Why having the Apple App Store as the only source is a bad thing....

mantakos said:
Food tastes good and it keeps you from dying. Developers pay for food with money they earn by selling software. Software is sold to customers. Apple has the platform with all the customers.
-harry
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That is quickly changing - Android is growing rapidly and will no doubt have the larger cut of market share.

I can't see how Apple COULD win the smart phone market share when pretty much all the new phones that come out have Android on them.
 
jesse said:
That is quickly changing - Android is growing rapidly and will no doubt have the larger cut of market share.

I can't see how Apple COULD win the smart phone market share when pretty much all the new phones that come out have Android on them.
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Ah, young one. Let me tell you of a time when CLONES ruled the land, and one company named Apple tried to stem the tide....

I agree with you.

But that has been Apples MO from day one. There were the PC CLones, (it was a huge business, seemed like every Tom, Dick and Hari made a clone) and the Mac. Well, there was the DEC Rainbow, for what that was worth. But Apple has steadfastly and successfully kept their closed-architecture system as others (Zeos, Bull, Olivetti, Acer, Gateway, Texas Instruments, NorthStar, etc.)

Apple hasn't wavered. And it won't now.
 
flyersfan31 said:
Ah, young one. Let me tell you of a time when CLONES ruled the land, and one company named Apple tried to stem the tide....

I agree with you.

But that has been Apples MO from day one. There were the PC CLones, (it was a huge business, seemed like every Tom, Dick and Hari made a clone) and the Mac. Well, there was the DEC Rainbow, for what that was worth. But Apple has steadfastly and successfully kept their closed-architecture system as others (Zeos, Bull, Olivetti, Acer, Gateway, Texas Instruments, NorthStar, etc.)

Apple hasn't wavered. And it won't now.
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They'll lose the market share battle. Not that they need all the phone market share to have a strong app store - it's possible they could remain the place for the "best apps" if done right. But it won't be easy.
 
mantakos said:
If it is "necessary" to protect users from middle-ware, then why is it necessary only on mobile, and not on the desktop as well? Why does Apple make no effort to protect their desktop users from Flash and Java? Why is this a requirement in one market but not another?
-harry
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Because desktops usually have enough RAM and processor cycles to cover up Flash and Java's awful performance?
 
jesse said:
They'll lose the market share battle...
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It's going to take more than more models for Android to beat the iPhone, they're going to have to be more better and/or more better marketed. I don't see anything that suggests that either of these has happened yet.
-harry
 
Well, from the developer perspective, we currently have an iPhone app that one of our people did on his own time. We're now looking at coming out with an updated version of that application (also done largely on his own time), as well as apps for other mobile environments, mainly the iPad and Android, because the market is demanding it. It would be great if we could have ONE application that would run in ALL the environments. Heck, we could maybe even get HP/Palm and Windows ME at the same time.

Instead, we need to spend the time and money to develop individual applications for the Apple products versus the others. Yes, right now Apple has the market share advantage. But I think that is waning. So we're going to need to have separate versions of the applications for the different platforms, and developers conversant in each of them. This is inefficient. I don't want inefficiencies. YOU don't want inefficiencies (because they're paid for in part by your taxes, since we're a public institution, and what's going on here is likely going on at a public institution near you.)
 
flyersfan31 said:
Ah, young one. Let me tell you of a time when CLONES ruled the land, and one company named Apple tried to stem the tide....

I agree with you.

But that has been Apples MO from day one. There were the PC CLones, (it was a huge business, seemed like every Tom, Dick and Hari made a clone) and the Mac. Well, there was the DEC Rainbow, for what that was worth. But Apple has steadfastly and successfully kept their closed-architecture system as others (Zeos, Bull, Olivetti, Acer, Gateway, Texas Instruments, NorthStar, etc.)

Apple hasn't wavered. And it won't now.
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If I'm not mistaken, the very early Apples were cloned (Apple II, etc) before Apple clamped down. But generally, yes, I agree with you. It's part of the reason that Apple didn't win the market share battle over the PC which had much more available in terms of apps and hardware.

The mobile market generally takes hardware out of the equation, except for things like replacable batteries (and on GSM, SIM cards).

gprellwitz said:
Well, from the developer perspective, we currently have an iPhone app that one of our people did on his own time. We're now looking at coming out with an updated version of that application (also done largely on his own time), as well as apps for other mobile environments, mainly the iPad and Android, because the market is demanding it. It would be great if we could have ONE application that would run in ALL the environments. Heck, we could maybe even get HP/Palm and Windows ME at the same time.

