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Analyzing Apple's iPhone Strategy
Galen Gruman submitted infoworld's summary of Apple's grand strategy for the iPhone. He points out that the real important part of the new iPhone is the software, not the hardware. He talks about the new SDK stuff, the ad-hoc app distribution, and other stuff. It's a reasonable read if you have been ignoring the iPhone and want to know what the hype is about over this release, but doesn't break any new ground if you've been paying attention.
But this shift has only happened recently, and we needed something like the iPhone to show us that the hardware is actually darn good enough!
This is also why I'm so fascinated by Android, which is a powerful software platform (ok, for a given set of hardware).
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
The language is a serious turn off for most developers I know.
Well, in that case, why is it on the front page?
Surely if a
simon
OK, I RTFA'd but I've yet to understand where the AT&T exclusivity deal fits Apple's oh so grand strategy. Funny the suthor doesn't mention it either... afraid to lose an advertiser I suppose...
Thanks. That was truly one of the first useful summaries I have read in a while. Now I can skip TFA
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
Apple is now doing for smartphones what it did for DAPs. Really there are not doing anything new here in developing the whole ecosystem.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What strategy?
1. Make glitzy 'must have' consumer gadget.
2. Lock everyone into your distribution network.
3. Profit.
Business as usual.
I've got your sig, right here.
Although it is "stuff", I guess. Apple has ALWAYS been about the software - there has only been one point at which buying their hardware was advisable on any level, in the age of the G4. The PC quickly whipped their ass and the Mac became a PC (in the x86 sense.) Irony.
However, Apple has always been pretty bad at the hardware, with the exception of the intel-based macbooks. It looked sexy, but had serious flaws. For example, macs didn't have accelerated graphics (not even ANY 2d accel) until late in the Mac II era. But we're talking about a machine designed to be used only graphically. This seems like a major oversight - and it is. If the Amiga had been competently marketed instead of the company being sucked dry, today it would be "Apple who?"
Apple has ALSO always tried to make you do things their way, and if you don't like it, you can fuck off. These days you can see that in the form of their latest bid to prevent people buying iPhones without a contract. You could also see it in the iPhone with the fact that originally there was to be NO user-developed software beyond webapps, and even today you have to run a special OS release that Apple can (and HAS) terminate at will, or accidentally.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That someone imported into Australia, interesting device. Not sure I'm interested in it though.
There's a bit of scope in the market for software giants to chip into this.
gPhone - Targetting non-evil people, has 11 buttons, 0-9 and a "dial/hangup/camera/gps/play music/search" button
MSPhone - Steve Ballmer made one for himself out of a tennis racket, twine and bleach, bundled with a left over Zune to provide fully functioning WMA support.
jPhone (I know a lot of phones run java already) - You get two phones, a client phone which makes all the calls, and a larger server phone which does all the connecting to the towers. You can upgrade to a 3-tier mobile phone system, using mochaFrappeLite. Bundled with a free tweed jacket with leather patches.
Task Mangler
Apple is, like Cisco, primarily a software company. It's Apple's software that sells its hardware, so while their revenue model is based on hardware sales, it's the software that makes them happen. No matter how nice Apple's hardware might be, without their software they'd sell no more than any other boutique hardware vendor, and once they burned through their cash reserves and liquid assets they'd just be another Alienware waiting to be bought by Dell or HP.
Focussing on their hardware, whether it's the iMac or iPhone, is definitely missing the point. This guy definitely gets it.
One thing that I would like to see more of is details of the ad-hoc licensing. My google-fu is failing me there.
However, even the ad hoc license is not the wide-open solution that the open source community ultimately desires. An iPhone user should be able to opt into installing and running unsigned applications, a capability offered by all competing mobile platforms. This is the showstopper for me. A smartphone without a real freeware ecosystem will never truly thrive, for the same reasons that that open source development and commercial s/w development drive each other on standard platforms.
Actually, I don't think it has ever really been about the software. The powerPC architecture is/was more efficient then X86 so you didn't need CPUs in the 3 GHZ range. However when people saw an 800 MHZ CPU in a Mac and a 1.3 GHZ low-end Pentium 4, most people would buy the PC (when with a PC you can get the hardware for cheap compared to a Mac). When it became clear that OSX could be easily transitioned into the X86 architecture Apple did.
Apple has ALSO always tried to make you do things their way, and if you don't like it, you can fuck off. These days you can see that in the form of their latest bid to prevent people buying iPhones without a contract. You could also see it in the iPhone with the fact that originally there was to be NO user-developed software beyond webapps, and even today you have to run a special OS release that Apple can (and HAS) terminate at will, or accidentally.
Apple follows Steve, half the time he comes up with something great, the other half Apple is almost bankrupt by the time he comes up with another better idea. Just think the Apple ][ was great, the Apple III a disaster, the Lisa a commercial failure while the Mac was a best-seller.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Sure it's the software, but it's also the whole ecosystem, which Jobs likes to control to deliver a finer experience. Sure Google can offer so much more, but if somebody put Android on a crappy hardware with bad programming so it's experience sucks there's nothing Google can do about it. And who's going to install Adobe AIR on their WinMo or BB? Now Apple has basically become the first to hand you the whole cloud computing experience on a mobile phone.
I suspect that part of Apple's restrictive software distribution strategy is to avoid malware and crapware from creeping into the iPhone ecosystem. It's something like a walled garden or customs & border protection model for software distribution. Although I'm sure that enterprising criminals will find ways to break into the iPhone, Apple's approach does raise barriers to drive-by downloads, worms, trojans, and socially-engineered installations of malware.
