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You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

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Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#81

Post by MattRix »

Ok, as an iPhone + iPad app developer (I created Trainyard), and as a Flash developer who has created a PlayBook app, and as a fellow Canadian, I feel I should weigh in on this.

Despite the whiny tone and bizarre "Bueller?" moments, there were a bunch of valid points made. Yes, the amount of forms you have to fill out is ridiculous. Yes, the fact that the simulator .iso has an installer is crazy. With those things, I absolutely agree with you. They're just silly... but they're also not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

It took me less than 2 hours from when I decided I wanted to make a Playbook app to when I had something running in the simulator. You're correct that the iOS SDK is easier to get started with, and it's only a single download... but it's also 3.5 gigs, every single time. I'll take three 100mb downloads over a 3.5 gig download any day.

Ok, as for the cost of things... You only need to pay for VMWare if you're on a Mac, on a PC it's free. I've talked to some guys at RIM about this, and they said they were trying to work out a deal with VMWare to make it free for Mac users as well.

There's no more $200 fee. I don't know why anyone still brings it up. The 10 app limit is a GOOD THING, and keep in mind that you're also getting a 100% free Playbook if you make an app right now, surely that's gotta be worth something.

As for the notary thing, I'm guessing that's because of the free Playbook offer. They don't want to give away 10 Playbooks to the same guy. If you're a company, Apple's process is even more painful. You actually have to snail-mail all your forms in and wait until they get them before you can publish anything.

All the other complaints were just petty. Who cares about the IP address and the password? That stuff takes 2 minutes to figure out.

There are a lots of positives about developing for Playbook that you didn't mention. For example, an interesting (and not well-known fact) is that application updates do not require approval on App World. That's a huge plus over iOS in my book.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it.

TLDR: You definitely had some good points, but the rest of it got blown WAY out of proportion.

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#82

Post by Stormbringer »

terhechte wrote: post #36
leon_ wrote: post #22

Hmm, I expected something ... well ... something really bad. But it looks like the guy has just a very thin skin. I'm an iPhone developer who signed up with the program as soon as it became available and I can tell you: Becoming an iPhone developer was a major PITA. It started with the registration (Apple let you wait for weeks after you purchased the membership), then with taxes formalities (as a non us-citizen I ha…

I've also been an iPhone Dev right from the start and I didn't find it that difficult. Sure, the provisioning stuff took some hours, and uploading an app to an actual device was as simply as clicking 'build & run'. Publishing an app was a tad more difficult, what with the distribution profile and whatnot, but the developer in question didn't even get that far with RIM.

Dude. The documentation for configuring your provisioning profiles and other faffing around was 60 pages long. If you messed up any single step in the 60 page long process you had to go back to the start.

Also, yes, everything was love and kittens for North American devs, but the process was (and still is) a major PITA for devs outside of NA.

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#83

Post by Xuzz »

laujen wrote: post #70
lallysingh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly as an ex-indie PalmOS developer, I'm having trouble being sympathetic. I don't do blackberry myself, and don't have any particular affection for RIM, but this is just a little much. As I understand, RIM's gonna do all the fulfillment & billing for you in the app store? This is the SDK for an unreleased product? On a new, unreleased OS? On a different architecture than your dev machine? Yeah, it may require s…

As an old Palm OS developer and someone who wrote code for BlackBerry OS, I can tell you that BlackBerry is much much much much worse than Palm OS ever was.

As someone who, at one point, tried to write for Palm OS: wow, that must be awful.

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#84

Post by jarek »

icarus_drowning wrote: post #55
jarek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the requirement to get VMware Fusion Mac-specific? Might as well complain about not being able to write iOS applications on Windows.

This is a fair point, but its a fair point that completely misses the point. If RIM wants to attract the huge numbers of developers that are flocking to iOS (and, presumably, doing all of their dev work in OS X), they should be doing everything possible to make the switch from iOS development to Playbook development as smooth as possible. And there is no way to do that without addressing the question of Playbook deve…

Maybe they want to attract the huger-still number of developers who aren't flocking to iOS. It's obvious they won't get the rock star developers, but there's a lot more non-rock stars. How is the experience on Windows?

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#85

Post by jarek »

Locke1689 wrote: post #79
jarek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except iPhone OS was also different back when Symbian was the market leader and Blackberry was the #2. People complained then. It still rose.

False dichotomy. Everyone knew that RIM and Nokia weren't even playing the same game. This is clear from the fact that neither had App Stores. You'll also remember that when the iPhone was introduced there was only web development, meaning iPhones had no special restrictions.

Native applications and the App Store were introduced in iPhone 3G / iPhone OS 2.0, when iPhone was still far from being the bestseller it is now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_sales_per_quarter_s...

