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Nowadays, I kind of enjoy seeing posts about people abandoning Apple ecosystem. Although it's painful, I myself have been yet another avid fan of pretty much Ap

Nowadays, I kind of enjoy seeing posts about people abandoning Apple ecosystem. Although it's painful, I myself have been yet another avid fan of pretty much Apple offered, it feels like this is not going to last forever. When they do the math, iPhone might seem the most lucrative (they seem not to care about anything else) but since they are killing the ecosystem with no Mac Pro, no Mac Mini and with so called pro MacBooks, developers will abandon Apple eventually. Even if iPhone becomes/remains the most technologically advanced smart phone on the market, it would be like a distant paradise island with no airports. Airplanes (developers and subsequently the end users) will be landing on alternative airports on emerging islands, letting them prosper. Consequently, Apple island will be deserted.

CoolGuySteve 10y ago
I had whatever the latest iPhone was for the past 8 years. But at some point I realized a whole Huawei/HTC/LG/whatever Android phone could be purchased for the price of an iPhone screen repair and it's pretty much adequate for what I want to do. So now I'm using a Nexus 5X. It's okayish, but costs 1/3 the price of the iPhone 7 that would also be relatively ok. Phones are just phones these days. The awkward part is that if you've ever played audio or video on an iOS device, you've executed some of my code.
- stoolpigeon 10y ago
  I chuckled at this because I have a 5X too and I like it but my wife's Moto G4 Plus is amazing and cost something like half of what I paid for my Nexus, so I feel like I paid more than I needed to for a solid phone.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    I think the 5X gets security updates until September 2018. Meanwhile, my Moto X Style, which was top of the line not too long ago, got the September 2016 rollup... in January 2017. Nougat was rumoured but I'm not betting on it. I haven't installed Cyanowhatever it is now - mainly because the IR sensors and gestures are really handy.
    - j_koreth 10y ago
      > Cyanowhatever Sadly it's too late for Cyanogenmod. http://lifehacker.com/cyanogenmod-is-dead-and-its-successor-is-lineage-os-1790554964 http://lifehacker.com/cyanogenmod-is-dead-and-its-successor-...
      - spikengineer 10y ago
        It's now continued as LineageOS with the same core developers. http://lineageos.org/ http://lineageos.org/ and the builds are at https://download.lineageos.org/bullhead https://download.lineageos.org/bullhead
- MrTonyD 10y ago
  Funny. I recently got a new position and I couldn't find the terminal on the company mac - and a fellow came by and said "you obviously aren't an Apple person". I didn't tell him that I was a Mach kernel engineer at NeXT and that I'd worked on code that is probably still in the OS - or that I've been in way too many meetings with Steve Jobs. Instead, I just quietly nodded and agreed with him.
  - alsetmusic 10y ago
    Sounds like you are a NeXT person and not an Apple person, so wasn't he right? No snark intended.
    - MrTonyD 10y ago
      Yeah. I guess I still think of Apple's OS as being essentially NeXTStep. Hard for me not to feel like I'm still looking at the same software - just with some superficial evolution.
  - 0xC0DECAFE2020 10y ago
    I've been in situations like this as well. It's crazy to sit across from someone in an interview and think to yourself, "This person has no idea and I'm not going to let them in on it."
  - carussell 10y ago
    I'm curious to hear what your setup for the intervening 20 years has looked like. Did it involve moving to GNUstep when NeXTSTEP was no longer viable, or is it something like, you came to NeXT by way of e.g. Sun (or something) and never had any particular affinity for the NeXT environment and so your setup has always been Linux/BSD/Solaris...?
    - MrTonyD 10y ago
      My skills have always centered around OS and Database. I've mostly worked on UNIX then Linux at command line. Lots of vi and compiling over the years. I'll use whatever desktop is around...and, practically speaking, that has usually been Windows at the Fortune 50.
