There’s a debate raging (OK, so isn’t every debate raging on the Internet) over what Steve Jobs said about iPhoto 6 using “industry standard” RSS for its photocasting feature. Well Kevin Yank disagrees, and Dave Winer, the inventor of RSS, certainly has a problem with it.
Photcasting seems like a good feature because it will actually get less sophisticated users exposed to the concept of subscribing to a feed. So even “if Aunt Sophia doesn’t have iPhoto” she can still see the photocasts. The problem is, and Kevin is partially right about this, if she wants to use a web browser, it does require that she have a Mac because it does require Safari (and OS 10.4) to work seemlessly. Firefox and Internet Explorer on the PC give the error depicted in the graphic above. Aunt Sophia would have to get a newsreader to view the photos, and if she knows nothing about newsreaders she’s stumped. Aunt Sophia would need to know that the service Bloglines works nicely. Gee, I feel like I’m getting to know Aunt Sophia and I would like to help her.
I guess what surprises me is that people seem surprised that Apple used something more proprietary. Think Different, or, think more like Microsoft? Anyway, all the links are fun to read just to follow the rage, or maybe discussion is more accurate.
2 Responses
Very interesting post.
I think Apple’s just as committed to vendor lock-in as Microsoft. Perhaps every business aspires to be a monopoly. It’s just irksome when they pretend otherwise. 🙂