Steve Jobs vs. the world

Apple's CEO rules iPhone development with an iron fist and his arrogance knows no bounds. But a rebellion may be brewing

Contrary to popular belief in certain circles, Steve Jobs can't actually walk on water. But you wouldn't know it based on how he and his company have been acting of late.

Also see: A timeline of Steve Jobs' 2010 activities

Item No. 1: Over the weekend, a minor kerfuffle erupted when Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber noticed Apple had updated its Developer Program License Agreement to ban apps written using a cross-platform compiler. More specifically, "applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine," effectively nixing Adobe's Flash and causing Mac developer and blogger Hank Williams to declare, "Steve Jobs has just gone mad." Per Williams:

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Contrary to popular belief in certain circles, Steve Jobs can't actually walk on water. But you wouldn't know it based on how he and his company have been acting of late.

Also see: A timeline of Steve Jobs' 2010 activities

Item No. 1: Over the weekend, a minor kerfuffle erupted when Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber noticed Apple had updated its Developer Program License Agreement to ban apps written using a cross-platform compiler. More specifically, "applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine," effectively nixing Adobe's Flash and causing Mac developer and blogger Hank Williams to declare, "Steve Jobs has just gone mad." Per Williams:

Take a pause and think about what that "originally" really means. Developers are not free to use any tools to help them. ...This is akin to telling people what kind of desk people sit at when they write software for the iPhone. Or perhaps what kind of music they listen to. Or what kind of clothes they should be wearing. This is *INSANE*.

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In response, Adobe product evangelist Lee Brimelow suggested Apple perform an act of love upon itself (that's the PG-rated version). He writes:

Personally I will not be giving Apple another cent of my money until there is a leadership change over there. I've already moved most of my book, music, and video purchases to Amazon and I will continue to look elsewhere. ... But this is equivalent to me walking into Macy's to buy a new wallet and the salesperson spits in my face. Chances are I won't be buying my wallets at Macy's anymore, no matter how much I like them.

After Brimelow posted his screed, Adobe made him issue a disclaimer stating this was purely his opinion, not Adobe's. Still, according to IT World's Steven Jay Vaughn, the company is on the verge of suing Apple.

Item No. 2: Now that the iPad is off Steve's bucket list, he seems to have a lot of time on his hands to respond to developer emails. (The nuts at eSarcasm have uncovered a slew of other allegedly "lost" Jobs emails.)

Mostly, he seems to be saying suck eggs. You don't like my rules, go develop for Android.

Take app developer ContactPad. Last week, Apple informed the company that its journalPad program could no longer be sold in the App Store. The reason? It infringed Apple's trademark on the word "pad." When ContactPad developer Chris Ostmo emailed Steve Jobs to complain, he got this characteristically terse Jobsian reply:

It's just common sense to not use another company's trademarks in your app name.

There's only one problem: Apple doesn't own the trademark on the word "pad." It's certainly not on the list of generic terms Apple has trademarked (which includes Aqua, Cocoa, Carbon, Charcoal, Chicago, Gadget, Geneva, Logic, Numbers, Pages, Sand, Shuffle, and Tubes).