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Fertile Ground

marco.org

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Re: Fertile Ground

#121

Post by bennyg »

jbail wrote: post #2

"iOS 7 is different. It isn’t just a new skin: it introduces entirely new navigational and structural standards..." Beyond the parallax effect, what are these new navigation and structural changes? I'm not trolling here, I'm genuinely curious. I'm about to build a new iOS app and I did not see major navigation or structural changes that would drastically affect how I design an app's UI or UX.

SpriteKit is going to be huge. Expect about a year of getting developers ready with it, and good at it, then Apple TV may have something awesome for us.

Re: Fertile Ground

#122

Post by nsp »

dannyr wrote: post #106
jowiar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not saying it's a great thing for users - he's saying it's a great thing for developers looking to enter a crowded space, because there will be some room to enter the market targeting only iOS 7 while established players are figuring out how to juggle the multiple OS versions.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the author. Marco talked down on Android for years because of its fragmentation. It's just hypocritical that it's only good if it happens on iOS. In one of the Google IO talks, Google has been encouraging developers to develop only on 4.0 and above. To quote, "go to where the puck is going" and "develop the best app possible for every phone".

iOS's 'fragmentation' between ios6 and 7 is totally different than androids because its temporary. There'll be a few month period where established apps haven't updated their ui. iOS has insanely quick (in comparison to other OSes) adoption rates. 15% of devices upgraded to ios6 within 24 hours of release, 50% two weeks out, etc.[1]

So there will be apps with the old ui for people running ios7 who will decide to look for a new thing to do X for the first time in years and thus a market opportunity. Whereas with android, the problem is that phones overwhelming remain on the OS they shipped with. It's not a matter of waiting 3 weeks for a fitting ui, it's that you have to develop for a 1-3 year old OS or write off half the market. [1] lost url because I'm writing this on ios7 and it's pretty goddamn buggy, but it looks like others have provided it

Re: Fertile Ground

#123

Post by ghshephard »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #68
ghshephard wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would, of course, prefer something like, "iOS 7 reset creates new opportunities for Developers" or "iOS reboot creates conditions ripe for disruption" or, .... Honestly - "Fertile Ground" is a pretty damn good title. I can already imagine people casually discussing it at WWDC "Did you catch Marco's "Fertile Ground" post?"

I would be happy with "Apple's iOS 7 is Fertile Ground", "Hands-On with Google Glass", and "Two I's for Productivity: Interesting and Important Tasks". Of course, these have all lost their Zen master cachet, but for me that's a distinct advantage. Good writing doesn't need to be cool.

Agreed that good writing should be clear, and, most importantly, effectively communicate.

The best writers put a lot of effort into their titles - great example is Gruber - http://daringfireball.net/archive/

He has a lot of titles like, "Mountain Lion" and "Walter Isaacson’s ‘Steve Jobs’ " and "You Do Not Need to Manually Manage iOS Multitasking " but he also mixes things up (in a positive manner, I would argue), with, "I’ma Set It Straight, This Watergate " (about iBooks Author not following standards for eBooks), and "Get the Fainting Chair" - about Google being shocked by Apple not renewing their license for Google Maps on the new iPhone.

I guess it's unfortunate that Blogs don't have subtitles.

Re: Fertile Ground

#124

Post by shinratdr »

cheald wrote: post #43

So when Android is fragmented, it is awful and is the reason the platform sucks. When iOS is fragmented, it's innovative and fresh, masterfully executed to bring new opportunities to developers. Got it.

How do you even draw such a connection in your head? Nobody once, ever, has said that the new UI that came with ICS was a bad thing. The problem is that even now, years later, the most in-use Android version is three years old.

Android fragmentation is about VERSIONS. APIs, bug fixes, security updates, and available features to a lesser extent. It has NOTHING to do with look and feel. At all. This tactic from Android fans is sad. Just expand the definition of fragmentation until it no longer means anything.

Ridiculous. When 90% of devices are using the latest OS within a year of release, trying to call that fragmentation is complete bullshit. No platform in history has been able to tout those kinds of upgrade numbers, and it's a distinct advantage for both users and developers.

Re: Fertile Ground

#125

Post by cheald »

ghshephard wrote: post #65
cheald wrote: post #43

So when Android is fragmented, it is awful and is the reason the platform sucks. When iOS is fragmented, it's innovative and fresh, masterfully executed to bring new opportunities to developers. Got it.

