back to article How to stop Apple and Google's great web lockdown

Both Google and Apple are vying to win the "Most Open Platform" prize in the mobile computing beauty pageant, but neither deserves the blue ribbon. Both companies make serious compromises in order to retain control of their platforms. But the emerging HTML5 standard, with a heavy dose of JavaScript, may up-end both companies' …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Browser fragmentation won't be a problem

    ... because things like jQuery, SproutCore, and Prototype are essentially Hardware Abstraction Layers for Javscript Virtual Machines.

  2. jubtastic1

    Come again?

    Isn't ChromeOS based on Chrome, which is based on webkit?

    How can Google be pro HTML5 and Apple anti-HTML5 when Google's HTML5 code comes from Apple?

    Did I miss a meme?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      #Come Again

      >when Google's HTML5 code comes from Apple?

      How exactly do you arrive at this conclusion? WebKit is Open Source with many contributors, not Apple's baby and in any case its Google who head up the HTML5 Working Group.

      Apple's only discrete contribution to the HTML5+ arsenal is Canvas which is a pretty poor answer to Flash or Silverlight now, never mind how they'll be looking when HTML5 hits CR sometime late in 2012.

      1. jubtastic1
        WTF?

        How I arrived at this conclusion

        Because it's true, WebKit is Apple's most famous open source baby, ask about or just go and check who registered and hosts webkit.org.

        That stuff about flash & silverlight is way off as well, they're both on a downward spiral to obsolescence.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          WTF?

          Apple Baby?!

          *Cough*splutter*

          "The code that would become WebKit began in 1998 as the KDE project’s HTML layout engine KHTML and KDE's JavaScript engine (KJS). The name and project 'WebKit' were created in 2002 when Apple Inc. created a fork of KHTML and KJS."

          And then went on to be total arses about giving changes back to KHTML.

          So Open-source, yes...baby, no...well, maybe adopted baby.

          1. jubtastic1
            Grenade

            None of that is news to me

            I think you'll also find that KHTML is merely a fork of the earlier KDE HTML Widget and so on ad absurdia.

            When someone mentions Microsoft's IE do you chirp in with 'actually that's NCSA Mosaic', is Firefox just Netscape's Gecko with some UI fluff? can I have some of what you're smoking?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Don't smoke

              khtmlw was the basis of KHTML and after KHTML came along khtmlw development basically stopped. KHTML was later re-written basically from scratch in 1999.

              KHTML is the successor to the original khtmlw.

              Webkit was forked from KHTML and Apple were gits about contributing back for a while.

              WebKit and KHTML are both still actively developed and commits are passed between them therefore it is hardly comparable to the original KHTML and khtmlw.

              Therefore I still say calling it "Apple's baby" is misleading.

  3. Ammaross Danan

    One problem

    One problem with a company making (and trying to sell) an HTML5/Javascript "program" is that the entire front-end (and possibly some of the backend) are public-viewable. "Open Source" in the truest sense: readily viewable code. Many companies from a closed-source world will likely do all they can to pull all their "special" functions back onto the server side of things and leave a skeleton of a front end to do input validation and drive the wiz-bang GUI. The great benefit I see from HTML5/Javascript is /more/ than just GUI is handled client-side. Why not do heavy computations and the like on the client? The only real use of the server-side would be data access control and collation. Once the requested data has been found, spit it out in pages (or as a whole, depending on your bandwidth/GUI model) and let the client expend resources to utilize it. However, to retain "company secrets" this will likely not happen where "GPL" isn't whispered. We'll end up with the same state we have today: glorified dumb terminals, with most of the compute power coming from servers and lots of server requests.

    1. Asgard
      Boffin

      @"leave a skeleton of a front end to do input validation and drive the wiz-bang GUI."

      The problem is when the wiz-bang GUI is a major part of the application, e.g. a video game, then that forces that game to become totally open source and yet as the games industry is so competitive that means competitors will have access to the code and some will take competitors code to use or reverse engineer it for themselves. So like it or not, financial business survival in the games industry for the vast majority of cases necessitates closed source.

      Also I would like to see someone write a Quake style first person shoot-em-up 3D engine in HTML5. The point is, its not even close to capable of matching other means of achieving that level of coding. So HTML5 isn't going to displace other languages in all computationally intensive applications including even Java.

      1. KjetilS

        @Asgard

        I think you might have missed this http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/01/google-html5-quake/

        Where Google has actually gotten Quake 2 ported to HTML5 :)

  4. Don Mitchell

    Apple & Google

    Because a European committee will be so much more creative than Apple or Google.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    wtf?

