Steve Jobs has responded to a couple more emails -- this time questions about the new iPhone developer rules, which prevent anyone from using Adobe's Flash on the iPhone (and have infuriated many developers and Adobe employees.)
(This habit of Steve's of responding to emails is remarkably winning, by the way. He somehow manages to be god-like and accessible at the same time, which makes him even more god-like).
The emails Steve responded to were sent by Greg at Tao Effect. You can read the whole exchange here.
And here are Steve's two emails...
The first, sent in response to Greg's question about whether Apple really had gone too far this time, recommends that those who are critical of Apple's new developer rules read a post by John Gruber at Daring Fireball:
We think John Gruber’s post is very insightful and not negative:
http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331
Steve
The second is the response to Greg's not-convinced response, which arrived three minutes after Greg sent it.
We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.
Which brings everything back to John Gruber's post, in which John argues that what Apple is after is quality, not ubiquity.
And is that what Apple's really after?
Yes, it probably is.
The problem, of course, is that tech is a standards-based business, and one platform usually emerges as the dominant one. And if it's not going to be the iPhone-iPad-Mac platform, it will probably be Android. And so if Apple's platform doesn't become ubiquitous, it might become irrelevant--like it did on the PC. And Apple obviously doesn't want that, either. So if it killed Flash and other "intermediate layers" and made its own platform more ubiquitous and harder for Android to beat, it probably wouldn't be bummed about it.
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See Also:
- Adobe Employee Says, 'Go Screw Yourself Apple'
- Adobe Employee Trashes Apple, Calls It Unethical
- Adobe Is Freaked Out By Apple's Move, Developers Aren't Too Worried Yet
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