Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by Marticus | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Marticus

Here's what gets me:

The disconnect between that video at the end of his presentation versus Apple today.

"Think different... as long as we approve your application for download on the app store."

Admittedly a pretty cool video though.

View on HN

This is a common view on HN, but I will suggest that you don't "get it." The AppStore may be a thorn in the side of some developers, but supports Apple's stated core value of enabling people who are passionate. The store reduces risk and variability, while rewarding (through ease of payment and reduced piracy (if you believe piracy to be a demotivator)) those who make great things for the end user.

Computer geeks are only one kind of passionate person. Apple's view is that annoying them is a small price to pay for making everyone else's experience better.

The App Store the is epitome of "Think Different".

It has done an astounding job of attracting developers to their platform, and no competing "Store" does a better job of connecting developers with actual users.

Yet there was no shortage of people who said it would never work, and there's still no shortage of people who keep saying they're doing it wrong.

I thought it was people saying they're doing a lousy job of explaining the rules of approval?

What he said.

If they're going to try to say to break out of your shell and be different and go crazy and be rebels (look at the people in that video, jeez) it's ironic that Apple now tells people what they can and cannot create.

"Think Different" could easily apply to the idea of a platform you don't need to run an anti-virus on otherwise deal with the quirks of a traditional desktop OS. Also let's not get too bogged down in nostalgia -- at the time of the "Think Different" ads the Mac was far more proprietary and closed than it is today.

But in fairness, in Gandhi's and Martin Luther King's time, the app store policies were even more restrictive - all apps were rejected, since there was no app store at all! I don't understand it myself, but somehow they were able to change the world despite not being able to create these apps. I totally agree that Gandhi's plan A was to make a Farmville-style game that let's you make illegal virtual salt, and MLK was going to make a SimCity game where you could control a character who refuses to sit at the back of the bus. This is historically documented. Obviously supporting mass protest and civil disobedience in such a safe, efficient, convenient way, so that people could do it whenever they had a spare moment, like waiting in line at the movies or the grocery store, is very threatening to the status quo. And the authorities refused to allow those kinds of apps (or any apps, or smart phones of any kind) because they were correctly seen as too powerful at creating widespread social change, too upsetting to the status quo.

Now, I know what you're going to say: "Yes, but we only are allowed to have smart phones because the authorities have found ways of neutralizing their subversive potential! The apps that are truly threatening will be rejected!" I admit this is true - powerful corporate lobbyists have sabotaged my own app where you earn points and badges for turning off lights and composting your trash because of how devastating this would be in their attempts to keep people mindlessly consuming.

I guess what I'm saying is, keep hope alive. Yes, Apple's authoritarian iron fist thwarts our attempts at changing the world, but remember that Gandhi faced similar struggles against the violent British colonial regime, and Martin Luther King faced death-threats, even finally being assassinated. Yes, we mourn all our fallen apps that have been "assassinated" or "lynched" by Apple's arbitrary app store policies, but we must not lose hope, we must continue the struggle and endure these heavy losses. History is on our side!

That was incredibly satisfying, thanks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com