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Apple's Mistake

paulgraham.com

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Re: Apple's Mistake

#61

Post by JunkDNA »

Part of Paul's reasoning depends on Apps being central to the iPhone experience the same way software is central to the desktop experience. I'm not totally sure this is the case. While apps are certainly a major component to the iPhone, are they really the major factor in end-user adoption? With the exception of games, how many killer iPhone apps are there that don't already ship with the phone? The phone shipped for an entire year without an App Store at all. I even read something not that long ago that said the majority of apps sit unused on people's phones after they get them.

Now, this doesn't mean that developers won't want a developer friendly phone, or that Apple is hurting their reputation with developers. I'm certain it has been frustrating to deal with the whole process. However, if 3rd party software isn't essential for the iPhone as a platform, then developer satisfaction moves down a bit in terms of importance in Apple's eyes.

Now, it's clear that games are major for the app store. Games are also a special class of software application that benefits disproportionately from having access to the hardware at a low level. They also have properties more similar to music and movies (incidentally, things the iTunes store is good at selling). Except for the simplest games, they require a lot of up-front design work and investment. It's rare that a released game goes through a ton of rapid iterations to "get it right". Games may still have bugs after release, but in general the functionality they are going to have is there on day one. They also ship with the final sound effects, music, artwork, etc... Games are also probably very unlikely to "duplicate existing functinoality" or any of the other cases where "normal" apps hit barriers. Perhaps Apple has (intentionally or unintentionally) created an environment optimized for game approval?

I'm certainly not defending the app store process, but I just wonder if the software development community has a disproportionate view of its importance to the iPhone as a whole.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#62

Post by boredguy8 »

chaosmachine wrote: post #57

If you want a developer environment that fits in your pocket, look no further than the TI-83 graphing calculator. Much of my free time in highschool was spent creating games on it. It's extremely easy to develop for (it uses a variant of BASIC), and the menu system is designed to minimize keystrokes, which means you can bang out your code very quickly. Of course, the platform is very dated: 6 MHz CPU, and a 96×64 mon…

I learned assembly on the MC68000 in the TI-89

Re: Apple's Mistake

#63

Post by jshen »

catweasel wrote: post #42
antirez wrote: post #4

Paul captured my whole feeling about the App Store matter, especially about buying Apple products. Now I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I still like the products but I no longer like the company. Today my small team of developers submitted the first "toy" we released just to test how the approval process works. Let's see if we'll have some bad experience as well.

Faustian bargain? Assholes? Evil? .. really, if this is the most serious accusation of "evil" one can level at Apple then it isn't really going to affect my buying decisions. It's not like they're dealing in small arms or manufacturing cluster bombs. If you step back and think about it all Apple is doing is stuffing up their own app store, which can be classified as monumentally stupid and short sighted but not reall…

I think it's reasonable to make such a charge if "their app store" is in effect "The App Store". This is like saying that it's not evil to remove freedom of speech in America. I mean, it's only stuffing up "their country".

Re: Apple's Mistake

#64

Post by orangecat »

rtrunck wrote: post #23

Most of Apple's policies handling the app store make me somewhat believe they wanted their original plan to succeed, namely, making developers write web applications and not opening up the iPhone to native development.

Agreed. I think there's at least a 50% chance that the original plan was a console-like model where the only native apps would be from Apple and hand-picked partners. The popularity of jailbreaking forced their hand, because if unlocking became common it would ruin their cozy relationship with the carriers.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#66

Post by antirez »

catweasel wrote: post #42
antirez wrote: post #4

Paul captured my whole feeling about the App Store matter, especially about buying Apple products. Now I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I still like the products but I no longer like the company. Today my small team of developers submitted the first "toy" we released just to test how the approval process works. Let's see if we'll have some bad experience as well.

Faustian bargain? Assholes? Evil? .. really, if this is the most serious accusation of "evil" one can level at Apple then it isn't really going to affect my buying decisions. It's not like they're dealing in small arms or manufacturing cluster bombs. If you step back and think about it all Apple is doing is stuffing up their own app store, which can be classified as monumentally stupid and short sighted but not reall…

Sorry but I believe in a religious way that an hardware vendor should not have the power to enforce what software can run into a device. Like a bike vendor can't force you to only use your bike in a limited number of streets.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#67

Post by tjogin »

tptacek wrote: post #29

Though I can't marshall any evidence to support this claim, it was specifically not my impression that Apple was a company pro developers loved working with before the iPhone.

Mac developers mostly did (and still do). If you're developing anything other than Mac applications, you probably don't know a lot about what it's like either.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#68

Post by mechanical_fish »

raintrees wrote: post #48

I am about to show my ignorance of developing for the iPhone, so please forgive any incorrect assumptions and mistaken conclusions. It is my understanding that apps can also be installed directly from third party websites... If so, is there a way to create an app for the App Store that is a shell to a website where a conglomerate of listings can be offered? It seems this would give the value of having everything fair…

It is my understanding that apps can also be installed directly from third party websites...

This is not true, and that's the essence of the problem.

You can install software that you've written yourself on your own phone. And there's some sort of deal that lets you give your software to beta testers and let them install it. A year or so ago some clever fellow tried to use this beta loophole as a way of selling an app that was banned from the App Store. I believe they threw the book at him and he had to stop. I haven't heard of that happening again.

You can distribute apps for jailbroken phones, but that is not really a solution.

Re: Apple's Mistake

#69

Post by elblanco »

chollida1 wrote: post #26
pohl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if Microsoft had vetted every DOS and Windows app Or, hold constant that Microsoft didn't vet DOS/Windows apps and imagine that every DOS/Windows machine had access to a cellular network owned by a some other company. I agree that the review process is completely broken, but I don't think the solution is as easy as having no controls whatsoever.

> , hold constant that Microsoft didn't vet DOS/Windows apps and imagine that every DOS/Windows machine had access to a cellular network owned by a some other company. Well most windows machines do have access to a network controlled by someone else. And with the proliferation of cellular usb accessories more and more windows machines do have access to a cellular network owned by some other company.

They don't? I don't know about how you connect to the internet, but my ISPs owns the networks I tend to connect to.
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