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Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

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Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#71

Post by chc »

BudVVeezer wrote: post #39
Perceval wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think putting marketers in that list is a bit trollish, I think you've hit on something that's broadly true. Developers reacted with rage to Apple's app screening process and are reacting with rage again to Apple's banning of intermediary layers/languages. Whereas Microsoft's slogan is "developers, developers, developers..." Apple's is decidedly not. Apple prioritizes the end user experience over the develope…

The reason I put marketers on that list (and higher than users) is because Apple sometimes goes with "shiny" things which are marketing fodder instead of things which truly improve the user experience. But you expounded on my point nicely -- Apple and MS have different philosophies about developers.

In my experience, it is the users who go gaga over the "shiny things." If the media pays attention to these things at all, it's simply because they know that's what a lot of users will be interested in. If I tell my mom that the new OS X has a totally rewritten Finder that follows OS X standards much better and deals with failure much more elegantly, she'll just blink and say, "Oh, cool." If I show my mom the graphical interface for Time Machine with all the versions of my files apparently falling into a black hole, she'll point and scream and call people over to see how cool it is.

The moral: Never forget that people really do like using shiny things a lot better in many cases.

Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#72

Post by thaumaturgy »

fjabre wrote: post #4

The problem is Apple has no real competition. They can do almost anything they want without fear of retribution because your average consumer has no idea what any of this means. That's bad news for all us pissed off developers since Apple's new platform will continue to be extremely popular in which case devs are forced to develop for it. Google seems to be inching towards being a real threat but they also seem extre…

> ...devs are forced to develop for it.

No, you're not.

This is what I don't understand from all of the developer "outcry" over this: you're not forced to develop for this platform. If you don't trust it anymore, then stop developing for it.

There were ways to make money as a developer before the iPhone came along. There are still plenty of ways to make money as a developer that don't involve dealing with the iPad or the iPhone.

These counter-arguments sound so much like the web developer hatred for IE 6 years ago, where everyone was bemoaning having to develop code specifically for IE 6, and everyone was saying that they had to keep developing code for IE 6, because that's what the users are using. But, years later, it has finally become OK to abandon IE 6 altogether; it could have happened a long time ago if developers had just quit supporting garbage.

Android/Google are looking for good applications developers. Go work with that instead.

Otherwise, it's just noise.

Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#73

Post by ccc3 »

fjabre wrote: post #4

The problem is Apple has no real competition. They can do almost anything they want without fear of retribution because your average consumer has no idea what any of this means. That's bad news for all us pissed off developers since Apple's new platform will continue to be extremely popular in which case devs are forced to develop for it. Google seems to be inching towards being a real threat but they also seem extre…

I think you're absolutely right in saying that Apple has no real competition, but it's interesting to look at the trajectories of the various elements of the smartphone market and consider what things might look like in 5 years (remember, the iPhone was first available 3 years ago). Android doesn't compete at the same level as apple today, but it is far more likely to start progressing exponentially at some point when the conditions are right. At the same time the barriers to entry for building hardware are quickly falling, so we may yet see some new entrants.

Apple's new policy won't cause their developers to leave immediately, the market is just too big. What they have done is sent a clear message to developers that if they don't want to do it "the Apple way" then they should be keeping their eyes open for other opportunities. Apple has essentially made a huge gamble that they can be the smartest guys in the market forever. I think that's unwise.

Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#74

Post by barrkel »

MWinther wrote: post #56
jasonlotito wrote: post #2

All are good points, but number 2 is the big one for me. That was my first thought when I heard what Apple was doing, and I think it's important to keep that in consideration. While I don't always agree with DHH, he makes some good, rational points here. It should be noted that most of these arguments have been made elsewhere, but it's a great summation.

It's fascinating. This is the way I look at them, as being on the side of people who agree with Apple on this one. #1: Don't agree. Apple has 180,000 apps in their App store, maybe a good time to remove incentives for a new influx of non-programmer-written apps straight from Flash? Oh, they're getting rid of other stuff that also encourages people to use other tools than their own? I think they can live with that. #2…

What you've said there is that you are not rational with respect to your position re Apple. You explicitly say that people should work with Apple platform from a "sense of duty", that people should be "faithful".

This seems to me to make you unqualified to counter rational arguments.

Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#75

Post by donaq »

clawrencewenham wrote: post #70
flogic wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it'a more "Don't claim you're weeding the garden. We know you're not."

They have been. Remember they expurgated all of the "sexy" apps a couple of months ago?

