Steve Jobs pens open letter about Flash

rvdw98 wrote in post #10111168
Neither of these examples have any relation to the Flash vs. HTML 5 issue you responded to, so that question still remains.

If you buy an iPod, you know you're going to have to use iTunes, there's no smoke and mirrors there.

Just in case some don't know... You can use WinAmp instead of I-tunes with an Ipod. I hate I-tunes, but,,, I do like my Ipod classic. Winamp works fine for me, I can download podcasts, synch with more than one PC and Device, etc.,,, all the Apple rules go out the window. btw, the lack of flash support is stupid on something like the IPAD... which is mainly an internet surfing device.

http://www.winamp.com/

rvdw98 wrote in post #10114200
Are you implying that Apple gave you three iPhones for free?

No, I am implying that if Apple iPhones have so many restrictions that I refused to buy them, so instead of earning $1500 (buy iPhone, upgrade to iPhone 3G, upgrade to iPhone 3GS) they haven´t earned anything. If they created a perfect phone in 2007, they could earn at least $500 (because I wanted to buy it until I found out what features were missing).

Young_Werther wrote in post #10119087
Paying nothing vs paying 500 pounds.....no matter how many times you need a repair getting charged nothing to fix a issue, how can you complain? It's not like the iphone has build issues. Maybe after 3 replacement phones you should be looking more at the user, instead of the device.

My HTC works without problems since December 2008, no repairs needed...

Probably one of the most asinine things I've read in a while. Another reason I won't touch Apple products.

MMX wrote in post #10120616
No, I am implying that if Apple iPhones have so many restrictions that I refused to buy them, so instead of earning $1500 (buy iPhone, upgrade to iPhone 3G, upgrade to iPhone 3GS) they haven´t earned anything.

From you. 50 million units sold says that not everyone feels so restricted though.

MMX wrote in post #10120616
If they created a perfect phone in 2007, they could earn at least $500 (because I wanted to buy it until I found out what features were missing).

There is no perfect phone. What may be perfect for you, may be completely inadequate for someone else.

Personal preference is totally okay. Sweeping statements though... not so much.

merlin2375 wrote in post #10120642
Probably one of the most asinine things I've read in a while. Another reason I won't touch Apple products.

You must not read all that much.

rvdw98 wrote in post #10120695
You must not read all that much.

i read quite a bit and it ranks pretty high up there. what i've gathered from the piece is just a criticism of adobe from apple for practices which apple considers standard operating procedure to begin with. it's like exxon lambasting bp for the oil spill in the gulf right now. you can't speak from the metaphorical moral high ground if you're wallowing in the pit yourself.

alt4852 wrote in post #10120864
i read quite a bit and it ranks pretty high up there. what i've gathered from the piece is just a criticism of adobe from apple for practices which apple considers standard operating procedure to begin with. it's like exxon lambasting bp for the oil spill in the gulf right now. you can't speak from the metaphorical moral high ground if you're wallowing in the pit yourself.

I assume you're referring to the issue of Flash being proprietary? Because there's actually 6 reasons why Flash is being denounced, and this is just one of them.

I don't see the moral high ground you speak of. Apple even admits to having "many proprietary products too". What they're saying is that web technologies should be open and standardized, which is really not that revolutionary. We know from the past that proprietary plugins and *couch* ActiveX *cough* components are the bane of the internet's accessibility and will ban a lot of content from either existing devices, or ones still to be developed. A platform that is shared between a myriad of operating systems and hardware configurations must be open and standardized for it to reach its full potential.

No, I do not agree with all of Apple's business practices, nor with those of Microsoft, Adobe, Sun, DELL, you name it. Every big player in the corporate IT business closets their share of skeletons. But I can't find fault with Apple's reasoning in this matter. Are they philantopists? Hardly. Self-serving? Perhaps. That doesn't mean they're wrong though.

ˆˆˆTOTALLY AGREE ˆˆˆ

Very well said.

This is perhaps the most prominent example of the pot calling the kettle black in recent memory.

I don't think I could come up with something better even satirically.

rvdw98 wrote in post #10120970
I assume you're referring to the issue of Flash being proprietary? Because there's actually 6 reasons why Flash is being denounced, and this is just one of them.

I don't see the moral high ground you speak of. Apple even admits to having "many proprietary products too". What they're saying is that web technologies should be open and standardized, which is really not that revolutionary. We know from the past that proprietary plugins and *couch* ActiveX *cough* components are the bane of the internet's accessibility and will ban a lot of content from either existing devices, or ones still to be developed. A platform that is shared between a myriad of operating systems and hardware configurations must be open and standardized for it to reach its full potential.

