[icarus_drowning]

The primary issue that I have with Gruber's argument is that it seems to reverse some of his more recent assertions about the Google Patent Wars(TM). Haven't we been hearing from Gruber for months on end how patents were going to somehow destroy Android (or cripple it, which is basically the same thing)? Now we're supposed to simply ignore that Google bought 3x the Nortel patents at 3x the price[1] (Gruber's math, not mine), a move that greatly diminishes (if not negates) their loss in the Nortel auction? Now we're supposed to focus on Motorola's problems as a handset manufacturer?

I get that Gruber's mainly going after the over-the-top Lyons piece (a piece which strikes me as poorly thought out and terribly argued). But it does seem like this is Gruber's first move toward a pivot away from the importance of patents in Android vs. Everyone.

You know, those patents that Gruber has been trumpeting for weeks now as the death knell of Android.

Just ignore those.

[1]: Or cheaper?: See recoiledsnake's comment below: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2890038

[spiffworks]

Gruber has for a long time made his living off of propping up strawmen and beating them down, much to the amusement of his readers. Everyone knows that Leander Keahney and Dan Lyons are insane, only Gruber goes to the pain of proving them so, with little insight or value added to the discussion, other than to incite his audience to gleefully laugh at the stupidity of the 'other'. I can't believe it actually took me so many years to realise this, but he is off my rss now.

[ellyagg]

As you know, it's easy to get backslapped on pro-Google hn by dissing Gruber, but why not just respond to his analysis instead.

Gruber seems to be right an awful lot for someone so casually vilified. For example, he took a lot of flack here for defending Apple's move to leave flash out of mobile safari. I think enough time has passed to make clear that he and Apple were right.

The anti-Gruber hate looks more like sour grapes every day.

[spiffworks]

As you can see, I'm being downvoted, and that's fine. Gruber is a polarising topic on HN. I just find that he has long since departed from any actual insight and instead works mostly with snark and misdirection to the point where it is pointless to even discuss his opinions. Perhaps I should be downvoted for the previous post, because it is not pertinent to the discussion, but I felt it had to be said.

[socratic]

Is Gruber right, or has Apple made all the right moves since about 2003? I think the main complaint by people who see Gruber pieces on HN all the time is that they argue that he's just an Apple pundit and/or apologist.

Another way of asking this question is, can you name three times that Apple and Gruber differed, but Gruber was in the right?

[tjogin]

Another example, I'm not sure it qualifies, is that Gruber never liked the brushed metal theme and the inconsistency with which Apple applied it to different applications.

Apple did eventually retire the brushed metal theme and is getting a bit more consistent in the styling of their applications. Still some way to go here, too.

Apple and Gruber has generally diverged in how they think the Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) should be applied. Gruber has called them out for not applying it as consistently as they did in the past.

But regarding the HIG, it seems Gruber has resigned and is now calling the HIG basically defunct.

I think in general, Gruber is not trying to be right/wrong vs Apple, not trying to offer a strong opinion, except in some unusual cases (see: AppStore rejections). Mostly, he is just trying to understand Apple, and to offer his analysis since Apple is famously quiet and other analysts are often clueless as Apple is a bit of an oddball in the corporate world.

[technoslut]

>Another way of asking this question is, can you name three times that Apple and Gruber differed, but Gruber was in the right?

I can.

1. The App Store approval nonsense. 2. The missing white iPhone. 3. Software patents. 4. He's also picked on design choices of Apple with iBooks and believes the Kindle app is better.

These have all occurred within the past year alone. It's fine there are those that disagree with Gruber but I find it best to attack on the merit of what is written and not his bias. It is the easy way out.

[tjogin]

Well, the first and most obvious example is the inconsistency and arbitrariness with which Apple approved or rejected AppStore applications. Gruber was probably Apple's most vocal critic at the time. Apple have improved a lot since, but still have some way to go in that department.

[ZeroGravitas]

Sour Grapes has a very specific meaning. It's not obvious to me that it's being used correctly here, or in the discussion of the Nortel Patents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_grapes

[recoiledsnake]

> For example, he took a lot of flack here for defending Apple's move to leave flash out of mobile safari

It's been much more than a year since Steve's blog post about how Flash is unneeded because of HTML5, and I am still waiting for the improvements in Safari so that Flash like functionality can be used in web pages. http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

I am not holding my breath though, Apple wants to push developers towards apps and not web pages, because they get to make money on every sale and also because it creates a lock-in for their platform.

http://blog.millermedeiros.com/2011/01/ipad-is-the-new-ie6/

[danilocampos]

> because they get to make money on every sale

Even the most cursory glance at real numbers establishes this as irrelevant. Apple's App Store revenues are measured in millions of dollars. Apple's revenues on hardware are measured in billions. They use the App Store to sell more hardware. It's infrastructure with next to no margin.

[fpgeek]

I think you skipped the other part of recoiledsnake's point about how app sales create lock-in. To me, that is the bigger reason for Apple's focus on apps (and on controlling the content delivered to iOS devices).

[danilocampos]

That point is a clear but unrelated piece of strategy. Apple doesn't want Flash for myriad reasons before you even get to "maybe people wouldn't build as many native apps."

