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Fertile Ground

marco.org

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Re: Fertile Ground

#131

Post by cheald »

alayne wrote: post #127
cheald wrote: post #43

So when Android is fragmented, it is awful and is the reason the platform sucks. When iOS is fragmented, it's innovative and fresh, masterfully executed to bring new opportunities to developers. Got it.

It's not even comparable. Android has many more levels of fragmentation than iOS ever will and Google knows that they screwed up. You have display resolution * display density * OS version * carrier OS modifications * device hardware (hard keyboard/buttons/trackpad/...).

And the OS is specifically built to handle that. Layouts are't done in visual pixels, but in density-independent units. The layout engine itself is designed to accommodate different display sizes and aspect ratios. The entire OS is built around a capabilities system that is designed to make it run on devices that may or may not have a camera or trackpad or whatnot.

Android fragmentation is about the availability of API levels, not the variance in hardware.

Re: Fertile Ground

#132

Post by ghshephard »

LowKarmaAccount wrote: post #108
tolmasky wrote: post #34

Yay change for change's sake. This is exactly the wrong attitude in my opinion. How does it help users to all of a sudden have most apps feel ancient? Is it really something to be proud of? That for the next year we'll be working on replacing existing utilities so that they feel "right" and "fresh" instead of doing what we should be doing: thinking of actual new software that is worthwhile to write. I've been saying…

> I've been saying this for a while but I think what is happening, and what many developers haven't noticed yet, is that we have exhausted the utility of software for software's sake... > Software was interesting on its own a decade ago, but the industry has grown up, its time to do things now. Smartphones are important because they allow people to use computers in a manner that wasn't feasible in the past because of…

This is similar to suggesting that a Desktop computer isn't innovative because it's just a few peripherals connected to a very fast turing machine.

Some examples of Smartphone innovation (in my opinion):

At 2:00 AM in bed, when I'm exhausted, and realize I have to wake up at 7:00 AM, but I'm tired enough that I might not be able to reach my alarm clock, and I can just flex my thumb and say, "Wake me up at 6:00 AM" before drifting off to sleep - I call that innovation. I don't know if you recall, there was a time that the big "thing" at Hotels was having them give you a wakeup call, so you wouldn't have to figure out how the alarm clock in the room worked (if they had one). I haven't done that in 5+ years. Used to do it every night when I was in a hotel.

I'm out walking at night in Redwood City, and Dark Sky pops up and tells me it's going to start raining in my neighborhood in about 15 minutes - so I turn around and grab an umbrella.

I'm out at a customer luncheon in Singapore, and they ask me about a presentation I did awhile ago, on my laptop, and I know backblaze has backed it up, so I'm able to grab it while standing there from my iPhone and mail it to them - that real time delivery makes a positive impression. (Replace Backblaze with Dropbox/iCloud/SkyDrive/favorite cloud mechanism that you can connect to from your mobile device)

Listening to a great german song in a Taxi in Aschaffenburg, and I pull up Shazam - and 90 seconds later I have it on my iPhone (and it's now been synced with iTunes match and is on my iPad and Laptop)

Late at night in PaloAlto, and I need a ride home - and Uber tells me there will be a driver at the restaurant in 4 minutes, and shows them driving towards me, and makes sure they show up - As somebody who had spent hours waiting for cabs in the middle of the night - I call that innovation.

Walking down the Stairs at Southwark in London, and getting the real-time update from TubeMap, that the London Bridge station is closed due to a station fire - turning right around and grabbing a cab to an important symposium.

I could obviously go on - but I find it so hard to believe you don't recognize all of this as, "innovation"

Re: Fertile Ground

#133

Post by bennyg »

cheald wrote: post #126
forrestthewoods wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the four year old non-retina iphone 3gs? I think it's safe to take that device behind the barn to retire forever. Few tears will be shed.

Howsabout my 9-month-old iPod Touch 4g?

How is yours holding up on 6.0+? Mine is super laggy on 6.1 - I can't imagine it being a good experience with 7.

Re: Fertile Ground

#134

Post by binarycrusader »

cheald wrote: post #126
forrestthewoods wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the four year old non-retina iphone 3gs? I think it's safe to take that device behind the barn to retire forever. Few tears will be shed.

Howsabout my 9-month-old iPod Touch 4g?

You mean the model of the iPod touch first released on September 1, 2010? Three years ago by the time iOS 7 ships?

To you the product's less than a year old, but the reality is that the technology in that product is closer to three years old already.

I say this a iPhone 3GS owner that still hasn't upgraded. It's a bitter pill, but that's the nature of technology.

I really think 3-4 years is more than reasonable support for a mobile device in the current market.

Re: Fertile Ground

#135

Post by fpgeek »

ben336 wrote: post #94
tolmasky wrote: post #34

Yay change for change's sake. This is exactly the wrong attitude in my opinion. How does it help users to all of a sudden have most apps feel ancient? Is it really something to be proud of? That for the next year we'll be working on replacing existing utilities so that they feel "right" and "fresh" instead of doing what we should be doing: thinking of actual new software that is worthwhile to write. I've been saying…

I think Marco is saying this is good from an independent ios developers perspective, not necessarily from a users perspective. As somebody who makes his living as an independent app developer, I'm sure he's thrilled about this. Its undeniably an opportunity for independent developers who don't have to maintain an existing app. Whether its good for users or the ecosystem in general is a totally different discussion.

