Who’s Side Are You On? The Jobs and Valleywag Exchange

The debates around Apple’s SDK T’s and C’s changes, it’s opinion of Flash, the iPhone prototype leak and subsequent search warrant, and all the negative press going along with all of it— whether fair or unfair depending upon which side you’re on, seems to ratchet up to new levels each and every day. In my last post “Apple Vs. Adobe- Who’s Side are You On?” I pointed out that—

“Apple’s all about preserving the customer experience and not letting them get into a place where they can get lost or frustrated. If customers don’t want Apple, there are plenty of other choices- Android, which is growing rapidly; Microsoft, which is resetting itself with Phone 7; RIM, which has embraced the WebKit browser (joining Apple, Android, and others); HP, which has bought Palm, inheriting WebOS in the process; and Nokia which has moved Symbian into a Linux environment.”

Fast forward to last night, when Valleywag editor Ryan Tate had an online conversation with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Jobs argued back and forth with Tate in several rounds of messages, and the one message in particular struck a cord, because it’s the same one I elaborated on above several day ago was this one—

“Wait— of course they don’t have to. They don’t need to publish on the iPad if they don’t want to. No one is forcing them. But it appears they DO want to…Its not about freedom. Its about Apple trying to do the right thing for its users. Users, publishers, and developers can do whatever they like— they don’t have to buy, or develop, or publish on iPads if they don’t want to…” — Steve Jobs 5/16/10

You can read the entire back and forth between Jobs and Tate at VentureBeat here. The site has had some great commentary on the developments around Apple these past few months.

- Randy Giusto

@randygiusto

#newdigitalcafe

randygiusto@newdigitalcafe.com