17 ms·

Dear Apple fans, a plea for reason and civility.

87 points by thedz 17y ago

andyjdavis 17y ago
Apple provokes an almost religious zeal in some. Adobe provokes an equally religious hatred. Hoping for a reasoned civil debate is perhaps... optimistic.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  I think reasonable civil people hate apple about in line with how much they hate other companies that treat their customers badly and find continued success.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
bhseo 17y ago
Dear Apple fans, a plea for less HN submissions, jokes and metaphors.
jpcx01 17y ago
Ok. So how does an Apple fan respond to something they intensely dislike? It's very difficult not to express complete and utter disdain and contempt for people like Gruber who expresses such an unbelievable idiotic opinion, that are then used by Apple management to justify to themselves why their decision is correct. Sometimes its only natural question to question someones motives when their reasoning is so illogical. Maybe he is that blinded by his fanboyism that he's willing to accept any limits to freedom. Sorry, it just makes me sick. I've never been a Microsoft fan, but they've never ever made a decision that was this abusive to their developers or anyone. And yes, that includes their terrible choice of bundling IE with windows (people still at least had a choice).
- chris_j 17y ago
  > Ok. So how does an Apple fan respond to something they intensely dislike? It's very difficult to respond in an objective manner to something that you feel emotional about. Some of the best advice that I have heard over the years is to try to take yourself out of a situation and imagine that you are observing two people are arguing about the subject. What advice would you give to each of them and how does this impact the subject at hand. Bear in mind that you wouldn't necessarily advise either of them to call the other guy an idiot (even if it's true) if that would just make the other guy angry. I found this PG essay to be thought provoking too: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
- sunchild 17y ago
  You have a choice not to develop for the iPhone OS. Who is twisting your arm? Give the rhetoric a break. It's you who is being contemptuous.
  - jpcx01 17y ago
    Great answer. I also like the one "Don't like the government? Move to another country".
    - sunchild 17y ago
      Oh please. If you can't see the difference between a government encroaching on your human rights, and Apple restricting your use of development tools...well, I guess you just proved that you don't see the difference. It must suck being you.
      - jpcx01 17y ago
        Of course there's a difference. Who said there wasn't? But the attitude is the same. "Screw your opinion, go home if you don't like it".
        sunchild 17y ago
jayroh 17y ago
Excellent blog post. I think you could replace Apple and Adobe with a good number of arbitrary products or companies (or political parties) and it would still make perfect sense. When emotional attachment is introduced, all sorts of reason goes out the window. Step back, chill and see the forest for the trees.
thmz 17y ago
In all the Apple fuzz there is a good lesson about quality I guess. Apple fan's love Apple products because they are good. They look great. They work great. They feel like they were made for you. For me the lesson is: create better products. Make people love your product. Make it for them.
- leviathant 17y ago
  Banning things like Flash to iPhone app compilers won't make apps like sound grenade, various boob jigglers, and background/ringtone collections suddenly go away. There's already a process for eliminating poor quality applications for the iPhone. It's just not used to a good enough effect. Jobs said the iPhone has over 50,000 games -he left out that 45,950 of them suck. Mandating use of the official SDK won't change that.
  - thmz 17y ago
    I'm not talking about Apple being right or wrong here. I just noticed that the Apple fanboy's are fans because of the quality of Apple products. And it learned me a lesson...
raganwald 17y ago
My observation of the current nine days' wonder is that many of the arguments are falling into a false dichotomy trap. If Apple is right, Adobe must be wrong. If Adobe is right, Apple must be wrong. If Apple is right, developers must be wrong. If developers are right, Apple must be wrong. It's entirely fair for Adobe to be right to attempt to lock developers into the Flash platform and for Apple to be right to attempt to lock developers into the iPhone platform. It's entirely fair for Developers to be right to want the freedom to develop any app they want, any way they want to develop it, even if in aggregate such decisions kill iPhone and/or Apple. And it's entirely fair for Apple to want to ban apps that do not further Apple's interests, compete with its own developers when it further's Apple's interests, and impede or block outright development platforms that undermine its interests. When all the name-calling stops, the parties involved have to either search for an equilibrium where everyone benefits or choose not to play with each other.
- corruption 17y ago
  Come on. Apple has an effective monopoly on mobile mini-computers. They have essentially created their own category, as the iphone was such a game changer. I would not consider anything pre-android or windows mobile 7 competitors, and perhaps regulators would too. Imagine the uproar that would have happened if Microsoft had said you can only write windows apps in assembly. It's not about Adobe. Or titanium. Or unity. It's about abuse of a monopoly in a category they created with a business decision that only serves to extend their monopoly. In my opinion that's exactly when a regulator should step in.
  - raganwald 17y ago
    Please be careful. "Oh, come on" is patronizing. Did you mean it that way? An "effective monopoly" is not measured by market share alone, it's measured by barriers to entry. Ok, there are 130,000 iPhone apps, and that's a draw for iPhone. But how many of those are de-facto standards people cannot do without? I would argue that none are. Consider the Office Suite. What app for iPhone is just like Office Suite, one you have to have and can't get on any other mobile device? What blocks developers fromn developing for Android, Symbian, or what-have you? Nothing. Can I buy a "mobile computer" from another carrier? Sure. Doe smy carrier (Rogers/Fido) lock me into iPhone? No, they are happy to sell me a Blackberry. There is no monopoly.
yardie 17y ago
I think both authors are right. It's not a right or wrong between these 2 companies. They are big companies doing what's in the best interest of each. At the same time, no matter how the saying goes, business is intensely personal. Steve Jobs didn't call Google's, "don't be evil" mantra bullshit for no reason. The man has done and seen a lot of things over the years, you build up a think armor during that time. At one point Adobe and Apple were closely aligned. Adobe saw the writing on the wall and bailed on Apple. Jobs came on board introduced OSX and things were whisper quiet. I was there using 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2, it didn't get "good enough" until 10.2. Adobe didn't move most of their products to OS X until CS2, dropped SKUs for some items, and froze development on others <cough>Flash</cough>. If Jobs learned anything it was never let another company direct your product development. Because Macs were used in creative design markets most users didn't see a need to upgrade from OS9. Photoshop wasn't on OSX, not was Flash, Illustrator etc. I don't agree with jobs, but he is correct up to a point. He won't let Flash hinder the development of iPhoneOS. Developers are caught in the middle though. He could have singled out Adobe and let developers continue to use Mono, Unity, Titanium. But contracts are quite blunt instruments, define it to narrow and companies can walk around it; too loose and you get the current situation. Anyway it's like investing in the US. Everyone will bitch about the terms but they'll continue shoveling money (or development time in this case) until there is no money to be made.
buymorechuck 17y ago
I believe most serious iPhone developers are fairly pragmatic and reasonable but we tend not to see those articles because they don't make good news once the main point has already been made. (including my own blog post on the topic)

