"The market" is the smartphone apps market, so anybody who doesn't have a mac or doesn't want to develop for the app store can develop for Android or any other smartphone OS. The confusion here is that people perceive control / enforcement of a single distribution channel to be a monopoly.

Everything buck said is right except I think there's a better example than the McDonald's/Big Mac one, because in that case the Big Mac is made by McDonald's, whereas with a technological standard/platform, applications come from a variety of sources. I think a better example might be if Nintendo were to only sell third party games they approve and distribute them only through, say, its own online store and not through any retailers. Then there would be only one distribution channel (as the App Store is), but Nintendo wouldn't have a "monopoly" on video games because there are still competing platforms (the 360, PS3). It's simply controlling how its own video games are distributed, which is not anticompetitive in the slightest.

Basically the gist of it is that people seem to be able to expect that you should be able to get your apps from anywhere and that it is somehow wrong that you can only get them from one place, when there's nothing wrong with that at all. This expectation exists because of the desktop OS model, but the smartphone/mobile OS segment is evolving to be very different from the desktop OS model and it isn't necessarily accurate to assume or right to expect that ideas we've taken for granted in desktop computing should automatically apply to the mobile space.

Legally, of course they're not in the wrong. But it's not in anyone's best interests except Apple's. That's the issue here.



I wasn't aware that HTML suddenly was able to do everything and anything.

(That is to say, you often DON'T have a choice, depending on what you're trying to do)

You are smart enough to know that I wasn't saying HTML does everything and anything, so don't try and nitpick. I merely picked Flash and HTML because I see it a lot.

And I still want you to tell me in what circumstance you have absolutely 100% no choice on how to make a website (aka you have to conform to some standard), but also simultaneously don't have the ability to cancel that project and develop an entirely different web page for another completely alternative purpose.

In the end it was still YOU that decided to make that webpage for whatever reason. If you don't like having to conform to that standard, don't develop for it? If there is no choice but to use the Apple SDK to make the iPhone apps, that is understood WELL in advance. Either you choose to follow it or not. It's still your choice, they aren't bullying you.

I'm not sure I follow ... they *are* trying to establish the iPhone OS / App store platform / standard as the dominant one, aren't they?

I don't think Apple can stop competition in their new market (which I perceive to mean slate PC appliances with their own ecosystems of apps) by disallowing Flash. What they're doing is maintaining their differentiation (and consequently opening up opportunities for competitors to differentiate) -- you know that pretty much every new slate PC appliance is going to support Flash now that the iPad isn't, so the way the iPad is differentiated is through its App Store model. If anything, not having flash encourages competition in the new market.

I agree with what you said about if Flash went open spec -- but I don't see why that would be a bad thing. Apple's whole thing is about obsessively dictating and controlling exactly how their products work and the resulting user experience, and that's how they carve out their target segment and position themselves -- if anything, it makes it easier for users to figure out whether or not Apple's products are right for them and to choose another device if they don't agree with Apple's philosophy.



For those Apple customers that agree with Apple's philosophy and believe it's right that Apple has authority over the apps on its platform, it's a plus. For everyone else, it's a benefit in that it's a clear signal for them to steer clear of Apple and look into alternatives. There is no downside except for the bitter feelings it causes people who feel entitled have access to Apple's platform but at the same time dictate how that platform is run.

If you want to argue that it's wrong on a philosophical or moral level for Apple to control its platform -- that's another issue entirely that I don't want to get into, as at a high level it is essentially a debate on principle regarding how much authority and control a governing entity should have (e.g. how much should government regulate businesses? Should it only allow businesses that it approves of to operate?).

For instance:

Small developer makes rather popular Flash game. Flash game works on every platform except Apple's iPhone/Touch and iPad. Small developer must now learn an entirely new programming language (one that is much more complicated) and release an app for said devices, OR abandon said market entirely.

Small developer makes a website featuring online video. Small developer doesn't have the space and money to support multiple distribution methods, so he picks the most popular: Flash. Flash works on every platform. Except Apple's iPhone/Touch and iPad.

You're forced out of a market simply because Apple deemed they didn't want you there. Note that it is not a matter of Adobe saying they don't want to support the iPhone, far from it. In fact, I would bet Adobe has bent over backwards to try and get flash on it. But Apple still refuses.

All in all, while the developer may be mad that he lost a portion of his market, it's the users of the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch that lose out the most in the end.

So you are saying that these developers had no knowledge whatsoever that their intended projects wouldn't work on the iPhone/iTouch when they decided to make it? They just programmed something, and then finally discovered that their end product wouldn't work on the iPhone?

You are still making that decision. Everyone lives by constraints. Everything doesn't just HAVE to work. Yes it would be great if it did work. But people like to protect property, and people have the RIGHT to protect their property if they want too.

