5 ms·

It's a strange thing that these companies seem only to open their platforms to development in a tardy and reluctant manner, Microsoft being a case in point - "d

by hoodoof 10y ago

It's a strange thing that these companies seem only to open their platforms to development in a tardy and reluctant manner, Microsoft being a case in point - "developers, developers, developers" was the cheerleading chant from Steve Ballmer, unless of course the developers wanted to code for Xbox. They've opened it now I believe but again - extremely late in the game. Meanwhile, Apple welcomes developers from day one and there are so many applications developed that it's hard to get user attention amongst the app store noise.

sho_hn 10y ago
That's nonsense. When the iPhone launched it did so without a native app SDK, which was by far the biggest criticism leveled against it from the tech audience. They fixed it, but it wasn't day-one. And didn't the Apple TV launch without an app SDK initially, too? Meanwhile gaming consoles are obviously not open platforms, but the vendors /do/ usually entertain developer relations from day one - I can't recall any launches with only first-party games. Considering you can't deploy to iOS without Apple's approval, it's really not any more open than gaming consoles. The App Store and its approval process just operate at a larger scale, they're not conceptually more welcoming.
- hoodoof 10y ago
  OK not literally day one but developer support for iPhone was obviously a key early priority, as opposed to Microsoft and Nintendo which seem(ed) unconvinced that anyone except appointed developers should be allowed to write code for their platforms. True that the Apple TV thing was not programamable till recently but I gotta say there's alot wrong with the AppleTV - it seems to be pretty blah and nothing and found no real definitive identity - a wasted opportunity on Apple's part.
  - josh2600 10y ago
    It was Web Apps only originally and that was the battle call from Apple. It wasn't until GeoHot (and others) rooted the phone and we got app stores like Cydia that Apple really started to care. It was with the launch of the iPhone 3G when they came out with the SDK + App Store and it was a really well executed coup. Do you know how you got software on your phone before the iPhone? Getjar or side-loading (with a proprietary cable almost no one had with apps that would sometimes hard break your phone).
    - hoodoof 10y ago
      Is there anything published that shows the true history of Apple's intentions for developer support and on the iPhoine and when in time?
      - tjl 10y ago
        The best source I know of on early iPhone is the Nitin Ganatra episodes of the Debug Podcast [0]. He was in charge of the early iOS apps from before the iPhone shipped so he talked about those days. Those podcasts and the ones he did with Don Melton (former head of Safari team at Apple) are all excellent for getting insight into behind the scenes at Apple. [0] http://www.imore.com/debug http://www.imore.com/debug
      - nsxwolf 10y ago
        Jailbreakers like to take credit but the App Store launched so relatively soon after the iPhone it's hard to believe it wasn't in the works from the beginning. A year to create all that tooling and polishing the APIs and building the store infrastructure seems on the mark.
      - chc 10y ago
        It's hard to pinpoint exactly when Apple changed their minds, but Jobs was very clear in the original iPhone keynote that the Web was the intended development platform for the iPhone and that not having an SDK was a strength — no hints about a native SDK in the near future or anything. Here's a good article showing Apple's original stance, with additional information from the Steve Jobs biography: http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-i...
        geon 10y ago
        I believe they had the appstore and sdk planned all along, but couldn't get it ready in time. Rather than saying, "we will have an sdk too, sometime", they played it off as intentional, and continued working on it silently. There is just no way they built it all in the single year from the release of the iphone.
- cthulha 10y ago
  My understanding was that the SDK at release 1.0 would have been terrible, and an expensive maintenance burden. The internal teams rushed hack jobs just to get the first iPhone out the door, there was a _lot_ of internal bugs and half-baked APIs. So if you're arguing Apple is hostile to developers because they didn't have an SDK on launch day, then you haven't thought through what iterative development at very large scale actually requires. Giving developers access to tools that aren't ready isn't the best criteria.
  - wvenable 10y ago
    I don't really disagree with your point but literally every other mobile and smartphone platform that existed before the iPhone was released with an SDK at 1.0.
  - altstar 10y ago
    And you have not read the comment he/she is replying to: Meanwhile, Apple welcomes developers from day one and there are so many applications developed that it's hard to get user attention amongst the app store noise.
    - hoodoof 10y ago
      Yes, the original commenter was taking issue on the literal point of whether or not there was an SDK on day one as stated in the top level comment, not with the (somewhat obvious) broader point that Apple enthusiastically embraced third party developers for iPhone. But that's HN for you - we are all a bunch of pedants who love to point and yell when something is incorrect - I include myself.
