19 ms·

I love this. Apple clearly laid out their reasoning, using facts and persuasive argument. The world needs more of this. Obviously, there is some spin in the po

I love this. Apple clearly laid out their reasoning, using facts and persuasive argument. The world needs more of this. Obviously, there is some spin in the post, and I don't completely agree with 100% of it, but I love the level of discourse.

tjogin 16y ago
John Gruber has been making these exact points. This could basically be ghost written by Gruber and we wouldn't know the difference.
- gstar 16y ago
  I've often wondered if Gruber's reliable contact at Apple was some guy with turtlenecks and no numberplates.
  - treblig 16y ago
    He did throw up this little Tweet a couple nights ago: http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829 http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829
    - Timothee 16y ago
      And he did it at 9:42pm, iPhone's preferred (evening) time. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250125 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250125)
      - wallflower 16y ago
        I think Gruber remains independent from Apple. It would be too conspiracy theory for Gruber/Daring Fireball to be a secret PR mouthpiece for Apple. More likely Apple reaches out to him because he is by far the most influential Apple website outside of Apple (MacRumors is a distant 2nd in my opinion). They don't have to pay Gruber anything; the increased ad revenue from being a member of the elite The Deck should more than compensate.
        maximilian 16y ago
        More likely Apple reaches out to him because he is by far the most influential Apple website outside of Apple I also think he is one of the most levelheaded apple-centric websites out there. Gruber talks a lot about premium products (not just apple) and their success in various markets -- DF is like a premium tech/apple/good taste blogzine and I imagine that his style appeals to a lot of people at Apple, whether they reach out to him or not (and "legally" or not)
        slantyyz 16y ago
        Gruber is fantastic when he's not in "scandal" mode. The site quality degrades significantly, however, when he latches onto a "scandal", whether it be about stolen iphones or illegitimate wi-fi security claims. With his recent ad nauseum stolen phone coverage, DF has felt more like an overwrought Entertainment Tonight scandal episode. I've found the best Gruber reading algorithm is: if (post < 2 paragraphs) { worth bookmarking } else { mark as read }
      - treblig 16y ago
        Keep in mind, he lives in Philadelphia, where it was 12:42am.
        jjs 16y ago
        I'm sure he operates strictly on Cupertino time. ;)
- thought_alarm 16y ago
  Because they're obvious points to make. Apple's competitors have been clamoring to put Flash on their mobile devices because it's one more bullet point they can use in their marketing against the iPhone. Yet it's 2010 and mobile Flash is still nowhere to be found. How is that not Adobe's fault?
  - tjogin 16y ago
    I agree, but a hell of a lot of people are missing these obvious points, though. Most people with an opinion on Apple are.
  - barrkel 16y ago
    Don't lose sight of the issue. 3.3.1 is the issue, not "Flash on the iPhone". By reframing the argument as "Flash on the iPhone", you are succumbing to misdirection.
    - pyre 16y ago
      True enough. And Cocoa Touch is not an 'open standard.'
      - davidedicillo 16y ago
        Jobs never said that Cocoa is an open standard. He just state that Flash is as proprietary as Cocoa Touch. Market share =! Open. His point is that on the mobile web, HTML5 is open, not Flash.
        pyre 16y ago
        So "Flash on the Web == Bad" because it's not open, but "Flash cross-compiled apps on iPhone == Bad" because it's not... open... ? The logic doesn't match up. As has been stated, it's a misdirection. Steve Jobs is setting fire to a house on the west side of town so that no one will notice that he's robbing the bank on the east side. He's trying to come off as an 'open crusader for the web against Adobe' because 'Adobe is not open,' but on the other hand shoving Adobe (and others) off of the i{Phone,Pad} platform because it's not part of Apple's own 'not open' environment. I hate Adobe as much as the next person, but let's not dress Steve Jobs up as a knight in shining armour just because he also doesn't like Adobe.
- jerf 16y ago
  Gruber is really Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is really Fake Steve Jobs. Fake Steve Jobs is actually Bill Gates.
  - grellas 16y ago
