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Apple's Mistake

paulgraham.com

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Re: Apple's Mistake

#31

Post by poub »

I don't think the claim saying that "Apple doesn't understand software" is correct.

Apple do understand software. You cannot release Mac OS X, iLife and other jewels without understanding software. Also Mac developers jumping off the iPhone bandwagon are not jumping off the Mac plateform.

For the iPhone, Apple tried a different model that nobody really tried before.

They indeed have a broken store but the previous models on other platforms never worked. The most successful one before was for the PalmOS and it wasn't over the air.

However Apple always been an arrogant company. With their customers, their providers and their developers.

The climax of this arrogance has been reached with the iPhone eco system (certainly helped by the arrogance of the mobile phone operators).

And for many it is not sustainable.

But anyways, who really cares?

Apple can open the doors of the store overnight. It wouldn’t have been the first time they do one thing making you beleive it was the only way and then suddenly change in the opposite direction.

That’s the strength of Apple: they can change. Not only they can change but they usually know when, with what, for who and at which price.

I never realised the arrogance was a trade mark of this process though. Note: I don't mean being evil by being arrogant.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#32

Post by onewland »

tptacek wrote: post #29

Though I can't marshall any evidence to support this claim, it was specifically not my impression that Apple was a company pro developers loved working with before the iPhone.

In high school, I thought that the CodeWarrior IDE (which was, as far as I knew, the dominant development environment) was absolutely terrible. I'm not sure how good my judgment at that time was.

That said, with OS X they really became a lot more developer friendly just because they adopted a UNIX base. At this point, I'd say they're the default platform for ruby/web development. Look at all the rails job postings for small startups promising 30" Mac Pros, etc.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#33

Post by lt »

edw519 wrote: post #10

A customer recently asked me to look into a program that used to run in 5 minutes but now took 1 to 4 hours. It's used by thousands of people all over the world all day long. It iterated through an array doing 3 SQL SELECTs against non-indexed files for each element. There used to be about 50 elements in the array; now there were more than 5000. I rewrote the whole thing in one day to do a total of 4 SELECTs and run…

Not that the indentation complaints are valid, but the fix should definitely go through QA while the users continue to suffer. While I'm sure it works on the developer machine, it is much better to have a program that takes a long time and works right than for it to give incorrect results to users, or make a different part of the application stop working.

If the feature was really critical and important, QA should find a way to expedite the verification, but it should never be skipped in order to ship the fix faster.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#34

Post by willwagner »

allenp wrote: post #25
jgrahamc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree with your conclusion. Both smack of 'religious' thinking. Your point 1 is essentially 'be thankful to the merciful god who has ended the drought'. Your point 2 doesn't solve the problem, it just throws more priests at it. The solution is to open the platform to all developers. Imagine if Microsoft had vetted every DOS and Windows app, or if we had to submit Linux apps to Linus for review.

I keep seeing this notion of opening the platform brought up here. I'm having a hard time visualizing how this works out. Does Apple continue the overhead/cost of the app store? Do they have a giant disclaimer that they do not support or condone the applications, take no responsibility for any damages, etc? Do they still act as the payment gateway? How does this impact Apple's brand and the consumer trust of the prod…

I think the App Store would do just fine if the platform were opened up. Look at the original App Store for music; people had the option to get music from other vendors (or public domain or pirated) as MP3's yet it's convenience and simplicity made it compelling for many users.

I would think the same thing would be true for apps. Many users would continue to use the App Store because of the convenience and the added trust that their verication process provides.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#35

Post by petewarden »

Apple has always treated third-party developers with suspicion. The developer website is only accessible by creating an account and agreeing to their license agreement. They churn through and deprecate APIs comparatively fast. They will quite happily steam-roller over third-party developers by adding competing features to the OS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashboard_%28software%29#Compar...

None of this is new, the only difference is that there's now a release bottleneck that requires Apple's approval, and there's a lot of developers new to the platform.

The thing is, this is part of Apple's culture for a reason. Steve is an obsessive control-freak when it comes to a great user experience, and third party developers are seen as a threat to that. Microsoft has always been a great company to deal with as a third-party developer - they value their ecosystem, put effort into free documentation and solid IDEs, and rely on outside developers for key applications. The trouble with this comparative openness is that you end up with 800 pieces of software written by different companies fighting it out on your desktop, leading to crashes and inconsistent UIs all over the place.