      - EGreg 10y ago
        Not all of us. Some of us are not. Well, I may do it but I don't love it. So you're wrong!
  - MAGZine 10y ago
    anyone who has launched titles on a gaming-platform-to-be will be able to tell you about half-baked APIs. :-) A buggy, half-baked API is better than no API at all, though.
- paublyrne 10y ago
  I can't recall any launches with only first-party games. The N64 launched with only Nintendo titles, but it launched with only 2 titles, and was in some ways a fiasco. Some third party developers had got cold feet during the pre launch period and jumped ship to Sony.
  - cableshaft 10y ago
    Thankfully for them, one of those two titles (Mario 64) was mindblowing for the time (and still fun today), and it was worth getting the console just for that alone. I don't know if new consoles could get away with that anymore though, since there's so many other options out there for games nowadays.
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> Microsoft being a case in point - "developers, developers, developers" was the cheerleading chant from Steve Ballmer, unless of course the developers wanted to code for Xbox. They've opened it now I believe but again - extremely late in the game. For the original XBox sure but the XBox 360 came with XNA at almost the start of the XBox 360. For free I downloaded the SDK, connected to my store bought XBox 360 and deployed code directly to it. It was amazing. Granted they eventually axed XNA and left a hole partially filled in other ways afterwards but initially the XBox 360 was an amazing thing of beauty as far as openness. In fact I was in school and put in charge of making an XNA game with the cooperation of another University. It failed miserably but it was an awesome experience.
speeder 10y ago
Not really. A major reason for the early game industry crash was that the "openness" led to a incredible amount of "shovelware" games that overloaded consumers with bad choices. In fact the NES being closed in a very heavy handed manner (for example you had limit of games per year per publisher!) was seen as a good thing that helped rebuild the industry. Now we are seeing this with mobile, where something like only 1% of the products have decent profits, or steam, that is slowly getting filled with crappy games that are outpacing their "discovery" features and got nicknamed "indiepocalipse" and has as one of its effects make people start to prefer AAA games again, due to lower budget games now being perceived as "most of the times crap, retro hipster pretentious, or both"
- antisthenes 10y ago
  One the most important reasons people prefer AAA games is that you can get some semblance of a community. It's almost impossible to even get your friends to try playing a game they've never heard of (that another 100 people play, at most), so the community for the game is DOA. Hence none of the things you can get from bigger games, like guides, support, community, clans, competition, marketplace, mods etc. At best you might be getting a half-dead subreddit.
duncan_bayne 10y ago
> Meanwhile, Apple welcomes developers from day one That's utterly untrue. Can I ... * run my own (i.e. unsigned) kernel extensions in OSX? * run OSX on non-Apple hardware? * distribute apps for iOS through means other than the App Store? * distribute non-approved iOS apps at all? * build apps for iOS that allow end-users to program their own devices? Apple is actually incredibly developer-hostile, especially considering their early history with machines like the Apple 2. This is what a developer-friendly machine looks like: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena
- tjl 10y ago
  You can turn off signing checks for kernel extensions. Zinio has released a version of their iOS app for iOS 5 outside the app store. You went to their site on your iOS device and it downloaded and installed the app. I think it was done using Enterprise certificates, but I'm not sure. As for iOS apps, you can compile and run iOS apps on your own device without the need for a signing cert. There are apps for iOS that allow end-users to program their own devices. For example, Pythonista: http://omz-software.com/pythonista/ http://omz-software.com/pythonista/ Plus, Swift Playgrounds gives access to the whole iOS SDK.
  - duncan_bayne 10y ago
    I really don't understand how those points address mine? Maybe only point 1.
- nicky0 10y ago
  Well done for pointing out all the restrictions and completely ignoring everything positive the company does for developers.
  - duncan_bayne 10y ago
    I believe the negatives are a) not usually mentioned, b) far outweigh the positives, and c) are often overlooked by developers unaccustomed to genuinely developer friendly environments (like older Apple systems)
pjmlp 10y ago
Because of the 1983 crash, which is happening live on the app stores again, full of shovelware. For me as a developer what matters is good relationship with the platform owner and support for when technical issues happen, not getting everything for free without quality control.
GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
>so many applications developed that it's hard to get user attention amongst the app store noise That's precisely what the console makers don't want: a huge mountain of uncurated, low-quality shovelware for customers to wade through. That's what XBLIG was until it was shut down.

