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Fear of Apple

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Re: Fear of Apple

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find the reference at the moment, but apparently Apple's commodization of iOS developers was intended to prevent any iOS ISV gaining the negotiating power that Adobe once had against Apple.

Wouldn't Microsoft be a better example of a developer holding "too much" power over Apple? I'm sure Jobs didn't enjoy having Gates' face leering down on him on stage, promising to keep developing Office for Mac.

Desktop publishing was critical to Apple's early success, even though Microsoft was important for the broader market of users.

Re: Fear of Apple

#242
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…

Your experience is the price of admission to gain access to a global audience. The low barrier to entry is why you're fighting for pennies. Twenty years ago when I was in high school, I worked at CompUSA. They sold a lot of software in their day... in my region of the country, 40% of software sold passed through our store's door. To sell software at CompUSA or similar retailers, you needed to interface with a publish…

> Twenty years ago when I was in high school, I worked at CompUSA

So, selling software was a PITA full of inefficiencies and middlemen. Everyone hated it.

Now, 20 years later, we live on the open web, a level playing field where anyone can experiment to their heart's content and sell what they want, how they want it.

And you wonder why people complain about Apple adding restrictions? And your answer is "tough luck, we have the possibility to do things better, but things were even worse 20 years ago so just suck it up"?

> Your experience is the price of admission to gain access to a global audience

This Hacker News comment has access to a global audience. There are fart noise videos on YouTube with access to a global audience. That means nothing anymore.

Apple also do a piss-poor job of giving that access. It's already easier to find our app via Google than searching for the literal exact app name on the App Store. Whenever you release an update theres a 1-12 hour window where people will get random error messages since there's massive CDN sync lag.

Re: Fear of Apple

#243

There are a few who have been banned[1] from Apple events etc. because of a negative review of something Apple made. [1] http://www.computerbild.de/artikel/cb-News-Handy-Apple-boyco...

Dunno if it still is, but The Register was banned from (or stopped getting invites to) Apple press events because of their irreverent reporting of Apple and their products.

Doesn't seem to have done them any harm.

Re: Fear of Apple

#244
There is only one sure way to make money as an app developer, iOS or Android: getting paid to develop for customers that will publish those apps on the stores. And there is only one sure way for those customers to be profitable: give the apps away for free and make money with the service people access with those apps. In the software world think Trello, Slack. Other services, think Uber. If you want to make money through the store, by selling your app, it's very hard because of all the reasons discussed in the other posts here.

Re: Fear of Apple

#245
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…

> 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've been pushing apps on the appstore form day one, there's a lot of room for improvements, but saying that you get no feedback is plain false. When an app is rejected the reasoning behind the refusal is always explained, and you have a chance to talk through the issue (sometimes I had the reviewer calling me on the phone). In the end it's just a matter of following the guidelines.

> Every part of developing for Apple leads me to this conclusion: I do not matter. My app does not matter.

We all like to think we're special, millions of developers do, that's true for the appstore, and the same goes for the open web.

Re: Fear of Apple

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is optional, we use Stripe, Apple gets nothing. I am surprised there are people in software that don't know this.

No you are incorrect: If you want to sell an app for iOS, it needs to go through the App Store, and it needs to go through Apple's payment processor, be hosted by them etc, and Apple will take 30%. There are 'work arounds' that involve being enrolled in the Enterprise Developer Program, but you're still at Apple's mercy. If they believe you're not sticking 'to the spirit of the program' (e.g. using it just to get aro…

Do you really believe Netflix is giving 30% to Apple?

Re: Fear of Apple

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you are incorrect: If you want to sell an app for iOS, it needs to go through the App Store, and it needs to go through Apple's payment processor, be hosted by them etc, and Apple will take 30%. There are 'work arounds' that involve being enrolled in the Enterprise Developer Program, but you're still at Apple's mercy. If they believe you're not sticking 'to the spirit of the program' (e.g. using it just to get aro…

Do you really believe Netflix is giving 30% to Apple?

You can't pay for Netflix from their iOS app.

Re: Fear of Apple

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience is the price of admission to gain access to a global audience. The low barrier to entry is why you're fighting for pennies. Twenty years ago when I was in high school, I worked at CompUSA. They sold a lot of software in their day... in my region of the country, 40% of software sold passed through our store's door. To sell software at CompUSA or similar retailers, you needed to interface with a publish…

> Twenty years ago when I was in high school, I worked at CompUSA So, selling software was a PITA full of inefficiencies and middlemen. Everyone hated it. Now, 20 years later, we live on the open web, a level playing field where anyone can experiment to their heart's content and sell what they want, how they want it. And you wonder why people complain about Apple adding restrictions? And your answer is "tough luck, w…

You don't live on an open web. On mobile devices, you live in a garden with high walls (Apple, Microsoft) or lowish walls (Android). The consumers of the garden are... the public, not you. You are the gardener planting trees and cutting the grass.

Apple isn't just giving you a place on a shelf either. You have a half dozen ways that consumers are earning credits to buy your stuff (credit cards, kid allowances, supermarket gift cards, credit card rewards, etc), millions spent marketing the platform, etc.

As long as there is a gatekeeper, that gatekeeper will collect a toll. Free/open is going to come from new players like Firefox & Ubuntu, and traction there will give Apple and Google incentives to behave more

Re: Fear of Apple

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computerworld http://www.computerworld.com/article/2866456/marco-arment-sp... Fortune http://fortune.com/2015/01/05/how-bad-are-the-bugs-in-apples... BGR http://bgr.com/2015/01/05/marco-arment-mac-ios-software-qual... Economic times/india times http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/progra... WSJ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/05/programmer-ignites-de... ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-so…

Sure, it's not literally "apple is doomed" right in the title, but exactly the same kind of FUD BUT IT ISN'T FUD AT ALL. To make it even more comical, several of those posts are from serious Apple boosters (Philip Elmer-DeWitt might as well wear pom-poms while he writes about Apple). Apple software has had serious quality issues, and it is "FUD" to talk about it? This is just broken thinking. You, in this conversatio…

It's not FUD to talk about apple's software getting buggier, it's FUD to appropriate someone's rant, sensationalise it and then put the responsibility on Arment.

It's the difference between you stating that Node.js has been forked and someone writing "The server-side Javascript community is now torn apart, according to engendered". It's technically true, but it's clear that second one has other implications.

This is Marco's post: http://www.marco.org/2015/01/05/popular-for-a-day

"This morning, my words were everywhere, chopped up and twisted by sensational opportunists to fuel the tired “Apple is doomed!” narrative with my name on them. (Or Tumblr’s name, which was even worse.) Business Insider started the party, as usual, but it spread like wildfire from there. Huffington Post. Wall Street Journal. CNN. Heise. Even a televised CNBC discussion segment."

"Instead of what was intended to be constructive criticism of the most influential company in my life, I handed the press more poorly written fuel to hamfistedly stab Apple with my name and reputation behind it. And my name will be on that forever."

Now, why do you think Marco is afraid of speaking out? Do you genuinely think that he's afraid his relationship to Apple is damaged because it might threaten future business or because he feels he's responsible for these articles?

From what I and others have experienced (and the rest of the article), there's a climate of frustration, not fear, in the Apple developer community – but even in this article, being angry at incompetence doesn't sound remotely as exciting as being afraid of a large corporation. Hence the F in FUD.

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