And you are right, it is the iPod/iPad/etc users that do lose out. They are losing out on Flash (I even agree that might be a bad thing). That's actually a very astute observation. But let the market do its work. If there is a demand for these devices that can handle flash, the market will punish Apple and the users that do care about Flash will sell their apple products and stop buying Apple products because there ARE alternatives according to you. There is no reason to intervene. You might even say that Flash has already been proven to be inconsequential to the iPhone or Touch or iPad user. You will say that it's because most people who bought the iPhone probably didn't know it didn't support Flash. I would argue that those who did care about that wouldn't of bought it in the first place (like you) or would've already sold it by now and gotten a Droid or some other phone. There are products that you can switch to if you are unsatisfied. In the end, people who use the iPhone/iPad don't care about Flash probably, and that's why Apple probably keeps the lock down. Their users are just fine without it.

Intervene? Who said I wanted to intervene? I'm arguing from the standpoint that it'll fail.

Also, Flash hasn't been proven to be inconsequential. Currently, support for flash on ANY phone is extremely rare. That's set to change this year.

**** the I-pad.

Every night I load like 400 of them I'm reminded of how lame people are.

Well... if people didn't ship things you wouldn't have a job so...

Apple's highly-exclusive approvals process is the barrier to entry that you have somehow failed to remember.

Not anyone can make an iPad app. The only people who can write software for the iPad have to be approved by Apple in order to get the SDK, they are subject to highly restrictive (and possibly illegal) licensing agreements.

To distribute your application, it needs to be approved and encrypted by Apple. The only way your application can be approved is if you've already written it. So if you spend a lot of time and money working on something, if someone at Apple or AT&T decides they don't like it... all of your investment is down the toilet. And the iPhone/iPad is such a unique platform that none of your work is going to transfer over.

And for the privilege, you pay Apple a 30% cut on all of your software sales.


1.) Apple has strategic patents on touch computing that effectively grant them a government-issued monopoly on devices like the iPad.
2.) Even if they didn't, it will be a long time before another cohesive slate platform can be brought to market. A pragmatist would tell you that it will never happen, because the App Store is a self-feeding monster: people buy iPhone/iPad because they have more apps, and developers target the iPhone/iPad because there are more users. (mscbuck would call this an economy of scale, if he weren't more interested in SHINY than econ 101.)
3.) As discussed above, they have the App Store in an iron fist. So whether you agree if Apple has a monopoly in this industry, they definitely have a monopoly in their own platform.

Having a monopoly isn't illegal. Using your position in an industry (control over the app store) to influence another (forcing web developers to use HTML5) is illegal.

I'm still more than allowed to hate on people that buy overpriced crap.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you do have to voluntarily sign up for that right? As in you do voluntarily decide if you want to develop for Apple.

And yes, you are right about the economies of scale. But why else wouldn't people want to develop for the iPhone, and why the hell should we punish Apple for making a product that apparently MILLIONS of people want, and that millions of people are fine without flash. There are more than enough alternatives right now, and it's clear that people STILL want something like the App Store and obviously 300,000 more people don't care about Flash. You seem as if there is a problem with people developing for a prevailing platform. The App Store is a little market, with its own little rules, and everything competes within it, which is GREAT for the consumer. They do benefit from the competition within. But they also lose out because they don't have Flash, but that's the tradeoff they make.

I would love everything to be open, it would be awesome, I'm with you guys on that one. But I think you guys just underestimate the fact that people like the iPhone, and people REALLY like the Apps. A lot of nerds don't. But A LOT more normal people do. Apple will cater to their needs, not ours. But you know what, there are other devices that do cater to our needs and we can readily purchase them, and that's the beauty of the thing. If people really care about Flash and their web browsing, don't you think it will show by itself?

This thread has gone from suck to blow.

And now for the iPad put to good use: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

Will it Blend?!

Yeah but that has nothing to do with them disallowing flash
In management this is actually called a "network effect" but I agree. One of the goals in trying to establish a new dominant design or standard is to achieve a high level of network effects to effectively lock out the other competing standard(s), and often this can lead to anticompetitive practices and the development of a natural monopoly.

I guess if you want to call it a "monopoly in their own platform" you could but the idea is kind of silly and even then I don't think it's the right term. A monopoly in their own market would be if they prevented anyone except themselves from making App Store apps (akin to Nintendo only allowing first-party titles). It really is more that they're "regulating" apps and controlling distribution, almost as if they were the government in a state-run economy.


I'm not sure about the illegality of forcing developers to a certain standard, so I'll take your word for it -- although to me it doesn't seem anticompetitive (yet) [mainly because I don't see Apple being capable of totally locking other smartphone platforms out as you mentioned simply by disallowing Flash]

Currently Chrome's WebGL performs quite poorly, and requires the security sandbox to be turned off. I get only about 45fps maximum with gwtquake2 on my uber new PC*. The guys who ported it could only get 30 or so. Hopefully it will improve with time.

On the other hand Flash has no hardware 3d support at all (that's what Shockwave is for) so yeah... slow GPU 3D accelerated WebGL vs fast 2D accelerated Flash (unless you don't have the beta, then it's slow unaccelerated Flash)... bit of a toss up I'd say (I don't believe 2d accel would make up much ground between software vs hardware 3d) but once WebGL gets moving I wouldn't be surprised if we started to see 3D games coded in it.

* - It's so uber my other computer committed seppuku the other day.