87 points by thedz 17y ago

Apple provokes an almost religious zeal in some. Adobe provokes an equally religious hatred. Hoping for a reasoned civil debate is perhaps... optimistic.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
I think reasonable civil people hate apple about in line with how much they hate other companies that treat their customers badly and find continued success.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

bhseo 17y ago

Dear Apple fans, a plea for less HN submissions, jokes and metaphors.

jpcx01 17y ago

Ok. So how does an Apple fan respond to something they intensely dislike? It's very difficult not to express complete and utter disdain and contempt for people like Gruber who expresses such an unbelievable idiotic opinion, that are then used by Apple management to justify to themselves why their decision is correct. Sometimes its only natural question to question someones motives when their reasoning is so illogical. Maybe he is that blinded by his fanboyism that he's willing to accept any limits to freedom. Sorry, it just makes me sick. I've never been a Microsoft fan, but they've never ever made a decision that was this abusive to their developers or anyone. And yes, that includes their terrible choice of bundling IE with windows (people still at least had a choice).

chris_j 17y ago
> Ok. So how does an Apple fan respond to something they intensely dislike? It's very difficult to respond in an objective manner to something that you feel emotional about. Some of the best advice that I have heard over the years is to try to take yourself out of a situation and imagine that you are observing two people are arguing about the subject. What advice would you give to each of them and how does this impact the subject at hand. Bear in mind that you wouldn't necessarily advise either of them to call the other guy an idiot (even if it's true) if that would just make the other guy angry. I found this PG essay to be thought provoking too: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
sunchild 17y ago
You have a choice not to develop for the iPhone OS. Who is twisting your arm? Give the rhetoric a break. It's you who is being contemptuous.
- jpcx01 17y ago
  Great answer. I also like the one "Don't like the government? Move to another country".
  - sunchild 17y ago
    Oh please. If you can't see the difference between a government encroaching on your human rights, and Apple restricting your use of development tools...well, I guess you just proved that you don't see the difference. It must suck being you.
    - jpcx01 17y ago
      Of course there's a difference. Who said there wasn't? But the attitude is the same. "Screw your opinion, go home if you don't like it".
      - sunchild 17y ago

jayroh 17y ago

Excellent blog post. I think you could replace Apple and Adobe with a good number of arbitrary products or companies (or political parties) and it would still make perfect sense. When emotional attachment is introduced, all sorts of reason goes out the window. Step back, chill and see the forest for the trees.

