Steve Jobs Says iPad Offers Freedom From Porn
Over the weekend, Gawker's Ryan Tate emailed Steve Jobs to ask him just what is so revolutionary about the iPad. Steve's response? It's a device that offers freedom from porn, battery issues and programs that steal your private data.
It's becoming less and less unusual for Steve Jobs to personally reply to people who email him with questions regarding a product. However, it's still strange for him to reply multiple times, not to mention engage in a heated debate. Throw in the fact that the person messaging him writes for a publishing house that is currently tangled in a very public legal mess about the next generation iPhone and your chances of getting even one reply are pretty slim.
Ryan Tate, a blogger with Gawker Media has posted a thread of emails sent this past Friday. Tate emailed jobs questioning a claim made in an Apple ad that the device is 'a revolution.' A revolution is about freedom, Tate said. Jobs replied saying the iPad offers freedom from a number of things:
"Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin', and some traditional PC folk feel like their world is slipping away. It is."
Though the correspondence started out as a question about whether the iPad was a revolution, it quickly transformed into a debate about Apple's decision to omit Flash from the iPad and how that is affecting applications being developed for the tablet.
Tate does eventually divulge that he works for Gawker Media but that doesn't stop Steve from replying.
Check out the full thread below. I've also included Tate's notes on the emails in which he claims it was silly to bring up his wife and criticizes Jobs' "freedom from porn" statement as something that will haunt him.
- There's something absurdly Orwellian about Jobs' line that the iPad provides "freedom from porn." It's a statement I suspect will haunt him.
- My line about Flash and my MacBook Pro is silly; Flash as a Web plugin is, as I myself have written, a resource hog, no matter how well the miraculous battery in my Apple laptop handles that hoggery. There's no telling how Flash might hobble my iPad''s A4 processor. But cross-compiled Flash apps are an entirely different matter: They run as native Objective C code, and Apple has a chance to review them for performance. Apple has never tried to argue that cross-compiled Flash wears batteries down any more quickly than other Objective C code, and in fact approved more than two dozen such apps before changing its policies.
- Speaking of regrettable lines: Why the heck did I bring up my wife in connection with "freedom from porn?" I was trying to say it's a canard that porn somehow harms families, or something terrible and shameful, so I mentioned the other half of my family.
- I was a little unfair summarizing my contact with Time Inc.; the company has not "crowed" about its iPad bridge software, and in fact has plans to iteratively improve its iPad product. That line was based on email exchange that I had with a Time Inc. executive who was speaking off the record and not on behalf of the company. As such, I've blurred a name that I had no business dropping. But I do think, as I said, that a native Objective C app that merely contains magazine content, like Time's, is a lot less exciting than an app that has some real interactivity, even if it's been cross compiled from Flash.
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Porn is a privilege...not a right?
I agree with Steve Jobs... "Freedom from porn"... F*** that dirty sh*t.
If you can't manage to get the information you need from the 'net whilst avoiding porn, you are just about dumb enough to be an Apple customer I guess...
Yeah there's loads of porn out there but it's not exactly all-pervasive.
^ LOL. What an idiot.
The porn industry generates over $14 billion a year, analyst's believe there is a direct correlation between porn revenue and kleenex sales potential.
Interesting use of the word "Freedom". Ryan meant it in the context of being free to do what you want. Steve twisted that in to being free from things you *might* not want such as porn.
The more Steve Jobs says the more I think he's either really evil and bent on Orwellian control of everyone, or really deluded. I'm expecting him to start using words and phrases like "crusade" and "for the greater good of humanity" soon. God help us all if he ever decided to run for US President. He'd make George W. Bush look like Mary Poppins by comparison.
If he really wants to make the net a better place, he should do something about Spam. Porn accounts for between 5 and 15% of net traffic (depending on who is doing the research.) 80% of it is spam.
Wait what?! I feel more like my world is becoming more open and transparent and that I can do more with my PC by the day as well as becoming more secure. Maybe I'm an exception to the rule and the rule only apply to people who don't make any consideration for virus protection and don't think that that e-mail might not of come from my bank or a Russian billionaire.
Steve Jobs has issues, to put it kindly. I know if I had his money I'd find better things to do at 2AM than sending churlish emails to customers and journalists.
I wonder if his increasingly bizarre behavior is at all related to all the weight problems and AIDS rumours.
Jobs:So when he had his first kid the way he shoed he cared was to go on a crusade to censor computers? Oh no, that's right - he sat quietly raking in his millions whilst denying paternity so his daughter and her mother had to starve on welfare. Way to show you care Steve, I'll take my personal morality from elsewhere thanks - now kindly die in a fire.
Bing. Exactly.
You know, I really don't like what porn can do to relationships, I don't like it in general. But, I don't believe in banning it, or making anyone "free" from it.
If people look at it; It's their own fault.
If children look at it; It's the carers fault.
If your partner looks at it; It's their fault, and a problem for your relationship.
And, really, being offended by porn? I see pictures of women naked by accident all too often, you can't avoid it if you even browse through the newspapers here, or watch after hours comedy shows (UK, ie; The Sun, 8 out 10 cats, etc), but really, it's just skin. As long as it's not some really extreme and weird porn/nudity, I don't see any reason to be offended by it. I see my fiancé naked plenty and if I were offended by that, I probably don't deserve to reproduce.
"some traditional PC folk feel like their world is slipping away. It is" Oh noes
halp us see the light Steve..
"free from porn"? .. one more reason not to buy ipad
Sorry to go off topic but who do you dislike/hate as a tech company the most and why. Heres my top 5
Microsoft - Bundles software you don't want with a privacy invading OS and with a virtual monopoly in its market can enjoy various disgusting business practices against any naysayers. Windows 7 is good but this should be expected from a company which made nearly $65 billion in 2009.
Apple - A company that have been grabbing the headlines for all the wrong reasons lately. This company shows how pretentious and bling we as a society have become when we purchase comparatively inferior hardware purely for how it looks. The lack of flash adaptation on the ipad and Steve jobs reasoning behind it, is the final nail in the integrity coffin for Apple.
Google - From humble begining Google has turned into a personal information harvesting monster. Why is it when companies become sucessful they turn into such evil money grabbing "£$%&£$%. The Google everything sidebar is designed by idiot who doesn't realise the main reason people use Google in the first place for it uncluttered minimalist look. Plus you can tell their employees are more happy than you or me.
Nvidia - I sorry to all the fanboys out there but the constant rebranding of the same product its like trying to get aroused after a 50 year marriage by dressing your wife in a different outfit, this together with the lies the delays the lack of competition which results in higher prices for the consumer. The lies, the faulty products did I mention the lies. Regardless of how much money Nvidia has made this year I see them going the way of the dodo, as AMD and Intel go the way of single chip graphic's and cpu, their other market's wont be able to save them.
Adobe - New to list but hated all the same, will we see 64bit flash for windows in my lifetime. Adobe I know it doesn't make you any money but for a company which controls a virtual monopoly could of coded a 64bit version since they have been promising it for a long time now and are still vague when asked for a date. I know its on linux who cares....
Activision - The epitome of the capitalist system, putting money before people business is business, but putting the money before the people who made you that money lol. Lets face it most of the call of duty series is trash up until modern warfare, bad company 2 is a much better game in my opinion anyway 32 employess leaving at the same time including two lead developers, you get the feeling there's not much unity in the camp.
Please add to this list..
^I personally very much enjoyed call of duty 2 and still do
I would put Apple above Microsoft. They made themselves out to be the ethical non-monopolistic alternative but are turning out to be more morally twisted than MS.