I am also a Mac user and an iPhone user. While I agree that Jobs is a bit of a "character" (to put it nicely), I believe all the points that he makes in the open letter are valid. It is a complete joke that Adobe claims Flash is "open"; it's kind of like saying that Windows is "open" because it is so prevalent. The ironic thing about that whole Apple/Adobe feud is that Adobe is around because of the Mac market. It wasn't until Apple had their "near death experience" that Adobe really started selling applications to Windows users. While you can't fault Adobe for shifting their focus at that point, the reality is that they did, and their Mac products have suffered for it. As for the logic in prohibiting cross-platform development tools, this very thing was a large reason that Apple had their "near death experience" in the first place. Back when Apple relied on 3rd parties to provide the development environment, folks started making these cross-platform compilers, and what you got were all these hideous, non-Mac like programs that ran like crap on the Mac--the most notable of which was Office. It didn't matter if Apple added all kinds of all cool things to the OS if these development environments didn't support it. As for the part about not running what you want on your own hardware, I would just point out that the iPhone/et al are very different from the Mac. As has been discussed here numerous times, Mac OS X is based on BSD Unix, and you can compile and run any number of open source programs and can buy/download any application and run it. You can debate the merits of the different approach (and the reasons) they have with the iPhone, but I think there is an important distinction to be made there. Apple is not targeting folks like many people on this list with this device. Your Joe Average user just wants something that works and the app store model suits that very well. It is also true that a key differentiator for these devices is that they are rapidly adding new features/functions and if developers are using cross platform environments, it is a perfectly valid point that those applications will not take advantage of the new features. If the applications don't take advantage of the new features, then the differentiation factor between the iPhone and other devices begins to fade. In other words, Apple is doing what is best for Apple (at least in their judgment, you might not agree). I don't know of any other company that operates any differently. As for me, I wish that they wouldn't do some of the things that they do, but the positives of the iPhone still far outweigh any negatives for me. That is obviously true for a whole lot of people, as Apple apparently was the number 1 cell phone provider last quarter (edging out Motorola for the first time ever).
________________________________ From: Steven M. Caesare [mailto:scaes...@caesare.com] Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 10:38 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Steve Jobs on Flash And was completed when they changed their name to just "Apple". -sc From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 10:36 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Steve Jobs on Flash That ship sailed long ago, when Woz was marginalized and the Mac became a reality. Note: I am a Mac user, an iPhone owner and I recognize the limitations and strengths of both platforms. I'm in my bootcamp partition more than I'm in OS X, except when I'm working with photos or video. On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 10:27 AM, Steven M. Caesare <scaes...@caesare.com> wrote: We were talking about this on the fun^h^h^h^h^h^h another list. Jobs is a megalomaniac. The notion that I can't run what I want on my own hardware I bought is the very antithesis of where Apple started. -sc From: Mayo, Bill [mailto:bem...@pittcountync.gov] Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 10:17 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Steve Jobs on Flash He's talking about the browser. Like Microsoft, Apple includes a bug report capability when an application crashes, so I believe that they know what they are talking about when they say Flash causes the crash (regardless of the Adobe CEO's dismissal of the notion). As I understand it, this is the reason that Apple updated webkit/Safari to isolate plug-ins in their own process, so that when Flash crashed, it didn't take down the browser. ________________________________ From: Joseph L. Casale [mailto:jcas...@activenetwerx.com] Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 10:12 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Steve Jobs on Flash Good read, not owning a mac (I use Intel hardware with free operating systems that aren't resold for a fortune:-) ) I was intrigued on the statement "Flash is the reason why macs crash." Did he mean the browser tanking or literally "the mac"? Wow... From: Rob Bonfiglio [mailto:robbonfig...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 5:44 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: OT: Steve Jobs on Flash http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
