Comment by stuntmouse | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stuntmouse | Hacker News Reader

This is something I'm struggling with right now. Setting aside iPad and iPhone for a second...

Counterpoint in favor of Apple:

Contributions to an open web: Open source development of Webkit and now Webkit2, HTML5 Canvas, Adverserial stance towards Flash in favor of HTML5 [iPad, iPhone]

Contributions to open-source tools: LLVM and CLang, MacRuby support, launchd, Cocoa bindings from other languages [possibly phased out?]

Contributions to open-source operating systems: OpenDarwin http://www.opensource.apple.com/

Developer ease: Nice set of installed developer applications, Development environment based on standard opensource toolchain, Compiling command-line tools from Linux/BSDs is sane and easy, Compiling X11 dependent apps is possible

Multi-platform support: BootCamp, The only system capable of running the three major desktop operating systems easily and legally.

High quality, hackable GUI environment and applications: Cocoa applications are generally built to a far higher standard than Linux GUI applications IMO, Cocoa applications are imminently hackable (see SIMBL)

Hardware innovation and quality: Forward thinking innovation in hardware: Mac Air, for example, gets rid of even ethernet!, MacBook Pro line widely acknowledged as top-tier development machine

[Disclosure: I have no stake in Apple.]

Consider also the wider moral questions. Apple sources their components more carefully than other vendors when it comes to child labor, fair trade, and environmental degradation. Not as well as one might like, but certainly much better than their competitors.

I was originally thinking of not buying Apple products because of the iPad announcement and the broad moral qualms I have about open systems. But then I realized that the moral importance of abusing other human beings, animals and ecosystems outweighed the moral importance of open/closed technology platforms.

Apple sources their components more carefully than other vendors when it comes to child labor, fair trade, and environmental degradation.

Documentation? Especially, consideration recent revelations about abuse of Chinese workers at an Apple subcontractor.

http://www.tgdaily.com/consumer-electronics-opinion/43340-ip...

Apple sometimes stopping the use of child on their own shows that they are better than the very worst they could be. It doesn't show they are better than their competitors. Since none of these companies is allowing any independent verification of good or bad behavior, a few press release don't matter either way.

See link to Apple child labor use: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/apple-admits-usin...

See link to Apple child labor use:

Right, but that child labor was discovered as a result of an Apple audit: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/apple-reports...

On skimming Apple's supplier responsibility compliance report: http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/SR_2010_P..., one thing that struck me was that there were no independent agencies verifying Apple's statements (although it talks about local third-party consultants, we are given no names of these).

I'm not so sure that HTML5 adoption, at the cost of all web plugins, is a net win. I don't care so much about Flash, but it seems that Apple's lack of a plugin framework is positioning Safari to be the next IE6. Developers will be limited by the lowest common denominator. Without plugin-based workarounds, Safari's support for any new technology will dictate what web developers use. Don't like that Apple has chosen H.264 over VP8 or Theora? tough luck...

clarification: referring to Mobile Safari's lack of plugins

edit: after clarification by OP this doesn't relate to what they are talking about.

I don't know quite what you are getting at here? Are you suggesting that you can't install plugins to manage different kind of embeds with Safari? As this is just not true: Java, Flash, RealPlayer, QuickTime, Flip4Mac.... these are all plugins built as standard OSX internet plugins. If you want to develop your own go ahead.

I think what you are trying to get at is that you want things that are being natively handled by the browser to be optionally controlled via a plugin. The fragmented state that is what browsers have natively implemented is quite shocking but having everything optionally overridden by plugins would cause even more fragmentation and even more headaches.

I assumed that point was about the lack of support for plugins in Mobile Safari, though I could be mistaken.

You really could not be more wrong.

WebKit on OS X has a native Obj-C plugin system: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Interne...

If you want to add VP8 or Theora support in <video> to WebKit apps on OS X, just install a QuickTime decoder for them: http://xiph.org/quicktime/ — Want to add any codecs to Firefox? You're completely fucked, and have to fork the whole stack.

Developers will be limited by the lowest common denominator.

This is always true, but it also is always qualified by "of the audience they intend to reach". If you're trying to reach "everyone", then your lowest common denominator is still going to be some version if Internet Explorer for some time to come--even IE9 won't support some major parts of HTML5. Beyond that, you're implicitly excluding some set of potential users -- it's only a question of which. Targeting a plugin (or bleeding-edge standards) never gets you a bigger audience than standard web technologies, just a different audience.

(Flash is really the only historical example of a plugin becoming so ubiquitous that you could safely assume that you weren't excluding many by depending on it, but that is obviously changing back to the more typical state.)

What this should mean, I think, is that the bar for developing on plugin platforms is raised. The smaller the installed base, the more valuable the experience you have to deliver for it to be worth your while, and the user's. I think this is as it should be. The only developers who will choose to limit themselves so will be the ones that weren't really doing anything that necessitated the plugin in the first place.

Don't like that Apple has chosen H.264 over VP8 or Theora?

If you don't like that, you probably aren't using Mobile Safari in the first place.

"Multi-platform support: BootCamp, The only system capable of running the three major desktop operating systems easily and legally."

I don't think this one should count. Apple intentionally blocks other hardware from running their OS, while will allow officially support for other OSes on their own hardware.

It's almost hypocritical if you ask me.

Apple doesn't really play partisan politics so they don't have to worry about hypocrisy. They do whatever makes the most sense to them in the context of building a good product.

Why do you use confusing language? How many people actually understand what "partisan politics" are?

Building a good product doesn't mean you have to be a hypocritical bunch of assholes, building a good product means creating a compelling product that people want to use.

"Building a good product doesn't mean you have to be a hypocritical bunch of assholes, building a good product means creating a compelling product that people want to use."

I understand what "partisan politics" is. I don't, however, understand the above. What makes something compelling? Hurricanes might be compelling to me, but that doesn't make them good.

Sorry I didn't think it was very confusing:

Partisan = strong commitment to an ideology. In this case open vs. closed.

Politics = the rules, methods and policies that dictate how a company runs internally and externally.

So the point is Apple uses open and closed source/platforms/standards on a case-by-case basis. Most of their products a hybrid of both. It's hard to be hypocritical if you don't commit. That doesn't preclude them from making bad choices for other reasons.

Addendum: It looks like Cocoa-bindings are alive and well for Ruby and Python. Only the official Apple Java bridge has been phased out.

For all the Apple bashing I do around here, even I have to admit that this is a stellar list of many of the things Apple is great at. I would like more of this kind of Apple in the future, not the kind we've been getting lately.

...the only system capable of running the three major desktop operating systems easily and legally...

So their contribution to open systems is being kind enough to only legally allow you to use their OS on their hardware?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com