Mac vs Google: Old news

piece of old news: Steve Jobs: "My sex life is pretty good these days. How's yours？"

copy from http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/100602/4/idqs.html

我的性生活很好，你呢？ 喬布斯「金句」擋主持難題

(明報)2010年6月3日 星期四 05:10

【明報專訊】談與Google競爭 被問「是否遭盟友出賣」

新一代iPhone登場在即，蘋果總裁喬布斯（Steve Jobs）本周出席由《華爾街日報 》主辦的「D: All Things Digital」科技研討會，在台上接受主持提問，大談他對iPad革命、遺失iPhone乃至死敵Google等的看法。面對主持就「是否認為Google反骨」的咄咄逼人提問，喬布斯竟突爆金句，反問主持﹕「我這陣子的性生活很好，你呢？」

在長90分鐘的台上對談中，喬布斯談到了老對手微軟 ，也談到近年一大對手Google。蘋果曾與Google聯手對抗微軟，Google的總裁施密特（Eric Schmidt）更是蘋果的前董事會成員。但近年Google發展多項產品，卻甚有衝著蘋果而來的味道，推出智能手機及軟件平台狙擊iPhone就是最明顯的例子，此外Google還在手機廣告市場等範疇，向蘋果步步進逼。主持問﹕「你們跟Google的關係明顯已轉變了吧？」喬布斯語帶不滿地答﹕「他們（Google）似乎已決定跟我們競爭，並愈來愈強烈。我們沒有開發搜尋器業務，但Google卻連番選擇在我們的業務範疇上競爭。」


揶揄對手只顧靠網上廣告賺錢
他又不忘揶揄Google只顧利用網上廣告賺錢：「我們希望製造出比Google更好的產品，而且我們做到了。蘋果進入網上廣告的市場，是希望能夠幫寫軟件的人賺到更多錢，而不是為了蘋果公司的利潤。蘋果在網上廣告市場並沒有賺大錢。」
主持追問，喬布斯有否覺得被昔日盟友出賣。喬布斯顯然不喜歡這樣的提問，他半開玩笑半帶認真地答：「我的性生活很好，你呢？（My sex life is pretty good these days. How's yours？）」面對喬布斯暗示不想回答下，主持只好轉過話題，問蘋果會否將Google服務從iPhone及iPad踢走。喬布斯說不會。他表示，蘋果仍會在部分範疇和Google合作，例如繼續在iPhone上提供Google地圖，「兩個人競爭仍可保持君子之禮」。

喬布斯稱，蘋果的營商哲學就是「小心選擇騎哪一匹馬」，這解釋了為什麼蘋果比其他公司走前一步，放棄一些快將過時的科技，如3.5吋軟磁碟。最近蘋果表明不會在iPhone上支援Flash軟件影片播放，改為採用新開發的 html 5格式，引起極大爭議，對此喬布斯說：「我們決意為用戶選擇好用的軟件和產品，至少我們有勇氣這樣做。顧客花錢買iPhone，就是期待我們為他們作出選擇，和製造出最好的產品。」


指Flash過時 html 5是明日之星
他指Flash已是「古董」軟件，應讓路給html 5。「使用Flash不會製造出好的產品，若我們成功，顧客便會購買我們的產品。迄今，人們很喜歡iPad，我們每3秒便賣出一部。」他又用馬來形容蘋果和Flash之爭：「有時你要選擇哪一匹馬才適合用來向前跑。Flash曾盛極一時，但已經變成明日黃花，而html 5則是明日之星。」

他還罕有談及蘋果的內部營運，稱現在蘋果的營運模式，和剛開始時沒有兩樣，整間公司沒什麼委員會，全體員工每星期花3小時一同「開會」。他形容：「蘋果是全球最大的『新』公司，一個委員會也沒有。」喬布斯每天都會與同事爭辯概念性問題，認為這樣會留住最好的人才。他還坦言，自己不是常常在這些爭辯中勝出。

華爾街日報

你部幾有幾狗?

Test your PC effect on Flash Player

http://iloveaym.site90.com/dogs/

我的Mac Book只有103隻狗........

又一次證明Flash是不合在Mac上行的.....
又或是該向i5出發了.....

Apple vs Adobe: Adobe的反擊

自數天前Apple的喬幫主為iphone不支援flash而護航後，今天Adobe終於反擊了

Copy from http://www.zdnet.com.tw/news/software/0,2000085678,20145298,00.htm

Adobe回應：重心已經不在蘋果

ZDNet新聞專區：Steven Musil 2010/04/30 12:25:01

蘋果老大Steve Jobs寫了一封公開信回應與Flash之間的恩怨情仇，Adobe技術長則故作輕鬆，並表示公司的重心已經不在蘋果身上了。

「我們相信，若蘋果能跟Adobe密切合作（就如同我們跟別家公司都合作愉快一樣），則必能在iPhone、iPad與iPod Touch上提供良好的Flash效能給用戶。」Adobe技術長Kevin Lynch在公司部落格表示。「不過一如我們上週說過了，蘋果以條款來限制開發者，因此我們已經決定不在蘋果裝置上開發Flash Player與AIR技術。」

Lynch也特別提出跟iPhone競爭者的合作進度。

「我們期待在五月的Google I/O大會上，公布Android版的Flash Player 10.1預覽版，然後在六月份正式對外釋出。」

稍早，蘋果罕見的由Steve Jobs親自具名發出公開信批評Flash，完整內容請見此，基本上就是反擊說蘋果封殺Flash是基於技術問題，絕非其他陰謀論。

Flash Player在個人電腦上使用極為普遍，Adobe希望透過10.1版的推出，能把這個這個技術推向行動裝置上。

該軟體可用在RIM的黑莓機OS、微軟的Windows Phone 7、Palm的WebOS、Nokia的Symbian，以及Google的Android。不過Adobe近來對蘋果十分不滿，尤其是蘋果禁止開發者把Flash程式轉成原生iPhone應用之後。

“Thoughts on flash” from Steve Jobs

最近水果店的首腦Steve Jobs寫了一篇Thoughts on flash來替iPhone和iPad不支援flash解畫。

讀過了之後覺得

1. Apple和Adboe的關係出了問題

2. SJ 最中係“We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash.“。 Flash的確係最容易令Safari死原因

Copy from http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

First, there’s “Open”.

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Second, there’s the “full web”.

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

Fourth, there’s battery life.

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Fifth, there’s Touch.

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

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. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

Conclusions.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010