17 ms·

The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

286 points by protothomas 16y ago

jorgecastillo 16y ago
As long as people care there will always be PCs(PERSONAL COMPUTERS) and OSS for them even if proprietary software becomes tied to hardware. And I don't really see this happening in much of the developing world (most of the world/fastest growing markets) in the coming decades.
kjf 16y ago
Interesting read but the headline is a misleading, very little of the article is in relation to the Apple vs Adobe debate.
- Qz 16y ago
  Sort of but not really -- the entire article is in relation to the Apple vs Adobe debate. But it's about what's driving the conflict rather than the particulars of the current imbroglio. His analysis is pretty dead on.
- mortenjorck 16y ago
  The headline does feel a bit baiting, but if it suckered me, it was worth it. This is a very interesting article about the next five years in computing. What I'd disagree with is the idea that Apple is trying to transition into a cloud provider with a merely incidental hardware business. I think that's a misunderstanding of Apple's priorities as well as an overestimation of Apple's tendencies to follow fashion. Apple will stay a hardware company. They will go cloud, but here's the thing: Apple's cloud will be federated. Five years from now you'll buy an iPad and instead of a Mac, its home will be a port-less little monolith of aluminum and rubber that functions as your own little slice of cloud. Even as LTE picks up, a local server will always be ahead with the latest wi-fi revision and no network congestion, and no shared processor load, and this will be Apple's selling point for why their model is better for media use. And, most importantly for Apple's survival, why they can sell you a new one in two years' time.
  - smikhanov 16y ago
    Not a purely hardware company: Apple is already calling itself "Mobile Device Company". They already work hard to start making devices that fit best to the described future of computing.
  - Terretta 16y ago
    > "Apple's cloud will be federated" In a sense, it already is. A friend's Macbook Air SSD died. We plugged her Time Machine to a Mac Mini, restored into a new account, and she had "her" computer. Had been a day or two since her last backup, but MobileMe brought her latest appointments, contacts, and bookmarks back down from the ".Mac" cloud. She missed having the portable Air, so walked into a BestBuy, got an iPad, logged into MobileMe, and was immediately checking her half dozen email accounts along with, again, all her bookmarks, appointments, and contacts, because those settings were stored in the cloud. Plugged it to the account on the Mac Mini, and now had her 5GB of photos and 20GB of music. Three weeks later, Apple gave her a fixed Macbook Air. At boot it asked if she owned another Mac, and she plugged in her Time Machine drive. Slightly less than 9 minutes later, a reboot, and "her" Mac was back, again with every app and tweak. MobileMe sync ran, and by the time she opened her iCal, it was up to date. The hardware essentially didn't matter. "Her" settings, "her" data, were accessible to her across phone, tablet, other person's computer, and a replacement for her own computer, all with zero I.T. effort. Best part -- she didn't even notice this was remarkable. She just logged into the Macbook Air and started doing email, right at home, without a second thought. As for that little monolith? Maybe it's already here -- Time Capsule is an Airport Extreme with built in dual channel 802.11a/b/g/n and another guest WiFi DMZ, includes TimeMachine wireless backup, offers a USB printer hub, and gives remote access that also syncs to MobileMe (which stores documents and personalization in the cloud).
    - cstross 16y ago
      I am expecting, sooner rather than later, that Time Capsule will acquire the ability to do OTA backup of iPad/iPhone. Either that, or that there'll be a second-generation Apple TV that is basically a combined Apple TV and Time Capsule -- streaming media to all your iDevices, feeding video out directly to your TV, and acting as a backup hub and wireless router. The "home hub" with cloud backup is clearly not that far off Apple's current road map ...
TheSOB88 16y ago
This is a really verbose post, but he does get around to alluding to a very good point: if iStuff supported Flash, you could develop in Flash and bypass the App Store. I think it's a pretty compelling argument.
- exit 16y ago
  so what are they going to do about html5 when it can do everything flash can do?
  - mrvir 16y ago
    They can totally CONTROL what html5 can do in their devices.
    - lurch_mojoff 16y ago
      More importantly they can control how well it does what it does.
