Apple’s Three Laws of Developers | Hacker News Reader

Apple’s Three Laws of Developers

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139 pointsberberich47 comments

I like this game! I can play too. The three laws of snarky Apple critics:

1. A snarky Apple critic may not injure any argument against Apple, or allow, through inaction, any argument against Apple to be proven wrong.

2. A snarky Apple critic must do the opposite of any order given to them by Apple, except where not obeying such orders would conflict with the first law.

3. A snarky Apple critic must protect their own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with laws one or two.

Apple vs. X flamewars are so boring IMO.

Edit: I wasn't trying to make a negative comment towards your post.

That was actually my point. For some people, hating Apple is an end in itself. As pg says:

"Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience. In either case you let yourself be defined by what they tell you to do."

People like this let Apple define them not because they do whatever they say, but because they do the opposite of everything they say.

Kinda like Congress, huh?

To me this is the most weird/frustrating thing... that a comment like yours doesn't get made in one of the many many many bogus attack Apple for no reason whatsoever threads, but if someone dares to post a legitimate complaint in a humourous way (by which I mean the original article, which was pretty funny through use of satire)... they get trampled all over by the people who say they hate people talking about Apple so much.

WTF???

People whinge about all sorts of stupid things about Apple, the most illogical crap. Admittedly I haven't seen anybody complain about the one mouse button thing in about ~2 years, so hopefully that meme has died a horrible death (and not a moment too soon, even in 2009 it was well and truly past its use by date by at least 10 years). Other people just make shit up and accuse Apple of their own twisted fantasies.

But there are genuine things to complain about. Especially as a developer. And I don't mean the pseudo-random Apple accept/deny policy of what it puts on the app store. Yes, if you are one of the (large) handful of people who got rejected, or even worse strung along for months and then rejected, you have a legitimate right to complain. But to the 50 million other people weighing in? Eff off. No seriously, if you have no skin in the game then your opinion doesn't count.

Developers really do get the raw end of the stick when it comes to dealing with Apple in so many different ways, but even then the people who complain have gone through some bizarre reality distortion field. They complain about things like the 30% cut on apps Apple makes as distributor. Which is just damn bizarre, because that 30% is an absolute frickin' godsend to the small/indie developer. Have the people who complain about Apple's cut never even tried to find out what the software developer gets as their cut on boxed software sold at retail? I guarantee you it ain't 70% (!!!!)

As for their latest evil draconian move of Apple to completely dominate the Apple market... yeah. Look, I admit it, I have no skin in that game. I don't subscribe to anything that costs money, so my opinion is invalid, but I will say that I tried to understand what the big deal was, but all the haters were raving so incoherently that I couldn't understand what the key issue was.

So I figured it was just business as usual. Random people saying weird shit about Apple, and making complaints that were illogical and didn't make sense.

Go and tell them that they are boring. Please. Don't bring that weak sauce into a discussion with an actual genuine intelligent basis.

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Yes, but it's very amusing to those of us who love Asimov, and also newly relevant with the Watson/Jeopardy thing happening.

Yep it's all rather obvious. Of course no company wants a developer to harm them or their platform (1st rule). 2nd rule - you wanna develop for Apple, you gotta play by their rules. 3rd rule - nothing really.

>2nd rule - you wanna develop for Apple, you gotta play by their rules.

How did this come to life? I don't wanna develop for Apple, i wanna develop for persons who own specific material artefacts to allow the persons to modify or extend the functionality or appearance or any other aspect of those artefacts.

27 people don't think so

So basically no story can be criticized for lack of content, as soon as n people have upvoted it?

I wonder if 'voting' on a story will be tied to something other than 'has an account' in a future iteration of this social up/down news model.

It's been my experience that a comment section often contains far better critical/ordered information than is represented by the sum total of upvotes a link roll receives.

