All the browsers available in the App Store are just wrappers and skins on the Safari browser engine, except Opera Mini, which runs the browser engine in the cloud to escape Apple's banning of running Javascript(or any other JIT code).
That's why there is no Firefox or Chrome(or even IE;) for iOS.
Perhaps the browsers available in the App Sore are just wrappers and skins for Safari, however the developers are welcome to charge for them, hence there are other browsers available, hence no monopoly. Sorry.
I think similar logic can be applied to Windows RT as well. If it's anything like Windows Phone(which I very well suspect it is), you can wrap and skin IE in an app and charge for it.
How many copies of webkit do you want on your phone/pad.;-)
Count the number of gekko/webkit links and bundles you find on a well-augmented Ubuntu or Fedora box.
So, you solution is to ban all those browsers on the Linux box, I presume?
Ff Webkit is all important, why is Chrome way more popular than Safari on Windows? They use the same Webkit engine, don't they? A browser is much much more than it's engine.
"I" may or may not want something, but that doesn't mean browser makers must be banned from providing alternate rendering and JS engines.
You are talking about search engines. I am talking about browser rendering engines.
Opera Mini uses the cloud to run it's rendering engine thus is not a real browser(compared to Safari atleast) because it cannot run Javascript on the device like Safari can.
All the browsers available in the App Store are just wrappers and skins on the Safari browser engine, except Opera Mini, which runs the browser engine in the cloud to escape Apple's banning of running Javascript(or any other JIT code).
That's why there is no Firefox or Chrome(or even IE;) for iOS.
"There' is no tablet market. There is only an iPad market" say the fans and Apple gets away with not only bundling Safari but banning all other browser engines. Yet Microsoft with it's 0.1% share of tablets in the "Post-PC world" gets flogged for this.
>Car analogy: So, if want to buy one of three cars, and the sales person walks up and keys the side of one of the cars, that's okay because I still have two other cars to chose from, right? That's what you're suggesting, that a diminished-but-not-nonexistent choice excuses a critical defect in one of the choices.
If the salesperson believes that keying the side of the cars is going to attract numerous other potential buyers or give him some other advantage, he should be free to do so.
>There is no level playing field to be had, even if you limit the field to the Metro UI.
Contrast that with Boot2Gecko by Mozilla, you can't even run any native apps, forget browsers.
For the last time, Apple is not microsoft and is not a convicted monopolist. Your comparison is retarded. When Apple holds ~85% share of all computers EVERYWHERE, then you can start making valid comparisons between the two.
The iPad holds about 60 to 90% of the installed base of tablets and it doesn't bans Netscape(Firefox) from even running, forget about getting trouble for just bundling Safari by default like MS did.
You must be new here if you have not seen the criticisms of Apple's lock-down for iOS. As for ChromeOS, there are few articles about it, but rest assured that the first thing I asked when a Google presenter came here was how hard it is to install custom or otherwise unapproved software on ChromeOS devices.
then they'll whine about how one single post that is vaguely defending MS is PROOF that Slashdot is overrun with MS shills.
You mean like your post, which reads, "Wahh wahh nobody criticizes Apple so Microsoft should not be criticized either!" even though Apple bashing is a favorite activity here on Slashdot?
Perhaps somewhat true about Slashdot... but what about Mozilla?
Why is Mozilla picking on a platform with zero marketshare without a single peep about the one that has 60 to 80% of the market sewn ?
By your reasoning Amazon Silk on the Kindle, and Opera Turbo on my PC, and InternetExplorer Accelerator on my dialup line, are not real browsers either. Their respective servers grab the data, squash it, and then feed it to the user's program.
Obviously I disagree with your reasoning. These are all real web browsers, even if the data has been compressed along the way.
The difference is not with compression or downscaling of things like images, it's about whether Javascript is run on the client machine or the cloud.
It's hard to consider a browser a real browser if it cannot execute Javascript and has to rely on the cloud.
By your metric, Office fully runs on the iPad, because you can use VNC to connect to your desktop and run Office there.
Can I install a different browser on a Chromebook? Can I install a different browser in iOS? Heck, Apple bans ANY app that duplicates functionality that Apple provides.
Why is MS always being held to a double-standard that others aren't?
And has Slashdot ever been happy about Apple's little cryptographic lockdown party, Android devices with locked bootloaders, or particularly enthusiastic about paying more for a googlepliance than for the netbook of equivalent spec?
