Steve Jobs says Apple "created" WebKit. That wording makes it sounds like it started from nothing. But it didn't, WebKit was forked from the KHTML project in 2002 and later diverged (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webkit#Origins). One might say WebKit evolved out of KHTML.
And it was like pulling teeth to get Apple to contribute their changes back. For a while, IIRC, they claimed bug reports were proprietary information, and they refused to provide them back to the KHTML team. And that was before Apple was evil!
Maybe you're forgetting some history. When Apple announced Safari, people said it was completely stupid to not choose the Gecko engine. People said that the KHTML engine was totally immature and progressing slowly. Why on earth would you pick KHTML over Gecko?
After a fairly huge amount of work on the part of WebKit contributors, you can see that Apple's move was both not stupid and also generous. WebKit development rapidly outstripped every other engine, and it's still on the leading edge today. It's open source software, with a mostly BSD license.
While that still takes more credit than I'd care to see, "work we did at Apple" definitely is a softer statement than "Apple 'created' WebKit". Even though the word "created" does come up a couple of sentences later...
I don't know much about the project itself, but wouldn't web-kit have received contributions from outside of Apple aswell? (perhaps only since 2005 when it was open sourced though)
That's actually pretty accurate when it comes to Steve Jobs. First it was him and Gates and then him and Schmidt. In both cases it was a close relationship followed by backstabbing.
Because Cain and Able stories are more fun. They attract more attention. We haven't evolved much since ancient Rome, we still want to see the blood fly. :)
Engadget's live coverage has more context. It isn't quite a non-sequitor like TechCrunch says -- Walt actually asked Jobs about his relationship with Google, and Jobs made a joke.
6:49PM Walt: How's your relationship?
6:49PM Steve: My sex life is pretty good.
I found the most interesting part to be right at the end. Apple is a hardware company first, and one market where they already have some expertise is in displays. I realize it's not the exact same technology for TVs, but to think that Apple would not at least give it a shot, with an iTunes backend providing content seems like a missed opportunity in another multibillion dollar market. I figure the next "revolutionary" Apple product will be a "smart" TV.
Why isn't anyone talking about the inability to install non-apple approved apps on the iPhone, the iPad, pretty soon apple tv, and I'm sure in about a couple of year all apple devices. Isn't this a major issue? The inability to have access to apps that steve doesn't necessarily approve of?
As I write this on my iPad, I wonder how long it will be before I'm not allowed to type certain words on apple "soft" keyboards?
Steve stance on the reasons for disallowing apps also concerns me. It would ok if he does this to create a monopoly (which is really what the store is, for all intents and purposes), but what scares me is that he claims he does it for "people"
... And Walt and Sara, just like last time, didn't think that was an important enough issue to press upon. Kudos for asking about the gizmodo issue though
>7:14PM Walt: Can I talk to you about a somewhat different subject, which is curation? You are a retailer of a lot of content, and of apps. And there's been a lot of controversy about your app store rejecting things, sometimes you backtrack. I don't know of any law that any merchant whether it's you or Walmart that says you have to carry something you don't want to carry. But isn't there responsibility with that? You become big, you have the most apps. You've talked in some things you've written about protecting the consumer... but isn't there a downside of you guys acquiring all this power and you saying no to some cartoonist or some political candidate? Don't you have a problem there?
>7:16PM Steve: Well let first say we have two platforms we support. One is open and uncontrolled -- that's HTML5. We support HTML5. We have the best support for it of anyone in the world. We then support a curated platform which is the app store. It is the most vital app community on any platform. How do we curate this? It's a bunch of people, and they come into work every day. We have a few rules: has to do what it's advertised to do, it has to not crash, it can't use private APIs. And those are the three biggest reasons we reject apps. But we approve 95% of all the apps that are submitted every week.
>7:18PM Walt: So what happened with this candidate?
Steve: We had a rule that said you can't defame other people.
Kara: Determined by your app people.
Steve: Yes... and political cartoons got caught in that. We didn't think of that. So this guy submits his app and he gets rejected. We didn't see that coming. So we changed the rule, but this guy never resubmitted... then he wins a Pulitzer Prize, and he says we rejected him. So, we are guilty of making mistakes. We're doing the best we can, we're learning as fast as we can -- but we thought this rule made sense.
>7:19PM Steve: We're doing the best we can, we're fixing mistakes. But what happens is -- people lie. And then they run to the press and tell people about this oppression, and they get their 15 minutes of fame. We don't run to the press and say "this guy is a son of a bitch liar!" -- we don't do that.
>7:20PM Kara: So in terms of publishing these rules more clearly...
Walt: I talk to developers all the time, but they express to me that they're confused...
> The inability to have access to apps that steve doesn't necessarily approve of?