Instead, we need to spend the time and money to develop individual applications for the Apple products versus the others. Yes, right now Apple has the market share advantage. But I think that is waning. So we're going to need to have separate versions of the applications for the different platforms, and developers conversant in each of them. This is inefficient. I don't want inefficiencies. YOU don't want inefficiencies (because they're paid for in part by your taxes, since we're a public institution, and what's going on here is likely going on at a public institution near you.)
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Apple thinks it's OK for programmers to have inefficiencies - they're banking on consumers paying a higher price for perceived reduction in consumer inefficiency (less hassle operating, a single store to get stuff from, etc). Some corporate operations that use locked-down computers are effectively supporting this philosophy - several corporations have "stores" that corporate users can use to download approved corporate applications to their PCs and bypass the hassle of calling the support desk for approval to install, one-by-one.

Where that model fails is a situation where the programmers decide it's not worth the hassle of dealing with Apple and develop the slick programs for other, more open platforms. That will generally happen when market share gets high enough for the other platforms that they can dump Apple support, but may happen if Apple gets too restrictive. (We saw the former with DRM on iTunes). In this case, it's harder to demonize the OS manufacturer as Android is a Google product, and Google has typically been put in the same class as Apple in terms of "coolness".... much different than battling MS.
 
jesse said:
They'll lose the market share battle. Not that they need all the phone market share to have a strong app store - it's possible they could remain the place for the "best apps" if done right. But it won't be easy.
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They lost the PC market share battle too, but have done well enough.

I agree with you, but I don't think it matters if they can keep the premium price strategy going. It has worked pretty well in the past.
 
Guys, even Macs were cloned. Everyone told Apple, "You need to allow clones to be successful and capture some market share back from the PC's." Well, they allowed clones and all it did was take away Apple's market share - It didn't grow Mac OS market share at all. So, the clone experiment was stopped.

Apple is very good at what they do. They do not do what everyone else does. If they did, they wouldn't be Apple, and they wouldn't be good. I buy their products because for the most part, they just work - And if they cease working, I can call and talk to a real live American tech support person or take my machine to a real live in-person person at one of their stores and get it fixed. There is a LOT of value to me in getting the entire user experience that they provide. If that's not what you want, buy something else.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Guys, even Macs were cloned. Everyone told Apple, "You need to allow clones to be successful and capture some market share back from the PC's." Well, they allowed clones and all it did was take away Apple's market share - It didn't grow Mac OS market share at all. So, the clone experiment was stopped.

Apple is very good at what they do. They do not do what everyone else does. If they did, they wouldn't be Apple, and they wouldn't be good. I buy their products because for the most part, they just work - And if they cease working, I can call and talk to a real live American tech support person or take my machine to a real live in-person person at one of their stores and get it fixed. There is a LOT of value to me in getting the entire user experience that they provide. If that's not what you want, buy something else.
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Just remember - without the iPod, and contributions from Microsoft, Apple would be dead right now. They've proven they can't run a successful company unless they've got innovation. Now they're stopping innovation (again), and its starting to hurt them.

I can't wait to see the market share results at the end of this year, when you consider the following carriers/devices have Android:

G-1 (HTC, T-Mobile)
Hero (HTC, Sprint)
Droid-Eras (HTC, Verizon)
Droid Incredible (HTC, Verizon)
MyTouch 3G (HTC, T-Mobile)
Nexus One (HTC, All Carriers)
GW620 (LG, T-Mobile)
CLIQ (Motorola, T-Mobile)
CLIQ XT (Motorola, T-Mobile)
Droid (Motorola, Verizon)
Backflip (Motorola, AT&T)
Devour (Motorola, Verizon)
Behold II (Samsung, T-Mobile)
Galaxy (Samsung, Sprint)
Moment (Samsung, Sprint)

But, at the moment (and the foreseeable future), you can get a partially awesome phone running some feature lacking version of OSX for the following devices/carriers:

iPhone (Apple, AT&T)
iPhone 3g (Apple, AT&T)
iPhone 3gs (Apple, AT&T)

And there are no appreciable differences between the three except that 2 of the 3 support 3g.

Also - this is neglecting the international factor, where Apple loses even worse, and tablet/non-phone devices where Apple doesn't even play.

The writing is on the wall for Apple, unless they start fixing their elitist mistake of controlling content (and not allowing flash).
 
SkyHog said:
And there are no appreciable differences between the three except that 2 of the 3 support 3g.
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The 3GS is significantly faster. The compass is also a nice feature for some apps.
 
Ghery said:
I've got a compass in my Motorola Droid. Not unique to the iPhone 3GS.
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I didn't say it was. I was pointing out some differences between the 3G and the 3GS.
 