No, I do not agree with all of Apple's business practices, nor with those of Microsoft, Adobe, Sun, DELL, you name it. Every big player in the corporate IT business closets their share of skeletons. But I can't find fault with Apple's reasoning in this matter. Are they philantopists? Hardly. Self-serving? Perhaps. That doesn't mean they're wrong though.

To me it doesn't really matter if Flash is proprietary or open. If I want to surf the web I want a browser that will let me surf all of the web. If the Ipad can't do that then it's useless to me.

rvdw98 wrote in post #10120970
I assume you're referring to the issue of Flash being proprietary? Because there's actually 6 reasons why Flash is being denounced, and this is just one of them.

I don't see the moral high ground you speak of. Apple even admits to having "many proprietary products too". What they're saying is that web technologies should be open and standardized, which is really not that revolutionary. We know from the past that proprietary plugins and *couch* ActiveX *cough* components are the bane of the internet's accessibility and will ban a lot of content from either existing devices, or ones still to be developed. A platform that is shared between a myriad of operating systems and hardware configurations must be open and standardized for it to reach its full potential.

No, I do not agree with all of Apple's business practices, nor with those of Microsoft, Adobe, Sun, DELL, you name it. Every big player in the corporate IT business closets their share of skeletons. But I can't find fault with Apple's reasoning in this matter. Are they philantopists? Hardly. Self-serving? Perhaps. That doesn't mean they're wrong though.

that's my point. why web content? it makes no sense to claim that you want to advocate openness and standardization when you restrict it at every other turn. only when another company has monopolized the segment does apple stand up against the lack of free use. activex is a bane on accessibility and bans content and development? do you have any idea how much censorship and banning apple has done to it's own products via it's deathgrip on its own appstore which is one of the few legal avenues to put content on their devices? why do people have to jailbreak their iphones just to put what they want on the devices they purchase?

your claim of systems reaching their full potential is also contrary to apple's policies. what about their operating systems? if i want to use snow leopard which is perfectly capable of being run on a custom built system, why am i legally restricted from doing so? there's nothing open or standardized about apples products unless you consider open in context to a heavily censored and monitored library of content, and standardized as a reference to a requirement to stay within one company's products. if adobe is indeed restricting the full potential of of web content, apple is equally guilty of restricting the full potential of its computers, software, and devices.

the reason so many of us find fault with this letter is that jobs tries to make the case that adobe is in the wrong for it's business model and how it has approached web content. while this criticism may be well deserved, apple does not have the ground to stand on to be the one making this criticism.

as others have said, it's the bot calling the kettle black. the reason why you don't hear as much backlash for other companies who do this, is primarily that their CEOs don't write public statements lambasting other companies for this sort of thing. when steve ballmer, dorian daley, and michael dell coauthor a letter accusing apple of trying to monopolize a segment of the industry, you'll most likely see us draw poison for that piece, but until then.. steve jobs is the man of the hour who is making these claims and is subsequently catching flak for his words here.

Sounds more like an argument of computer scientists who can code everything themselves with open sources versus those who use propriety software who are used to it and know how to use it.

Todd Lambert wrote in post #10121017
ˆˆˆTOTALLY AGREE ˆˆˆ

Very well said.

todd, do you not see the inherent hypocrisy of this letter?

as i said in an earlier post, jobs has every right to not include flash support in his new ipad. that's his choice and there is nothing wrong with it. it is wrong however, to try to make the case to the public that adobe is an obstacle to progress whereas his own company is the open and free thinking one.

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
that's my point. why web content?

I already explained that: because it is shared among a wide variety of devices.

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
it makes no sense to claim that you want to advocate openness and standardization when you restrict it at every other turn.

Yes, Apple does impose restrictions. I never denied that. I conceded that I don't agree with all their business practices.

I do agree with them on this issue though. I do not agree with your statement that Apple restricts you "at every other turn".

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
do you have any idea how much censorship and banning apple has done to it's own products via it's deathgrip on its own appstore which is one of the few legal avenues to put content on their devices?

While I firmly believe that most of the rejected apps were in conflict with the "family friendly" nature of the App Store, I do acknowledge that some were banned because they competed with Apple's own apps, which I admit is dubious.

On the other hand, I can install whatever I want on my Macs, so the "devices" you mentioned only encompass the iPod/iPad/iPhone range.