Is iFart still there? If so, I call bullshit.

Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#76

Post by donaq »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #72
fjabre wrote: post #4

The problem is Apple has no real competition. They can do almost anything they want without fear of retribution because your average consumer has no idea what any of this means. That's bad news for all us pissed off developers since Apple's new platform will continue to be extremely popular in which case devs are forced to develop for it. Google seems to be inching towards being a real threat but they also seem extre…

> ...devs are forced to develop for it. No, you're not. This is what I don't understand from all of the developer "outcry" over this: you're not forced to develop for this platform. If you don't trust it anymore, then stop developing for it. There were ways to make money as a developer before the iPhone came along. There are still plenty of ways to make money as a developer that don't involve dealing with the iPad or…

Well, I guess everyone is hoping that if the outcry is severe enough, Apple will take it out of the agreement. We can be pretty certain that if there is no backlash, the clause will definitely stay.

Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#77

Post by statictype »

erichsu wrote: post #17

These are rational arguments for non-ObjC developers to be pissed at Apple. None of them are arguments for APPLE to change its policy. In the medium term it is clearly better for Apple's interests to implement 3.3.1, to maintain control over platform and encourage differentiation of its hardware (the way it makes most of its money!). In the medium term, they have more great developers than you can shake a stick at, s…

I don't think anyone is arguing that this is not a good short-term business decision for apple.

What everyone is furious about is the complete lack of respect for the platform's developers.

Yes, Apple has every right to do that if they want, and developers have every right to get furious about it too.

Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#78

Post by statictype »

raganwald wrote: post #30
Tichy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

git clone rails

So if I understand your witty reply, what you're saying is that if you give your work product away, you are entitled to do as you please with the fruits of your labour. However, if you develop a proprietary product, you are not entitled to do as you please with it and must accommodate the needs of those who want to do something else with it and are unable to do so because of your licensing terms. Is that what "git cl…

No, I don't think thats what he meant.

Your earlier comment seemed to indicate (and I believe you have clarified it below in this thread) that if there's a valid business case for Rails doing something, then maybe that business case is valid for the iPhone OS as well.

I don't believe that comparison holds because

a) refusal to add new features is not the same as tightening the terms of service.

The equivalent would be to release a new version of rails that prevented (by technical or legal means) using any 3rd party ruby packages that are not approved by dhh.

b) Even if dhh did something like this, one could clone rails and be on their way. So the effects of this new policy are somewhat mitigated by the fact that the code is Free.

Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#79

Post by clawrencewenham »

donaq wrote: post #75
clawrencewenham wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have been. Remember they expurgated all of the "sexy" apps a couple of months ago?

Is iFart still there? If so, I call bullshit.

They killed "shake the baby", they didn't kill iFart. You try figuring out where to draw the line. But there is no doubt that they are culling apps for their content; "weeding" so to speak.

With 3.3.1 Apple is trying to control the overal UX. They can't reject bad music from the iTunes Store, but they can enforce basic encoding standards, so the music doesn't sound like crap for reasons other than the artistic content.

When they removed the "sexy" apps they were using a rule that could be made specific and enforced consistently. The picked adult content because of the peculiar standards that humans (and especially Americans) have when it comes to sex.

Or maybe it's really difficult to phrase a definition for "college humor".

Re: Five rational arguments against Apple's 3.3.1 policy

#80

Post by angusgr »

stanleydrew wrote: post #68
grinich wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to optimize product to cut costs, or put more engineers on the project and add features. What's truly difficult is reduction. Removing "features" and simplifying the product. The success of the iPad and iPhone is not about what it-- it's about all the things it doesn't do.

Yes I've heard lots of people toe the Apple company line on simplifying before. But I thought we were talking about whether or not there is smartphone competition. If you want to believe there is nothing that can truly compete with the iPhone because of its magical UI or lack of features or whatever I can't prevent that. Yes, it's true, the iPhone is the only iPhone in existence. But in that sense nothing can compete…

"If you get specific enough, everything is in a category of its own without any competition."

Of course. The problem the parent is describing is that the smartphone market, the person on the street with an iPhone, who doesn't have a clue what "objective see" is, has his/her own specific criteria for buying a phone, and so far they seem to line up with Apple's criteria pretty well.

Android can compete on features, price, openness, open-source, goat-teleport-count, or any other metric they can find. It won't be "real competition", in this sense, until ordinary people find reasons to actually buy it in large numbers.

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