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Comment by mattferderer | Hacker News Reader

My simple argument - Microsoft is actually focusing on "Developers, Developers, Developers" & what developers want instead of just lip service.

Focus on developers & they'll create awesome stuff with your product. IMO, Apple is where they are because they made a nice piece of hardware with a platform that allowed developers to make & sell apps on it. ITunes was great for musical devs & IPhone was great for software devs.

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When OSX launched with a Unix platform, every hackathon went from Thinkpads to Macbooks over the course of a year or two. It was just more fun to make tech on them. I don't think it was intentional on Apple's part to target developers, I think it was a byproduct of the Next's team's passion for great tools that leaked into Apple's offerings. Apple would do well to make developers happy and to make creative pros happy. It's weird that we're forced to buy iMacs and Macbook Airs in 2018 to do our best work.

With the new keyboard mechanisms and the killing of the escape key on their Pro models Apple has already made their stance with developers clear.

Buy a Windows laptop with nice hardware and run Linux.

I quite like the butterfly keyboards. I find that, after I spent a few weeks getting used to it, I can type much faster and cleaner.

The removal of the escape key makes vim practically unusable, though. I know a few people who have remapped it to a different key, but still..

ctrl + [

I've been using Caps Lock as Esc for around a year now (and Shift + Shift for caps). It's a big ergonomic win for me on both my laptop and desktop keyboards.

People should remap it anyways. The escape key is the farthest away key, yet it's the most frequently used key. I have it to `jj`.

I did exactly this (well, "refreshed" vs. bought, as this is a company machine).

Could not be happier. Linux works great for what I do, I have a decent KB, no touchbar, no olympic sized trackpad that just gets in my way, actual PORTS I can use, *nix OS... totally happy.

Yes! Currently I'm in love with Elementary OS as my distro (I was a Mac user so the fancy UI is exactly what I wanted)

I remember that too. suddenly everybody you saw had a Macbook. I always thought that part of the initial iOS success was that a lot of developers already had Macbooks and were ready to develop apps on it. I think we would have seen much less apps if the Macbook hadn't been that popular before.

If they continue to neglect the Mac platform and devs really start moving away from Mac iOS may suffer quite a bit. Microsoft would have a great opportunity to take over if they made the Surface devices a little cheaper and higher quality. My Macbook 2014 is getting a little old and I am really torn what to do next. The Surface devices we have at work are quite expensive and still not as good as a Macbook but the latest Macbooks are not that appealing either.

I picked up a Surface Laptop 2 a week ago, as a replacement for my older MacBook Air, and so far I’ve been pleased with it. The hardware may not have the fit and finish of a MacBook, but it’s still slim, lightweight and attractive in its own way. The screen is great. And that keyboard...just works.

The article doesn’t mention the Surface product line, it doesn’t contribute much to Microsoft’s revenue, but it allows the company to present itself as a new Microsoft and demonstrate what’s possible with Windows.

If they only could build decent trackpads and gestures that work. On my Macbook I can work perfectly well with only the laptop and the trackpad but on Windows the trackpad doesn't feel right and the gestures are weird.

I am stuck in the same rut. My 2012 MBP isn't cutting it anymore but I can't see the value in spending $2k for the 2018 MBP.

Get a MB Air 2018. It's about as nice, had TouchID without the Touch Bar (meaning Esc key intact), it's lighter and can be had with 16GB RAM.

Most of my dev is on some cloud somewhere regardless so it's a perfectly capable machine.

I'd suggest you consider the Dell XPS line whether you need 13" or 15" laptop. Both laptops have good battery sizes, surprisingly durable coating for what it is, good keyboards, trackpads, screens... And both have a fingerprint reader which works just as well as touch id on a Mac. Oh, and they are very repairable because they're designed to be serviced on-site, so even after warranty runs out, you can service them with quite cheap genuine parts (which are themselves abundant on ebay, amazon, parts-people, aliexpress).

I do have a bias in that I've been a happy user of the two generations of XPS 15 for three years.

The legacy is still there, many conferences and events are dominated by Macs, but it's not the 100% share it was a few years ago and the "get a mac" jokes mean something quite different now.

What does the joke mean now?

They used to be aimed at people struggling to get their Linux machines to connect to projectors, as Macs "just work". They're now aimed at people with Macs in dongle hell.

Developers go where the money is and where the users are. No matter how great the “developer story” is for Microsoft, Windows Phone languished.

Microsoft to it’s credit, is also going to where the developers are.

I think Microsoft's biggest mistake with Windows Phone was branding it with "Windows." I wish they would have called it an Xbox Phone and tightly integrated it with Xbox live. Early on, they could focus on getting some really great games built and the lack of "apps" wouldn't have been as big of a deal as it was.

