
Apple Bans Firefox, Lisp, Ruby, Python, Rhino, Java, Opera, .NET, Squeak, Quake, GCC, Photoshop... - iamelgringo
http://blog.mozilla.com/rob-sayre/2008/03/06/apple-bans-firefox-spidermonkey-lisp-lua-ruby-python-rhino-java-opera-gcc/
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ardit33
This is horrible. One of the nightmares of J2ME, is updating the app. When you
only need just a class file or little functionality updated, you need to re
download the whole app, which is disruptive. That's why a lot of companies use
some kind of scripting in top of j2me for their UI. They can update this
scripting on the fly (i.e. If a new dialog box is required, or something else
that was not included when shipping). This is by no means any risk to
security. As the app has permissions on what it can or cannot do.

What apple is doing basically shutting off a good way to keep an up updated,
and forcing everything to go thru their machine.

Very anti progress, and adds more loops for companies to go thru, just as bad
as the myriad of carrier restrictions. No wonder "successful mobile statup" is
an oxymoronic phrase.

And yes, I hope android eats their lunch. Apple might have the eye candy, but
their closed minded thinking will keep their platform at bay. It seems like a
repeat of the pc wars area, and if we learned those lessons, the closed
platform lost.

------
fiaz
I think this is a brilliant business move. It keeps the overall experience of
all that you would call 'iPhone' contained exclusively by Apple; this
dramatically dampens the chaos that could be potentially introduced by having
too open of a system. This exclusivity factor has served it well with the
overall experience called 'Mac OSX' (I excluded 'Macintosh' on purpose because
everything prior to OSX was a waste of time - ESPECIALLY my own!). The iPhone
platform is powerful, and letting loose that power in the wild could cause
serious issues for the overall 'iPhone' experience (think of unwanted software
rendering your iPhone _experience_ worthless).

Apple is paving a new path with iPhone and the whole experience of iPhone. The
last thing they want is for that experience to degrade because of too much
chaos. This goes against the grain of geek culture where diversity is king
(and I have ALWAYS subscribed to this rule). But in the long run it will
server Apple and iPhone users very well.

As another example, the 2008 Subaru STI is an overall dream machine that
allows you to mod the hell out of it so that you can beat a Ferrari in a
quarter mile competition, but which one will get you laid more often? Which
one of these cars will cost more in maintenance fees? The Ferrari is far less
practical, but it has its utility as a unique experience factory. The iPhone
is not a superior product but it is a superior experience in this same way.

The second you see an iPhone whipped out in public (forgive the poor imagery),
you see a symbol of experience and quality, not a smart phone ('smart phone'
is what I think when I see a Blackberry). I REALLY hate to admit it, but there
is a certain status associated with being an owner of an iPhone in that the
whole experience it represents is vastly superior to any other experience for
any other phone (disclaimer: I do NOT own an iPhone, I own a Blackberry
because I need to get things done).

Apple is trying to sell MUCH more than a product: it is trying to sell culture
and in order to guide this culture properly it needs to exercise crazy
control.

~~~
apathy
> the 2008 Subaru STI is an overall dream machine that allows you to mod the
> hell out of it so that you can beat a Ferrari in a quarter mile competition,
> but which one will get you laid more often?

It's not the Ferrari that gets the owner laid -- it's the money required to
buy one...

Good analogy, though. If your app is otherwise overpriced and impractical,
putting it in the iPhone (Ferrari) may be the way to go. If your customer base
would rather just get things done... well, I'll bet a lot more STIs get sold
than Ferraris on any given day of the week, that's all.

~~~
daniel-cussen
I'd also wager STI's make more money for manufacturers.

------
fuzzythinker
shut up and do the research before ranting. There's RubyCocoa and PyObjc, both
of which will most likely 10x their popularity in a yr after yesterday's
announcement. And no one is stopping anyone from making other obj-c bridges.
And remember, this is only the beginning, Apple may allow other platforms in
years to come after they do more analysis of pros and cons of allowing them
and after the iphone catches up to the PC computing power w/o the heat/battery
issues.

~~~
bootload
_"... shut up and do the research before ranting. There's RubyCocoa and
PyObjc, both of which will most likely 10x their popularity in a yr after
yesterday's announcement. And no one is stopping anyone from making other
obj-c bridges. ..."_

But note the subtle "mac" wrap required around the code. Most of this is about
"control" over the toolchain as much as the UI experience. Control the
developers, make them buy macs, improve the bottom line. Where have I heard
that line before?

------
dfranke
What an astoundingly dimwitted thing for Apple to do. I thought they were
smarter than this.

Android is going to eat their lunch.

~~~
comatose_kid
I'm not sure it is dimwitted. They're probably just trying to make sure people
are running efficient code, and scripting languages don't compare to ObjC.

Consider that ObjC 2.0 on the iphone doesn't support garbage collection
(unlike ObjC 2.0 on the mac). Also, note the emphasis on profiling (they have
a really cool tool 'Instruments' just for that).

~~~
wmf
I expect it to be spun as security. You can't get any scripting-related
security holes if you don't have scripts.

