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Only Apple

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Re: Only Apple

#71

Post by MAGZine »

coldtea wrote: post #62
malandrew wrote: post #52

This is largely true, but it draws the playing field Apple wants you to see. There is a large part of the playing field that is omitted, cloud, the web and the Internet in general. And this playing field alone is as important as all the playing fields Apple is competent in combined. Apple is second to last in that respect. Google and Amazon both understand the web a whole heck of a lot better than Apple. Only Samsung…

> Google and Amazon both understand the web a whole heck of a lot better than Apple I really doubt this. Google yes. Amazon no. What has Amazon did that shows it "gets" the Cloud? It has its one (and that's it) highly succesful store front (which is like a Google that only offered the search service). That's is, as far as the Cloud goes for Amazon. As for AWS, the do get cloud infrastructure and services to developer…

I disagree.

Kindle is a shining example of this.

Apple on the other hand... well, they created iTunes... but that's really the only "cloud" technology that they have besides the actual iCloud (hosted on AWS, possibly?). Apple has shown that they struggle when creating web experiences for customer. Remember ping.fm?

Re: Only Apple

#72

Post by malandrew »

coldtea wrote: post #62
malandrew wrote: post #52

This is largely true, but it draws the playing field Apple wants you to see. There is a large part of the playing field that is omitted, cloud, the web and the Internet in general. And this playing field alone is as important as all the playing fields Apple is competent in combined. Apple is second to last in that respect. Google and Amazon both understand the web a whole heck of a lot better than Apple. Only Samsung…

> Google and Amazon both understand the web a whole heck of a lot better than Apple I really doubt this. Google yes. Amazon no. What has Amazon did that shows it "gets" the Cloud? It has its one (and that's it) highly succesful store front (which is like a Google that only offered the search service). That's is, as far as the Cloud goes for Amazon. As for AWS, the do get cloud infrastructure and services to developer…

There are different layers of the cloud: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.

The only layer Apple gets is SaaS and really only for its own apps/services. Apple keeps trying to do PaaS, but the anti-decentralization and specifically wall-garden approach of a seemless experience across all your Apple devices, but a sometimes intentionally crippled experience across other devices you own and a certainly deficient experience with devices owned by others with whom you may want to share an experience, Apple will always be second fiddle.

They might be able to get somewhere with HealthKit, since AFAICT, that may be largely a single-player experience (at least for a while). HomeKit on the other hand is a different story. The moment you move to a household with more than one person, they will need to either play nicely with other devices not their own or become increasingly seen as irrelevant. HomeKit only working with Apple devices is a dealbreaker for every home with at least one resident using a non-Apple device. Now that Android has a comparable experience to Apple, that's a fairly common phenomenon.

Google understands PaaS and SaaS.

Amazon understands IaaS and PaaS.

Re: Only Apple

#73

Post by malandrew »

MAGZine wrote: post #71
coldtea wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google and Amazon both understand the web a whole heck of a lot better than Apple I really doubt this. Google yes. Amazon no. What has Amazon did that shows it "gets" the Cloud? It has its one (and that's it) highly succesful store front (which is like a Google that only offered the search service). That's is, as far as the Cloud goes for Amazon. As for AWS, the do get cloud infrastructure and services to developer…

I disagree. Kindle is a shining example of this. Apple on the other hand... well, they created iTunes... but that's really the only "cloud" technology that they have besides the actual iCloud (hosted on AWS, possibly?). Apple has shown that they struggle when creating web experiences for customer. Remember ping.fm?

Exactly.

And iTunes worked for three reasons: (1) it's a single player experience; (2) the iPod; (3) DRM lock-in (there is no longer lock-in, but only for songs purchased after the date lock-in was expired. iTunes Match was a service added to maintain lock-in after DRM-free music was announced.)

Re: Only Apple

#75

Post by Glide »

song wrote: post #61

> Apple has proceeded from being OK at walking and chewing gum to being good at it. That may be so but honestly the last release of OS X that really worked for me was snow leopard. Just as a quick list of common well known issues with Mavericks that I have and I'm not the only one to have... - Sometimes when I plug in my headphone, there's a bug and audio stops working instead of switching to the headphone. The only…

Btw, I have a coworker that has the external screen problem and he's had it crash 4 times in a day. He had to take it to the Apple store because it's a hardware issue.

Re: Only Apple

#76

Post by curun1r »

markdown wrote: post #17
sscalia wrote: post #7

I find it hard to argue with any of the points he makes. I'm sure someone here will, but I found myself doing the mental "gulp of air and raising a finger" then getting silenced again. I really wish Microsoft had pulled off Windows Phone; it arguably had a much better user experience than Android did (and still does) -- and interesting Nokia hardware. I simply don't believe Google has the best interests of anyone at…

> I simply don't believe Google has the best interests of anyone at heart except themselves and advertisers. You think Apple has your interests at heart? Or Microsoft? Like Google, they have your cash at heart. Not a thing more.

No, it's very much different than Google. Google doesn't have your cash at heart. They've largely been uninterested in your cash. The cash they do care about is that of the advertisers that use their platform. Apple is unapologetically interested in your money and less interested in impinging on people's privacy.

