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I think it's even hard for Apple to see. They didn't get what the iPhone or iPod touch really were at first either. Their party line of "all apps should be webp

I think it's even hard for Apple to see. They didn't get what the iPhone or iPod touch really were at first either. Their party line of "all apps should be webpages" turned out to be clearly wrong, and now they realize that those devices are mainly mobile app platforms. The iPod touch, which, though you rarely hear anything about it, has outsold the iPhone by 2:1 and is arguably the most successful product in their lineup currently and maybe of all time, is viewed by them now as the cheapest route to the App Store they thought was unnecessary when they launched. The iPad platform does ensure that if there's a market for the form factor, someone will find it. Assuming it doesn't get rejected by an App Store intern :)

n8agrin 17y ago
Again agree. I'll just add (again my opinion only) that I'm on the fence about the whole app store thing. I think if Apple had, at release, provided a comprehensive Javascript API that really allowed for very low level functionality on the iPhone we might all be happily making iPhone 'apps' as webpages. But we all know that didn't happen and opening the app platform may have revealed an unforeseen sweet spot of consumer software. One where the buyer no longer has to worry about installations, complex conflicts, software dependencies, drivers, etc. Consumer software may not be the same again. Who knows, perhaps this portends the downfall of the filesystem we all know and love.
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  Well, that's what Palm did, and it did make for a lot of apps. They were slow about opening up the platform to the public, but the homebrew apps took off, and there are now something like 1,500 in the app store and hundreds in the homebrews. That's not insubstantial given how few users they have relative to the iPhone. But still, it felt like something was missing, because what these devices, like all sufficiently popular platforms, are really used for is gaming, and the quality of games you can write in C++ is still vastly ahead of what you can make in HTML/JS. I could see the iPad eventually being more of a gaming device than anything else.

n8agrin 17y ago

Again agree. I'll just add (again my opinion only) that I'm on the fence about the whole app store thing. I think if Apple had, at release, provided a comprehensive Javascript API that really allowed for very low level functionality on the iPhone we might all be happily making iPhone 'apps' as webpages. But we all know that didn't happen and opening the app platform may have revealed an unforeseen sweet spot of consumer software. One where the buyer no longer has to worry about installations, complex conflicts, software dependencies, drivers, etc. Consumer software may not be the same again. Who knows, perhaps this portends the downfall of the filesystem we all know and love.

mattmaroon 17y ago
Well, that's what Palm did, and it did make for a lot of apps. They were slow about opening up the platform to the public, but the homebrew apps took off, and there are now something like 1,500 in the app store and hundreds in the homebrews. That's not insubstantial given how few users they have relative to the iPhone. But still, it felt like something was missing, because what these devices, like all sufficiently popular platforms, are really used for is gaming, and the quality of games you can write in C++ is still vastly ahead of what you can make in HTML/JS. I could see the iPad eventually being more of a gaming device than anything else.