iPad

[Prospero]

Strangely enough, no. That said it's not a problem to whack to the back button. It takes nearly as much effort as a swipe.

[Tarami]

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

[schild]

lol@ the iPad being an ipod touch with a giant battery strapped to it.

It's the Wii to my Gamecube.

[Ingmar]

Man, why did he feel the need to post that at all? That's edging into Dr. Smart territory at times.

[schild]

Jobs is a cult leader. He just happens to have a following, Smart has a following of himself.

[Mosesandstick]

In his mind, that's the most awesome following in the world.

[tgr]

I tested the iPad out for 10 minutes, as someone at work had apparently decided to buy one. My impression was, yes, it was too heavy for prolonged use, it was too big to use as an ebook reading thingy, and it wasn't large enough for other uses. using google maps was fine, although the deal with obscuring large chunks of the screen while zooming annoyed me.

I also saw some guy at a conference play with his ipad. He had it lying in his lap, while he himself hunched over the ipad as he tapped at the virtual keyboard.

Wasn't impressed when I first read about it, I wasn't impressed when I tested it. I'd still take a combination of a kindle (or the equivalent) and a notebook and just get more, with less restrictions.

[Sheepherder]

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features.

 

[Abagadro]

Jobs and the kinda crap they are pulling with this whole Gizmondo/iPhone thing is why I don't own a single Apple product (plus them being horribly overpriced).  It's kinda sad considering how I cut my teeth on the IIe and loved messing around on their computers back in the day.

[Ingmar]

I wouldn't want to give up my iPod, that's the one thing they've really won me over with. I have pretty major interface problems with the rest of their products.

[Quinton]

Jobs knows all about how shitting portability libraries are -- witness itunes on win32, possibly the worst app ever.

Still, my argument stands -- there's no reason to forbid developers from using tools that work for them. 

If they want to ban crappy apps, fine, that kinda makes sense, but banning apps that use technologies they dislike is completely absurd. 

[Jeff Kelly]

No it actually makes a lot of sense.

Not only are msot - if not all - cross platform frameworks really crappy and only offer the lowest common denominator of all supported platforms, they pose a real danger for any OS or device manufacturer.

Suppose a framework like Java or Flash would run on any platform and that a subset of developers actually uses it. In that case the user doesn't have to care about which device to buy. As long as it supports flash many of his favourite apps will run.

This can not be in the interest of any OS or device company, They want you to buy their product not any product.

Even worse there is no longer a point in offering more features than the cross platform framework supports. If you're the only one offering it, the framework will most likely not support it (would break the cross-platform aspect), if it supports it then most of your competitors also implemented that feature, meaning that you are still only one of many.

You relinquish control over your own innovations to a third party.

It's basically the Windows dilemma. No PC makers uses its own OS, all offer Windows. Therefore they all offer computers that can run Windows and offer components supported by Windows and only integrate features developed by Microsoft.

And most customers stopped caring which brand of computer to buy as long as it runs Windows and is cheap enough.

Mobile phone makers that herald Android as their saviour will step into the same trap, they will become just another Android device maker with no ability to distinguish themselves.

That's why HP's aquisition of Palm is a very smart move going forward.

Neither Microsoft, nor Google, nor HP or Apple have any interest in supporting flash or any other cross platform framework. Some might tell you today that they do but I don't believe them. Adobe teaming up with Google to support flash on Android will bite them in the ass sooner rather than later. Google not only has no intention to relinquish control of its platform to Flash, they are direct competitors in the same market as Adobe (cross platform, apps in the cloud)

[Tebonas]

What Jeff said.

Technically a closed platform is the least dangerous and most stable experience. It sucks for developers and freaks like us powerusers, but the normal user loves it.

[Quinton]

Is it better for the OS company to have apps or to not have apps?

Steve cannot win (where win is defined as "own the entire market") -- his single product family cannot compete with an open market for mobile devices long-term.  If Steve insists that developers choose between iphone and all other mobile devices, as his market share erodes he will continue to lose developers.  He's doing a fantastic job of setting himself up for the same situation the Mac was in in the 80s/90s -- his iron grip will ensure that open competitors gain market share, relegating him to the high-end, which isn't a horrible place to be from a money making standpoint, so at least he's got that going for him.

Sure, short term he'll convince some developers to develop only for his platform, but the larger shops will write versions for multiple platforms even if they have to maintain somewhat different code bases anyway.  They already do.  Who loses?  The little guys who invest their all into an app and get rejected for some stupid reason, or who discover that only a tiny fraction of developers make any real money and they have to start over if they want to broaden their market beyond iphone.


