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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Thanks Steve! It's great to see you are offering the same kinds of extra "freedoms" that the Chinese government gives to it's citizens! You are such a hero.
Steve Jobs has clearly shown what a lunatic he is if he expects the normal intelligent population (non apple fanboys) to believe that censoring and restricting provides freedom. That's the most retarded thing I've ever heard.
Steve Jobs' aids is getting to his brain.
Even if it's not me, it's good to see that someone calls Steve Jobs out on his BS, though we all know he won't listen.
I like how Jobs thinks - he'd make a great dictator... offering freedom from being an active and informed civic member (or "freedom from voting"). Macs also give us that wonderful "freedom from overwhelming choices" that cause so much agony to PC users.
Wow. I see hackers targeting iPad owners soon and Apple will have to release malware protection for it lol.
And the people who want freedom from porn are ...?
Okay, now I'm upset. When am I going to learn to simply not click on every Apple/Jobs news item on this site? Now I need to go meditate in a dark, quiet room.
Steve Jobs talking about freedom of anything with his closed and proprietary hardware. Talk about irony.
In the end, I decide to use my freedom from iProducts ... too there is still no Zune HD here in Canada.
Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and will always be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.
Eugene O'Neill
Nothing intelligent here from a guy that pretends to be intelligent - Jobs.
Stevie boy has become my source of humor over the last few months. I didn't think it was possible for one person to make so many ridiculous statements without being on some kind of reality altering drug.
Come to think of it, that may be the answer. Stevie has the ability to live in this world but his mind must be in another reality. He can phase shift!
Steve jobs can force his morals on others because he already gets wicked head from all the apple fan girls. Apple sucks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_T [...] llectivism
Apple, you have become what you said you would destroy. 1984 indeed has happened to Apple.
Don't you touch my porn!!! It's mine!!
I don't see how any apple products offer "freedom from porn" since all you have to do is open a web browser...
okay iPad is a good device in some sense or other but there is no point in keeping it confined in chains.
Your are not providing any freedom instead as always you want your customers to be at your mercy...........
look at Android i just love it how fun it is to developers and users thousands of great apps and i dont have to goto any google repository for them.
Apple will provide you freedom...from your paycheck.
Wait.... Cant I browse websites with the Ipad? and, cant I view images on the ipad? so, whats stopping me from going to a porn website, or viewing porn images?? how exactly is making porn not available from the app store, stopping porn from making it onto the Ipad?
"Wait.... Cant I browse websites with the Ipad? and, cant I view images on the ipad?"
Hush now. You're spoiling everyone's Apple-hating fun by pointing out the obvious.
so, whats stopping me from going to a porn website, or viewing porn images??
The soon-to-be-active Great Firewall of Jobs, that's what...
The whole world should exile Jobs to North Korea, he and his propaganda would fit good right there.
Thank Setve!
Mate, For years I was wondering if I could buy a product with less features, slower hardware, for more moneny!
When I walked into a apple store it was like a deep gaping hole in my was sealed!
Sounds like Steve has never used a search engine before.
Also, freedom from programs that actively steal your private data? If you have that problem, you either lack common sense of web-surfing, don't care, unless your eBay account, Paypal account or such has been hacked/broken into.
As for battery life, if you stuck a huge battery to a high end smart phone, you'll also get a great battery life.
He's got a point on the app part too, from what I see, many things are ported from current WinMobile or Flash apps. Guess how many freeware programs are available for windows mobile? Not the easiest to use phone/Pocket PC OS, but I can drag and drop stuff into a SD/microSD card plug that into my PDA and run it straight on my PDA. Heck, I was running web radio (TCPMP music player) and surfing multi tabbed online(Opera Mobile) with my 5 and a half year old PDA (both are free programs).
LOL what i find is really quite funny is how Digital Playground (if you know what i am talking about) already was preparing for porn streaming and optimization for the iPad b4 its release lol
in the end; porn will make its way to the iPad, just like viruses and malware and spyware will make their way to the mighty OSX.
i am eagerly awaiting for the day that hackers destroy the iPad...
Lmao, this is the reason I still read these articles. The amount of absurd claims this man makes, on top of the numerous contradictions he makes, just makes everything he says a joke! It's great
Wow Steve, please learn when to shutup. Your arrogance is astounding, I'm honestly baffled as to why people like you.
This is a great little toy for the iDrones but seriously why would any one buy into a platform that is content restricted. I much rather buy a used HP TC1100 or a Fujitsu Stylistic and have all the freedom I want. The freedom to put any windows/ linux app I want plus being able to upgrade such things as hard drive / SSD. Sorry but Apple is a tyrant nothing less.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY - WAR IS PEACE - IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Steve Jobs says that the iPad [since it doesn't support Flash] offers freedom from porn. This is interesting, mostly because of the assumption that wanting to free people from porn is orwellian. I look at it differently. Porn is pictures of sex. If you're hungry, you don't look at a picture of an apple, you go get an apple. Why go for the idea of something when the real thing is so much better?
Freedom from porn? Has he got a chineese liver that is possessing him like in that film?
"We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent there will be no need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."
George Orwell 1984
"By the way, what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations? "
Steve jobs response to gawker.
http://photos.macnn.com/news/1005/jobs-emaillg5.jpg
LMAO! It's a statement I suspect will haunt both him and Gawker more.