We are not one people, with one will – one resolve or one cause. We are individuals who desire an open platform. We shall prevail!
The marriage of some really great client apps and some really great cloud services is incredibly powerful, and right now can be way more powerful than just having a browser on the client.
Steve Jobs of Apple Computers
These thoughts were conveyed to an audience in an interview alongside Bill Gates when Apple had just released the first model of the iPhone – [Source]
Recent changes in the iPhone development environment has created a conflict of interest in the Development community. Apple is not only dictating what applications will be allowed on their App Store. They are also dictating how they are implemented. 1984 might not have been like 1984, but maybe 2010 is?
3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s).
Essentially this says Apple does not allow software on the iPhone. The applications we see running on the iPhone are simply content aggregators, pulling data from the cloud and displaying it to the consumer.
In simple terms: Apple does not allow any innovation or invention on the iPhone or iPad.
From the start Apple created a piece of hardware that was more advanced than its software and has since stood in the way of iPhone innovation. This was apparent to me from the before time when the first iPod Touch came out and Jailbreaking was the newest Geeky Craze. I got the iPod Touch to replace my Stolen HP iPaq which was more than adequate as a handheld notebook computer. As a handheld, a Jailbroken iPod Touch was a worthy replacement, I could jot down notes, surf the web and do some basic email over WiFi. Then the App Store was released…
Just incase you weren’t a gadget geek back then – Mobile Apps weren’t revolutionary at all. In fact, the Mobile Application industry was a well developed one. My Nokia N73 was more advanced in it’s 3G connectivity, Mail client, Multitasking and also had many useful Applications available on the web than that of the iPhone at the time. Steve Jobs only gave Mobile Apps a new haircut. Compared to what technology is available to us today, the iPad is actually a grave disappointment.
For a few months now we’ve watched a great deal of misinformed criticism of Flash technology. The biggest source of Misinformation coming most recently from Steve Jobs himself regarding the Flash Platform. Though the Macintosh/Apple propaganda machines were in full swing for the past 6 months, Steve Jobs himself felt compelled to fuel the Misinformation regarding the Flash Platform in an open letter. [Source]
The truth about Plugin Technology.
The Flash Platform provides a runtime environment on the web, allowing developers to build software on top of it. We’ve been saying this for years. Finally, there has been some educated experimentation from the Flash community. The best examples illustrated here by Todd Williams who took the time to compare HTML5 to Flash in great detail [Source]
Plug-ins get Plugged In whether you like it or not:
Javascript as a plugin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript_engine
Google and Adobe have recently formed a partnership to make Flash Player the same as the JavaScript plugin. Flash player integration in the browser makes ActionScript as standard as JavaScript. Both are valid ECMAScripts – both will be run within the browser. [Source] HTML5 is attempting to create their own version of Flash with Javascript. However, the results have been quite poor to date. Most of what passes as HTML5 interactivity is similar to Flash circa 1993. To our critics we ask is Flash really dead technology? Or is this just more misinformation spread by the Apple team? Elad Elrom of Flash in the city did this undercover exposé [Here].
Thoughts on Steve Jobs.
We live in an age of Robots, Nano Technology and Holograms [Source]. This is the future as we knew it was going to be. The only thing that stands in the way of technology flourishing is companies like Apple computers who do exactly what they accused IBM of doing over 20 years ago. Media hype and Lengthy legal processes have stood in the way of innovation long enough. Whilst Steve claims they helped to create Adobe, it was actually Adobe’s founders John Warnock and Charles Geschke[Source] who helped Steve by contributing to the creation the Graphic user interface with Xerox Parc along with Larry Masinter (Adobe’s Principle scientist) who is also part of the WHATWG.
The technology community at its roots is extremely incestuous. There is no simple way of determining who originated what and when. All we have as a community of technology scientists is ideas and the implementation of those ideas. To call an Advanced technology a dead one destroys our ability to create advanced technology. Apple is now officially Big Brother.
We’ve gotten a huge response from some of the best and brightest developers the world has to offer and we thank them for contributing to our knowledge base. We also thank you – our readers – your comments have taught us a lot about what makes you tick… keep those coming.
Finally, If you are a developer who would like to know more about what we’re doing to fight Apple dominance – please do get in touch [Here] – Let’s take technology forward not backward.
Sincerely,
Gabriel Ortiz and Aaron Franco – The nothingGrinder Team
