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Wozniak calls for open Apple

itnews.com.au

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Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#51

Post by hristov »

jinushaun wrote: post #50
rogerbinns wrote: post #21

Here is a nice comparison. Buy a mobile device and try to use the standard developer tools to put Hello World on it. Android: Download Eclipse (Windows, Linux or Mac) and the Android SDK (Windows, Linux or Mac) - no accounts or registration needed for either of these. In your phone menus enable development and connect via USB. In Eclipse make your hello world project, and hit Run or Debug. Enjoy. Apple: You must buy…

I hate when people list "buy a mac" as the first step for iOS development. Some of us already have one. In order to develop for Eclipse, I'd have to buy/own a computer as well.

And some of us don't. It is presumed that you need a computer to run an IDE, but it is not presumed that you need a Mac. So saying that you need to have Mac to do something is quite an informative statement.

Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#52

Post by saintfiends »

jinushaun wrote: post #50
rogerbinns wrote: post #21

Here is a nice comparison. Buy a mobile device and try to use the standard developer tools to put Hello World on it. Android: Download Eclipse (Windows, Linux or Mac) and the Android SDK (Windows, Linux or Mac) - no accounts or registration needed for either of these. In your phone menus enable development and connect via USB. In Eclipse make your hello world project, and hit Run or Debug. Enjoy. Apple: You must buy…

I hate when people list "buy a mac" as the first step for iOS development. Some of us already have one. In order to develop for Eclipse, I'd have to buy/own a computer as well.

Could you elaborate a better first step?

Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#53

Post by user-developer »

Tloewald wrote: post #35
oldschooltaper wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. Apple is all about hoop jumping. Remember your first iPod? Chances are you were forced to use something called iTunes. Now people do not think twice about iTunes. But back then there was just no sensible reason, from the user's perspective, not to let a user add/remove music from an iPod without jumping through an additional hoop. People had to spend countless hours deciphering the protocol in order to bui…

The alternative at the time was to buy an mp3 player with no way for normal people to load or buy music. It's precisely because of the lack of hoop jumping that iPod took off. Don't confuse the customer experience with the developer experience. Apple has always considered ease of use for end users a top priority and ease of use for programmers to be a distant nth.

What if a user is also a developer, or vice versa?

Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#54

Post by userdeveloper »

myko wrote: post #40
oldschooltaper wrote: post #18

What would he say to the idea of selling Apple hardware without tying it to an OS? In other words, you can buy the great Apple form factor and design, but you don't have to deal with the restrictions of the OS. You could install your own OS. Obviously this would initially only target hackers. NetBSD can run on some Apple hardware. And there is all the Hackintosh work to build on. Eventually there would be more free O…

This is already possible though. Or you mean just purchasing the hardware with no OS on it to start; which would be a savings of $30?

The purpose may not be to save money. The purpose may be to have flexibility. To install only what the user wants to install. Maybe the user does not want OSX preinstalled on the HDD. Maybe the user wants to boot diskless with a blank HDD only used for storage or something else, but not the OS.* The point is that it allows more flexibility. Let the user decide what she wants to install. Sell the user the hardware. Charge whatever you want. Then stay out of the user's business. How she uses the hardware is her business.

*There are some real security benefits from keeping the OS on read-only media.

Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#55

Post by jiggy2011 »

Tloewald wrote: post #35
oldschooltaper wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. Apple is all about hoop jumping. Remember your first iPod? Chances are you were forced to use something called iTunes. Now people do not think twice about iTunes. But back then there was just no sensible reason, from the user's perspective, not to let a user add/remove music from an iPod without jumping through an additional hoop. People had to spend countless hours deciphering the protocol in order to bui…

The alternative at the time was to buy an mp3 player with no way for normal people to load or buy music. It's precisely because of the lack of hoop jumping that iPod took off. Don't confuse the customer experience with the developer experience. Apple has always considered ease of use for end users a top priority and ease of use for programmers to be a distant nth.

Dragging something onto a removable disk is hoop jumping?

Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#56

Post by StuffMaster »

Tloewald wrote: post #35
oldschooltaper wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. Apple is all about hoop jumping. Remember your first iPod? Chances are you were forced to use something called iTunes. Now people do not think twice about iTunes. But back then there was just no sensible reason, from the user's perspective, not to let a user add/remove music from an iPod without jumping through an additional hoop. People had to spend countless hours deciphering the protocol in order to bui…

The alternative at the time was to buy an mp3 player with no way for normal people to load or buy music. It's precisely because of the lack of hoop jumping that iPod took off. Don't confuse the customer experience with the developer experience. Apple has always considered ease of use for end users a top priority and ease of use for programmers to be a distant nth.

Whoah there, iTunes is not ease of use. I had an MP3 player before the iPod was ever relased and it was most definitely easier to load music onto.

Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#57

Post by userdeveloper »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #55
Tloewald wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative at the time was to buy an mp3 player with no way for normal people to load or buy music. It's precisely because of the lack of hoop jumping that iPod took off. Don't confuse the customer experience with the developer experience. Apple has always considered ease of use for end users a top priority and ease of use for programmers to be a distant nth.

Dragging something onto a removable disk is hoop jumping?

The hoop is not using the software. The hoop is having to install the software.

Why can't the iPod work without iTunes? (It can, but only with a lot of work.)

Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#58

Post by grannyg00se »

rogerbinns wrote: post #21

Here is a nice comparison. Buy a mobile device and try to use the standard developer tools to put Hello World on it. Android: Download Eclipse (Windows, Linux or Mac) and the Android SDK (Windows, Linux or Mac) - no accounts or registration needed for either of these. In your phone menus enable development and connect via USB. In Eclipse make your hello world project, and hit Run or Debug. Enjoy. Apple: You must buy…

You (ahem) forgot Blackberry.

It has been a while for me but from what I can recall you are ready to go once you download the blackberry IDE. There may be an eclipse plugin for that now so you don't have to download the whole monster.

Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#59

Post by orangecat »

bitwize wrote: post #32

Not gonna happen. Apple devices are abstractions with well-defined interfaces (sets of operations you can perform on them). Not only should the implementation not matter, it is anathema that anyone should know the implementation because that would break the abstraction at a fundamental level. It's absurd for a bunch of hackers to think about, but this is what has made Apple billions of dollars, and it's what made the…

It's absurd for a bunch of hackers to think about, but this is what has made Apple billions of dollars, and it's what made them the best technology company on the planet: the construction of devices completely defined by their simple interfaces, with all else hidden from the end user.

Then you would agree that Macs are unsuitable for normal users, since they ship with a command line and lots of geeky Unix tools preinstalled?

Re: Wozniak calls for open Apple

#60

Post by jiggy2011 »

userdeveloper wrote: post #57
jiggy2011 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dragging something onto a removable disk is hoop jumping?

The hoop is not using the software. The hoop is having to install the software. Why can't the iPod work without iTunes? (It can, but only with a lot of work.)

IIRC correctly most of the older MP3 players didn't need any software beyond what was built into Windows. Of course this was the era of Windows 95/98 so how well that worked overall it's difficult to say.
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