It's OK because proprietary plugins like QuickTime are a threat to the open web, and should be eliminated according to Steve Jobs (who I always turn to for moral guidance on the use of open vs. proprietary systems): "... we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open."
He's definitely correct in this. Good thing Chrome also disables Flash by default.
Between this and the Honeycomb source I just checked out through git, Google has really hooked me up with the mad openness.
edit: Really, though, this is a bullshit argument that's been cooked up. These are two companies trying to preserve their ability to make money. That's it. The thing I admire about Apple, though, is that they're not making any bones about it. They go with what works better for them, and, as they see it, what works better for users. No silly holy wars or sanctimonious proclamations.
I trust the guy who is honest about his self-interest a whole lot more than phony altruists.
I'll give you pre-edit, but Apple does plenty of phony altruism and silly holy wars cloaked to hide their true profit based intentions. How we all agree that every company works in their self interest and tries to spin it as best they can for the public's interest?
Or this will just quickly devolve into point scoring nit picking.
HN needs collapsable threads. I toyed with a greasemonkey script that would do this but the somewhat "super pragmatic" layout makes it less than simple.
I once saw pg comment that it was the simplest solution that worked. Granted, pg's primary role is not as a web developer, hence his simplest solution is not what mine would be.
But QuickTime doesn't work better for users. The technology is dated and does nothing that HTML5 doesn't do better. In fact, Flash is actually far better for consumers than QuickTime; at least it's updated regularly, unlike QT.
This cuts both ways. Why doesn't Apple discontinue and disable the QuickTime plugin, if they really have the users' interests at heart?
Actually, it's quite possible that much of what we think of as Quicktime will go away in OSX 10.7.
Apple has tried modernizing Quicktime with something called QTKit/Quicktime X. iOS did away with this altogether and instead uses something called AVFoundation. OSX 10.7 includes an OSX version of AVFoundation.
It's not 100% clear to me what the relationship between the two on OSX will be, but I'm guessing that Apple has given up on modernizing Quicktime and is just replacing it with AVFoundation.
This can't really come quickly enough. If Windows users are tired of Quicktime, well... it behaves a lot better on OSX if you're an end-user, but programming for Quicktime is a pain. In particular, programming codec plug-ins is horrible. The basic Quicktime architecture still deals with FSSpecs, memory handles, the old Component Manager, and API artifacts relating to the old code fragment manager from the pre-OSX days. Quicktime is probably the one big chunk of code in OSX that still dates from pre-OSX days and hasn't been re-implemented in terms of something more modern like Core Foundation.
What does HTML5 have anything to do with it? Many times you get linked straight to a movie file and the browser is expected to either play the file or download it (based on mime-types).
If they are disabling the Quicktime plugin on OS X, then at least just download the movie file even if the mime type is "video/quicktime".
The error screen they are showing now is scary enough that most people will abort out of it.
Just as a thought exercise: Can't Apple be sued for monopoly abuse? They have a monopoly on portable music players, for which you need iTunes to load music on, and then they default to installing Safari trying to leverage their monopoly in music players to win over the browser market.
I'm sorry, how do they have a monopoly on portable music players? They have a very popular player, of which they are the sole manufacturer, and require you to use their software.
The free market has plenty of alternatives, though not as good if you ask me, if you do not like their solution you are free to purchase another. There's nothing monopolistic about having a hugely successful product.
You're allowed to have a monopoly, you're not allowed to abuse it. If Apple ordered mp3hardware stores to stop selling other brands or Apple would raise it prizes, that would be abuse.
(a) The GP of my comment asserted that automatically installing Safari when you install iTunes was monopoly abuse. I think they at least have a point.
(b) Apple has about 2/3 of the paid music download market and 3/4 of the MP3 player market. They block other MP3 players from talking to iTunes, and other desktop software from talking to the iPod. I think that's probably abuse: they're using iTunes's dominant market position to protect the iPod's dominant market position, and vice versa.
They leveraged one monopoly to create another instead of trying to promote IE on its merits, and implemented IE with insider knowledge of how Windows works, and did various other things like coercing OEMs. Those are the things that got them in trouble, not simply having the OS monopoly.
Portable music players isn't such a meaningful category when you consider most mobile phones can also play music; plus just other music listening devices in general.
It may vary from nation to nation, but under US law the relevant act here is the Sherman Antitrust Act, which deals with single-firm anti-competitive behavior.
We'd have to wade through a lot of case-law here, but if you'll permit me the ability to speak without excessive sourcing (most of this can be found supported and sourced on Wiki)...
The courts have made a distinction between an innocent and a coercive monopoly. Where innocent monopolies, as you may argue but I disagree, are what Apple has in the music player space. These are not illegal. It would need to be shown that Apple has conspired in some way to grow and maintain their market position in a way to be detrimental to consumers and other producers.