    When has Apple ever done anything to suggest that it wants it's products to be 'open'? Never mind, actively competing with Google...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What?

    The first sentence of this article starts with 'Both Google and Apple are vying to win the "Most Open Platform" prize', and I wonder what the heck you are talking about.

    Not only is Apple one of the least open companies around (as you seem to be aware of) but they have never claimed to be open. Most contributions they have made to open source have occurred because they were forced to be the license of code they wanted to use. Some Apple fans have been confused about this, but not Apple themselves.

    1. Bear Features

      well...

      I think it was sarcasm :)

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    I am so sick of this "open" crap.

    <Warning class="rant"> Long rant is long </Warning>

    Why can’t, the major OS vendors and projects could band together in one glorious example of standardisation and cooperation to create /the/ alternate app store. RPM? DEB? HTML? Who cares! Have the thing autodetect your environment and provide you awesome on demand. From in-browser applications to open-source-for-windows…let’s get something going. The open source community would of course have to start this…but if it catches on, the majors would have no choice but to join.

    I want to see a truly standards-based movement to provide yum/apt-get/istore/android/market/steam/firefox-browser-store/kitchen-sink style “store” all in one neat little box that works on any OS, any device, any interface. I realise that my in-browser-app-under-Linux may not work under Windows. Fair enough! Let the OpenAppStore detect that, and simply not present it as an option. (Android can hide apps that won’t install on my device well enough…)

    Let’s get paid-for apps in there. Let’s not lock it down to “only open source. ROAR!” “Open” as in “not tied to any one philosophy, operating system, approach to life or belief in $deity. One app store. Regardless of device, platform or environment. Bolt some cloud storage onto the thing so that my user data and settings are available to me regardless of device, platform or environment I am using to get access to them. Hey, if you were cooking with gas, you could do media distribution this way too. By the code! The ability for me to buy a song/bog/movie/whatever *just once*, have it tied to my profile and have it work everywhere. Why that’s actually useful! Madness, ain’t it?

    The hell of it is; this is all actually possible with the technology that exists today. The only things holding it back are politics, greed and a complete lack of vision. Massive fragmentation has always been the bane of the open source community’s attempts to win over the endpoint device market. So…obfuscate it. Let the nerds gnash teeth over the method of delivering apps, or the underlying operating system whosawhatsits. Why should the user have to care about RPM, DEB, HTML5, MSI or anything else. Why should they even have to care if they are using Windows, Linux, OSX or Android? (Yes, I know Android started out as Linux. It’s distinct enough now to have earned its place as a separate OS.)

    I commonly say to ISPs: shut up and be dumb pipes already. We don’t care a whit for your “added services” or your “extra features.” We want reliable, stable and fast access to the internet. We don’t care about the transport layer – we care about the content that we are using the transport layer to get at!

    I now say the same thing to operating systems vendors. Shut the hell up and run my apps already. We don’t care what OS you are, what company you are or what you think makes you “better” “different” or what-have-you. We want the functionality inherent in the applications we run on that operating system and nothing more. Go away and hide underneath an easy-to-use applications-distribution and data-management layer that we don’t have to see or think about. Quite trying to “Set yourselves apart” and compete on speed, stability, reliability and how well you conform to standards.

    Or is it simply too much to ask that all the various OS vendors actually live up to the “open” and “user-focused” sewage their marketing departments spew?

    <TL;DR> Auuuugh Q_Q greedy corporations! </TL;DR>

    Pint, because it's my birthday and I"ll get sauced and rant on the internet if'n I want to...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      This title serves no purpose.

      First up, Happling Birthdayed Bestgreets to you.

      Secondly, why the bloody hell did you AC that?

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        @John Dee

        I swear to you I didn't. I purposefully DIDN'T check the AC box. The site was doing somethign screwy - the devs were updating the code - and it ACed the post. I can't un-AC it. Q_Q

        1. John H Woods Silver badge

          We knew it was you, Mr Pott ...

          ... and bloody good it was too.

