First, Sony announced a new project (Sony’s Networked Application Platform or SNAP) that will allow developers to create apps for the company's TVs, set-top boxes and other devices.
Now SNAP has been snapped off. The project is on hold and no one knows exactly why-- except Sony.
For a conglomerate like Sony to announce and freeze a publicly announced project suggests either litigation issues (or a conversation to avoid litigation) or an acquisition (let's imagine the fabled Apple buys Sony discussion is taking place or Sony is buying up a software platform) or a tech swap deal (going with Microsoft in exchange for patent concessions).
SNAP is based on GNUstep, an open source variant of OpenStep developed by NeXT (before the Jobs-owned company was acquired by Apple).
Sony wants to leverage the open source community to deliver an alternative to Apple's iOS Cocoa Touch. Apple maintains the OpenStep spec through Cocoa and Mac OS X, but Sony believes GNUstep code has "diverged considerably."
Sony's plan would not enable its products to use iOS apps (created for the iPhone or iPad), but would offer developers a platform familiar to those who have already used Cocoa Touch to target Apple's products.
That doesn't sound like a bad plan from Sony, except for all the platform competition that iOS itself faces. So why the freeze?
Apple appears ready to use Cocoa for its Mac App Store. Can this Cocoa-centric development have anything to do with Sony's sudden SNAP freeze?
Go SNAP