Regarding Android, manufacturers and carriers *already* are shipping devices that are distinct (HTC's Sense UI, Moto's Blur, etc) and that still run apps written for the Android SDK.  

The entire industry saw what happened when you gave a single proprietary OS vendor too much power (microsoft).  Nobody plans to repeat that mistake again.  This is why Android has to be open source, not just an open platform -- the ability for the OEMs to control their own destiny is vital to them.


Of course if it's not Android, it'll be something else, but at the end of the day computers (no matter what shape or size) are awesome because they can do anything and platforms that let you do anything have a significant advantage over those that do not.

[Quinton]

ipad crashes an awful lot (entire device lockups) for a "stable platform".  Maybe it needs something more than being closed to work well?

iphone has an impressive history of terrible call experience (dropped calls, etc).  Maybe it needs something more than being closed to work well?


Steve in his little war on flash goes on and on about how most mac crashes are from flash.  This is interesting to me since I've *never* had flash crash my entire OS, and in recent years have rarely seen it crash my browser.  Sounds to me like some folks in Cupertino might want to spend some more time debugging their awesome closed OS. 

Maybe they can fix their USB stack that causes the entire computer to shit itself at times when you plug devices in -- I mean hell, Linux got that sorted out 5-10 years ago.  I've written USB stacks for a living.  It's not rocket science.  But maybe "not crashing" is not magical and revolutionary enough to matter?

[Tebonas]

I agree, but it will take time. And the average user has too many applications as it is, they only will realize something is amiss if they want to find an application for something and they find none. The difference between 15 applications and 150 applications doing the same thing is not something they are concerned with.

The way how Apple handles their appstore is really appaling and being a developer for iPhones is an excercise in frustration. Their arbritary way to decide what is ok and what isn't (even changing their criteria between updates) makes it possible you develop something and get no return in costs because somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed and is cranky. That is unacceptable and in the long run will scare away most developers.

Right now everybody thinks that is a goldmine to be exploited. Lets see how long that goldrush holds on until they realize most only get sand out of the riverbanks.


Edit: My iphone crashed twice since the first model and I never had a dropped call. Maybe its the sucky provider it is bundled to in the US or the jailbreaking (which I heard horror stories about)?

[Quinton]

The way how Apple handles their appstore is really appaling and being a developer for iPhones is an excercise in frustration. Their arbritary way to decide what is ok and what isn't (even changing their criteria between updates) makes it possible you develop something and get no return in costs because somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed and is cranky. That is unacceptable and in the long run will scare away most developers.

This is the thing that just amazes me.  That people put up with that.  I mean, yeah console game publishers make you jump through crazy hoops too -- but they also ensure that your game is going to sell for $60 like every other game and not be instantly undercut by a bunch of crappy knock-offs, etc, etc.  It's like you get all the bullshit but none of the upside.

I'm hearing that many small iPhone developers try to never update their apps because of the possibility of having their entire app rejected when they post their bugfix version -- yuck!

[tgr]

This is the thing that just amazes me.  That people put up with that.  I mean, yeah console game publishers make you jump through crazy hoops too -- but they also ensure that your game is going to sell for $60 like every other game and not be instantly undercut by a bunch of crappy knock-offs, etc, etc.  It's like you get all the bullshit but none of the upside.

But it's apple and it's awesome and notebooks don't do anything well and the ipad is awesome and wonderful hip and and and.</snark>

I just keep thinking of the guy sitting hunched over his iPad in a lecture. It didn't look like a healthy or comfortable position to sit in, and the keyboard literally took over a LOT of screen real estate. Possibly enough that I would assume the "useless notebook" would leave him with a better experience, but since it's apple and thus hip, he'll be damned if he won't make it work.

As for the hoops you have to jump through, I haven't tried that myself, but a friend of mine did look into it for a short while. He's the kind of guy that will happily sit and design large(ish) multithreaded apps for fun, and he decided to just say fuck that to developing for his iPhone because of the artificial restrictions. And that was before apple went batshit crazy with the latest restrictions.

[Jeff Kelly]

Is it better for the OS company to have apps or to not have apps?

Steve cannot win (where win is defined as "own the entire market") -- his single product family cannot compete with an open market for mobile devices long-term.  

He doesn't have to and he doesn't want to. Let's not forget that we are not talking about a company with > 95% market share. Apple has < 10% market share in desktop computers and <25% market share in smart phones (< 10% if you count all phones).

