Five Tremendous Apple vs. Adobe Flash Myths
roughlydrafted.com
roughlydrafted.com
Nobody serious is saying "Adobe's going to to get Apple" nor that "Apple owes Adobe" nor that "Apple has a legal obligation to support third parties" nor that Apple has a moral obligation to offer the choice. At the very least, these are not consensus arguments in the debates over Apple's new language restrictions and decision to not allow Flash.
Dilger really should link to examples of these opinions he purports to be exposing as myth; examples in serious posts by people with some credibility or skin in the game, not "some anonymous schmuck with a hotmail account" (as he calls his commenters.)
All platforms are beholden to Adobe to get Flash ported. As a business, Adobe can't support every OS and device that appears. Where's Flash for Android? Oh, it's coming...
HTML5/JavaScript is a more open technology and we finally have several good browsers. Most come with source! Today Java is even more open, and no one is complaining. You can download the source for Java, but you can't get the Flash source.
Apple is accelerating the adoption, and hopefully the evolution, of HTML5. In two years, perhaps even one, no one is going to miss Flash on the iPhone and iPad.
It seems perfectly reasonable to me for developers to be wary or even turned off by Apple's tactics. But just as people complain about Apple hindering innovation with these moves, I think there's something to be said for somebody getting out there and trying out a different model [can "open systems" as a model be a monoculture?] than just putting out a platform and then disclaiming responsibility for how it's used. Not saying the results will necessarily be better, but for somebody to try a different model doesn't seem outrageous in a world where there are many intensely competing platforms. If Apple dominated mobile devices, it'd be much easier for me to see these moves as outrageous. As is, they're one option among many and as a result of their policies their platform has both unique benefits and drawbacks.
I see consoles as a completely different topic. The iPhone allows any developer to sign up and develop (for example, that 9 year old kid that wrote some apps). I guess if Sony spent a huge amount of resources porting games to Xbox and Microsoft waited until a week before release to screw them over I'd hate Microsoft even more.
Furthermore, I don't like being lumped into the group that "seemed completely cool with Microsoft’s reign over the entire PC market". It sounds like the author believes that everyone who disagrees with Apple's latest moves are brainless Adobe fanboys. I believe most developers (myself included) disagree with the ability to control the method of development rather than the output (review process). It also seems that Apple waited this long on purpose (days before CS5 release) - almost trying to screw Adobe over as much as possible. This screwed over countless developers.
You have to pay for development kits, true, and you have to link with the standard libraries, but the language and tools you use aren't restricted.
All the TRCs/TCRs are outlined ahead clearly ahead of time and for the thousands of dollars you get support and a working dialogue between the developer and the platform holder.
Frankly, in looking over his 2010 posts, Dilger seems to be little more than a foot soldier in General Gruber's PR backchannel army. There's precious little critical thought, and loads of partisan, fawning obeisance to All Things Jobs.
Linking him to Gruber is a gross injustice to Gruber, who does actually criticize Apple when he feels that they have made a mistake.