Actually, no, if Microsoft did this, everyone would be up in arms. The truth is that Microsoft could easily block iTunes by saying it uses non-standard APIs. But Microsoft doesn't do this, because they aren't that evil.
Difference would be windows (and Mac) is an open platform. iPhone OS was never advertised to be open, in fact it has been rather restrictive right from the very beginning.
Also being more closed doesn't really give Apple any competitive advantage.
Actually, no, if Microsoft did this, everyone would be up in arms. The truth is that Microsoft could easily block iTunes by saying it uses non-standard APIs. But Microsoft doesn't do this, because they aren't that evil.
Well, yes and no. In the PC market, Microsoft would be in big trouble and so does Apple. But in the mobile market where everybody protects whatever advantage they have to gain more customers and marketshare . You protect what you have to gain advantage and gain customers
Seriously , unlike the PC/laptop market where it is relatively easy to have your hardware product survive with less applications than the other companies even when one of your core developers screw you and your customers and treat you like second class citizens in regards to software development. In the mobile industry, such act would literally be a death blow which one cannot recover. Let us say for example, Apple is foolish enough to have Flash, MonoNet and other outside tools compete with Apple's own devkit to develop apps for the iPhone, Touch and iPad. Let us say that the outside kits win the devkit contest. Guess who controls the destiny of the iGadgets now? It will not be Apple. Sure you guys can say that competition is well and good. Really? What if Adobe decided to hinder the development of the iGadgets . All Adobe had to do is ignore the new OS and at the same time, fully support Symbian or Windows7 or Android OS that unleased the full potential of the hardware they are installed in. Suddenly Apple's iGadgets are not hot anymore, not reliable unlike their competitors and oh yeah, had less apps than their competition and even if Apple will released a new device that will blew the competition out of the water, they had lost the war because they let somebody else control the development of the iGadget's apps.
Adobe did that to Apple in regards to OS X. It took Adobe a decade to develop truly native applications of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and After Effects and along the way, tried to undermine Apple and at one point tried to get it's Mac customers to leave the platform behind and switch to Windows. So now here we are, Apple and that means Steve Jobs decided that they will control the destiny of the iGadgets and it's OS. I won't be surprise that Goggle, Microsoft and Nokia will soon follow suit. It's nothing personal, it's all about the survival of their products and their customers.
I'm sure others have speculated about this but it appears Apple is priming to release their own web development tools that will propell HTML5 development. This seems even more evident after Steve demo'd iAd ad placements with HTML5 interactive content and claimed it was easy to put together. Where's the tools that make it easy for a non-developer (a.k.a. a designer)? Answer: They are coming from Apple real soon and most likely with the release of iPhone OS 4.0 and the new iPhones.
...Let us say for example, Apple is foolish enough to have Flash, MonoNet and other outside tools compete with Apple's own devkit to develop apps for the iPhone, Touch and iPad. Let us say that the outside kits win the devkit contest. Guess who controls the destiny of the iGadgets now? It will not be Apple. Sure you guys can say that competition is well and good. Really? What if Adobe decided to hinder the development of the iGadgets . All Adobe had to do is ignore the new OS and at the same time, fully support Symbian or Windows7 or Android OS that unleased the full potential of the hardware they are installed in. Suddenly Apple's iGadgets are not hot anymore...
That argument sounds like communists/socialist stating why a command-economy must work better, while ignoring the dispersed knowledge problem.
Yes, if the consumer and free market wins -- and Flash is so superior to develop solutions than Apple's native platform that the majority of products are developed with it -- then the consumer and Adobe wins and Apple loses. Consumers would even be able to move to the best hardware/software because they wouldn't be as locked in to Apple's proprietary solution.
You're arguing that to avoid that, the consumer should lose now and never have that choice, so that we can have an inferior product with inferior choices to protect Apple's market by increasing the cost and barrier to entry of any competitors. Because gosh, poor Apple needs that protection.
I somewhat agree with this. But I also don't like the direction this is going. When large platforms like Apple's and Microsoft's start locking out third parties it's putting the users in the position to choose one over the other. You're not going to be able to mix and match what you want. Or, like so many do now, jail break your device to get what "YOU" want on it.
What would happen if Microsoft suddenly released an update that prevented iTunes from running? Think of the chaos that would ensue. Microsoft could take a big cut out of Apple's sales by doing just that. Could they get away with it? Probably not. Lawyers would be swarming everywhere.
I'm glad you agree somewhat with that post. It's the way most major companies do business. Open Source Software is a great idea, but it didn't give us the quality of software we have today. I'm not so sure that if Microsoft blocked out iTunes it would have a big cut in Apple's market share. It might have added market share to Apple at the expense of Microsoft. Software competition has always been the deciding factor. People have chose quality over ubiquity or cost.
I understood this was still Carbon and QuickTime. (Since QuickTime has a CarbonLayer/Toolbox that's ported to Windows, this helps it run cross platform). End results, Apple still using abstraction layers that they forbid others from doing. At best they're hypocrites.
There's a big difference between 'helps it run' and 'is'. QuickTime is arguably native on both platforms, there is no more or less abstraction on either platform. Yes, carbon could be seen as 'more' of an abstraction, but it's also an abstraction on Mac OS X, it's just not public for win32. Hell, MFC and .NET are abstractions... Cocoa is an abstraction.
Come to think of it, C is an abstraction to assembly which is an abstraction to machine code, which is an abstraction to microcode, which is an abstraction to actual information, which is an abstraction to the physical world.... and i'm sure the physical world is an abstraction of something.
Point is, it's not hypocritical for Apple to target windows however it sees fit, just as it's not hypocritical if Microsoft or whoever wanted to target a Mac, however they see fit. Macs can run pretty much any code you can get to compile on them, legally and without obstruction., including but not limited to WINE. Microsoft's office and msn apps are written using who knows (and who cares) what.
It's only the iPhone OS where this restriction is applied, and for a whole stack of reasons which do not apply to desktop environments, the rules here are different, and they will be applied differently by the different players - and (depending on who you ask) some developers actually think it's a good rule... makes the platform shiny.
You're just pissed because you can't develop in your language or framework of choice, that's perfectly ok, but then you also have the choice of not developing for that platform if it doesn't meet your requirements as a developer. This is actually the norm, and not the exception... Nintendo, Sony, Xbox?? Generally, you get a platform with an environment and you make the most of what it has to offer, if it's not up to scratch or if it doesn't match your ideals, you put it low on your list of priorities.
The point being that you can write bad code in any language. The language is NOT an indication of quality. This is something that any 1st year programmer knows, except Apple.
intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.
Guess who controls the destiny of the iGadgets now? It will not be Apple. Sure you guys can say that competition is well and good. Really? What if Adobe decided to hinder the development of the iGadgets .
No, because in this scenario Adobe would then be shafting developers, and those developers would jump ship to other tools that allowed them to develop software for the platforms they wanted to target. Also, there is no danger of people not using Apple's development tools, so I don't see things ever playing themselves out quite that way. Apple's tools are free, and they give you a good result, so they are a good choice for many shops. However they are not the best choice for ALL shops.
In fact, I'd come to the opposite conclusion. It is in Apple's best interest to have a thriving developer community, where everyone gets to use the tools that are best suited for the app they are writing. A clamp-down like this is the sort of thing that's going to drive people to other platforms.
In the long run I'd really like to see a Python or Ruby IDE on iPad directly supported by Apple - will that happen?
If they ever decide to allow GC in the iPhone platform, we would be able to look forward to MacRuby as a first-class Cocoa language. I would be extremely pleased.
You're just pissed because you can't develop in your language or framework of choice....
Not at all. I've programmed from microcode or logic, up through machine, assembler, C, C++, ObjC, and a few dozen others. The one I haven't programmed in was ActionScript.
If I was pissed, it is that Apple just took away some good solutions, with some lame excuses, and a bunch of fanboys are falling all over themselves saying things that promote ignorance in the market.
Right. No one language can be proclaimed universally better than any other. What matters is the final product. It all ends up as machine code anyway. Apple is the one claiming that using only C-family languages will produce better apps in the app store. I think that's demonstrably false. I love Objective-C. And Apple does a great job designing Objective-C APIs. The app we're writing uses Objective-C for all interface and user interaction code. But the backend is written in Scala and compiled with VMKit. It would be slower in Objective-C, at least 10x more lines of code, take 10x longer to write and maintain, and have more bugs. The end user has a completely native experience, they have no way of even knowing that another program language was used along the way.
Apple is unnecessarily forbidding completely native apps with this policy--that's why it's ridiculous.
So, hop on or jump off! Neither I nor Apple will lose sleep over it. Objective-C and iAd it shall be for the resourceful and ambitious developers. There is nothing like a good reward for an honest day's work. Deep pockets trump Ideology; 24 hours news cycles nurture ridicule.
Stuff that's virtually impossible to create with Xcode.
You just lost all credibility with this line. So sad.
I've been in software development for 20+ years and seen numerous times how the next "great change" in technology requires learning something new. We would complain for about a week and get right down to it since if we don't adapt, someone else will. That's the difference between us and the majority of iPhone developers that took the time to learn the native SDK environment compared to the wannabe weekend-codewariors and IDE folks that have to let some kind of translator do the work for them.
Your personal attacks just proves I touched a nerve.
That argument sounds like communists/socialist stating why a command-economy must work better, while ignoring the dispersed knowledge problem.
Yes, if the consumer and free market wins -- and Flash is so superior to develop solutions than Apple's native platform that the majority of products are developed with it -- then the consumer and Adobe wins and Apple loses. Consumers would even be able to move to the best hardware/software because they wouldn't be as locked in to Apple's proprietary solution.
You're arguing that to avoid that, the consumer should lose now and never have that choice, so that we can have an inferior product with inferior choices to protect Apple's market by increasing the cost and barrier to entry of any competitors. Because gosh, poor Apple needs that protection.
No, that doesn't seem to be what the poster was saying.
Flash could become the dominant development platform without being superior. Just at Windows for an example. Flash could become dominant for being the best at serving the lowest common denominator. Microsoft is again a good example. Very little that MS has produced over the years could ever be called best of breed (though they are improving lately), they their OS became a monopoly, their IDE became the standard, their browser ate everyone else's marketshare, etc, etc. Best doesn't always win.
The point is, and I think it is a good one, that Apple does face a risk to their platform if other tools became the defacto entry to the iPhone world. If these other tools end up being very slow to adopt new features that Apple pours a ton of resources into developing, then it distinctly hampers their ability to promote these new features and hurts the platform.
Apple has decided to do more to ensure they have control over the success or failure of the iPhone as a platform. Jobs never wants Apple to be in a position like they were in with the Mac, where he had to ask Gates to continue making Office for the Mac. The Mac has always been dependent on the attitude and actions of other companies. There has always been the risk that if MS stopped Office development for the Mac, the Mac would die. They are now unwilling to risk allowing the iPhone to end up in the same precarious position. Apple has proven that taking more control or involvement of the Mac in sales/dev tools/applications has been a successful formula in regaining their success and controlling their success.
I do, however, think Apple is at risk of going over the line when it comes to protecting their turf.
I just wish people here would look at both sides of these issues. Some only see Apple as wrong. Others, with as much thought, can never see Apple as wrong, nor even question their actions and intentions.
I'm glad you agree somewhat with that post. It's the way most major companies do business. Open Source Software is a great idea, but it didn't give us the quality of software we have today. I'm not so sure that if Microsoft blocked out iTunes it would have a big cut in Apple's market share. It might have added market share to Apple at the expense of Microsoft. Software competition has always been the deciding factor. People have chose quality over ubiquity or cost.
If MS had crippled or blocked iTunes on Windows (and managed to get away with it legally...) it would have killed the iPod and would have caused the iPhone to be stillborn. Without iTunes on Windows Apple would have no entry to the other 90%. The iPod was well received (sort of) on launch but became the raging success it is only when it was opened to the Windows world.
or is the thought that people would have just bought a Mac so they could try out the new iPods? I suppose that really would have boosted Apple's market share.
