Prolescum
New Member
Steve Jobs recently posted a letter explaining why the iphone/ipod/ipad does not and will not support Adobe's flash (the letter), and adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen has retorted (WSJ interview). Adobe CS5 allows you to write cross-platfom applications, and Apple doesn't like that. If it's available on apple hardware, it should ONLY be allowed on apple harware (in Apple's sandboxed worldview).
Apple have also restricted the use of programming languages, somewhat shutting out Adobe's CS5 (which was to be released with a packager to convert flash apps to work on the iphone) with their new terms for iphone/ipad SDKs.
Section 3.3.1 of the document stipulates that "Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++ and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the documented APIs. This means that Adobe's 'intermediary translation/compatability layer' as Apple puts it, is not allowed.
With all this bitching and mudslinging, something is being forgotten, namely, the people who use the technology, the customers...
We've reached a point where many many people are unwilling to pay for content they've previously had for free on the proper web. Wanna watch a video? write hulu.com, youtube.com, bbc.co.uk/iplayer or whatever in the address bar and it's served in your browser, more often than not, via flash.
Apple's solution: you wanna watch video? We have an app for that and a ready-made infrastructure for you to pay; iTunes. Hate flash ads? We have a solution; iAds. This way, you know your ads are officially sanctioned and relevant and we get a cut of the dosh.
People generally don't care about such stuff, they only want what they ask for when they ask for it, and overtly forcing your customers to use paid-for apps in place of the web browser (specifically stunted by lack of flash support) will (possibly) come back to bite Apple on the arse and ironically, just isn't all that appealing to people who want simplicity.
Flash may have its issues, but it's something so widely used that replacing at the behest of a single company (Apple) who thinks it can force the adoption of HTML5 before it is standardised purely because industry insiders are buying the argument that the ipad is the future of home computing (lol) is just outrageous.
But what about Linux? Sitting at the back of the class giggling at the wide-eye ignorance of its classmates, magpies entranced by the shine of a golden cufflink. Linux sits comfortably in the knowledge that a company looking for an open, cross-platform system will eventually ask him what he's laughing at, to which he replies, "well if you're looking at a competitor for the iphone/ipad's OS, there's webOS, maemo and android which all run on Linux. I can do practically anything you can conceive of within the limits of my hardware (and sometimes exceed this). I've been here a long time, but I don't follow a particular path to profit, I prefer to just do that which is asked of me and allow anyone to change me as they see fit using a language they're comfortable with. When you're finally annoyed enough with the alternatives, their patents and homogeneous, controlled environment, I'll still be here."
My view is that Apple sees the imminent death of the desktop (yeah right...), Microsoft fears the death of the Windows home PC and gives its Windows and mobile offerings some triage in the hope of skirting obsolescence, Linux smiles and gives away its hard work for free, breathing life back into your old computers, allows for bleeding edge software on practically any of your hardware and doesn't mind if you share it with your mates. Is it time to move away from the seemingly pointless to and fro from the two big OS makers and use a genuinely open system?
There's an old joke whose punchline goes, '...this is the year of desktop Linux', perhaps this is the year Linux gets face-time with the public at large.
Here's hoping anyway.
Apple have also restricted the use of programming languages, somewhat shutting out Adobe's CS5 (which was to be released with a packager to convert flash apps to work on the iphone) with their new terms for iphone/ipad SDKs.
Section 3.3.1 of the document stipulates that "Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++ and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the documented APIs. This means that Adobe's 'intermediary translation/compatability layer' as Apple puts it, is not allowed.
With all this bitching and mudslinging, something is being forgotten, namely, the people who use the technology, the customers...
We've reached a point where many many people are unwilling to pay for content they've previously had for free on the proper web. Wanna watch a video? write hulu.com, youtube.com, bbc.co.uk/iplayer or whatever in the address bar and it's served in your browser, more often than not, via flash.
Apple's solution: you wanna watch video? We have an app for that and a ready-made infrastructure for you to pay; iTunes. Hate flash ads? We have a solution; iAds. This way, you know your ads are officially sanctioned and relevant and we get a cut of the dosh.
People generally don't care about such stuff, they only want what they ask for when they ask for it, and overtly forcing your customers to use paid-for apps in place of the web browser (specifically stunted by lack of flash support) will (possibly) come back to bite Apple on the arse and ironically, just isn't all that appealing to people who want simplicity.
Flash may have its issues, but it's something so widely used that replacing at the behest of a single company (Apple) who thinks it can force the adoption of HTML5 before it is standardised purely because industry insiders are buying the argument that the ipad is the future of home computing (lol) is just outrageous.
But what about Linux? Sitting at the back of the class giggling at the wide-eye ignorance of its classmates, magpies entranced by the shine of a golden cufflink. Linux sits comfortably in the knowledge that a company looking for an open, cross-platform system will eventually ask him what he's laughing at, to which he replies, "well if you're looking at a competitor for the iphone/ipad's OS, there's webOS, maemo and android which all run on Linux. I can do practically anything you can conceive of within the limits of my hardware (and sometimes exceed this). I've been here a long time, but I don't follow a particular path to profit, I prefer to just do that which is asked of me and allow anyone to change me as they see fit using a language they're comfortable with. When you're finally annoyed enough with the alternatives, their patents and homogeneous, controlled environment, I'll still be here."
My view is that Apple sees the imminent death of the desktop (yeah right...), Microsoft fears the death of the Windows home PC and gives its Windows and mobile offerings some triage in the hope of skirting obsolescence, Linux smiles and gives away its hard work for free, breathing life back into your old computers, allows for bleeding edge software on practically any of your hardware and doesn't mind if you share it with your mates. Is it time to move away from the seemingly pointless to and fro from the two big OS makers and use a genuinely open system?
There's an old joke whose punchline goes, '...this is the year of desktop Linux', perhaps this is the year Linux gets face-time with the public at large.
Here's hoping anyway.