iPad

[Ingmar]

A different response:

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah, Adobe's "flash is open" argument is pretty absurd.

I think they can make a much more reasonable argument about section 331 and CS5, but of course that's an argument that appeals much more to developers than the general public, so instead they're going after "save flash!" and "flash is open!" which is rather silly.

Apple's policy disallowing third party development tools is dangerous and broken.  One *might* liken it to Adobe's policy where the flash spec is free as long as you're developing only a player/viewer...

Apple has every right to not include flash in their browser.

Apple also has every right to disallow other browsers with flash, but I think that's a pretty crappy policy.

What part of flash isn't open?

There are open players. There are other tools to make flash in.. I don't understand.

[Quinton]

What part of flash isn't open?

There are open players. There are other tools to make flash in.. I don't understand.

Aha.  At some point between the last time I attempted to obtain the flash spec and now they've changed the rules:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/pdf/swf_file_format_spec_v10.pdf

Previously, the flash spec was only available under a license which allowed you to develop players but not authoring tools.  It appears that now it is directly downloadable with no strings attached (and no license language in the document that claims otherwise).

So yes, I'd accept that as an open spec (assuming it's complete, which it sounds like it is).

In June 2009, Adobe launched the Open Screen Project (Adobe link), which made the SWF specification available without restrictions. Previously, developers couldn't use the specification for making SWF-compatible players, but only for making SWF-exporting authoring software.

Oh interesting, I got the restriction backwards too.  So yeah, they're a little late to the game but that certainly seems reasonably open.  Just because you don't like somebody's open spec or don't want to implement it doesn't make it "less open" (see linux purists complaining that Android is "not open source" because it doesn't use X11 and GTK, etc ^^)

So, I stand corrected.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah, its that whole open screen thing they have been talking about.

Its all right here:
http://www.openscreenproject.org/about/publications.html

However, the SWF format has been open since 99'. Let me not say open, how about available. 

[Quinton]

Available (if you ignore/violate the NDA), but with use restrictions (authoring tools disallowed), which is not exactly "open".

[Mrbloodworth]

Moot now though.

[Lantyssa]

OMG, Android doesn't support X11?  What is that crap!?  Worst. OS. Ever. 

[naum]

Pretty sure Adobe didn't care about "open markets" until they got locked out of one.

[Mrbloodworth]

Pretty sure Adobe didn't care about "open markets" until they got locked out of one.

 Macromedia was bought in 05.  Open screen project happened in 08. Many of the specs were released before then, and many open tools have come and gone.  What were they locked out of before all that?

In October 1998, Macromedia disclosed the Flash Version 3 Specification to the world on its website. It did this in response to many new and often semi-open formats competing with SWF, such as Xara's Flare  and Sharp's Extended Vector Animation formats. Several developers quickly created a C library for producing SWF. In February 1999, the company introduced MorphInk 99, the first third-party program to create SWF files. Macromedia also hired Middlesoft to create a freely available developers' kit for the SWF file format versions 3 to 5.

Gnash is an active project that aims to create a free player and browser plugin for the Adobe Flash file format and so provide a free alternative to the Adobe Flash Player under the GNU General Public License. Despite potential patent worries because of the proprietary nature of the files involved,[45]  Gnash supports most SWF v7 features and some SWF v8 and v9.[46][47]  Gnash runs on Windows, Linux and other operating systems on 32-bit, 64-bit and other architectures.

Swfdec is another open-source flash player available for Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. See also SWFOpener.

Scaleform GFx is a commercial alternative Flash player that features full hardware acceleration using the GPU and has high conformance up to Flash 8 and AS2. Scaleform GFx is licensed as a game middleware solution and used by many PC and console 3D games for user interfaces, HUDs, mini games, and video playback.

rtmpdump is an open source software implementation of an RTMP client, Flash's own streaming protocol. rtmpdump was removed from Sourceforge on request by Adobe.[48]

flvstreamer is an open source software implementation of an RTMP client, Flash's own streaming protocol. It is a fork of rtmpdump which has all the cryptographic support (i.e. RTMPE and SWF verification) removed from the code.