Each time those subjects come up, they generally catch flack from everyone except a few die-hard apologists(and half the apologies seem to be of the form 'but the chains are breakable, so it's ok!'). Now that Microsoft is stepping up and making it clear that 'Windows RT' is essentially the NT kernel/MS development tools equivalent of iOS, rather than a Windows port to ARM(in the sense that WinNT was about as similar as technology allowed across its supported architectures). Why wouldn't it be totally normal for them to get the same criticism for doing the same things?
May be true to some extent about Slashdot, but why is Mozilla criticizing only Microsoft and not Apple when Apple does exactly the same thing and has the relevant marketshare to worry about unlike Microsoft?
Can you point to me to any statements by Mozilla criticizing Apple for banning Firefox from the iPad and requesting it to be allowed?
Imagine if MS had done this, the bitching here would be enormous. Just like how Palladium was decried by everyone when it was proposed by MS to secure PCs, but when Apple did it with iOS with extreme lockdown DRM, it was the best thing ever and there was not a peep from the same commentators that blasted MS.
You misunderstood me. I was implying that those privileged APIs contain far more power than MS/Apple want to give to third party developers. For example, it allows apps to run in the background all the time. This means that any app that uses those APIs can run down the battery or open additional attack vectors on the power starved tablet. I did not imply that those APIs are useful to enhance battery life and security.
Stop trolling. The Apple desktop is a completely open Unix OS. I develop on it all day long and never run into any restrictions like this.
First of all, it's not as open as Linux(no source available, can't redistribute, can't even choose your own hardware legallly, can't even buy standalone to run on your machine) and not even as open as Windows (you can't legally run OS X in a VM like you can do Windows).
Secondly, the Apple desktop equivalent is Windows 8. We are talking about Windows RT here, which is a totally different beast and most comparable to iOS.
Apple restricted browsing to Safari for at least the first couple years of the iPhone OS, now iOS, before they allowed a couple third party browsers into the App Store. This isn't really any different. MS can always change later once they've established a certain level of quality over the platform.
Really? Geez, I wonder why isn't here Firefox or Chrome that can run on the iPad then?/s
This is why I don't like the arguers against AGW, they resort to such cheap shots that it's hard to take them seriously. It definitely works on their target demographic though.
Note: I am in no way implying that a hot summer is evidence of global warming.
If anyone said back in the mid 90's that Microsoft would ceed the cell phone market to Android and Apple, hemorage market share on the desktop and lose browser dominance they would be labeled a lunatic. Or Steve Ballmer.
If they could say that Microsoft would cede the market to Android, I would brand them a prescient prophet, not a lunatic, since neither Android nor Google even existed then.
Historically speaking, entering any kind of business deal with Microsoft usually ends badly.
You mean like, Intel,AMD, Nvidia, HTC(who started out as a only-Windows Mobile OEM), Dell, HP, Sony, ASUS, Acer, Samsung, Lenovo... all of these got burnt and didn't make lots of profits because of their partnership with MS right?
Read his profile through and you wouldn't think he could hand the company to MS even if paid a few million? Hell, his stock in Nokia would dip by that much for a little change in the stock price.
Slashdot Mirror
All the browsers available in the App Store are just wrappers and skins on the Safari browser engine, except Opera Mini, which runs the browser engine in the cloud to escape Apple's banning of running Javascript(or any other JIT code).
That's why there is no Firefox or Chrome(or even IE ;) for iOS.
Perhaps the browsers available in the App Sore are just wrappers and skins for Safari, however the developers are welcome to charge for them, hence there are other browsers available, hence no monopoly. Sorry.
I think similar logic can be applied to Windows RT as well. If it's anything like Windows Phone(which I very well suspect it is), you can wrap and skin IE in an app and charge for it.
Eg. http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/60aa8848-6cc8-4ec4-94b7-1d134550b57b?wa=wsignin1.0
Hence, no monopoly. Sorry.
How many copies of webkit do you want on your phone/pad. ;-)
Count the number of gekko/webkit links and bundles you find on a well-augmented Ubuntu or Fedora box.
So, you solution is to ban all those browsers on the Linux box, I presume?
Ff Webkit is all important, why is Chrome way more popular than Safari on Windows? They use the same Webkit engine, don't they? A browser is much much more than it's engine.
