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Developers and the Fear of Apple

An anonymous reader writes: UI designer Eli Schiff has posted an article about the "climate of fear" surrounding Apple in the software development community. He points out how developers who express criticism in an informal setting often recant when their words are being recorded, and how even moderate public criticism is often prefaced by flattery and endorsements.

Beyond that, the industry has learned that they can't rely on Apple's walled garden to make a profit. The opaque app review process, the race to the bottom on pricing, and Apple's resistance to curation of the App Store are driving "independent app developers into larger organizations and venture-backed startups." Apple is also known to cut contact with developers if they release for Android first. The "climate of fear" even affects journalists, who face not only stonewalling from Apple after negative reporting, but also a brigade of Apple fans and even other journalists trying to paint them as anti-Apple.

2 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Easy as 1-2-3 by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I could buy Apple being more robust or more reliable (because it's probably WinDOS we're talking about here) but the idea of the PC being less powerful just sounds like you swimming in the kool-aid.

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  2. Re:Easy as 1-2-3 by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yep, yep, sorry... Apple (as an organization) has consistently delivered hardware that we could count on, met or surpassed our needs (and alternative vendors)

    Devils Advocate here, look what Apple did by gutting the hardware specs of the latest release of the Mac Mini. In addition they had slowly been morphing their hardware into something that is pure commodity - no user changeable RAM, Flash etc so you have to pay the full Apple price for those items when you buy the complete system, and you are limited by what they offer on the Apple store. As a result their hardware offerings are becoming less desirable every year to the point that I am considering that my next apple computer will be a hackintosh.

    And I say that with 2 Apple computers, an iPad, an iPod touch and an iPod nano on my desk (and a Mac Mini in the other room)

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