That argument sounds like communists/socialist stating why a command-economy must work better, while ignoring the dispersed knowledge problem.
Yes, if the consumer and free market wins -- and Flash is so superior to develop solutions than Apple's native platform that the majority of products are developed with it -- then the consumer and Adobe wins and Apple loses. Consumers would even be able to move to the best hardware/software because they wouldn't be as locked in to Apple's proprietary solution.
You're arguing that to avoid that, the consumer should lose now and never have that choice, so that we can have an inferior product with inferior choices to protect Apple's market by increasing the cost and barrier to entry of any competitors. Because gosh, poor Apple needs that protection.
a) Sorry, this doesn't have anything to do with communism, socialism or fascism.
b) What does that even mean, "if the free market wins"? The free market doesn't win or lose, individual businesses win or lose, in a free market. And, sorry, the idea that Adobe is the consumer's friend is pretty laughable.
c) Apple's mobile platform will only ever be inferior if they take your advice and allow Adobe, Google, et al. to undermine it for their own commercial ends. Again, the idea that any of these companies are "acting in the interests of consumers" is ridiculous.
Apple does make great products, but not because they love consumers. They do it because SJ can't stand crap, and it turns out that making great products is also a great way to make money.
Adobe certainly doesn't love consumer, particularly consumers of Apple products. Nor do they love developers. What they do love is the money they make off their crumbling Flash empire.
As for the other parties, none of them are in this for the love of consumers or developers either. Each has it's own goal, and that goal isn't to help make Apple's mobile platform the best on the planet. In fact, their goals to lock developers into their own cross-platform development tools are directly in conflict with Apple's goal to make theirs the best on the planet because the ideal cross-platform development tool makes all platforms the same.
So, as I've said before, Apple is under no obligation to be a host organism for these tool vendors.
Comments
Actually, no, if Microsoft did this, everyone would be up in arms. The truth is that Microsoft could easily block iTunes by saying it uses non-standard APIs. But Microsoft doesn't do this, because they aren't that evil.
Difference would be windows (and Mac) is an open platform. iPhone OS was never advertised to be open, in fact it has been rather restrictive right from the very beginning.
Also being more closed doesn't really give Apple any competitive advantage.
If I were apple, after witnessing the horror of quicktime on windows I would ban all middleware immediately.
...and yet, they do not. Regardless that it "ultimately produces sub-standard apps."
...and yet, they do not. Regardless that it "ultimately produces sub-standard apps."
Substandard apps for windows
Actually safari on windows got slightly better recently, but still way slower than safari on mac.
Actually, no, if Microsoft did this, everyone would be up in arms. The truth is that Microsoft could easily block iTunes by saying it uses non-standard APIs. But Microsoft doesn't do this, because they aren't that evil.
Well, yes and no. In the PC market, Microsoft would be in big trouble and so does Apple. But in the mobile market where everybody protects whatever advantage they have to gain more customers and marketshare . You protect what you have to gain advantage and gain customers
Seriously , unlike the PC/laptop market where it is relatively easy to have your hardware product survive with less applications than the other companies even when one of your core developers screw you and your customers and treat you like second class citizens in regards to software development. In the mobile industry, such act would literally be a death blow which one cannot recover. Let us say for example, Apple is foolish enough to have Flash, MonoNet and other outside tools compete with Apple's own devkit to develop apps for the iPhone, Touch and iPad. Let us say that the outside kits win the devkit contest. Guess who controls the destiny of the iGadgets now? It will not be Apple. Sure you guys can say that competition is well and good. Really? What if Adobe decided to hinder the development of the iGadgets . All Adobe had to do is ignore the new OS and at the same time, fully support Symbian or Windows7 or Android OS that unleased the full potential of the hardware they are installed in. Suddenly Apple's iGadgets are not hot anymore, not reliable unlike their competitors and oh yeah, had less apps than their competition and even if Apple will released a new device that will blew the competition out of the water, they had lost the war because they let somebody else control the development of the iGadget's apps.