Yet they'll soon surpass Microsoft in market cap.

He already won. He owns the only computer maker that gains market share and has the market for premium devices cornered. He did this because Apple has the ability to control the whole experience. They own the OS, they own the hardware, they control how you develop applications for them and how you distribute them.

Does this alienate a lot of people? Yes of course. A lot of people however like that approach because it pays off with an - at least in their opinion - superior experience and they are willing to pay a premium for that.

At least Apple has the choice to do it as they are. HP, Dell, Lenovo and others don't have any choice or control over the experience, it is decided by Intel and Microsoft

HTC doesn't have any control over the experience, it is decided by Microsoft or Google Android.

Regarding Android, manufacturers and carriers *already* are shipping devices that are distinct (HTC's Sense UI, Moto's Blur, etc) and that still run apps written for the Android SDK.  

Developers will be the normalizing factor here. Developers will develop their apps for an abstract "Android" platform, they don't care if HTC has a Sense UI, they might not even own any HTC device. They aren't even encouraged to adapt their Apps to a certain manufacturer because they'd have to own all of those devices, would have to to adapt their app to each device and test it. They'd also have little to gain from it, if they just develop for "Android" they reach all potential Android users as well.

Any distinction a manufacturer has is therefore largely superficial or it breaks with Android compatability and is therefore not used by the majority of developers.

When customers realize that the decision to buy a device is only dependent on whether or not it runs Android it's over.

Most people will choose the cheapest brand that can run the OS and offers all the features they need.

This might be great for developers no need to write your app for multiple platforms, it's less great for customers because they might get cheaper devices but by companies no longer able to innovate (Google sets the speed of innovation), it's very bad for the companies.

If I want to own an iPhone I have to buy an Apple product, if I want to own a WebOS device I have to buy HP. If those products are great it pays off for those companies. If I want to own an Android device I buy any device from any of the several companies offering them.

The entire industry saw what happened when you gave a single proprietary OS vendor too much power (microsoft).  Nobody plans to repeat that mistake again.

Yes not even Apple, that's why they exert so much control over their own platform. By extension your point not only covers OS vendors but also vendors of cross-platform frameworks.

 This is why Android has to be open source, not just an open platform -- the ability for the OEMs to control their own destiny is vital to them.

The OEMs only choice is which death they want to die. If they customize Android the platform will fragment into different brand specific Android dialects getting more and more incompatible with each other, e.g. Unix in the seventies, Linux in the nineties. Developers won't be able to target a generic Android platform but would have to write Apps for HTC Android, Motorola Android and so on.

At one point a quasi standard will emerge and all competing platforms go bust.

If they don't customize Android they don't give customers any non-superficial incentive to buy their product instead of a competing brand. At one point the biggest player will corner the market and many competing platforms go bust.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Apple and HP at least have the ability to live or die by their own choices and not by strategic decisions made by Microsoft, Google or any other 3rd party corporation. They also set an example other companies want to follow.

From a company's perspective such a decision makes a lot of sense. You have to be quick to execute it however. Five years from now, only two or three players will remain. Most probably Apple, Google and a third party. Most companies jumping on the Android bandwagon will realize that they just dumped the plague (Microsoft) in order to catch cholera and that they are still wedged between a rock and a hard place, only a different one.

Adobe's Flash will be thrown under the bus by all of them because neither Apple, nor Google have any inclination to relinquish control over their platforms to any 3rd party. Google might be pretending to support Adobe because they perceive it as a competitive edge at the moment (we will offer flash but Apple doesn't). In the background they already move to abandon flash on all of their web platforms and even want to replace it with their own brand of cross-platform web frameworks. (How is google gears not a direct threat to silverlight or flash?)

[Jeff Kelly]

A console title might sell for $60 but how much of that money do you think is actually revenue for the developer?

Popcap probably makes more money selling Plants vs, Zombies for the iPhone at $2,99 than they would by selling it as an X-Box title for $60.

[KallDrexx]

After playing with my friend's iphone and iPad, I realized something.  As much as I love my Droid, and would never get an iPhone, android devices can't seem to get anywhere near as smooth as the iPhone.  Scrolling and navigation are just so much more instantaneous it's shocking that even with the droid's 550Mhz processor it can't get anywheres near the performance of the iPhone.

Closed system has the advantage to be able to generate pinpoint focus on how to optimize the user experience.

[naum]

A console title might sell for $60 but how much of that money do you think is actually revenue for the developer?