I have used Gnash on a project before, and many of you play games using Scaleform GFx.

[Jeff Kelly]

Nothing with DRM will work with any of the open toolkits. You couldn't write a Flash plugin that would display Hulu. Why? Because that's not part of the open specs

[Mrbloodworth]

Nothing with DRM will work with any of the open toolkits. You couldn't write a Flash plugin that would display Hulu. Why? Because that's not part of the open specs

Hulu uses its own player...

[Jeff Kelly]

Flash as an open standard only stands a chance with an open plugin. Something you can't do because major parts of the spec aren't open. Also not covered by the open frameworks.

[tgr]

"Steve Jobs Offers World 'Freedom From Porn'"

http://gawker.com/5539717/steve-jobs-offers-world-freedom-from-porn

I'm rather hoping this is bullshit, but I've heard too many say "but think of the children" in relation to the topic of porn, because to them the slightest slipped nipple is so much worse than watching someone's head go kersplodey, or someone drives like a complete lunatic, etc etc etc.

[Morat20]

Jobs is a fucking idiot if he thinks Americans want to be "free from porn". It's one of the biggest businesses in the world, and it's not because it sneaks onto yoiur compouter or TV and mugs you for your credit card information.

Now, Americans would like thier kids to be 'free from porn' -- right up until those methods impact their own ability to get porn. And there's plenty of Americans who want to make sure other Americans can't get porn, but once more -- only as long as they can still get it.

Making a computer that doesn't let you have porn is like opening up a candy store that offers you "freedom from chocolate and the evils of sugar!". Totally missing the fucking point.

[Ginaz]

YOU WILL ALL TAKE WHAT STEVE JOBS GIVES YOU AND YOU WILL LIKE IT! NO...YOU WILL LOVE IT! ALL HAIL THE GOD KING STEVE JOBS!!! BOW DOWN BEFORE HIM, HEATHENS, AND DRINK HIS KOOL AID!!!

[Jeff Kelly]

or you could just surf to youporn on your ipad which si working already

[Ginaz]

or you could just surf to youporn on your ipad which si working already

It might be...ah...more difficult to enjoy fully enjoy porn when you have to use one hand to hold up the iPad while your other hand is occupied.

[Polysorbate80]

Perhaps if they developed an app to make the pad vibrate?

[Engels]

or you could just surf to youporn on your ipad which si working already

It might be...ah...more difficult to enjoy fully enjoy porn when you have to use one hand to hold up the iPad while your other hand is occupied.

You guys always looking for problems where there aren't any...

[Merusk]

I put that right up there with the "printing solution" for iPads.  Bravo.

[Nerf]

Lawl:

http://www.prlog.org/10666817-irobot-apad-the-latest-android-tablet-pc-to-enter-the-ipad-looking-market.html

[Morat20]

I don't want one of those, either. :)

[Engels]

Did Bill Gates give Jobs the idea for the iPad? Skip to 1:20.

[Trippy]

Did Bill Gates give Jobs the idea for the iPad? Skip to 1:20.

No:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=18678.msg790360#msg790360

Alan said that at the iPhone introduction in Jan 2007. And as I said in the above post Alan's ideas have been bouncing around Apple for a long time now.

[Engels]

Cool. I should have said that I wasn't particularly serious about the posting, since, well, 'iPhone but bigger' isn't exactly a groundbreaking intellectual leap.

[Trippy]

It's a big leap for Gates. He's been wrong about computer technology trends for more than 20 years now.

[tgr]

http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Is-iPad-cannibalizing-Windows-PC-sales/1274380862

So apparently iPad "fills a gaping hole" and "might be cannibalizing windows PC sales". And just how many categorize the iPad as "the cheapest mac" other than this guy?

[Kitsune]

I hadn't given it much thought before but yeah, ipads pretty much are the mac experience distilled down to the final possible iteration.  Macs have held a 'pretty and slick but totally on rails' reputation for years (a reputation that the BSD geeks would scoff at, but still the dominant opinion of the computing community as a whole), and now you get the ipad that really and truly IS a totally on rails machine focused on presenting an easy experience.  Interesting to ponder.

