10 ms·

Apple is just Microsoft with better marketing

147 points by alrex021 16y ago

rbanffy 16y ago
I must disagree. As much as I dislike its present course, Apple has always pushed the boundaries of what's possible since the day 1 (Apple I, Apple ][, Disk ][) and continued pushing, sometimes crossing that border (certain aspects of the Lisa are more advanced than OSX, for instance, but its 68K wasn't fast enough). Microsoft started life cloning BASIC for 8-bit computers, gained relevance cloning CP/M for 16-bit computers and became mainstream cloning MacOS for 32-bit PC-compatible computers, by entering shady deals with OEMs, by misleading competitors (Lotus developed 123/G - "the future", acording to MS - for OS/2 while MS developed Excel for Windows) and by hurting genuine innovators by announcing vaporware and half-brained products (like Windows for Pen Computing and its latest descendant, Courier). No. As much as Apple has been every bit as evil as Microsoft, the two companies share a completely different ethos.
- buro9 16y ago
  Having different histories does not infer that they won't both end up walking the same path. I have always liked Apple for the Woz age of hacking and the ethos that produced, but this is not the path that they appear to be walking recently. I would love to agree with your disagreement, but I find myself agreeing more with the concerns of the article. It may be a far-fetched rant but it makes a few points that presently fall not far from the target.
- pavlov 16y ago
  You paint Microsoft as an army of cloners, yet within the same argument you provide a compelling example of Microsoft innovation: Excel was a much better product than Lotus 123/G.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    As PC-DOS was better than CP/M. The point of 123/G and Excel is that Microsoft let the market go in the OS/2 direction by publicly saying Windows was a transitory, doomed environment, while they went secretly in the Windows direction knowing their move would doom OS/2, along with their competition. There is a gray area between "clever" and "dishonest". Lotus trusted Microsoft, as did IBM. In retrospect, we know nobody should trust Microsoft. Frankly, I am surprised that, at that time, IBM trusted Microsoft after the PC-DOS/MS-DOS PC-clone thing. Not many people can fool me twice. And, I have to say, Apple did fool me once: http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/i-really-want-to-like-apple http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/i-really-want-to-lik...
    - hga 16y ago
      I don't agree with the above analysis, I prefer: IBM doomed OS/2 with their earlier promise to MIS managers (as they were called then) that the PC-AT would be the last personal computer they'd have to buy for a long time. Microsoft correctly hated the diversion of effort and compromises needed to get it to run on the 286 (which was truly awful when not being just a fast 8086) and didn't stop their Windows effort and at some point started up NT (well, we know the point, when DEC killed the Prism project, I just don't remember its relation to the other events). This all came to a head when the 386 was the standard minimum CPU in a machine. OS/2 did not run competitively on it, Windows 3.0/1 could take significant advantage of it, was less complicated and imposing and I'm sure cost a lot less. And it could run multiple isolated DOS boxes. That set the stage for what then happened.
- codingthewheel 16y ago
  rbanffy is an Apple shill. http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rbanffy http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rbanffy
  - cubicle67 16y ago
    Did you read any of those comments you linked to? Perhaps you missed these: Microsoft's keyboards are much better than Apple's Every single computer I installed Ubuntu, since the 6.x releases, has worked flawlessly ... and so on. No more name calling please, ok?
    - codingthewheel 16y ago
      I heartily approve and endorse your downvote of my comment. I posted a knee-jerk response and I paid the price for it (PWNed like a n00b in a first-person shooter). Nevertheless, it was satisfying to call some one a "shill", and I DO detect traces of shillery in every Apple-vs-Adobe polemic to be waged on this site in the past fortnight.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        To be fair, my first computer was an Apple II and I have a large collection of Apples, from II clones to about a dozen Macs and a Newton (also a couple RS/6000, Suns, one PA-RISC, two Amigas and one 8-bit Atari). I still use my PowerPC iMac, but mostly to sync my iPod. My wife has a Macbook. I tried to use Macs for work, but I prefer a more traditional Unix desktop, one with X and select-and-middle-click goodness. We are a multi-platform household here ;-) I even have Windows on a VM.
  - codingthewheel 16y ago
    rbanffy is still an Apple shill. http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rbanffy http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rbanffy
- jasonlotito 16y ago
  I don't. Apple hasn't impressed with anything it's really done. People point to apple products as innovative, and remark how it's amazing they work so well. It's really not. It's much harder to develop a product that works well on things you can't control then when you can control the entire ecosystem. Windows doesn't just work on HP computers. They work within a standardized ecosystem, and place Apple doesn't play. If MS closed up and did what Apple was doing, of course it would be easier to do everything Apple did. It's why Linux still suffers on the desktop. Linux support is incredibly wide. Gnome has to keep this into consideration, as does KDE. They don't have the easy route to development that Apple has: a closed, controlled world. Apple gets credit for that final polish, and they do deserve it. And at the consumer end, they end up with great products. I'm not saying their approach is wrong. They live and breathe DRY. But I don't see that they are pushing boundaries. They let other people do that. And when the other people succeed or fail, Apple takes note of that, and then comes out with their own effort, usually lacking significant features.
  - jasonlotito 16y ago
    People disagree but don't give a reason. Maybe one of those people can explain why it's harder for Apple to develop for a single ecosystem on a closed platform then it is for someone like Canonical to develop on multiple ecosystems on an open platform? Or maybe someone can explain how they are impressed that Apple is able to offer the performance they do in their limited environment when they control every aspect of that environment? Or maybe they can explain why Apple shouldn't get credit for a final, polished experience? Maybe someone who disagrees can explain why they shouldn't live on DRY. And finally, maybe someone can explain what boundaries Apple pushed when they came out with an MP3 player, a mobile phone, or a touch pad computer?
