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Fertile Ground

marco.org

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Re: Fertile Ground

#141

Post by shinratdr »

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.

I did, before it hit Hacker News. The point he was making is that this is a massive look and feel disruption, and will be a rough transition for major players that have an established but now dated look and feel.

That isn't fragmentation. iOS 7 is still compatible with apps written for iOS 6 and iOS 7 apps will still work with iOS 6. The same cannot be said for ICS apps running on older devices. Even in-house apps like Chrome are ICS or bust. Even now, multiple years later, the most popular version of Android won't run Chrome or any other ICS exclusive apps.

However, iOS 7 apps will LOOK & FEEL out of place on iOS 6 and vice versa, which is where the disruption occurs. This isn't fragmentation, and no amount of arguing will make that the case.

On top of that, with the notable exception of the iPod touch 4, all iOS devices sold for the last four years will run iOS 7. That means this period of disruption will last for six months to a year, max. Once again, no fragmentation.

Re: Fertile Ground

#142

Post by cheald »

alayne wrote: post #136
cheald wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

For what it's worth, I think he's right about it being an opportunity. If you can throw away some percentage of your potential market and leave them to your competitors, you might be able to work that to your advantage. This isn't really a novel concept; every major change in every major ecosystem undergoes a similar period.

I mostly take umbrage at the specific attitude taken towards this, when the same move in similar ecosystems (the ICS/JB upgrade, for example, which saw a huge market open up for "Holo-themed" apps) was mocked and derided as pulling the rug out from under users' feet.

iOS' consistency has been tirelessly lauded as a good thing, until Apple goes and changes it. I'm happy with progress and change, and am fine with the broken eggs required to make that particular omelette; I just think it's funny how the pundits' headlines change based on how their particular horse is doing.

Re: Fertile Ground

#143

Post by shinratdr »

cheald wrote: post #131
alayne wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

> And the OS is specifically built to handle that.

Then it does a pretty crappy job. Why does the Play Store silently block apps from your device if this is the case? Why does every Android dev publish a list of supported devices? Because it's nowhere close to this simple, and can't be solved by improvements in the OS, which by the way don't reach the vast majority of users, hence the problem.

Re: Fertile Ground

#144

Post by alayne »

cheald wrote: post #131
alayne wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

Well, my personal experience is that things break on different Android devices for various and sundry reasons despite the existence of dp. If apps run on the iOS simulator you rarely find issues on an actual device except performance issues. But you'd better test on the Note 2, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S3, Galaxy Tab, Nexus 7, HTC Desire C, LG Elite, ...

Re: Fertile Ground

#145

Post by unalone »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #32

> Fertile Ground I'm getting pretty tired of blog post titles that give no real hint at all as to the topic. My mind labels them as "pretentious" because they're pretending to be deep when they're not; by that I mean that rarely do the posts offer up any kind of non-trivial insight. (Compare with PG's similarly titled essays.) Earlier today we had "Two i's" from DHH's crew (where you had to infer from reading the pos…

Marco's not attempting to communicate clearly in the sense of "push data down foobarbazqux's infohole." He's trying to communicate clearly in the sense of "grab foobar's attention, state his perspective provocatively, and attempt to not only reach an audience but make them think and talk."

Clearly he's succeeded, from the conversation going on in this post. Marco is occasionally pretty obnoxious, and his ideas are frequently not always well thought-out, but I like writers who attempt to be not only clear, but compelling.

Paul Graham has plenty of terrible essay names, and plenty of terrible essays at that. One of the things that frustrates me about him as a writer is that on occasion he attempts to strike an "objective" tone while offering a skewed and entirely subjective perspective. Besides, conveying pure abstract information should not be the point of an essay. Tone, emotion, purpose, and construction should all be deliberate. Otherwise you get Mashable—ultraspecific titles geared to ultraspecific articles which are so drained of anything beyond pure bullet-point content that you could train a machine to read and interpret it. It's such a waste.

It takes you two seconds to click on a link and look at it, ten seconds tops to decide if you're going to gain something by reading it. If you're clicking on so many links per day that twelve seconds here and there is putting a dent in your productivity/well-being, then there is a worse problem here than ambiguously-titled essays, and ironically, it's a problem that you'll start to solve by seeking more challenging pieces of writing to tackle to distract yourself from the constant useless information mill that the Internet so readily provides.

Re: Fertile Ground

#146

Post by cheald »

ghshephard wrote: post #140
cheald wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I really do think I get the thrust of his argument. I just don't think it holds up.

Let me ask this - why wouldn't app makers just migrate their apps to an iOS7 look and let the (by the arguments in this thread) vanishingly small non-iOS7 contingent deal with something that doesn't fit the theme of their system? If 90% of your userbase is going to be running iOS7, wouldn't it make more sense to just let 10% of your userbase have an app that doesn't feel like it matches the system (but definitely looks nice) rather than risk someone coming along and making a nicer-looking version of your app to steal the other 90% of your userbase?

The only way this becomes an actual talking point is if there is some reason that vendors can't upgrade their software to iOS7 guidelines, and that's the point at which you begin to experience fragmentation.

Re: Fertile Ground

#147

Post by Samuel_Michon »

I noticed something curious on page 10 of Apple’s iOS 7 Transition Guide[1], in the section “Things Every App Should Do”:

”Examine your app for hard-coded UI values – such as sizes and positions – and replace them with those you derive dynamically from system-provided values. Use Auto Layout to help your app respond when layout changes are required.”

Now, I may be reading too much into this, but the use of the word ‘when’ sounds to me like Apple is preparing products with other resolutions than are on the current iOS devices. I think there would be a market for a budget iPhone with a smaller screen, and a high-end iPad with a larger screen.

Also, the icon size for apps is different in iOS 7. It’s going up from 114x114 to 120x120.

[1] http://es.slideshare.net/evgenybelyaev16/transition-guide

Re: Fertile Ground

#148

Post by shinratdr »

cheald wrote: post #142
alayne wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

For what it's worth, I think he's right about it being an opportunity. If you can throw away some percentage of your potential market and leave them to your competitors, you might be able to work that to your advantage. This isn't really a novel concept; every major change in every major ecosystem undergoes a similar period. I mostly take umbrage at the specific attitude taken towards this, when the same move in simi…

> I mostly take umbrage at the specific attitude taken towards this, when the same move in similar ecosystems (the ICS/JB upgrade, for example, which saw a huge market open up for "Holo-themed" apps) was mocked and derided as pulling the rug out from under users' feet.

I would love to see such an example. As a follower of many Apple themed blogs, I saw nothing but good thoughts directed towards the release of ICS, which was a sorely needed UI revamp. I don't remember anything even close to this sentiment being expressed.

Re: Fertile Ground

#149

Post by Skywing »

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…

That's a valid point, but isn't this a forum of mostly developers and tech-savvy people? While your point stands, I have a feeling that a lot of readers of HN will be looking at this from the OP's point of view.

Re: Fertile Ground

#150

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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