An open letter to Steve Jobs
Ok, Mr Jobs, in your last memo about Flash, you mention that you're against it because it's not Open, Reliable, Secure or Performant. So let's look at some of these claims in relation to Apple's products.
Open.
I have an iPod Touch, it's a nice piece of electronics, but one thing about it makes me angry every time I am forced (yes, forced) to use it. iTunes. By buying an apple iPod, I am required to install possibly the most horrible piece of software I have ever used. And I have no choice. Why? Because iPods are not Open, and every time someone creates a way to bypass the horror that is iTunes, you update your hardware to close it off again. USB storage open standards exist, Mr Jobs, so why do you not allow us to manage our music the way we want to, instead of having an unintuitive piece of crap forced on us?
I was excited to hear that iBooks was using the open ePub standard. That is, until I found out that you decided to wrap it in your proprietary DRM that makes it unreadable on every ePub reader except yours. You had a chance to change the ebook landscape for the better, and you blew it, as usual.
Secure.
So every time iTunes (that POS), decides to update, your update software tries to slip an install of Safari past me too. doesn't matter how many times I tell it to ignore Safari, it pops up every time anyway. Besides the rudeness of hiding installs in the guise of "updates", Safari is probably the least secure browser on the planet. I have enough trouble with the browsers I already have, I don't need another one that welcomes hackers as enthusiastically as my little dog welcomes visitors.
Performant. Reliable.
iTunes. Nuff Said.
And lastly, We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform..
Is that why iTunes ignores all the Windows paradigms and until recently was completely unusable to blind users because it ignored all the accessibility features built into the OS? It still ignores my font choices and my color scheme choices, simply because you don't want to adhere to the platform standards. Pot, meet kettle.
Before you complain about the state of your neighbours' gardens, maybe you should try weeding yours, you arrogant prick.
Open.
I have an iPod Touch, it's a nice piece of electronics, but one thing about it makes me angry every time I am forced (yes, forced) to use it. iTunes. By buying an apple iPod, I am required to install possibly the most horrible piece of software I have ever used. And I have no choice. Why? Because iPods are not Open, and every time someone creates a way to bypass the horror that is iTunes, you update your hardware to close it off again. USB storage open standards exist, Mr Jobs, so why do you not allow us to manage our music the way we want to, instead of having an unintuitive piece of crap forced on us?
I was excited to hear that iBooks was using the open ePub standard. That is, until I found out that you decided to wrap it in your proprietary DRM that makes it unreadable on every ePub reader except yours. You had a chance to change the ebook landscape for the better, and you blew it, as usual.
Secure.
So every time iTunes (that POS), decides to update, your update software tries to slip an install of Safari past me too. doesn't matter how many times I tell it to ignore Safari, it pops up every time anyway. Besides the rudeness of hiding installs in the guise of "updates", Safari is probably the least secure browser on the planet. I have enough trouble with the browsers I already have, I don't need another one that welcomes hackers as enthusiastically as my little dog welcomes visitors.
Performant. Reliable.
iTunes. Nuff Said.
And lastly, We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform..
Is that why iTunes ignores all the Windows paradigms and until recently was completely unusable to blind users because it ignored all the accessibility features built into the OS? It still ignores my font choices and my color scheme choices, simply because you don't want to adhere to the platform standards. Pot, meet kettle.
Before you complain about the state of your neighbours' gardens, maybe you should try weeding yours, you arrogant prick.