Popcap probably makes more money selling Plants vs, Zombies for the iPhone at $2,99 than they would by selling it as an X-Box title for $60.

AppStore developers are making good coin.

Yeah, Apple gets their 30% but that's still a healthy margin, even for apps that cost $5-$10, once your downloads get into the tens of thousands…

I think the model is draconian too, but for 90-95% of apps, it's really not an issue, other than reverting back to an old model of deploying software into a production environment…

[UnSub]

He did this because Apple has the ability to control the whole experience. They own the OS, they own the hardware, they control how you develop applications for them and how you distribute them.

This level of control has also come pretty close to bringing Apple to its knees in the past though. And the future is full of people going to challenge that level of control as anti-competitive, much the same way that MS had to deal with anti-trust suits.

Plus I really wonder how Apple is going to cope when Jobs passes the mantle on (or, more likely, dies in the role).

[Mattemeo]

Plus I really wonder how Apple is going to cope when Jobs passes the mantle on (or, more likely, dies in the role).

Part of me thinks that if Apple continues on their current philosophy of hate velocity, Jobs will likely be politely asked to 'stand down', at least in the public eye. They're opening up massive rifts in both the soft and hardware industries of late, turned their own app market into an unfathomable draconian state and are becoming increasingly dubiously morally patronizing. The recent open 'fuck you' letter to the company that all but single-handedly kept their computing business alive was just thunderously misguided.

[Sheepherder]

At least Apple has the choice to do it as they are. HP, Dell, Lenovo and others don't have any choice or control over the experience, it is decided by Intel and Microsoft

HTC doesn't have any control over the experience, it is decided by Microsoft or Google Android.

...

The OEMs only choice is which death they want to die. If they customize Android the platform will fragment into different brand specific Android dialects getting more and more incompatible with each other, e.g. Unix in the seventies, Linux in the nineties. Developers won't be able to target a generic Android platform but would have to write Apps for HTC Android, Motorola Android and so on.

Dude, it's one or the other.  Even ignoring that Apple gets it's processors from third parties because they had to stop ignoring the reality that their own walled garden hardware format couldn't compete with a fucking Pentium 4, much less the contemporary AMD offerings.

[Lantyssa]

The OEMs only choice is which death they want to die. If they customize Android the platform will fragment into different brand specific Android dialects getting more and more incompatible with each other, e.g. Unix in the seventies, Linux in the nineties. Developers won't be able to target a generic Android platform but would have to write Apps for HTC Android, Motorola Android and so on.

The OEMs don't have a choice to do anything with Apple products.  It's a closed market.  They wouldn't exist at all if everything operated in a similar fashion.

[Quinton]

And as I pointed out, you can customize the Android experience without breaking application compatibility.  The platform was designed for that and a number of OEMs are successfully doing it.  Wow!

[KallDrexx]

The OEMs only choice is which death they want to die. If they customize Android the platform will fragment into different brand specific Android dialects getting more and more incompatible with each other, e.g. Unix in the seventies, Linux in the nineties. Developers won't be able to target a generic Android platform but would have to write Apps for HTC Android, Motorola Android and so on.

I think you are looking at Android wrong (you have the right ideas but not for the right reasons).  Sense-UI is just a home replacement, nothing more.  There is nothing else (to my knowledge) that is specific to HTC phones (other than HTC specific applications).  There is no reason a developer would ever write an app that is designed for one phone manufacture (it might be contracted for that purposes for $$ reasons, but from a programming standpoint there's nothing).

However, the real issue with Android is the differences in configurations.  You can't guarantee that all Android phones will be using the same Android version, screen resolution, graphics processor capabilities, processor specs, etc.... There are too many levels of compatability and that really needs to be addressed because I'm already seeing issues with it (One game I have has garbage on the bottom part of my screen cause it was coded for a smaller resolution than the droid has).  Hell browse the market and look at apps and you will see a bunch that say "has issues on  xxx phone" "crashes a lot on XXX phone".   That means developers have a lot more QA cost in creating Android apps than iPhone, and the issues are only going to get worse from here. 

[Murgos]

Dude, it's one or the other.  Even ignoring that Apple gets it's processors from third parties because they had to stop ignoring the reality that their own walled garden hardware format couldn't compete with a fucking Pentium 4, much less the contemporary AMD offerings.

Apple processors have been 3rd party since the 70's.  The PowerPC is a joint Motorola, Apple and IBM design.  It's also what powers the XBOX 360 so it's not exactly a slouch.

