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Apple's Mistake

paulgraham.com

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Re: Apple's Mistake

#261

Post by kirse »

b-man wrote: post #5

My vote for a truly free hand-held platform is the n900[1]. It's beautiful, clean and comes with with Debian based distro, Maemo. My opinions about apple were never positive, probably because I'm only 25 and did not program in the 80's. I've only saw apple as a manufacturer of shiny, well designed rich boy toys, but that is probably because I live in Brazil, where only rich people have it and they think they are 'com…

I've got this baby on preorder, can't wait to see if Maemo lives up to the hype.

Personally I've never been an iPhone fan either purely because you can get phones with far, far better technology for the same price. iPhone wins hands down in UI right now (I still hate touchscreen-only phones though), but that really won't be an issue for long with Nokia/Samsung/SE/HTC working double time to improve their OSes.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#262

Post by brunoc »

eelco wrote: post #211
nearestneighbor wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Apple examine your source code?! I thought iPhone devs kept the source to themselves.

No, just the symbol table in the binaries. You can easily do it yourself with the 'nm' command. It seems that they are using a tool that matches the 'nm' output with a list of private APIs since about a month or so, meaning that a lot of updates suddenly get rejected like this. What really annoys me as a developer though, is that they should be able to automate this check and give feedback instantly. (It's not like t…

Or simply give you the list so you can check your binaries yourself! Of course the list might change frequently but it would save everyone time and grief.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#263

Post by zmarc »

Apple will fix these problems. But Apple does things at their own pace. It can be frustrating, especially to independent developers who are used to operating at a lightening pace. Remember cut and paste? Apple took "forever" to implement that, but when they finally did, it's far better than cut and paste on other platforms.

The same thing will happen with the App Store. Instead of "solving" the problems the way most companies would: throwing money willy-nilly at the problem, hiring hundreds of new untrained reviewers, etc., Apple will look at the core issues and figure out ways to fix it. Keep in mind the App Store is unprecedented in numerous ways (size, growth, etc.) and is new and not even Apple anticipated it would be this popular. It will take time, but it has been getting better and will become great.

(I predict the same kind of slow fix on the App Store itself, in terms of discovering apps, which I think is a more important problem than a handful of frustrated developers. Even if that handful is tens of thousands, finding apps is an issue that effects millions of users and developers, since if users can't find your app they aren't going to buy it.)

Re: Apple's Mistake

#264

Post by Hexstream »

tjmc wrote: post #173
CamperBob wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's funny is that in the beginning, Apple didn't even want to provide an API for native applications. They wanted all developers to use the Web API. When developers balked at that idea Apple reluctantly laid out plans for native applications. I wouldn't believe that for a minute. The App Store would have been part of the iPhone product plan from day 1. It's too big, too complex, too strategic, and (yes) too well-e…

I'm not so sure about that. From an interview with Steve Jobs in the NY Times 1 Nov 2007: “I don’t want people to think of this as a computer,” he said. “I think of it as reinventing the phone.” "We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore.…

Arguing that an idea doesn't make sense and then doing just that a few months later is Steve Jobs' modus operandi.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#265

Post by joecode »

pg wrote: post #172
jseliger wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I don't think your comment is true, I do have a question for PG: Did you buy the 27" iMac just to use as a monitor, or for the computer part as well?

I bought it as a computer. It's my new, separate machine for using the Internet, as described here: http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html

Brilliant! Implementing now.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#266

Post by jrockway »

gridspy wrote: post #183
jrockway wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen lots of software that's gone through QA but didn't work. Ever use Microsoft Windows? QA is important, but determining how many spaces a line of code is indented is not QA. That is a code review, which is important, but not critical. There should be automated acceptance tests, so that new releases can be shipped immediately. (It's also worth noting that stuff like indenting, naming conventions, etc. can be a…

Like all "lost job" situations, it is a myth. If you write good Integration tests, QA's job should be to find gaps in them, test the really weird edge cases only a human can come up with and perhaps provide usability feedback. Any decision made that promotes inefficiencies to "save jobs" puts the entire company in danger.

And indeed, that company was absorbed, the management fired, and the application rewritten.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#267

Post by jodrellblank »

brunoc wrote: post #262
eelco wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, just the symbol table in the binaries. You can easily do it yourself with the 'nm' command. It seems that they are using a tool that matches the 'nm' output with a list of private APIs since about a month or so, meaning that a lot of updates suddenly get rejected like this. What really annoys me as a developer though, is that they should be able to automate this check and give feedback instantly. (It's not like t…

Or simply give you the list so you can check your binaries yourself! Of course the list might change frequently but it would save everyone time and grief.

They document what you can do. If you are stepping outside those boundaries, why do you blame Apple for your grief and wasted time? You agreed not to do that when signing up in the first place.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#268

Post by barmstrong »

Two points I was surprised weren't mentioned in this article:

1. Open source - this could be Androids greatest strength against he iPhone and the key to making developers switch.

2. The killer app for Android could definitely be free phone calls! VOIP seamlessly integrated, not as an after thought.

I think Android will give iPhone a serious run for it's money, and put pressure on Apple to change some of these things. Great topic, Apple needs to wake up on this one!

Re: Apple's Mistake

#269

Post by shpxnvz »

rbanffy wrote: post #232
emmett wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, at some companies people really do have the QA department ensure "code quality". After all, it's Quality Assurance, so they must know about code Quality!

The best QA teams have developers and security people in them exactly for this reason. Quality is not what the users see - it's a correct implementation of what the specs say, built upon a series of basic assumptions that apply to all software they ship. Treating QA as a step after development is a mistake that causes endless suffering to users.

It seems to me like treating QA as developers who are not allowed to write code, but can criticize it, would tend to result in a situation exactly like the one described.

Indeed QA is not a step after development, but I'd argue that encouraging developers to become better at QA themselves is a more effective approach than having non-coders inspecting sources after the fact.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#270

Post by e40 »

poub wrote: post #31

I don't think the claim saying that "Apple doesn't understand software" is correct. Apple do understand software. You cannot release Mac OS X, iLife and other jewels without understanding software. Also Mac developers jumping off the iPhone bandwagon are not jumping off the Mac plateform. For the iPhone, Apple tried a different model that nobody really tried before. They indeed have a broken store but the previous mo…

> I don't think the claim saying that "Apple doesn't understand software" is correct.

I think he just left out a word: marketing. They know how to build it, for sure. Paul's point is that they're marketing it like it is music.

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