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Fertile Ground

marco.org

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Re: Fertile Ground

#191

Post by ghshephard »

cheald wrote: post #146
ghshephard wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

I don't know if his argument holds up either. I think he's approaching it with some baggage as the former proprietor or Instapaper. He frequently, on his podcasts, discussed his timing as to when he could simply "Require 5.x" as the iOS based on his user base.

That's the other problem with abandoning even a small percentage of your customer base - even though their existing app will continue to work the way it always has, the fact that they can't continue to upgrade to newer features, might results in negative reviews.

I agree with you, btw - that any app maker worth their salt, if they truly believe that 90% of the iOS userbase will be on iOS 7 in 3-6 months, should be prepared to completely abandon iOS 6 (except for those few that are targeting the iPhone 3GS and older iPod/iPad customer - big fish/small pond competitive technique) and focus all of their energies on iOS 7 development.

Ironically, this creates a positive feedback loop - as no more apps are being written for Pre iOS 7, people more quickly migrate to iOS 7, resulting in more developers completely focussing on iOS 7....

Marco's counterpoint might be, "The set of interest/resources/skills/focus that allowed a developer to build a leading iOS 6 App, might not be present for the new 7.0 paradigms, with their 3-D Z-axis geometry stacking of translucent tiles, inclinometer responsiveness, background processing. Someone who has an entire week at WWDC (yes, the videos are available - but nothing replaces 30-40 hours of onsite time) + all the developer networking (and drinking) that takes place might drive ahead and find the "Sweet Spot" in this new world.

Take, for example, Instapaper - perhaps a hungry up-and-comer will deliver a fully featured, iOS 7 ready read-it-later app, complete with background loading, fully 3D Sheet sliding of documents, light/colorful/iOS 7 palette brilliance etc... several months before Instapaper could be rebuilt. It's also possible (probably, as it turns out) that the original author of Instapaper didn't have the energy to rebuild Instapaper because they'd moved onto other things- And we haven't touched on this, "Upgrading an Existing App to iOS 7 gains a vendor no revenue (unless they have some IAP model)" - but does gain vendors of new iOS 7 apps lots of revenue.

In other words (and this hasn't been voiced yet) - there is a lot of incentive for NEW iOS 7 apps, but, unless you are a top 5,000 App on the AppStore, much less incentive to put a lot of energy into rewriting/upgrading an existing app to iOS 7.

Re: Fertile Ground

#192

Post by modernerd »

Thousands of developers will be perfectly happy to drop iOS 5 and 6 support and remodel their apps for iOS 7 – myself included – because:

a. The new APIs and Xcode look lovely to work with.

b. Dropping support for iPhone 3G and 3GS devices four years after they were released doesn't feel unreasonable.

c. Apple has a long history of featuring apps that use their latest APIs. Having your app featured is still the only reasonable hope to make money in the App Store, unless your business model revolves around selling Smurfberries.

d. Many developers will have been holding back from making major app changes because they were waiting to see how iOS 7 would change the design language. Now that they know, they can spend the Summer redesigning.

e. Apple are openly inviting developers to "reimagine your apps on iOS 7" - that's the language they've used in their developer emails.

f. A successful developer with a widely read blog has just come out and said that everyone who drops support for older iOS versions to build afresh on top of iOS 7 stands to gain a lot.

So there will probably be a huge host of "new, nimble" apps with new takes on tired old setups come Autumn.

But I bet a lot of torch app developers are feeling very hard done by.

Re: Fertile Ground

#193

Post by wilfra »

codeulike wrote: post #181
ghshephard wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Android wouldn't be (OS) fragmented if you had 90%+ of the user population on Jelly Bean 4.1+ iOS isn't going to fragment - the vast majority of the user base will immediately upgrade to iOS 7.

You're probably right. But Marco's argument hinges on the idea that: - there will be fragmentation - hence it will be difficult for developers to write apps that make the most of iOS6 and iOS7 - hence this is an opportunity for nimble new players to enter the market and capture the iOS7 userbase I agree that there probably wont be fragmentation, but the point is, Marco is saying if there was, it will be a brilliant o…

I think he's more saying that people will be reluctant and/or unable to completely rethink their apps design and functionality and this will present an opportunity for new developers who build things that are uniquely suited to iOS 7 and beat the old slow-moving incumbents.