Adobe did that to Apple in regards to OS X. It took Adobe a decade to develop truly native applications of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and After Effects and along the way, tried to undermine Apple and at one point tried to get it's Mac customers to leave the platform behind and switch to Windows. So now here we are, Apple and that means Steve Jobs decided that they will control the destiny of the iGadgets and it's OS. I won't be surprise that Goggle, Microsoft and Nokia will soon follow suit. It's nothing personal, it's all about the survival of their products and their customers.
...Let us say for example, Apple is foolish enough to have Flash, MonoNet and other outside tools compete with Apple's own devkit to develop apps for the iPhone, Touch and iPad. Let us say that the outside kits win the devkit contest. Guess who controls the destiny of the iGadgets now? It will not be Apple. Sure you guys can say that competition is well and good. Really? What if Adobe decided to hinder the development of the iGadgets . All Adobe had to do is ignore the new OS and at the same time, fully support Symbian or Windows7 or Android OS that unleased the full potential of the hardware they are installed in. Suddenly Apple's iGadgets are not hot anymore...
That argument sounds like communists/socialist stating why a command-economy must work better, while ignoring the dispersed knowledge problem.
Yes, if the consumer and free market wins -- and Flash is so superior to develop solutions than Apple's native platform that the majority of products are developed with it -- then the consumer and Adobe wins and Apple loses. Consumers would even be able to move to the best hardware/software because they wouldn't be as locked in to Apple's proprietary solution.
You're arguing that to avoid that, the consumer should lose now and never have that choice, so that we can have an inferior product with inferior choices to protect Apple's market by increasing the cost and barrier to entry of any competitors. Because gosh, poor Apple needs that protection.
Substandard apps for windows
Actually safari on windows got slightly better recently, but still way slower than safari on mac.
So, they you are arguing that Apple intentionally releases crapware for Windows?
I somewhat agree with this. But I also don't like the direction this is going. When large platforms like Apple's and Microsoft's start locking out third parties it's putting the users in the position to choose one over the other. You're not going to be able to mix and match what you want. Or, like so many do now, jail break your device to get what "YOU" want on it.
What would happen if Microsoft suddenly released an update that prevented iTunes from running? Think of the chaos that would ensue. Microsoft could take a big cut out of Apple's sales by doing just that. Could they get away with it? Probably not. Lawyers would be swarming everywhere.
I'm glad you agree somewhat with that post. It's the way most major companies do business. Open Source Software is a great idea, but it didn't give us the quality of software we have today. I'm not so sure that if Microsoft blocked out iTunes it would have a big cut in Apple's market share. It might have added market share to Apple at the expense of Microsoft. Software competition has always been the deciding factor. People have chose quality over ubiquity or cost.
I understood this was still Carbon and QuickTime. (Since QuickTime has a CarbonLayer/Toolbox that's ported to Windows, this helps it run cross platform). End results, Apple still using abstraction layers that they forbid others from doing. At best they're hypocrites.
There's a big difference between 'helps it run' and 'is'. QuickTime is arguably native on both platforms, there is no more or less abstraction on either platform. Yes, carbon could be seen as 'more' of an abstraction, but it's also an abstraction on Mac OS X, it's just not public for win32. Hell, MFC and .NET are abstractions... Cocoa is an abstraction.
Come to think of it, C is an abstraction to assembly which is an abstraction to machine code, which is an abstraction to microcode, which is an abstraction to actual information, which is an abstraction to the physical world.... and i'm sure the physical world is an abstraction of something.
Point is, it's not hypocritical for Apple to target windows however it sees fit, just as it's not hypocritical if Microsoft or whoever wanted to target a Mac, however they see fit. Macs can run pretty much any code you can get to compile on them, legally and without obstruction., including but not limited to WINE. Microsoft's office and msn apps are written using who knows (and who cares) what.
It's only the iPhone OS where this restriction is applied, and for a whole stack of reasons which do not apply to desktop environments, the rules here are different, and they will be applied differently by the different players - and (depending on who you ask) some developers actually think it's a good rule... makes the platform shiny.
