"Porn is just fine! And I think my wife would agree."
Posted by Andrew | Filed under iPad
Those are the emailed words of one Ryan Tate of Valleywag, another Gawker property like Gizmodo. A few nights ago, he apparently go into an email debate with one Steve Jobs, CEO of the company that I write about on this blog and earner of eight million times more money than Gawker. They say Apple had twice as many “lawyers” as Gawker has “journalists.”
Tate admits after posting the email transcript that he regrets bringing up his wife in reference to the porn argument with Jobs who had said he offers “freedom from porn.” He doesn’t address the statement that he doesn’t believe it will “f**k up my kids if someone in my house looks at a porn clip.” Apparently, Ryan Tate is OK with people watching pornography in the presence of his children (I don’t know if he actually has kids yet, but he is married).
Please, I encourage everyone to read the emails, I think that most intelligent people will agree with me that Mr. Tate should have just ignored the fact he had an exchange with Jobs (or Jobs’s assistant or PR guy or something). All I could think of when I read it was a teenager debating an older adult, like a school teacher or something, about the facts of life.
Tate complains that Flash and Adobe development should be allowed on the iPad and that Apple is “forcing” publishers to develop Objective C based applications for the iPhone/iPad. Jobs of course reminds him that Apple is not forcing anyone. My two blogs don’t have iPhone/iPad apps (mostly because I don’t understand Objective C) and I didn’t get an email from Apple demanding to see my apps submitted soon. Publishers have the freedom to publish on any platform they want to be on and it is reasonable that Apple asks the publishers to play by their rules.
Jobs summed up his feelings and what I believe is part of Apple’s philosophy going forward:
Microsoft had (has) every right to enforce whatever rules for their platform that they want. If people don’t like it, they can write for another platform, which some did. Or they can buy another platform, which some did.
As for us, we’re just doing what we can try and make (and preserve) the user experience we envision. You can disagree with us, but our motives are pure.
One last note, Mr. Tate didn’t reveal that he worked for Gawker until the exchange was in full swing. If he was intending on getting a story with his Bob Dylan bait (which Jobs probably couldn’t resist), he should have been up front about it. Then again, it is Gawker and it is Valleywag, which is like the back room cock fight at the world’s most filthy laundromat in the most crime ridden neighborhood in the world. Another issue I have is his use of profanity and dramatics to make his weak point sound stronger. Pretty cheap I think and Mr. Tate probably should have just left well enough alone after a long night picking fights with CEOs.