      - hugs 16y ago
        If you have an iPad, check out http://touch.sproutcore.com/ http://touch.sproutcore.com/ and http://touch.sproutcore.com/hedwig/ http://touch.sproutcore.com/hedwig/ The HTML5/JavaScript layer is already working very well, and Apple is investing time and effort to making it better. (Learned about those demo apps at the most recent JSConf in D.C.)
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    I don't think they see HTML5 as a threat to "Apps" because there's no way now or on even the distant horizon to sell HTML5 apps via a single tap.
  - jsz0 16y ago
    They'll focus on making iPhone OS the best mobile HTML5 platform.
  - 16y ago
rm-rf 16y ago
The 70's: Own the data center (IBM) The 80's: Own the desktop (Microsoft) The 90's: Own the network (AOL) The 2000's: Own the browser (Microsoft, et. al.) The 2010's: Own the 'Experience' (Apple) If Apple can entice us all into their walled garden, they'll own our entire experience - not just our desktops or data centers. It'll be AOL, pre-Internet, except it'll be way, way nicer - nice enough that most of us will not complain.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I think you can roll those all into a single 'own the dominant delivery form of the era'. Of course everybody is shifting, IT is a moving target and that will not stop for a long long time. The really interesting question is what it all converges to in the long run, and if that can be 'owned' at all.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  > if Apple can entice us all into their walled garden, That's a pretty big if. I don't think more than 20% of all computer activities can be exercised in that 'walled garden', that's consumers only, and mostly media consumption at that. There's a very large world outside of that.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    Indeed. Computers didn't become popular because Joe Sixpack wanted to watch porn and update Facebook. They became popular because Joe Sixpackatwork could click shit in Outlook and Excel. (And 8-core desktop-class machines with 64-bit address spaces were obviously popularized by the need to run Eclipse, but I digress...)
  - npp 16y ago
    Agreed, but this is kind of an "80-20 rule" thing. 80% of the time is spent on those 20% of activities, and 80% of people are basically just doing email, browsing, Twitter/Facebook, and media/entertainment. Even people who do more complex things with computers spend part of the day just doing those things as well, which is why there is an opportunity for a dedicated product focused on these 20% activities (and why Apple and others think the potential market for iPad-like devices is so enormous, despite the product type being extremely limited by design). Also, even Apple does not think everything falls into their 'walled garden', so they'll continue to develop and sell normal computers for the other 80% of activities. But these new kinds of products reflect the shift in the set of activities that dominate modern computer use. The shift allows them to create a viable product that mostly ignores 80% of computer activities, and moreover, by omitting those other things, different design decisions can be made (e.g. walled garden app store) to make it much easier for them to meet the new set of requirements demanded by these media consumption type activities (e.g. battery life, appliance-level reliability). Those design decisions don't work with normal computers, as the requirements are different (e.g. completely general purpose use very important, battery life less important or unimportant [desktops]). So I think it is a mistake to think that even everything from Apple will be walled.
waxman 16y ago
Yes, the PC era is coming to a close, and every company involved is panicking, EXCEPT for Apple, because they're clearly out in front with their iPhone/iPad OS ecosystem. Also, Apple makes relatively little money from the App Store; they still make most of their money from hardware, even if its increasingly mobile hardware. The real people they're trying to please are users. They only court developers to the extent that enough apps are generated that it enhances the experience for users. And as both a developer and a user, even though it pisses me off a little bit, objectively, I think that's a good business decision. A locked down App Store, while shitty for developers, does probably create a better user experience and sells more hardware...
- jaaron 16y ago
  Yes, it's all about hardware and that's not going to change, despite the author's arguments otherwise. PCs aren't going anywhere either. Offices will continue to use PCs even if the consumer market switches to mobile phone/tablet devices. And Apple isn't going to kill its line of computers with the iPad as they have a very clear and healthy market there. iPads intentionally can't function without a PC/Mac running iTunes. And while every other PC maker has slashed prices and seen downturns, Apple's been growing for a decade. They know what they're doing with their Mac market.