    2. Steve Roper
      Thumb Up

      Re: so sick of this "open" crap

      Oh, I wish. You describe a very nice open-source utopia there. Sadly, it won't happen. You see, the "greedy corporations" you refer to are not only greedy, they're megalomaniac as well. iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7 - all allow their owning corporations to reach into your device, uninstall/secretly install apps, check your data, and otherwise interfere with and control your use of the device. Unless they can carry this functionality over into your all-in-one system, they won't go for it. These control-freak bastards intend for the era of the user-controlled OS to come to an end, with all computers in the future being kept under the control of the OS corporations. The big exception will be Linux, and it is for this reason that the corporate pigs won't embrace your idea - because you could use Linux with it and prevent them from controlling your machine.

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        @Steve Roper

        I couldn't agree with you more on the megalomaniac thing. I never expected APple and Microsoft and Google to come together.

        I am shamed however that the Linux community can't get over itself enough to do it either.

        Q_Q GREEDY CORPORATIONS!

  8. DZ-Jay

    JavaScript... The future? Ha!

    Let me get this straight, Mr. Assay, you are suggesting that JavaScript and HTML5 will displace native applications and the future platform of computing? Also that Chrome OS is Google's surefire strategy to take over the web?

    Back in the ancient times before the iPad release, Google's Chrome OS was seen as the great big challenger to Microsoft's attempts to muscle it's way into the World Wide Web and search businesses. However, a lot has changed since then. For instance, Apple's device has carved itself a big chunk of the tablet market, leaving potential competitors (including Google) scrambling to come up with a response. Amidst all this the battle has shifted to between Google and Apple, and Microsoft has come to be regarded as an ineffective has-been trying futilely to catch up.

    Meanwhile, Google is working furiously on updating Android to offer support for tablets, and there is wide expectation that Chrome OS will be dead on arrival, or even that Google will quietly shift attention away from it, while it concentrates in retaining control of its advertising hegemony and taking relevancy away from its biggest rival, Apple.

    Through all this, Chrome OS remains largely vaporware, and manufacturers have shifted their attention away from it (if it ever was on it) to the latest shiny toy, Android, which is an actual shipping product that is actively being developed and promoted publicly.

    I don't suggest that Apple will win or that they will gain and retain control of the Web. However, it is by now evident that the industry is moving away from the futile attempts at turning everything into "The Web" and that the ability to run "native apps" along side "web apps" is the new paradigm. After all, the highest grossing apps in many devices are resource-intensive games, which require more performance than what JavaScript+HTML5 offer.

    Of course, one of the benefits of a world converted purely to JavaScript+HTML5, and one of the arguments in favor of it in your article, is that the barriers to entry for "web apps" will be so low that any beginner will be able to join in the fun:

    "Without the former it's hard to see HTML5-plus-JavaScript gaining mass adoption, because newbie developers generally learn to code on the client, not on a server."

    The vision of a web app store full of cheap and cheesy "my first app" beginner jobs is hardly an endorsement of a stable and enticing mainstream market.

    -dZ.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Chrome OS Vaporware?!

      Bit rich, considering it's not even out yet.

      Android had similar nay sayers when they launched it, and look at it now.

      1. DZ-Jay

        Re: Chrome OS Vaporware?!

        Yes, vaporware: it was announced with great fanfare and then... nada. So where is it? Even Google is keeping mum on it, while touting their latest and greatest Android work.

        But most importantly, no manufacturer is holding their breath for it; they're all either awaiting a new tablet-happy version of Android, or adapting FroYo for their "iPad Killers".

        At this point it must be recognized that the industry is moving to a hybrid native/web "App Store" model and that a browser-based OS will most definitely not be able to compete with the iPad in this newly redefined market.

        -dZ.

      2. Oninoshiko
        Headmaster

        Vapourware: n.

        Software that isn't out (with the implication that it likely never will be, or will not live up to hype).

        So, yes, it *IS* vapourware specifically BECAUSE it is "not even out yet." Just like Duke Nuke'em Forever.

  9. Toby 10
    Paris Hilton

    Er hang on.

    With respect to the claim that Apple are worried that HTML5 will threaten the objective-C apps on iOS devices, are you forgetting that for a long time (and to much wailing and gnashing of teeth by some) they only allowed and wanted people to use HTML5 to make apps?

    They've not closed down the ability to do so as far as I know.

    Paris, because I doubt she's very good at history either.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    Apple Against HTML5?

    "the emerging HTML5 standard, with a heavy dose of JavaScript, may up-end both companies' attempts to lock down apps to their respective platforms."

    You do realise that, when the iPhone launched, the official and _only_ way to write applications for it was as HTML/CSS/Javascript Web apps?

    You do realise that Web apps have _always_ been an officially sanctioned and supported way of writing apps for iOS?

