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Apple's Mistake

paulgraham.com

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Re: Apple's Mistake

#271

Post by janm »

jgrahamc wrote: post #6
charlesju wrote: post #2

1. While I agree with most developers that Apple has room for improvement, I think we should take a step back and realize how much of an improvement the iPhone has made mobile developers from a couple of years ago when the carriers were in charge of mobile applications. 2. I think the solution to the iPhone fiasco should be for Apple to hire more reviewers and allow developers to pay more money so that they can buy a…

I strongly disagree with your conclusion. Both smack of 'religious' thinking. Your point 1 is essentially 'be thankful to the merciful god who has ended the drought'. Your point 2 doesn't solve the problem, it just throws more priests at it. The solution is to open the platform to all developers. Imagine if Microsoft had vetted every DOS and Windows app, or if we had to submit Linux apps to Linus for review.

> Imagine if Microsoft had vetted every DOS and Windows app

We associate the BSOD with Microsoft software. However, in the majority of cases, the bug is in someone else's code or is a hardware problem. These days it drivers, but in early Windows (pre-NT), applications could cause the system to die.

I suspect that Apple are vetting to avoid bad apps from tainting the perception of the platform. The platform is what they care about, "like Google cares about search".

If an app is buggy and fixes or new features don't turn up the end-user blames the app vendor. If the device crashes, the end-user blames the platform vendor. Those things can stick; witness how the BSOD has influenced perception of the Microsoft platform.

Avoiding that is a reasonable thing for Apple to want to do. However, I agree that the way they are doing it is probably counterproductive.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#272

Post by nekoniaow »

I think Paul properly describes why Apple's current management of the App Store would ultimately end up deserving them if they didn't address it seriously rather sooner than later. However, deducing anything about the reasons which lead them to this situation seems a bit risky.

One doesn't need to look back far in the past to find examples of situations where Apple, after refusing to acknowledge the existence of a problem for an extended period of time suddenly came up with a solution that not only fixed it but also extended the playing ground significantly. The iTunes Store, the App Store, the iPhone copy and paste mechanism, etc. John Gruber could probably list quite a few.

Apple, or rather, Jobs' main problem is not one of efficiency but one of communication. His combined obsession for secrecy and control of the end user experience his mostly likely what produces this insanely inadapted public stance in face of the App Store obvious problems.

I seriously can't exclude that Jobs' obsessions won over the best of him and that he's actually fighting the tide instead of surfing it, but I wouldn't be surprised if a solution was already being tested inside the walls of the castle.

If Apple critics and users must learn anything about the company, it's that its public posture doesn't give away any information about what is actually brewing inside the company labs. If Apple must learn anything if it doesn't want to alleviate its most valuable partners (by which I mean developers), it's that posturing is not an acceptable communication practice and should be left people like Steve Balmer who have not much else to propose.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#273

Post by slim »

I have an objection on YCRFS 5 : http://ycombinator.com/rfs5.html

Mobile devices are physically constrained by their use case. They must be small to be carry-able. I believe in a future where mobile devices will be more ubiquitous, and where specific tasks (like development) would be delegated to "static" machines.

In the future, mobile devices will be more like a magic wand than a workstation. We would enable functionalities in different "static" devices with the same mobile device.

Also, you ask : How could you make a device programmers liked better than the iPhone?

I would suggest : make an open device for less that $100 and you will win. Now we know that price is a feature. No need for a big touch screen.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#274

Post by erikb85 »

If there is somebody out there, making a handheld developing machine, I am one of Ur first buyers! I was looking for that long before the netbook hype and even some time before everybody was running around with laptops.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#275

Post by ciupicri »

rbanffy wrote: post #239
nickpp wrote: post #72

Laptops displaced desktops?! You are deluded. We develop on 8GB i7s with dual 24" screens. We have one at home and one at work, Remote Desktop-ing from each other. Gigabit ethernet and optical fiber internet. No molasses wifi here. We work FAST, we work HARD. But we use Windows 7 too, so we're not limited to Apple's crappy hardware either...

Ever since I moved from Windows to Linux I never had the need to develop on such a monster. My netbook (with some extra memory) serves me well. When I am at my desk, I just hook it to the big monitor, a keyboard and mouse and away I go. The only moment I wish for an i7 is when I have to buildout Plone, which is time consuming, but specially so on a machine designed for battery life. Fortunately, I have been doing mos…

If you're talking strictly about developing, I guess any machine would be fine as long as it can run an editor. On the other hand there are people who prefer IDEs like Eclipse combined with all sorts of application and database servers, not to mention virtual machines. Also, let's not forget distractions. After opening hundreds of tabs in Firefox assorted with some Flash, you're gonna wish to have a better CPU/GPU. I had a slow machine while I was a student and it was fine for some homework, but I'm glad that I have a decent desktop right now.