Right now another consumer electronics company could: a) produce a new unit with a high quality software, b) sell it at a competitive price point to Apple, c) create a product very similar to the iPod itself, d) there already exist many other competitors. To me these factors suggest Apple does not have a monopoly but a very successful product.
And I'd submit as noted above, even if you found Apple to have a monopoly, I do not believe it would qualify as coercive under US law.
As noted in this thread, market share is not so much the issue, as barrier to entry.
My dictionary defines sanctimonious as "making a show of being morally superior to other people."
All I saw from Apple in that essay was boiled down as:
This shit works better than this other shit, and as a result, it is our preference. And we think it'll be better for users, too. We control all aspects of our products' user experience, so this position will be reflected there.
I'd like you to contrast that with
"If Google didn’t act, it faced a draconian future where one man, one phone, one carrier were our choice. That’s a future we don’t want. [...] If you believe in openness, if you believe in choice, if you believe in innovation from everyone, then welcome to Android. "
If I boiled down Google's statement: If we didn't do shit, one company could run shit. We think that is bad and we believe that you agree.
And if I were to quote Steve directly: "We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers. [...] We cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms [...] Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications."
I'm afraid, Kyle, it's not even remotely the same.
The paragraph you quoted is 100% self-interest, not morality. No loaded words making value judgments about others ("draconian").
Their concern is that they will lose control of their platform to a party that doesn't care about its future. Apple has already been down that road with Adobe on the Mac and they're making clear it sucks for their goals. Making the best apps the world has ever seen isn't idealism – it's a bunch of cash in Apple's pocket. This strikes me as pragmatic, not moralizing. They're worried for themselves, not for you or me, except inasmuch as we might be users who will cease giving them money if they ship crap.
That's just not the same as FUDding about "one man" and all this, I'm sorry.
No silly holy wars or sanctimonious proclamations.
I'm really torn trying to figure out which parts of your post is sarcasm. Because if you're really claiming that Apple hasn't pursued almost every initiative with "sanctimonious proclamations", you must not be paying attention. Gruber echos the Apple talk points, and they all revolve around "just trying to do right by the customer" (instead of "just trying to ensure massive profit margins aided by complete control and industry domination).
Apple makes massive profit margins by doing right by the customer (as they see it).
Sure, and so does Microsoft. That argument works for any company.
The problem is that many of Apple's transparent positions aren't held on their merit, but instead are shrouded behind layers of sanctimonious bullshit. See the anti-Flash screeds as an example of this. That you would claim that insult about Google, in this case, is quite laughable.
Though I see that HN is once again a bastion of pro-Apple delusion as the more enlightened fled.
> Sure, and so does Microsoft. That argument works for any company.
I wish I could agree with you. In fact, for many companies, the customer is the last consideration. Especially in the case you've brought up here. Microsoft's financial might in the 90's was all about strategic relationships, three dimensional chess and out-maneuvering their competition through ethically dubious tactics, definitely not creating value for users.
"Primarily in the 1990s, critics contend Microsoft used monopolistic business practices and anti-competitive strategies including refusal to deal and tying, put unreasonable restrictions in the use of its software, and used misrepresentative marketing tactics; both the U.S. Department of Justice and European Commission found the company in violation of antitrust laws"
But MS would argue, as Apple does, that they did this in the interest of the customer. Frankly, some of the things they were accused of, such as bundling IE, were absurd. Sure MS should have been more open about the fact that it really wasn't necessary, but bundling a browser is a requirement for a modern OS -- even as of 1998.
In any case, these are all religious as this point, and me proving your God is wrong is something one can't easily win.
Especially in the case you've brought up here. Microsoft's financial might in the 90's was all about strategic relationships, three dimensional chess and out-maneuvering their competition, definitely not creating value for users.
Microsoft and Apple both engage in identical behaviors. Many Microsoft boosters used the identical "for the consumer" arguments in defending Microsoft activities. Forcing IE while prohibiting competitive browser installations, for instance, simplified and created a cleaner, more user-accessible platform that would just work, blah blah blah. Same sort of nonsense you hear today.
That you would link to the anti-trust decree is bizarre. Do you think I or anyone else don't know about that? Do you think Apple's actions are so different, or is Apple simply not in control as much market as Microsoft (yet). Then again, they've already drawn anti-trust attention, so ten years from now some booster of the then-big-dog will point back at the DOJ-vs-Apple lawsuit as proof of....something.
> Do you think I or anyone else don't know about that?
Kinda.
> Many Microsoft boosters used the identical "for the consumer" arguments in defending Microsoft activities.
I think the big difference here is that Apple is actually right. Flash on mobile is terrible for battery life and its implementations, so far, are shoddy.