    - maxharris 16y ago
      > Maybe one of those people can explain why it's harder for Apple to develop for a single ecosystem on a closed platform then it is for someone like Canonical to develop on multiple ecosystems on an open platform? I don't choose which products to buy based on how hard they were to make. All I care about is how well designed they are (aesthetically and functionally). I suspect that most customers are the same way. > Or maybe they can explain why Apple shouldn't get credit for a final, polished experience? Apple gets "credit" by profit: customers choose to buy their products, and they do so knowing that Apple is selling them for more than the raw cost of material inputs. This is good, because to make an honest profit (wherein all parties agree to a transaction voluntarily) is what everyone should try to do. Companies should try to make the best products they can, which means making products that present the least hassle to users. Apple does this best because they honestly care the most about the user experience. And it's not just that it's harder to interoperate and make products work well - when the standard is badly misconcieved, no amount of effort to interoperate will make your product work well. So Apple is right in thumbing its nose at things that are either obsolete (floppies, flash, etc.), or just brain-dead (X-Windows). Apple is the one computer company brave enough to think in principle about what people will want in the future. If this were so easy, why isn't everyone else doing it?
mahmud 16y ago
I am not sure if the author is a native English speaker or not, but that article needs some heavy editing to make it legible for publication.
- codingthewheel 16y ago
  Great ideas: check. Decent writing style: check. Spell check: Houston, we have a problem.
  - KirinDave 16y ago
    Could also use some simple consistency checks. A great example of this: “If this clause had been written fifteen years ago, the languages then would have been C, Fortran, and Cobol- and how would feel about being required to program in those languages today? Well, that’s how you’re going to fell about C++ and Objective C ten or fifteen years from now.” Er... ALL of these languages are currently in use. Cobol is finally be deprecated after decades of deployment. C and C++ are still going strong. Objective-C shows every sign of actually increasing in popularity as Clang rolls out and people realize that Objective-C++ actually does some pretty amazing things for you. That whole paragraph is not only using bad examples, but it also is contingent on the premise that Apple has locked its user agreement in stone and will keep it that way for years. Who knows if that could be true? It's simple mistakes like these that magnify the spelling and style errors to near intolerability, for me. I—like most readers, I think—can tolerate a lot of errors and awkward sentences if the message is spot on. That really doesn't seem to be the case here.
tel 16y ago
I wish Apple would just change the agreement to say "if your app isn't totally polished to our legendarily exacting concepts of quality, we reserve the right not to bless it with the App Store". It wouldn't make anyone even sort of happier, but I can't help but feel it's closer to the truth of the matter than questions of language use. I highly doubt Apple would cry if a top notch app was developed in Haskell so long as the developer knew the burden of maintaining the API divide and still delivered. It makes me feel the whole thing is a matter of lacking trust and legalese, and though language restrictions seem dumb I myself can't think of a better way to achieve the goals Apple appears to be aiming at.
- tuxychandru 16y ago
  Apple already rejects several applications submitted. If quality is the reason they want to avoid flash apps, let the reviewers check it for quality irrespective of how they are written. If flash not utilizing the latest features of iPhone OS is a problem, market will kill apps which don't use them (assuming they are worth using) on its own.
kgosser 16y ago
I'm glad this crap keeps getting to the top of HN. I want news, not opinion!
jorgecastillo 16y ago
Microsoft open sources the NT kernel... Not vs Apple releases the core of their OS as open source (Darwin) Microsoft open sources Trident... Not vs Apple creates the WebKit project Microsoft helps to develop a BSD licensed compiler... Not vs Apple helps to develop Clang/LLVM <sarcasm> Both companies are like twins. <sarcasm>
pedalpete 16y ago
If this is true about Microsoft, then isn't Apple just Microsoft with worse PR? Microsoft didn't disallow netscape from running on it's platform. It came out with a competitive product and leveraged (what turned out to be illegally) it's position against it's competitor. If Apple were behaving the same way, they would allow Flash (or other programs) to be installed on the platform duke it out through business processes to allow the market determine a winner.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
endergen 16y ago
People don't mention this enough, but the reason people build abstractions is to not bet the farm on a platform. Apple paints it like the platform makers are ONLY freeloaders that leverage their platform while also diluting it. While in many cases this is true, many small shops build tools to make it so that they can more cost effectively target more than one platform. Android/iPhone being a common grouping, Windows/OS X another, and in games it's XBox360/Playstation3. And in my opinion, Apple is a monopoly or on it's way. But I almost don't care they've done so much to improve mobile quality they deserve to reap much of the benefit.
jokerrr 16y ago
Unfortunately, the article doesn't do anything to back up the headline. Apple is being pretty douchey, but they actually make good products. Microsoft generally doesn't. I think Apple may eventually lose mobile to Android, but it'll take a while. I wish some one would make better products than Apple. Their products aren't perfect, but they are better than most.
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
I think this whole situation was summed up for me by a slashdot comment: Steve Jobs: "We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers." Yet, it is just fine with Steve Jobs if every iDeveloper is at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when their enhancements will be made available to their customers.