    I'm sure you're even aware of Apple's dislike of Flash Player (and Java) in iOS. The upshot of this? Web site/app designers/coders have to use _open_standards_.

    You also realise that Apple has pushed HTML5 as much as Google/Opera/Mozilla?

    Yes, Apple has done this to ensure that the browsing experience with Mobile Safari is excellent, thus making their mobile products more appealing. But that is no different to Google pushing HTML5 so as to increase the abilities of their Web Apps and thus drive more eyeballs to their adverts. Mozilla and Opera seem more altruistic in that their main aim appears to be a level playing field (but even then, that would result in greater market share opportunities and thus greater potential for profit - via advertising, OEM deals, etc).

    And as HTML5 matures, and support for it grows, more features will be enabled that provide Web Apps with comparable capabilities to native apps (e.g., the File API).

    So no, I don't buy your "HTML5 will stick it to the man" thesis. Apple and Google are more than happy to allow HTML5 Web apps on their respective operating systems.

    Finally, don't forget that Web Apps are free. Developers cannot make money selling Web Apps. This is the carrot that Apple, Google, Microsoft et al use to get developers to write native apps. In other words, it is the desire for developers to make money (and there's nothing wrong with that) which will ensure that native apps are here to stay.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Um ...

      "Developers cannot make money selling Web Apps."

      I do exactly that.

      You not pay? You not log on.

  11. fyndor

    HTML5 + JavaScript is cool but not an easy solution to manage

    I love the idea. But being thrust in to a web project after coming from the compiled language world, I can tell you that most developers will never LOVE javascript. I use it where it makes sense to get stuff done on our website, but I hate every minute of it. I can not tell you how many hours I have spent over the last year trying to find a typo or other silly syntatical mistake somewhere in the thousands of lines of code a page has. Something that in the compiled world I am used to is a non-issue. Did I mention javascript in IE =/= javscript in Firefox =/= javascript in Chrome? Javascript is really a pain as far as I see it. A necessary thing to use in many cases but certainly not a joy to develop with. I do love HTML5 and what it will bring. But I would never move a non-web project to HTML5 + Javascript unless I was forced to. After spending a year on a web project and about 80% done, in a few weeks I am going to rewrite the entire client-side in C# because I have no "browser-based" requirement, and I want to make that last 20% less painful than the first 80%.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Do compilers cause stupidity?

      Firefox's Error Console will instantly go red on CSS / Javascript / Other errors, and gives you details including line number. If your browser of choice is missing this feature, well that's an issue with your IDE, not the language.

      The cycle from deploy to test to fix to deploy can often be less than a minute as there's none of that compiling bollocks. Sometimes you have to play it a bit fast and and loose in the web game. Non-web devs just do not understand this. You cannot charge £100,000(*) for a web app, you cannot take it down for a week to fix it, you cannot predict what feature you will have provide at a moment's notice. It's a hard game and seemingly beyond most of you.

      Do everyone a favour and eject from that project now, instead of locking it into proprietary garbage.

      (*) Yes I know, people do, and people pay. Yet another example of corporate inefficiency.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Down

        re: you have to play it a bit fast and and loose in the web game.

        >> you have to play it a bit fast and and loose in the web game.

        that explains all the xss and other rudimentary security type issues that appear in websites!

        >> The cycle from deploy to test to fix to deploy can often be less than a minute as there's none of that compiling bollocks.

        and by the sounds of - zero testing to confirm you have fixed the issue and not introduced a new issues

        >> You cannot charge £100,000(*) for a web app

        until such time as it all goes wrong - at which time the company realises that doing it properly is actually cheaper in the long run.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          An apparent lack of experience.

          "that explains all the xss and other rudimentary security type issues that appear in websites!"

          There's a very powerful and stable library for that. It gets updated when new attacks are conceived. Perhaps you code security into your products some other way.

          "and by the sounds of - zero testing to confirm you have fixed the issue and not introduced a new issues"

          One line of javascript quite often does require 10 seconds worth of testing. "Oh look, I referenced the wrong DOM node, that's why that value was empty. Yep, now I'm referencing the right value, the problem is fixed". In this scenario exactly what else would you like me to test? I tend not to spend 10 hours testing CSS or markup fixes either. I do enough testing to hit the happy medium between perfection and budget. Perhaps you feel that only big corporate players should have websites.

          "until such time as it all goes wrong - at which time the company realises that doing it properly is actually cheaper in the long run."

