>"...we leaked the Flash essay to our Chief Apologist John Gruber and told him to start whipping up some buzz on Twitter about it, and he followed orders [http://twitter.com/gruber/status/12988151829]."
Consider too that Steve Jobs replied to an email asking about the restriction of apps to C* with a link to a Gruber post [http://www.taoeffect.com/blog/2010/04/steve-jobs-response-on...].
I also think he is one of the most levelheaded apple-centric websites out there. Gruber talks a lot about premium products (not just apple) and their success in various markets -- DF is like a premium tech/apple/good taste blogzine and I imagine that his style appeals to a lot of people at Apple, whether they reach out to him or not (and "legally" or not)
The site quality degrades significantly, however, when he latches onto a "scandal", whether it be about stolen iphones or illegitimate wi-fi security claims.
With his recent ad nauseum stolen phone coverage, DF has felt more like an overwrought Entertainment Tonight scandal episode.
I've found the best Gruber reading algorithm is:
if (post < 2 paragraphs) { worth bookmarking } else { mark as read }
Apple's competitors have been clamoring to put Flash on their mobile devices because it's one more bullet point they can use in their marketing against the iPhone.
Yet it's 2010 and mobile Flash is still nowhere to be found. How is that not Adobe's fault?
I think one of the main reasons they published this was so they could respond to “iPhone doesn’t even have Flash.”
His point is that on the mobile web, HTML5 is open, not Flash.
He's trying to come off as an 'open crusader for the web against Adobe' because 'Adobe is not open,' but on the other hand shoving Adobe (and others) off of the i{Phone,Pad} platform because it's not part of Apple's own 'not open' environment. I hate Adobe as much as the next person, but let's not dress Steve Jobs up as a knight in shining armour just because he also doesn't like Adobe.
Neither stated nor implied. The logic doesn't "match up" because it's a separate issue, addressed with different arguments:
"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."
He then goes on about third-party middleware, e.g.:
"We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers."
Jobs does not make the openness argument in reference to Apple's proprietary platform at all. It seems to me that you have to ignore the last third of the article to think that he was.
He's trying to come off as an 'open crusader for the web against Adobe'
Is Jobs lying when he says Apple supports open web standards?