Apple's responsibility as a superpower
37signals.com
37signals.com
1. The author worries about Apple crowning a successor. What they're advocating is HTML5, which is essentially an open standard, where Flash is of course proprietary.
2. The premise of the article is that Apple has the power to kill anything they set their mind to. It uses the lazy argument of the slippery slope or thin end of the wedge ("What's next?"). It's simply fearmongering;
3. It mistakes cause and effect. A classic example of this was Intel's original Centrino platform, which became the basis of Intel's success (after the Pentium 4 debacle) for years. At the time it launched Intel spent $150m+ on marketing it. Sadly, many observers attributed its success to that marketing campaign when in fact the lesson is:
Good products sell themselves.
Centrino succeeded because it was a good product.
Flash came about at a time to solve a problem of creating "rich" Internet applications ("RIAs") when it wasn't possible any other way. That's no longer the case with a plethroa of Javascript frameworks and browsers with fast Javascript engines in them.
The use case for Flash was going away anyway. Apple just hastened its inevitable demise. They haven't killed it. They just threw some oil on the fire that was already burning down the house.
4. Apple is on the outs with a bunch of other companies? Large companies are complex creatures. You will find them competing savagely on one level while cooperating on another. But the real reason they don't like Apple? Nothing breeds contempt like success.
5. Blu-ray. Optical storage, like Flash, is dying. Apple didn't pick a side in the HD-DVD vs Blu-ray "war". Some might call this realpolitik. Personally, I think they took a long term view that the winner was irrelevant. The well is drying up. Who controls it doesn't matter anymore.
6. Apple is by far the company that has demonstrated an utter devotion to the paramount importance of the user experience. Now you can disagree with some of the decisions they've made but, on the whole, no company has engendered quite the same loyalty and fervour that Apple has for good reason.
They're still at the mercy of the market as a whole.
How many $30 desktop apps will you sell if users also have to download a 200MB Java runtime?
Don't fool yourself, Apple has to power to drive adoption (USB) or kill it (Flash, Jave, et al).
I don't think they're killing off a big industry by ditching java on the mac. It's just potentially going to make things more of a pain for those of us who write server-side java code on our Macs. Do you think their move will have an effect on that industry?
Windows don't ship with Java preinstalled and it isn't that big of a deal, people install it the first time they need it and that's it.
That's what is going to happen on the Mac.
All the technologies are in the market, some will win and some will lose. The only thing that will define this is adoption, and Apple is adopting the technologies they believe are the best to deliver a great user experience to their customers.
2. Apple growing hugely day-by-day does change things up a little bit. Doesn't it?
3. Flash being supported on iPad could have changed things a bit.
4. Apple is known to be particularly insular, especially because of it's quest to define consumer experience.
5. Bluray is not dying, bluray players and discs are being sold in record numbers. Perhaps you meant optical storage is dying for computers.
6. The article is specifically talking about their new found power. Your statement has no bearing on this except makes it feel that you're making an appeal to gloss over the possibility of Apple's power being used for bad just because it's a 'good' company.
For example, as Apple's share in PC market grows, it might be enough to send AMD/ATI down, since Apple won't ship their chips thereby granting a free monopoly to Intel and Nvidia which is bad for everyone involved.
Record numbers compared to what? Of course when BR uptake has been as slow as it was in the beginning it's easy to set records. I think the OP was pointing out that physical media in general is dying. Of course you'll still have the technobuffs who have 5.1/6.1/7.1 surround in their house and 100" projectors (this is where BR really shines and it's amazing to experience), but for most people convenience trumps the good enough that is current streaming. Even now I believe that Netflix has recently added 5.1 sound to many of their streams and I think they have started to stream some 1080p material to the PS3.
However, there is this other side: where Apple seizes a chunk of territory that they mark out as "ours to play with" and this is roped off and defended at all costs. When Google decided that cellphones needed an open option to keep carriers and developers honest, Apple reacted vociferously against this perceived incursion into their territory. And this is, I believe, what dhh is articulating unease about. Today Goliath Apple is fighting the good fight, taking down the monolithic clunky developer-terrorizing nonsense that is Flash in the name of open standards and on behalf of Davidesque HTML5. But tomorrow, there's no telling if Apple is suddenly going to decide that this is "their territory" and they are going to defend it against all incursions (open or not) at all costs. And that is worrying.
Apple's moral standards seem arbitrary, adopted post-hoc to conveniently justify a pre-ordained course of action. And that makes everyone fearful of their next move.
Google hasn't kept the carriers honest, and I've yet to hear of an iOS app that quietly copies all your SMS messages off to some server in Russia.
If someone was able to sneak something like tethering, I don't think it's a far stretch for text messages.
Not only is this not what happened (they made a cell phone OS to make money), I'm not even sure it makes sense. What do you mean "honest"?
With Android Google has made it clear that everyone needs to support the web, and that there will be a substantial portion of users that are hitting the web with mobile devices.