  - mechanical_fish 16y ago
    The author isn't necessarily arguing that PCs are "going anywhere", just that the profit margins will largely be gone.
doron 16y ago
Ill believe the PC is dead, and the cloud is the way to go when i get bandwidth in NYC like I get in Japan.
raganwald 16y ago
Meta-comment: I don't agree with everything in this post, but it made me think. It's a refreshing change from the echo-chamber posts that simply parrot whatever was last posted and either agree in breathless terms or disagree vociferously. Suggestion to bloggers: When you read something that makes you excited or angry, resist the impulse to respond on the same terms. Ask yourself what important factor is being ignored in the current debate.
- samd 16y ago
  As background: Charles Stross is a prolific science-fiction author. He's a smart guy with a lot of interesting things to say about the future of technology.
  - dave1619 16y ago
    He's definitely a smart guy and an excellent writer. Very insightful article.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Thanks, if I get back into fiction I'll look out for his work!
    - ableal 16y ago
      Well, there's his documentary on industry best practices, titled The Jennifer Morgue, featuring "software billionaire Ellis Billington". (Possibly for legal reasons, it's billed as fiction ;-)
      - jseliger 16y ago
        This would have to be the first time I've read a novel that includes communication with the dead and demons summoned via pentagram as a "documentary on industry best practices." I thought such events only happened at Apple, and chiefly around leakers.
jsm386 16y ago
I agree with a lot of this, but one point seems to contradict facts: Even if he's reduced to giving the machines away, as long as he can charge rent for access to data (or apps) he's got a business model. Hasn't Apple repeatedly stated the case that the App Store runs at break even? The whole idea is to drive sales of machines. Now if it is for some cloud based services in the future that might work - still an iPhone unsubsidized is ~$600 so that is a good deal of cloud service revs that need to make up for that.
- tullius 16y ago
  How could the app store not be profitable? They are getting at least 30 cents of every dollar at almost zero marginal cost.
  - jackmoore 16y ago
    If it isn't profitable they are doing something horribly wrong.
- dagw 16y ago
  They've said repeatedly that the iTunes music store runs at break even, with basically all their profit going to the record labels. I haven't heard anything about the app store, but I'd be very surprised if at least 27 of the 30 cents they take on each dollar isn't pure profit.
ars 16y ago
To the author: Sorry, but physics is against you. There isn't enough wireless bandwidth to do what you suggest. It doesn't exist, we're pretty much saturated as it is. The only hope is micro cells, tons and tons of them, each with high bandwidth, and low range. Or very directional devices (but that's not practical). But micro cells with the high bandwidth you hope for don't exist now, and probably won't any time soon. And if such high bandwidth did exist, I really hope the future of computing is not iPhone type devices.
- losvedir 16y ago
  Do you have any sources for this? I'd be very curious to read at a basic level some of the physics involved and the theoretical limits. I'm amazed, as is, at what cell phones can do.
- signa11 16y ago
  verizon-wirelss seems to be gettting 40-50 mbps on their trials[source: http://news.vzw.com/news/2010/03/pr2010-03-02b.html http://news.vzw.com/news/2010/03/pr2010-03-02b.html]
- jrockway 16y ago
  Uh, Wimax? My Wimax connection is almost as fast as my DSL.
  - ars 16y ago
    WiMax can not possibly provide 100Mbps to many people. It can't even do it to a small number. There is a reason it's expensive: they can not provide service to large number of people at once, instead they aim for high speed to a small number, and you pay for it. Additionally the farther you are from the base station, the slower the speeds. To provide even decent speeds to lots of people you need many many base stations.
    - technomancy 16y ago
      Not so sure about this; I have WiMax at home, and it's significantly cheaper than DSL or cable.
neonscribe 16y ago
PCs are not "becoming commodity items". PCs have been commodity items for over 20 years. The difference now is that improvements in speed and capacity are no longer compelling reasons for mainstream users to upgrade every couple of years.
