Mozilla coders join Palm, apparently jabbing Apple
Two prominent Web-based programming advocates have left Mozilla for Palm, arguing that the time has come to use browsers to bypass Apple's controlling role in mobile applications.
Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith, who help run the Ajaxian site for elaborate Web interfaces and who worked on Mozilla's Web-based Bespin tool for collaborative programming, announced their move to Palm on Friday.
Palm is a logical place for them to go. The Palm Pre has won accolades as a competitive mobile phone, and its foundation for applications is a WebKit-based browser, meaning that Palm programs are essentially Web programs.
"I will be joining Ben, my best friend, partner in crime, and fellow Ajaxian, as we take a new role as directors of the Palm Developer Relations team. We will have the responsibility of the developer experience with Palm. We will be trying to create a rich connective tissue between the company and the Web developer community that we love," Almaer wrote on his blog.
Web-based programs are typically slower and less capable than alternatives that run natively on a computing device. But they have one big potential advantage: written once, they can run on any device with a browser and hardware up to the task.
Although Galbraith and Dalmaer are excited by the possibilities of Web applications and the new era of mobile computing ushered in most notably by Apple's iPhone, Galbraith appears to be concerned about the control Apple exercises over the applications people can use on their phones.
"Clearly, a revolution in hardware is taking place, and it doesn't take a prophet to work out that the future of computing lies along this new trajectory," Galbraith said. "However, my enthusiasm for this amazing new world is tempered by some unfortunate decisions made by some of the players in this space. It seems that some view this revolution as a chance to seize power in downright Orwellian ways by constraining what we, as developers, can say, dictating what kinds of apps we can create, controlling how we distribute our apps, and placing all kinds of limits on what (we) can do to our computing devices."
He didn't mention Apple by name, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but who else besides Apple could Galbraith be referring to? The programmers and Apple didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Apple exerts its control to try to give iPhone users a simple, stable, and useful experience. But that control can be at odds with what programmers and users want, as was most clearly illustrated in Apple's rejection of the Google Voice application--though Apple said it hasn't actually rejected the application.
Meanwhile, as it did with its Latitude location application for the iPhone after Apple rejected a native version of that software, Google is working on a Web-based interface for Google Voice. It also offers a Web-based Gmail application for the iPhone.
What's curious is that the Palm Pre, the Google Android operating system, and the iPhone OS all use a browser based on the WebKit project, and Apple is among those working hard to advance the state of the art for Web application programming through its WebKit work. So there is some philosophical agreement along with the differences.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
You are forgetting that to make a webOS app truly powerful you actually DO have to use proprietary hooks into Palm's webOS. Yes they are special tags but those tags won't work on any other browser. Kind of makes being "open" moot.
I hope these guys are successful in what they are doing. I've always found Apple to be, as a company, a little too fascist for my taste.
USB had been on computer for ~5 years and it was just an unused port that had people scratching their heads. So yeah Apple may not have invented the world but they sure as heck did a lot to lay the groundwork for Palm.
Sure everyone has their time and place in the industry - deniably this is Apple's time.
Think of it as downloading the HTML files for a website and storing it on your local system and then using your browser to run it instead of the host OS iteself.
I think both types of apps (web & native) have their place. While I like the idea of complete freedom to develop and deploy whatever I want, I recognize the relative freedom I experience depends on what kind of application I develop. As I said earlier, a server based web app is completely under my control. A downloadable web app (as you described) a bit less so if I still have to use some "storefront" framework from the phone manufacturer. With native apps, even less.
And Palm employees actually answer questions in the forums , and they are on top of any problems
A great company works like Palm does. No wonder their stock was up on a terrible day for the stock market.
And Palm employees actually answer questions in the forums , and they are on top of any problems
A great company works like Palm does. No wonder their stock was up on a terrible day for the stock market.
Apple doesn't want junk apps on it's iPhone. That's how they provide Quality.
Phone, address book, calendar, notepad, keyboard, color lcd, camera, memory, wireless network, ... that's the building block technology. It's been around for some time and the main thing hindering perfecting these devices in our hands has been protection of market and a mindset that a priori devices is more important than perfecting ideas and time-tested productivity tools.
Give me the tool that works to perfect and continually improve those base technologies and they will get my money. Open source and open hardware will eventually win out for this stuff. Motorola thought they had the mobile phone world sewn up. I even recall a salesman telling me we had to go to Motorola because the "others" just didn't have the network (apps?). Guess we know how that went....
It reminds me of Doctor Horrible and Jonny Snow. (For all who haven't seen Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog do yourself a favour and go see it.)
Seriously it's getting kind of annoying, I like what Palm does software wise, and I think the Pre could be a great phone, I just wish they'd sell it on it's merits, and not how you can stick it to Apple with your Pre.
I don't think Palm has done a heck of a lot of "stick it to Apple with your Pre" posturing. They're just trying to make a competitive product like everyone else.
The quotes mentioned in the article were from the Mozilla guy's blog, and even those weren't spun as "stick it to Apple" (who was never mentioned by name), but "We don't like what some people are doing so we're going to help offer an alternative".
Given Apple's strength in the smartphone market these days, just about anything a competitor does to try to come up with a more compelling product could be spun by someone so inclined (ie Apple fanbois) as "stick it to Apple". That doesn't make such claims true.
I also think that it was silly for Palm to expect Apple to sit idly by while they masquerade as an Apple device to facilitate the link to iTunes. The USB Implementers Forum was right to reiterate that it's not OK to "impersonate" another vendor's USB vendor code - if they were not to police such things, it would open up the door to all sorts of fraudulent products. Palm should just write their own sync app and/or partner with other sync product providers, and move on.
Oh and just to reiterate - when people speak of "web apps" in the context of the iPhone or the Palm WebOS, they are generally talking about locally-run apps based on the web-browser paradigm that those OS's use for most of their 3rd-party apps, not external websites.
Steve`s "one last thing" was a poor-quality video cam on the Nano LOL
Phil , why doesn`t it take stills ?Um...it`s "optimized" for video.
Engadget...Isn`t video made up of many stills ?
Lots of silly "cyborg mode" crap to try and make up for a poor quality "camera" LOL
(crowd laughs at Apple)
I don't get it: bunch of losers who in here fire at Apple for not doing this and poorly doing that.
The reality is, that the consumers buy their products by the millions. The only one laughing at you, Mr AppleSuxLeo is Steve Jobs. He is raking in the gold, while you are still moping around blogs, telling a few other losers how bad Apple is.
Get a life is more appropriate in this case
The devs get to stick with a platform they know. Course they're going with Palm. =P And webkit is a very good browser base. Windows uses IE so it isn't going to use Webkit, but everyone else will if they want the best out there. Although I'd rank a HTC higher than both the iPod and Pre..
- by sdfisher September 28, 2009 9:15 AM PDT
- Wow, web-based programmers working for Mozilla need to take a real job at last, but take a few shots at Apple. It just boggles the mind, I tell you.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(28 Comments)...that you posted it.