You're just pissed because you can't develop in your language or framework of choice, that's perfectly ok, but then you also have the choice of not developing for that platform if it doesn't meet your requirements as a developer. This is actually the norm, and not the exception... Nintendo, Sony, Xbox?? Generally, you get a platform with an environment and you make the most of what it has to offer, if it's not up to scratch or if it doesn't match your ideals, you put it low on your list of priorities.
The point being that you can write bad code in any language. The language is NOT an indication of quality. This is something that any 1st year programmer knows, except Apple.
intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.
Guess who controls the destiny of the iGadgets now? It will not be Apple. Sure you guys can say that competition is well and good. Really? What if Adobe decided to hinder the development of the iGadgets .
No, because in this scenario Adobe would then be shafting developers, and those developers would jump ship to other tools that allowed them to develop software for the platforms they wanted to target. Also, there is no danger of people not using Apple's development tools, so I don't see things ever playing themselves out quite that way. Apple's tools are free, and they give you a good result, so they are a good choice for many shops. However they are not the best choice for ALL shops.
In fact, I'd come to the opposite conclusion. It is in Apple's best interest to have a thriving developer community, where everyone gets to use the tools that are best suited for the app they are writing. A clamp-down like this is the sort of thing that's going to drive people to other platforms.
They are totally not needed. Adobe slows things down, and Flash..........is just a Pain Advertising scheme to get folks to Notice the Stupid Ads.
JMHO.
In the long run I'd really like to see a Python or Ruby IDE on iPad directly supported by Apple - will that happen?
If they ever decide to allow GC in the iPhone platform, we would be able to look forward to MacRuby as a first-class Cocoa language. I would be extremely pleased.
You're just pissed because you can't develop in your language or framework of choice....
Not at all. I've programmed from microcode or logic, up through machine, assembler, C, C++, ObjC, and a few dozen others. The one I haven't programmed in was ActionScript.
If I was pissed, it is that Apple just took away some good solutions, with some lame excuses, and a bunch of fanboys are falling all over themselves saying things that promote ignorance in the market.
Right. No one language can be proclaimed universally better than any other. What matters is the final product. It all ends up as machine code anyway. Apple is the one claiming that using only C-family languages will produce better apps in the app store. I think that's demonstrably false. I love Objective-C. And Apple does a great job designing Objective-C APIs. The app we're writing uses Objective-C for all interface and user interaction code. But the backend is written in Scala and compiled with VMKit. It would be slower in Objective-C, at least 10x more lines of code, take 10x longer to write and maintain, and have more bugs. The end user has a completely native experience, they have no way of even knowing that another program language was used along the way.
Apple is unnecessarily forbidding completely native apps with this policy--that's why it's ridiculous.
So, hop on or jump off! Neither I nor Apple will lose sleep over it. Objective-C and iAd it shall be for the resourceful and ambitious developers. There is nothing like a good reward for an honest day's work. Deep pockets trump Ideology; 24 hours news cycles nurture ridicule.
Stuff that's virtually impossible to create with Xcode.
You just lost all credibility with this line. So sad.
I've been in software development for 20+ years and seen numerous times how the next "great change" in technology requires learning something new. We would complain for about a week and get right down to it since if we don't adapt, someone else will. That's the difference between us and the majority of iPhone developers that took the time to learn the native SDK environment compared to the wannabe weekend-codewariors and IDE folks that have to let some kind of translator do the work for them.
Your personal attacks just proves I touched a nerve.
So sad.
That argument sounds like communists/socialist stating why a command-economy must work better, while ignoring the dispersed knowledge problem.
Yes, if the consumer and free market wins -- and Flash is so superior to develop solutions than Apple's native platform that the majority of products are developed with it -- then the consumer and Adobe wins and Apple loses. Consumers would even be able to move to the best hardware/software because they wouldn't be as locked in to Apple's proprietary solution.
You're arguing that to avoid that, the consumer should lose now and never have that choice, so that we can have an inferior product with inferior choices to protect Apple's market by increasing the cost and barrier to entry of any competitors. Because gosh, poor Apple needs that protection.