On the other hand, I know a few big companies that initially went with Windows Phone only because of the "safe" image - no chance they would have done that with a gaming-related brand. The idea of going after the Blackberry-vacated market wasn't completely wrong.

The real issue was the repeated backward-compatibility break; it pissed off all their early partners and adopters and discouraged any serious investment in the platform. By the end, it wasn't a bad platform, but the trust was gone.

I didn't know there was an enterprise adoption. Could you name a few?

It was relatively common here in Europe, where higher management was getting their Blackberries replaced with iPhones and everyone else below got to choose between Android and WP.

A telecommunications company starting with V used to do that.

Thanks. There is one thing MS fucked up with and it was not capitalizing on European adoption.

They had like, 30% on business. WP was safer than Android, and cheaper than iPhone, and also had all Microsoft enterprise experience behind, with good MDM solution too.

Well it didn’t help that Windows Phones had worse support for Exchange than iPhones and Android phones.

https://www.infoworld.com/article/2617604/windows-phone-os/w...

I believe they were charging for the OS which got passed on to consumers. When they should have been giving it away with MS app store credits.

They tried that with universal apps. No one was going to invest money on good games without the users being there and no users were going to buy the phone without the apps.

Even if Windows Phone had Nintendo level third place success, what would it have gained them? No company besides Apple and to a lesser extent Samsung make any real money on phones. I doubt the phone division even makes any really money, Samsung makes most of its mobile money from the parts it sells.

Google doesn’t even make that much from Android. They make some from Google Play Services and advertising but they also pay Apple billions a year to be the default search engine for iOS.

Google likely makes well over $10 billion a year from Android. Only when comparing against iPhone revenue or Google's own advertising revenue does it look small.

This is the best number I could find from the Oracle vs google lawsuit. Google didn’t dispute the number.

Thanks to a lawyer, we know now that Google has made $31 billion in revenue and $22 billion in profit from its Android operating system....

That’s over Android’s entire existence.

But if the $31 billion total is correct, Google has earned less money from Android throughout its existence than Apple earned from iPhone sales in fourth quarter of 2015, when it brought in $32.2 billion in revenue.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android-generate...

That's a pretty apple to oranges comparison. iPhone sales is selling physical hardware which obviously comes with a much higher total cost then just software. A much better comparison would be from how much Apple earns from it's app store and developer fees.

In the context of how much Microsoft could have made if it had come in as a successful third place, if Google can make only $31 billion over 10 years, how much could MS make in third place?

But to answer your question 11.5 billion last year

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/01/06/apples-ap...

Back in 2010, when Windows Phone first launched, the smartphone market was a very different place.

Microsoft could have leveraged the popularity of Xbox to market their phone as a mobile gaming system and I think that would have been hugely popular.

Back in 2010, Microsoft had sold 40 million Xboxes in total (https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-360-sales-top-40-mill...).

Apple sold that many iPhones a year back then. Of course now, Apple sells that many in a bad quarter.

They could have branded with both, effectively... "Windows Phone" for Business; "XBox Phone" for Personal Use .. same OS and tools under the covers. Developers could target both, and users would just get their skin version on top of the OS.

XBox Phone would have sign in for an XBox account... Windows Phone would tether to an exposed AD/SSO login system for business use.

I think Microsoft's biggest mistake was trying to go to bat with the US carriers: trying to trade more control over things like software updates for terrible mistakes like timed exclusive releases with only one specific carrier. (Windows Phones were AT&T exclusive for bit; then there were various "flagship" phones alternating exclusivities between AT&T and Verizon depending on whom Microsoft needed to court better that phone hardware generation.)

Apple was able to do that because of a combo of first mover advantage and trend demand. Android didn't even bother, which lead to the obvious problems of the version diaspora of Android installs (who knew which phones on which carriers would get which updates and when), but playing ball with the weird control issues of carriers ultimately served Android pretty well in eventual market penetration, because the carriers were happiest to sell things they felt like they could control.

It’s slightly more complicated. In most major markets, the dominant carrier wouldn’t agree to Apple’s demands. So Apple made a deal with the 2nd or 3rd place Cartier. People wanted iPhones badly enough to switch carriers. Then Apple was able to make a deal with the dominant carrier.

I agree. I also think it hampered their early tablet effort. But I think what they should have done is taken Windows 8 and Mobile and called it "Surface OS" and focus it entirely on mobile. They wouldn't have even had to change much code-wise, just marketing and developer relations.

Windows 8 should have continued to be desktop focused (normal start menu, etc) but also able to run and develop the universal apps.