10ren 16y ago
This is The Innovator's Dilemma, of mainframes to minis to workstations to PCs... when a small portable device is "fast enough", its other benefits enable it to beat a desktop (even though a desktop remains more powerful - just as a mainframe does). And there's a changing of the guard. I have my doubts about multi-touch; but always-connected-portable-devices is definitely the future IMHO. I think Steve loves the idea of pioneering and owning the new computing UI (multi-touch). Maybe he sees this as an end-game, as he has a family, gets older and has had health scares... but insofar as we're reading minds, I don't think he really cares about owning it in the long-term. He'll go off to develop the next new technology, because that's where he enjoys making money. If the iPad isn't a huge hit (or if it is), I bet there are a bunch of other projects in the wings... for the future.
ashishbharthi 16y ago
Though the title says 'The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash', he talks more about overall industry dynamics than Flash. And he is definitely right about one thing: the PC industry needs to re-invent itself or it will die. I have been using Windows XP as my work laptop for all my career and I still don't know if MS has any good replacement.
- weaksauce 16y ago
  I love my Mac but Windows 7 is pretty legit from Microsoft. Worth upgrading to in my opinion.
aero142 16y ago
This article highlights my problem with Apple. They really suck at cloud services. Google on the other hand is the leader and runs amazing cloud services. The reason my next device will be an Android, is because Apple has decided to block Google's excellent cloud services(gVoice). I think Google has the edge in the future described in the article, not Apple. I think it is going to be easier for Google to make a better device, than for Apple to start running the kinds of datacenters that Google does.
- jimbokun 16y ago
  The reason I settled on Gmail and Google Calendar is because it was the only option for consistent access to my data across my MacBook Pro, iPod Touch, and Vista desktop at work.
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  Apple doesn't need to be building the actual apps. They need to run the marketplace/transaction engine. That they do very well.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    If you're going to be offering cloud services to developers they'll have to do a lot better than they're doing right now in their marketplace. Restrictions simply won't cut it in that market, and it needs to be seen if something like what Apple is doing will survive without those restrictions.
btilly 16y ago
It is a cool idea but there is a major flaw in the premise. And that flaw is that Apple depends on AT&T to deliver data.
- sshumaker 16y ago
  Apple doesn't 'depend on AT&T'. They're not locked in beyond a short-term contract. They're using AT&T because it makes financial sense - they have a sweetheart deal in the US. Worldwide, they use a whole bunch of providers. When they decide that sticking to AT&T isn't in their best interest, they will switch to a different provider.
JulianMorrison 16y ago
Google saw it, Android phones and Chrome OS netbooks are targeted into this space. Difference from Apple: Google thinks it can deliver both hardware and software at knock down prices or free, without needing to curate an in-house ecosystem, and profit by monetizing what the devices provide access to - the whole internet.
jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
Apple has 40 billion plus in cash. If you listen to the calls, they say they're going to use it for something big. It's done in a very understated way. My belief? They're hoarding it to roll out essentially a wireless high speed network as described in this post. That's why you hoard what will eventually be 50+ billion dollars in cold hard cash. Just my theory though.
- jamesshamenski 16y ago
  Aapl didnt bid on the last release of wireless spectrum gov't sales. I doubt they'd be able to do this.
- andreyf 16y ago
  By "the call" are you referring to: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq210/ http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq210/ ?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
ujal 16y ago
he knows what he is talking about. the only problem -> there is no longterm future for splinternetssss http://tinyurl.com/yeg6bbg http://tinyurl.com/yeg6bbg the model apple follows? change -> make money -> change again -> make money -> ... problem? as change accelerates it becomes nearly impossible to hold on as a company. the real model apple follows? selling rotten apples from an ever growing tree of disruptive technology.

