seangw wrote:
... I truly believe you should let end users decide.
If all end-users were knowledgeable enough to appreciate Falsch's effect on performance and stability that would be acceptable. However, I imagine the majority of Apple's consumers aren't technically adept enough to know the detrimental effects it's capable of, and shouldn't have to take a course in digital design to understand how to use an iPad or an iPhone. This concept is deeply rooted in Apple's DNA.
Jobs envisions Apple as a leader in the mobile device market, a point he explicitly made during the iPad's introduction. If you include iPhones and Macs Apple is already the world's foremost manufacturer of such devices. It's abundantly clear he wants Apple to remain in that enviable position.
Apple's fanaticism about a quality user experience is legendary, to the point they've mandated control over the look and feel of its products and the software that runs on them for years. Hence their decisions to not license OS X as well as their highly secretive and probably totally subjective App Store approval process. If an app doesn't conform it won't see the light of day.
I can only imagine the frustration Apple and Jobs have had with Adobe over their inability to think along those same lines. Adobe wants a multi-platform solution but has utterly failed to deliver a product that runs reliably on any of them. I speculate such failure has become acceptable to the majority of computer users, since their standard of quality has been forged by years of experience on the low bar of quality set by Windows and the cheap boxes that run it. Apple has shown the world it doesn't have to be that way.
If you're looking for proof look no farther than some of the posts in this very thread: Yes, we know battery life will suffer. Yes we know Falsch crashes once in a while. Yes we know it's a major security vulnerability. *Let us have it anyway.*
If Apple were to allow Falsch (or another third party "layer" over which Apple has no control) with such known limitations to run on their iDevices, two results are certain to follow: One, the market will overwhelmingly and justifiably reject the products due to instability and unacceptably limited battery life. Two, Adobe will remain unmotivated to improve its product to the detriment of anyone who uses it as well as the detriment of competing technologies already in development.
Adobe CEO chimed in yesterday as well: ...
From Narayen's remarks it's really pretty easy to understand the fundamental problem. In a Venn diagram representing each of their company's missions, Adobe's and Apple's no longer share a common union. Adobe wants its product to run on all platforms. Apple doesn't care about anyone's but their own. Why should they?
Perhaps Adobe will now be sufficiently challenged to make its product run reliably on the cross-platform market it seeks. This may or may not happen, but if it does the result will benefit everyone. Without Apple's decision there would be no such motivation. Whether the well is now sufficiently poisoned to ever resurrect an Apple - Adobe partnership again remains to be seen, but I don't believe Apple would have arrived at this juncture without a healthy amount of circumspection.
No one has to buy an iPad, iPhone, or a Mac. If you want Falsch on a mobile device, go and buy a competitor's product. After all, there are lots of them to choose from, aren't there?
If there aren't, why not?
The 800 pound gorilla in the room wears a black turtleneck and Levi's.