- davidedicillo 16y ago
  Actually, if you follow Apple terms, there it's really hard to be rejected. Yeah yeah I know, Google Voice, but it's one application over tens of thousands, and the fact that they are a major competitor didn't help. It's not even a matter of developing cutting edge, because great technologies like Siri or Remail made it to the store just fine. They have terms of services, developers should just read them and stick to them. Yeah, my car can do 150mph but if a cop stop me cause i'm speeding over 65mph i'm not going to cry cause the USA aren't an "open" country where I can't decide how fast I can drive the hardware I own.
  - stonemetal 16y ago
    That doesn't counter the original quote. Remail is still dependent on a third party to push updates to their clients. Now sure they aren't likely to get rejected, but they can't push an update to a client directly they must wait for apple to get around to it, and with the popularity of the app store that might be a while.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    If you have to follow Apple terms then they are, by definition, deciding if you can provide certain functionality to your customers. I'm sure Adobe could make the same argument to Apple. If you only do what's in our interests then we'll probably update our 3rd party libs within a reasonable timeframe. And don't bring up that one time we didn't bother supporting something in your API, that's just one feature out of thousands we did support.
    - 16y ago
napierzaza 16y ago
And better products and better design
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Microsoft's keyboards are much better than Apple's
  - catch23 16y ago
    Eh, depends on the person. I prefer smaller keyboards like the happy hacker keyboard. Apple has a bluetooth version of it which I love. I prefer keyboards that are laptop-style (shallow key depth).
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      I would love a "Natural Happy Hacker Ergonomic Keyboard".
  - robin_reala 16y ago
    Microsoft’s mice certainly are.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      That latest Apple multi-touch mouse is very nice.
      - steveklabnik 16y ago
        I voted you back up to 1. Keep expressing your preferences. I don't know why you were downvoted.
      - robin_reala 16y ago
        Having tried to use one for an afternoon I found it gave me hand cramp. I think my problem though is with heavy mice in general, which is why I tend to avoid wireless ones (batteries add appreciable weight). What I don’t understand is why Apple haven’t done a standalone version of their Macbook trackpads. I’d buy one of those for sure.
ahoyhere 16y ago
The OP essay has about as much logical integrity as a damp paper towel. It's semi-transparent and will fall apart the second you poke it. All you young people crying "monopoly!" and "anti-competitive practices!" could really use a dose of history. Just like a blogger removing your comments is not censorship; just like Apple refusing your app is not censorship; Apple refusing to accept cross-compiled apps is not censorship, anti-competitive, or monopolistic. Apple does not have a monopoly. There are many, many other smart phones you can use and develop for. Apple does not control them at all, in any way, and has no agreements with their manufacturers. Apple has no exclusivity agreements with telcos, either, as to which phones the telcos will sell in addition to the iPhone. Apple has nothing to do with twisting the arms of third-party companies who sell computers. There is no illegal monopolistic action going on, like charging OEMs for Windows licenses per computer sold - regardless of whether Windows is loaded on the device. Safari can easily be deleted and replaced with any browser you like on the Mac. If you want to look at a company that is gunning for Microsoft-type monopoly, look at Google with their Android and their questionable licensing scheme for OEMs. Blocking programming languages is not the same thing as blocking a competing browser. Apple does not have a product that competes with Flash in the world. They are only disallowing it on their platform. That is their prerogative, and completely legal and ethical in every way considerable. Furthermore, Apple and Adobe do not compete head-to-head on the products in question. Don't tell me "They would compete if you could use Flash apps on the iPhone!" because that argument holds no water at all. You'd still be using the iPhone, is the point. If you don't like it, you are free to vote with your wallet and your code. Develop for Palm Pre. Develop for Windows Mobile. Develop for whatever the hell Blackberry runs. Develop for Android. Or how about Symbian? Did I miss any? This choice, by the way, is how you can tell it's not a monopoly. Just because you WANT in, on your terms, and Apple says no, doesn't make it a monopoly. Just because it inconveniences you doesn't make it wrong. And just because it's happening to you doesn't make it important.
- shawndumas 16y ago
  Microsoft uses power to increase their own reach. Apple uses power to increase their own vision. No arrow keys on the first Mac KB. No Floppy in the iMac. No BluRay now. Again, Apple is ok with using power to leave off features that they don't 'see' the point of. Microsoft is ok with using power to leave off competition.
dman 16y ago
I disagree. Microsoft is a company that is about saying yes, to everyone. Apple is one of the few companies which says no on various subjects to reduce the problem space. Eg apple strategically obsoletes stuff like Carbon. I think this has a dramatic effect on the companies involved. Microsofts feature + backward compatibility matrix is so huge (theyre supporting applications that were written for Windows 3.1) that theyre stuck solving an unsolvable problem. Actually interesting anecdote - Simcity depended on a bug in windows 3.x for correct operation, the bug in question was fixed in windows 95. However in testing Microsoft found that simcity breaks and added code as a special case to emulate the bug if simcity is run. (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html).I am not favoring either approach, just saying that there is a big difference. Those that favor backwards compatibility have their adherents (big businesses etc) and those that stay nimble because of periodically cutting dead wood have their own followers (early adopters, technophiles).
- trobertson 16y ago
  > apple strategically obsoletes stuff like Carbon. Way I hear things, Apple hasn't completely gotten rid of Carbon yet. iTunes is still around, in all it's terrible glory.
  - grinich 16y ago
    From what I've heard, iTunes is super crufty and has it's own dedicated team, separate from the apps team. There's a lot of baggage to carry with iTunes, especially with legacy support. (I can stil sync my 1st generation 5GB iPod over Firewire.)
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    Yeah, 32-bit Carbon is still around, but they axed a 64-bit version that was (mostly?) complete.
    - andrewf 16y ago
      And newer APIs (and even obj-c language features) are only available to 64-bit processes, so sticking with 32-bit so you can use Carbon will be less of an option over time.
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Apple plans and architects, sometimes acting autocratically. Microsoft grows "vegetatively", pushing a variety of technologies and letting the market choose. Honestly, I prefer technology to have a leader. Its almost poetic that the current leader is the underdog. And no, I'm not an Apple shill, I don't even own a Mac (or any other Apple device).
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
That's a ridiculous comparison. Apple is far more closed and controlling than Microsoft ever was.
- shawndumas 16y ago
  Controlling what though? To what end? Microsoft wants to be everything to everyone and is willing to use force to get there. Apple doesn't care what you want. They want a product they would buy; if you buy it too -- all the better.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomlin 16y ago
    That's the "sell", not a business model.
    - shawndumas 16y ago
      Then why no arrow keys on the first Mac?
- antipaganda 16y ago
  That's why I'm confused - I agree with you, Apple is way out of line on this. So why are they doing this, when they're not a monopoly? Do they think that having a walled garden of approved apps and the best UI will work forever? It didn't work for their desktop business 20 years ago, why should it work now?
  - borism 16y ago
    it won't
  - timwiseman 16y ago
    The thing is that at least temporarily and at least in certain niche markets they come close to being a monopoly. There is no credible competitor to the Ipad in the tablet market. In the smartphone arena, the Iphone is a run away success with more marketshare than any other by far. Also, remember there are a lot of people that want a walled garden. It makes them feel safe and shields them from needing to really understand any of the details. I am certainly not one of those people, but that market segment will exist even as new tablets come out and the competing smartphones gain marketshare.
pclark 16y ago
"just"
mechanical_fish 16y ago
The one answer I have is to rain (metaphorical) death and destruction on to Apple... I hereby declare myself, officially, anti-Apple. Wow, great. I'm sure your bile and vitriol will create lots of value for customers. Who will want to pay for an iPad when they can get (metaphorical) death and destruction for free? OP is hardly alone with his rage; I see lots of people storming and blustering about how Apple is the devil. But I see very few people making a serious attempt to actually deliver the goods that will make Apple irrelevant. If a mobile platform running Clojure-flavored HaskellLisp is the Silver Bullet, can you show us an example of its unique value? Or if a mobile platform running Flash is the Ultimate Object of customer desire, where can we buy it and try it? (Personally, I'll put my energy into the standardized web. It's out there, it's ubiquitous. The servers run whatever software you like; the clients run Javascript, which has its troubles but is not the worst of all possible worlds. Steve Jobs himself endorses it and the iPhone platform has supported it nicely from day one. We've spent well over a decade building it.)
- donaq 16y ago
  If a mobile platform running Clojure-flavored HaskellLisp is the Silver Bullet, can you show us an example of its unique value? Of course he can't, because it hasn't been invented yet. But that's the point. Apple is trying to make sure no one can ever invent it.
jsz0 16y ago
The author is giving Apple a lot more power than they actually have. Apple controls Apple platforms; OSX, iPhone OS, etc. That's it. That's a small fragment of the market. Yes -- including the iPhone. There are good alternatives to both. What's the problem?
yardie 16y ago
This guy must be really young because either he's delusional or we read 2 different headlines in '00. For Apple to be like Microsoft it would have to take a standardized language (like HTML, Javascript, or Java), fork it so it is unreadable by the original, then use it's monopoly so that no one else can create a competitor. Here is a rundown of this MS behavior: MS-DOS vs. PC-DOS J# vs Java IE6 vs HTML4 MS JS vs javascript Now when Apple forks Flash and decides that is the only Flash that will be available on iPhoneOS then they will have become Microsoft.
- lazugod 16y ago
  Why doesn't Apple write their own Flash runtime? They did so for PDF on the Mac. Or was "Thoughts on Flash" intended to be Jobs's pitch for Core Animation?
  - yardie 16y ago
    They can't. No one can. There are open source alternatives like Gnash but they are reverse-engineered runtimes. And like all RE'd apps they are at the mercy of Adobe. It already has problems with Flash 10. This is why Jobs argument is so valid. Anyone can write a swf file but it's restricted to running on Adobe's Flash runtime. PDF is a special case. I still have an Acrobat 1.0 disk in storage with my Photoshop 3.1 floppies, somewhere. Adobe was giving it away at that point. They also gave licenses to PDFs. Only one company took the offer, Next. Apple bought Next and inherited that license from '93.
- sgoraya 16y ago
  "fork it so it is unreadable by the original, then use it's monopoly so that no one else can create a competitor." Although MS may fork something, it does not force you to use their proprietary language - In the examples above, you can still use the original language...the choice remains yours. I might be biased since I've basically only developed on Windows (Visual Studio, code warrior, borland, etc.), but in the big scheme of things, MS has been more open, had more alternatives and options and better developer support than Apple...IMHO.
napierzaza 16y ago
Apple makes things people like
alanh 16y ago
Pure linkbait title.
tszming 16y ago
Apple's marketing strategy is better than MSFT, e.g. restriction (i.e. iPhone OS 4.0 ToS) was marketed as a feature.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
nice1 16y ago
... and vastly better products. Plus: they don't lie and cheat, and they are not convicted criminals. But still, you made your point.