          That's a lot of "properly" to cost £100,000. It's a fucking website. And if you're setting yourself up as the candidate for "properly", please don't. This is business. Not comp sci. Client wants something to go from scratch to live in one day because that's the business window. You can piss and moan. I'll get the job done. And well.

          Nice of you to AC. I'm guessing you're one of the helpdesk tards that pretends to be a dev.

    2. CD001

      Hmm...

      There's nothing really _wrong_ with JavaScript (oki, ECMAScript) - development isn't even that painful with an IDE like NetBeans and using Firefox's "Web Developer" plugin. The only real problem comes with browser implementations.

      There's the right way and the IE way. Almost everything will work the same across FF/Opera/WebKit based browsers but won't work in Internet Explorer (although IE9 is supposed to be rectifying this - I can't say for sure as I'm not using the beta) but there are several abstraction libraries out there, of which JQuery is probably the most well known.

      I actually quite like JavaScript - I like the way it deals with objects in an extensible way - it's a bit wrong but I quite like it. I like the fact you can tweak the prototypes (adding a search method to the Array class for instance)... it's not that bad - once you're used to the idiosyncrasies of implementation across browers.

  12. Vincent Rice

    Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells

    I started to read - who has written this revisionist bullshit propaganda I wonder? Then I skipped to the bottom and it becomes clear. Self-serving nonsense of the highest order.

  13. Flaco Dude
    Headmaster

    there's at least one incorrect assertion in the article

    Quoting: "Not only this, but there are clear signs that Google has intentionally avoided standards-based Java for its own Dalvik interpretation in order to ensure that Android apps remain firmly entrenched on Android. Google has played the openness card, but perhaps isn't the Saint Stallman it sometimes portrays itself to be."

    Incorrect. The Dalvík VM was chosen to avoid stack overhead of the JVM for tight memory situations, and no Java bytecode at the end means less legal headaches too, as it's Apache License version 2.0 -- see http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/110/

    1. Oninoshiko

      there's atleast one incorrect assertion in the post

      You're kidding, right?

      Ask Google how "less" those legal headaches are...

  14. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Standards, not openness.

    It's not about the code being open, that's for people who want to contribute or review the code.

    The real problem is standards, proposing them and adhering to them. I don't think you have much to worry about from Google or Apple. It is Microsoft who always tends to adopt standards and then extend them.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so as a developer

    who has been around the web for 15 years and can write in a few languages, so could easily pick up some new ones, which platform will i go for.

    Just like all the companies I will try and hedge my bets. I dropped learning Obj-c as i found i can convert javascript to native obj-c apps with easily available tools, then recompile the same code for android. Like the article says, having started with web programming, JS, PHP etc, I will use Java or Obj-c if need be, but not if i don't have to!

    I like using a mac day to day (it's closed-ness doesn't stop me doing day to day web, work and communication), but force me to be mac only in use and development will make go elsewhere.

  16. danny_0x98

    Not Your Best Essay

    Honest to gosh, three paragraphs in, I wondered who wrote this and moved upwards expecting to see a Cade Metz byline. I was surprised to find it was the work of one of my favorite writers for insightful perspectives.

    Many questions were begged above: that Apple suggested it wants to restrict access to web apps on its mobile device. Android's openness at the base is not diluted by the carriers and manufacturers who deploy it. Web apps and native apps are interchangeable as to user experience. That TweetDeck's rejoinder to Jobs is universal endorsement on app-writing for Android, when I think the endorsement extends only to messaging protocol based applications. (Maybe the variation matters and maybe it doesn't, but TweetDeck was talking about its experience and it does not have variety of apps crossing problem spaces.)

    I'm for HTML5. I think Flash has a role, but it doesn't need to be used for everything. Despite my welcome for our new extended markup overlords, the downside to being a standard is that it is the work of a committee, and where the committee does not agree, there will be vendor differentiation.

    One point you touched upon but you haven't quite thought through, in my humble opinion, is that "open" is a developer experience and "integrated" is a user experience. Now a market needs producers, vendors, and customers, so developer and user experience are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, get both experiences tuned and everybody wins.