Time will tell whether restricting software distribution for the iPhone is a net positive or negative in either creating a stable, easy-to-use, secure environment for mobile computing or in stifling development for a subset of developers.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Ouch. Well said. Hope the Apple fanboys don't mod you into karmic hell for that one.
Yes, Apple is a software company in drag. I've always said that. The hardware isn't why people buy Macs or iPhones -- the hardware just isn't that good. The hardware just makes appear that they aren't going toe-to-toe with Microsoft. Even when they really are.
My blog
...but hey, it's Apples platform-- I just guess that el Jobso has his plans for it that require it to be locked-down...
A few years back, I would have thought MobileMe to be the perfect way to keep information on all my devices. (Or at least what "all my devices" would be if I had an iPhone.)
But after using Google Apps for my personal email for well over a year now, filing individual messages into folders just seems quaint. GMail allows me to apply labels to entire threads at once.
Furthermore, although it doesn't exist in GMail yet, there is the potential for Google Gears to allow browser-based offline access. In my opinion, this is the direction email, contact management, and calendaring should be moving toward.
PS. I do understand all the arguments against having Google control you're email; I'm just saying I like that direction.
Once you get around the syntax, Objective-C is not hard to use at all. The language runtime is very dynamic and memory management is easy reference counting or garbage collected if you want(but no GC on iPhone). I came from the standard C/C++ background and I found it a little weird after using C/C++ for many years but you can pick up Objective-C relatively fast. The big learning curve is learning what frameworks and APIs you need to use to do what you want which requires lots of learning and/or looking up things all the time but that's really the same with any other frameworks.
I don't have the skills to be developer and maybe I'm don't know something you know but here is what I see: If I can develop an application for the iPhone, I can be an independent developer without having to go through anyone but Apple. Millions of users can buy my app easily. I don't have to worry about maintaining an infrastructure for a yearly $99 license. If I charge $10, I get to keep $7. If 14 people in the world buy it, I've broken even. If 10,000 people buy my app, I've made $70,000. That is why I think a lot of people are interested: the potential of it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
oh...wait...
The iPhone 1.0 was not ready for 3rd party development. If you have been following the SDK releases you can see that they have been changing at a very rapid pace. The early iPhone software was basically not ready for people to use and the API was not stable. Giving people the ability to develop web apps that looked like native apps was the best thing they could do at the time.
Now that they are stabilizing the APIs, people can write native applications. The iPhone at the beginning was already lagging a bit IMO and you can see that because they had to delay Leopard to work on it.
I agree. Apple calls itself a hardware company. But I've always said they needed to write the best software out there to get people to buy their hardware. They could have been Microsoft. They could have licensed the original Mac OS and Microsoft would have been known as a producer of office apps. But Steve was a control freak. Granted, they make the sexiest hardware now. The iMac is far superior to any PC for consumers. And the Mac Pro is phenomenal, I just wish more affordable. And the MacBook and MacBook Pro are best in class as well.
But I didn't switch to Apple for the hardware. I switched because I wanted to use OS X. And no, I didn't come from Windows. I came from Linux. I still use Linux, but 90% of the time its on servers.
And if you're a PC developer, then you can be independent without having to go through anyone full stop. It's a crying shame, and a testament to the egregious and undue influence the telecom industry has over our government, that the cell phone market isn't like that too. This kind of shit -- that is, requiring apps to have the "blessing" of the device manufacturer or service provider to work -- ought to be illegal!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You forgot to include the value of your time to develop the application, any time it might take to market it (e.g., even if it's just posting to Slashdot), any support costs, taxes, etc. Also, if 10K people might buy your app for their iPhone, there might be 100K people who might buy it if had a wider cell phone base, or 1000K people who might buy it if it was available for PCs, etc., so you might be chasing a tiny "profit pool" anyway if you only target the iPhone.
Microsoft has a similar model going with MSDN and lesser licenses and so do thousands of other vendors with a proprietary platform and a paid SDK/API/dev environment.
The $99 is there basically to protect Apple from the total time-wasters; Apple would otherwise give this away free so they can get developers, developers, developers.
In that case Jobs has a pretty massive constipation. I hope he finds relief in some way.
So what does Roland's blog say about this ? I can't wait !
Except that you need to get listed on a popular website, pay for marketing, distribution, credit card processing fees, etc. For many small developers, getting this set up is what ultimately kills their ideas. They want to code (and get paid for it) and if someone else can worry about the logistics of selling and distributing the app, all the better.
Yes, it's not the bazaar environment of the internet, but there's room in the big world for more than one model.
Will the iPhone eventually kill the iPod? If you're going to carry a phone and an MP3 player anyway, won't you want to combine them? Especially since Apple is ripping the iTouch people for extra dosh on every upgrade.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I appreciate the fact Apple will pay private developers 70% of the digital distribution proceeds, however, with the advancement of Android, and an entire plethora of next gen hand sets, I think Apple might be shooting itself in the foot. This is the same strategy that made Apple, the once even competitor with windows, now dominate less than 5% of the market share. Pretty soon, anyone will be able to download Android and install it on any mobile device hardware, and use any data plan they like. Screw the exclusive AT&T plans, Android will revolutionize the global G3 marketplace. And, in addition to all of that, Android will be FREE.
