IPad thoughts from Ben Fry (creator of Processing)
benfry.com
benfry.com
But, the iPhone is still just a phone. Most people don't hit the walls of the room Apple has them locked in. Heck, most people don't even do much with their iPhones... They rarely browse the web or use it to do serious email (one line replies in a pinch are not "serious email") because they find the screen too small and the experience too cumbersome when compared to a real computer. They install some apps, but never really use them besides the first few minutes, unless they're games, which also says much about the typical iPhone user: phone calls and games.
The people that complain about lack of openness are the exception.
Now, the iPad is not an iPhone. Nobody will buy it to make phone calls, although they will certainly play games in it. The iPad is more of a computer, and more people will hit the walls of Apple's control. _This_ is what's going to define the iPad's success.
It is a beautiful device, but if the average Joe expects it to behave more like a standard computer than an iPhone, and if Apple doesn't make it more open, it may very well end up a failure.
I like the iPhone, and if I weren't the kind of person that lives fine with just a basic phone, I would prefer one over the alternatives (android et al) even though it is much less open. On the other hand, I won't buy an iPad despite how beautiful it is because it is too expensive for something that's not a real computer.
Does it really? The iPhone was hugely successful well before there was an App Store.
You're using it here to mean "you can't install arbitrary applications" which is something different.
As far as the initial success of the iPhone is concerned, the device gaining traction without "any" applications (in the first sense) is largely important when speaking of the necessity of the App Store.
Exactly what's appealing to the average Joe about the iPad IS that it acts more like an iPhone than a standard computer.
It's not the little hacks (e.g., font organizers, window minimizers) that are going to make or break this platform: it's going to be the immersive apps that capture people's imaginations. (And most "real people" don't care about OS hacks.)
I know I've already got way too many killer ideas for this platform, really the first to incorporate touch computing in an intelligent, affordable fashion, and I suspect many others are in the same boat.
So the lack of hackability may simply not be an issue. Within a given app, the world's your oyster; you can do just about anything.
The gatekeeping problem may be the bigger issue, but there are so many great apps waiting to be built that are completely non-controversial from Apple's point of view, and that will fulfill the promise of the platform.
The recent sweep-up of semi-porn and cookie-cutter apps makes complete sense to me; as a retailer, who wants all that crap on their shelves? And as a developer, why would I want to be doing anything in those areas (unless it's simply to exploit people for their money)?
I do have some areas of concern that affect my plans: Will Apple ever permit a full-blown non-Safari browser app in the store? That's a biggie. And will Apple ever permit an interactive programming tool like Smalltalk adapted for the touch screen, or (one of my ideas) a graphical meta-calculator building tool that ultimately allows the user to do "real" programming?
Ultimately, I think the answers are yes and yes, but the unsureness of those answers is troubling.
If it's just a WebKit wrapper, probably. If it's a different rendering engine, not a chance.
And will Apple ever permit an interactive programming tool like Smalltalk adapted for the touch screen, or (one of my ideas) a graphical meta-calculator building tool that ultimately allows the user to do "real" programming?
Smalltalk, no. Graphing calculators with variable assignments and stuff, sure as long as you can't create things that resemble real applications.
Ultimately, I think the answers are yes and yes, but the unsureness of those answers is troubling.
I'd be looking at developing for Android tablets, where you don't have to give the manufacturer a kill switch to your ideas. Or HTML5 if possible.
Individual's first strength is to boycott something. And to raise his/shes voice so that the alternative arguments are heard too.
I just called 90% of my techie/geek colleagues pussies over twitter after reading this.
If you want to stop Apple, you need to bring something
clearly better to the market,
is and why you don't need Apple's crap anymore.
People tend to make this claim and I just don't understand where it comes from. Microsoft has made available the express editions of Visual Studio for the last several years and they are pretty damn good.
Visual Studio Express is free to use ... and it's enough for almost every need you might have. And before that you could use the #Develop which is an open-source IDE for C#/VB.NET.
And while Xcode doesn't even support intellisense properly, Visual Studio is in a different category altogether considering that you can also develop with it web applications / Silverlight clips, supports many more languages and has a really healthy plugins ecosystem.
Not to nitpick, but Microsoft is endorsing Mono lately as THE Linux/FreeBSD/OS X alternative. On Linux I can have a dotNet app that uses Windows Forms running ... can you do the same with Cocoa?
Of course Mono for Apple would be an abomination that had to be destroyed (considering how they sued Psystar and even Wired on publishing an article about hackitoshes)
(pretty ironic I'm defending Microsoft, since I've been badmouthing them for years, but compared to Apple they start looking like saints)
Cocoa is a direct descendent of NEXTStep which is an open spec. Hence the NS prefix on class names. Here's "Mono for Apple":
You mention MS "endorsing" Mono as if that means something.
[1] http://groups.google.com/group/objectivej/browse_thread/thre...
But the first ones I linked are all Objective-C. Well, Étoilé has implemented a smalltalk-esque syntax now.
> Cocoa is a direct descendent of NEXTStep
Oh please, take any Cocoa app and try running it in Gnustep.
Then I'm paranoid. Like Mark Pilgrim (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2010/01/29/tinkerers-sunset), I don't believe Apple will be selling general purpose computers to consumers in 10 years. Remember Steve Jobs's plan for Apple: "milk the Mac for all it's worth and then move on the next big thing". The next big thing is mobile computing, and Apple has made it clear that they want absolute control.
