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Fear of Apple

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Re: Fear of Apple

#81

Post by ctdonath »

m3rc wrote: post #44
ctdonath wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often see the same pattern in both directions on hot-button topics. There's a burst of short comments from those more emotionally for/against something, with the total score absolute value (up/down voting) becoming large enough to get the attention of the greater number of more thoughtful opposing-view people who aren't so wound up about it upvote & write longer comments, first to counteract the initial burst, and…

doesn't "pushing buttons others agree need pushing" just mean "participating in an echo chamber"?

No. There may be a broad range of participants; sometimes those holding one view may stay quiet about it, but then find reason to rally behind someone promoting/defending it.

Re: Fear of Apple

#82

Post by shimfish »

firloop wrote: post #56

This article summarizes the epitome of my experience as an Apple developer. I'm 17 years old and a developer on the app store. The App Store feels opaque and like a black box where I submit builds with little to no feedback or control. I get paid when Apple decides, and could be eradicated from the App Store at a moment's notice. I realized early on that being featured by Apple was unlikely, and have adopted a sustai…

Can't you direct users to the "report a problem" link in the email receipt that Apple sends to them? That's how I've always dealt with users wanting a refund on iTunes.

Re: Fear of Apple

#83

Post by jusben1369 »

engendered wrote: post #63
kaolinite wrote: post #59

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was following quite closely when Marco Arment's article was published and the storm erupted around it. Marco's comments have totally been taken out of context here: the reason he regretted publishing the article was not out of fear of Apple primarily but because many publications took it and used it to justify the "Apple is doomed" narrative which Marco personally doesn't agree with. He was quite…

but because many publications took it and used it to justify the "Apple is doomed" narrative which Marco personally doesn't agree with Show me one. Just one single example. I'll wait. EDIT: Chuckle. A mod bomb on this benign post. Cool. ... You're not going to find one. The hit piece/exaggerated/"doomed" noise is a defensive fiction. Nothing was taken out of context (does anyone actually disagree with the observation…

I gave you an upvote to try and offset the flurry. I think you're both right. My sense was Marco did regret writing it not because of fear of a Black Apple planet but rather because it became a tool for people to attack Apple with "If Marco the fanboi is concerned then wow!" So the original author is misconstruing it by representing it as being fear of Apple. And I think you're right that Marco's exasperation wasn't with the "If Steve Jobs was alive" crowd. He was just taken aback because he unleashed a wave of pent up criticism against Apple from others in the tech community who like Marco are generally very positive towards Apple. It was like he signaled to others that it was time to air grievances that had been building.

Re: Fear of Apple

#84

Post by litso »

Apps behave the same way that other kinds of media does online:

1. sell for rock bottom prices 2. become a hit or don't 3. their popularity if any is short lived and highest when they debut

It may be the case that Apple is fine with this phenomenon, but its a pretty big leap to say they are creating it.

Re: Fear of Apple

#85

Post by nothrabannosir »

shimfish wrote: post #77
nothrabannosir wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is (always) this assumption. For example, the author in this article tries to focus on the objective issues with the App Store, rather than who owes whom what. Perhaps not perfectly, but, afai can see, he tries. Sure, Apple being the gatekeeper, it's easy to take criticism of the App Store as criticism of Apple. It's also easy to slip into criticizing Apple while criticizing the App Store. Fundame…

My point is that it seems entirely probable that there is no fix. What exactly are you suggesting that Apple could do to level the playing field any more?

Not me in particular, but there have been many suggestions:

* Allow competing stores (like Android)

* Allow customers to install raw packages (like Android)

* Improve their search engine to "not be completely useless"

* Fairer algorithm for featured apps

Etc. This is not my list, it's just some of the common suggestions I hear for improving the App Store.

Re: Fear of Apple

#86

Post by aikah »

pasta_2 wrote: post #60

I love that coders are all worried about their "craft" being devalued while these are the very same people that will unironically tell music artists that they should sell t-shirts and to do concerts. Well my friends, like the music industry it's time to adapt. It's time to start selling t-shirts.

was thinking exactly the same. "Spotify not paying enough ? stop complainingf,just go sell tshirts ...",well too bad, soon "app developers" will earn as little peny as I earn with Spotify.

Re: Fear of Apple

#87

Post by krschultz »

shimfish wrote: post #24

While I agree with the basic thrust of the article (Apple is not your friend, is often vindictive in response to criticism and could do more to help developers), I always feel when reading App Store articles that there's quite an odd underlying assumption, namely that Apple somehow owes all developers a living and has it within its power to achieve this if only it wanted. Please correct me if my history is wrong but…

Prior to mobile becoming popular, the two ecosystem models were desktop computers and gaming consoles.