I personally don't care about apple very much as a company and own a few of their products. My reasoning for it was simple:

1) I can't use Windows. I need to be able to open an actual terminal, so Windows has never really worked for me. I don't have anything against Windows or Windows users.

2) I've run a number of distributions on my laptop from Gentoo and Slackware to Ubuntu and Redhat (I stopped before Fedora). I've never gotten good battery life, even on the most custom kernels and running only fluxbox, a shell and a web browser.

I need a web browser, a terminal, and a music player from a computer and good battery life. Apple/OS X does it for me, but I don't fall into the fangirl category and stay up waiting for a new iAnything to be released nor do I rag on them.

Is there a place for people who just use what works best for them?

Yeah, the battery life thing is a real killer. My work computer is a sony vaio running linux. I like it well enough but it only gets 2.5 hours on a new battery! It's far and away the biggest drawback of this computer.

You have written almost everything I would have written except another thing I need: decent fonts.

Rumor has it that the recent Ubuntu has some better fonts, but 5 years ago the Linux fonts were really bad compared to the OSX (or even Windows) fonts.

Given how much time I spend in the browser nowadays, if they could/would move Adium, Skype, NetBeans and a terminal in there, I would just switch to a Chrome OS device.

The first two rules of Apple are that you talk about Apple. Constantly.

I don't understand the outrage here. The App Store is private property. The owner of that property (Apple) has the right to use that property as they see fit. Developers are also free to agree to the terms of the App Store or not. The purchasers of Apple products are also free to buy things from the App Store if they choose to.

How is this unfair, evil, or wrong I don't understand. Unfashionable, yes. Wrong or unfair, no.

They can keep it up until they are ruled to be a monopoly - I'm not sure that will happen to them but when it does then they can't act the way they do now without consequences.

I think it'd be a little different if they didn't lock down the device so that their App Store is the only (supported/permitted) way to install applications. If it was only "you sell through us, you pay", that'd be one thing; as it stands, it's "you want to run on these devices that our customers bought, paid for, and own, you pay us too".

Outrage? Hyperbole much? It's an article humourously linking the mechanical control of Apple to Asimov's three laws of robotics.

This is the first time I've seen something written in the passive voice being referred to as 'outrage'.

What would the zeroth law be, then?

Law Zero: Apple gets 30% off the top.

0. A developer may not harm the user, or, by inaction, allow the user to come to harm.

You really think that? That's adorable.

I fight for the users.

This made me think of Dr. Seuss's "The Lorax".

"I speak for the trees, as the trees have no tongues."

It was a line from Tron. At least the sequel. Not sure if it was in the original too. Was wicked when said in the sequel though, imo.

It made me think of Tron.

That would make for a good corporate motto, actually.

"We fight for the users."

Thats why they command to take a cut, how much they deem fit. It is their prerogative and responsibility to keep the eco system healthy.

that should be the most important of the bunch.

0. A developer must not harm Steve Jobs or, through inaction, allow Steve Jobs to come to harm.

Does that mean you have to give up your liver if Steve requires it?

Directive 4: classified

It's a reference to the robot laws from the Foundation series by Asimov, not the laws of thermodynamics ;)

Asimov added a zeroth law later in the series:

"A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."

And there is a zeroth asimov law. Time to read 'Robots and Empire'

Oh snap! I stand corrected. Thanks guys.

Am I the only one somewhat annoyed by the use of "of" instead of "for"? IMHO, it should read:

"Apple's three laws for developers"

just you.

(Not capitalized to drive you crazy).

Thanks, just checking ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

Take it up with Asimov.

Of Development :: Of Robotics

For Developers :: For Robots

Just because we're a techy crowd here doesn't mean that we can't allow a little poetic license.

implementing Asimov's three laws perfectly do not protect us from all forms of robotic governmental takeover anyway. It is possible to follow all the rules and yet still humanity into cute but ultimately useless pets.

Well we all know what happened in I,Robot ;)

That movie was totally unrealistic! When they got the red ring of death, the robots should have shut down.

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