I'm still catching up on the thread so please forgive me if anything that I say has already been mentioned but I still can't figure out why the Flash thing is such a big deal. I can't find a single website in my bookmarks that requires Flash. Can someone please give me a few links to websites that actually use Flash that I should probably care about? Maybe it's just me but it seems like this whole Flash thing is already not a big deal & will become an even smaller deal than it is now, very soon.

Engadget (Videos)
Gizmodo (Videos)
Google Docs (for uploads)
All major news sites, especially local news
Most kids sites (Disney/Nickelodeon/etc)
Lots of educational/reference sites, especially in Blackboard software.
Most gaming sites, including ones for consoles (XBOX, PS, Nintendo)
95% of Facebook outside of the feeds.
Portions of WhiteHouse.gov (particularly video)
Probably some news sites

Just off the top of my head.

Tons of sites use Flash for uploading. Basically any site where you're uploading more than a couple of megabytes, or multiple files. HTTP post is terrible and finicky.

It isn't always up to them. What about development firms that are making software for clients? The clients don't want to hear about how xx doesn't support yy, they just want it to WORK.

If a similar device were to run on the Android OS or WebOS, there would all ready be an OS hack that would turn this thing into one of those tablets you see in Star Trek.

Right? Right??

Screw that, Dalf, I want one of those hologram things they carried around in Avatar. A little bar that projects out a 3d interface? Hell yes. When Steve Jobs debuts something like that, I'll buy it.

Its already been Jailbroken

I don't really use any of those websites but I can see how people that do would be bothered by them not working on their iPad if they weren't previously aware. How difficult would it be for Engadget or Gizmodo to begin to support the iPad w/ all of their future videos? It would be nice for iPad users to have access to all of their past videos but not as important as having access to their new ones. I know that YouTube did it but I would assume that it was much easier for Google because of their money/resources.


That makes sense. I rarely upload anything other than the occasional photo to Facebook (the wife usually takes care of that on her laptop) so I never really paid much attention. That could definitely be a bother on future versions of the iPad if they end up having a camera but I can't imagine that this particular issue will be much of a bother until then (there's no USB ports either). I don't think that there will be much that people are storing on their iPads that they'll want to upload. Anything being created w/ any type of productivity software will probably be emailed, uploaded w/ one of Apple's own utilities or transferred to the user's desktop/laptop at a later time.

I would also like to add that everyone seems to be criticizing Apple of their lack of "openness" but they also seem to forget that Adobe isn't as "open" as they could be either. There's over 50 open-source alternatives to Acrobat alone. This is a two-way street here. I also never thought that I'd live to hear people using Microsoft products calling Apple a monopoly. I'm practically a Socialist & would love to see everything free & open-source & everyone benefitting from the production of all hardware/software but before those Utopian dreams can be established we have to deal w/ Capitalism & unfortunately no one can really blame Apple for doing things the way that they do them because it works great for them & they aren't forced to do otherwise. If any of you think that any of the companies that are profiting from you are doing anything for you, you're sadly mistaken & are rather naive. Money makes the world go around & them empowering/helping you is just another marketing strategy.

It would double their workload and double their disk space usage. That's assuming its not automated. If it's automated, then they'd have to redo their automation as well to run a second encode.



Was there a point to all of that? Just because other companies are evil doesn't mean Apple shouldn't be called out for it as well.

I suppose that my point was that we can't blame Apple for doing what our "system" allows & possible even encourages them to do. It just seems to me that the root of much of the issues w/ Apple aren't w/ them at all because there are an endless amount of other companies doing or attempting to do the same thing. These comments were directed towards the more philosophical portion of the debate that keeps popping up, not so much the technical portion.

If a friend encourages you to jump off a bridge, would you?

Which one of you is the dapper fellow in this photo? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1263870/Apple-iPad-hit-technical-glitches-users-complain-unable-connect-internet.html How was your D&D session the other night? Did you get to bang any hot elves? Bonus points if they were actually being RPed by a real girl.

lol @ this

http://gizmodo.com/5510678/apples-ipad-apps-wouldnt-have-been-approved-by-the-app-store

You're not allowed to use these API calls in your app store apps, but we can!

Palm does the same, although all of its software it provides is free, so it is not competing with paid apps. It's really dirty to use private APIs in your software competing in the same market next to those who can't.

What is it with nerds and ****ing fedoras?

You're still a pasty virgin and my dead grandpa wants to beat your ass.

Must have been you in the picture then. Have you got all your WH40K miniatures painted yet? Maybe your mom will play with you tonight so you don't have to play alone again.

Hey, why don't you copy someone elses routine?

Haha. This guy is great.

My favorite part of that was when the scientist swiped something with his hand from another monitor to the handheld one.

Yeah, that was awesome. It was like the computers in Minority Report, only far sweeter.

Or they could use their Flash player to play H.264 and just serve the file directly to HTML5-compatible clients. An issue only arises if they need to support Firefox's implementation of the video tag.

FYI Google acquired YouTube in 2006

I imagine this functionality can be duplicated in some useful apps pretty soon.

Can't embed directly from Viddler via HTML5. :saddowns: