jammur

Clearly, you're not familiar with Zed Shaw :)

Apogee is known to make some of the best AD/DA converters around. IMO, the Apogee Duet absolutely blows away everything else in its price range.

The difference between the Apogee Jam and something like the iRig is huge. The iRig is very noisy, and doesn't do AD conversion, it just alters the signal level to a mic level signal instead of instrument level. The end result is less than stellar.

The Apogee Jam does AD conversion itself, using Apogee designed converters. I can't speak from experience with the Jam, but if its anything even close to the Duet, the sound quality will be excellent.

The only disappointment for me was that it didn't come with a microphone, like the Apogee One.

Thanks for the comment, but I'm going to have to disagree. If you read the comments on the main article, I think you'll see that quite a few people found it funny. As did many of the people who emailed me directly. You're right, sarcasm isn't funny in and of itself, but it is used as a comedic tool very frequently. I'm not sure I've ever seen a stand up comedian who didn't use sarcasm as part of his tool set. Did my frustration come through? Absolutely. Did I sound enraged? I don't think so. It was more like bewildered. Obviously you're open to your own interpretation, but as the author I think I have a better idea as to what the tone of my writing was.

I have to disagree that it's an awful process to get apps on an iOS device. I was up and running in under 30 minutes from the time I started the registration process to the time I had an app running on a device.

Point taken about the untapped market of Flash developers. Honestly I hope RIM can turn it around. Like I said, they're the #1 supporter of my university and they support the local economy in a big way. The things I hear from friends who work there though don't give me a lot of hope. The impression I get is that the front line developers share a lot of same concerns that I do.

Thanks for the response Matt. As the author, I'm gonna have to disagree about the whiny tone, haha, but obviously you have the right to your own interpretation. I realize the Bueller thing probably came across as bizarre if you're not familiar with the reference (to Ferris Bueller's Day Off), in this case it just kinda means "What? No response?".

The wording on RIM's site sure made it seem like the $200 fee would be coming at some point, so as a new Blackberry developer, I'm not sure you can fault me for not having the inside track on RIM's policies. If they don't want people to get turned off by the prospect of a $200 fee, I would suggest they take it off their registration page.

Overall, you are correct though. I did mention a lot of little things. But a lot of little problems add up to a big problem, especially when those problems aren't an issue with RIM's competitors. You have to keep in mind that RIM is not operating in a bubble. They are the underdog in a race where Apple and Google are pretty far ahead in terms of developer mind share. If they want to lure developers to the platform, putting out inferior tools and processes is not going to help them at all. The underdog never wins by maintaining the status quo.

And come on Matt, where's the national solidarity? We Canucks gotta stick together! :)

I'm not sure the first advantage really makes a difference though. Corporate users are not buying a lot of apps. This is shown in the latest market share data, where the App Store took in $769 million in revenue, with RIM App World in second place with only $36 million. This is especially significant because RIM has a similar smartphone market share as Apple. So you've got two companies with similar market shares, and one is doing 21 times the app revenue than the other.

The 2nd point is definitely valid, but it's a niche market. I'm not saying ALL developers would abandon RIM, but just that most would. I don't think a major player in the smartphone market can afford to only go after a niche market.

I agree that a lot of the stuff I mentioned is small. But a lot of small problems add up to a big problem. It's well known in the development community that Apple and Google have superiors SDKs in terms of ease of use, as well as tools and APIs. With the Android growth explosion, they will have a much bigger app market, and Apple will probably have the most profitable market for some time to come because Apple customers have demonstrated their willingness to spend money. RIM is going to have to really up their game if they want to lure some of the talented developers away from the other platforms.

It's not a question of whether you CAN make it work, but whether you should have to. RIM is in competition for developers with Apple and Google. Why would a developer choose to go with RIM when the experience is much better elsewhere. I think we can all agree that apps are one of the things that will make or break a smartphone platform in the current market conditions. If RIM can't attract talented developers to write apps for their platform, the outlook can't be good for them.

Were you registering as a business? I saw other commenters mention that they had to jump through additional hoops when registering as a business, but I had no trouble at all as an individual. Just put in my name, address, etc., pop in my credit card number, and I was good to go.

I've definitely heard the horror stories of the early days of iPhone development. I don't think I exaggerated though. I pretty much stuck to the facts of what happened, with some sarcasm sprinkled on of course :)

It's important to remember though that RIM isn't competing for developers with the Apple of 3 years ago. They're competing with the Apple (and Google) of today. As a developer who's time and sanity is valuable, I'm going to have a hard time justifying the added frustration, when there are other options that are much simpler, and have much more profitable markets to sell apps to.

That same thought occurred to me when I was writing it. The conclusion I came to was that if RIM is going to offer an SDK for Mac (or any platform for that matter), they need to do it in an integrated way, just like their competitors. I have no problem with NOT offering an SDK for a specific OS, but if you make the decision to do it, don't do it half assed.

I think it's less important how "good" an SDK is unto itself, and more important how good it is relative to it's competition. In this case you have to compare the Playbook SDK to Apple's and Google's because when developers are making decision about which platform to work with, they're going to be choosing between them.

