Technocrank

This is kind of like saying conversationalists at risk of talking to other human beings.  The term addiction is thrown around way too easily these days.  Okay,

Eleven percent of those under the age of 25 would interrupt sex for a message, and 24 percent under 25 would answer a message in the bathroom.

…is a bit silly.  But really, it seems to me almost like it’s a restructuring of social norms.  Is it a problem, or is it just an evolving expectation that we have with the immediacy in communication and relationships?

Although, if you’re interrupting sex for a message you’re just not doing it right.

Apple is in the process of removing WiFi scanning apps from the App Store for using a private framework.  Some of these apps provide functionality that the iPhone OS weakly attempts.  Its own interface is buried away in Settings and tells you the bare minimum of what it thinks you need to know.  There’s no advanced mode which is what these apps provide.  That this is a private framework at all is somewhat of a mystery since it’s hard to believe that they’re genuinely interested in the public’s security concerns.

(From io9)

Choice quotes from Adobe’s CEO in this article:

“Considering the amount of content on the Web that uses Flash — not allowing your consumers to access that content isn’t showing off the Web in all its glory.”

And,

“Apple’s business model is more trying to maintain a proprietary lock.”

And,

“the 10.1 version will do what Jobs wants it to do.”

I can hear the canned laugh-track as I read it.

I’m not particularly fond of Steve Jobs’ accusations that Adobe devs are lazy.  It sounds a bit peevish and personal and just because he thinks he’s Superman doesn’t mean he gets to be a dick.  I did like him calling BS on Google, though, there are a lot of things that Apple’s done under his command I think were questionable (“evil” even).

I’m also not saying that Adobe is a shining star when it comes to some of the choices they’ve made but overall, I’d say they’ve done a pretty good job at holding up the bar in the design world (even if they’re responsible for making drop-shadowed text ubiquitous).

It takes a lot of guts for Emmy Huang, the Project Manager for Flash Player, to write this post.  It displays a humanity, although I’m sure Jobs wasn’t implying they’re lazy robots.  It also highlights problems in their process.  But I do wonder about this:

“I want to reiterate that it is our policy that crashes are serious “A” priority bugs, and it is a tenet of the Flash Player team that ActionScript developers should never be able to crash Flash Player. If a crash occurs, it is by definition a bug, and one that Adobe takes very seriously. When they happen, it can be the result of something going on purely within Flash Player, something in the browser, or even at the OS level. Depending on where an issue occurs we work to resolve the crash internally or with our partners.”

She then goes on to outline the timeline of how the wheels fell off the wagon.

Some points:

• crashing bugs should be fixed and released immediately, i.e. the day they fixed it.  Telling me that it was fixed 3 months ago and we’re only going to see it with the next release which is…when?…only makes me froth.
• it’s not as if Flash 10 is the first version where the player has had serious issues and caused crashing.  It’s almost a defining characteristic of the platform since version 1.

No amount of denials from upper management is going to make the existence of problems untrue and no amount of apologies from the developer level is going to change the fact that if it’s not in our hands, it’s not fixed.

Adobe needs to fix their process, like a decade ago.  I know it’s complicated, and I know the software’s a crazy rat’s nest.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Flash will ever completely go away.  Flash as a video delivery vehicle always kind of bother me as over-engineered and overkill.  But as a platform for other things I think it will still have a place, albeit with a much lesser presence.  Nonetheless, Adobe, I don’t think it had to be this way.