I think w/o Android we'd probably see slightly different positioning from Apple on the web with mobile devices. Of course, we won't know for sure now. Android is here and given its growth everyone has to support the web in a real way. And as long as you're browsing the web then Google wins -- if its with iPhones, EVOs, or HD7s.
And incidentally Android's browser technology is largely based on WebKit, created by Apple.
It simply does not compute to say that Google had to save mobile browsing from Apple.
I do think that if talk to Google they do believe that over time the app store experience would be the one pushed by Apple and the web deemphasized to the extent they could.
Remember Android is all cost center for Google. The only real benefit they derive from it is keeping people on the web. Which is one reason why the Android app store will not be as strong as Apples.
I thought the reason they were upset was that Google was substantially "inspired" by design choices that Apple pioneered (or at least popularized). I don't think it's solely about defending the smartphone market.
1. Google buys Android and plans to make cell phone. First cell phone prototypes look/feel like then-current-day Blackberries (aka, key pads, small screens, no touch). 2. Apple makes iPhone. Touch-only. Changes world. 3. Google then remakes Android in mold of iPhone, copying its new touch-based metaphors and more. 4. Apple understandably does not take the imitator kindly.
Enter present day.
Take flash. When the iPhone came out, Apple and Adobe had discussions. Apple said, show us what you have. My guess is that it was shitty, didn't respect new iOS touch-based metaphors, made for bad UX and poor battery life. Apple passed. Now according to other reports about Flash, Apple gave them chances, but Adobe COULD. NOT. DELIVER. So when the iPad came to fruition and it began to seriously dawn on Adobe management that they were being left behind, they had only one option: try to garner public sympathy for something that Apple had originally intended be an option: flash on iOS. Apple realized, early on, that Adobe didn't care enough to solve what Apple saw as a true problem. Adobe completely whiffed their chances. So here we are today. Is that "moral superiority" or true pragmatism in dealing with someone who can't or won't deal?
This whole "slippery slope" things is pure FUD. Apple makes pragmatic decisions, not vengeful or hateful ones. Java for every other platform is maintained by Sun/Oracle. Apple has little need to spend precious engineering time maintaining a runtime that sees little use by end-users. Interested parties (Sun/Oracle) can certainly continue to maintain a runtime if needed and will probably have less overhead than Apple doing it.
When I use my iPad, the #1 reason I put it down and pick up my laptop is that I want to watch a video (quite frequently one I found here in fact) or play a game that I can't. It's to the point where I now just dig out the laptop if I want to read Hacker News as a result. I made the mistake of taking the iPad on a trip without my laptop, only to find I couldn't view the website of any good restaurant. (Granted there's no reason those websites should be one giant SWF, but they are.)
You don't realize how much Flash stuff is on the web until you use an iPad.
We must use very different subsets of the Internet, because the videos I run into (on random, lower profile sites, no less) don't require flash.
Honestly, the thing that drives me from my iPad to pick up a laptop (which doesn't happen very often) is iPad-specific websites that don't let me opt-out and use their normal website. This has (unfortunately) been happening more and more lately.
As a Facebook Game developer I probably see more Flash than normal people, though the number of people who play Flash games on Facebook alone numbers in the hundreds of millions.
In another six months, what do you think that figure is going to be? Flash is headed towards marginalization, that's what my crystal ball says.
Besides, what capable mobile flash runtime were they supposed to put in the iPad anyways? It's not like they had a choice.
Second, if Adobe wanted to create a flash runtime that runs on iOS as proof of concept, demo, or whatever, Apple couldn't stop them even if they wanted to.
Third, Steve Jobs said that they'd love to see Adobe demo a capable mobile flash runtime, they just haven't.
I'd expected there to be more "backlash" or at least disappointment with the iPad when people ended up realizing that some sites they may want don't work. I've been surprised to hear nearly none of that. Maybe it's just a matter of it being such a different device that people accept that not all the things from the device they're used to (a traditional computer) work on it?
I think the people who buy an iPad and return it just don't post on web forums.
I don't think there's an epidemic of iPad returns, though, by any means.
The rest of it is just entertainment.
They can even out source the development as there is a perfect spec of what to build (original game)
Virtually nobody I know goes to get the same phone they currently have due to any type of lockin. In fact, I've seen more often than not, that people want a different kind of phone. Because its almost like a toy for adults.
Apple is dominant today, but I fully expect that in two years there will be some new company that everyone will be watching, who today no one really takes seriously (or may have even heard of).
When Google rolled out free Google Maps and navigation apps, they were directly attacking companies like Garmin and TomTom
Now frankly, it is reasonable to sympathize with many companies whose paid offerings are under attack by "free" products, but would you ask Google to recognize itself as a "superpower" and stop killing GPS navigation companies ?
The unnerving thing about this industry, though, is that sometimes this "winning and losing" is fast and close to total, whereas in other industries, many players can continue to compete in the same field. Think about Microsoft's share of desktop operating systems at their peak vs car companies.