There's a big difference on imposing your will over 25% of the market of rich people with fancy phones versus 96% of the market of everyone who needed a computer to get anything useful done. Apple has nowhere near the power Microsoft did.
>I think the big difference here is that Apple is actually right. Flash on mobile is terrible for battery life and its implementations, so far, are shoddy.
On top of that, Apple is in no hurry to bring the speed improvements of their Nitro JS engine to apps pinned to the homescreen. After all, they prefer devs to make native apps so that there is a lockin.
>There's a big difference on imposing your will over 25% of the market versus 96% of the market. Apple has nowhere near the power Microsoft did
What about tablets where Apple is deemed to have 94% of the market?
> On top of that, Apple is in no hurry to bring the speed improvements of their Nitro JS engine to apps pinned to the homescreen. After all, they prefer devs to make native apps so that there is a lockin.
I think minds smarter than I have put this particular notion to bed.
> Apple can't turn on the ability to do executable, dynamically written to memory pages just for their library: they'd have to turn it on for the entire process, at which point you could also do crazy things like download native code and execute it, bypassing the entire concept of their "codesign" mechanism.
Says saurik, of Cydia fame, in that and other comments. It's a security concern for Apple, not necessarily a strategic one.
Apple controls the tablet market only because they invented it as it currently exists a year ago. That's not really a useful comparison to the 90's, as desktop computers as a category had existed for a couple of decades. Moreover, tablets aren't currently essential to doing work, so the true power Apple has over others is negligible.
>It's a security concern for Apple, not necessarily a strategic one.
You want me to believe that the engineering might of Apple haven't figured out the security for apps to make use of the new JS engine without getting full privileges? I think it's just not a priority for Apple.
In addition to the comments re: Microsoft below, it's also worth remembering that for google you are the product (clicks) as well as the customer. Their loyalties are thus divided, and hence the shilly-shallying around with sort of but not quite banning link farms.
it's also worth remembering that for google you are the product (clicks) as well as the customer.
There aren't many exceptions to this. It is certainly true of Apple, where you are a consumer of their platform, and a conduit of their payment system, as much as you're a consumer of a specific product.
There's a reason Apple locks down their platform, and it isn't because they're looking out for your financial or competitive choice interests.
That you bought an iPhone is simply the first step, and that consumer-capture will be exploited for years. Apple wants to be your conduit of music and movies, applications, information and subscriptions, etc. They have no interest in selling you a device just to bid you adieu.
The difference is that Apple's customers are for the most part individual consumers, while Microsoft's are hardware OEMs and Google's are advertising partners. Thus, the interests of Apple's customers align much more with public interest than those of Microsoft or Google.
>Apple makes massive profit margins by doing right by the customer (as they see it).
What's right for the consumer about the compulsory 30% cut of iOS subscriptions for things like Readability, Kindle and Netflix? The uniform 43% increase for ALL customers while lining Apple's pockets for contributing basically nothing (unlike apps where they atleast provide hosting).
As a pro-Apple, so-so-Google kind of guy, I have no problems with disabling the QuickTime plugin by default, since it won't affect most users and quite a bit of malware exploits bugs in QuickTime (generally the QuickTime/Java interface). But Flash is worse in every respect, and Google isn't disabling Flash.
If you had to pick between QuickTime and Flash for playing H264 (given that Google has pulled native support for H264) I'd pick QuickTime since it doesn't allow the website designer to festoon the video with ads, links, stupid overlays, and random UI decisions, but better yet would be if Google supported H264 directly and fixed the ugly and buggy <video> tag support.
Open Screen is a trojan horse to make Flash the standard development API for TV sets (leaving everyone dependent on Adobe's professional tools to create the content for these devices).
SWF and F4V container formats are indeed published freely, however the Flash runtime itself is still proprietary, and thus incompatible with an open web.
Good luck competing with a company that controls the underlying frameworks you're building your development environment for. There will never be a truly viable alternative to Flash Builder from Adobe as long as they control the runtime. Depending on third party IDEs for a proprietary API is shaky ground to build a business on.
I have not, but my concern would be becoming dependent on a third party Flash development tool for my workflow, and then being left behind as Adobe adds new features to the runtime unsupported by the IDE I'm using, or worse, that they find a way to break content created with the competing IDE. I don't think such a possibility would be all that unexpected, given Adobe's competitive nature and refusal to cede control of the runtime.
I like the Open Screen project and I agree that SWF is a minimally open standard, but to say that Flash is open, enough to code a competitive Flash player, is misleading.
There's enough behavior that a practical Flash player needs to implement that isn't in the Open Screen spec (error handling in particular) that creating your own Flash player for general content on the web produced by Adobe Flash, and not just carefully-vetted SWF's, is hard.
But at least Adobe stopped threatening legal action against anyone who implemented their own Flash player.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/