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
your claim of systems reaching their full potential is also contrary to apple's policies. what about their operating systems? if i want to use snow leopard which is perfectly capable of being run on a custom built system, why am i legally restricted from doing so?

Because they have designed their OS to work in concert with their hardware and made a conscious decision not to support it on configurations they cannot control. This is how they can assure the quality and user experience they advertise with.

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
there's nothing open or standardized about apples products unless you consider open in context to a heavily censored and monitored library of content, and standardized as a reference to a requirement to stay within one company's products.

That is vastly overstated. You make it seem that the App Store is the only source of content for the entire range of Apple products which we have already established to be false. Furthermore, a boat load of standards are being supported right out of the box (file formats, communication protocols, etc.). Heck, even the OS itself is based on an open kernel.

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
if adobe is indeed restricting the full potential of of web content, apple is equally guilty of restricting the full potential of its computers, software, and devices.

Again, that's just their devices whereas proprietary web technologies affect every device on the market.

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
while this criticism may be well deserved, apple does not have the ground to stand on to be the one making this criticism.

I judge the message by its content, not by the messenger.

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
as others have said, it's the bot calling the kettle black.

By that reasoning, and given the (proven) fact that every one of "them" is as hypocritical as the next, I assume that you refuse to accept any criticism at all?

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
the reason why you don't hear as much backlash for other companies who do this, is primarily that their CEOs don't write public statements lambasting other companies for this sort of thing.

Subtle (or not so subtle) marketing campaigns are just as effective in reaching that goal. At least Jobs is upfront about his opinion, whatever you may think about it.

alt4852 wrote in post #10121250
when steve ballmer, dorian daley, and michael dell coauthor a letter accusing apple of trying to monopolize a segment of the industry, you'll most likely see us draw poison for that piece, but until then.. steve jobs is the man of the hour who is making these claims and is subsequently catching flak for his words here.

So you're telling me that you've never heard Ballmer's rants against Apple? Or completely missed the mudslinging campaign between Sun and Microsoft?

BTW: this is going to be my last post on this topic. Back to photography.

alt4852 wrote in post #10121298
todd, do you not see the inherent hypocrisy of this letter?

as i said in an earlier post, jobs has every right to not include flash support in his new ipad. that's his choice and there is nothing wrong with it. it is wrong however, to try to make the case to the public that adobe is an obstacle to progress whereas his own company is the open and free thinking one.

Nope, sorry, I don't.

Apple is proprietary about their products. There is nothing wrong with that.

Apple very much cares about the web being an open enviroment and supports that as much if not more than almost every other major company with the possible exceptions of maybe Opera and Mozilla.

Apple had done more for creating open web standards than any other private company in existence. Safar, which is webkit, which is actually an open variant of kmelon (khtml) is largely responsible for why standards are moving forward on the web. Why we're getting close to have full support for CSS1, CSS2, CSS3, html5 databases, etc.. This is because of Apple who used an open source project (kmelon) and pushed it so far forward and then contributed every bit of it back to the original open source project. They've given all of this work for the last several years back to the web, for free.

Webkit is used by every major portable/mobile device out there, including Apple's largest competitors (Google, Nokia, etc).

They are standing ground because it is time to force the web forward. They have a position where they can do that right now and thanfully they are doing it. They (and Mozilla) are almost single handedly bringing the web to where it should have been 5 years ago.

You and everyone else can **** all you want about pot/kettle crap, hate on Apple as much as you want, but they are the most (and dare I say the only) company truly innovating today.

If it weren't for Apple, we'd still be dealing with crappy browser support for standards, crappy interfaces (serial port?), crappy storage mediums (Floppy disk?) etc..

I think most people just jump on the bandwagon and **** because they don't truly understand what is taking place or maybe even where we've come from. They don't understand the major issues and agenda that is coming. They're blinded by the light of some super small, stupid issue with a proprietary little product by a company called Adobe. Look at the bigger picture and realize where the web HAS to go. Who do you think is going to get it there? Microsoft? Sun? IBM? Dell? HP? Intel? Adobe? Ha. The only company currently capable of moving the web forwards, is Google and Apple. (You can make a small argument for MS here, but...) - guess what? They're all on the same side here. They all are doing the same thing. The only issue is Apple is on point for this. They're taking the blame. Google wants Flash gone as badly as Apple doe, MS does, etc..

People need to think for themselves and stop blindly parroting crap that they read on some website. Apple is not a bad guy here.

Do I think Apple is totally rosey with everything they do? Hell no... but they're doing good stuff that in the end, will help/enrich all of us.