Comments on: Apple Conference Call: Steve Jobs Goes Wild

By: Jeff Dickey

Jeff Dickey — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:51:20 +0000

As a guy who's been passionate about both Open Source and Macs for decades, that threw me the first time I read it, too. But having done work in accessibility, user support and training, I see what he's getting at. "Open" was an uncharacteristically poor choice of words for talking about Windows; what he clearly meant was "consistent; broadly meeting user expectations via a de facto standard." Of course, that takes a lot more syllables than "open." And he's right, really. What IS the Android UI? My best friend has an HTC Desire that he's very happy with because of the unique, proprietary HTC interface on top of quite-decent hardware. He doesn't have the same UX as another friend who's got a Droid X, even though they're running the same (base) OS. Meanwhile, we're getting ready to replace an iPhone 3 and second-gen iTouch with new iPhone 4s... and don't expect any really major surprises on the UX front. New features? Sure; that implies an enhanced UX. But Apple will lose a ton of customers if they ever break their UX to the point where what people already know how to do doesn't work anymore and/or isn't intuitively obvious based on what they already know. That's the irony of being Apple now. Everybody (rightfully) bashes Microsoft for their backward-compatibility fetish in spite of all the real problems that come from the way they maintain that compatibility. In reality, Apple customers — both on the Mac and in iOS — have quite firm expectations on BC. The difference is that Apple have encouraged those by maintaining compatibility as well as they have while still moving the platform forward regularly and extensively. If MS had the same track record, we would all be using Windows — and it would be a modern, secure, stable OS, not the hypersonic train wreck it is today. A lot of the negative reaction to Jobs' "open" comment comes from developers who see it as a religious issue, not from people who actually have to bring (hopefully) paying customers along for the ride. The important definition of "open" changes real fast once you step into that latter pair of shoes.

By: walter

walter — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 23:00:16 +0000

The rumor that thay’d buy ARM isn’t over is it? Would really make sense.

By: dave

dave — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:34:19 +0000

hmm, what do you think of the rumor du jour that apple could buy a company like akamai to control ALL of video delivery infrastructure (and media, and games, etc)

By: chrispy

chrispy — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:07:23 +0000

then I’m a fan of u

By: joe blow

joe blow — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:51:24 +0000

I agree apple had tryed to confuse the avearge consumer the use open source code as if it was there own change a few lines and call it osx or ios

Its criminal in my opinion!!

By: Rdx

Rdx — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:14:24 +0000

If you are a fan of douchebags, good for u

By: zach

zach — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 08:01:39 +0000

It blows my mind that no one pointed out that he said “when people think of open they think of windows”.
Its fairly obvious that steve jobs is trying to redefine “open” from “open source”.
Probably because he has hurt and stole so much from open source developers. From cupps, to khtml to bsd and even the mach kernel.
While accusing of oem’s of putting a proprietary ui on top of android. OSX (and by proxy, ios) put proprietary api’s and ui’s cocoa and aqua on top of an open source operating system and calling OSX.
He is probably playing on the non-tech’s ignorance but I can’t help but see it as “calling the kettle black” situation

By: Jeeve Stobs

Jeeve Stobs — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 05:43:12 +0000

Buy Facebook or Twitter. Game over.

By: CDC

CDC — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 05:22:36 +0000

Buy RapidWeaver and replace IWeb with it.

It is a smart move. Better meta tags and SEO means higher placement on Google search for Apple pages and ads. Bling, Bling! They could buy RealMac for peanuts.

Also, buy SDRSoft for IPhotos.

By: CDC

CDC — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 05:08:10 +0000

Why don’t they just buy Verizon and solve a bunch of problems at once.