Having been awake during that time I can tell you that this is horseshit. The only time the PowerPC has honestly been faster than the x86-compatible processor of the day was during the era of the G4, and for about two months after the G5 was released. That's it. PPC601, 603, 604 were ALL slower than their high-end PC counterparts. And most critically, Apple hardware really did come at a huge price premium at that time. It's true that Apple has never had price-performance so bad (compared to PCs) as during the Quadra era, when Macs were half the speed (or less - especially in the graphics department!) and often as much as twice the price even comparing high end to high end.
Apple follows Steve, half the time he comes up with something great, the other half Apple is almost bankrupt by the time he comes up with another better idea. Just think the Apple ][ was great, the Apple III a disaster, the Lisa a commercial failure while the Mac was a best-seller.I agree, except that you forgot the IIgs (moderate success but mostly it was too expensive.) :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Translation: the iPhone was rushed to market before it was ready, and instead of getting developers on board before the release to make sure it was worth releasing, Apple took a gigantic shit on them.
Now that they are stabilizing the APIs, people can write native applications. The iPhone at the beginning was already lagging a bit IMO and you can see that because they had to delay Leopard to work on it.Translation: Apple is spread too thin to actually give proper attention to their OS or to their Phone.
Apple fanboys will make endless excuses for Apple while criticizing other companies for precisely the same behavior. Luckily, I have karma to burn.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Too late. Luckily, I can afford it.
If there were no Karma Kap, I could afford it basically indefinitely :P
The hardware isn't why people buy Macs or iPhones -- the hardware just isn't that good. The hardware just makes appear that they aren't going toe-to-toe with Microsoft. Even when they really are.That's pretty much it. Apple is honestly not very good at the hardware thing. All props to the Woz for the Apple I and ][, back when you could do that kind of thing in your garage. This is NOT to say that no current apple machines are good. I am general impressed with the current Macbooks in spite of the broad range of very stupid problems Apple has had with heat, hinges, power connectors, improperly implementing the CMD IDE chip in the B&W G3 Rev. 1, once again the total lack of graphics acceleration until the 8*24 GC... It really points to broad-based incompetence.
I also just want to say here that I've been using the Mac OS off and on since version 5, I've done my share of resedit hacking (when I was a kid I thought it was awfully neat that I could add a picture to the zterm download window and stuff like that... now I know there's a price for that convenience, and that forked files are forked up) and all that stuff. I've used practically everything on the desktop (well, I never had an ST... or an acorn) and I really have an excellent basis for comparison.
In fact, I've had or worked with macs of every generation (including having the fun of opening imacs and such crap) and PCs of every generation (my PC-1 motherboard still hangs on a friend's wall) as well as tons of other hardware. And Apple has really never been very competent in the hardware category. Mostly they excel at making cases. Even that is not necessarily true - I've hated having to try to work on any non-tower mac since the Mac II series. You could take a IIci's logic board out without tools and the machine could take some serious abuse. If anything, Apple has lost any ability they once had in this area.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You're pretty much right, but I think it's worth mentioning that although the software is really the keystone of Apple's success, they've also got the ability to make decent hardware if the need arises. They didn't have to wait for someone to release an mp3 player with a scroll wheel. They decided that that'd be the best interface for their iPod software(or more likely the two evolved together), and so they designed their own hardware. The same happened to a lesser extend with the iPhone. Apple didn't need to convince a phone manufacturer to build a handset that was basically just a big multi-touch capable screen, they went and designed their own.
It's also important to notice that those hardware specifics are generally tied to hardware requirements to make the user-interface work. That is to say, it ties really directly and clearly back into the software. At the same time that Apple is designing new hardware features to interface with their software, they've been generally moving towards more commodity hardware for the guts of their stuff. While the iMac has a history of the outside looking rather unusual compared to most computers, the components inside the shell are usually pretty standard stuff that'd be just as at home in a PC as in a Mac. The recent-ish switch to Intel being one of the most obvious examples.
It's a pretty reasonable strategy for product design, especially considering the consumer market.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Make stuff that looks a certain way on the basis that you are appealing to the fact that some people are prepared to pay for exclusivity, rather than functionality, first.
Charge a premium price to keep it exclusive and pump the additional money into the overall design and look of the product so that the device can be worn or carried as a fashion accessory, thus appealing to those people that need to make open displays of allegiances to certain product brands.
In this respect, Apple are no different to Ferrari, Chanel or Gucci - in other words, fine for some but if you just need something to make phone calls, drop the kids off to school in, smell nice or keep your feet dry, there are probably a lot more economical ways of doing it.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I didn't say it wouldn't cost you anything. I said that you would not have to maintain your own infrastructure: website, hosting fees, credit card fees. Or you could go through a distributor that will charge you 40% and additional fees. Also whether you develop for Windows or iPhone you still have all the other costs that you mention.
Also there is the problem of visibility. There are more Windows Mobile users but the issue with developing for that platform was that you couldn't access a large number of users in any one place. AT&T users go to their store. T-Mobile, their store, etc. There are independent stores too. With Apple they are all on one site. You might think that it is chasing a smaller pool of customers overall, but I would argue you are actually targeting more customers in a way.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I don't see why Open Source / Free Software apps still couldn't happen on the iPhone. For one thing, I would assume that actual development of the programs occurs on a Mac or PC, then get's cross-compiled for the iPhone. So, you can just setup your normal website/sourceforge, cvs/subversion, mailing lists, etc that you would normally use to manage the project, and people can download the source and do development on their computer. As for testing the app on your iPhone, the apps are required to be signed with a key, but I don't necessarily see any reason an open source project couldn't get a key from Apple, sign their builds (even developer builds), which would then allow any developer to download that build and test it.