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#86

Post by cgislason »

MattRix wrote: post #81

Ok, as an iPhone + iPad app developer (I created Trainyard), and as a Flash developer who has created a PlayBook app, and as a fellow Canadian, I feel I should weigh in on this. Despite the whiny tone and bizarre "Bueller?" moments, there were a bunch of valid points made. Yes, the amount of forms you have to fill out is ridiculous. Yes, the fact that the simulator .iso has an installer is crazy. With those things, I…

I think it all comes down to lack of polish. Even in the early days, the iPhone SDK was leagues above the Playbook SDK in terms of polish. My personal anecdote is that the tools only run on 64 bit Macs but I could find no mention of that in the documentation. It was not a big deal, but these things add up. The free Playbook offer will probably help more than a few developers look past these flaws and try it out.

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#88

Post by jammur »

MattRix wrote: post #81

Ok, as an iPhone + iPad app developer (I created Trainyard), and as a Flash developer who has created a PlayBook app, and as a fellow Canadian, I feel I should weigh in on this. Despite the whiny tone and bizarre "Bueller?" moments, there were a bunch of valid points made. Yes, the amount of forms you have to fill out is ridiculous. Yes, the fact that the simulator .iso has an installer is crazy. With those things, I…

Thanks for the response Matt. As the author, I'm gonna have to disagree about the whiny tone, haha, but obviously you have the right to your own interpretation. I realize the Bueller thing probably came across as bizarre if you're not familiar with the reference (to Ferris Bueller's Day Off), in this case it just kinda means "What? No response?".

The wording on RIM's site sure made it seem like the $200 fee would be coming at some point, so as a new Blackberry developer, I'm not sure you can fault me for not having the inside track on RIM's policies. If they don't want people to get turned off by the prospect of a $200 fee, I would suggest they take it off their registration page.

Overall, you are correct though. I did mention a lot of little things. But a lot of little problems add up to a big problem, especially when those problems aren't an issue with RIM's competitors. You have to keep in mind that RIM is not operating in a bubble. They are the underdog in a race where Apple and Google are pretty far ahead in terms of developer mind share. If they want to lure developers to the platform, putting out inferior tools and processes is not going to help them at all. The underdog never wins by maintaining the status quo.

And come on Matt, where's the national solidarity? We Canucks gotta stick together! :)

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#89

Post by MattRix »

cgislason wrote: post #86
MattRix wrote: post #81

Ok, as an iPhone + iPad app developer (I created Trainyard), and as a Flash developer who has created a PlayBook app, and as a fellow Canadian, I feel I should weigh in on this. Despite the whiny tone and bizarre "Bueller?" moments, there were a bunch of valid points made. Yes, the amount of forms you have to fill out is ridiculous. Yes, the fact that the simulator .iso has an installer is crazy. With those things, I…

I think it all comes down to lack of polish. Even in the early days, the iPhone SDK was leagues above the Playbook SDK in terms of polish. My personal anecdote is that the tools only run on 64 bit Macs but I could find no mention of that in the documentation. It was not a big deal, but these things add up. The free Playbook offer will probably help more than a few developers look past these flaws and try it out.

I absolutely agree, although the iPhone SDK was pretty rough when it started too. Keep in mind that Apple had a massive head start in that department, even at that point, because they'd been putting out OSX developer tools for years.

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#90

Post by MattRix »

jammur wrote: post #88
MattRix wrote: post #81

Ok, as an iPhone + iPad app developer (I created Trainyard), and as a Flash developer who has created a PlayBook app, and as a fellow Canadian, I feel I should weigh in on this. Despite the whiny tone and bizarre "Bueller?" moments, there were a bunch of valid points made. Yes, the amount of forms you have to fill out is ridiculous. Yes, the fact that the simulator .iso has an installer is crazy. With those things, I…

Thanks for the response Matt. As the author, I'm gonna have to disagree about the whiny tone, haha, but obviously you have the right to your own interpretation. I realize the Bueller thing probably came across as bizarre if you're not familiar with the reference (to Ferris Bueller's Day Off), in this case it just kinda means "What? No response?". The wording on RIM's site sure made it seem like the $200 fee would be…

All I meant about the whiny tone is that it seemed like it was written in a bit of a sensationalist way, rather than giving both sides of the story. That being said, your intention was to get RIM's attention, and so I think the sensational tone paid off, because it's here on Hacker News and on DF :)

Hah, I know Ferris Bueller, so I get the joke, don't worry, I just thought it seemed redundant after the first one.

I agree that it's way easier to get an app running in the Simulator with iOS development, but to actually test apps on a device, and publish to the App Store, it's an awful process. Apple's been working to improve it a lot in the past year, but it's still pretty painful.

To be honest I think RIM is just trying to make a giant transition. Keep in mind that all the Playbook stuff came from QNX, so I imagine it's a bit of a nightmare merging it all that stuff into RIM's bizarre system. There's a ton of room for improvement, but it actually works quite well once you get it all set up. I think that was part of the idea with the free Playbook offer, trying to make up the gap between themselves and Apple/Google.

RIM's also tapping into the unloved but massive group of Flash Developers out there. You're gonna see a ton of apps from developers that haven't made apps before. These are developers for whom the App Store really isn't an option. A ton of the apps will be total crap (just like on the App Store), but there'll be some gems too. Having used the device myself, I can safely say that the hardware and the OS are solid, and so if the apps are good too, RIM will be doing very well, and the process will only get better.

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