by hoodoof 10y ago

sho_hn 10y ago

That's nonsense. When the iPhone launched it did so without a native app SDK, which was by far the biggest criticism leveled against it from the tech audience. They fixed it, but it wasn't day-one. And didn't the Apple TV launch without an app SDK initially, too? Meanwhile gaming consoles are obviously not open platforms, but the vendors /do/ usually entertain developer relations from day one - I can't recall any launches with only first-party games. Considering you can't deploy to iOS without Apple's approval, it's really not any more open than gaming consoles. The App Store and its approval process just operate at a larger scale, they're not conceptually more welcoming.

hoodoof 10y ago
OK not literally day one but developer support for iPhone was obviously a key early priority, as opposed to Microsoft and Nintendo which seem(ed) unconvinced that anyone except appointed developers should be allowed to write code for their platforms. True that the Apple TV thing was not programamable till recently but I gotta say there's alot wrong with the AppleTV - it seems to be pretty blah and nothing and found no real definitive identity - a wasted opportunity on Apple's part.
- josh2600 10y ago
  It was Web Apps only originally and that was the battle call from Apple. It wasn't until GeoHot (and others) rooted the phone and we got app stores like Cydia that Apple really started to care. It was with the launch of the iPhone 3G when they came out with the SDK + App Store and it was a really well executed coup. Do you know how you got software on your phone before the iPhone? Getjar or side-loading (with a proprietary cable almost no one had with apps that would sometimes hard break your phone).
  - hoodoof 10y ago
    Is there anything published that shows the true history of Apple's intentions for developer support and on the iPhoine and when in time?
    - tjl 10y ago
      The best source I know of on early iPhone is the Nitin Ganatra episodes of the Debug Podcast [0]. He was in charge of the early iOS apps from before the iPhone shipped so he talked about those days. Those podcasts and the ones he did with Don Melton (former head of Safari team at Apple) are all excellent for getting insight into behind the scenes at Apple. [0] http://www.imore.com/debug http://www.imore.com/debug
    - nsxwolf 10y ago
      Jailbreakers like to take credit but the App Store launched so relatively soon after the iPhone it's hard to believe it wasn't in the works from the beginning. A year to create all that tooling and polishing the APIs and building the store infrastructure seems on the mark.
    - chc 10y ago
      It's hard to pinpoint exactly when Apple changed their minds, but Jobs was very clear in the original iPhone keynote that the Web was the intended development platform for the iPhone and that not having an SDK was a strength — no hints about a native SDK in the near future or anything. Here's a good article showing Apple's original stance, with additional information from the Steve Jobs biography: http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-i...
      - geon 10y ago
        I believe they had the appstore and sdk planned all along, but couldn't get it ready in time. Rather than saying, "we will have an sdk too, sometime", they played it off as intentional, and continued working on it silently. There is just no way they built it all in the single year from the release of the iphone.
cthulha 10y ago
My understanding was that the SDK at release 1.0 would have been terrible, and an expensive maintenance burden. The internal teams rushed hack jobs just to get the first iPhone out the door, there was a _lot_ of internal bugs and half-baked APIs. So if you're arguing Apple is hostile to developers because they didn't have an SDK on launch day, then you haven't thought through what iterative development at very large scale actually requires. Giving developers access to tools that aren't ready isn't the best criteria.
- wvenable 10y ago
  I don't really disagree with your point but literally every other mobile and smartphone platform that existed before the iPhone was released with an SDK at 1.0.
- altstar 10y ago
  And you have not read the comment he/she is replying to: Meanwhile, Apple welcomes developers from day one and there are so many applications developed that it's hard to get user attention amongst the app store noise.
  - hoodoof 10y ago
    Yes, the original commenter was taking issue on the literal point of whether or not there was an SDK on day one as stated in the top level comment, not with the (somewhat obvious) broader point that Apple enthusiastically embraced third party developers for iPhone. But that's HN for you - we are all a bunch of pedants who love to point and yell when something is incorrect - I include myself.
    - EGreg 10y ago
      Not all of us. Some of us are not. Well, I may do it but I don't love it. So you're wrong!
- MAGZine 10y ago
  anyone who has launched titles on a gaming-platform-to-be will be able to tell you about half-baked APIs. :-) A buggy, half-baked API is better than no API at all, though.
paublyrne 10y ago
I can't recall any launches with only first-party games. The N64 launched with only Nintendo titles, but it launched with only 2 titles, and was in some ways a fiasco. Some third party developers had got cold feet during the pre launch period and jumped ship to Sony.
- cableshaft 10y ago
  Thankfully for them, one of those two titles (Mario 64) was mindblowing for the time (and still fun today), and it was worth getting the console just for that alone. I don't know if new consoles could get away with that anymore though, since there's so many other options out there for games nowadays.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