147 points by alrex021 16y ago

I must disagree. As much as I dislike its present course, Apple has always pushed the boundaries of what's possible since the day 1 (Apple I, Apple ][, Disk ][) and continued pushing, sometimes crossing that border (certain aspects of the Lisa are more advanced than OSX, for instance, but its 68K wasn't fast enough). Microsoft started life cloning BASIC for 8-bit computers, gained relevance cloning CP/M for 16-bit computers and became mainstream cloning MacOS for 32-bit PC-compatible computers, by entering shady deals with OEMs, by misleading competitors (Lotus developed 123/G - "the future", acording to MS - for OS/2 while MS developed Excel for Windows) and by hurting genuine innovators by announcing vaporware and half-brained products (like Windows for Pen Computing and its latest descendant, Courier). No. As much as Apple has been every bit as evil as Microsoft, the two companies share a completely different ethos.

buro9 16y ago
Having different histories does not infer that they won't both end up walking the same path. I have always liked Apple for the Woz age of hacking and the ethos that produced, but this is not the path that they appear to be walking recently. I would love to agree with your disagreement, but I find myself agreeing more with the concerns of the article. It may be a far-fetched rant but it makes a few points that presently fall not far from the target.
pavlov 16y ago
You paint Microsoft as an army of cloners, yet within the same argument you provide a compelling example of Microsoft innovation: Excel was a much better product than Lotus 123/G.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  As PC-DOS was better than CP/M. The point of 123/G and Excel is that Microsoft let the market go in the OS/2 direction by publicly saying Windows was a transitory, doomed environment, while they went secretly in the Windows direction knowing their move would doom OS/2, along with their competition. There is a gray area between "clever" and "dishonest". Lotus trusted Microsoft, as did IBM. In retrospect, we know nobody should trust Microsoft. Frankly, I am surprised that, at that time, IBM trusted Microsoft after the PC-DOS/MS-DOS PC-clone thing. Not many people can fool me twice. And, I have to say, Apple did fool me once: http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/i-really-want-to-like-apple http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/i-really-want-to-lik...
  - hga 16y ago
    I don't agree with the above analysis, I prefer: IBM doomed OS/2 with their earlier promise to MIS managers (as they were called then) that the PC-AT would be the last personal computer they'd have to buy for a long time. Microsoft correctly hated the diversion of effort and compromises needed to get it to run on the 286 (which was truly awful when not being just a fast 8086) and didn't stop their Windows effort and at some point started up NT (well, we know the point, when DEC killed the Prism project, I just don't remember its relation to the other events). This all came to a head when the 386 was the standard minimum CPU in a machine. OS/2 did not run competitively on it, Windows 3.0/1 could take significant advantage of it, was less complicated and imposing and I'm sure cost a lot less. And it could run multiple isolated DOS boxes. That set the stage for what then happened.
codingthewheel 16y ago
rbanffy is an Apple shill. http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rbanffy http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rbanffy
- cubicle67 16y ago
  Did you read any of those comments you linked to? Perhaps you missed these: Microsoft's keyboards are much better than Apple's Every single computer I installed Ubuntu, since the 6.x releases, has worked flawlessly ... and so on. No more name calling please, ok?
  - codingthewheel 16y ago
    I heartily approve and endorse your downvote of my comment. I posted a knee-jerk response and I paid the price for it (PWNed like a n00b in a first-person shooter). Nevertheless, it was satisfying to call some one a "shill", and I DO detect traces of shillery in every Apple-vs-Adobe polemic to be waged on this site in the past fortnight.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      To be fair, my first computer was an Apple II and I have a large collection of Apples, from II clones to about a dozen Macs and a Newton (also a couple RS/6000, Suns, one PA-RISC, two Amigas and one 8-bit Atari). I still use my PowerPC iMac, but mostly to sync my iPod. My wife has a Macbook. I tried to use Macs for work, but I prefer a more traditional Unix desktop, one with X and select-and-middle-click goodness. We are a multi-platform household here ;-) I even have Windows on a VM.
- codingthewheel 16y ago
  rbanffy is still an Apple shill. http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rbanffy http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rbanffy
jasonlotito 16y ago
I don't. Apple hasn't impressed with anything it's really done. People point to apple products as innovative, and remark how it's amazing they work so well. It's really not. It's much harder to develop a product that works well on things you can't control then when you can control the entire ecosystem. Windows doesn't just work on HP computers. They work within a standardized ecosystem, and place Apple doesn't play. If MS closed up and did what Apple was doing, of course it would be easier to do everything Apple did. It's why Linux still suffers on the desktop. Linux support is incredibly wide. Gnome has to keep this into consideration, as does KDE. They don't have the easy route to development that Apple has: a closed, controlled world. Apple gets credit for that final polish, and they do deserve it. And at the consumer end, they end up with great products. I'm not saying their approach is wrong. They live and breathe DRY. But I don't see that they are pushing boundaries. They let other people do that. And when the other people succeed or fail, Apple takes note of that, and then comes out with their own effort, usually lacking significant features.
- jasonlotito 16y ago
  People disagree but don't give a reason. Maybe one of those people can explain why it's harder for Apple to develop for a single ecosystem on a closed platform then it is for someone like Canonical to develop on multiple ecosystems on an open platform? Or maybe someone can explain how they are impressed that Apple is able to offer the performance they do in their limited environment when they control every aspect of that environment? Or maybe they can explain why Apple shouldn't get credit for a final, polished experience? Maybe someone who disagrees can explain why they shouldn't live on DRY. And finally, maybe someone can explain what boundaries Apple pushed when they came out with an MP3 player, a mobile phone, or a touch pad computer?
  - maxharris 16y ago
    > Maybe one of those people can explain why it's harder for Apple to develop for a single ecosystem on a closed platform then it is for someone like Canonical to develop on multiple ecosystems on an open platform? I don't choose which products to buy based on how hard they were to make. All I care about is how well designed they are (aesthetically and functionally). I suspect that most customers are the same way. > Or maybe they can explain why Apple shouldn't get credit for a final, polished experience? Apple gets "credit" by profit: customers choose to buy their products, and they do so knowing that Apple is selling them for more than the raw cost of material inputs. This is good, because to make an honest profit (wherein all parties agree to a transaction voluntarily) is what everyone should try to do. Companies should try to make the best products they can, which means making products that present the least hassle to users. Apple does this best because they honestly care the most about the user experience. And it's not just that it's harder to interoperate and make products work well - when the standard is badly misconcieved, no amount of effort to interoperate will make your product work well. So Apple is right in thumbing its nose at things that are either obsolete (floppies, flash, etc.), or just brain-dead (X-Windows). Apple is the one computer company brave enough to think in principle about what people will want in the future. If this were so easy, why isn't everyone else doing it?

