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John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

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Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#101

Post by glimcat »

nl wrote: post #51
comedian wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that Android is the next Nokia. Large market share but like Nokia their marketshare is almost worthless since Android users dont spend as much money as iOS users. At least that's what everybody's saying.

A developer on HN submitted this a few months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2929612 His summary: Android=$4428.08, iOS=$5914 (over the same time period) So it is true that Android users spent less, but not by a huge amount.

I think we're taking slightly different lessons from that post.

iOS = $5914, Android and iOS = $10342.08

Between the question of statistical significance and the vagaries of mobile app promotion and discovery, it's hard to say that one clearly pays better. However, both usually pays more if one is paying well, so it would often pay to support both as soon as it is practical to do so.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#102

Post by tzury »

I am trying to figure out why don't Gruber himself listen to his own advice and develop iPhone/iPad app already.

I mean, writing good technical reviews and opinions about iOS is a very nice thing. But give advise to mass developers should be done from experience, rather than theory.

As for the advice itself, it is right that in five years from now, mobile devices will be all over the place and today's sales volumes are just the iceberg's tip, yet, a developer should think about the opportunity of "mobile-computing" rather than a particular "mobile device". For me, it is a web developer who decide his web apps are to be working with chrome browsers only, since the number of chrome installations today is nothing comparing to what it will be in 5 years from now, and simply ignoring safari, firefox (and even ie, oops).

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#103

Post by kitsune_ »

puls wrote: post #7
josephcooney wrote: post #4

I don't want to under-estimate the importance of movable type...but what has Gruber developed? Looking at the list at http://daringfireball.net/projects/ doesn't exactly fill me with shock and awe. I'd imagine with his huge following in the apple community he could put almost anything on the app store and it would sell. Can someone enlighten me? I guess my meta-point is, why am I reading software development career a…

He's a pundit, but he's really close with all of the influential developers in the community. He's more in tune with the Apple community than perhaps any one other person, and his track record of being right is unmatched in the last several years.

Track record of being right is unmatched in the last several years? Do you care to provide proof for that? I'm not saying that you are wrong, but this is a pretty big claim to make.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#104

Post by sovande »

cppsnob wrote: post #80

I was sad to see that Gruber couldn't step out of his Apple bubble to tackle this topic (or any topic, ever), so I will: Everyone who thinks "I should be developing for platform X" is thinking far too small. Take a look around you.. how many of the great companies were formed developing for a particular platform (unless it's their own)? Almost none. In 10 years, do you want to be the old and busted equivalent of the…

> Everyone who thinks "I should be developing for platform X" is thinking far too small.

I started to develop for the web and the browser "platform" in the late '90 and it is still going strong. Maybe it is _you_ who are thinking too small? Back in the '90 we knew that the next big thing would be mobile, but it never happened. It was first when Apple introduced the iPhone, iOS SDK and the AppStore that we got a breakthrough and everyone could develop and get their app on a mobile device. Before Apple, only a select few, anointed by telecom operators and for a step price could get their app on a mobile set. I say that Apple paved the way for making development for the mobile platform accessible for "everyone" and now finally, mobile might just be the next big thing. What is interesting is that the browser "platform" still is a strong alternative for mobile and native apps.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#105

Post by dagw »

felipemnoa wrote: post #85
cooldeal wrote: post #54

The bottom 80% of apps split just 3% of the revenue. From http://www.fastcompany.com/1792313/striking-it-rich-in-the-a... Developer Daniel Markham calls iPhone development “App Store Roulette,” and Andy Finnell of the software studio Fortunate Bear cautions against hoping for App Store success. “You’re betting a lot of this on luck, and the odds are stacked against you," Finnell says. "You’d have better odds playing…

It is the same with other industries: Music, Movies, Theater, etc. Nothing is for sure. Not sure why we are singling the AppStore. There have been $100 million (USA) movies that have flopped. Most ventures will flop and only a few will take all the revenue/income in any industry.

There have been $100 million (USA) movies that have flopped.