No, that doesn't seem to be what the poster was saying.
Flash could become the dominant development platform without being superior. Just at Windows for an example. Flash could become dominant for being the best at serving the lowest common denominator. Microsoft is again a good example. Very little that MS has produced over the years could ever be called best of breed (though they are improving lately), they their OS became a monopoly, their IDE became the standard, their browser ate everyone else's marketshare, etc, etc. Best doesn't always win.
The point is, and I think it is a good one, that Apple does face a risk to their platform if other tools became the defacto entry to the iPhone world. If these other tools end up being very slow to adopt new features that Apple pours a ton of resources into developing, then it distinctly hampers their ability to promote these new features and hurts the platform.
Apple has decided to do more to ensure they have control over the success or failure of the iPhone as a platform. Jobs never wants Apple to be in a position like they were in with the Mac, where he had to ask Gates to continue making Office for the Mac. The Mac has always been dependent on the attitude and actions of other companies. There has always been the risk that if MS stopped Office development for the Mac, the Mac would die. They are now unwilling to risk allowing the iPhone to end up in the same precarious position. Apple has proven that taking more control or involvement of the Mac in sales/dev tools/applications has been a successful formula in regaining their success and controlling their success.
I do, however, think Apple is at risk of going over the line when it comes to protecting their turf.
I just wish people here would look at both sides of these issues. Some only see Apple as wrong. Others, with as much thought, can never see Apple as wrong, nor even question their actions and intentions.
I'm glad you agree somewhat with that post. It's the way most major companies do business. Open Source Software is a great idea, but it didn't give us the quality of software we have today. I'm not so sure that if Microsoft blocked out iTunes it would have a big cut in Apple's market share. It might have added market share to Apple at the expense of Microsoft. Software competition has always been the deciding factor. People have chose quality over ubiquity or cost.
If MS had crippled or blocked iTunes on Windows (and managed to get away with it legally...) it would have killed the iPod and would have caused the iPhone to be stillborn. Without iTunes on Windows Apple would have no entry to the other 90%. The iPod was well received (sort of) on launch but became the raging success it is only when it was opened to the Windows world.
or is the thought that people would have just bought a Mac so they could try out the new iPods? I suppose that really would have boosted Apple's market share.
That argument sounds like communists/socialist stating why a command-economy must work better, while ignoring the dispersed knowledge problem.
Yes, if the consumer and free market wins -- and Flash is so superior to develop solutions than Apple's native platform that the majority of products are developed with it -- then the consumer and Adobe wins and Apple loses. Consumers would even be able to move to the best hardware/software because they wouldn't be as locked in to Apple's proprietary solution.
You're arguing that to avoid that, the consumer should lose now and never have that choice, so that we can have an inferior product with inferior choices to protect Apple's market by increasing the cost and barrier to entry of any competitors. Because gosh, poor Apple needs that protection.
a) Sorry, this doesn't have anything to do with communism, socialism or fascism.
b) What does that even mean, "if the free market wins"? The free market doesn't win or lose, individual businesses win or lose, in a free market. And, sorry, the idea that Adobe is the consumer's friend is pretty laughable.
c) Apple's mobile platform will only ever be inferior if they take your advice and allow Adobe, Google, et al. to undermine it for their own commercial ends. Again, the idea that any of these companies are "acting in the interests of consumers" is ridiculous.
Apple does make great products, but not because they love consumers. They do it because SJ can't stand crap, and it turns out that making great products is also a great way to make money.
Adobe certainly doesn't love consumer, particularly consumers of Apple products. Nor do they love developers. What they do love is the money they make off their crumbling Flash empire.
As for the other parties, none of them are in this for the love of consumers or developers either. Each has it's own goal, and that goal isn't to help make Apple's mobile platform the best on the planet. In fact, their goals to lock developers into their own cross-platform development tools are directly in conflict with Apple's goal to make theirs the best on the planet because the ideal cross-platform development tool makes all platforms the same.
So, as I've said before, Apple is under no obligation to be a host organism for these tool vendors.
intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.
Did you forget that you already posted that under another alias?