    The latest from Fake Steve on this piece: http://www.fakesteve.net/2010/04/please-stop-thinking-about-gizmodo-doors-being-broken-down-etc.html http://www.fakesteve.net/2010/04/please-stop-thinking-about-....
    - lionhearted 16y ago
      Oh man, I almost spit my tea out laughing at that. Wow.
      - rogermugs 16y ago
        tea is proprietary. we're more interested in an open standard like beer at apple.
    - varaon 16y ago
      Fake Steve raises an interesting point about how close John Gruber and Apple are. >"...we leaked the Flash essay to our Chief Apologist John Gruber and told him to start whipping up some buzz on Twitter about it, and he followed orders [http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829 http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829]." Consider too that Steve Jobs replied to an email asking about the restriction of apps to C* with a link to a Gruber post [http://www.taoeffect.com/blog/2010/04/steve-jobs-response-on-section-3-3-1/ http://www.taoeffect.com/blog/2010/04/steve-jobs-response-on...].
  - ericb 16y ago
    I'd argue that the real Steve Jobs is Bill Gates, lately. Maybe Monopolies (essentially) do that to people.
    - megablast 16y ago
oldgregg 16y ago
I agree, but it's really sad that we're at a place where we praise Apple for communicating... like normal human beings.
- rrhyne 16y ago
  Apple is a corporation, not a human being.
  - oldgregg 16y ago
    Clever. The only thing more disturbing than Apple's behavior is how many developers seem to be suffering from stockholm syndrome.
    - raimondious 16y ago
      Yes, Flash and iPhone developers alike.
      - darthpanda 16y ago
        Yeah it's an interesting battle. I've developed for both but I don't consider myself loyal to either. But this thing is becoming religious. I was a little ticked at first and ranted a bit. But I've accepted their decision and moved on. I will not be developing an app for the iPhone or iPad and it has nothing to do with Flash or 3rd party layers and everything to do with lack of freedom as a developer. As long as my application runs great and adds value, what's the problem? Save the nonsense guised as a technical argument for someone that falls for that (the consumer?).
  - wfarr 16y ago
    The Supreme Court would like a word with you.
    - cynicalkane 16y ago
      What? The legal notion of "legal personhood" and actual personhood are not comparable, not even legally, and especially not in the context of the discussion at hand.
tomlin 16y ago
I have trouble swallowing some of this. A few of these theories have been debunked successfully. I have a small problem with this "don't look at the man behind the curtain" routine. Proprietary is proprietary. Don't try and swing it. Battery Life: http://vimeo.com/9705969 http://vimeo.com/9705969, http://vimeo.com/9724682 http://vimeo.com/9724682 Delays: http://www.neowin.net/news/adobe-quotapple-hurts-customers-flash-101-delayed-beta-for-android-announced http://www.neowin.net/news/adobe-quotapple-hurts-customers-f... Touch/Scroll: http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/02/22/flash-player-content-mouse-events-and-touch-input http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/02/22/flash-player-con..., http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/02/23/scrolling-html-with-flash-content-on-touch-devices http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/02/23/scrolling-html-w... Speed: http://jobemakar.blogspot.com/2010/04/flash-is-speedy-on-android.html http://jobemakar.blogspot.com/2010/04/flash-is-speedy-on-and...
- gaius 16y ago
  Apples position is that proprietary implementations of open standards is the way to go (tho' of course WebKit is completely open).
  - tomlin 16y ago
    Thought: Proprietary isn't bad. Open isn't great. Proprietary vs. open is bad. Proprietary + open is great. Proprietary implementations are a (sometimes) necessary interstitial step towards great open implementations. Save the "VS." narrative for Street Fighter II.
    - potatolicious 16y ago
      > "Proprietary implementations are a (sometimes) necessary interstitial step towards great open implementations." True, but Flash is a closed standard with a closed implementation. Adobe likes to claim it is open - but the fact remains that not only is it impossible to write an open implementation of their incomplete spec, but Adobe has actively sought to keep core components proprietary even in spec and prevent competing implementations. That's the part that irks me about Adobe's role in this issue - they're playing themselves and Flash off as this open savior of the web when they've actively been evil in that regard. If you're closed, great, do your thing; if you're open, then actually open your spec - don't open part of it and then go after the other half with lawyers.