286 points by protothomas 16y ago

As long as people care there will always be PCs(PERSONAL COMPUTERS) and OSS for them even if proprietary software becomes tied to hardware. And I don't really see this happening in much of the developing world (most of the world/fastest growing markets) in the coming decades.

kjf 16y ago

Interesting read but the headline is a misleading, very little of the article is in relation to the Apple vs Adobe debate.

Qz 16y ago
Sort of but not really -- the entire article is in relation to the Apple vs Adobe debate. But it's about what's driving the conflict rather than the particulars of the current imbroglio. His analysis is pretty dead on.
mortenjorck 16y ago
The headline does feel a bit baiting, but if it suckered me, it was worth it. This is a very interesting article about the next five years in computing. What I'd disagree with is the idea that Apple is trying to transition into a cloud provider with a merely incidental hardware business. I think that's a misunderstanding of Apple's priorities as well as an overestimation of Apple's tendencies to follow fashion. Apple will stay a hardware company. They will go cloud, but here's the thing: Apple's cloud will be federated. Five years from now you'll buy an iPad and instead of a Mac, its home will be a port-less little monolith of aluminum and rubber that functions as your own little slice of cloud. Even as LTE picks up, a local server will always be ahead with the latest wi-fi revision and no network congestion, and no shared processor load, and this will be Apple's selling point for why their model is better for media use. And, most importantly for Apple's survival, why they can sell you a new one in two years' time.
- smikhanov 16y ago
  Not a purely hardware company: Apple is already calling itself "Mobile Device Company". They already work hard to start making devices that fit best to the described future of computing.
- Terretta 16y ago
  > "Apple's cloud will be federated" In a sense, it already is. A friend's Macbook Air SSD died. We plugged her Time Machine to a Mac Mini, restored into a new account, and she had "her" computer. Had been a day or two since her last backup, but MobileMe brought her latest appointments, contacts, and bookmarks back down from the ".Mac" cloud. She missed having the portable Air, so walked into a BestBuy, got an iPad, logged into MobileMe, and was immediately checking her half dozen email accounts along with, again, all her bookmarks, appointments, and contacts, because those settings were stored in the cloud. Plugged it to the account on the Mac Mini, and now had her 5GB of photos and 20GB of music. Three weeks later, Apple gave her a fixed Macbook Air. At boot it asked if she owned another Mac, and she plugged in her Time Machine drive. Slightly less than 9 minutes later, a reboot, and "her" Mac was back, again with every app and tweak. MobileMe sync ran, and by the time she opened her iCal, it was up to date. The hardware essentially didn't matter. "Her" settings, "her" data, were accessible to her across phone, tablet, other person's computer, and a replacement for her own computer, all with zero I.T. effort. Best part -- she didn't even notice this was remarkable. She just logged into the Macbook Air and started doing email, right at home, without a second thought. As for that little monolith? Maybe it's already here -- Time Capsule is an Airport Extreme with built in dual channel 802.11a/b/g/n and another guest WiFi DMZ, includes TimeMachine wireless backup, offers a USB printer hub, and gives remote access that also syncs to MobileMe (which stores documents and personalization in the cloud).
  - cstross 16y ago
    I am expecting, sooner rather than later, that Time Capsule will acquire the ability to do OTA backup of iPad/iPhone. Either that, or that there'll be a second-generation Apple TV that is basically a combined Apple TV and Time Capsule -- streaming media to all your iDevices, feeding video out directly to your TV, and acting as a backup hub and wireless router. The "home hub" with cloud backup is clearly not that far off Apple's current road map ...

