I used to be a mac developer. I worked on several high profile mac projects, and more than my share of commercial flops. During the iMac boom, developers were being snatched up right and left to create the next wave of software. This boom brought my some very nice work. Yet it is still in vain....Even with the iMac boom and Apple profitability developers are being mistreated by Apple. This is probably the biggest source of frustration for me. To get on the professional mailing list for Apple costs something around USD$400. Their developer tech support (DTS) has been going downhill since 1992. I won't write muchless port to Mac OS X, I won't even write for it. I grew up on Macs, learned how to program on macs, but I'm cutting the line. Most Mac software writers I know struggle, they barely make ends meat. Now that I write Windows software, I seen the life of luxury! There is something to be said about massive stock options. The Mac market is so small, hardly any software companies out there are big enough to offer stock, much less stock that is worth something.
The future? Apple's future is still as grey as ever in my opinion. They still don't have a clearly defined market (the iCube just illustrates this). The past 4 years have just seen them try one thing and back off. Mac OS X may survive, but does anyone really care? It's not as open as linux, it still costs more than an eMachines running redhat. I don't think Apple will ever die, but I seriously doubt they'll truly thrive. Free software won't change that either. The average Home Joe won't download unix software, compile it, and run on the weekend. They don't know how, and they certainly don't care.
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I used to be a mac developer. I worked on several high profile mac projects, and more than my share of commercial flops. During the iMac boom, developers were being snatched up right and left to create the next wave of software. This boom brought my some very nice work. Yet it is still in vain....Even with the iMac boom and Apple profitability developers are being mistreated by Apple. This is probably the biggest source of frustration for me. To get on the professional mailing list for Apple costs something around USD$400. Their developer tech support (DTS) has been going downhill since 1992. I won't write muchless port to Mac OS X, I won't even write for it. I grew up on Macs, learned how to program on macs, but I'm cutting the line. Most Mac software writers I know struggle, they barely make ends meat. Now that I write Windows software, I seen the life of luxury! There is something to be said about massive stock options. The Mac market is so small, hardly any software companies out there are big enough to offer stock, much less stock that is worth something.
The future? Apple's future is still as grey as ever in my opinion. They still don't have a clearly defined market (the iCube just illustrates this). The past 4 years have just seen them try one thing and back off. Mac OS X may survive, but does anyone really care? It's not as open as linux, it still costs more than an eMachines running redhat. I don't think Apple will ever die, but I seriously doubt they'll truly thrive. Free software won't change that either. The average Home Joe won't download unix software, compile it, and run on the weekend. They don't know how, and they certainly don't care.