If the cross-platform experience is subpar, Apple should just let these apps fail in the market.
Perhaps, like Nintendo, they learned the lessons from the collapse of the home video game market in 1983. When Nintendo was contemplating developing the NES, they took a deep look at what had caused the collapse. What they concluded was that the main cause of death was the market being flooded with too many crappy games.
Originally, if you wanted to write, say, an Intellivision game, you went and got a job with either Mattel or APh Technological Consulting (the company that did the hardware design, system software, and many of the early games for Mattel). If you wanted to do an Atari game, you went and got a job with Atari.
The games at this time were all pretty good. A consumer could go out, buy a game based just on the information printed on the box, and go home and be pretty sure they'd have a good experience.
As time went on, a few more companies joined the party. Activision and Imagic, for instance. These companies were started by people who had worked for Mattel or Atari or their contractors like APh, and generally produced quality games.
A consumer still could be confident that plunking down $40 or whatever for a new game, based just on the box description, would be a good move.
More time passed, and companies that had little or no connection to Atari and Mattel jumped in, using information gleaned by reverse engineering the consoles and system software. The information was not always complete, and they didn't know all the tricks and techniques we authorized developers knew to squeeze greatness out of the hardware. They produced a lot of crap games.
Consumers now found that spending $40 on a game was a big gamble. They had to work to get good games--be aware of brands, read reviews. They stopped buying--all games, not just the bad games.
Nintendo's conclusion was that their new console must be locked down. Only developers that Nintendo approved would be allowed to produce cartridges. This way, they could ensure that quality remained high, and get the now shy consumers to come back and give games another change.
It clearly worked--and consoles have been locked down ever since, and the console game market is huge.
However, that isn't what the approval process is. There are literally thousands of crappy applications that were happily approved and clogging up all categories in the app store. It seems non-trivial app rejections are not done on behalf of the user but are done solely to protect Apple's own interests. Remember when a bunch of high-quality Google voice apps disappeared from store? And that's just one example, there have been many more.
And now they're rejecting apps not based on their quality, but based on the programming language or development environment used to create them. How is that at all relevant to the user? This is entirely about protecting Apple's own interests and the comparison to Nintendo's lock down of the NES is not applicable.
What I don't understand is how this isn't anticompetitive behaviour. By creating an app store and lock-in for application vendors, Apple become the only provider in the market. They now appear to be leveraging that monopoly to restrict another market, that of developer tools, to their commercial advantage and at the expense of a competitor.
I'm not a lawyer and don't live in the US where presumably any legal action would be brought, but can someone please explain to me how this isn't black-and-white illegal under US law?
and they aren't locking in any body. You don't forfeit rights to your source code, you're welcome to write some crossplatform app using some shared code library you build in-house. You just have to build apps natively, rather than use some watered down piss poor Common language that breaks standards on all platforms. This is the same reason adobe apps suck on macs. They have tried to abstract away the os from their applications to the point where they don't look, act, or function properly on any platform. They look like ass and run like ass on everything .
First, we have the hardware, and as you say, Apple is certainly in a competitive market with its iPhone offering.
Then, for each type of hardware, we have the software that runs on it. Anyone could write software to run on Apple's hardware, but because Apple lock down the phone and run the only app store in town, they have a de facto monopoly on the supply of software to iPhone users.
Finally, we have software development tools. Again, anyone could write tools to help software developers using Apple's hardware. Indeed, according to recent reports connected to this story, many people have, from Adobe's Flash CS5 team to fans of Haskell.
Again, I'm no lawyer, but I would expect that Apple would be perfectly within its rights to lock down the software that can run on its device, but would not be allowed to use that power to unduly influence the secondary market of how that software can be made.
What gets interesting is when/if Apple's dominance continues to grow to the point that the "iPhone software" market is effectively the "smartphone software" market. At that point, the DoJ and/or FTC will almost certainly decide that many of these policies are anticompetitive and initiate some sort of action to remedy the situation.
So in some sense, Apple needs to worry about becoming too successful: it is only because they haven't achieved total dominance that they can get away with being so ruthless.
"Apple responsible for 99.4% of mobile app sales in 2009"
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-...
... it doesn't take a Phd to acknowledge that the AppStore IS the mobile SW market - thus - i would rather disagree that Apple argument SHOULD be successful in case somebody (or some agency) should bring a legal challenge to the new draconian policies - which are obviously abusing Apple dominance ...
the question for me is more technical = who can bring such a legal challenge? can developers do that? can users do that? or only a govt. agency can ... in which case - considering the influence and connections Apple has with Washington - that might not happen ...
would it be possible for developers to team up in class-action suit based which could then trigger a govt. investigation?
The fact that 99.4 cents of every dollar spent "after the hardware purchase" goes to apple platform.. doesn't make it a monopoly.. it merely means that it is the most successful add-on market..
A good example for comparison.. is a bit old, but illustrates this particular point beautifully.
The fact that more companies are interested in producing add-on stuff for a product and that consumers are more interested in BUYING that stuff.. doesn't mean that a company is anti competitive/antitrust regulated/a monopoly..