mahmud 16y ago

I am not sure if the author is a native English speaker or not, but that article needs some heavy editing to make it legible for publication.

codingthewheel 16y ago
Great ideas: check. Decent writing style: check. Spell check: Houston, we have a problem.
- KirinDave 16y ago
  Could also use some simple consistency checks. A great example of this: “If this clause had been written fifteen years ago, the languages then would have been C, Fortran, and Cobol- and how would feel about being required to program in those languages today? Well, that’s how you’re going to fell about C++ and Objective C ten or fifteen years from now.” Er... ALL of these languages are currently in use. Cobol is finally be deprecated after decades of deployment. C and C++ are still going strong. Objective-C shows every sign of actually increasing in popularity as Clang rolls out and people realize that Objective-C++ actually does some pretty amazing things for you. That whole paragraph is not only using bad examples, but it also is contingent on the premise that Apple has locked its user agreement in stone and will keep it that way for years. Who knows if that could be true? It's simple mistakes like these that magnify the spelling and style errors to near intolerability, for me. I—like most readers, I think—can tolerate a lot of errors and awkward sentences if the message is spot on. That really doesn't seem to be the case here.

tel 16y ago

I wish Apple would just change the agreement to say "if your app isn't totally polished to our legendarily exacting concepts of quality, we reserve the right not to bless it with the App Store". It wouldn't make anyone even sort of happier, but I can't help but feel it's closer to the truth of the matter than questions of language use. I highly doubt Apple would cry if a top notch app was developed in Haskell so long as the developer knew the burden of maintaining the API divide and still delivered. It makes me feel the whole thing is a matter of lacking trust and legalese, and though language restrictions seem dumb I myself can't think of a better way to achieve the goals Apple appears to be aiming at.

tuxychandru 16y ago
Apple already rejects several applications submitted. If quality is the reason they want to avoid flash apps, let the reviewers check it for quality irrespective of how they are written. If flash not utilizing the latest features of iPhone OS is a problem, market will kill apps which don't use them (assuming they are worth using) on its own.

kgosser 16y ago

I'm glad this crap keeps getting to the top of HN. I want news, not opinion!

jorgecastillo 16y ago

Microsoft open sources the NT kernel... Not vs Apple releases the core of their OS as open source (Darwin) Microsoft open sources Trident... Not vs Apple creates the WebKit project Microsoft helps to develop a BSD licensed compiler... Not vs Apple helps to develop Clang/LLVM <sarcasm> Both companies are like twins. <sarcasm>

pedalpete 16y ago

If this is true about Microsoft, then isn't Apple just Microsoft with worse PR? Microsoft didn't disallow netscape from running on it's platform. It came out with a competitive product and leveraged (what turned out to be illegally) it's position against it's competitor. If Apple were behaving the same way, they would allow Flash (or other programs) to be installed on the platform duke it out through business processes to allow the market determine a winner.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

endergen 16y ago

People don't mention this enough, but the reason people build abstractions is to not bet the farm on a platform. Apple paints it like the platform makers are ONLY freeloaders that leverage their platform while also diluting it. While in many cases this is true, many small shops build tools to make it so that they can more cost effectively target more than one platform. Android/iPhone being a common grouping, Windows/OS X another, and in games it's XBox360/Playstation3. And in my opinion, Apple is a monopoly or on it's way. But I almost don't care they've done so much to improve mobile quality they deserve to reap much of the benefit.

jokerrr 16y ago

Unfortunately, the article doesn't do anything to back up the headline. Apple is being pretty douchey, but they actually make good products. Microsoft generally doesn't. I think Apple may eventually lose mobile to Android, but it'll take a while. I wish some one would make better products than Apple. Their products aren't perfect, but they are better than most.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

I think this whole situation was summed up for me by a slashdot comment: Steve Jobs: "We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers." Yet, it is just fine with Steve Jobs if every iDeveloper is at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when their enhancements will be made available to their customers.

