constructive nonconformist

Will Mobile Safari be the new IE?

Apple introduced the Macintosh in 1984 and in 2007 Apple introduced the iPhone. The case has been made that with the Macintosh, Apple squandered its technological lead by maximizing profits when it should have been maximizing market share. The $99 iPhone is why 2007 won’t be like 1984.

According to TUAW, Boingo Wireless reported that for January through May of 2009 “89.2% of all mobile devices accessing Boingo’s airport hotspots” were iPhones.

TUAW: iPhone dominates Boingo airport access study

John Gruber writes about “the heart of the revolution at hand”, that mobile devices like the iPhone will supplant portable devices like notebooks.

Daring Fireball: Meg Hourihan on the iPhone as a Computer

If I speculate that ‘mobile computing’ will become more ubiquitous (not a stretch) and that the iPhone platform is already dominating in that space (open to interpretation) and if I’m developing a web site that needs to reach the mobile computing based audience, then I need to support Mobile Safari. If mobile devices become the ‘hottest’ part of the market for computing hardware and the iPhone platform becomes unequivocally dominant then Safari will be the new Internet Explorer. (Lazy or incompetent developers There will be developers who through laziness or incompetence of their own or of others will write only to Safari — but I think, given that it’s a hardware company, Apple can be a better steward of the public interest in a robust and interoperable web.)

Mad speculation? Maybe. But Flash doesn’t make the short list of technologies I plan to continue investing time and resources in learning.

Observations on David Tucker's Observations

DavidTucker.net — Observations about Apple, the iPhone, PhoneGap, and the Flash Player

If you choose not to follow the link above, understand that David develops in Flash and AIR.

Observation #1 — Apple has proactively sought to eliminate any cross-platform development platform on the iPhone.

What David wants is to be able to develop once to Flash and target multiple platforms including the iPhone.

He also mentions PhoneGap and quotes a section from the iPhone SDK agreement that prohibits applications that install or launch other executable code and he links to an Ajaxian post about apps that have been rejected from the App Store because of their use of PhoneGap. But the PhoneGap site says the iPhone is supported and has a gallery of apps that are in the App Store.

It’s not clear that the PhoneGap approach is actually prohibited. As I understand it, PhoneGap wraps a WebKit shell around your code and I would think that WebKit qualifies as an Apple API or interpreter. Maybe it’s a loophole Apple would like to plug. Maybe the App Store rejections were based on a misunderstanding of what PhoneGap is. The PhoneGap situation seems unclear.

There is no doubt about Flash. Flash is unequivocally prohibited.

Observation #2 — The Flash Player hasn’t been approved because it is a threat to Apple’s App Store Revenue.

There has been much concern within the development community about the downward race in prices on the App Store. Some developers have expressed disappointment that Apple hasn’t taken steps to curb the downward pressure on prices. Yet in terms of prices Apple has been very laissez-faire.

Apple is a hardware company. The App Store could be a loss leader. I know it isn’t. But the primary purpose of the App Store is to sell iPhones, not apps.

Observation #3 — Apple is only interested in helping Mac developers.

By ‘Mac developers’ David means Mac and iPhone developers. He’s essentially restating observation 1.

I don’t expect a Windows version of Xcode any more than I expect a Mac OS X version of Visual Studio.

Since the iPhone was unveiled in January 2007 attendance at WWDC has risen dramatically because of an influx of iPhone developers. And there’s a growing trend of developers that started as iPhone developers moving into Mac development. It would seem that learning “Objective-C, Xcode, Interface Builder, Cocoa, etc…” is not a high barrier.

David says that performance and battery life issues with Flash on the iPhone are “just not true.” I see performance and stability issues with Flash in Safari on Mac OS X. If Abode is uninterested in resolving these issues on the ‘full-size’ OS why should I even imagine Flash is better on an iPhone? If David is right, Adobe isn’t helping themselves.

David concludes:

Why is [Flash] not approved? In reality – because of Apple’s revenue stream.

The revenue David is talking about is revenue from the App Store and revenue from developers. I think this conclusion is wrong.

Time for a little history. Once upon a time there was a small computer company named for a piece of fruit. It developed and marketed a wonderful new peripheral for its computers. It was called a laser printer. The laser printer created a new market segment known as desktop publishing. Part of the magic of the laser printer was a built-in interpreter for a specialized language. The language and its interpreter were developed by an even smaller company. The even smaller company was able to leverage its technology into a lingua franca and take a large piece of the desktop publishing market for itself.