Volkswagen beetle aftermarket parts spent some 30+ years as the king of aftermarket parts .. everything from "third party" replacement oem style parts (stuff that matched the original but was cheaper for whatever reason) as well as stuff that essentially completely changed the product into something else (dune buggy conversions, engine swaps, totally different interiors, etc)
Was VW a monopoly because for 30 years 4 out of every 5 dollars spent on "aftermarket parts" was spent on Beetle bits? no and no one ever thought to consider or call it one.. it was just a hugely successful model that didn't change every 11 months, and therefore was a fixed point in space for manufacturers to target.. but more importantly CONSUMERS WHERE BUYING.. as opposed to your avg Ford/GM/Chrysler buyer who for the most part do NOT just go out and buy total conversion kits/hopped up engine parts.. there where many manufacturers who made parts for various successful models such as muscle cars over the years, and still do.. they didn't cry about antitrust because VW add-on makers made more money, nor did they cry that VW should change the way they made the beetle so that "beetle engines" would fit in any car (or vice versa)
There is NO ONE who could bring a class-action and win, and there is no way that adobe could sue and win either.
Because "customer choices" when they have real choice, do not make a monopoly, rather removing customer choice creates a monopoly.
but still it seems the aforementioned laymen had the right intuition - as the appstore draconian policies are finally being looked at by regulators ...
"According to a person familiar with the matter, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are locked in negotiations over which of the watchdogs will begin an antitrust inquiry into Apple's new policy of requiring software developers who devise applications for devices such as the iPhone and iPad to use only Apple's programming tools."
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/an_antitrust_app_buvCW...
Presumably Adobe are the most likely candidates who also have serious legal firepower.
This is a chicken-egg situation. Apple has Apps, so more people buy iPhones than other phones. with Adobe's dev tools, devs could make apps for more than one platform - that is a threat to apple. When apple shuts this down it is an anticompetitive act against other phone makers. Because if devs could put apps on more than one platform, then other platforms would become more appealing.
#1 - Two of the worst carts preceding the '83 crash were E.T. and Pacman, both developed and produced by Atari itself, not these mysteriously inferior 3rd parties you're alluding to. And how many games has Apple, who logically has the most know-how on the platform, produced? None.
#2 - You're making an oranges to apples comparison anyway. The video game market was not crashed by the availability of cross-compilers or tools that lowered the bar of entry. Similarly, Nintendo did not solve the problem by restricting what tools developers could use. They solved it with a strict editorial process.
#3 - Video game production in 1983 required producing and marketing physical goods. It relied on predictable "hits" just like AAA game development to recoup the considerable outlay required to get these games in front of consumers in the first place. iPhones games are virtual and the marketing for many of them non-existent (simply because I can't spend $0.25 CPC on Google trying to sell my $0.99 app). Additionally, there's a long tail of developers creating a more robust landscape of content. There can be tons of failures and still leave plenty of room for successes. Just look at how many games on the iPod have made it big. Many of them came from virtual "nobodies".
#4 - In 1983, there was no manifestation of "wisdom of the crowds" to guide any consumer purchases. Word of mouth was about it. Today, at Apple's scale, one can find dozens of opinions about the quality of a game that only 0.01% of total users may actually purchase.
Many of these problems continue to persist in the locked down AAA console world that you seem to be so fond of. You know, I can accidentally buy 50 terrible iPod games and still spend less money than I would have spent accidentally buying 1 terrible PS3 game.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/texas-holdem/id284602850?mt=8
Though I have not purchased this game and cannot comment on whether it diminishes your first point.
And as mentioned above, they dont have a monopoly in the market so, from Apple's perspective, 'if you don't like it, there are other opportunities' ... developing for the bberry :)
They've spent some money and time, and they have taken a lot of other people's work: Mach, gcc, Smalltalk, BSD, etc.
"they dont have a monopoly in the market"
That's not so clear to me. I own an iPhone and an iPad even though I think they really suck technically. But there is content available for them that simply is not available for other platforms.
if (A && B)
{
}
else if (A && !B)
{
}
What I am getting at is, with programming there are rules. The rules Apple have are actually very minor and very easy to stay within. If you program to make political statements, choose Android or BB or Symbian. If you program to make money, pick the platform that will do that and follow the rules. If it stops making you money, move on. If you don't like the rules and don't want to abide by them, move on.
You can enjoy programming while still staying within the rules. Sometimes, it is part of the fun and challenge.
Apple is trying to accomplish the same kind of lock-in that Microsoft managed with Windows. And we better nip this thing in the bud, because Apple would screw us even worse than Microsoft has.
As a long time Mac user, I've experienced a lot of Mac applications that have been straight ports from other platforms and they are, for the most part, pretty awful. I can understand from this why Apple wants its developers to code iApps natively.
