Apple: The Obstacle to America's Future? • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple: The Obstacle to America's Future?

#61

Post by cpleppert » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 2:56 AM UTC

canweriotnow wrote: post #25

x0054 wrote: post #22

This is idiotic! Apple is not THE obstacle, it's just another platform. People who love apple get accused of being fanboys. What is the opposite of that? Some one who drags in Apple into any an all argument, and figures out a way to blame them for anything and everything. Teenagers who can't afford to pay $99 have a clear option, Android. It's like arguing that Ferrari is preventing kinds from chasing their dreams of…

When you're talking about K-12 edtech education, in many cases the kids have the patforms their schools/districts endorse. And in many, if not most cases, that's iOS. plus, we're not talking about $99 to publish, we're talking about $99 just to run your own code on your own device. I don't know about you, but when I was a 10yr hacker, that would have been a deal breaker.

>> When you're talking about K-12 edtech education, in many cases the kids have the patforms their schools/districts endorse. And in many, if not most cases, that's iOS.

It seems that what you are asking is whether the school should take steps to ensure that kids can develop mobile applications. If that is the case then the school could just set up a single app store account as part of a mobile development course. If the school really wants people to develop mobile applications then the $99 fee is meaningless. I doubt that there is any overwhelming demand to do that on the part of students or teachers.

Of course, any kid can develop a whole plethora of applications for a variety of platforms at very low cost if they really want too. Considering that it wasn't too long ago that it took thousands of dollars to even get a computer(and many people I know didn't grow up having access to a computer of their own) your criticism is essentially looking a gift horse in the mouth. There are a lot of factors that come into play with encouraging kids to get into computers, a $99 deployment requirement for an expensive device isn't one of them.

Re: Apple: The Obstacle to America's Future?

#62

Post by Mikeb85 » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 3:44 AM UTC

anko wrote: post #53

canweriotnow wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. This right here. This is why I detest Apple as a professional developer. The "hacker kids" issue is almost orthogonal, but I can't stand the idea of someone telling me what I can run on a device I purchased.

nobody complained about this junk when it was nintendo and sega doing it, for a lot more. It's just that this time; 1) people have this illogical apple hatred and 2) people buy into google's spiel about being open. The app store, is a tradeoff. It's some inconvenience for developers in exchange for a trusted, safe marketplace for applications for consumers.

> nobody complained about this junk when it was nintendo and sega doing it, for a lot more.

I'm sure someone did, but they didn't have the internet to vent their frustrations.

> 1) people have this illogical apple hatred

I'd say there's valid reasons to dislike Apple's stance on many issues.

> 2) people buy into google's spiel about being open.

Every OS Google has is open-source - Chrome OS, and Android. Yes, we know they do have services that aren't, and some that require payment, but you can use, fork, and hack on Android or Chromium if you want to.

Is Google a 100% open source company? No. I would personally prefer Firefox OS and Ubuntu become the major smartphone players, but Google is better than Apple or MS.

> The app store, is a tradeoff. It's some inconvenience for developers in exchange for a trusted, safe marketplace for applications for consumers.

It's not about the app store. It's about restrictions on side-loading your own app onto a device you own. With an Android device, I can test my own apps without having to sign up for anything. I hear Firefox OS is just as open, and they make it very easy to test out your HTML5 apps (even without it being hosted on a website).

Re: Apple: The Obstacle to America's Future?

#63

Post by anko » Thu, Dec 12, 2013, 4:40 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #62

anko wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nobody complained about this junk when it was nintendo and sega doing it, for a lot more. It's just that this time; 1) people have this illogical apple hatred and 2) people buy into google's spiel about being open. The app store, is a tradeoff. It's some inconvenience for developers in exchange for a trusted, safe marketplace for applications for consumers.

> nobody complained about this junk when it was nintendo and sega doing it, for a lot more. I'm sure someone did, but they didn't have the internet to vent their frustrations. > 1) people have this illogical apple hatred I'd say there's valid reasons to dislike Apple's stance on many issues. > 2) people buy into google's spiel about being open. Every OS Google has is open-source - Chrome OS, and Android. Yes, we know…

This is a late reply, but just in case you read it.

> I'd say there's valid reasons to dislike Apple's stance on many issues.

That's not apple hatred, and it's not what I'm talking about.

> Every OS Google has is open-source - Chrome OS, and Android. Yes, we know they do have services that aren't, and some that require payment, but you can use, fork, and hack on Android or Chromium if you want to.

Read this: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-....

I don't know what your argument is, but also consider that apple has an opensource core to their OS too - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system). But they have a closed source shell on top of that? So does android.

> Google is better than Apple or MS.

This is what i'm talking about when I say illogical apple hatred. Google is not better than Apple or MS.

> It's not about the app store. It's about restrictions on side-loading your own app onto a device you own

If people could sideload anything on their devices, it would break trust in the platform. Apple want a platform that people trust, and most people want that too. It's not fundamentally wrong to be different, but just understand that you're a minority on this planet and that people who don't want to sideload apps are the majority.