TheSOB88 16y ago

This is a really verbose post, but he does get around to alluding to a very good point: if iStuff supported Flash, you could develop in Flash and bypass the App Store. I think it's a pretty compelling argument.

exit 16y ago
so what are they going to do about html5 when it can do everything flash can do?
- mrvir 16y ago
  They can totally CONTROL what html5 can do in their devices.
  - lurch_mojoff 16y ago
    More importantly they can control how well it does what it does.
    - hugs 16y ago
      If you have an iPad, check out http://touch.sproutcore.com/ http://touch.sproutcore.com/ and http://touch.sproutcore.com/hedwig/ http://touch.sproutcore.com/hedwig/ The HTML5/JavaScript layer is already working very well, and Apple is investing time and effort to making it better. (Learned about those demo apps at the most recent JSConf in D.C.)
- glhaynes 16y ago
  I don't think they see HTML5 as a threat to "Apps" because there's no way now or on even the distant horizon to sell HTML5 apps via a single tap.
- jsz0 16y ago
  They'll focus on making iPhone OS the best mobile HTML5 platform.
- 16y ago

rm-rf 16y ago

The 70's: Own the data center (IBM) The 80's: Own the desktop (Microsoft) The 90's: Own the network (AOL) The 2000's: Own the browser (Microsoft, et. al.) The 2010's: Own the 'Experience' (Apple) If Apple can entice us all into their walled garden, they'll own our entire experience - not just our desktops or data centers. It'll be AOL, pre-Internet, except it'll be way, way nicer - nice enough that most of us will not complain.

jacquesm 16y ago
I think you can roll those all into a single 'own the dominant delivery form of the era'. Of course everybody is shifting, IT is a moving target and that will not stop for a long long time. The really interesting question is what it all converges to in the long run, and if that can be 'owned' at all.
jacquesm 16y ago
> if Apple can entice us all into their walled garden, That's a pretty big if. I don't think more than 20% of all computer activities can be exercised in that 'walled garden', that's consumers only, and mostly media consumption at that. There's a very large world outside of that.
- jrockway 16y ago
  Indeed. Computers didn't become popular because Joe Sixpack wanted to watch porn and update Facebook. They became popular because Joe Sixpackatwork could click shit in Outlook and Excel. (And 8-core desktop-class machines with 64-bit address spaces were obviously popularized by the need to run Eclipse, but I digress...)
- npp 16y ago
  Agreed, but this is kind of an "80-20 rule" thing. 80% of the time is spent on those 20% of activities, and 80% of people are basically just doing email, browsing, Twitter/Facebook, and media/entertainment. Even people who do more complex things with computers spend part of the day just doing those things as well, which is why there is an opportunity for a dedicated product focused on these 20% activities (and why Apple and others think the potential market for iPad-like devices is so enormous, despite the product type being extremely limited by design). Also, even Apple does not think everything falls into their 'walled garden', so they'll continue to develop and sell normal computers for the other 80% of activities. But these new kinds of products reflect the shift in the set of activities that dominate modern computer use. The shift allows them to create a viable product that mostly ignores 80% of computer activities, and moreover, by omitting those other things, different design decisions can be made (e.g. walled garden app store) to make it much easier for them to meet the new set of requirements demanded by these media consumption type activities (e.g. battery life, appliance-level reliability). Those design decisions don't work with normal computers, as the requirements are different (e.g. completely general purpose use very important, battery life less important or unimportant [desktops]). So I think it is a mistake to think that even everything from Apple will be walled.

waxman 16y ago

Yes, the PC era is coming to a close, and every company involved is panicking, EXCEPT for Apple, because they're clearly out in front with their iPhone/iPad OS ecosystem. Also, Apple makes relatively little money from the App Store; they still make most of their money from hardware, even if its increasingly mobile hardware. The real people they're trying to please are users. They only court developers to the extent that enough apps are generated that it enhances the experience for users. And as both a developer and a user, even though it pisses me off a little bit, objectively, I think that's a good business decision. A locked down App Store, while shitty for developers, does probably create a better user experience and sells more hardware...