On the desktop there are no gate keepers. There may be aggregators and bundlers, but no one prevents you from installing anything you want on a Windows, Linux, or Mac computer.

On the consoles developers were beholden to Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sega, etc.

The question was whether mobile would follow the desktop model or the console model. Clearly, they have gone the way of the console. Even though there are alternative app stores on Android, they haven't caught on much.

I agree that Apple doesn't "owe" the ISVs anything, but I think it's bad for our the progress of tech as a whole that Apple has an incentive to commoditize their compliments AND has control of the only real way to distribute apps on iOS.

Re: Fear of Apple

#88

Post by ChrisLTD »

shimfish wrote: post #77
nothrabannosir wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is (always) this assumption. For example, the author in this article tries to focus on the objective issues with the App Store, rather than who owes whom what. Perhaps not perfectly, but, afai can see, he tries. Sure, Apple being the gatekeeper, it's easy to take criticism of the App Store as criticism of Apple. It's also easy to slip into criticizing Apple while criticizing the App Store. Fundame…

My point is that it seems entirely probable that there is no fix. What exactly are you suggesting that Apple could do to level the playing field any more?

There are a lot of ideas out there (and in the article) Apple could implement. Here's a few I remember off the top of my head:

* Improve App Store search results

* Remove the top lists and blunt the 'rich getting richer' effect the lists amplify

* Put their share of App sales on sliding scale, so you only start giving Apple the full 30% after you've reached $X in sales

Re: Fear of Apple

#89

Post by kentt »

engendered wrote: post #63
kaolinite wrote: post #59

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was following quite closely when Marco Arment's article was published and the storm erupted around it. Marco's comments have totally been taken out of context here: the reason he regretted publishing the article was not out of fear of Apple primarily but because many publications took it and used it to justify the "Apple is doomed" narrative which Marco personally doesn't agree with. He was quite…

but because many publications took it and used it to justify the "Apple is doomed" narrative which Marco personally doesn't agree with Show me one. Just one single example. I'll wait. EDIT: Chuckle. A mod bomb on this benign post. Cool. ... You're not going to find one. The hit piece/exaggerated/"doomed" noise is a defensive fiction. Nothing was taken out of context (does anyone actually disagree with the observation…

Why is the post downvoted to hell?

Re: Fear of Apple

#90

Post by kaolinite »

engendered wrote: post #63
kaolinite wrote: post #59

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was following quite closely when Marco Arment's article was published and the storm erupted around it. Marco's comments have totally been taken out of context here: the reason he regretted publishing the article was not out of fear of Apple primarily but because many publications took it and used it to justify the "Apple is doomed" narrative which Marco personally doesn't agree with. He was quite…

but because many publications took it and used it to justify the "Apple is doomed" narrative which Marco personally doesn't agree with Show me one. Just one single example. I'll wait. EDIT: Chuckle. A mod bomb on this benign post. Cool. ... You're not going to find one. The hit piece/exaggerated/"doomed" noise is a defensive fiction. Nothing was taken out of context (does anyone actually disagree with the observation…

(For what it's worth I've upvoted your post - not sure why it's been down-voted so much. You definitely made me think and check myself, however having considered, I still feel there's a lot of bad reporting out there. I don't think it's a tribal thing. You made good points though.)

Whilst I don't feel like digging through Twitter for links to poor reporting regarding Marco's article, it doesn't take long at all to find some examples of recent poor Apple reporting.

Here's Reuters claiming that Apple Watch is a "tough sell" because only 31% of Americans (that's 75 million adults) intend to buy it (a product that they haven't touched yet). It's based on a very small sample size, of course - completely flawed - but that apparently won't stop them writing an article about it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/13/us-apple-watch-idU...

That 'study' was then published in many other publications:

http://business.financialpost.com/2015/03/16/apple-watch-may...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2993902/Apple-Watch-...

But that's not all, how about this article from ReadWrite. Apple Watch will disappoint users apparently - not that the author has used one yet. That didn't stop the author from claiming that it's hard to launch apps, unintuitive, etc. http://readwrite.com/2015/03/19/apple-watch-expectations-dis...

If that's not enough, how about the NYTimes reckoning that Apple Watch (and other wearables, too, although Apple Watch is mentioned the most frequently) could cause cancer (original headline: "Could wearable computers be as harmful as cigarettes"). http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/style/could-wearable-compu...

This isn't a conspiracy. Anti-Apple reporting gets a lot of page views. People click on articles claiming that a massive company is failing more than articles about how a massive company is continuing to do well.

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