Edit: and things that were extensions of the Windows monopoly such as IE.
Apple's done things like this before - getting rid of floppy drives, for instance, before anyone else did. (And they're very quick to remind us of this). But whether the move to 'attack' Flash is a bad thing isn't clear.
Apple seems to be more obsessed with delivering the perfect user experience - and they don't give me the impression that they're picking battles for the sake of picking battles. Whether Flash (or any other technology, for that matter) gets excluded is a direct result of this obsession. Which is the right way of going about it, of course.
Are they comparable phones? If nothing else, there've been two major Android OS revisions since 1.6.
For me, it primarily comes down to the fact that Apple has tended to impose restrictions within its own little empire, and not outside of it; for the large part, Apple seems to follow the Principle of Least Aggression. Even with the latest Flash shenanigans, Apple isn't making deals with partners to kill Flash. They're not trying to ruin support on Android or anything. They're just not including it by default on the new Airs anymore, and sort of publicly saying that they think it sucks.
I agree with David, though: Apple's cultural position of power means that if they want to keep our hearts and minds, they have some responsibility to play nice.
With that said, the difference between MS and Apple is that Apple builds the full stack. Apple blocking Psystar from creating clones effectively blocks anyone else from creating Apple products, thus Apple has a lot fewer people to have to bully. The just keep everyone off their block. With that said, within the industry, Apple's bullying of Intel is rather legendary, given their small market position.
Where Apple does dominate they certainly don't mind pushing people around.
MS works with a lot more partners therefore there is a lot more opportunity for bullying.
My concern with Apple is that while Steve Jobs is brilliant, he also rules with what seems to be a larger degree of malice. With MS its obvious where they're going -- where the money is. With Apple that's usually the case, but sometimes its where Steve is just really mad. There's no single person, including Bill, at MS who wields that type of power.
Is my fanboy showing? :/
There are plenty of things that would make their computers/products easier to use, but they don't do them. For example, their rental policy for video is horrible. I have just stopped renting because I never finish anything. How is it that Amazon can have a strictly superior policy, but Apple's sucks? I think this is actually an example where Steve plays the role of Apple CEO and Disney shareholder at the same time.
When Apple lets me run iOS/OSX in a VM on my Windows box then I'll believe their main mission is to make computers easier to use. Until then the bottomline seems to be the thing the thing that cuts across most items at Apple, like most other companies.
Is this 100% on Apple though? I know there was some hoopla awhile back before variable pricing came into play where the RIAA allowed Amazon to set lower prices than Apple with their goal being to get Apple to bend to their demands on pricing. Apple wanted to keep everything at 99c, but the RIAA wanted tiers and finally got what they wanted.
Apple could fix this easy... support Amazon VOD. That would be the best thing for the customer. It would be super easy. Heck, if you're reading Steve, I'll implement it for you, for 1/2 my standard consulting fee.
Apple has said no to technologies like Flash, USB3 and Blu-Ray for their own reasons and only for their own devices, which is part of how they make those products good.
If they begin supporting every feasible technology just for the sake of not being a bully, then their products will start to suck, they will lose their customers and the power they've been giving them, and then a new kingmaker will arise. The cycle will continue.
This is an argument for making technology independent of the products that embody them, which is not realistic.
Maybe DHH has a good reason for thinking it's different, but I'd like to see it spelled out.
Pushing web standards seems like a good position for an industry leader to take. Seems like any large corporate power, like Google, we just have to expect the worse and hope for the best.
What is happening here is Apple is streamlining its products in what they hope will make for a better user experience. It may or may not work out for them, but there is plenty of choice out there.
Further, this isn't the same situation as the 1990s when Microsoft would gun for other companies by releasing same-ish products for free to squash others out of the market. They are just not supporting them if they dont meet their standards.
The really interesting, and perhaps more fundamental, issue is that the various independent domains of the past (entertainment, communications, enterprise, gaming, mobile, etc.) are no longer so cleanly segregated and have been converging quite rapidly in the last few years. This inevitably results in the emergence of superpowers like Apple.
If we take this to be true, then the question becomes — what do we do about it? As entrepreneurs/developers/consumers, we fundamentally decide on the winners in these platform wars. But how do we counter superpower decisions? Lobby groups? Strategic pacts? Alternative, open, decentralised, systems?
It’s up to Adobe to make their own future, not Apple. Perhaps that’s why Adobe recently unveiled Adobe Edge, and a Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool.
They are all about minimizing Apple's investment in the Mac platform. Each shows where Apple is heading with the Mac, toward streaming content as what differentiates platform, away from cutting edge technology as what differentiates the platform, and away from enterprise sales - not that enterprise sales are a high priority for Apple beyond getting a continuous stream of articles written about "recent enterprise adoption." The same cost reductions criteria could be seen to apply to Flash, but it's more about sparking development for iOS and the future MacApp store.