Apple doesn’t want Flash on the iPhone because they don’t want to repeat the ‘mistake’ of PostScript on the LaserWriter.

So yes it is about revenue but not on the tactical scale of App Store revenue today; it’s about long term strategy.

Apple is supporting HTML 5 in Safari. It’s not about being against cross-platform development. It’s about not ceding control to another company. Everything critical in the stack must be either proprietary to Apple or be an open standard. That’s why there’s no Flash plugin and no Java VM on the iPhone. And I don’t expect there ever will be.

Apple Mighty Mouse TLC

The Apple Mighty Mouse is maligned by many but I rather like it. I actually replaced one when the track ball stopped working correctly.

Recently the track ball of a Mighty Mouse for another machine stopped scrolling down. The track ball would turn but the window wouldn’t scroll.

Apple’s instructions for cleaning the track ball weren’t effective. But in the Apple Support Discussion Forums in the topic thread “Solution to Dirty Trackball on Mighty Mouse — NO DISASSEMBLY REQUIRED!” is the suggestion to turn the mouse upside down and run the track ball firmly against a clean sheet of white paper. I tried it. There were only a few miniscule flecks of crud that showed up on the paper. But it did the trick. The track ball was restored to full operation.

So with one success, I retrieved the older replaced mouse from the bottom of the wastebasket. This being my home ‘office’ most of the trash is paper and ends up in the recycle bin (sometimes by way of the shredder) and not in the wastebasket. And the wastebasket being under-used and my ‘office’ space being less than spacious, the wastebasket is in an awkward place way under the desk. Which is why a dead mouse would still be in the wastebasket months after being replaced. (Well, that and I’m a bit of a pack-rat.)

I tried the paper technique. A long curlicue of dust-crud emerged from the track ball. The ‘dead’ mouse was resurrected. Thank you LukeAP88.

Atwood and Apple

In his post Why Apple is more expensive than Amazon Reg Braithwaite says the record labels are giving Amazon better terms. Jeff Atwood writes about Reg’s post:

But to argue that the competition is ‘unfair’ smacks of the absolute worst kind of Apple advocacy. Unfair? Unfair to whom? The customers who are getting DRM-free music officially blessed by the major record labels?

Yeah, that’s terrible. Just awful.

— Jeff Atwood, Supporting DRM-Free Music

Whoa. Apple advocacy is a bad thing? And Reg’s argument ‘smacks of the absolute worst kind’?

Jeff tells us “I’ve been emotionally involved with companies before, and it rarely ends well.” So he’s taking a high road and trying to save us from heartbreak.

A lot of what moves the world is someone getting passionate about something. We are fans of whatever we are fans of at our own risk. Some of us don’t want to be saved. Some of us would rather be passionate and risk losing than not be passionate at all.

But actually Jeff is being disingenuous. He’s very selective in applying his own advice. The ‘don’t advocate for any particular company’ rule is really only applied to Apple.

Jeff could have made a post along the lines of ‘while the titans struggle, the customer benefits.’ But he didn’t stop there. Apple is a villain and deserves to be colluded against — apparently.

I think Jeff has an emotional problem with Apple. He goes all right-brained when the subject is Apple. Maybe he’s a jilted Apple II lover. (Apple ][ forever!)

Postscript: Concerning DRM, I have a much harder time believing Apple will renege on Jobs’ public statements about DRM than that the recording industry will try to stuff the DRM-free genie back in the bottle.

Post Postscript: I was conflicted about posting this. The intent was humorous criticism but I understand I may have missed the mark. I also understand some will receive this post as an attack regardless.

Ah well. You, the reader, will decide.

Green Monster at the Boston Apple Store

Universal Hub - Give Apple credit

ifoAppleStore - Future Boylston Store Goes Green

Update:

kottke.org: “I bet they did this just to piss off Gruber.”

Update Update:

The Boston Apple Store opens Thursday May 15.