Indeed. One of the things Marco is glossing over is how the iOS 7 overhaul makes iOS development riskier:

  - Will I (and the apps I'm planning) be able to adapt to the UI changes smoothly or not?
  - How are these changes going to play out on the iPad?
  - Does Apple have any other foundation-shifting changes planned before iOS 7 comes out?
  - Will these changes impact user behavior?
  - And so on.
From the perspective of an independent developer starting out, none of this matters. Their risk is already off-the-charts (and the downside limited by time and effort, for the most part), so all they care about is the increased reward potential. They don't even really care if that increased reward potential is coming from changes in absolute rewards and/or relative rewards vs other developers.

For everyone else, the risk vs reward calculation might look quite different.

Re: Fertile Ground

#136

Post by alayne »

cheald wrote: post #130
shinratdr wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you even draw such a connection in your head? Nobody once, ever, has said that the new UI that came with ICS was a bad thing. The problem is that even now, years later, the most in-use Android version is three years old. Android fragmentation is about VERSIONS. APIs, bug fixes, security updates, and available features to a lesser extent. It has NOTHING to do with look and feel. At all. This tactic from Android…

Did you read the post? Fragmentation is about your userbase being split across incompatible platforms and the paralyzing effect that has on development, which is precisely what Marco was lauding as a good thing in this post.

That is not what he's saying at all. He's saying there is disruption and an opportunity now, not that continued disruption (fragmentation) is a good thing!

Re: Fertile Ground

#137

Post by cheald »

bennyg wrote: post #133
cheald wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Howsabout my 9-month-old iPod Touch 4g?

How is yours holding up on 6.0+? Mine is super laggy on 6.1 - I can't imagine it being a good experience with 7.

It's been generally fine. It's nowhere near as fast as my phone, so I'm not sure I'd notice a comparative speed decrease anyhow, though.

Re: Fertile Ground

#138

Post by droopyEyelids »

ghshephard wrote: post #132
LowKarmaAccount wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been saying this for a while but I think what is happening, and what many developers haven't noticed yet, is that we have exhausted the utility of software for software's sake... > Software was interesting on its own a decade ago, but the industry has grown up, its time to do things now. Smartphones are important because they allow people to use computers in a manner that wasn't feasible in the past because of…

This is similar to suggesting that a Desktop computer isn't innovative because it's just a few peripherals connected to a very fast turing machine. Some examples of Smartphone innovation (in my opinion): At 2:00 AM in bed, when I'm exhausted, and realize I have to wake up at 7:00 AM, but I'm tired enough that I might not be able to reach my alarm clock, and I can just flex my thumb and say, "Wake me up at 6:00 AM" be…

You're just talking past each other. He's talking about computer science "software" innovation.

Re: Fertile Ground

#139

Post by jeswin »

sosuke wrote: post #70
jmduke wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the idea that four years is a prohibitively long time for a device that I spend hundreds of dollars on.

Is there another company that is updating 4 year old phones? Is there an Android phone released with 2.2 that can run 4.2? I think Apple's backwards compatibility track record is the best there is, but here's to hoping for better!

Not exactly a Google update, but the open source nature of Android makes efforts like CyanogenMod possible. They support many old devices.

My Motorola Defy came with 2.1 Eclair. Runs 4.2 as of now, thanks to Cyanogen. I keep it because it's built like a tank; all phones should have IP67 certification.

Re: Fertile Ground

#140

Post by ghshephard »

cheald wrote: post #125
ghshephard wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android Fragmentation is a problem because what version do you write your application for? 2.3? 4.0? Ideally 4.1/4.2, but that will miss 70% of your market who CAN'T upgrade because their Telco is not offering 4.1/4.2. Not because their hardware can't support it. Anybody on an iPhone 4, 4S, or 5 who wants an iOS 7 app, can have it within a day of the iOS 7 release. The downside of offering only one major phone a year…

No, you write for the minimum API level your app requires. In a lot of cases, this is 2.3.3! If you want to target a wide audience and still use some 3.0/4.0 features, there are nifty polyfills available, too. Google is further improving this by extracting many of the super useful APIs out into a version-agnostic package that is updated independent of carrier say-so. Your API level 10 apps will run quite happily on G…

Marco's baseline assumption, if you read his full argument, is subtle. While it contains a few elements (as you've cited) of legacy support concerns - his principal thrust is not so much that you "can't afford to do so if it means cutting out your iOS6 users", rather, he primarily postulates:

"I don’t think most developers of mature, non-trivial apps are going to have an easy time migrating them well to iOS 7. Even if they overcome the technical barriers, the resulting apps just won’t look and feel right. They won’t fool anyone."

That is - the legacy app writers are going to have a huge challenge in trying to make their iOS 6 apps look "good" on iOS 7 - this is not a problem for someone starting from a greenfield scenario.

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