Apple is a traditional business • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#171

Post by dwaite » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #80

logfromblammo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I see is a bunch of proprietary connectors and dongles, and I sleep like a log. Jobs was just the salesman. Those products aren't lost, but they may have had a harder time getting to market without the "visionary" around to hype them up.

Salesman is an oversimplification. He was a productizer that could sell. :) Also, does anybody know what cable the longest (number of years) a specific Apple cable/connector has remained compatible with the ever-changing hardware? I am guessing it is this thing: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MK122LL/A/power-adapter-e... Apple has always had BS connectors, like the Powerbook 5300 (1996)and G3, G4 laptops power co…

That brick power connector is a brilliant design. It is based on the IEC C7 connector with an extra (optional) spot for a grounding pin. You can take the power cord from a lot of small appliances and plug it into the slots as an extension cord.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#172

Post by MBCook » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #139

wilsonnb wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really wasn't as massive a leap as you make it out to be. It's likely that we would have ended up with something very similar to today's smartphones even if the iPhone had never existed. It wasn't the first smartphone. It wasn't the first phone to use a capacitive touch screen. The first iPhone didn't even have the app store - it launched with the 3G a year after the the first iPhone was released, if I remember co…

It wasn't the first smartphone, but it was the first phone of any kind that wasn't bundled with crapware from the cellular companies and locked into their ecosystems. That was a huge win for consumers, and it was solely due to the persuasive power of Steve Jobs.

It doesn’t exactly fit the article or my original comment but what Apple did to carriers is just as big, possibly bigger, than the hardware/software of the iPhone.

The carriers dictated the phones you could buy (in the US). They dictated the siftware on them. They dictated the interfaces. If they didn’t like a feature hey turned it off. I remember a camera phone that had Bluetooth support for sending files but Verizon turned it off because it competed with their expensive MMS service.

I remember paying $5 for a terrible version of Bejeweled. I remember Sprint wanting to charge me $4 A MONTH to have Tetris on my RAZR.

Android still suffers the crapware and delayed updates. Maybe Google’s latest attempt will finally fix that.

But the iPhone RULED over the cell companies. They did what APPLE wanted because Apple held all the power.

Verizon couldn’t tell you which games you could buy from the App Store. AT&T couldn’t make you use their email client. You never saw a Sprint branded browser or video startup screen. They were largely irrelevant. They were demoted to what they truely are: infrastructure.

Does anyone want to go back to the world where carriers had 100% of the power over phones?

What a difference that made. And I do wonder if anyone else could have ever done that. Apple had the right product at the right time (AT&T losing bad) to get enough leverage to do it.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#173

Post by MBCook » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

srslack wrote: post #115

MBCook wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was not an incremental leap. It was MASSIVE. Yes, all the technology was there. We had smartphones and they would have continued without the iPhone. The value of the internet in your pocket is too big for the smart phone not to become a huge thing. Eventually. But Apple NAILED the UI. They made it so simple that 3 year olds can use the UI and are confused when other computers don’t work through such great touch co…

I'll give you accessibility and decent touch controls in a pretty package. But I can't let this slide: >How long would it have taken to get the App Store? That single innovation (making it trivial for people to find/buy software) Package management was not an Apple innovation, and before iOS 2.0 there were no officially supported native third party applications at all, and the only way power users accomplished this w…

I know it was in iOS 2.0.

And I don’t believe Jobs EVER thought that, that was his spin. Everything that has come out since seems to indicate that he knew web apps sucked but that was what they could get out the door fast. The internal APIs didn’t seem to be in a releasable state.

Normal people have never used APT.

I remember how you got software for Palm or WinCE. It was a pain, you had to search the web or buy it boxed. You better not lose that memory card or download file. And since you bought it from tons of places you always had to put your card in.

What I’m talking about is the simplicity end users had never seen on any device (to my knowledge). The store already had your card, just type in your password. It knew what you bought, you could redownload it for free. No sketchy websites. And one central place to search.

That was miles ahead of any other way of buying software.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#174

Post by askafriend » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:49 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #150

MBCook wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long do you think it would have taken? Seriously? It took Google a few years to catch up having their massive resources and Apple as a guidepost. RIM had no incentive, they were trying to lock you into the BB server product and tried to get consumers on it to. The phone was a means to an end. MS wanted to push Windows. They’d been trying since CE first appeared and it still didn’t take off. As long as Balmer was…

It would take exactly a year for Google to clean up Android enough. They had to scram because iPhone just outran them. About the only major thing iPhone brought was direct carrier deals from AT&T and Verizon for big data plans. Also lost the keyboard. (Not the first device to do so either.)

The actual history of Android disagrees with your hypothesis.

"Chris DeSalvo, who worked alongside Andy Rubin at Danger before joining Google to build its mobile OS, says that the iPhone's announcement forced everyone on his team to realize that they 'are going to have to start over.'

Already in intensive development for two years by 2007, Android was Google's vision for a mobile operating system of the future. Still, in spite of all the work that had already gone into it, the Mountain View company was sure it couldn't carry on along the trajectory it'd been following — the earliest Android devices looked very much like Googlified BlackBerrys — and had to alter its plans to compete with the iPhone's new touch-centric interface. A book excerpt in The Atlantic cites Andy Rubin, who led the early development of Android, as saying "I guess we’re not going to ship that phone," in reference to the Sooner project Google was initially planning to reveal to the world."

https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/20/5229618/android-started-...