Regarding laptops and Windows: after using Visual Studio on a laptop for a month, I don't even want to hear about working on laptops. Also, I've noticed that some companies promote working on laptops as a cool factor, although in my opinion it's not.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#276

Post by etal »

jhancock wrote: post #109
mikebo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. On the desktop there are 'killer apps' like Photoshop, Excel, Quicken, Final Cut, etc. I don't think there are any killer mobile apps yet. Maybe for some it's FourSquare or FB, but I can't think of one app I'd miss that's not built in.

We probably have a different view on what is a killer app. From my perspective: Windows - Outlook Express, IE. OS X - Mail, Safari. I can't recall the last time I fired up "Photoshop, Excel, Quicken, Final Cut" and I bet 90% of randomly selected users couldn't either.

"Killer app" usually means the app that motivates you to switch platforms. For PS3 or Xbox 360, it's the game that made you want to buy the console. For Windows in the '90s, you needed MS Office to get your work done, so you bought a PC. All other things being equal -- i.e. assuming the system has a web browser and the other essential software has cross-platform equivalents -- the killer app is what kills off rival platforms.

When I hear someone say "I wish I had an iPhone right now", it's usually because they're either (i) lost, or looking for something, and want access to Google Maps, or (ii) in the throes of gadget envy. The App Store addresses (ii), but not with any single app -- it's just the idea that there are thousands of fun toys that only iPhone users get to play with.

So there are a couple of killer features, but nothing that can't be replicated on other phones. Not necessarily as well, but that's not the point: without exclusivity, the iPhone will not get the same kind of dominance Windows has.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#277

Post by dasil003 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #198
Periodic wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QA is basically your testing framework. It's there to do all the tests to make sure the software actually does what you say it does. No developer is good at testing their own code because deep down no developer wants to break the code they just lovingly crafted.

I've always been treated well by QA. I'm sure there are problem QA departments out there but I doubt they are the rule. It's amazing to me that the parent got down moded for supporting the task of QA.

QA is awesome.

I think people are responding to the suggestion that in general developers will subconsciously protect their ego by willfully ignoring flaws in their own software. That is just tremendously offensive to any real hacker, and if it were true the world of software would be a pale shadow of what it is today.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#278

Post by selven »

cesare wrote: post #236
c1sc0 wrote: post #212

I cross-post this from the other thread I started since I noticed the Apple heat is in this one, if you want to learn the background about my app, check this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=951360 Below is what I've learned after 2 months of AppStore dev. Here are a few dirty tricks & ideas that I hope will make life in AppStore purgatory easier: Use the 'Easter Egg' field to plead directly to the reviewe…

> I got an app rejected because the reviewer did not like the price I set. That's a new one. At least for me.

This is an extreme example, but it's happened before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich

Re: Apple's Mistake

#279

Post by rbanffy »

ciupicri wrote: post #275
rbanffy wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since I moved from Windows to Linux I never had the need to develop on such a monster. My netbook (with some extra memory) serves me well. When I am at my desk, I just hook it to the big monitor, a keyboard and mouse and away I go. The only moment I wish for an i7 is when I have to buildout Plone, which is time consuming, but specially so on a machine designed for battery life. Fortunately, I have been doing mos…

If you're talking strictly about developing, I guess any machine would be fine as long as it can run an editor. On the other hand there are people who prefer IDEs like Eclipse combined with all sorts of application and database servers, not to mention virtual machines. Also, let's not forget distractions. After opening hundreds of tabs in Firefox assorted with some Flash, you're gonna wish to have a better CPU/GPU. I…

I never quite got why a tab with a flash thingie embedded consumes any CPU while you are not watching it.

There is a cool factor in working off a laptop - you can carry it out of your office where nobody can interrupt you. That's a non-trivial benefit.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#280

Post by petewarden »

bad_user wrote: post #215
petewarden wrote: post #35

Apple has always treated third-party developers with suspicion. The developer website is only accessible by creating an account and agreeing to their license agreement. They churn through and deprecate APIs comparatively fast. They will quite happily steam-roller over third-party developers by adding competing features to the OS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashboard_%28software%29#Compar... None of this is new, the…

> The trouble with this comparative openness is that you end up with 800 pieces of software written by different companies fighting it out on your desktop, leading to crashes and inconsistent UIs all over the place. And that's a bad thing because? Who has the mainstream OS now with over 87% market-share? Even popular cross-platform applications that were first available for Macs (like Adobe Photoshop) are now more op…

You seem to think I'm arguing that Apple's approach is better than Microsoft's. I'm not at all, just pointing out that there's internally-consistent reasons behind Apple's culture of preferring tightly-controlled, closed systems. The lesson learned from that brush with bankruptcy was that the cloned-hardware approach degraded the user experience.

Steve seems to think that the benefits of closed systems (standardised UI, fewer crashes) outweigh the costs (more expensive, less software). I don't have to agree to recognize that he's making a rational trade-off.

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