marr 16y ago
The Lord said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman replied, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
barrkel 16y ago
I think it's almost entirely bullshit and misdirection. 3.3.1 doesn't apply to specifically to Flash. "Open" is irrelevant. Apple is certainly no more open than Adobe. The Full Web - whatever. Don't support it in the browser, don't support browser plugins, fine. Safari on iPhone still crashes all the time. Reliability, security, performance - these are all things that apply to native apps built for the App Store, so why are apps built with Flash excluded in particular? Battery life - more irrelevance. I'm pretty sure that there are games on the App Store right now that will suck away your battery's life faster than most cross-compiled Flash games. Game loops are intrinsically always busy - they don't necessarily have a natural idle point like GUI event loops do, especially if they are running at less than their desired framerate. Touch - this is an application quality issue. I don't see any difficulty in simply not approving apps that have awkward non-touch interfaces. The last reason, it being another layer, is the most insidious. UI difference, performance, etc. are all irrelevant - games have weird UIs, drain battery, and poor performance is a quality issue. The truth is Apple doesn't want to be disintermediated. Apple wants developers to be strictly dependent on its tools and APIs, and not use anything between the app and the platform. This is particularly offensive to me as a software developer, and it's far worse than anything Microsoft has ever tried to pull. It's the reason why 3.3.1 is phrased the way it is, and it has nothing to do with Flash and everything to do with locking developers in. As I see it, Flash on the web is used for three things: (1) video, (2) casual games and (3) ill-advised corporate intro screens. I'd love to see video not needing flash, but it isn't, yet. Having a sand-boxed third-party FLV player, so that it didn't need to infect the Safari process, would be nice to have. I don't really see that approving such a process would be necessarily harder than approving any other native application on the App Store. I'd love for (3) to disappear. I can't bear those things. And it would be great if HTML5 was universally usable and performant enough to work for (2), but it isn't, yet. I know of many casual Flash games, though, that would work really nicely as apps, and Apple is hurting me personally by increasing the barriers preventing those apps on the web from being available on my device. This policy is both anti-consumer and anti-developer. Only in the short-term is it pro-Apple, but I hope and expect Apple will fade in the longer term in competition with Android.
- redrobot5050 16y ago
  >The truth is Apple doesn't want to be disintermediated. Apple wants developers to be strictly dependent on its tools and APIs, and not use anything between the app and the platform. This is particularly offensive to me as a software developer, and it's far worse than anything Microsoft has ever tried to pull. It's the reason why 3.3.1 is phrased the way it is, and it has nothing to do with Flash and everything to do with locking developers in. Microsoft did the same thing with DirectX and OpenGL. OpenGL was cross-platform. Microsoft stopped supporting it, and instead insisted that developers use DirectX. This essentially killed cross-platform gaming for Mac/Linux. DirectX games port between Microsoft platforms and Microsoft's Console, but require significant middleware to port to OpenGL and non-Win32 platforms. Use of an API, public and documented, is a form of dependence and lock-in. Apple has done. Microsoft does it. Oracle does it.
jergosh 16y ago
Regardless of what Apple think is best for the users, I would still prefer to have Flash on my iPhone. Not only to be able to use websites made in Flash, but also so that developers have a way to develop software without going through the App Store.
prasanamishra 16y ago
hmmm I too agree with this post somehow.... since long I am also not comfortable in learning flash and creating flash based website.. though the graphics is amazing but very slow.... the current decision by apple will definitely hinder the progress of Flash... Adobe need to come up with it's own version of mobile phone :) in the post Steve Jobs mentioned not to encourage the third party layer.... so they ll be slow to adapt the platform changes.... But today got mail from Appacceletor Titanium, they are quite happy bcoz they are developing based on JavaScript.... not sure..