thmz 17y ago

In all the Apple fuzz there is a good lesson about quality I guess. Apple fan's love Apple products because they are good. They look great. They work great. They feel like they were made for you. For me the lesson is: create better products. Make people love your product. Make it for them.

leviathant 17y ago
Banning things like Flash to iPhone app compilers won't make apps like sound grenade, various boob jigglers, and background/ringtone collections suddenly go away. There's already a process for eliminating poor quality applications for the iPhone. It's just not used to a good enough effect. Jobs said the iPhone has over 50,000 games -he left out that 45,950 of them suck. Mandating use of the official SDK won't change that.
- thmz 17y ago
  I'm not talking about Apple being right or wrong here. I just noticed that the Apple fanboy's are fans because of the quality of Apple products. And it learned me a lesson...

raganwald 17y ago

My observation of the current nine days' wonder is that many of the arguments are falling into a false dichotomy trap. If Apple is right, Adobe must be wrong. If Adobe is right, Apple must be wrong. If Apple is right, developers must be wrong. If developers are right, Apple must be wrong. It's entirely fair for Adobe to be right to attempt to lock developers into the Flash platform and for Apple to be right to attempt to lock developers into the iPhone platform. It's entirely fair for Developers to be right to want the freedom to develop any app they want, any way they want to develop it, even if in aggregate such decisions kill iPhone and/or Apple. And it's entirely fair for Apple to want to ban apps that do not further Apple's interests, compete with its own developers when it further's Apple's interests, and impede or block outright development platforms that undermine its interests. When all the name-calling stops, the parties involved have to either search for an equilibrium where everyone benefits or choose not to play with each other.

corruption 17y ago
Come on. Apple has an effective monopoly on mobile mini-computers. They have essentially created their own category, as the iphone was such a game changer. I would not consider anything pre-android or windows mobile 7 competitors, and perhaps regulators would too. Imagine the uproar that would have happened if Microsoft had said you can only write windows apps in assembly. It's not about Adobe. Or titanium. Or unity. It's about abuse of a monopoly in a category they created with a business decision that only serves to extend their monopoly. In my opinion that's exactly when a regulator should step in.
- raganwald 17y ago
  Please be careful. "Oh, come on" is patronizing. Did you mean it that way? An "effective monopoly" is not measured by market share alone, it's measured by barriers to entry. Ok, there are 130,000 iPhone apps, and that's a draw for iPhone. But how many of those are de-facto standards people cannot do without? I would argue that none are. Consider the Office Suite. What app for iPhone is just like Office Suite, one you have to have and can't get on any other mobile device? What blocks developers fromn developing for Android, Symbian, or what-have you? Nothing. Can I buy a "mobile computer" from another carrier? Sure. Doe smy carrier (Rogers/Fido) lock me into iPhone? No, they are happy to sell me a Blackberry. There is no monopoly.

yardie 17y ago

I think both authors are right. It's not a right or wrong between these 2 companies. They are big companies doing what's in the best interest of each. At the same time, no matter how the saying goes, business is intensely personal. Steve Jobs didn't call Google's, "don't be evil" mantra bullshit for no reason. The man has done and seen a lot of things over the years, you build up a think armor during that time. At one point Adobe and Apple were closely aligned. Adobe saw the writing on the wall and bailed on Apple. Jobs came on board introduced OSX and things were whisper quiet. I was there using 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2, it didn't get "good enough" until 10.2. Adobe didn't move most of their products to OS X until CS2, dropped SKUs for some items, and froze development on others <cough>Flash</cough>. If Jobs learned anything it was never let another company direct your product development. Because Macs were used in creative design markets most users didn't see a need to upgrade from OS9. Photoshop wasn't on OSX, not was Flash, Illustrator etc. I don't agree with jobs, but he is correct up to a point. He won't let Flash hinder the development of iPhoneOS. Developers are caught in the middle though. He could have singled out Adobe and let developers continue to use Mono, Unity, Titanium. But contracts are quite blunt instruments, define it to narrow and companies can walk around it; too loose and you get the current situation. Anyway it's like investing in the US. Everyone will bitch about the terms but they'll continue shoveling money (or development time in this case) until there is no money to be made.

buymorechuck 17y ago

I believe most serious iPhone developers are fairly pragmatic and reasonable but we tend not to see those articles because they don't make good news once the main point has already been made. (including my own blog post on the topic)