SkyHog said:
Just remember - without the iPod, and contributions from Microsoft, Apple would be dead right now. They've proven they can't run a successful company unless they've got innovation. Now they're stopping innovation (again), and its starting to hurt them.
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Apple makes money from their own innovation, for the most part. The app store is a huge cash cow for them now too, and there are plenty of developers making a lot of money and plenty of users enjoying everything that's available there.

Also - this is neglecting the international factor, where Apple loses even worse, and tablet/non-phone devices where Apple doesn't even play.
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Apple is doing VERY well internationally, partly because they only have carrier exclusivity in two other countries (ahem). Check their market share in Japan, for example.

And Apple doesn't play in the "tablet/non-phone device" market? Huh? Let me tell you about a couple of devices called the iPad and iPod. They're pretty popular, and Apple makes them.

The writing is on the wall for Apple, unless they start fixing their elitist mistake of controlling content (and not allowing flash).
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Sounds like you graduated from the Michael Dell school of business. Apple doesn't do things the way they "should" but they're amazingly successful. A few weeks ago, they moved into 3rd place in market cap behind Exxon/Mobil and Microsoft, beating out even Wal-Mart.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
And Apple doesn't play in the "tablet/non-phone device" market? Huh? Let me tell you about a couple of devices called the iPad and iPod. They're pretty popular, and Apple makes them.
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While a lot of people are critiquing the iPad, I think the more interesting part is the new iBook store. Apple is going to mount a serious challenge to Amazon with that, and they are using a more "we win, you win" business approach than Amazon/Bezos' "I win, you lose" business model.
 
Trapper John said:
While a lot of people are critiquing the iPad, I think the more interesting part is the new iBook store. Apple is going to mount a serious challenge to Amazon with that, and they are using a more "we win, you win" business approach than Amazon/Bezos' "I win, you lose" business model.
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They need more books though. Very few aviation titles, and I've come up short when looking for some very popular mainstream books too, such as Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. Oh well - I've got several downloaded, hopefully they'll have more by the time I'm done reading those.
 
Having the App store as the only place to get things for an un-jail broke phone IS bad!
 
flyingcheesehead said:
They need more books though. Very few aviation titles, and I've come up short when looking for some very popular mainstream books too, such as Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. Oh well - I've got several downloaded, hopefully they'll have more by the time I'm done reading those.
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They've got 5 of the big 6 publishing houses signed up. I doubt it will take long.
 
PittsDriver said:
Here's the word from the man himself on his reaction to all the negative guff Apple has been getting from Adobe:

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/?sr=hotnews.rss

And to all those people carping about how Apple is doing what's good for Apple - do you really think Gates had your best interests at heart when they started shipping a multi-gigbyte sized word processor?
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That was an excellent article... I read it through "developer" eyes, and can see the points Steve made. I'm not an Apple disciple, but he's got a good argument. :yesnod:
 
As much as I hate to say it, I've decided to buy a 32gb 3g IPad to use as an EFB. I was planning to wait for an Android tablet and wanted nothing to do with the IPad.

The deciding factors were battery life, simplicity, build and component quality.
But the prime factor was the fact that the IPad does not multitask, a quality that makes it less valuable to be for non-aviation uses, but makes it far more stable and dependable. It also prevents viruses, malware, or hung apps from destabilizing the device.
As much as I hate the locked down OS and difficulty moving files and apps onto the device, the same qualities prevent bad code getting into the device.

Sigh....
 
PilotAlan said:
As much as I hate to say it, I've decided to buy a 32gb 3g IPad to use as an EFB. I was planning to wait for an Android tablet and wanted nothing to do with the IPad.

The deciding factors were battery life, simplicity, build and component quality.
But the prime factor was the fact that the IPad does not multitask, a quality that makes it less valuable to be for non-aviation uses, but makes it far more stable and dependable. It also prevents viruses, malware, or hung apps from destabilizing the device.
As much as I hate the locked down OS and difficulty moving files and apps onto the device, the same qualities prevent bad code getting into the device.

Sigh....
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1- The iPad is getting multitasking in about a month.
2- The iPad OS ALREADY multitasks! it just doesn't let you initiate it. There are by default about a dozen tasks running at any one point in time. Viruses, Malware, and hung apps are still a threat.
 
Keane said:
1- The iPad is getting multitasking in about a month.
2- The iPad OS ALREADY multitasks! it just doesn't let you initiate it. There are by default about a dozen tasks running at any one point in time. Viruses, Malware, and hung apps are still a threat.
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It's not multitasking in the sense that we're used to. It's just app's states being saved in memory permitting a quick restore and the ability to do a few thing with apple controlled services.
 
jesse said:
It's not multitasking in the sense that we're used to. It's just app's states being saved in memory permitting a quick restore and the ability to do a few thing with apple controlled services.
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Mine is :)

And there are many tasks running on the phone, it is a multi-task OS, since it is a light version of linux. Grab the MemoryInfo app, and you'll see there are a number of Processes running at any one moment. On a stock, uncompromised iphone, they are all Apple created processes (fairplay, which decodes iTunes music, Springboard which runs the UI, BTServer, which handles bluetooth interaction, etc).