Re: Fertile Ground

#194

Post by codeulike »

wilfra wrote: post #193
codeulike wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably right. But Marco's argument hinges on the idea that: - there will be fragmentation - hence it will be difficult for developers to write apps that make the most of iOS6 and iOS7 - hence this is an opportunity for nimble new players to enter the market and capture the iOS7 userbase I agree that there probably wont be fragmentation, but the point is, Marco is saying if there was, it will be a brilliant o…

I think he's more saying that people will be reluctant and/or unable to completely rethink their apps design and functionality and this will present an opportunity for new developers who build things that are uniquely suited to iOS 7 and beat the old slow-moving incumbents.

Marco's first bullet point is:

"Most [developers] can’t afford to drop support for iOS 6 yet. (Many apps still need to support iOS 5. Some unlucky souls even need to support 4.3.) So they need to design for backwards compatibility, which will be extremely limiting in iOS 7."

Re: Fertile Ground

#195

Post by ghshephard »

LowKarmaAccount wrote: post #170
potatolicious wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he knows. The disagreement here is that characterizing pure-CS-stuff as "innovation" and the other stuff as not is an incredibly narrow way to define innovation. It feels like LowKarmaAccount really defines innovation as how far down the stack it is, which is a wholly arbitrary (and IMO nonsensical) criteria. By that criteria a helicopter is not innovative because it's just a slight rearrangement of fixed win…

droopyEyelids was correct in saying that I was talking about software innovation from a CS standpoint, so I didn't respond to the first reply to my comment. After reading your comment, I realized that I should make it clear that I'm using David A. Wheeler's definition of software innovation [1]. It was linked to on HN a few years ago[2]; it has an excellent listing of important innovations. The list was made to show…

I wonder, if even with this incredibly strict definition of "Software Innovation" whether anything on a smartphone might still rise to the level of innovation?

I'm thinking of the GeoLocation Applications - that just never existed before, ever, like runkeeper. Or the BodyTelemtry apps, like FitBit. I'm still trying to think if it's possible to categorize Dark Sky as innovation. Or the always-available voice-recognition of Siri.

None of it rises to the level of "Software innovation from a CS standpoint" if we look carefully? Honestly asking now.

Re: Fertile Ground

#196

Post by ghshephard »

FireBeyond wrote: post #166
ghshephard wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, keep in mind iOS 6 was (somewhat) held back in terms of adoption because google hadn't released maps for the platform yet.

That is absolutely, utterly subjective and anecdotal. I think blaming Google for iOS 6 adoption not being (even) quicker is grasping at straws that in all likelihood don't exist.

re: "That is absolutely, utterly subjective and anecdotal."

I'll see your anecdotal and raise you a citation.

http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-ios-6-adoption-rate-soars-follo...

"The Dec. 12 reinstatement of Google Maps on iOS has apparently been enough for some of those reticent users to finally make the upgrade to iOS 6. After achieving 10 million downloads in the first 48 hours available, MoPub, the San Francisco-based mobile ad exchange that monitors more than 1 billion ad impressions a day and supports more than a dozen ad networks and 12,000 apps, says there has been a 29 percent increase in unique iOS 6 users in the five days following Google Maps' release on iOS. "

BTW, not "blaming" Google, if anything, I would be blaming Apple for having a sub-par map application (As a frequent international traveler, I can tell you it's still not up to par with Google's maps) - but I'm not blaming anyone. Just recognizing it was a pretty significant issue for many people.

Re: Fertile Ground

#197

Post by ghshephard »

FireBeyond wrote: post #168
nsp wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS's 'fragmentation' between ios6 and 7 is totally different than androids because its temporary. There'll be a few month period where established apps haven't updated their ui. iOS has insanely quick (in comparison to other OSes) adoption rates. 15% of devices upgraded to ios6 within 24 hours of release, 50% two weeks out, etc.[1] So there will be apps with the old ui for people running ios7 who will decide to look…

"iOS's 'fragmentation' between ios6 and 7 is totally different than androids because its temporary." Says who? This change is much more major and, despite what Gruber and Marco would like to have you believe, is not design perfection personified, and is likely to be polarizing.