Microsoft and Xbox seem to have a distanced relationship. For example, Microsoft could figure out a way to allow XBox AAA games to run on all Windows 10 machines, while creating an edge over Sony's PS4, but Microsofot has only allowed XBox indie games that are already available on Steam. An XBox-branded phone would have this expectation.

This is no longer the case[1]. You can play many, previously console exclusive, titles on Windows (Forza and Gears come to mind) - albiet via the Windows app store.

[1]: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/xbox-play-anywhere

That's what I was referencing to with games that are also available on Steam.

Microsoft isn't even attempting to join windows and Xbox, and is only selling games that developers already make available for windows - except as "Xbox play anywhere".

> is only selling games that developers already make available for windows

Forza and Gears were XBox exclusives before XBPA.

How could they have called it an Xbox phone when they didn't have any AAA titles to launch with?

I had WP7 back in the day when it seemed like IOS, Android, WP and WebOS could all share the pie. It didn't even have a file manager, something Androids came with on Day 1.

Luckily for Microsoft, there's many developpers that don't work on mobile. There's millions of developpers working for banks, governement, or other large organization, and many of them are choosing Microsoft technologies for their stacks. Mobile app had its gold rush in the early 2010s, but now Microsoft is investing into capturing developpers to use their cloud platform, and they are obviously doing very well in that area.

I am definitely not anti Microsoft, I’ve been developing with some version of Visual Studio for well over 20 years. But, it makes absolutely no sense to hang your hat on developing using Windows specific technologies in 2018. Even Azure is hosting more Linux VMs than Windows VMs. I’m at least moving toward .Net Core and if I were doing desktop apps I would use Xamarin.

But all of the money and energy is moving away from .Net. As much as I hate that JavaScript has taken over in mindshare, at least there is TypeScript.

Apple had first mover advantage into a niche they redefined: smartphone as touch screen based device with a software keyboard instead of a device with a hardware keyboard.

The real question for Apple in my opinion is: where will they go from here? Android is creeping higher and higher in the ecosystem and smartphones are starting to become good enough, just like PCs. They are a status symbols, which PCs couldn't be, but as they become so widespread, their status symbol value decreases.

I think they could carve out a niche as the phone manufacturer that respects people's privacy, but I'd be a lot happier to join their cheerleading squad over that if they weren't also constantly ratcheting up their prices. It doesn't sit well with Tim Cook's statements to the effect of privacy being a right and not a luxury.

"phone manufacturer that respects people's privacy"

Small market (outside of HN) :)

right now apple is

- privacy focused - arm processor design leader - swift native apps

thats about all that differentiates it. the question is how long that will matter, and if or when the third becomes more of a hinderance. If Microsoft and Google continue to grow towards each other (teams being built on chrome, Microsoft treating android as its mobile operating system.)

I thought Apple was going for that market already. Microsoft going there would be hilarious.

Microsoft? They are neither privacy oriented (hello, telemetry) nor do they have a functioning phone business.

Android is already used in the majority of the market. It's just that android phones aren't under a single corporate umbrella like Apple phones are.

People have been saying that Apple products are a “status symbol” since the iPod. How is a product owned by 45% of smart phone owners - at least in the US - a status symbol?

Children

By product differentiation. People who do not want or cannot spend a lot of money buy an older generation (currently iPhone 7 and iPhone 8), people who can spend more buy the latest iteration. With the watch there is also a lot of differentiation, from basic bands, sports bands, to expensive metal or leather bands.

Though, I do not agree that people are only buying Apple for status. A lot of non-tech friends just find iPhones simpler to use, does not have preinstalled crap, and gets updated longer.

I bought a 6s in 2015. I kept it until earlier this year, replaces the battery for $29, bought an Apple battery case and gave it to my son. It runs the latest OS and is still faster than most midrange Android phones coming out this year.

iPhone 6s is faster than any android phone in single core tests. Mozilla Kraken score for 6s is 1315ms.

>at least in the US

Key. Outside of the US and a few high income countries it was always a status symbol everywhere.

Do people outside the high income countries really drive discourse on HN and other English-speaking technology sites?

Well, this specific comment thread was started by me and I'm not from an English-speaking, high income country, so there's that ^.^

Because of the meme that iPhones and iPods are overpriced, even though any directly comparable alternative is priced exactly the same.

If you call something you don't like a "status symbol", immediately you become smarter for not using it because you're making the "better" choice.

> Android is creeping higher and higher in the ecosystem

It crept there about 7 years ago and is about 90% of the market now, why present tense? And it was good enough from like day 1, although the hardware was behind sometimes.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266136/global-market-sha...

Global market share. In most western countries it's around 50/50 or 60/40 one way or the other. End of the day, that's still where most of the purchasing power is.

Indeed, and Apple's services revenue is also growing quite a bit. So, they'll want chunks of the market where it is also likely that people will be purchasing paid apps, iCloud storage, Apple Music, movies, etc.

