Apple's Mistake • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple's Mistake

#191

Post by alttab » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 4:37 AM UTC

netcan wrote: post #168

jhancock wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We probably have a different view on what is a killer app. From my perspective: Windows - Outlook Express, IE. OS X - Mail, Safari. I can't recall the last time I fired up "Photoshop, Excel, Quicken, Final Cut" and I bet 90% of randomly selected users couldn't either.

Maybe this theoretical question. If you polled a random user of, what are the chances you would find an app that they will get very pissed off at it's disappearance? What are the chances they will actually skip platforms? On Windows or OSX, I think the answer is high. On iphone, maybe not.

As reliance on mobile devices and their capabilities increase, this could become less of an issue.

It is still a luxury for most people - "oh cool look at this app," but it still comes down to those that can afford an iPhone. I can imagine there are many family squabbles involving parents that bought their kid an iPhone that racked up an App Store bill the parents didn't originally intend.

iPhone is not a business phone overall - and therefore doesn't have "critical apps".

Re: Apple's Mistake

#192

Post by mkramlich » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 4:42 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #105

shiro wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too noticed the similarity to the console game development. Usually console game developers have to go through lengthy approval process of the platform provider. Still developers accept that (although grudgingly), since once approved and the released, that will be the end of the process; no more bug fixes; the team dissolves and everybody starts working on the next project. (PC games are different, and certainly ne…

Here's my guess about Apple's thinking. Note that I don't own an iPhone or iTouch. So I don't have any experience with the App Store or submitting applications to it, and can't say that it is or is not working this way but.... Apple wants iPhone apps to "just work" They don't want a plethora of buggy, half-baked, inconsistent apps in their store, because this would diminish the brand. It would be like a typical Linux…

good theory ams6110, and well explained.

however, speaking as a guy who has went through the process for 8+ apps so far, that's not the pain point.

It's more about repeatedly encountering dumbass reasons for rejections, and dumbass long delays to get feedback on things that should take about 1 minute, not 2-4 weeks to get feedback on. It's about getting rejected for 1 thing, and then they don't bother to finish reviewing the app and discover the other 2 things that they know they would reject it on during the next submission, so you don't find those out until 2-4 weeks later, and so on, ad nauseum. It's about rejecting for inane reasons (that they can "fix", if they wanted to, and had a brain, by running a small piece of software on, shotgun-style) like 'this config value over here doesn't match this value over there, so please make those the same', or even worse, vague mysteriously-worded rejections, or rejections that contain explicit instructions for "fixing" the issue and then you follow them, resubmit and they reject again.

Dumbasses. I keep coming back to that word over and over again when dealing with their review process/people. We're talking about a company with supposedly billions of dollars in cash in the bank and until a few months ago or so reportedly had what 50 full-time reviewers on staff? (Do the math on what it would cost to even triple that staff and you'll see it's a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the profits that keep rolling in.)

Device? Love it.

OS? Love it.

Design sense? Love it.

App Store submission/review process? Dumbasses.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#193

Post by mkramlich » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 4:46 AM UTC

dirkstoop wrote: post #114

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.

I make Mac apps for a living and have, over a few years built up nice relationships with Apple. In spite of only being a small, not US-based, company (11 people now, but only 5 when we won our first Apple Design Award), it was never hard for us to get noticed by Apple, or to get in touch with the people at Apple we needed to talk to at any given point. Our first app was built using 'unsanctioned' technology, PyObjC (…

You've shipped PyObjC-based apps for the Mac? We should talk. :)

Re: Apple's Mistake

#194

Post by gcheong » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 4:57 AM UTC

CamperBob wrote: post #179

tjmc wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure about that. From an interview with Steve Jobs in the NY Times 1 Nov 2007: “I don’t want people to think of this as a computer,” he said. “I think of it as reinventing the phone.” "We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore.…

From an interview with Steve Jobs in the NY Times 1 Nov 2007 But the App Store was announced to the public only seven months after that, in June of 2008. If they did all that work in seven months, my resume will be on someone's desk at Apple by Monday. Seriously. I don't want to compete with any large companies that can move that fast. They win. No, the only reasonable conclusion is that you can't take Jobs at his wo…

Then again Apple already had the libraries for native app development because they were developing apps themselves. They already had iTunes. And you know what? The same people that approve iTunes music submissions also approve App Store submissions. Most of the pieces were in place - they just had to put them together. 7 months doesn't seem too long for a version 1 app store.

