I would prefer a balance, because I understand the arguments at both ends of this spectrum, and sympathize with them both.
Sure, it's convenient to limit the thinking to "both" sides of the spectrum. All you have to do is pick the middle, and even a first grader could do that. Notice how "both" means there are only 2 sides you need to concern yourself with.
If you are balancing between left and right you'll always get the middle. If you are balancing black and white, you'll get a shade of gray while the answer you are looking for may be closer to pink. If you are balancing between -100 and 100, you'll end up with 0, while the answer you want may not be even be a number. These 2-sided views on most issues - i.e. black vs. white, left or right, up or down, good or bad, etc. - are what results in a balance that's in a different dimension from reality.
So, if you limit yourself to a one-dimensional spectrum depicted to you by two oversimplified "ideological over-reactions" you are limiting the scope of your thinking to those agendas. Copyright should not be a "balance" between some kind of intellectual property dictatorship vs. no copyright at all, just for the sake of achieving one. Instead, think public good, freedom of expression, progress of science and useful arts, the Internet, global role, enforcement, economy, industries, fair use, fair trade, safe harbor, encryption, exclusive rights, etc., etc. - care to add a few? Then gather some facts and strike a "balance" between all the factors that come into play.
This story reminded me of Steve Jobs' analysis of HDCP:
Q: How is HDCP helping the antipiracy effort?
A: We didn’t invent the stuff. The problem is that Hollywood doesn’t want what happened to the music industry to happen to them. You can’t blame them. But content protection isn’t their business and they’re grasping at straws here. But we’ve got to deal with their restrictions.I feel your pain.
Read this in an interview with Jobs. They basically made an iPad prototype and Jobs said, "let's make a phone out of this". So they did.
A prototype which didn't have the fully functioning OS; which was presented to Jobs to demo the advanced touchscreen; which was used as a base for all that followed for iPhone, including most of the iOS development; and which now Apple has turned around and used as marketing/PR bullet point for iPad.
When they showed him the screen they came up with, he got excited. So excited that he thought he had the beginnings of a new product.
First, that "new product" was the iPhone, not the iPad. Second, the part you highlighted is about Jobs noticing the R&D money spent. Third, the prototype design was for the touchscreen device, which likely didn't have a fully functioning OS.
After seeing device touchscreen, Jobs promptly ordered them to start working on the phone, NOT on the tablet. So, if anything, you could argue most of iOS development was geared towards a phone.
In any case, the "intended for" argument is irrelevant as the core of the OS is flexible - people seem to have missed that point.
No, he didn't. That article states Jobs instructed his people to produce a better phone, and they took the "video iPod" idea and put a big glass screen on it and replaced hardware with software.
That's a sharp contrast to iOS being "intended for" an iPad-like tablet device. That was marketing and PR then for iPhone, and that is also what it is currently for iPad.
iOS was designed to be flexible from the start, PR and marketing statements from Apple and media notwithstanding.
If they had kept the price under 200$
But they did - as of now it's listed at $199 w/free shipping, and an HDMI cable thrown in too.
From the "ground up" it was designed as a flexible OS that could be scaled to different hardware and resolutions, Jobs' marketing statements, iPad launch PR, and initial "mockups" and ideas notwithstanding.
If you dig a little further, you will learn that the iPad came first in Apple's R&D pipeline. They had to wait for some reason, and so they made the iPhone in the interim. If you've used the iOS SDK, it becomes pretty clear that it is not something that Apple just shoved out the door in 12 or 18 months or whatever it was. It's obvious that it had already had years of effort put into it. Perhaps the SDK was indeed intended only for iPad, and they rushed it out for iPhone due to popular demand, or perhaps it was a parallel effort. But it's not something Apple just cobbled together and shoved out the door and later updated to work with iPad. iOS was built for a tablet device from the beginning, IMO.
I am not sure what you mean, but yes, Jobs states the idea started from a "tablet" but quickly switched to phone after seeing the initial mockup. That was also during the time of iPad announcement/launch. Nothing like extra marketing for the new device - "hey I've got a secret for you, come closer near the mike."
The wildcard here is device and OS compatibility, which Apple obviously had thought through pretty well. While Android seems to just march forward ignoring it, creating a challenge for app developers. I don't have an Android device, but it is my understanding that it needs to be a phone to use their app marketplace, e.g. I'm not an Android dev, either, but from the sidelines, it looks like they just keep making things tougher for devs as time goes on. Not as bad as Rim or others, but not nearly as nice as iOS. My money is on the fact that the next revision of iPad will work with 99.999% of the apps out there. I'm not sure you could say the same for an Android tablet. Correct me if I'm wrong...