So, what, exactly, is the problem again?
Their strategy is pretty easy to decode:
1. make money.
2. make money.
3. make money, so that we can
4. make even more money.
I think they are doing great. Just for kicks (and to kick myself), I looked at how much I could have made if I had just invested $1000 in Apple in 1985. Taking the stock splits into account, that stock would be worth more than $500,000.
Apple is a great example of how you can take a fanatical fan base, show them nothing but contempt, charge outrageous amounts of money for everything connected with your products... and be adored all the more for it. THAT'S the kind of stock worth investing in, but it's a shame that setup is so difficult to replicate.
And... best of all, they are eating Linux's lunch. If someone hates Microsoft SO much, they aren't going to get Linux. They are going to buy a Mac, of course, and get locked in to that money sink (at least $150 in El Jobso's pocket every time they make a point release is great for Apple's bottom line!).
While Linux likewise has the fanatical user base... they just have no way of monetizing it. Linux users like being locked into that platform, but not enough to actually pay for anything. They are happy to use hardware two generations out of date, happy with being completely locked into FOSS (since extremely few companies will write for Linux), etc, but not happy enough to actually spend any money supporting what they supposedly believe in. Look at Red Hat- they've been doing poorly for years now, and that's not going to change (although their dropping the failed "Linux on the Desktop" project will undoubtedly help them a great deal).
While Apple has been gaining market share (up to 4-5%)... Linux's has remained flat for the past ten years (always around 0.65%, even as the size of the market has virtually exploded). Meaning... every Apple sold is coming from Linux's share of the market (either actual or potential). Which is good, since Linux has no chance of succeeding in competition with Microsoft, while Apple can do quite well with a tiny market share.
This is "insightful" and not "funny"? This looks like sarcasm to me. Or at least it looks like it should be sarcasm.
Actually having to use OSX is what sent me back to Linux. I had been running XP on my desktop so I could play games. Then I sat at XP, Linux, and OSX simultaneously. OSX was on a Dual G5, I went through a couple minor versions, and it was by far the least responsive and least stable. (Linux was on my nw9440.)
Now, to each their own - if all you want to do is what the OS does already, OSX is probably in the balance not that much worse than anything else. But the minute you want to customize things in a way not approved of by apple you start to run into problems.
The only things I want from OSX are iLife and FCP. If I ever really need FCP, I'll be able to afford a Mac. iLife alternatives are improving, so that reason is going away for me.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There's another reason.
/.er humorously said that this was because it wasn't not Java.
/. isn't popular at all. Only NEXTSTEP and its various clones (Mac OS X, GnuStep) use it.
.NET language (hello microsoft drooldrones) LISP (yes (that even means (support (for it (in emacs))))) etc.
One
There's a grain of through there.
Obj-C as pointed by a
iPhone developers will have to learn yet another C variant, to which they are most probably not used. Some of those developer may even never learned C or C++ in the first place.
Java is the platform attracting the most mindshare currently for embed platform (keep in mind it was initially designed for it) and the MIDP platform you find on lot of embed device is quite efficient. Java is a popular language for programming embed software.
Python is also a very popular platform for fast development. Lots of developers are singing it praises (see xkcd for a caricature).
Perl and Ruby are other scripting language that have some momentum too.
All those language have way to use native C and C++ APIs. (SWIG is an example of tool to automate such C/C++-to-scripting-language-of-choice bridges)
Had Apple gone for a C/C++ SDK, they would made it available to C and C++ developers (both are maybe the world's most popular language, even if not the most high level or efficient) but also for Java developers (very popular on embed platforms), for Perl/Python/Ruby (hello young motivate university students) for C# and other
By going for Obj-C Apple made their SDK available to Obj-C developers. All 2 of them.
(and the third one who's motivated enough to learn Obj-C).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I think the point he's trying to make is that he doesn't have to worry about any infrastructure. He doesn't need a hosting account, he doesn't have to create a license scheme, he doesn't have to worry that if he gets popular his server goes down. All he has to do is pay Apple the $99 and he's good to go. That actually seems like it might be worth the tradeoff of having to go through Apple.
Check out DRM-free movies at http://www.bside.com
This looks like sarcasm to me. Or at least it looks like it should be sarcasm.
I guess it depends on how much you love or hate IOS, but people buy Cisco devices because they run IOS... not because they're green, look nice in a rack, and have 12 RJ45s and 128M of RAM.
Uh, you do realize that all but the new hardware features (GPS and 3G) will be available to iPhone 1.0 (and iPod Touch) users. You don't have to buy a new phone to upgrade to the new OS.
And out of curiosity how do you know they could port new features back to older models? I'd guess it had as much to with hardware as anything. For instance, I suspect playing video on a first gen nano simply wasn't possible.
Even when Macs were generic-looking beige boxes that you couldn't tell at a glance from a Dell or HP, people were buying them for the software they ran, not the hardware. If Microsoft Windows had been available in 1983 when Microsoft started advertising it (yes, really), and Apple made a really nice computer running Windows, they wouldn't have been "in trouble" in the '90s, they'd have been "out of business" in the '80s... no matter how revolutionary the Banana 9000 was.