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#175

Post by Kalium » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

oflannabhra wrote: post #11

> ...this is a time when Amazon is pushing innovations that don’t solve any real-world problems but may create some: like smart speakers, with their threat of big brother-style surveillance in exchange for a minimal increase in convenience, or complex and expensive cashierless stores that won’t deliver much of an improvement to our shopping experience but may cost underprivileged people their jobs. This is a time whe…

> That is a really pointed indictment of our current industry. Wow.

Is it? I read it as a series of attacks from someone who thought the status quo was just fine, and doesn't actually understand the value being delivered. Since they don't understand it, there must not be any. Since there isn't any value and it just hurts vulnerable people, it must just be callous evil.

For example, Amazon's cashierless store sounds great to me! I absolutely loathe the forced smalltalk of dealing with cashiers. I adore automated checkouts.

And Amazon has been amazing for driving down prices on daily goods. I'm happy to see them expand into something like grocery stores where high prices are a problem for everyone.

Grocery store checkout jobs are not a basic human right that should be immune to attack. Neither are content producer business models.

This isn't an indictment. It's an expression of incomprehension.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#176

Post by scarface74 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #163

scarface74 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what can't you "tinker" with that you would like on OS X - a certified Unix operating system?

> So what can't you "tinker" with that you would like on OS X - The kernel (yes, there's Darwin — I don't believe it's possible to replace a working macOS kernel with my own build) - The window manager - The Finder - Cocoa - Safari - XCode (although I believe some components are open source) - iMessage - Facetime

The Window Manager - nothing stopping you from using XWindows.

The Finder - it's just a file manager, what's stopping you from using any other file manager?

Cocoa - is just a Framework for building Mac apps. Nothing stopping you from using another Framework

Xcode - just an IDE on top of open source build tools.

IMessage - just a messaging program. Nothing stopping you from using another messaging program.

FaceTime - just video chat, nothing stopping you from using another video chat.

So what part of the "kernel" are you trying to replace and to add what functionality?

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#177

Post by tokyodude » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #113

pier25 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it really points to how rarely an innovation like the iPhone really occurs Yeah, but don't forget that the pieces to be able to create the iPhone had to be there first.

The innovation of the iPhone was in the execution. The ideas were around, along with a ton of failed attempts at it. A computer in your pocket had been an idea for decades. Apple made one that a critical mass of people could/would actually use.

I am still not convinced. I had Windows CE pocket computer in 1998 and several others after. They all start up just like an iPhone with a grid of icons to tap on. The only thing missing from them vs iPhone for me at the time was a good data connection. They didn't exist except for more than I was willing to pay.

I'm not saying the iPhone wasn't amazingly better in execution and had great design. What I'm rather saying is if Apple hadn't released when they did with in a year or two the existing PDAs would have gotten cellular added and it would have been far clearer to everyone the progression was from PDA -> iPhone, an incremental step, rather than the more common mis-conception of feature phone -> iPhone that everyone mis-interprets as coming out of nowhere. There's a long history of PDAs before iPhone and if you take any one of them the jump to iPhone is not nearly as big a jump as people make out.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#178

Post by fhood » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #150

MBCook wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long do you think it would have taken? Seriously? It took Google a few years to catch up having their massive resources and Apple as a guidepost. RIM had no incentive, they were trying to lock you into the BB server product and tried to get consumers on it to. The phone was a means to an end. MS wanted to push Windows. They’d been trying since CE first appeared and it still didn’t take off. As long as Balmer was…

It would take exactly a year for Google to clean up Android enough. They had to scram because iPhone just outran them. About the only major thing iPhone brought was direct carrier deals from AT&T and Verizon for big data plans. Also lost the keyboard. (Not the first device to do so either.)

The iPhone did no "outrun" them. They weren't even in the same race. When the iPhone came out Google did a massive overhaul of android in order to emulate the iPhone. Prior to that android was meant to look like blackberry.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#179

Post by Retric » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #148

IncRnd wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first implementation of a smart phone was likely the LG Prada not the iPhone.

I dunno. The LG Prada deserved credit for being the first (mainstream?) phone with a capacitive touchscreen, but I think if you're really looking for a spiritual predecessor to the iPhone, so to speak, then -- assuming you don't allow PDAs with phone functionality, like Handspring's line -- the Danger Hiptop, a/k/a T-Mobile Sidekick, is probably much closer. The Prada looks much more like an iPhone but the Hiptop/Sid…

LG Proda had a capactive touchscreen, but it failed to use it. You simply pressed virtual buttons instead of using gestures. Pinch to zoom might not seem like a big deal but it's something that iPhone got right and everyone copied.

Another issue is LG Proda stuck with J2ME instead of offering native apps.

So, the Proda was close, but it really missed the mark. IMO, the fact it took 4 years to after the hardware was possible before the iPHone showed up shows how significant the innovation actually was.

Re: Apple is a traditional business

#180

Post by mygo » Wed, May 02, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

Aditya_Garg wrote: post #18

gf263 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to pay anymore.

Actually, if you don't pay the developer fee, you can only install 2 apps per apple account and they get deactivated in a week. If you do pay, I think its unlimited apps and a 3 month long period before they get deactivated.

not true. I’ve written a couple personal apps that sync with health kit data collected from my Apple Watch and nutrition apps to help me track things in a way that is useful for my fitness goals. In 2016-2027 I used these apps to put on 30 lbs and stay relatively lean but I’ve never wanted to publish them in the app store. I don’t pay for any developer program. Just need to download some (free) developer tools / SDK for XCode, build the source, and put it on my phone. The install is tethered, but afterwards it stays there until I delete it. Restarting the phone doesn’t delete the app either. Only time I needed to re-install was when my 5s crapped out and I had to get a new phone.