We can argue over which model is preferable to users, with may preferring to pay and others preferring the sponsored option, but you can't really say that Apple and Google are equivalent.

People like to frame the Apple vs Google battle as one of openness vs closed-ness, of an ecosystem with many participants vs a walled garden with just Apple. But I see it far more as a battle over how we choose to pay for technology...directly or indirectly.

Re: Only Apple

#77

Post by IBM »

Todd wrote: post #70

Sorry to disagree with Gruber, but I don't think a set of devices made by one company is the future. It's always been Apple's play, in part because of the consistency of experience that it affords them, but it also let's them off the hook on the hard problems--device interop, working with varied OEMs, etc. Whether open (Google) or closed (Microsoft), platforms that run on multiple OEM devices are the right way forwar…

>Whether open (Google) or closed (Microsoft), platforms that run on multiple OEM devices are the right way forward. I don't know about others, but I don't want to live in a world where my only option to control my house, car, and life is to go to an Apple store. At least Google and Microsoft give us some choices.

Platforms that run on multiple OEMs might be good, but you haven't proven that. Those choices would be good if they actually delivered a better experience than Apple's vertical integration. It doesn't matter to me (or any other end user) that its harder for Google or Microsoft to deliver a good experience with their strategy. That's their problem and something of their own choosing, so they don't get any points for that.

Re: Only Apple

#78

Post by vacri »

seiji wrote: post #20
markdown wrote: post #11

I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. Company A does this and Company B does that and these two are a little similar but not really and this other Company wants this but can't get it. Only this Company. Yeah not that Company. See I figured all this out; see how smart I am? Now and then on a lazy sunday morning with a cuppa in hand and the business news in my lap, I sink in…

I don't get what the significance of this post is, and why it is at the top of HN. It's a thoughtful and timely analysis about the most important company currently in existence which many people routinely fail to understand or simply dismiss out of hand due to preexisting prejudice or misplaced nerd allegiance.

"the most important company currently in existence" ... "misplaced nerd allegiance"

Having the most liquid assets does not mean that the company is the most important company. If Apple disappeared tomorrow, the world would go on without a hiccough. They are glitzy and glamourous and yes, influential, but there are more important companies out there - particularly in transport or essential services.

Edit: Updated for the benefit of eridius. The point does not change at all.

Re: Only Apple

#79

Post by thrownaway2424 »

coldtea wrote: post #65
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #19

Gruber waves off the other players' devices or operating systems, but takes Apple's web services / cloud infrastructure as a given. Here in reality, Apple's web services are atrocious. Weirdly implemented, slow, and frequently unavailable backend services are not a healthy part of the triad that Gruber is proposing.

> Weirdly implemented, slow, and frequently unavailable backend services Well, they do have the #1 app store, a syncing/backup service used by half a billion people, and the #1 music store in the world (per profit / people). Oh, and a huge music storage service. I don't find iCloud or iTunes or the App Store slow myself. And I'm tens of thousands of miles from the US, and thousands of miles from a decent latency ISP.…

Last time I tried to download a television show on iTunes it took 40 minutes before the iPad thought it was sufficiently buffered to begin playback. That was on my local 5GHz 802.11n backhauled over 100mbps cable. Every time I want to watch something on Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, or Google Play they all start more or less instantly.

I would argue that Google also has a superior app store buying experience, in at least one aspect, that I can use any web browser to install apps onto any of my phones, the usual example being I can install an app on my phone by selecting it in Chrome on my iMac.

As for the rest of their cloud, the "frequently unavailable" thing I am referring to is APNS, which seems to suffer from complete unreachability at least quarterly. This seems to have something to do with their flailover from their east coast to their west coast datacenter.

Re: Only Apple

#80

Post by coldtea »

markdown wrote: post #17
sscalia wrote: post #7

I find it hard to argue with any of the points he makes. I'm sure someone here will, but I found myself doing the mental "gulp of air and raising a finger" then getting silenced again. I really wish Microsoft had pulled off Windows Phone; it arguably had a much better user experience than Android did (and still does) -- and interesting Nokia hardware. I simply don't believe Google has the best interests of anyone at…

> I simply don't believe Google has the best interests of anyone at heart except themselves and advertisers. You think Apple has your interests at heart? Or Microsoft? Like Google, they have your cash at heart. Not a thing more.

>Like Google, they have your cash at heart. Not a thing more.

For one, they could get the same or even more cash with far more crappier products (marketed more, altered to satisfy pundits, relax design and build requirements to cash-in on the Apple brand, etc). Nobody would have taken offense if they built a heavier, bulkier, plastic MacBook Air, with a DVD drive even and VGA ports and visible seams -- but they wanted to do things their was.

Second, wanting my cash is good. Because I get to be the judge when to give my cash, and I give it when I see things I want and like ("shut up and take my money"). Google, on the other hand, wants the advertisers' cash, which means they could not care less about me in lots of areas (except the area of seeing their ads).

So Apple might not have "my interests" at heart, but they are allowed by their management to take more pride in what they build than other companies, where the bottom line dictates more decisions.

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