The one difference is that a lot of people still made good money on that flop.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#106

Post by praptak »

sovande wrote: post #104
cppsnob wrote: post #80

I was sad to see that Gruber couldn't step out of his Apple bubble to tackle this topic (or any topic, ever), so I will: Everyone who thinks "I should be developing for platform X" is thinking far too small. Take a look around you.. how many of the great companies were formed developing for a particular platform (unless it's their own)? Almost none. In 10 years, do you want to be the old and busted equivalent of the…

> Everyone who thinks "I should be developing for platform X" is thinking far too small. I started to develop for the web and the browser "platform" in the late '90 and it is still going strong. Maybe it is _you_ who are thinking too small? Back in the '90 we knew that the next big thing would be mobile, but it never happened. It was first when Apple introduced the iPhone, iOS SDK and the AppStore that we got a break…

Valid point but there is an essential difference between the browser and Apple "platforms" as described in this timeless article: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePla...

TLDR: Do not be a sharecropper, it sucks.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#107

Post by tintin »

ricardobeat wrote: post #24
mcantelon wrote: post #10

>This is like being a Rock and roll musician in the late sixties. This is like being a film maker in the seventies following Scorsese, Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas (when he was a saint). That's a hilarious sell. Better not mention the bigger, even faster growing Android market.

Faster growing, copycat infested, low paying market? Not that you shouldn't develop for it (hell, >1 million activations/day), but the climate over there is very different.

There is a lot of that 'climate' that you will never see. We are developing Android apps that will never see a Market Place. We just put them on the devices directly. Those apps are used by big companies. They are very specialized apps. Why Android? Because we don't need Apple to install the apps. And a lot of developers already know Java.

So, don't believe the hype.

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#108

Post by csomar »

cppsnob wrote: post #80

I was sad to see that Gruber couldn't step out of his Apple bubble to tackle this topic (or any topic, ever), so I will: Everyone who thinks "I should be developing for platform X" is thinking far too small. Take a look around you.. how many of the great companies were formed developing for a particular platform (unless it's their own)? Almost none. In 10 years, do you want to be the old and busted equivalent of the…

Modern Warfare 3 runs on the Microsoft (Windows/Xbox) and PS3 platforms. Like Angry Birds run on the Android and iPhone.

Modern Warfare 3 didn't create their own platform, and no sane game studio will create their own platform. They'll follow what people buy. People bought xBox, okay, get that game on Xbox. People bought schelabiza to play games, okay, get that game on schelabiza.

Modern Warfare 3 made much more money because it's not Angry bird. Like GTA, Skyrim... these are games that you pay $30-$50 for and not a buck.

What Gruber meant is this: This platform is going to be huge. Really huge. He is betting on iOS. Investing your time learning/developing on iOS is good for your career because you'll be able later to create apps, work on companies, do consulting...

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#109

Post by snotrockets »

possibilistic wrote: post #77
tikhonj wrote: post #12

This might be true of Apple, but it is definitely true of both the software industry and theoretical CS. The industry is expanding--computers are getting cheaper and more plentiful so we need more and more software. Since we also have more computational power in our hands, we can do more and more interesting things with computers. Theoretical computer science is also in an exciting time--it is a nascent field with ma…

I'm just curious (and hope I don't come off as being ignorant), but what kind of exciting theoretical CS developments have occurred in the last few years? If you can list some really groundbreaking papers that aren't too advanced, I'd love to read them. Most of the stuff I see in academia is incremental improvement. Not that this should ever be downplayed.

All of academic output is an incremental improvement (it may differ for the social sciences. I don't have experience with that.) Newton famously acknowledged it in his letter to Hooke.

We also have the misfortune of struggling with the deep unknowns, as all of the trivial theorems have already been proven before (consider Feynman's definition of trivial in 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!', New York: W. W. Norton, pp. 69-72, 1997.)

But some improvements are greater than others. The question is where you draw the line. And I hold that most researchers' line encompass more then yours. Consider, for example, Jiří Matoušek's opinion of Computational Geometry in 2010 (to save you the reading, he called it no less than an annus mirabilis. You can read his reasoning here: http://kam.mff.cuni.cz/~matousek/mor.pdf)

Re: John Gruber Has Some Career Advice For Developers

#110

Post by sskates »

cpeterso wrote: post #94
comedian wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I think about it, Android has 3X (or whatever) the market share of iOS, and no one seems to be making a ton of money from Android (except Google), the future for Android developers is pretty grim if you ask me.

Does Google make money from Android?

They get a 30% cut of any app purchase. They don't get any cut from 3rd party advertisers though.
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