You honestly think that Apple would deliberately hamstring javascript performance on the iPad so that people have to use native apps? I think it's pretty ludicrous to think they'd do that: their sales of the iPad are directly, heavily affected by perceived performance of the device. If it's slow, people won't buy it.
How many extra apps do you think that move would make people buy: 2? 5? So you think they'd cripple performance and lose hundreds of thousands of sales so that they can get people to spend an extra $20 or so at the app store, of which they'll get all of $6? If they wanted your extra $6 that badly they'd just up the price on the device.
I just don't understand this constant assumption that every decision Apple makes is anti-competitive and designed to achieve lockin. Isn't it way more rational to assume that they want to make the device as good as possible because they make money by selling devices, and that their decisions are primarily driven by that motive?
I got -4 karma points on this, for refusing to answer point by point the arguments of a naive Apple fanboy. I'll go back to just scanning HN, instead of participating. I've been a professional programmer for over 30 years, Written for Macs since 1984, I know what I'm talking about, and I find the current generation of developers to be, well, babies.
On the contrary, it was quite civil and thought provoking. It was simply terse, elegant, and to the point. "Naive" needn't have been interpreted as a personal attack, it was a sufficient and complete summary of the argument presented, implying it undeserving of response. Only lack of creative imagination would consider "Naive" not thought-provoking. It is not my responsibility to hand-hold and lead a conversation. If someone cannot immediately mentally extrapolate the implications of a statement, maybe they should ponder it and explore the possible meanings, giving me the benefit of the doubt as to poignancy. Instead, they vote it down, because it's not full of the superficial spoon-fed explicitness the down-voters expect.
How many extra apps do you think that move would make people buy: 2? 5? So you think they'd cripple performance and lose hundreds of thousands of sales so that they can get people to spend an extra $20 or so at the app store, of which they'll get all of $6? If they wanted your extra $6 that badly they'd just up the price on the device.
I just don't understand this constant assumption that every decision Apple makes is anti-competitive and designed to achieve lockin. Isn't it way more rational to assume that they want to make the device as good as possible because they make money by selling devices, and that their decisions are primarily driven by that motive?