:)
I've got a T-Mobile touch-screen phone right now. With Pocket PC software in it, it sucks. If Apple had taken that hardware, painted it white, and written software for it... with or without a multi-touch screen... they would have had a product. If Apple designed an MP3 player without a click wheel, it would still be a great MP3 player... and, hey, they did, and it was, and I loved my iPod Shuffle until the battery died.
It really is the software. The hardware is sizzle, the software is the steak.
Um.... LURK MOAR.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
Perhaps you should go into education since you seem to have all the answers.
A real programmer should be able to program regardless of a language.Yeah! Real programmers never re-use old, battle tested code. They reinvent the wheel EVERY time no matter how tedious and time consuming that process is... Also, there is no chin behind RMS's beard, only another fist!
Code re-use issues aside, most of us can do it, but that doesn't mean that learning an API happens instantaneously either. Learning Obj-C may be simple enough, but learning the Cocoa API and the dev tools, on the other hand, is not. Any monkey can turn the knob. Turning the knob is no problem... but you have to know which knob to turn, and *exactly* how far to turn it. Otherwise, you won't be whipping out much of an app.
In fact they should be able to pick a language based on the problem at hand and not the other way around.They do: Problem-Need an income, now. Solution-Language and libraries I know, now.
You're also overlooking another pretty major issue. If you want to develop for the iPhone, you MUST have an intel based Mac. So if you aren't already a Mac developer, you need to buy a new computer and learn a new OS in the midst of all that as well.
Plus, if you want that app to do anything moderately complex with an internet connection... you're probably going to want to use Apple's WebObjects. Which means you're going to need to know Obj-C, Cocoa, Java, EOF, and it's likely you'll want to use Project Wonder too. That's two languages, and three large frameworks. And that isn't even considering the requirements for server administration of a WebObjects deployment. If you are a Windows/Linux developer, you're going to need new hardware and face quite a learning curve.
So, I think maybe you're oversimplifying just a wee bit.
All I want for my iPhone is enough disk space to do its regular stuff and have Wikipedia at the same time. Then it's the perfect gadget.
-Lars
Why the hell should they wait, it hasn't hurt them at all
Equally yikes - yes, let's keep you away from the OSS developers side of the house. This is about not losing money just because of wanting to play around with the platform.
This kind of app (the <=$100 expected return one) is made for fun, as a hobby.
If you were going on a holiday in the Bahamas with your family and you somehow managed to offload some ancient Trolls pencil sharpeners (or whatever) that paid for the flight and hotel, would you argue that the trip was a loss because it didn't pay for time lost at work?
I won't, so no cost
OK, but again that's in the fun basket, not in the work one.
I will support not support it at all, or only at my leisure
Good point. I will report revenue and pay taxes and so will have to sell 20 copies instead of 14. Many won't since this whole scheme seems to be a tax-evasion mechanism, at least for non-American developers.
If a million people want a better app based on this little thing I wrote, I would expect one of two things to happen
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
I'm buying you a pizza.
A one time fee of $99 isn't much money. I'm sure an open source project could come up with $99 somewhere. After all, if you are going to put thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars worth of developer hours into developing the project, what's $99? Developers also sometimes pay money for domain names (of course, that's more like $10, but it's still spending money to start your free software project). Developers pay for internet access. Web hosting sometimes. They typically pay for the computers they use to do development on, and for the electricity to run those computers. Remember, Free Software is Free, not free. Also, if the application idea you have is interesting, I bet you could get someone else to donate the $99 to get a key if you asked nicely in an appropriate forum, mailing list, etc. Someone who was interested in seeing such a Free Software application developed, but who wasn't interested in developing it themselves.
Also, potentially multiple projects could share a key. The article also stated that you could sign as many applications as you wanted with that key, so organizations like Apache Foundation which sponsor dozens of projects can use a single key.
In any case, an argument that you don't want to pay $99 dollars is not an argument that you cannot develop Free Software for the iPhone. Granted, it would be nice of Apple if they were to offer free or very cheap keys for Free Software projects (after all, they've benefited tremendously by using a LOT of Free Software, such as BSD, khtml/webkit, Samba, Apache, GCC, etc), but my point is, I haven't yet seen a good reason given why it would be particularly difficult to do Free Software for the iPhone?
See, here's the thing: there's a huge fucking difference between having this service be available, and having it be mandatory. Having it available is good; I agree that it would be very convenient for small proprietary developers. Having it mandatory is bad, because it locks out Free Software and hobbyists.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm no iPhone fan boy (all I ever want a phone for is to make and receive calls), but I think you're seriously underestimating the impact the iPhone is having on the market. It's not all just hype.
No, my friend, it's the best slashdot intro EVAR!
Seriously. If only other articles intro'd by telling you this is all crap, intended only for people who who nothing about anything.
Of course, um, that's what a good blog is for, to ONLY put up the best of the best. So what does that make slashdot?
You do have a point about taxes and other expenses.
But considering that an experienced Cocoa developer can easily build a high-quality app in a single afternoon (Cocoa is not C++ or Java), and that Apple will be handling distribution and hosting, and that the store will most likely have some kind of rating system that will developers leverage word-of-mouth, doing iPhone applications should still be lucrative for experienced mac devs who are good at crafting good user experiences.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
http://www.appleinsider.com/print.php?id=4190
Seems like a good idea, to be able to separate from the herd. I think Apple has the resources to do it, too, what with their latest, greatest marketshare-gobbling product.
you might try man metaphor ;)
"the [Mac] hardware just isn't that good."