I think you'd get a chuckle from the Apple brass if you asked if they were worried that people would stop building apps if only they had access to Flash. Of course they wouldn't — the UX and fiscal rewards are unbeatable.

Apple creates lock-in all on their own by providing a solid set of developer tools and APIs, along with UI/UX patterns that work really well. You get some great stuff on iOS that's tough to build, and so tough to find, elsewhere. Flash wouldn't change that — it's general purpose, not specialized to the platform.

It's a bit like saying you don't eat sewage because it's bad for your health. I mean, that's true, but the real reason you don't do it is because you find it revolting to the senses. Apple may enjoy strategic benefits from their Flash stance along the lines of what's been described here. But their opposition to it comes from much more high-level, basic concerns.

[amazingman]

Why can't I put a web app in the app drawer on my Android phone and run it as an app without the browser chrome? For a vendor who allegedly does not care about the web and only cares about platform lock-in, Apple sure does spend a lot of resources on Webkit and making mobile Safari a best-in-class experience.

[cma]

When you run a safari app that way Apple disables the fast javascript engine so that it can't compete with real apps:

http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/apple-phonegap-html5-nitro

[amazingman]

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/06/ios-5-brings-nitro...

[GHFigs]

"I think Motorola knew they had Google by the balls. Google needed Motorola’s patent library to defend Android as a whole, Motorola knew it, and they made Google pay and pay handsomely."

I don't see how you're getting a reversal out of that. Talking about Motorola's problems is only to highlight that Google would not have spent $12.5 billion on the company if not for the patent issues.

[icarus_drowning]

Because Gruber's summary of the entire story is "I think Apple and Microsoft probably feel pretty good, competitively, about having forced Google into spending $12.5 billion for Motorola — a handset maker with rapidly declining sales, no recent profits, and misguided management", which ignores the single most salient factor in the deal. Ultimately, Gruber would like us to believe that, all things aside, Google has bought a crappy handset maker, rather than a massive patent portfolio.

[tjogin]

That patent portfolio can't be that threatening to neither Apple nor Microsoft, considering the fact that both companies are already in litigation against Motorola and those specific patents, and so far it's not looking grim.

[GHFigs]

So now we're down to judging entire stories based on whether the last sentence includes what you think is the most important thing about it? Why even read the whole thing if you're going to ignore almost all of it?

[icarus_drowning]

Look, this is Gruber's bottom line, all of his caveats aside. At the end of the day, that's how he views this story, and I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that this is going to be a fairly succinct example of his thinking and arguments going forward.

That strategy is going to conveniently rely on his readers forgetting his near-obsession with Google's supposed doom at the hands of Apple and Microsoft's patent portfolios.

That's why it is a reversal-- because patents, once so important, probably aren't going to factor into his incessant Google criticism in the future, despite the fact that he has made them the cornerstone of many of his arguments until now.

[GHFigs]

I don't see a bit of sense in that.

On the one hand, you're complaining about his supposed "near-obsession" (as opposed to every other person writing on the subject? what's the measurement here?) but on the other you're saying that one sentence is proof that it was all some kind of ruse and he'll never speak of it again. As if patents not figuring into one sentence means he can never say anything about them again. What a great leap that is! He's trying to make a point about something, but you're treating it as if it's a total retraction of every other point he's ever tried to make--even in the same post--because...why? Because it's not just a restatement of what he said last week, in a different context? I don't understand that at all, even under the banner of HN's predictably frothing meme of disdain for the man.

Not only do I not understand that, I don't understand how on earth one man gets such scrutiny about precisely how much he talks about something, down to the sentence, when dozens of sites have been publishing on the same subjects. This is news. When new things happen, people write about them. Google bought Motorola. That's news. But must Gruber (or anyone) interpret or discuss that solely in terms of patents (or any one angle)? Why is commenting on any other aspect of the deal forbidden? Makes no sense.

[amatheus]

Frankly, I can't understand what's your point with this phrase. I think he obviously meant Google paid 12.5 billion for Motorola — a handset maker with rapidly declining sales, no recent profits, and misguided management - _only for the patents_. He's not ignoring the most salient factor in the deal; he's just reaffirming that, to get to the patents, Google paid 12.5 billion for the whole, including the bad parts that he's highlighting.

[ellyagg]

If you read the story carefully and completely, you'll note that he agrees that this very well may have been the right move, but right relative to the weak position that he has been arguing Google was in. He's by no means being inconsistent to say that their improved position is still weak.

[icarus_drowning]

I appreciate the advice, but I did read the article carefully and completely. My original comment, read carefully, has far more to do with the nuances of Gruber beginning to turn his arguments now that he can't bray night and day about how very threatened Google is by the combined patent portfolios of it's enemies.

[raganwald]

Wich has zero to do with whether this post of his is insightful, correct, or worth reading. That's the trouble with ad hominems, they aren't adding value. What I as a fellow reader want to know is whether this postnis wrth reading, and if so, what to watch out for good or bad.

I don't care if the previous 99 post by the same author are lumps of coal, I want to know whether this one is a diamond.

[amazingman]

Well...yeah. As the facts change, do you not expect the outlook to change as well? This widespread tendency to hold others with whom one might disagree to an impossible standard is getting tiresome.