> In most western countries it's around 50/50 or 60/40 one way or the other.

Not really, it's 70/30 Android/iOS for the whole of Europe on average.

Yeah, but in the wealthier countries, apart from Germany and France, it seems iOS is either almost tied or in the majority (I just looked at US, UK, Canada, Netherlands, Sweden)

Here are the Android Q2 figures from that link:

2018: 88%

2017: 87.8%

2016: 86.2%

2015: 82.2%

2014: 83.8%

2013: 79%

2012: 64.2%

2011: 43.4%

So I think it's fair to use the present tense, especially now that Apple will stop disclosing iPhone unit sales which indicates they are no longer growing.

I wonder whether we'll see a tipping point - especially in poor countries where the Android share is close to 100% - where developers start producing Android apps but not iPhone apps, and this affects the desirability of iPhone.

As a side note: I hate statista and hope it is removed from Google search because (a) 90% of the time when I try to access that page I see a "Exclusive Premium statistic" label that blocks 80% of the graph; (b) 100% of the time when I try to view the source figures of the graph I get the "Exclusive Premium Functionality" blocker.

Global Sales. Not Global Usage Shares. Android has a pattern of faster replacement cycle.

There are Currently 5B Mobile User World Wide, 3.3B Smartphone, 2.5B Android, 800M iPhone users. Both the Smartphone and iPhone user base are still growing. So Apple has roughly 25% of the world market share. This is not bad consider there are 500M+ Smartphone users in India which Apple has less than 2% market shares.

Looking at the trend line and from line of speech, I think most analyst ( Well, only a few really. Most of them don't care about its actual market usage. ) were predicting the 1B iPhone user base by 2020. Fueled party by iPhone XR, or the supposedly affordable iPhone. Now it doesn't look like it.

The thing is, I don't have hard numbers for this, but from what I know (and it makes sense, given my personal experience with people and desktop OSs, car brands, clothing brands, etc.), regular people don't switch that much between mobile platforms.

I'm pretty sure Android is growing faster than iOS, worldwide. And most of the users that get entry level or mid range level Android phones won't "upgrade" to iOS, they will just get better Android phones, since they already know the system.

Barring some super successful entry level iOS device [1] being introduced by Apple, which is unlikely, Android's market share will only go up. Apple will still be super profitable, though.

[1] And that won't happen, as Linus from Linus Tech Tips put it: Apple is jewelry and people don't buy cheap jewelry :)

>I'm pretty sure Android is growing faster than iOS, worldwide. And most of the users that get entry level or mid range level Android phones won't "upgrade" to iOS, they will just get better Android phones, since they already know the system.

First one is true. Mostly because Smartphone Saturation. The growth are in Low Pricing phones, 80% of the Smartphone in India are below $250. And Apple doesn't have phone below $400.

The Not Switching to iOS is false. While everyone has expected that, in reality Apple is still growing its user base, at a rate of roughly 100M in 18 months. That means roughly 25% to 30% of all iPhone purchase were coming from Android.

If iPhone got 30m users from Android and Android itself got 500m in total in the same interval, my numbers were pretty close.

I've been to Los Angeles last weekend and have seen homeless people at the subway stations entertaining themselves with their iPhones. Now tell me: how is owning an iPhone a "status symbol"?

If you don't have one your status is lower than even that of a homeless person.

Any examples of "awesome stuff" made with a Microsoft product?

If it were just about developers, Linux would be number one.

Stardew Valley, and many other games I imagine: https://twitter.com/concernedape/status/750858584603242496

VS Code seems to have gained significant traction among developers.

XNA is basically just some high-level APIs. Even ConcernedApe (StardewValley developer) has recommended against using it: https://community.playstarbound.com/threads/game-development...

Stack Exchange?

Windows now run Linux binaries.

A lot of developers want portability and retaining all revenue from their programs. Could Apple do even better by providing more for developers on these fronts?

Apple is where they are by taking a percent off sales through their store. It would be a fight to claw out their main source of revenue.

Actually it's a small percentage.

"For calendar 2017 the App sztores approximate $11.4 billion in revenue was almost 5% of the company’s projected $237 billion in total revenue and over a third of the $31 billion in forecasted services revenue." - https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/01/06/apples-ap...

Great podcast on this topic - https://www.mergeconflict.fm/113

Yes and with portability you get Electron apps...

Developers want to produce cross platform apps that are not a good user experience for users.

There is a well known hierarchy when it comes to Apple: Apple first then users then developers as it should be.

With portability you also get Qt apps, which generally blend in reasonably well on their respective platforms. Developers can go the extra mile to make apps really blend in on each platform, but the defaults are fine.

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