"I" may or may not want something, but that doesn't mean browser makers must be banned from providing alternate rendering and JS engines.
You are talking about search engines. I am talking about browser rendering engines.
Opera Mini uses the cloud to run it's rendering engine thus is not a real browser(compared to Safari atleast) because it cannot run Javascript on the device like Safari can.
All the browsers available in the App Store are just wrappers and skins on the Safari browser engine, except Opera Mini, which runs the browser engine in the cloud to escape Apple's banning of running Javascript(or any other JIT code).
That's why there is no Firefox or Chrome(or even IE ;) for iOS.
"There' is no tablet market. There is only an iPad market" say the fans and Apple gets away with not only bundling Safari but banning all other browser engines. Yet Microsoft with it's 0.1% share of tablets in the "Post-PC world" gets flogged for this.
>There's almost nothing in that list that hasn't been available on other platforms for more than a decade
How does that stop something from being a feature?
>Except that you can't run Android apps on your desktop out-of-the-box, so many people will prefer Window RT for that reason
Are you sure?
http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-57404865-12/latest-bluestacks-arms-your-pc/
http://youwave.com/
http://keyable.blogspot.com/2011/12/using-adb-to-install-apps-on-android.html
>Car analogy: So, if want to buy one of three cars, and the sales person walks up and keys the side of one of the cars, that's okay because I still have two other cars to chose from, right? That's what you're suggesting, that a diminished-but-not-nonexistent choice excuses a critical defect in one of the choices.
If the salesperson believes that keying the side of the cars is going to attract numerous other potential buyers or give him some other advantage, he should be free to do so.
>There is no level playing field to be had, even if you limit the field to the Metro UI.
Contrast that with Boot2Gecko by Mozilla, you can't even run any native apps, forget browsers.
What about tablets? We hear so much about a post-PC word and lots of common folks replacing desktops, laptops and netbooks with the iPad.
For the last time, Apple is not microsoft and is not a convicted monopolist. Your comparison is retarded. When Apple holds ~85% share of all computers EVERYWHERE, then you can start making valid comparisons between the two.
DOJ oversight ended recently http://www.neowin.net/news/doj-oversight-of-microsoft-ends
The iPad holds about 60 to 90% of the installed base of tablets and it doesn't bans Netscape(Firefox) from even running, forget about getting trouble for just bundling Safari by default like MS did.
You must be new here if you have not seen the criticisms of Apple's lock-down for iOS. As for ChromeOS, there are few articles about it, but rest assured that the first thing I asked when a Google presenter came here was how hard it is to install custom or otherwise unapproved software on ChromeOS devices.
then they'll whine about how one single post that is vaguely defending MS is PROOF that Slashdot is overrun with MS shills.
You mean like your post, which reads, "Wahh wahh nobody criticizes Apple so Microsoft should not be criticized either!" even though Apple bashing is a favorite activity here on Slashdot?
Perhaps somewhat true about Slashdot... but what about Mozilla?
Why is Mozilla picking on a platform with zero marketshare without a single peep about the one that has 60 to 80% of the market sewn ?
By your reasoning Amazon Silk on the Kindle, and Opera Turbo on my PC, and InternetExplorer Accelerator on my dialup line, are not real browsers either. Their respective servers grab the data, squash it, and then feed it to the user's program.
Obviously I disagree with your reasoning. These are all real web browsers, even if the data has been compressed along the way.
The difference is not with compression or downscaling of things like images, it's about whether Javascript is run on the client machine or the cloud.
It's hard to consider a browser a real browser if it cannot execute Javascript and has to rely on the cloud.
By your metric, Office fully runs on the iPad, because you can use VNC to connect to your desktop and run Office there.
Can I install a different browser on a Chromebook? Can I install a different browser in iOS? Heck, Apple bans ANY app that duplicates functionality that Apple provides.
Why is MS always being held to a double-standard that others aren't?
And has Slashdot ever been happy about Apple's little cryptographic lockdown party, Android devices with locked bootloaders, or particularly enthusiastic about paying more for a googlepliance than for the netbook of equivalent spec?