tjogin 16y ago

John Gruber has been making these exact points. This could basically be ghost written by Gruber and we wouldn't know the difference.

gstar 16y ago
I've often wondered if Gruber's reliable contact at Apple was some guy with turtlenecks and no numberplates.
- treblig 16y ago
  He did throw up this little Tweet a couple nights ago: http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829 http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829
  - Timothee 16y ago
    And he did it at 9:42pm, iPhone's preferred (evening) time. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250125 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250125)
    - wallflower 16y ago
      I think Gruber remains independent from Apple. It would be too conspiracy theory for Gruber/Daring Fireball to be a secret PR mouthpiece for Apple. More likely Apple reaches out to him because he is by far the most influential Apple website outside of Apple (MacRumors is a distant 2nd in my opinion). They don't have to pay Gruber anything; the increased ad revenue from being a member of the elite The Deck should more than compensate.
      - maximilian 16y ago
        More likely Apple reaches out to him because he is by far the most influential Apple website outside of Apple I also think he is one of the most levelheaded apple-centric websites out there. Gruber talks a lot about premium products (not just apple) and their success in various markets -- DF is like a premium tech/apple/good taste blogzine and I imagine that his style appeals to a lot of people at Apple, whether they reach out to him or not (and "legally" or not)
        slantyyz 16y ago
        Gruber is fantastic when he's not in "scandal" mode. The site quality degrades significantly, however, when he latches onto a "scandal", whether it be about stolen iphones or illegitimate wi-fi security claims. With his recent ad nauseum stolen phone coverage, DF has felt more like an overwrought Entertainment Tonight scandal episode. I've found the best Gruber reading algorithm is: if (post < 2 paragraphs) { worth bookmarking } else { mark as read }
    - treblig 16y ago
      Keep in mind, he lives in Philadelphia, where it was 12:42am.
      - jjs 16y ago
        I'm sure he operates strictly on Cupertino time. ;)
thought_alarm 16y ago
Because they're obvious points to make. Apple's competitors have been clamoring to put Flash on their mobile devices because it's one more bullet point they can use in their marketing against the iPhone. Yet it's 2010 and mobile Flash is still nowhere to be found. How is that not Adobe's fault?
- tjogin 16y ago
  I agree, but a hell of a lot of people are missing these obvious points, though. Most people with an opinion on Apple are.
- barrkel 16y ago
  Don't lose sight of the issue. 3.3.1 is the issue, not "Flash on the iPhone". By reframing the argument as "Flash on the iPhone", you are succumbing to misdirection.
  - pyre 16y ago
    True enough. And Cocoa Touch is not an 'open standard.'
    - davidedicillo 16y ago
      Jobs never said that Cocoa is an open standard. He just state that Flash is as proprietary as Cocoa Touch. Market share =! Open. His point is that on the mobile web, HTML5 is open, not Flash.
      - pyre 16y ago
        So "Flash on the Web == Bad" because it's not open, but "Flash cross-compiled apps on iPhone == Bad" because it's not... open... ? The logic doesn't match up. As has been stated, it's a misdirection. Steve Jobs is setting fire to a house on the west side of town so that no one will notice that he's robbing the bank on the east side. He's trying to come off as an 'open crusader for the web against Adobe' because 'Adobe is not open,' but on the other hand shoving Adobe (and others) off of the i{Phone,Pad} platform because it's not part of Apple's own 'not open' environment. I hate Adobe as much as the next person, but let's not dress Steve Jobs up as a knight in shining armour just because he also doesn't like Adobe.
jerf 16y ago
Gruber is really Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is really Fake Steve Jobs. Fake Steve Jobs is actually Bill Gates.
- grellas 16y ago
  The latest from Fake Steve on this piece: http://www.fakesteve.net/2010/04/please-stop-thinking-about-gizmodo-doors-being-broken-down-etc.html http://www.fakesteve.net/2010/04/please-stop-thinking-about-....
  - lionhearted 16y ago
    Oh man, I almost spit my tea out laughing at that. Wow.
    - rogermugs 16y ago
      tea is proprietary. we're more interested in an open standard like beer at apple.
  - varaon 16y ago
    Fake Steve raises an interesting point about how close John Gruber and Apple are. >"...we leaked the Flash essay to our Chief Apologist John Gruber and told him to start whipping up some buzz on Twitter about it, and he followed orders [http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829 http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829]." Consider too that Steve Jobs replied to an email asking about the restriction of apps to C* with a link to a Gruber post [http://www.taoeffect.com/blog/2010/04/steve-jobs-response-on-section-3-3-1/ http://www.taoeffect.com/blog/2010/04/steve-jobs-response-on...].
- ericb 16y ago
  I'd argue that the real Steve Jobs is Bill Gates, lately. Maybe Monopolies (essentially) do that to people.
  - megablast 16y ago