I think Apple is in danger of screwing up a great opportunity with the app store, but this way of operating is in their DNA and it won't be easy to change. Despite what the geek consensus might be, the record shows they've made a lot of money in the past whilst ignoring third-party developers.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#36

Post by barrkel »

Since when was Apple's reputation with developers great? They've always been capricious, flighty and controlling - not what you need in a solid platform.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#37

Post by jsankey »

allenp wrote: post #25
jgrahamc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree with your conclusion. Both smack of 'religious' thinking. Your point 1 is essentially 'be thankful to the merciful god who has ended the drought'. Your point 2 doesn't solve the problem, it just throws more priests at it. The solution is to open the platform to all developers. Imagine if Microsoft had vetted every DOS and Windows app, or if we had to submit Linux apps to Linus for review.

I keep seeing this notion of opening the platform brought up here. I'm having a hard time visualizing how this works out. Does Apple continue the overhead/cost of the app store? Do they have a giant disclaimer that they do not support or condone the applications, take no responsibility for any damages, etc? Do they still act as the payment gateway? How does this impact Apple's brand and the consumer trust of the prod…

Opening the platform doesn't necessarily imply opening the app store. Just let other people run stores (or simply host apps for download).

Re: the impact on Apple's brand, see the original article for reasons why the current model doesn't ensure quality.

Apple's incentive is long term viability of the platform. Can they make money indefinitely while alienating developers?

Re: Apple's Mistake

#38

Post by pohl »

chollida1 wrote: post #26
pohl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if Microsoft had vetted every DOS and Windows app Or, hold constant that Microsoft didn't vet DOS/Windows apps and imagine that every DOS/Windows machine had access to a cellular network owned by a some other company. I agree that the review process is completely broken, but I don't think the solution is as easy as having no controls whatsoever.

> , hold constant that Microsoft didn't vet DOS/Windows apps and imagine that every DOS/Windows machine had access to a cellular network owned by a some other company. Well most windows machines do have access to a network controlled by someone else. And with the proliferation of cellular usb accessories more and more windows machines do have access to a cellular network owned by some other company.

True, and about ten million of them are estimated to be in the Conficker botnet, another half a million in the Kraken botnet, etc, etc... I'm definitely not saying that Microsoft should have been vetting programs. I'm saying that cellular platforms may not yet be to the point where unfettered access is safe. The software on cell phones tends to favor being small at the expense of all else - probably including safety.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#39

Post by bkudria »

kylec wrote: post #28
prakash wrote: post #22

I wish Amazon gets into the handheld device business. They clearly understand consumers, software, infrastructure & user-experience. They missed the boat with the ipod, here's a fantastic opportunity to do something about it.

Since the "1984 incident" I trust Amazon even less than I trust Apple. At least Apple doesn't yank music/apps/whatever off their customers' devices.

I suspect because it's difficult for them to technically do so. They would have pulled the GV Mobile app in an instant, if they could have, but the iPhone OS doesn't have this capability. The Kindle does.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#40

Post by mindstab »

allenp wrote: post #25
jgrahamc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree with your conclusion. Both smack of 'religious' thinking. Your point 1 is essentially 'be thankful to the merciful god who has ended the drought'. Your point 2 doesn't solve the problem, it just throws more priests at it. The solution is to open the platform to all developers. Imagine if Microsoft had vetted every DOS and Windows app, or if we had to submit Linux apps to Linus for review.

I keep seeing this notion of opening the platform brought up here. I'm having a hard time visualizing how this works out. Does Apple continue the overhead/cost of the app store? Do they have a giant disclaimer that they do not support or condone the applications, take no responsibility for any damages, etc? Do they still act as the payment gateway? How does this impact Apple's brand and the consumer trust of the prod…

their insentive is that they are purveying a platform. What made dos and windows great was anyone could write for it so everyone did and they had all the apps. Windows and dos suck, but if you wanted to work or play games, you bought the platform anyway because all the app were for it. Customers are like sheep and go where the best apps are, not the best platform. Apple sells a platform. We create the apps. They want the best apps they must open it up so we create the best apps for them. If its easier to develop my app for another platform, I will.

They make money off selling the phone. That apps sells the phone, not the other way around.

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