jaaron 16y ago
Yes, it's all about hardware and that's not going to change, despite the author's arguments otherwise. PCs aren't going anywhere either. Offices will continue to use PCs even if the consumer market switches to mobile phone/tablet devices. And Apple isn't going to kill its line of computers with the iPad as they have a very clear and healthy market there. iPads intentionally can't function without a PC/Mac running iTunes. And while every other PC maker has slashed prices and seen downturns, Apple's been growing for a decade. They know what they're doing with their Mac market.
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  The author isn't necessarily arguing that PCs are "going anywhere", just that the profit margins will largely be gone.

doron 16y ago

Ill believe the PC is dead, and the cloud is the way to go when i get bandwidth in NYC like I get in Japan.

raganwald 16y ago

Meta-comment: I don't agree with everything in this post, but it made me think. It's a refreshing change from the echo-chamber posts that simply parrot whatever was last posted and either agree in breathless terms or disagree vociferously. Suggestion to bloggers: When you read something that makes you excited or angry, resist the impulse to respond on the same terms. Ask yourself what important factor is being ignored in the current debate.

samd 16y ago
As background: Charles Stross is a prolific science-fiction author. He's a smart guy with a lot of interesting things to say about the future of technology.
- dave1619 16y ago
  He's definitely a smart guy and an excellent writer. Very insightful article.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Thanks, if I get back into fiction I'll look out for his work!
  - ableal 16y ago
    Well, there's his documentary on industry best practices, titled The Jennifer Morgue, featuring "software billionaire Ellis Billington". (Possibly for legal reasons, it's billed as fiction ;-)
    - jseliger 16y ago
      This would have to be the first time I've read a novel that includes communication with the dead and demons summoned via pentagram as a "documentary on industry best practices." I thought such events only happened at Apple, and chiefly around leakers.

jsm386 16y ago

I agree with a lot of this, but one point seems to contradict facts: Even if he's reduced to giving the machines away, as long as he can charge rent for access to data (or apps) he's got a business model. Hasn't Apple repeatedly stated the case that the App Store runs at break even? The whole idea is to drive sales of machines. Now if it is for some cloud based services in the future that might work - still an iPhone unsubsidized is ~$600 so that is a good deal of cloud service revs that need to make up for that.

tullius 16y ago
How could the app store not be profitable? They are getting at least 30 cents of every dollar at almost zero marginal cost.
- jackmoore 16y ago
  If it isn't profitable they are doing something horribly wrong.
dagw 16y ago
They've said repeatedly that the iTunes music store runs at break even, with basically all their profit going to the record labels. I haven't heard anything about the app store, but I'd be very surprised if at least 27 of the 30 cents they take on each dollar isn't pure profit.

ars 16y ago

To the author: Sorry, but physics is against you. There isn't enough wireless bandwidth to do what you suggest. It doesn't exist, we're pretty much saturated as it is. The only hope is micro cells, tons and tons of them, each with high bandwidth, and low range. Or very directional devices (but that's not practical). But micro cells with the high bandwidth you hope for don't exist now, and probably won't any time soon. And if such high bandwidth did exist, I really hope the future of computing is not iPhone type devices.

losvedir 16y ago
Do you have any sources for this? I'd be very curious to read at a basic level some of the physics involved and the theoretical limits. I'm amazed, as is, at what cell phones can do.
signa11 16y ago
verizon-wirelss seems to be gettting 40-50 mbps on their trials[source: http://news.vzw.com/news/2010/03/pr2010-03-02b.html http://news.vzw.com/news/2010/03/pr2010-03-02b.html]
jrockway 16y ago
Uh, Wimax? My Wimax connection is almost as fast as my DSL.
- ars 16y ago
  WiMax can not possibly provide 100Mbps to many people. It can't even do it to a small number. There is a reason it's expensive: they can not provide service to large number of people at once, instead they aim for high speed to a small number, and you pay for it. Additionally the farther you are from the base station, the slower the speeds. To provide even decent speeds to lots of people you need many many base stations.
  - technomancy 16y ago
    Not so sure about this; I have WiMax at home, and it's significantly cheaper than DSL or cable.

neonscribe 16y ago

PCs are not "becoming commodity items". PCs have been commodity items for over 20 years. The difference now is that improvements in speed and capacity are no longer compelling reasons for mainstream users to upgrade every couple of years.