Opening Day - The Boston Globe

Safari 3.1 Develop Menu

SimpleBits: Safari 3.1 Develop Menu

iPhone SDK: Rogue Amoeba's Code Signing and You

From the Rogue Amoeba Blog post Code Signing and You:

However, the environment is different in one important way. Apple is the gatekeeper:

“Phones will only run apps signed by Apple. It also applies FairPlay to the package.”
Twitter message from Deric Horn on March 6, 2008

Let me repeat that: if Apple doesn’t sign your iPhone app, it does not run.

This makes more sense than what I was thinking. It means an iPhone OS device doesn’t need to know thousands of valid certificates.

In addition to upgrading applications will the App Store be capable of removing applications?

iPhone SDK and More Questions

John Gruber has posted More Questions on his Daring Fireball blog about the iPhone SDK. I can answer one of his questions.

• So it seems like the answer to my question yesterday about how users will be prevented from running apps downloaded directly from developers (rather than through the App Store) is that unsigned apps will only work on your iPhone if you pay (and get approved) for a $99 iPhone developer account. But does that mean that approved developers will be able to freely exchange unsigned apps with each other?

An unsigned app will not run on an iPhone at all.¹ The only place an unsigned iPhone OS application will run is on the simulator.

I doubt that the barrier for the $99 iPhone developer program is higher than for other types of code signing certificates. The iPhone code signing certs are issued to either individuals or organizations. Apple’s approval for the App Store will be on a application by application basis.

If you as a developer get an application or two approved for the App Store and it later turns that you’re breaking Apple’s rules, it seems safe to presume that one of Apple’s possible recourses is to revoke your certificate and all your (as in signed with your cert) iPhone OS applications will stop working.

¹ iPhone OS Programming Guide: Working with a Device

iPhone SDK and App Code Signing

In iPhone Enterprise and SDK: First Impressions and Questions John Gruber notes “there is no option to circumvent the App Store” and asks:

My question, though, is how will this be enforced technically? If developers can install on their iPhones the apps they’re working on, what will stop users from doing the same? I’m guessing it’s tied to digital certificates, but that’s just a guess. There must be something, though.

From the Macworld Apple iPhone Event live update page I think that question is answered.

11:10 PT: “We think a lot of people are going to want to become an iPhone developer.” It’s really easy. Go to our web site and download our SDK for free. Run the Simulator on your Mac. You can join the iPhone Developer Program if you want to run the app on an iPhone or iPod Touch, and distribute your app. To join the developer program costs $99.

…

11:24 PT: What are you doing to make these applications secure? “This is a big concern. It is a dangerous world out there. We’ve tried to strike a good path here. On one side, you’ve got a closed device like the iPod, which always works. You don’t have to worry about third-party apps mucking it up. And on the other side, you’ve got a Windows PC. We want to take the best of both, the reliability of that iPod and we want to take the ability to run third-party apps from the PC world, but without malicious applications.

“The developers have to register with us, and for $99 they get an electronic certificate, and that tells us who they are. If they write a malicious app, we can track them down, we can tell their parents, and we will know who they are. And we can turn off the spigot if we need to.”

I added emphasis on two sentences above.

Here’s my interpretation and, I think, the answer to John’s question. For free anyone can run a Cocoa Touch iPhone OS application on the simulator but the SDK and the Xcode tools alone don’t allow an application to be installed on an iPhone or iPod Touch. To get an app onto an actual iPhone requires paying the $99 for the iPhone Developer Program. The Developer Program is essentially a certification program.

John assumes the $99 is for getting listed on the App Store. I think he’s off. I think the $99 is for the code signing certificate. Getting listed is a separate (but no-charge) hurdle.

But I haven’t watched the video (via TUAW) for myself yet.

Update: I wonder if for a developer with a cert if there is any limit to the number of iPhones that Xcode will drop the app onto.

The Apple iPhone will be a Raging Success

I think the Apple iPhone will be a Raging Success. Not because of Apple's hype. Not because of the Jobs RDF. But because it is advertised by its interface. Because the interface is straight out of science fiction. (That would be the happy shiny world of tomorrow type of science fiction, not the dark dystopian type.)

Most importantly I think the iPhone will be a success because my six year old son is excited about a phone.

"Daddy, it comes with pirates."

"Daddy, to make the picture big, you pinch out -- like this."

"Daddy, can we get one?"

(No. I'm not buying a $500 phone for myself let alone a six year old. But there will be enough people buying version 1.0 that Apple will be able to build an iPhone platform.)