Each time those subjects come up, they generally catch flack from everyone except a few die-hard apologists(and half the apologies seem to be of the form 'but the chains are breakable, so it's ok!'). Now that Microsoft is stepping up and making it clear that 'Windows RT' is essentially the NT kernel/MS development tools equivalent of iOS, rather than a Windows port to ARM(in the sense that WinNT was about as similar as technology allowed across its supported architectures). Why wouldn't it be totally normal for them to get the same criticism for doing the same things?
May be true to some extent about Slashdot, but why is Mozilla criticizing only Microsoft and not Apple when Apple does exactly the same thing and has the relevant marketshare to worry about unlike Microsoft?
Can you point to me to any statements by Mozilla criticizing Apple for banning Firefox from the iPad and requesting it to be allowed?
Imagine if MS had done this, the bitching here would be enormous. Just like how Palladium was decried by everyone when it was proposed by MS to secure PCs, but when Apple did it with iOS with extreme lockdown DRM, it was the best thing ever and there was not a peep from the same commentators that blasted MS.
You misunderstood me. I was implying that those privileged APIs contain far more power than MS/Apple want to give to third party developers. For example, it allows apps to run in the background all the time. This means that any app that uses those APIs can run down the battery or open additional attack vectors on the power starved tablet. I did not imply that those APIs are useful to enhance battery life and security.
Stop trolling. The Apple desktop is a completely open Unix OS. I develop on it all day long and never run into any restrictions like this.
First of all, it's not as open as Linux(no source available, can't redistribute, can't even choose your own hardware legallly, can't even buy standalone to run on your machine) and not even as open as Windows (you can't legally run OS X in a VM like you can do Windows).
Secondly, the Apple desktop equivalent is Windows 8. We are talking about Windows RT here, which is a totally different beast and most comparable to iOS.
It's not that there are more than 50 different Android tablets to choose from.
Is MS really forcing you to buy Windows RT?
You could make that case on the desktop for apps, but exactly zero apps that run on Windows 7 will run on Windows RT.
It's pretty much public knowledge that IE on Windows RT (and Safari on iOS) use privileged APIs.
This is to help preseve battery life and security. It worked quite well for Apple too.
Err, Windows RT will support exactly zero of those programs.
If you want to run all of those, get Windows 8 and run whatever browser you want(I personally run Opera on the Preview and it works great).
If you want a tablet, get an Android one and have a choice of Chrome/Firefox, there are plenty of those.
And it too won't run any third party native apps.
So no Chrome, Opera or IE for Boot2Gecko.
Hypocrisy much?
Apple restricted browsing to Safari for at least the first couple years of the iPhone OS, now iOS, before they allowed a couple third party browsers into the App Store. This isn't really any different. MS can always change later once they've established a certain level of quality over the platform.
Really? Geez, I wonder why isn't here Firefox or Chrome that can run on the iPad then? /s
Wonder what has Fox News to say now?
They have repeatedly claimed that snow implies that Global Warming is a hoax.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN7-k-RXvSQ
This is why I don't like the arguers against AGW, they resort to such cheap shots that it's hard to take them seriously. It definitely works on their target demographic though.
Note: I am in no way implying that a hot summer is evidence of global warming.
LMFAO!!!
If anyone said back in the mid 90's that Microsoft would ceed the cell phone market to Android and Apple, hemorage market share on the desktop and lose browser dominance they would be labeled a lunatic. Or Steve Ballmer.
If they could say that Microsoft would cede the market to Android, I would brand them a prescient prophet, not a lunatic, since neither Android nor Google even existed then.
> by killing MeeGo, which is a production quality OS which kicks the shit out of Android and Windows Phone 7.
And OpenMoko kicked the shit out of the iPhone too,right?
Meanwhile in the real world, if there's no ecosystem or a company not capable of creating one, there is no sale.
Historically speaking, entering any kind of business deal with Microsoft usually ends badly.
You mean like, Intel,AMD, Nvidia, HTC(who started out as a only-Windows Mobile OEM), Dell, HP, Sony, ASUS, Acer, Samsung, Lenovo... all of these got burnt and didn't make lots of profits because of their partnership with MS right?
I think your sense of history is broken.
I see this meme all the time. Please explain how Microsoft could install Nokia's CEO. The board's members have nothing to do with Microsoft.
The chairman of the board who just left is Jorma.
Here's his wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila
Read his profile through and you wouldn't think he could hand the company to MS even if paid a few million? Hell, his stock in Nokia would dip by that much for a little change in the stock price.