Steve Jobs recently published an open letter about Apple’s position on Flash which addressed the reasons behind not implementing Flash on the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. It’s very well written and has some great points, but contains many flaws as well. Apple is a great design company, and I understand they are indeed a company and must look out for their own interest; but that doesn’t excuse the act of misinforming and misleading people.
One of the first responses to the letter was by Remy Sharp (@rem) who pointed out that:
- HTML5 apps won’t just work with touch devices, the code to handle touch events must still be written.
- The H.264 video format is currently supported only by Safari and Chrome, but H.264 is not supported by the two biggest browsers, IE and Firefox.
Remy’s tweet also points us to this video of a presentation from Jonathan Stark, App Store is For Suckers. Stark points out some not-so-good points about the Apple Store including the fact that they subjectively turn down many apps which applied to be in the store. For example, there are many games which including war and killing of animals, but a seal-clubbing app from PETA was rejected. (In response, PETA Sends Steve Jobs Vegan Chocolate Seals!)
Web accessibility veteran and friend John Foliot of Stanford University tweeted these six “fallacies” from the letter:
- The H.264 video format is closed & patent encumbered — not open.
- WebKit is not the most widely deployed mobile browser; that belongs to Opera.
- HTML5 is not finished & W3C anticipates a few more years before Ready For Prime Time.
- WHAT WG (the incomplete HTML5) is not open either, it’s by invitation only: whatwg.org/charter
- Two of the four major browsers do not support H.264. [see above]
- If Apple is so open, why do they control IApp distribution with an iron fist? They don’t like your app? You’re toast. [see above]
What do you think?
Further reading:
Last Saturday (Sept 26), I attended the OpenWebCamp at Stanford University. Much thanks goes to John Foliot for organizing the event and to Opera which was the main sponsor. It was a really nice time (except the hot weather). Learned a few things and met some great people, and the food and drink was great, too! Guy Kawasaki and Molly Holzschlag were the featured speakers. I spoke on Accessible Twitter which went pretty well. There was some excellent discussion on HTML5, open source software, usability, and the browser wars.
For more information, you may:
After-party gathering outside on Stanford campus during OpenWebCamp.
Photo from OpenWebCamp album on Flickr from Barbara Haven.
Accessible Twitter at Open Web Camp
html5 logo
I’ve been doing some research lately on HTML5 (and CSS3). Have a good article cookin’. But first, just thought I’d share some excellent resources/links. That is, if you’re a webbie techie computer nerd like me!
Cool Core Stuff
HTML 5 Doctor
HTML 5 Articles in Spanish
My WordPress theme got tired and outdated, so I switched to a theme called iNove by NeoEase. It needed a little adjusting for standards and accessibility, but not nearly as much as most themes out there. I continue to have a very difficult time finding and recent, fully accessible, standards-compliant themes. What a shame. I published a Web Axe blog post discussing this lack of accessible WordPress themes. Hope to create one by end of summer.
As I mentioned a few months back, my personal project this year is Accessible Twitter, a web-based Twitter application. It was originally written specifically for web accessibility (optimized for disabled users) and still is the main goal. But I discovered that if I want more users, I’ll have to continue working on the features.
I’m pretty happy with the progress so far. The app is still in Alpha, but hope to take it to Beta in the next few weeks. Updates are made fairly regularly, and more recent updates include the following:
- Added a URL shortening feature.
- Enhanced Direct Message page and funtionality.
- Added Popular Links page and categories, too.
- Add (limited) functionality to update user profile. (More to come.)
- Add more data for Tweeps on the Following and Followers pages.
- Add user data to bottom of single status page (the tweet’s PERM page).
If you haven’t tried Accessible Twitter yet, or if you haven’t been there lately, please go check it out. Oh, also, the Twitter username for the app is @AccessibleTwitr.
I recently updated my personal home page at dennislembree.com (I like to call it a “vanity” site). It’s my usual minimalistic, user-friendly, standards-based, accessible design, and I’m liking it.
Changes include removing the bio, organizing in three categories, and a fresh appearance. Check it out and leave me some feedback if you’d like.
The new web page renders wonderfully in the good standards-compliant browsers (Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome), but IE has a couple issues of course (peek-a-boo and left margins on unordered lists). I fixed the IE7 issue and one of two IE6 issues. I’m feeling thankful for conditional comments!
Like many folks, I very much enjoy Twitter, the mini-blogging sensation. I recently went over 1,000 tweets! You can find me at @dennisl.
One issue with the site is that Twitter is not web accessible. I’ve recently been resolving this problem by writing a new web application Accessible Twitter. It’s currently in Alpha status, so some functionality still needs adding/improving, but it’s mostly complete. You can learn more about me and the project here: Five Questions With Dennis Lembrée – Creator of Accessible Twitter.
Follow me on Twitter!