[squirrel]

I hadn't given it much thought before but yeah, ipads pretty much are the mac experience distilled down to the final possible iteration.  Macs have held a 'pretty and slick but totally on rails' reputation for years (a reputation that the BSD geeks would scoff at, but still the dominant opinion of the computing community as a whole), and now you get the ipad that really and truly IS a totally on rails machine focused on presenting an easy experience.  Interesting to ponder.

Spoken like someone who's never used OS X. Grats. Or something.

Hint: The BSD kids are right, try it some time.

EDIT: wtf is with people generalizing iPhone/iPad to the overall OS X platform? Are you folks that badly informed? Try this on your Win machine. On a clean install open a command line and type: $ ruby -e "puts 'Hello world'".

Ah fuck nevermind. You're right, Mac's are useless and for the turtleneck crowd. Not rageing on you in particular Kitsune, just would like people to realize that OS X is a fucking awesome OS. iPhone/Pad - I don't care about, at all.

[Kitsune]

Sure thing.



 

Given that my first computer after a TRS-80 Model 4 was a Mac Plus and that I'm typing this on my Macbook and that I hackintoshed Snow Leopard to run on my netbook along with Windows 7, you may want to reconsider your opinion of my opinion.  The people who ever open a terminal window in OS X are a vanishing minority and not Apple's desired customers.  I spoke of the reputation of macs, not the reality of them.

[Trippy]

The people who ever open a terminal window in OS X are a vanishing minority and not Apple's desired customers.

Wrong. Guess what platform you need to use to develop iPhone and iPad apps?

[Quinton]

The people who ever open a terminal window in OS X are a vanishing minority and not Apple's desired customers.

Wrong. Guess what platform you need to use to develop iPhone and iPad apps?

Do you actually need a terminal for that?  I thought xcode was all shiny and gui-ish?  (Obviously developer-types are more likely to fire up a terminal, but I didn't think it was a requirement for iThing development).

I wish we could just make all our developers run Linux the way Apple can force all of theirs to buy an OSX box.  It'd save a ton of headaches for the dev tools guys.  Though OSX support is not nearly as painful as Win32 support.  Ugh!

[Trippy]

The people who ever open a terminal window in OS X are a vanishing minority and not Apple's desired customers.

Wrong. Guess what platform you need to use to develop iPhone and iPad apps?

Do you actually need a terminal for that?  I thought xcode was all shiny and gui-ish?  (Obviously developer-types are more likely to fire up a terminal, but I didn't think it was a requirement for iThing development).

It would be very difficult to only use GUI tools. Depending on how hard you were willing to search for GUI equivalents of your standard UNIX command line tools (which would probably require X11 and then somehow compiling from source without using a shell prompt; MacPorts and the equivalents require the command line) it's probably doable for some types of projects.

Edit: I should say a project of any reasonable size. "hello world" is certainly doable with just Xcode and Interface builder.

[Jeff Kelly]

Just a general thought:

It's simply astonishing how Apple's image got from

'nobody cares about Apple cause only gay people use it and it's got less than 5% market share anyway'

to

'OMFG Apple is the new Microsoft and Steve Jobs is Stalin, fight the power !!!111111'

in less than five years.

Guys the original iPhone was released in 2007, the original iPod at the end of 2001. Until 2008 nobody cared about Apple, everybody told you that the iPhone would fail miserably.

Right now at the time of writing Apple's market share is:

6% to 10% of the total PC market (depending on the region)
less than 25% in the smart phone market
less than 1% of the total phone market

Why does every CEO out there get all agitated when Apple comes up? Why do we get the 'OMG Apple iz eviil!' vibe? Especially since nobody seems to care about Google at all?

I'd get indifference what I not get is the hate. Apple won't be the new Microsoft, Google on the other hand might become exactly that.

It's funny how everybody throws itself at Google just to spite Apple not realizing that they are all flocking to the potential new monopoly just to prevent another one.

Just watch Google's IO keynote and you get the vibe.

[tgr]

This ought to be funny.

* tgr fires up the popcorn machine.

Do tell what Apple has done that makes it not evil, as opposed to what Google has done that makes it evil.