My Macbook Pro is way better, hardware wise, than my friggen work issued Dell laptop. But, of course, that is MHO. While people attach USB keyboard lights, USB cams and USB mouse bluetooth receivers to their Dell laptops, I enjoy that being built-in a nice aluminum case that automatically sleeps soon as I close the lid.
Did you not read that Free Software is still going to be free on the service. The 99$ goes to QA-ing the software product to ensure it plays well with others, mostly bug free and does not contain walware.
Another possibility is that Apple had a good product with compelling features. They could add more features (the SDK and App Store) and delay the product for another year, or release a good product when they did, and plan to release an updated product later.
Also, I know no Apple user who critizise other companies for releasing products, and then improving those products later. You can always delay for new features, but at some point you have to ship.
Lighten up...
Just about every time Microsoft releases a new version of Windows.
And before the Apple fanbois start raining positive mod points down on me for the anti-MS attack, Apple have yet to make anything good, cheap or open enough for me to want to even consider handing over money for it.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I've seen a couple of mentions on /. and reddit that there is a new iPhone and I went to the Apple web site to confirm this. Hype makes me think of people running around breathless telling me I just gotta buy it if I want my life to be complete. I don't recall anyone doing this to me. So clearly I'm missing out. So where do I find this hype thing that everyone is talking about? And while you're at it, when I feel like more, where do I find the overhype thing that I've seen a few people talk about?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
That's really not true at all.
Apple is a systems company. It's the whole package, which includes the hardware and software, that Apple sells. When Apple got into this business that was the norm. You got your OS and most of your applications from the same vendor that sold you the hardware. And they were all designed to work together.
It wasn't until Compaq reverse engineered IBM's BIOS and Microsoft started selling DOS to the cloners that changed all that.
Apple's iPhone is the only smartphone that is so restrictive - and out of the current mass market smartphones/PDAs, Windows Mobile seems to be the most free (as in freedom to run what you want.) WM lets you do just about anything short of using certain restricted OS functions (think replacing OS files or overwriting the bootloader.) No application signature is required - the signature requirements can be disabled or you can install your own root certificate. Of course, the native API is the Win32-like Windows CE and the primary development tool, Visual Studio, costs money. (You should be able to write software without it - the SDK is freely downloadable but it requires Visual Studio to install the normal way.) And WM lets you multitask.
All recent Symbian devices do require application signing, although Symbian signs applications free for developers (each application has to be signed for the specific device it will run on.)
What about A2DP?!
The iPod Touch is a music player (so's the iPhone, kinda, right?).
Even my LG phone can talk to Bluetooth speakers.
Even more important, is that they've now tied the PHONE to a specific version of a specific application running on a specific desktop operating system (Windows or Mac).
Now the iPhone requires that you OWN a computer, to be able to use it, even as just a phone. You literally can't even use it as a plain old phone or a plain old mp3 player, without connecting it through iTunes to the web.
Absolutely ridiculous, and it will burn a lot of people who quite literally do not have computers.
That's $99 for permission to run your own software on your own device and to distribute applications to others. That's $99 you don't have to pay to run software on Windows Mobile devices. Sure, Apple's distribution method is nice, but for developers, it is not Free (as in Freedom) or free (as in cost). You have to pay Apple to run your own software on the device you paid for, and if you want to distribute your software to people who aren't also paid iPhone developers, you have to go through Apple... who could choose not to distribute it.
Without paying the $99 cost of admission, you can't run your software on a real iPhone without hacking it (although you can run software on the iPhone simulator, which basically runs the iPhone environment compiled for x86.)
Of course, you'd probably want Visual Studio if you did enough Windows Mobile development, but there is a gcc environment available. And a Visual Studio license won't be revoked if you do things that the carrier or device manufacturer don't like.
You can run unsigned/self-signed code on Windows Mobile, which could be made with a free compiler if you like. With the iPhone, you have to pay to run your own software on your own device (unless you resort to hacking it.)
If you make an open source program for the iPhone and distribute it through Apple, users can't take that source and run their own modified version unless they are also reigstered iPhone developers or have hacked their phone.
Keep in mind Apple is also trying to filter out crapware so that the AppStore doesn't gain a reputation for well... crapware.
The $99 fee makes sure only dedicated, customer focused, developers step forward instead of "scratch my own itch, fuck you if it doesn't serve your interests" free software developers.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
"I've done my share of resedit hacking"
/yawn at the drivel
I guess that makes you a hardware expert alright.
"It really points to broad-based incompetence"
"Apple has lost any ability they once had in this area."
So Apple is broadly incompetent yet they lost the ability they once had. Uh huh.
Even at their lowest point, Apple had about four billion dollars in the bank, and almost no outstanding debt. When Jobs came back, their balance started climbing rapidly, and has ever since.
I'm pretty sure the hype is still about apps on a screen the size of two postage stamps. there is a reason people have 22" widescreens on their desks.
"An iPhone user should be able to opt into installing and running unsigned applications, a capability offered by all competing mobile platforms."
That's not entirely true. BREW-enabled phones (used notably by Verizon Wireless) can only install signed applications. To get a BREW developer's cert costs something like $499 and the only way to install BREW apps are OTA (over-the-air)... just like iPhone.