Let's forget about the z-axis and new interface updates, there are some major new features in iOS 7 that I'm sure a lot of people will want to upgrade to within the first month. (I predict faster adoption for 4/4s/5 users than we saw in iOS 6)

In decreasing order of importance (my opinion)

o Pre-Launch background Updating (Finally!) - I spend 3-5 minutes, every morning, and another 3-5 minutes, every night, downloading my Podcasts before my walk home. Annoying. Now, in theory - they'll download for me in the morning and night. Awesome - particularly as my iPhone 5 is happily sitting in an elevation dock at 100% power for most of the day, or plugged in at home for most of the night. It Will be interesting to see what developers do with notification launched background apps - hopefully it won't be abused.

o Airdrop for iPhone (Finally! How many times have I wanted to get a file/image/content off my iPhone onto my Laptop just before a plane took off)

o Swipe Control Center - another "Finally" - getting closer to android parity/rooted iPhone parity - I tweak the brightness/lock rotation/pause/play music and settings pretty often. This will length the lifespan of my home button (double click + swipe left to currently get lock + music settings)

o Enhanced Camera/photo management - looks really nice - lot of people will like this - even the die-hard Camera+/Instagram/Flickr/Google+ photo types. I do feel kind of bad for Camera Noir - their window was pretty meager. :-(

o iTunes radio - particularly for all of us who already subscribe to iTunes Match.

o Advanced Siri - I use Siri many times a day, looking forward to this.

Re: Fertile Ground

#198

Post by gurkendoktor »

ghshephard wrote: post #46
thisisdallas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very a good point. As a major Apple fan I completely agree with you. After looking over the iOS changes I see absolutely nothing that is more "revolutionary" than what we have now in iOS6, or even what Android and Windows Phone offers. At best, it looks like iOS7 is nothing more than a mix of Android and Windows Phone plus a few extra UI elements. I am not a big fan of Marco's obsession with drama but I do…

Combine Marco and Gruber's [1] insight - This is a major house cleaning/forest fire. Someone (Jony, et al.) has stepped back, looked at the confusion that has developed over the last 3-5 years on the iPhone, and has decided to recreate the iPhone as a conceptual platform. The introduction (and hopefully consistency) of multiple dimensions onto the phone, and a cross-system approach towards geometry, means that iOS7 w…

You are conflating design and under-the-hood changes. I have seen absolutely nobody complain about the new APIs you mention, even though they might need a few iterations to work - just like 10.7 did. That is fine, that is how Apple has always worked. Apps that were quick to embrace features of 10.7/10.8 have always gotten a solid push on the Mac App Store, for example.

What annoys many users (and every developer is also a user) is change for the sake of change. There is absolutely no technical reason for changing the style of icons on iOS 7. Clear fit right in on the iOS 6 home screen and was a joy to use regardless.

Re: Fertile Ground

#199

Post by smackfu »

bennyg wrote: post #121
jbail wrote: post #2

"iOS 7 is different. It isn’t just a new skin: it introduces entirely new navigational and structural standards..." Beyond the parallax effect, what are these new navigation and structural changes? I'm not trolling here, I'm genuinely curious. I'm about to build a new iOS app and I did not see major navigation or structural changes that would drastically affect how I design an app's UI or UX.

SpriteKit is going to be huge. Expect about a year of getting developers ready with it, and good at it, then Apple TV may have something awesome for us.

Games tend to be the most likely apps to be ported between systems, so the appeal of a single OS API seems limited to me.

Re: Fertile Ground

#200

Post by nadam »

"Most can’t afford to write two separate interfaces. (It’s a terrible idea anyway.)"

Why? If the newcomers can afford to write an interface for iOS7, the established players also can. If there is money in it for newcomers, there is money in it for established players too. This article assumes that established players are dumb. They will estimate how users adopt iOS7 over time, and act accordingly.

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