Android Fragmentation is a problem because what version do you write your application for? 2.3? 4.0? Ideally 4.1/4.2, but that will miss 70% of your market who CAN'T upgrade because their Telco is not offering 4.1/4.2. Not because their hardware can't support it. Anybody on an iPhone 4, 4S, or 5 who wants an iOS 7 app, can have it within a day of the iOS 7 release. The downside of offering only one major phone a year…

No, you write for the minimum API level your app requires. In a lot of cases, this is 2.3.3! If you want to target a wide audience and still use some 3.0/4.0 features, there are nifty polyfills available, too. Google is further improving this by extracting many of the super useful APIs out into a version-agnostic package that is updated independent of carrier say-so. Your API level 10 apps will run quite happily on Gingerbread, Honeycomb, and JB devices. Furthermore, Google supports multiple APK deployments, so you can actually build your application with different features for different API levels, and publish them under the same entry in the Play store; each device is routed to the proper APK.

However, despite all of this, you are talking about the exact same thing that Marco is. He says you "ideally" want to target iOS7, but you can't afford to do so if it means cutting out your iOS6 users. His conjecture is that since the established players are stuck on iOS6 (Gingerbread), the up-and-comers will have a shot to disrupt the market among the iOS7 (Jelly Bean) users. The assertion, flat out, is that "the big players being unable to upgrade their iOS6 software to meet iOS7 standards due to legacy support requirements is good for the app ecosystem", which is a pure RDF spin on the whole fragmentation issue that the Apple ecosystem loves talking about so much.

Re: Fertile Ground

#126

Post by cheald »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #36
btipling wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for all those not so old iPhones that are stuck on iOS 6 forever.

You mean the four year old non-retina iphone 3gs? I think it's safe to take that device behind the barn to retire forever. Few tears will be shed.

Howsabout my 9-month-old iPod Touch 4g?

Re: Fertile Ground

#127

Post by alayne »

cheald wrote: post #43

So when Android is fragmented, it is awful and is the reason the platform sucks. When iOS is fragmented, it's innovative and fresh, masterfully executed to bring new opportunities to developers. Got it.

It's not even comparable. Android has many more levels of fragmentation than iOS ever will and Google knows that they screwed up. You have display resolution * display density * OS version * carrier OS modifications * device hardware (hard keyboard/buttons/trackpad/...).

Re: Fertile Ground

#128

Post by shinratdr »

In case you've ever wondered why Marco frequently dismisses the Hacker News community, the comments on this article are a fantastic example. Never has "give it five minute" been more apt.

Re: Fertile Ground

#129

Post by ISL »

jmduke wrote: post #58
forrestthewoods wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the four year old non-retina iphone 3gs? I think it's safe to take that device behind the barn to retire forever. Few tears will be shed.

I don't like the idea that four years is a prohibitively long time for a device that I spend hundreds of dollars on.

No need to spend hundreds of dollars; just sit behind the curve a little bit. Spent $68 on an Optimus S with Ting a year ago, and it gets everything I need to do done at less than the cost of my Verizon dumbphone contract. It's as fast as the computer I took to college not that many years ago, and I got a lot done on that. Battery runs for days too, even with considerable use.

Looking forward to upgrading to an S2 or S3 when prices drop to frivolity. A larger screen will be nice.

Tools needn't be new nor flashy to be powerful.

Re: Fertile Ground

#130

Post by cheald »

shinratdr wrote: post #124
cheald wrote: post #43

So when Android is fragmented, it is awful and is the reason the platform sucks. When iOS is fragmented, it's innovative and fresh, masterfully executed to bring new opportunities to developers. Got it.

How do you even draw such a connection in your head? Nobody once, ever, has said that the new UI that came with ICS was a bad thing. The problem is that even now, years later, the most in-use Android version is three years old. Android fragmentation is about VERSIONS. APIs, bug fixes, security updates, and available features to a lesser extent. It has NOTHING to do with look and feel. At all. This tactic from Android…

Did you read the post?

Fragmentation is about your userbase being split across incompatible platforms and the paralyzing effect that has on development, which is precisely what Marco was lauding as a good thing in this post.

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