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Serving at the Pleasure of the King

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Re: Serving at the Pleasure of the King

#11

Post by DodgyEggplant »

He is a bit unfair. Good platforms vendors paved the way for everybody. And they ALWAYS do it THEIR WAY (ask Netscape, Novel and Real). One can argue that Instapaper is actually a missing browser feature.

But Apple is pushing the envelope: they are the first platform to break the "specific device limit". Android competes on phones, Windows on the desktop, Amazon with content, Samsung on hardware. But Apple is everywhere. And they are not the underdog anymore. This is Tim's Cook real challenge, and we wish him luck.

Re: Serving at the Pleasure of the King

#14

Post by bcl »

raganwald wrote: post #9

Did I really just read Jeff complaining that Apple shipped something that duplicates third-party behavior and compare them unfavorably to Microsoft in that regard? I won't excuse Apple for acting like a King, but I think Jeff should find another poster boy for benevolent dictators. Microsoft is famous for steamrolling third-party developers, both from their applications group and their systems group. I think this ran…

I don't think he was implying that Microsoft was any better than Apple in this regard. He was pointing out that the complaints from developers has been relatively mild compared to the outrage when Microsoft does the same thing.

Re: Serving at the Pleasure of the King

#15

Post by caf »

programminggeek wrote: post #7

He's right and certainly more levelheaded about these kinds of issues than most, but what most don't realize is that many of the software platforms we love have had worse policies for years. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Sega all have/had extremely rigorous review process that was even worse than Apple's if you want to be on their game platform. Phone companies had all these build processes if you wanted to write Ja…

Long before the web, coding for Plain Old DesktopS also had the property that you could push out new code without a gatekeeper between you and your users.

Re: Serving at the Pleasure of the King

#16

Post by gbog »

programminggeek wrote: post #7

He's right and certainly more levelheaded about these kinds of issues than most, but what most don't realize is that many of the software platforms we love have had worse policies for years. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Sega all have/had extremely rigorous review process that was even worse than Apple's if you want to be on their game platform. Phone companies had all these build processes if you wanted to write Ja…

> Phone companies had all these build processes

Well, yes, and that's why we had crappy phones for years before iPhone and Android arrived, as noted by Jeff Atwood. I think it shows again that, not unlike the first PCs and their open slots for third-party cards, openness is the right move.

Many people here seem to renounce to this, mostly because Apple's walled garden is currently at a pinnacle, but in my opinion it is an accident. Apple's products manage to grasp most of the attention around for emotional reasons, and some forget that the future is not built on closed formats, closed markets, etc. I am surprised that it is not so obvious, especially for US citizens. The Web builds on open protocols. The PC-era built on the fact that you could open the box and plug things of your doing in it. Wikipedia, which everyone uses constantly and forget, is an open community task.

My two years-old kid is learning a lot, but it is not linear, he sometimes go backward a bit. I think we are in this backward pulse, with everyone suddenly dissmissing the possibility to open, change, modify softwares, in exchange of a (temporary) slightly better user experience.

To the Apple lover crowd: please feel free to downvote, and check my past comments to downvotes them also if you didn't already. I'm used to it now, I don't care about my karma. Anyway, I'll loose some more re-upvoting all those perfectly acceptable comments I find grayed in some threads, apparently because they are not respectful enough to the King.

Oh, and I like Apple, I learnt computing on an Apple ][, I applauded to the very smart Unix move for MacOS, many of my colleagues and friend own a MPB or A, but none would be enough of a zealots to try to hide out comments expressing concerns about walled gardens.

Re: Serving at the Pleasure of the King

#17

Post by raganwald »

bcl wrote: post #14
raganwald wrote: post #9

Did I really just read Jeff complaining that Apple shipped something that duplicates third-party behavior and compare them unfavorably to Microsoft in that regard? I won't excuse Apple for acting like a King, but I think Jeff should find another poster boy for benevolent dictators. Microsoft is famous for steamrolling third-party developers, both from their applications group and their systems group. I think this ran…

I don't think he was implying that Microsoft was any better than Apple in this regard. He was pointing out that the complaints from developers has been relatively mild compared to the outrage when Microsoft does the same thing.

The complaints from Apple developers have been around forever. Waxing nostalgic, I remember threads on the old Mousehole BBS about Apple and its love-hate relationship with developers. The reaction to Apple steamrolling Panic is classic, and there was a major furor over the dashboard and the way it steamrolled third party widget frameworks.

I suspect that Jeff is in a Microsoft-centric culture, so he simply doesn't spend as much time talking to Apple developers as he does Microsoft developers, so of course he hears more from them. Likewise, there are way more Windows developers than OS X developers, so you'll always hear more about anything from them.

iOS is popular, so there ought to be plenty of developers out there in the long tail. Maybe that's the real problem: Most developers are trying to grab a little tiny piece of the pie with a niche side-project, so they don't have the same perspective as someone who has employees and a big marketing budget sunk into their business.

If this supposition is correct, you'll see the same dynamic with other walled gardens from Microsoft and Google and whomever else gets into the "curated app store" business.

Re: Serving at the Pleasure of the King

#18

Post by raganwald »

gbog wrote: post #16
programminggeek wrote: post #7

He's right and certainly more levelheaded about these kinds of issues than most, but what most don't realize is that many of the software platforms we love have had worse policies for years. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Sega all have/had extremely rigorous review process that was even worse than Apple's if you want to be on their game platform. Phone companies had all these build processes if you wanted to write Ja…

> Phone companies had all these build processes Well, yes, and that's why we had crappy phones for years before iPhone and Android arrived, as noted by Jeff Atwood. I think it shows again that, not unlike the first PCs and their open slots for third-party cards, openness is the right move. Many people here seem to renounce to this, mostly because Apple's walled garden is currently at a pinnacle, but in my opinion it…

Your comment would read better without the argumentative side-excursion in the second-last paragraph. You make this great point, then instead of resting on it, you distract me from thinking about what you're trying to say and ask me to start thinking about whether everyone who down votes you is an Apple lover. Wy make me work to re-read your comment to remind myself what you actually came here to say?
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