Hickson. Those issues were then resolved and everyone moved on. I've heard not a single complaint about Apple. So, where's your evidence that Apple is trying to take control of HTML5 and prevent it from being a useful cross platform application layer? I can provide citations about the huge amount of OSS code they've donated with regard to Webkit interpreting HTML5 and on free HTML5 application development tools if you want.
To say that competing in a marathon or two is "likely" to damage someone permanently is just plain wrong. It's only "likely" if you doing something completely wrong.
Competing in marathons is doing something wrong from an exercise standpoint. Unless there are changes made to the way marathons are conducted, they take place on paved surfaces in a single run. That is a high impact exercise that is very bad for the joints. Will most people who run a marathon have a medical problem as a result of training and doing it? I don't know. Probably not. But then, just playing russian roulette twice is unlikely to kill you either, but not many people recommend it as an activity to kids. There are plenty of methods of exercise that are much, much safer and better designed to not cause long term harm.
Apple wants to control the development platform because it locks developers into supporting only Apple's end user hardware...
That's just your speculation and not supported by the facts. Why are they dumping so much money into free HTML5 dev tools and support for HTML5 apps in Webkit if their goal is to prevent cross platform apps? Also, why would taking steps that make cross platform development in and of itself help Apple instead of hurt them. Generally, breaking interoperability only helps when you have dominant market share, otherwise it hurts the bottom line. So basically, your hypothesis has no support.
So I'l change my statement to be that there are some elements of journalism that I don't understand.
Actually there seem to be elements of the english language you don't understand, specifically tense. Just because there used to be something larger doesn't mean this isn't the largest currently in existence. What you're confusing is "the largest" for "the largest that ever existed", or the record holder for the largest size. The article is correct. It just doesn't mean what you seem to have thought.
I'm not saying proprietary is a better way to go but current standards don't cut it. Design by committee doesn't work.
Isn't that kind of like saying bars not owned by the mob suck because they always have shattered windows, light on fire regularly, and the bartenders all have broken fingers? Design by committee can work well, unless all progress is halted for a decade by a single monopolist who illegally leverages their position to prevent cross-platform Web apps from being viable. Web standards and progress stalled because MS outright refused to implement any of them in IE and IE has an artificially inflated market share from being bundled with a desktop OS that has monopoly influence on the market. Several different Web standards were put forward and a reference implementation created over the years but they all died because developers couldn't use them because 60%+ of users were on IE and MS refused to play ball.
Another reason Apple is so dead-set against using Adobe Flash on their iPhone/iPads is because they would lose their exclusive development platform of XCode on their custom Mac hardware. And if Apple is anything, they are a hardware company.
I'm trying hard to understand what you're trying to say here. Apple makes piles of money selling iPhones. They make next to nothing selling Macs to iPhone developers. There simply aren't very many app developers compared to iPhone users. You'd have to be dim to make architectural decisions about the iPhone with that tiny amount of profit as a motivator instead of iPhone profit. I agree Apple wants to control the dev tools, but I think that's because they want to be able to sell more iPhones. They sell more iPhones by making the iPhone platform better for end users and part of that is adding new features other phones don't have and getting developers to use them. Third party dev tools are a tollbooth run by another company in this process.
Basically what they are saying (after they changed their licensing agreement for iPhone/iPad developers) is that if you want to write software for us you will type in code in XCode and compile it using that compiler and submit it to us for approval.
Yeah, pretty much... unless you want to write HTML5 apps, of course.
If they allowed native compiled code from other software developers, then anybody with Adobe's latest CS5 Flash (even on Windows!) could create native iPhone binaries using the well-known Flash dev environment.
Yup, that was Adobe's plan. Apple doesn't want that to happen. Think of it from Apple's perspective. You dump a few million into doing something cool for the iPhone, say just in time compiler improvements and a battery saving architecture. Suddenly apps use 20% less battery and the iPhone effectively has a 20% longer battery life than competitors with the same hardware. Score! But wait, while this is built into the iPhone and Apple's developer tools, requiring just a recompile for app developers to make it happen for their app, what about third party tools? Suddenly you've got thousands of apps made with Adobe's tools and those don't get the improvements until Adobe gets around to implementing them in their Flash suite, if they ever do. Apple already has this problem on OS X, with many major cross platform apps completely failing to support the cool features offered by the OS. So now, despite spending millions on R&D to differentiate their platform from other phones and make something better, Apple is waiting on Adobe to get around to doing work before their investment pays off. And meanwhile other companies are copying Apple's improvements. Will Adobe even get around to implementing it until it is on pretty much every platform and is no longer a differentiator to drive sales? Will they ever get around to it? They sure don't have a great track record so far, with Flash apps performing abysmally on OS X and Linux. So what is Apple to do? Clearly, they ban third party dev tools that can be blockers.
And porting Flash games over would take work, but not nearly as much as buying a Mac and re-writing everything in Objective-C.
This is true and is a detriment to Apple and their platform, but they seem to think it is worth it to deal with the problem above. The market will decide in a few years if they were right.
And all those annoying Flash banner ads! I'm glad they're gone... I mean being replaced by Apple iAd so they can control the entire advertising "experience" for your online devices.
Umm, I don't think Flash ads and Apple's iAd program are really comparable. It's more like an adwords competitor aimed at the mobile market.