> Microsoft being a case in point - "developers, developers, developers" was the cheerleading chant from Steve Ballmer, unless of course the developers wanted to code for Xbox. They've opened it now I believe but again - extremely late in the game. For the original XBox sure but the XBox 360 came with XNA at almost the start of the XBox 360. For free I downloaded the SDK, connected to my store bought XBox 360 and deployed code directly to it. It was amazing. Granted they eventually axed XNA and left a hole partially filled in other ways afterwards but initially the XBox 360 was an amazing thing of beauty as far as openness. In fact I was in school and put in charge of making an XNA game with the cooperation of another University. It failed miserably but it was an awesome experience.

speeder 10y ago

Not really. A major reason for the early game industry crash was that the "openness" led to a incredible amount of "shovelware" games that overloaded consumers with bad choices. In fact the NES being closed in a very heavy handed manner (for example you had limit of games per year per publisher!) was seen as a good thing that helped rebuild the industry. Now we are seeing this with mobile, where something like only 1% of the products have decent profits, or steam, that is slowly getting filled with crappy games that are outpacing their "discovery" features and got nicknamed "indiepocalipse" and has as one of its effects make people start to prefer AAA games again, due to lower budget games now being perceived as "most of the times crap, retro hipster pretentious, or both"

antisthenes 10y ago
One the most important reasons people prefer AAA games is that you can get some semblance of a community. It's almost impossible to even get your friends to try playing a game they've never heard of (that another 100 people play, at most), so the community for the game is DOA. Hence none of the things you can get from bigger games, like guides, support, community, clans, competition, marketplace, mods etc. At best you might be getting a half-dead subreddit.

duncan_bayne 10y ago

> Meanwhile, Apple welcomes developers from day one That's utterly untrue. Can I ... * run my own (i.e. unsigned) kernel extensions in OSX? * run OSX on non-Apple hardware? * distribute apps for iOS through means other than the App Store? * distribute non-approved iOS apps at all? * build apps for iOS that allow end-users to program their own devices? Apple is actually incredibly developer-hostile, especially considering their early history with machines like the Apple 2. This is what a developer-friendly machine looks like: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena

tjl 10y ago
You can turn off signing checks for kernel extensions. Zinio has released a version of their iOS app for iOS 5 outside the app store. You went to their site on your iOS device and it downloaded and installed the app. I think it was done using Enterprise certificates, but I'm not sure. As for iOS apps, you can compile and run iOS apps on your own device without the need for a signing cert. There are apps for iOS that allow end-users to program their own devices. For example, Pythonista: http://omz-software.com/pythonista/ http://omz-software.com/pythonista/ Plus, Swift Playgrounds gives access to the whole iOS SDK.
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  I really don't understand how those points address mine? Maybe only point 1.
nicky0 10y ago
Well done for pointing out all the restrictions and completely ignoring everything positive the company does for developers.
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  I believe the negatives are a) not usually mentioned, b) far outweigh the positives, and c) are often overlooked by developers unaccustomed to genuinely developer friendly environments (like older Apple systems)

pjmlp 10y ago

Because of the 1983 crash, which is happening live on the app stores again, full of shovelware. For me as a developer what matters is good relationship with the platform owner and support for when technical issues happen, not getting everything for free without quality control.

GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago

>so many applications developed that it's hard to get user attention amongst the app store noise That's precisely what the console makers don't want: a huge mountain of uncurated, low-quality shovelware for customers to wade through. That's what XBLIG was until it was shut down.