Google's statement of needing a "phone" to use App Market is an artificial/business limitation, not a technical one. This is also NOT a limitation of Android OS.
As far as your iPad claims, why are there 20K apps for iPad, and 250K apps for iPad/iPod touch? Your guesses are not facts.
No, it was iPhone OS before it was iOS.
That's just some extra marketing for iPad during the time that iPad was announced. They weren't going to say - "hey this iOS thing worked well for iPhone, so we've slapped it onto this thing and hope it works out just the same." I'm not saying that's the case - I'm saying it was designed to be flexible from the beginning.
Some issues - resolution. Android can cope with different resolution but a lot of apps aren't written that way.
Most apps, if developers follow the proper guidelines, should be resolution-agnostic. But realistically there still would be many cases where that's an issue. I remember reading Samsung was reaching out to developers to fix some of those cases.
Also the Google Market isn't officially available to devices that don't run telephony.
That's an artificial limitation imposed by Google on their partners, not a technical one. Anyone can buy an Android phone, put it in the "airplane mode" or otherwise turn off the radios, turn on wifi, enjoy.
Android was designed from the beginning to fight with guys like RIM and Microsoft, and to a lesser extent, Palm.
I don't know which "beginning" you are referring to, but Android was released on the market to compete against what was at the time iPhone OS.
iOS on the other hand, was inteded for a tablet style device.
No, it was iPhone OS before it was iOS.
Also, with the advanced operating systems today, such as iOS and Android, it doesn't matter what their original release device or the intended device was. They are both equally flexible enough to be adjusted to and support multiple different resolutions, architectures, and other hardware.
What makes more sense is that Android started gaining traction at a much higher rate than Google initially anticipated. So, Android may be stepping into Chrome OS territory with tablets. However, Google still wants to give Chrome OS a legitimate shot. Maybe they think they can repeat what they did with Android. I think it's going to be hard.
Refund from who? Retailers will tell you they have posted signs everywhere they don't refund open box CDs/DVDs/software. Some even make you sign that statement when you make a purchase. Manufacturer (software author) will tell you they didn't perform any business transaction with you and don't owe you anything. If the post-sale single-sided "we'll take your firstborn son" click-through EULAs are legally binding contracts, you - the consumer - don't have many options besides not buying software (or any products containing software) which is known to have an EULA.
Moreover, after this ruling, if you buy such software, agree to the EULA (because otherwise it's a shiny coaster), and you find the product doesn't meet your needs or expectations, you can't even delete it from your device and give/sell it to your friend or neighbor because the court says the EULA has turned you into a "licensee," and the transaction formerly known as "sale" has been negated and overridden by such EULA.
In fact, let's go one step further - I'd like to see these types of licenses on books, periodicals, DVDs, etc. where you agree to the EULA when you tear it open; and as soon as you do that the first sale doctrine goes out the window. I'd also like to see how libraries will be "licensed" books at a different rate than the retail price because the library license would allow multiple viewings. In fact, you could even charge a nominal monthly licensing fee to the libraries.
If you go even one step further, you could sell cars with software EULAs; so that you can't sell your car because your car contains critical software to which you are just a "licensee" and since you can't transfer the car ownership without transferring the software you can't do it at all - or we'll take the standard 30% cut on approved sales, thank you! Come to think of it, most electronic products have some sort of software in them (TVs, DVD/Bluray players, microwave ovens, telephones, alarm clocks, air conditioners, etc., etc.). Wouldn't all manufacturers like to have a choke hold on second hand sales? Sure, just claim it in your software license!
That's why I said "arguably." In either case, the point is not which one is better; I used BB browser merely to draw a parallel in functionality.
The point is Apple still doesn't allow 3rd party real web browsers that would be comparable to the default iOS webkit browser. And Opera Mini is not an example of this.
Opera Mini is not a "normal" web browser. It renders mostly static web pages that are encoded in a custom format going through and translated and compressed by Opera's proxy servers. In functionality, it is similar to BlackBerry's standard (not the new webkit) web browser but arguably a bit "better."
It still doesn't sound like Apple would allow any real alternative web browsers through its app store.
Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time. -- George Carlin