oldgregg 16y ago

I agree, but it's really sad that we're at a place where we praise Apple for communicating... like normal human beings.

rrhyne 16y ago
Apple is a corporation, not a human being.
- oldgregg 16y ago
  Clever. The only thing more disturbing than Apple's behavior is how many developers seem to be suffering from stockholm syndrome.
  - raimondious 16y ago
    Yes, Flash and iPhone developers alike.
    - darthpanda 16y ago
      Yeah it's an interesting battle. I've developed for both but I don't consider myself loyal to either. But this thing is becoming religious. I was a little ticked at first and ranted a bit. But I've accepted their decision and moved on. I will not be developing an app for the iPhone or iPad and it has nothing to do with Flash or 3rd party layers and everything to do with lack of freedom as a developer. As long as my application runs great and adds value, what's the problem? Save the nonsense guised as a technical argument for someone that falls for that (the consumer?).
- wfarr 16y ago
  The Supreme Court would like a word with you.
  - cynicalkane 16y ago
    What? The legal notion of "legal personhood" and actual personhood are not comparable, not even legally, and especially not in the context of the discussion at hand.

tomlin 16y ago

I have trouble swallowing some of this. A few of these theories have been debunked successfully. I have a small problem with this "don't look at the man behind the curtain" routine. Proprietary is proprietary. Don't try and swing it. Battery Life: http://vimeo.com/9705969 http://vimeo.com/9705969, http://vimeo.com/9724682 http://vimeo.com/9724682 Delays: http://www.neowin.net/news/adobe-quotapple-hurts-customers-flash-101-delayed-beta-for-android-announced http://www.neowin.net/news/adobe-quotapple-hurts-customers-f... Touch/Scroll: http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/02/22/flash-player-content-mouse-events-and-touch-input http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/02/22/flash-player-con..., http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/02/23/scrolling-html-with-flash-content-on-touch-devices http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/02/23/scrolling-html-w... Speed: http://jobemakar.blogspot.com/2010/04/flash-is-speedy-on-android.html http://jobemakar.blogspot.com/2010/04/flash-is-speedy-on-and...

gaius 16y ago
Apples position is that proprietary implementations of open standards is the way to go (tho' of course WebKit is completely open).
- tomlin 16y ago
  Thought: Proprietary isn't bad. Open isn't great. Proprietary vs. open is bad. Proprietary + open is great. Proprietary implementations are a (sometimes) necessary interstitial step towards great open implementations. Save the "VS." narrative for Street Fighter II.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    > "Proprietary implementations are a (sometimes) necessary interstitial step towards great open implementations." True, but Flash is a closed standard with a closed implementation. Adobe likes to claim it is open - but the fact remains that not only is it impossible to write an open implementation of their incomplete spec, but Adobe has actively sought to keep core components proprietary even in spec and prevent competing implementations. That's the part that irks me about Adobe's role in this issue - they're playing themselves and Flash off as this open savior of the web when they've actively been evil in that regard. If you're closed, great, do your thing; if you're open, then actually open your spec - don't open part of it and then go after the other half with lawyers.