I think you're missing the point of FOSS. The whole point is to allow people to scratch their own itch. Naturally, that's going to take them in different directions. Naturally, that also means that UI designers are going to go down different roads. Maybe an analogy will help explain what I mean.
:)
There's an old carpenter's saying that has been adopted by us geeks that you may have heard: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Well, I don't want just a hammer. I want a full toolbox, the pegboard full of specialized tools behind the workbench, all the power tools in the cabinet to the left, and the floor full of standalone workstation tools (lathes, bandsaws, table saws, etc.) for when I want to do some really heavy work. I don't expect my woodworking tools to all look and act alike. Why should I expect my computer tools to do so when they do such different jobs?
I should probably note here that I seem to be a rarity in that I really don't like OS/X's UI. It is missing features that I regard as basic requirements after years of using Linux. While not exhaustive, my list of things that I think it's missing include true maximized windows, multiple workspaces, the ability to having more than one app displaying by default, etc. OS/X showcased 'features' that I REALLY hate are things like the single menu bar at the top of the screen instead of letting each app display its own menu as part of the window, that incredibly annoying app dock at the bottom, and the very thing that you like most about it; the lack of flexibility in UI.
That's not to say either of us is right or wrong about UI choices, btw. What works for you doesn't work for me and vice versa. It's just that in my view, OS/X's major fault is that it assumes that everyone wants to work the way that their UI designers have laid things out. It thinks all anyone wants is a hammer and not a full toolbox.
In actuality, the incredible flexibility of the FOSS development model and therefore Linux is a strength, not a weakness. It is why you see Linux used for everything from the smallest embedded device all the way up to the largest supercomputers and everything in between. No other OS out there combines that flexibility (the *BSDs can actually exceed it depending on how you measure) with its level of popularity. At this point in time, no other OS out there has the breadth and depth of available applications. Again, you can argue case by case that specific Linux apps or classes of apps don't measure up to counterparts available on other platforms. Taken as a whole, however, it's clear that no other OS can boast as broad a range of successful applications.
In sum, my contention is that the very thing that you decry, the broad range of UI tools and interfaces, is what will benefit Linux on the desktop the most. The truly successful UI stuff will continue gain popularity and see more widespread use as time goes by. The less successful ones will collect a smaller number of adherents. Some will only see use in niches. Others will simply fade away over time.
In all of this, who loses? Certainly not the developer community at large, although some number of them will inevitably see their personal favorites wither and die. The developer community will be much larger than it would be if you forced everyone to follow a single model. (assuming you could force a bunch of FOSS developers down a single path. Talk about herding cats!)
Contrary to what you seem to believe, I don't think the users will be negatively affected, either. We are by nature an extremely adaptable species. You may find this hard to believe, but people have been adapting to new UIs ever since Ogg first tied a rock to a stick that Mog had been using to hit Gog over the head. It probably took Mog at most two tries to figure out which end was the UI and which was the business end of his new club.
So the fact that your MBP is better than your work-issued Dell means that it's superior to all other notebooks on the market?
My blog
Controlling what's available from the "AppStore" is one thing, but where Apple crosses the line is that it forces the AppStore to be the only method by which users are allowed to load apps on the device. It's entirely unreasonable that I would be disallowed, from, for example, downloading an app from Sourceforge, compiling it myself, copying the .app bundle to the iPhone, and running it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Kostya, no iTelephone in Russia, "k sozhaleniyu"... :-)
I'd like to point out Apple may very well become the maker of the most popular UNIX powered smartphone. Not Nokia. Not Docomo. Not RIM. Not Palm. But Apple. If iPhones reach the same popularity as iPods, that will be more people using UNIX as a personal device platform than ever. And you know what? Those OS X consumers, including many like my artist friend or the business execs that have never opened up a terminal, don't even care. That is not a bad way to popularize UNIX and Linux. Really, until Nokia or Samsung have enough receipts to show people will actually sustain Android phone sales, OS X iPhone is the only thing that stands in the way of WinMo saturating the mobile market (God forbid) similar to their PC desktop proliferation. Will there be business software enough on Android to attract corporate IT to avoid the stigma associated with the iPhone?
Jobs is nothing if not smart and relentless. He is usually 3 moves ahead of his competitors and they don't even know it. Who knew a rare UNIX flavor eventually will power the resurrection of a computer company? MS gets stood up at the altar by Yahoo with a $40B dowry offering, and Apple spent a few mil to acquire PA Semi and threatens to push the whole mobile hardware competition up a notch (Google should hope people will jailbreak future iPhones to install Android and make it really shine). That is also a good thing for consumers.
You can call them control freaks. Pricey. Unoriginal. But Jobs is also a perfectionist freak with his products. That is also a good thing for users. When was the last time you've accused MS or other tech companies as overly perfectionist?
Lots of people are pronouncing the iPhone 3G as no big deal. Sure, look at it by itself, the iPhone may never surpass Blackberry shares, or sell as many units as Nokia handsets, but think about all the announcements together - the symbolic 3 legged stool. MobileMe+iPhone is the first step in giving people their personal cloud wherever they are in the most integrated matter (not simply a few apps or just a web browser entry form). Also I'm surprised not finding more discussions toward the next version of OS X with the sole aim at maximizing multi-core computing. Apple may not have as many engineers as MS, Google, or Intel, but I'm sure they are just as proud to want to be the ones that come up with the best future system. And all that raw power just for the desktop? For what, to run Adobe's bloated software faster? Hmmm, I wonder if the strategic move away from joining Google cloud is to eventually set up Apple's own server farms, powered by OS X, but keeping it mums for now just as Google is Apple-like secretive about its data centers technology. I know, I know, OS X Serve is supposedly dead. But so was the Newton. Think of all the computationally intensive media that needs to be served out in the decade ahead - movies, games, hi-def. Apple does not own any pipes (yet) but they sure can ensure the performance on both ends (throwing AppleTV in the mix). Maybe even host some of the content FOR the dreaded music and movie industry? Others may have one or two prongs but not the whole trifecta.