This 'lock in' makes perfect sense for Apple in other ways too, ways in which end users and developers will benefit. Imagine that Apple allow apps to be ported from Flash. Developers would stop coding natively for iPhone OS as they would be able to create their apps in Flash and distribute them as web apps at the same time, reaching a greater audience. Then add in Android, Blackberry & other export options for Flash. Soon enough Flash would be the only IDE in use and platforms such as iPhone OS would be at the mercy of Adobe. If Apple were to introduce new features and efficiencies to their hardware and APIs, they would have to wait for Adobe to implement them in its Flash translation layer before the features would really become available to end users. Even the most willing and motivated of developers would not be able to get around that, they would have to wait for Adobe. So in the end, Apple would lose sales and credibility, and good developers would get screwed because they wouldn't be able to out pace their competitors in updating their apps to take advantage of new features. Everyone becomes 'locked in' to Adobe. Given Adobe's poor history when it comes to timely bug fixes and support of its OS X applications, I do not think that this 'lock in' would be a nice place to find yourself, whether you're Apple, a developer or an end user.
If you don't like Apple's stance then develop for other platforms and buy other products. But if you want to be in on the action, then accept the rules as they are not unreasonable and will ultimately benefit everyone.
We tend to frown on loops and mutating variables.
It's the same strategy that they've always used with their software/hardware combination, which has worked beautifully in the case of the mac.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-....
check the numbers - AppStore IS a monopole ...
Rose tinted glasses. They still managed to release buggy, downright broken software. It wasn't about quality, it was about control.
1. It's only a matter of time until apple realizes this model is not good for anyone. 2. Android (who by the way is powered by the very people who specialize in filtering out the crap on other platforms) will dominate the next few years.
That idea started 1.5 years ago. Now you get Google ads in your free apps. Now, as an option, you can have iAds or Google ads. So all Apple did is open an option (read choice) for developers already doing ads in apps.
Choice is now bad? Or is it good?
Do something like Reddit, Digg, or Hacker News... let people guinea-pig apps and upvote/downvote them and sort in each category.
(HN is, IMO, above the rest but it's certainly not immune to mob rule)
Besides, with the money involved in high rankings you'd have to constantly police the system against gaming, which would be, I'm guessing, more work than policing the submissions directly a they do now.
(First my credentials: I was an avid player of Atari 2600 games at the time, so I remember the period in question first-hand.)
My take is not that there was a decline in quality due to any sort of technical reason, it was due to a drop in the quality of the gameplay design and playtesting. That, in turn, I'm guessing was due to the number of Atari 2600 game creators increasing past the threshold of GOOD game designers & playtesters available. After all, it was a relatively new field at the time, video game design. Perhaps it reached a point where there were say 50 new games being "designed" concurrently but there were only 20-30 good designers. Whereas before, it was under that threshold.
This was my theory because I've heard your position stated a few times in the web, but from direct experience I remember it being more a drop in the quality of game play rather than in code quality or technical polish.
Don't worry, if you savor the cross-platform software experience there will be plenty of options for you. At bargain prices, in fact.
... please - you Apple fan-boys should try things before jumping to conclusions ...
i dumped my iphone for a nexus specifically for Google Voice and Apple draconian control on the platform ...
I think apple is doing well in the (presumably free, it's way more open than other places) market, because they are very good at negotiating their property rights.
I guess it's just fashionable to imply the "bad guys" are "communists"
Do you mean the FCC approval process for new cell phones is a massive barrier to entry? I'm sure it's not free, but i can't imagine they'd want more that a few dozen phones and $100k of studies. maybe a half a million?
Of course, this is why I don't use C, C++, or Objective-C. I'm always a little surprised when someone writes code in one of those languages that actually runs.
The good news is that there isn't very much of it.
The rest of the software is buggier than it should be. My web browser has remotely-exploitable security holes. Random drivers in Linux randomly regress as the version number increases. OS X and Windows 7 crash for no reason, and don't support enough hardware.
The only program I use regularly that doesn't crash on me is Xmonad. And guess which language that isn't written in.
It doesn't crash because it's simple, not because it's written in a good language.
Well you'd probably have 100X as many bugs in a C program (it takes 10X as many LOC, and I bet bugs scale with N^2), so Haskell is a bit better, but language isn't as important as scope. Big programs have more bugs.
http://neilmitchell.blogspot.com/2007/05/does-xmonad-crash.h...
Plus, I don't understand why people keep praising XMonad for its lack of bugs. It has some bugs that are quite annoying (eg. stuck windows that don't close, locked with only one tile on a screen) -- on the other hand, I've never seen a bug in metacity.
My take is that even if it's easier to screw things up in C, that doesn't mean that if you program in a higher level language, you'd automatically produce elegant code.
I can tell you, though, that this doesn't really matter in real life. The compiler warns you when you use a free variable, so it's pretty hard to accidentally misuse a dynamic variable. There are pathological cases that people point out, but these rarely matter in elisp that most people actually write.
Programming Emacs is a little different from programming other systems, but once you use its idioms instead of the ones you took from your favorite language, everything works quite nicely.
I agree that emacs lisp can still be used to productively write software. People put up with much worse things.
Why does it really scare me when people that claim to programmers say stuff like that. If what you say is true, that you are "surprised when someone writes code in one of those languages that actually runs.", then you really should not be programming.