davidedicillo 16y ago
Actually, if you follow Apple terms, there it's really hard to be rejected. Yeah yeah I know, Google Voice, but it's one application over tens of thousands, and the fact that they are a major competitor didn't help. It's not even a matter of developing cutting edge, because great technologies like Siri or Remail made it to the store just fine. They have terms of services, developers should just read them and stick to them. Yeah, my car can do 150mph but if a cop stop me cause i'm speeding over 65mph i'm not going to cry cause the USA aren't an "open" country where I can't decide how fast I can drive the hardware I own.
- stonemetal 16y ago
  That doesn't counter the original quote. Remail is still dependent on a third party to push updates to their clients. Now sure they aren't likely to get rejected, but they can't push an update to a client directly they must wait for apple to get around to it, and with the popularity of the app store that might be a while.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  If you have to follow Apple terms then they are, by definition, deciding if you can provide certain functionality to your customers. I'm sure Adobe could make the same argument to Apple. If you only do what's in our interests then we'll probably update our 3rd party libs within a reasonable timeframe. And don't bring up that one time we didn't bother supporting something in your API, that's just one feature out of thousands we did support.
  - 16y ago

napierzaza 16y ago

And better products and better design

rbanffy 16y ago
Microsoft's keyboards are much better than Apple's
- catch23 16y ago
  Eh, depends on the person. I prefer smaller keyboards like the happy hacker keyboard. Apple has a bluetooth version of it which I love. I prefer keyboards that are laptop-style (shallow key depth).
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    I would love a "Natural Happy Hacker Ergonomic Keyboard".
- robin_reala 16y ago
  Microsoft’s mice certainly are.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    That latest Apple multi-touch mouse is very nice.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      I voted you back up to 1. Keep expressing your preferences. I don't know why you were downvoted.
    - robin_reala 16y ago
      Having tried to use one for an afternoon I found it gave me hand cramp. I think my problem though is with heavy mice in general, which is why I tend to avoid wireless ones (batteries add appreciable weight). What I don’t understand is why Apple haven’t done a standalone version of their Macbook trackpads. I’d buy one of those for sure.

ahoyhere 16y ago

The OP essay has about as much logical integrity as a damp paper towel. It's semi-transparent and will fall apart the second you poke it. All you young people crying "monopoly!" and "anti-competitive practices!" could really use a dose of history. Just like a blogger removing your comments is not censorship; just like Apple refusing your app is not censorship; Apple refusing to accept cross-compiled apps is not censorship, anti-competitive, or monopolistic. Apple does not have a monopoly. There are many, many other smart phones you can use and develop for. Apple does not control them at all, in any way, and has no agreements with their manufacturers. Apple has no exclusivity agreements with telcos, either, as to which phones the telcos will sell in addition to the iPhone. Apple has nothing to do with twisting the arms of third-party companies who sell computers. There is no illegal monopolistic action going on, like charging OEMs for Windows licenses per computer sold - regardless of whether Windows is loaded on the device. Safari can easily be deleted and replaced with any browser you like on the Mac. If you want to look at a company that is gunning for Microsoft-type monopoly, look at Google with their Android and their questionable licensing scheme for OEMs. Blocking programming languages is not the same thing as blocking a competing browser. Apple does not have a product that competes with Flash in the world. They are only disallowing it on their platform. That is their prerogative, and completely legal and ethical in every way considerable. Furthermore, Apple and Adobe do not compete head-to-head on the products in question. Don't tell me "They would compete if you could use Flash apps on the iPhone!" because that argument holds no water at all. You'd still be using the iPhone, is the point. If you don't like it, you are free to vote with your wallet and your code. Develop for Palm Pre. Develop for Windows Mobile. Develop for whatever the hell Blackberry runs. Develop for Android. Or how about Symbian? Did I miss any? This choice, by the way, is how you can tell it's not a monopoly. Just because you WANT in, on your terms, and Apple says no, doesn't make it a monopoly. Just because it inconveniences you doesn't make it wrong. And just because it's happening to you doesn't make it important.

shawndumas 16y ago
Microsoft uses power to increase their own reach. Apple uses power to increase their own vision. No arrow keys on the first Mac KB. No Floppy in the iMac. No BluRay now. Again, Apple is ok with using power to leave off features that they don't 'see' the point of. Microsoft is ok with using power to leave off competition.

dman 16y ago

I disagree. Microsoft is a company that is about saying yes, to everyone. Apple is one of the few companies which says no on various subjects to reduce the problem space. Eg apple strategically obsoletes stuff like Carbon. I think this has a dramatic effect on the companies involved. Microsofts feature + backward compatibility matrix is so huge (theyre supporting applications that were written for Windows 3.1) that theyre stuck solving an unsolvable problem. Actually interesting anecdote - Simcity depended on a bug in windows 3.x for correct operation, the bug in question was fixed in windows 95. However in testing Microsoft found that simcity breaks and added code as a special case to emulate the bug if simcity is run. (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html).I am not favoring either approach, just saying that there is a big difference. Those that favor backwards compatibility have their adherents (big businesses etc) and those that stay nimble because of periodically cutting dead wood have their own followers (early adopters, technophiles).

trobertson 16y ago
> apple strategically obsoletes stuff like Carbon. Way I hear things, Apple hasn't completely gotten rid of Carbon yet. iTunes is still around, in all it's terrible glory.
- grinich 16y ago
  From what I've heard, iTunes is super crufty and has it's own dedicated team, separate from the apps team. There's a lot of baggage to carry with iTunes, especially with legacy support. (I can stil sync my 1st generation 5GB iPod over Firewire.)
- glhaynes 16y ago
  Yeah, 32-bit Carbon is still around, but they axed a 64-bit version that was (mostly?) complete.
  - andrewf 16y ago
    And newer APIs (and even obj-c language features) are only available to 64-bit processes, so sticking with 32-bit so you can use Carbon will be less of an option over time.