Can you imagine that have your own shop in which you want to sell a lot of toys to kids. Why should a local porn dealer have the right to sell the porn in your store?
Jobs has the right to select what he wants to sell. You have the right to select where and what you buy.
Whenever I hear such arguments they smell me to people who are actually porn dealers unsatisfied with their own shop who think they have the right to demand from a shiny shop over the street to sell their goods for them.
[+] [-] CitizenKane|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tumult|16 years ago|reply
After a fairly huge amount of work on the part of WebKit contributors, you can see that Apple's move was both not stupid and also generous. WebKit development rapidly outstripped every other engine, and it's still on the leading edge today. It's open source software, with a mostly BSD license.
[+] [-] Legion|16 years ago|reply
That wording is also more TechCrunch's than Steve's.
Steve's words:
> Well Chrome is not... you know. And it's based on webkit, work we did at Apple.
> Almost every modern browser is based on webkit... Nokia, Palm, Android, RIM has one... and of course ours.
> We've created a real competitor to IE. In the mobile space it's #1.
(link: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/steve-jobs-live-from-d8/)
While that still takes more credit than I'd care to see, "work we did at Apple" definitely is a softer statement than "Apple 'created' WebKit". Even though the word "created" does come up a couple of sentences later...
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I'm guessing he's down to about 120lbs. More pics here: http://d8.allthingsd.com/speakers/steve-jobs/#slideshow-1-32 I know it's a touchy subject, but holy crap. I did a double take when I saw the pictures of him. He is not a well man.
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[+] [-] shivanand|16 years ago|reply
As I write this on my iPad, I wonder how long it will be before I'm not allowed to type certain words on apple "soft" keyboards?
Steve stance on the reasons for disallowing apps also concerns me. It would ok if he does this to create a monopoly (which is really what the store is, for all intents and purposes), but what scares me is that he claims he does it for "people"
... And Walt and Sara, just like last time, didn't think that was an important enough issue to press upon. Kudos for asking about the gizmodo issue though
[+] [-] jstevens85|16 years ago|reply
>7:14PM Walt: Can I talk to you about a somewhat different subject, which is curation? You are a retailer of a lot of content, and of apps. And there's been a lot of controversy about your app store rejecting things, sometimes you backtrack. I don't know of any law that any merchant whether it's you or Walmart that says you have to carry something you don't want to carry. But isn't there responsibility with that? You become big, you have the most apps. You've talked in some things you've written about protecting the consumer... but isn't there a downside of you guys acquiring all this power and you saying no to some cartoonist or some political candidate? Don't you have a problem there?
>7:16PM Steve: Well let first say we have two platforms we support. One is open and uncontrolled -- that's HTML5. We support HTML5. We have the best support for it of anyone in the world. We then support a curated platform which is the app store. It is the most vital app community on any platform. How do we curate this? It's a bunch of people, and they come into work every day. We have a few rules: has to do what it's advertised to do, it has to not crash, it can't use private APIs. And those are the three biggest reasons we reject apps. But we approve 95% of all the apps that are submitted every week.
>7:18PM Walt: So what happened with this candidate?
Steve: We had a rule that said you can't defame other people.
Kara: Determined by your app people.
Steve: Yes... and political cartoons got caught in that. We didn't think of that. So this guy submits his app and he gets rejected. We didn't see that coming. So we changed the rule, but this guy never resubmitted... then he wins a Pulitzer Prize, and he says we rejected him. So, we are guilty of making mistakes. We're doing the best we can, we're learning as fast as we can -- but we thought this rule made sense.
>7:19PM Steve: We're doing the best we can, we're fixing mistakes. But what happens is -- people lie. And then they run to the press and tell people about this oppression, and they get their 15 minutes of fame. We don't run to the press and say "this guy is a son of a bitch liar!" -- we don't do that.
>7:20PM Kara: So in terms of publishing these rules more clearly...
Walt: I talk to developers all the time, but they express to me that they're confused...
Steve: 95% are approved within 7 days...
Walt: So you don't think it could be better?
Steve: I do, but I want to remind you.
[+] [-] stanleydrew|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acqq|16 years ago|reply
Can you imagine that have your own shop in which you want to sell a lot of toys to kids. Why should a local porn dealer have the right to sell the porn in your store?
Jobs has the right to select what he wants to sell. You have the right to select where and what you buy.
Whenever I hear such arguments they smell me to people who are actually porn dealers unsatisfied with their own shop who think they have the right to demand from a shiny shop over the street to sell their goods for them.
[+] [-] andreyf|16 years ago|reply
Great point in light of Google's last IO announcements along the lines of we discovered we can use the internet to sync Android.
[+] [-] sp332|16 years ago|reply