Apple isn't the only one doing this. I don't know much C# and I don't run Windows anymore, but I want to write XBOX games. Should I be mad at MS for making me buy Windows, learn Visual Studio + C#, and pay a membership fee to write games for my XBOX? They have a developer program too, and a completely closed system. They take a cut of sales. They don't review your apps though, but honestly I like the fact that through the Appstore on my iPod, stuff isn't gonna trash my iPod like it did when I used to have it jailbroken.
I'm going to compare games on Mac OS X and Xbox, why can't I make Xbox games and distribute them freely, when I can do that on Mac OS X?
http://client.marketplace.windowsmobile.com/
It's been that way since early 2009. Is it going to be yet another thing like Origami, Courier, Surface, et al. that Microsoft hypes up only to abandon or leave stillborn?
Bottom line, Apple, not without corner-case controversies, is far more flexible in 3rd party Smartphone development than Microsoft has or could ever be.
Now, Google Android, on the other hand... that's like the Wild Wild West of device freedom. So much so, that hardly anyone makes money. Where are the big-time devs creating world-beating technology on the platform and sopping up revenue like crusty bread at the bottom of a steak dish? I've looked EVERYWHERE for it, I even have "android marketplace revenue" bookmarked in Google News and check that every once in awhile. I see people selling 20k units a month at #1 on the entire Android store, which is what Apple top tens sell in less than a week or even a days worth of sales. That's a marketplace estimated at 10 Million users, and only a few hundred thousand are actually buying anything. In fact, android users buy about $1 on average of apps per month, while iPhone/iPod Touch users spend about $5 a month, and that's an ecosystem with fast-approaching 100 Million users hungry (and more importantly, willing to pay) for content. It's a no-brainer for any developer.
The worst enemy of freedom in software is not Microsoft,
it's Apple.
You're pretty free to develop and distribute software as you want on Windows.
On new Apple devices, they control the way the software
is distributed
they tax you,
they make you obey their rules
Imagine a world with appstore as the main way of
distributing software for any kind of devices.
This would be hell.
Stop using Apple.
Use Linux
or if you can't, use Microsoft.
Just say you sell an application for $4.99, this means Apple takes around $1.50. If you sell 100k copies, Apple is gouging you $150,000.
Great, you don't really care because you made $350,000. Not so; You're going to lose a shitload of that to the IRS. In essence we're looking at being double-taxed. It sucks.
The downside to the 30% is that a chunk goes to the review process. It's nice when it catches legitimate bugs but sucks that in a way you're paying to be censored.
If you don't like it, you can always develop for another platform though. You might not make as much but if you value ideals over making money, you have options.
70% of 100k sales is better than 100% of 1000 sales.
As to taxes, I only get taxed on the portion I receive (Apple gets taxed on their 30%) so I have no idea where this "double-taxed" stuff is coming from.
Heck, if my app is really good, I might get on the front page of iTunes or in a commercial.
This has huge potential.
I think such a world would be much better for most end users. And a lot of people have already voted with their wallet that this is so.
If there were many App Stores, then market forces would come into play. Someone would figure out how to get developers paid without mistreating them. Then really smart devs would start flocking to the other App Store, forcing Apple to reform or lose mindshare.
At the end, pops and moms will be happier than ever with their new computing experience that doesn't crash every day and has to be formatted and reinstalled every other month.
"Kilimanjaro, your father bought a book which I would like to read too. Could you tell us how to copy it to my iPad too? Love, mum"
"Hi mum. Plug your iPad into iTunes and click 'add device to authorized list' under the Advanced menu when dad is logged into his iTunes account."
That one actually isn't too hard to walk people through on the phone. I did it with my mom and dad for their iPod's a few months back. Took all of five minutes; most of which was waiting for the iPod's to finish syncing.
Eventually there might be good software to fill up these niches, but it's going to take quite a while. And people will constantly be assailed with web sites and software boxes that have GOOD SOFTWARE that they can't put on an iPad. The App Store Apple is competing against is the rest of the world--- millions of Apps (some of which are really good!) and gazillions in marketing dollars.
The fact that your mom can't run her quilting software on it (so far) doesn't mean it can't do all the other things well and be a very welcome addition to her life. It just means she has to keep using her PC for quilting. At least until somebody realizes there's an opportunity for a good quilting app.
I think I just did.
With the app developer program, approval process and store, there is a pretty good chance (better than ever) that your device will keep working and that apps you use can't (won't try to) do anything malicious. It lets single developers get access to a market that is very hard to break into.
Certainly, there are decisions Apple has made with the AppStore and approvals that are ridiculous. But, in the history of all human endeavor, there is no complex operation that doesn't have problems. The vast majority of apps are approved without incident. Apple has solved many more worse problems with app distribution than the ones they created.
My main gripes are lack of transparency of the process (and your progression through it) and no way to revert to a previously approved version (or fast track a bug fix). Also, the lack of any way to offer paid updates is a big issue for funding future versions of apps. The control over the platform doesn't bother me at all (as a user or developer).
To use an example, if things “just worked” then I'd be able
to copy music from my iPod back to my laptop, or from one
machine that I own to another.
The thing that will be interesting about the iPad is the experience
of using it — something that nobody has had except for the folks at
Apple — and as is always the case when dealing with a different type
of interface, you're always going to be wrong.
Then people cry and predict the end of hacking, tinkering and programming. Folks, don't forget: with iPad also comes out new free SDK. But maybe shouting about freedom is just a tad easier than using it.
"I already have one it is called an iphone."