marr 16y ago

The Lord said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman replied, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

barrkel 16y ago

I think it's almost entirely bullshit and misdirection. 3.3.1 doesn't apply to specifically to Flash. "Open" is irrelevant. Apple is certainly no more open than Adobe. The Full Web - whatever. Don't support it in the browser, don't support browser plugins, fine. Safari on iPhone still crashes all the time. Reliability, security, performance - these are all things that apply to native apps built for the App Store, so why are apps built with Flash excluded in particular? Battery life - more irrelevance. I'm pretty sure that there are games on the App Store right now that will suck away your battery's life faster than most cross-compiled Flash games. Game loops are intrinsically always busy - they don't necessarily have a natural idle point like GUI event loops do, especially if they are running at less than their desired framerate. Touch - this is an application quality issue. I don't see any difficulty in simply not approving apps that have awkward non-touch interfaces. The last reason, it being another layer, is the most insidious. UI difference, performance, etc. are all irrelevant - games have weird UIs, drain battery, and poor performance is a quality issue. The truth is Apple doesn't want to be disintermediated. Apple wants developers to be strictly dependent on its tools and APIs, and not use anything between the app and the platform. This is particularly offensive to me as a software developer, and it's far worse than anything Microsoft has ever tried to pull. It's the reason why 3.3.1 is phrased the way it is, and it has nothing to do with Flash and everything to do with locking developers in. As I see it, Flash on the web is used for three things: (1) video, (2) casual games and (3) ill-advised corporate intro screens. I'd love to see video not needing flash, but it isn't, yet. Having a sand-boxed third-party FLV player, so that it didn't need to infect the Safari process, would be nice to have. I don't really see that approving such a process would be necessarily harder than approving any other native application on the App Store. I'd love for (3) to disappear. I can't bear those things. And it would be great if HTML5 was universally usable and performant enough to work for (2), but it isn't, yet. I know of many casual Flash games, though, that would work really nicely as apps, and Apple is hurting me personally by increasing the barriers preventing those apps on the web from being available on my device. This policy is both anti-consumer and anti-developer. Only in the short-term is it pro-Apple, but I hope and expect Apple will fade in the longer term in competition with Android.

redrobot5050 16y ago
>The truth is Apple doesn't want to be disintermediated. Apple wants developers to be strictly dependent on its tools and APIs, and not use anything between the app and the platform. This is particularly offensive to me as a software developer, and it's far worse than anything Microsoft has ever tried to pull. It's the reason why 3.3.1 is phrased the way it is, and it has nothing to do with Flash and everything to do with locking developers in. Microsoft did the same thing with DirectX and OpenGL. OpenGL was cross-platform. Microsoft stopped supporting it, and instead insisted that developers use DirectX. This essentially killed cross-platform gaming for Mac/Linux. DirectX games port between Microsoft platforms and Microsoft's Console, but require significant middleware to port to OpenGL and non-Win32 platforms. Use of an API, public and documented, is a form of dependence and lock-in. Apple has done. Microsoft does it. Oracle does it.

jergosh 16y ago

Regardless of what Apple think is best for the users, I would still prefer to have Flash on my iPhone. Not only to be able to use websites made in Flash, but also so that developers have a way to develop software without going through the App Store.

prasanamishra 16y ago

hmmm I too agree with this post somehow.... since long I am also not comfortable in learning flash and creating flash based website.. though the graphics is amazing but very slow.... the current decision by apple will definitely hinder the progress of Flash... Adobe need to come up with it's own version of mobile phone :) in the post Steve Jobs mentioned not to encourage the third party layer.... so they ll be slow to adapt the platform changes.... But today got mail from Appacceletor Titanium, they are quite happy bcoz they are developing based on JavaScript.... not sure..