10ren 16y ago

This is The Innovator's Dilemma, of mainframes to minis to workstations to PCs... when a small portable device is "fast enough", its other benefits enable it to beat a desktop (even though a desktop remains more powerful - just as a mainframe does). And there's a changing of the guard. I have my doubts about multi-touch; but always-connected-portable-devices is definitely the future IMHO. I think Steve loves the idea of pioneering and owning the new computing UI (multi-touch). Maybe he sees this as an end-game, as he has a family, gets older and has had health scares... but insofar as we're reading minds, I don't think he really cares about owning it in the long-term. He'll go off to develop the next new technology, because that's where he enjoys making money. If the iPad isn't a huge hit (or if it is), I bet there are a bunch of other projects in the wings... for the future.

ashishbharthi 16y ago

Though the title says 'The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash', he talks more about overall industry dynamics than Flash. And he is definitely right about one thing: the PC industry needs to re-invent itself or it will die. I have been using Windows XP as my work laptop for all my career and I still don't know if MS has any good replacement.

weaksauce 16y ago
I love my Mac but Windows 7 is pretty legit from Microsoft. Worth upgrading to in my opinion.

aero142 16y ago

This article highlights my problem with Apple. They really suck at cloud services. Google on the other hand is the leader and runs amazing cloud services. The reason my next device will be an Android, is because Apple has decided to block Google's excellent cloud services(gVoice). I think Google has the edge in the future described in the article, not Apple. I think it is going to be easier for Google to make a better device, than for Apple to start running the kinds of datacenters that Google does.

jimbokun 16y ago
The reason I settled on Gmail and Google Calendar is because it was the only option for consistent access to my data across my MacBook Pro, iPod Touch, and Vista desktop at work.
jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
Apple doesn't need to be building the actual apps. They need to run the marketplace/transaction engine. That they do very well.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  If you're going to be offering cloud services to developers they'll have to do a lot better than they're doing right now in their marketplace. Restrictions simply won't cut it in that market, and it needs to be seen if something like what Apple is doing will survive without those restrictions.

btilly 16y ago

It is a cool idea but there is a major flaw in the premise. And that flaw is that Apple depends on AT&T to deliver data.

sshumaker 16y ago
Apple doesn't 'depend on AT&T'. They're not locked in beyond a short-term contract. They're using AT&T because it makes financial sense - they have a sweetheart deal in the US. Worldwide, they use a whole bunch of providers. When they decide that sticking to AT&T isn't in their best interest, they will switch to a different provider.

JulianMorrison 16y ago

Google saw it, Android phones and Chrome OS netbooks are targeted into this space. Difference from Apple: Google thinks it can deliver both hardware and software at knock down prices or free, without needing to curate an in-house ecosystem, and profit by monetizing what the devices provide access to - the whole internet.

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago

Apple has 40 billion plus in cash. If you listen to the calls, they say they're going to use it for something big. It's done in a very understated way. My belief? They're hoarding it to roll out essentially a wireless high speed network as described in this post. That's why you hoard what will eventually be 50+ billion dollars in cold hard cash. Just my theory though.

jamesshamenski 16y ago
Aapl didnt bid on the last release of wireless spectrum gov't sales. I doubt they'd be able to do this.
andreyf 16y ago
By "the call" are you referring to: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq210/ http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq210/ ?
deleted 16y ago
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ujal 16y ago

he knows what he is talking about. the only problem -> there is no longterm future for splinternetssss http://tinyurl.com/yeg6bbg http://tinyurl.com/yeg6bbg the model apple follows? change -> make money -> change again -> make money -> ... problem? as change accelerates it becomes nearly impossible to hold on as a company. the real model apple follows? selling rotten apples from an ever growing tree of disruptive technology.