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

Apple plans and architects, sometimes acting autocratically. Microsoft grows "vegetatively", pushing a variety of technologies and letting the market choose. Honestly, I prefer technology to have a leader. Its almost poetic that the current leader is the underdog. And no, I'm not an Apple shill, I don't even own a Mac (or any other Apple device).

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

That's a ridiculous comparison. Apple is far more closed and controlling than Microsoft ever was.

shawndumas 16y ago
Controlling what though? To what end? Microsoft wants to be everything to everyone and is willing to use force to get there. Apple doesn't care what you want. They want a product they would buy; if you buy it too -- all the better.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- tomlin 16y ago
  That's the "sell", not a business model.
  - shawndumas 16y ago
    Then why no arrow keys on the first Mac?
antipaganda 16y ago
That's why I'm confused - I agree with you, Apple is way out of line on this. So why are they doing this, when they're not a monopoly? Do they think that having a walled garden of approved apps and the best UI will work forever? It didn't work for their desktop business 20 years ago, why should it work now?
- borism 16y ago
  it won't
- timwiseman 16y ago
  The thing is that at least temporarily and at least in certain niche markets they come close to being a monopoly. There is no credible competitor to the Ipad in the tablet market. In the smartphone arena, the Iphone is a run away success with more marketshare than any other by far. Also, remember there are a lot of people that want a walled garden. It makes them feel safe and shields them from needing to really understand any of the details. I am certainly not one of those people, but that market segment will exist even as new tablets come out and the competing smartphones gain marketshare.

pclark 16y ago

"just"

mechanical_fish 16y ago

The one answer I have is to rain (metaphorical) death and destruction on to Apple... I hereby declare myself, officially, anti-Apple. Wow, great. I'm sure your bile and vitriol will create lots of value for customers. Who will want to pay for an iPad when they can get (metaphorical) death and destruction for free? OP is hardly alone with his rage; I see lots of people storming and blustering about how Apple is the devil. But I see very few people making a serious attempt to actually deliver the goods that will make Apple irrelevant. If a mobile platform running Clojure-flavored HaskellLisp is the Silver Bullet, can you show us an example of its unique value? Or if a mobile platform running Flash is the Ultimate Object of customer desire, where can we buy it and try it? (Personally, I'll put my energy into the standardized web. It's out there, it's ubiquitous. The servers run whatever software you like; the clients run Javascript, which has its troubles but is not the worst of all possible worlds. Steve Jobs himself endorses it and the iPhone platform has supported it nicely from day one. We've spent well over a decade building it.)

donaq 16y ago
If a mobile platform running Clojure-flavored HaskellLisp is the Silver Bullet, can you show us an example of its unique value? Of course he can't, because it hasn't been invented yet. But that's the point. Apple is trying to make sure no one can ever invent it.

jsz0 16y ago

The author is giving Apple a lot more power than they actually have. Apple controls Apple platforms; OSX, iPhone OS, etc. That's it. That's a small fragment of the market. Yes -- including the iPhone. There are good alternatives to both. What's the problem?

yardie 16y ago

This guy must be really young because either he's delusional or we read 2 different headlines in '00. For Apple to be like Microsoft it would have to take a standardized language (like HTML, Javascript, or Java), fork it so it is unreadable by the original, then use it's monopoly so that no one else can create a competitor. Here is a rundown of this MS behavior: MS-DOS vs. PC-DOS J# vs Java IE6 vs HTML4 MS JS vs javascript Now when Apple forks Flash and decides that is the only Flash that will be available on iPhoneOS then they will have become Microsoft.

lazugod 16y ago
Why doesn't Apple write their own Flash runtime? They did so for PDF on the Mac. Or was "Thoughts on Flash" intended to be Jobs's pitch for Core Animation?
- yardie 16y ago
  They can't. No one can. There are open source alternatives like Gnash but they are reverse-engineered runtimes. And like all RE'd apps they are at the mercy of Adobe. It already has problems with Flash 10. This is why Jobs argument is so valid. Anyone can write a swf file but it's restricted to running on Adobe's Flash runtime. PDF is a special case. I still have an Acrobat 1.0 disk in storage with my Photoshop 3.1 floppies, somewhere. Adobe was giving it away at that point. They also gave licenses to PDFs. Only one company took the offer, Next. Apple bought Next and inherited that license from '93.
sgoraya 16y ago
"fork it so it is unreadable by the original, then use it's monopoly so that no one else can create a competitor." Although MS may fork something, it does not force you to use their proprietary language - In the examples above, you can still use the original language...the choice remains yours. I might be biased since I've basically only developed on Windows (Visual Studio, code warrior, borland, etc.), but in the big scheme of things, MS has been more open, had more alternatives and options and better developer support than Apple...IMHO.

napierzaza 16y ago

Apple makes things people like

alanh 16y ago

Pure linkbait title.

tszming 16y ago

Apple's marketing strategy is better than MSFT, e.g. restriction (i.e. iPhone OS 4.0 ToS) was marketed as a feature.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

nice1 16y ago

... and vastly better products. Plus: they don't lie and cheat, and they are not convicted criminals. But still, you made your point.