Now I feel like an idiot for spending an hour and half writing it, lol.

Guilty as charged on the first point :) The separate files/downloads was a minor annoyance, but fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. On the whole, I just found it to be an very frustrating experience.

I guess I should have mentioned I was trying to use the WebWorks SDK, not the AIR SDK. I'll update the post accordingly. Thanks!

That's correct, when you run the software, you agree to the license. But before that, you still don't own the software. At no point do you ever own the software. You simply pay for a license to use it. This is the same with OSX, Windows 7, etc.

You are correct that consumer EULAs haven't really been tested in court, but that is irrelevant to this discussion. This isn't about the EULA. Apple is not stopping you from putting a third party app store on the device. They are stopping you from putting a third party app store on the stock iOS. If you jailbreak, then you can put Cydia on it.

You didn't purchase the software. You purchased a license to use it, which included agreeing to Apple's terms. To use your car analogy, it would be more like renting a car, and the rental company saying you have to stay in your state/province/country/etc., which is perfectly legal and pretty standard. You didn't buy the car, but instead purchased the right to use it.

As another person commented, it may be your hardware, but it's not your OS. You license the right to use iOS, but you don't own it. The app distribution channel is tied to the OS, not the device. If you want to install a different firmware on the device, and can figure out how to do it, there's nothing Apple can do about that.

I'm not sure it's reasonable to use the monopoly argument at arbitrary level of granularity. For instance, while Apple has a monopoly on iOS app by definition, Ford also has a monopoly on Ford cars. Monopolies are only a problem when there is no viable competition. In this case, the competition is Android et al. By saying you only want an iPhone, you are restricting your own choice. That said, it's perfectly fine to complain about the policies Apple implements. Complaints are part of the free market process, and in many cases bring about change for the better.

I'm fairly quick to defend Apple, because a lot of the flack they take is BS, but in this case I'm really struggling to find the upside.

Richard says that their 30% would account for a tiny sliver of Apple's overall revenue, but lots of tiny slivers start to add up eventually. The problem though, is that if the cost of those slivers is to drive the developers away from the App Store, then those slivers disappear. Considering that third party apps are possibly the most important feature of the platform, it doesn't seem like a smart idea.

The 30% cut on App sales is understandable, because software generally has high margins, but it doesn't sound like the same is true for content subscriptions. Maybe it's a case of trying to keep their policy too uniform (i.e 30% on everything)?

Does anyone know where the subscription content comes from? From my understanding, the subscription content will usually come from a third party, rather than Apple's CDN, so there's no marginal cost to Apple.

What's that, Mr. Doe? You found a weird lump on your balls? Better keep that to yourself. You wouldn't want anyone thinking you're a doctor!

Better not make that research for small claims court TOO thorough Mr. Smith. You wouldn't want anyone thinking you're a lawyer!

I'm wondering if the part about Apple not letting customers have access to media that was purchased outside the App Store (e.g. Kindle books) is just an off-the-cuff remark made by some Sony executive who was mad about Apple not letting them do their own in-app purchases. Seems odd, considering Amazon has been doing it this whole time with seemingly no protest from Apple.

He's probably referring to the last paragraph of this: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsS...

So pumped Textmate 2 is finally coming out. I was just about to switch to vim too.

I think you might have missed the point of the post you replied to. The point is that sometimes you don't need data. For instance, in the fashion world, one might notice a trend of people wearing a certain style of jeans. Nobody is going to go out and do a a random sampled study to see if this holds up to scrutiny, but the trend is noticeable to anyone paying attention. If you're involved at all in the open source web development world for example, it would be pretty hard to miss the trend of developers moving to Mac.

What experience is this based on? In my 6 years experience using a Mac as my primary machine, I've never had a higher rate of problems installing open source software with the default build scripts than on Linux.

Also, there's Macports, Fink, and Homebrew, which make it effortless.

Because when you pay attention to what's going on in a community, you notice trends. In the open source community, most notably the web development community, there has been a trend of moving to Mac.

This is always the major problem with Mac detractors. It's clear that they have little to no experience actually using a Mac for any extended period of time.

You took that statement completely out of context. Your comment show much more bias than the author. If you had read the article with any sense of objectivity, it would have been clear that the author actually makes a subtle case AGAINST Mac. He is merely stating an observation that many high profile open source developers have switched to Mac, which is true. There has a been a gradual shift to Mac from Linux in the modern generation of open source developers. Anyone who can't see that clearly isn't looking.

Also, while you are correct that many people move from Windows to Linux, it's fairly rare for someone to move from Mac to Linux, or Mac to Windows. Mac has tended to be a platform that people stick with. Again, if this isn't obvious then you haven't been paying attention.

Obviously we're never going to see RMS on a Macbook Pro, but that's the previous generation. The pioneering generation. The current generation isn't so ideological, and place more value on ease of use and aesthetics than the previous generation.

I think the point of the story may be that you can't wait for the hard problems to come to you. You have to go and look for them. Ashton waited at the furniture company hoping that one day he would be presented with a problem that would gain him recognition. After years of waiting, he decided he couldn't wait any longer and went to San Francisco to FIND a problem that would get him the recognition he wanted.