[Jeff Kelly]

I think you are looking at Android wrong (you have the right ideas but not for the right reasons).  Sense-UI is just a home replacement, nothing more.  There is nothing else (to my knowledge) that is specific to HTC phones (other than HTC specific applications).  There is no reason a developer would ever write an app that is designed for one phone manufacture (it might be contracted for that purposes for $$ reasons, but from a programming standpoint there's nothing).

That's my whole point right there.

So why should I choose HTC over any other manufacturer of android compatible phones? Why should anybody? What could a company like HTC offer to make me choose them over any other company without breaking compatibility? Generally speaking of course.

So let me reiterate, either I modify the open source android OS in a non superficial way, so that I am able to offer my customers something/anything my competition can't thus breaking compatibility and forking my own android dialect or I use android as is then no potential customer has any real incentive to choose my brand over anybody else's

I either develop a new feature that popular cross platform framework X doesn't support so the feature will remain useless to most customers or I don't thus forfeiting any possibility for becoming unique and offering customers a non superficial incentive to buy my products.

At least companies like Apple or now HP have something to offer that nobody else can. All android adopters basically compete on the same platform, a platform controlled by a third party. It's Microsoft Windows all over again for them.

Acquiring Palm was a really great move by HP, strategically speaking. They now own their own platform. If they play it right they might have an advantage over their competition that basically can only choose which 3rd party to pledge allegiance to.

[Jeff Kelly]

The OEMs don't have a choice to do anything with Apple products.  It's a closed market.  They wouldn't exist at all if everything operated in a similar fashion.

Most of them will not exist five or ten years from now. Those that do will become largely irrelevant. That's my point. They will basically become the Gateways, Compaqs, Dells and Acers of the mobile market. At least if Google doesn't decide that they'd be able to sell their own phones and cuts them of from upcoming Android releases.

Competition will be largely over price since none of them can offer anything the others can't also offer. Most customers will buy the brand that at that time offers the cheapest Android phones just like the PC market works now.

[Ingmar]

So why should I choose HTC over any other manufacturer of android compatible phones? Why should anybody? What could a company like HTC offer to make me choose them over any other company without breaking compatibility? Generally speaking of course.

You are massively underestimating the appeal/importance of the hardware side of things. How a phone sounds, what the keyboard is like, etc., are all things that the hardware manufacturer has a major part in regardless of the OS the phone operates on, and I'd bet that it is also a major part of what drives a phone choice. It certainly is for me, the iPhone's lack of keyboard and the horrible vertical slide out on the Pre drove me directly into the hands of the Droid and its nice big landscape keyboard (from my prior Tilt.) I'm guessing a lot of other people as well have their decision influenced more by the hardware than the software side.

[Jeff Kelly]

I don't think that brand names will be relevant for the majority of customers going forward. Nobody I know buys a special brand PC. They go to the shop and pick the cheapest one that is bundled with Windows and Office and can run most games, the same with feature phones. I don't know anybody except geeks like me that base their choice on brand names.

Wouldn't matter that much either since you can buy phones with or without keyboards, touch screens or other modes of input from anybody.

[Sheepherder]

Apple processors have been 3rd party since the 70's.  The PowerPC is a joint Motorola, Apple and IBM design.  It's also what powers the XBOX 360 so it's not exactly a slouch.

Witness the PowerPC G5: worse than Netburst.

The choice of CPU for a console isn't exactly an endorsement to be proud of, either.

EDIT: I couldn't find anything more modern, my apologies.

EDIT2: And no, AIM is not third-party considering Apple was a part of implementing the standard.

[Ingmar]

I don't think that brand names will be relevant for the majority of customers going forward. Nobody I know buys a special brand PC. They go to the shop and pick the cheapest one that is bundled with Windows and Office and can run most games, the same with feature phones. I don't know anybody except geeks like me that base their choice on brand names.

Wouldn't matter that much either since you can buy phones with or without keyboards, touch screens or other modes of input from anybody.

No, no I can't. I cannot buy a landscape keyboard phone from Apple or Palm/HP. I can't buy a 480 x 854 resolution phone from them either. You're making the wrong comparison - people may not particularly care about the brand of their PC (although I think you're underestimating that) but they absolutely care about the brands of things like video cards, programmable keyboards, etc. Logitech isn't going to go out of business anytime soon, because they're in the business of making better physical interfaces, just like phone hardware manufacturers are. There is plenty of space in that area for companies to not only survive, but to thrive. The idea that HTC, for example, is going to die off is ludicrous as long as their hardware continues to perform.