Edit: And the question isn't really were they going to have an app store or not - they very well could have been thinking along those lines but reserving it only for software they themselves were going to create or with select partners - the question is whether they were going to open it up to general developers which I think they did not want to do.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#195

Post by mkramlich » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 4:59 AM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #106

allenp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's pretty easy - just remove the entire manual approval process and the platform would be "open enough". The problem is that developers cannot iterate, and large problems take forever and a day to plug. Both of these problems are caused by the gigantic (and somewhat arcane/black-boxy) manual review system. Apple can continue to charge their 30% cut, they can still be the only gateway to get apps... but at the very…

Agreed.

From my POV the easiest fix for a situation where lots of dumbass things are being done is simply for people -- in this case, Apple -- to just STOP doing those dumbass things.

Duh! (Reminds me of an old Bob Newhart comedy routine about a rather blunt psychotherapist. His patients would come to him and whine about some bad habit they had, etc. And they would ask him, "Doctor, what should I do?"

He would think for a bit and then raise his hand with a friendly smile and say, "Stop it."

The patient: "What?"

Doctor: "Stop it. Stop doing that."

"Uh, I don't understand. Should I---"

"Ok maybe I'm not making myself clear. Sometimes that happens. So I'm going to say this again, very carefully, and I need you to pay attention."

"Yes, Doctor. Go ahead."

Then he would get up and yell, "STOP ITTTTTT! JUST STOP!"

Then hand them the bill and say the session was over.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#196

Post by erso » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 5:21 AM UTC

bestes wrote: post #180

jrockway wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen lots of software that's gone through QA but didn't work. Ever use Microsoft Windows? QA is important, but determining how many spaces a line of code is indented is not QA. That is a code review, which is important, but not critical. There should be automated acceptance tests, so that new releases can be shipped immediately. (It's also worth noting that stuff like indenting, naming conventions, etc. can be a…

I did QA for years (8+) and would love to have developers write a test. Specifically NOT unit tests, but the harder more interesting one. I think it happened once. Or, was it twice?

You mean like functional tests, end-to-end integration tests, and view tests?

No developer should limit themselves to unit tests.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#197

Post by cma » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 5:26 AM UTC

jcl wrote: post #98

dasil003 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, PG makes the point very well. Apple thinks of themselves as ensuring quality, when in reality they are having the exact opposite effect. What they need to do is just let all apps through, and make it easy for customers to report problems, and then Apple can proactively pull apps that have too many problems. They could do that at half the cost and have much better overall quality, to say nothing of the developer…

Of course, then Apple couldn't screen for the things that they care about but that users won't report. For example, applications that use Apple/iPhone imagery wouldn't get reported because users don't care about the dilution of Apple's brand. Likewise, applications that encourage the user to do things that might damage the device (swinging, throwing, or dropping) wouldn't be reported because the device is broken -- a…

If I create a website that tells you that you should play the (already existant) Super Monkey Ball app by wildly swinging it around like a monkey, should Apple blacklist my site from all iphone users? (Bonus points: if not, why, and how is it different from your example?)

Re: Apple's Mistake

#198

Post by joe_the_user » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 5:45 AM UTC

Periodic wrote: post #124

lt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fi…

QA is basically your testing framework. It's there to do all the tests to make sure the software actually does what you say it does. No developer is good at testing their own code because deep down no developer wants to break the code they just lovingly crafted.

I've always been treated well by QA. I'm sure there are problem QA departments out there but I doubt they are the rule. It's amazing to me that the parent got down moded for supporting the task of QA.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#199

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 5:45 AM UTC

b-man wrote: post #5

My vote for a truly free hand-held platform is the n900[1]. It's beautiful, clean and comes with with Debian based distro, Maemo. My opinions about apple were never positive, probably because I'm only 25 and did not program in the 80's. I've only saw apple as a manufacturer of shiny, well designed rich boy toys, but that is probably because I live in Brazil, where only rich people have it and they think they are 'com…

[deleted]

Re: Apple's Mistake

#200

Post by joe_the_user » Fri, Nov 20, 2009, 5:51 AM UTC

JunkDNA wrote: post #61

Part of Paul's reasoning depends on Apps being central to the iPhone experience the same way software is central to the desktop experience. I'm not totally sure this is the case. While apps are certainly a major component to the iPhone, are they really the major factor in end-user adoption? With the exception of games, how many killer iPhone apps are there that don't already ship with the phone? The phone shipped for…

I think you miss the point.

Developer relations are central to Apple as a whole. Apples needs iPhone developers, desktop developers, web developers and developers for whatever they do after the iPhone. If Apple creates hostile feelings in the developer community with its App Store behavior, Apple is going to have ongoing problems regardless of whether it needs third party developers at the moment.