However, there have been attacks on the phone which can result in modifying one of these processes.
 
Keane said:
Mine is :)

And there are many tasks running on the phone, it is a multi-task OS, since it is a light version of linux. Grab the MemoryInfo app, and you'll see there are a number of Processes running at any one moment. On a stock, uncompromised iphone, they are all Apple created processes (fairplay, which decodes iTunes music, Springboard which runs the UI, BTServer, which handles bluetooth interaction, etc).

However, there have been attacks on the phone which can result in modifying one of these processes.
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I'm aware that the OS is capable of multitasking and does multitask. I was just pointing out that what is known as multitasking in the new SDK is not true multitasking by any means.
 
jesse said:
I'm aware that the OS is capable of multitasking and does multitask. I was just pointing out that what is known as multitasking in the new SDK is not true multitasking by any means.
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If the new SDK handles multitasking any way like the current jailbrake does, it is traditional multitasking. I can close an app on my iphone and it'll continue processing data/etc just like the mail app does.
 
Keane said:
If the new SDK handles multitasking any way like the current jailbrake does, it is traditional multitasking. I can close an app on my iphone and it'll continue processing data/etc just like the mail app does.
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From what I've seen, only apple apps will multitask. OS4 will allow task switching, allows apps to finish processes before close (like posting to Twitter or somesuch), or maintain access to the GPS. But it's not multitasking like we're used to, it's more like the old Palm 'multitasking'.

Regardless, my point is I find the design more useful for my intended purpose, even though it's exactly opposite of what I would buy for any other use.
 
Keane said:
If the new SDK handles multitasking any way like the current jailbrake does, it is traditional multitasking.
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It doesn't. It's not multi tasking on the OS level.

Basically, when you exit an App, the App's state can be saved in memory so that you can go back to it in the same state.

There are also "services" that let you do things like stream audio or a few other apple approved tasks. You can write code that'll interface with them.

You still can't have an app doing whatever the developer dreamed up running while you run a different app doing whatever that developer dreamed up.
 
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jesse said:
It doesn't. It's not multi tasking on the OS level.

Basically, when you exit an App, the App's state can be saved in memory so that you can go back to it in the same state.

There are also "services" that let you do things like stream audio or a few other apple approved tasks. You can write code that'll interface with them.

You still can't have an app doing whatever the developer dreamed up running while you run a different app doing whatever that developer dreamed up.
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Well that bites... I'll stick to the jailbroken version then. It has OS level multitask.

What this really doesn't explain is why (other than being greedy SOBs) Apple won't give this faux multitasking to the 3G.
 
Keane said:
... What this really doesn't explain is why (other than being greedy SOBs) Apple won't give this faux multitasking to the 3G.
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Because the earlier iphone models had 128MB RAM, while the 3Gs has 256MB RAM, and also because Apple likes to hold things back to encourage you to upgrade.
-harry
 
mantakos said:
Because the earlier iphone models had 128MB RAM, while the 3Gs has 256MB RAM, and also because Apple likes to hold things back to encourage you to upgrade.
-harry
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That is the real reason. The 1st reason is something that shouldn't be a problem. I do 3-4 real processes running at the same time without much slowdown on my 3G, no reason they couldn't suspend one.
 
I ran several jailbroken images on my 3G iPhone and thought it was slow as hell as soon as you'd try to multitask. I also frequently saw applications get terminated because it ran out of memory.
 
Keane said:
That is the real reason. The 1st reason is something that shouldn't be a problem. I do 3-4 real processes running at the same time without much slowdown on my 3G, no reason they couldn't suspend one.
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The iphone doesn't have virtual memory paging/swapping, so running out of memory wouldn't result in slower operation, it would result in something failing.

I think Windows Mobile serves as the cautionary tale for how not to do this. The emotional scarring I have from my old WM phone probably leaves me as one of those who makes the least noise about the need for multi-tasking in a PDA/phone. The obvious requirement is, of course, the ability to play music while you're doing something else, something which I think the native player always had, but app store music apps previously didn't, and that should arrive with the next OS upgrade. It just strikes me as more of a "it's the _principle_ of the thing" objection than a real-world usability objection, but maybe that's just specific to how I use it.
-harry
 
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