Comment by rimantas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rimantas | Hacker News Reader

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  > Look at the things that some of you champion; the 
  > iPhone, the iPad...anything running iOS, anything 
  > made by apple computer, the company that is pushing 
  > hardest against openness on the internet.

What a bunch of nonsense. Even the first iPhone had a browser which supported more of HTML5/CSS3 than desktop browsers at the time. It was not Google, it was Apple who brought canvas, css transforms, css animations to WebKit.

  > Oh, you want some basic browser functionality like
  > uploading files? Spend time learning objective C,

Or spend some time learning that Safar on iOS 6 supports file input.

  > submitting it to us (can't let anything edgy get
  > through! Don't use any APIs we don't like!)

How about 60 000 apps ditched by Google?

  > shiny plastic.

It's glass and aluminium. And for some reason more people use web on iOS devices than on that oh-so-open and pro-web Android. Seriously, how long ago did stock Android browser stop to suck?

>Even the first iPhone had a browser which supported more of HTML5/CSS3 than desktop browsers at the time.

Except for the feature that most people mainly use plugins for: audio/video-playback. Only supporting proprietary codecs can hardly be considered open web support.

>How about 60 000 apps ditched by Google?

I don't think you can compare a curated marketplace with a walled garden. There is a difference between jailbreaking and tapping a checkbox to allow third party apps.

All that said I can't agree with the first comment either. I used to be a fanboy of Google but I'm having a harder and harder time justifying it with some of their recent moves.

Apple's early support for HTML5 audio/video tags is worlds better than the contemporary alternative. It seems plausible to me that without Apple's refusal to support Flash the audio and video tags would never have taken off.

Isn't the open video codec problem still unresolved?

Your recent comment on Apple pulling AppGratis from the App Store - "Go and innovate on Android, what's the problem. Or make your own platform and innovate there. Or use HTML5. What makes me sad is constant whining about stuff like this." - doesn't exactly reconcile with your disputing the OPs point regarding Apple and openness or taking objection to OPs stance on guys whining about Google. That is, unless your first retort had nothing at all to do with the OPs point about openness.

Openness and innovation are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to both champion standards and have a walled garden.

> Or spend some time learning that Safar on iOS 6 supports file input.

I've only been able to upload images.

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