So the 3 prongs prop each other up. And did people who watched the keynote noticed that Vista runs best on a Mac? Apple is even going to host Exchange servers on Mobile Me. Forget Yahoo. Imagine if Apple and Microsoft put aside their differences and join forces on the business cloud. MS can provide Mac versions of all their business software. Apple platforms will run all the MS+nework apps and the cloud hosting MS servers. All of a sudden Google may have some real competition. Amazon? Get outta here. Of course that will never happen.
No I'm not A-fanboy. This musing is written on a PC in Google Docs. But yeah, I'm gonna get an iPhone 3G. I can even write it off for work since it's got VPN and GPS. Hell, just gassing up my truck and going for movies and fancy dinner and drinks would cost close to $200 nowadays.
a hardware and software company. Just imagine apple selling OS X bundled with turd-brown, crappy, cheaply manufactured plastic laptops. I don't think that would fly with apple's customer base.
jailbreak
Jailbreak is not a solution because I shouldn't have to crack my own damn device just to run my own damn software on it!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Don't be so fuckin' dumb. Apple makes devices that suit the needs of consumers, not techies. The rules reflect this, ie they make it easy for consumers to choose software they know won't break their phone, at a (fairly nominal) cost to the developer. If you don't like the rules, don't buy the device.
No, actually the $99 is to put a leash on developers, limiting them to developing applications that only do what Apple wants them to do. The SDKs for the Macintosh are free with the exact same IDE you use for the iPhone SDK.
The iPhone is apparently not a computer, because on Real Computers, developers aren't prohibited and punished for developing "bad" applications, require permission from the OS vendor to make a program, and generally aren't treated like thieves & vandals.
Just because everybody else charges stupid amounts for handheld SDKs, software signing, and other crap doesn't mean it's the be-all-end-all to charge less. Maybe they should just not have such restrictive development rules in the first place.
This crap about "what if people abuse the phone network" is just that. The iPod Touch has the exact same SDK and is still restricted. There's no potential for abuse there. If people abuse the network, cut off their access. That's the network's problem. "Oh no it will get viruses".... yeah, about as much as the Mac does now. Sheesh, grow up. Software signing of applications only empowers the OS vendor to make you bend to their will. It has only a little to do with virus and malware protection.
Now, again, I'd like to preface this with, I think it would be a good thing if Apple came up with cheaper or free keys for Free Software, since they've been the beneficiary of a lot of great Free Software, but if they don't do that, I still think $99 isn't *much* of a barrier. . .
If you are a student, either join a computer science student organization on campus, or if there isn't one, form one (for example, at the University of Cincinnati, OH, where I'm currently studying, there is a group call LaRC - the Lab for Recreational Computing, which is a bunch of CompSci geeks who hang out and develop software [mostly entertainment software, i believe]). Such organizations can typically petition some type of "Student Activities Board" or other University entity for budget money to buy equipment, journal subscriptions, pay for speakers and events, etc. I suspect that if such an organization wanted to get an Apple Developer Key to publish student submissions, they could get some money from the University.
As for adults, people spend lots of money on their hobbies - digital cameras, bicycles, skis, boats, fishing equipment, golf clubs, etc, any of which could cost hundreds or *thousands* of dollars. Again, $99 isn't much, and you don't need to have one of those keys to just GET STARTED. As others have said, the article stated that you could get keys, I think for free, which allow limited private deployement. Which, when you are first starting the project, is enough to let you get it on your own iPhone for testing purposes, and to roll it out to a few other developers or testers, to start getting a small community together. Surely, by the time you have 50 or 80 people interested in the project, you could get someone or multiple someones to donate the money ( 10 people donating 10 bucks, for example).
"Ye have not, because ye ask not"
I truly think that if anyone out there begins developing an application, and makes enough progress to at least have some sort of proof-of-concept build of the app, and then simply *asks* for someone to help them buy an Apple Developer Key, they'd not find it that difficult to come up with the needed funds. I really think you *would* be able to find people - I suspect there are, in the US, Canada, and Europe, hundreds of thousands of Free Software users (I'm not counting the millions who use Free Software, but don't really know that they are, like most Apple users *grin*, and some Linux users), and if your app interests a tiny percentage of that group, there's probably someone who would gladly help out your project.
If you can't get a private sponsor, maybe you could get a company to sponsor you - like a website which could 'host' your project and put up ads on your project page, so that every time someone went to look for info about your app, they'd see the ad.
I agree that open source developers will find creative solutions (plural, more than one) for this problem. Sharing a key is one possible solution, but ultimately, whoever registers the key with Apple is going to be held responsible if, e.g. any malware/virus/rootkit/etc is found in software signed by that key, so I think you wouldn't see something as open as, "upload your software to this server to get it signed". If I were signing something, I'd want to, at the minimum, either directly review the code to check for problems, or have someone I trust completely, review the code, which limits the number of projects, I think, which can be signed by a single person/key.