    Apple certainly waves the UE banner, believes that is what butters its bread, and if it steps on developer toes (and tells some customers "yes, we got no bananas, and, yes, we will never have bananas."), it will do so until it stops making buckets of money. As for me, I'm a satisfied Apple customer and there's a very good chance I'll be getting an iPad in the new year. I'm also hobbling around a bit this weekend because Apple's java thing mashed my tootsies. I'm hoping Oracle or IBM step up, provide a jvm that is easily installed by customers, and libraries that provide a look and feel that is Aqua-ish and not Swing-ish on the Mac. (Maybe IBM, with its sponsorship of Eclipse is the more likely party to bring me what I want.)

    All right. Thank you for your time. I'm off to install a Xubuntu Meerkat guest os on this MBP.

  17. J 3
    Badgers

    only open after the fact

    "is only open after the fact. That is, the company only releases code after it is complete"

    So?

    "Open source means sharing control with the community"

    No, it doesn't. He's wrong there, I'm afraid. While a world of polite collaboration would be super indeed, there is no requirement of "sharing control" with anyone for a piece of software to be Free Software (the one I know better; if I remember well, the Open Source definition does not require that either). Or is there a further freedom I have not noticed? Like:

    4. the user must have the freedom to send you changes and have them at least considered for inclusion in the original code.

    Nope, it's not there. You can get the code, you can study it, you can modify and compile it. If the original coder does not want to hear back from you, that's their problem, but it software closed does not make.

  18. Synthmeister

    Apple invests in SproutCore

    You are forgetting a couple things.

    1. Apple encouraged everyone to write HTML5 apps for the iPhone when it was first introduced, and everyone screamed bloody murder. They all wanted to write native apps.

    2. Apple is completely invested in HTML 5 and SproutCore. Apple is using them both to create their online MobileMe apps.

    It's quite simple. Apple wants total control for apps in their store and open standards for apps on the web.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Few things

    Firstly, a bunch of new tags, canvas, native video and audio are not a replacement for something like Flash. Even Google have admitted as much by refusing to use HTML5 video as standard on Youtube. It's just not powerful, or flexible enough. HTML5 has become this weird misused buzzword.

    The tools are already out there to make awesome web apps, just look at Google Docs. HTML5 won't improve that, it just makes it slightly easier to develop. We won't be seeing killer games and interactive apps made using Canvas and JS any time soon, because its far too slow and cumbersome to develop. It will be the tech demo's and the odd evangelists playground for a long time yet.

    Google is investing in NaCl (Native Client), their true ace in the hole, this is a core part of Chrome OS. This is why it's being delayed, the ability to run native apps from the cloud is really key to having a browser based OS. It opens up a whole crazy world of possibilities.

  20. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    WTF?

    What kind of alternate uinverse is this?

    "HTML5 and JavaScript that, as Forrester principal analyst Jeffrey Hammond reasoned to me, has the benefit of offering developers both client-side and server-side coding."

    This is Forrester so this comes with a Boulder Of Salt With Ratbert on Top, but even so...

    Server-side coding? HTML5? JavaScript? Does just mean that the stuff the the server spews into the client direction will be a gob of HTML5 + Javascript?

    Because in this world, You don't code in Javascript on a server. Why would you want to do that? There are much nicer scripting languages. And HTML5 is not for coding.

  21. P. Lee

    first mover

    Apple needs to build ecosystems for its products. Apple may not be a great technical inventor, but it is often the first to push innovations out to the masses.

    Therefore, it needs people to build native apps because otherwise Android will come along with flash support and Apple will be competing on price with Far Eastern box shifters. Better to make Android devs build their own ecosystem than simply copy what they did for Apple, taking much the value out of the Apple device.

    I suspect the same goes for Java on the desktop. Apple wants to get more native apps built to increase the value in having a Mac. It doesn't want just a copy of what Windows or Linux has. The app store for OSX is a great way to attract devs and accomplish this. For web apps which will never run locally on OSX Apple needs them to be standards compliant so that Mac's are not locked out, as happened with IE-only websites. Given the fact that businesses rarely care about horrible user experience for custom apps, the X-Windows jvm is sufficient for business.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Most open mobile platform...

    ...2 words: Maemo, Meego

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Javascript cannot be the future.

    I don't mind if the future web uses HTML 5 and a scripting language or a compiled language. Just please find a way to bin JavaScript. It's the most inelegant, amateurishly designed language I've ever had the misfortune to have to code in.

  24. Flossie
    Boffin

    HTML5 and Video

    To the best of my knowledge HTML5 does not require the browser to support streaming video protocols, so for any serious video application HTML5 video is essentially useless. Therefore while it may displace flash for some basic functions, it won't have much impact on the higher end and that is where Adobe make their money.

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