- slfnflctd 10y ago
  I had an iPhone for several years as well. On my first attempt to switch to Android, I went swimming with my new phone in my pocket a few weeks after I got it. Very frustrating. I finally switched permanently last year, and man has it been worth it. I can actually browse my own files on my own phone, and it does virtual reality better than any current Apple product! I grew up with Apple around me and I used to love them, but they have fallen behind and made terrible choices and I won't feel bad for them if they fail.
- newscracker 10y ago
  > Phones are just phones these days. I disagree with this. Most Android phones have a bad track record of getting OS updates (which may not be extremely important with Play Services not being part of the OS) and security updates. Depending on what one buys, it may be a phone with an outdated OS and no security updates or something that gets by for two to three years (on average). Apple provides updates for four years or longer (this has been the minimum for the past several years). Combine the above with more malware spreading through APKs from random sites and "friends", I'd say Android is still stuck in the DOS era of PCs. Of course, I realize this is a very harsh comparison that doesn't touch upon the flexibility that some users love, but in my opinion, non-tech-savvy people shouldn't be using anything but the best flagship phones if they choose Android and stay away from getting APKs from different sources. Any cost advantage with respect to an iPhone then disappears.
  - kupiakos 10y ago
    Non-tech-savvy users still have to disable the option to disable third-party APK's in order to be at risk in that area.
    - newscracker 10y ago
      If they aren't tech savvy, they're dependent on tech savvy people to show them this option and educate them. Even then, they may ignore it. I've seen many people using Android where they just get APK files from somewhere and pass it on tho "friends" (in quotes because this is indeed a large circle of acquaintances and several degrees of separation). It's probably luck that more Android users aren't being hit with malware around the world. The digital divide between those who can afford an iPhone and those who cannot is glaring on the security front. One of the ways this could get better is for Apple to introduce truly low priced phones (no, the iPhone SE is still quite expensive in developing countries). That's probably as much a pipe dream as getting Android manufacturers to care for their customers.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    I'm tech savvy, but I can have 3 very decent non-flagship Android phones (eg Oppo F1S) for the price of a similar sized iPhone. That's a massive deal breaker.
mobiletelephone 10y ago
I don't buy this argument. Developers will work on platforms that have users with money to spend, even if the development hardware is poor value. In this sense, Apple has us hostage!
- _ph_ 10y ago
  Yes, as long as iOS stays a solid market, iOS developers are going to own one Mac at least. But when the Mac platform itself stops being attractive to developers and they are only using it because they "have to", it is going to have an impact onto iOS as well. Innovations go, where the developers like to be.
- gurkendoktor 10y ago
  I have no data, but I'd wager that iOS developers who sell directly to end users are rare nowadays. Most of us are paid good money to build apps for bigger companies that make their money outside of the App Store. Often we don't even use our own Mac for that, so as a first step, we might use a Mac at work and Windows/Linux at home. If we left the ecosystem, the cost of native iOS development would increase, and companies would build portable (and/or crappy) apps instead. macOS indie apps would also lose some customers, and IMHO these apps are what makes the Apple world worthwhile in the first place.
  - jclardy 10y ago
    Paid apps are essentially dead on iOS and Android, thanks to both of their terrible policies. Both search algorithms for each platform place way to much weight on volume (downloads, ratings, reviews) over other attributes which they could track (like user retention.) This means a well polished, but expensive app can be easily ousted out of a top search result spot by a rushed clone at a lower price point, even if people end up deleting the crappy one after a day or two anyways. Basically both modern app stores place a ton of value on "new" things but don't care about software built to last. So as a dev you are incentivized to abandon your old projects and just stick out new ones every few months. And on iOS it gets even worse with paid search ads which can be targeted at competitor app names. Couple that with a 30% revenue cut, no access to your users (So you have no ability to refund them or discount future purchases), and the stores having the ability to oust you at any time and it becomes obvious that the only sustainable business is continuous crap-ware or SaaS with your main business outside the App Store. Just look at the Top Grossing chart, there isn't a single paid app till around 80 and even then the app is Minecraft.
OverThere 10y ago
I'm still disappointed by no Cinema Display and Apple leaving the display business. I'm baffled by this. Touchbar is innovative to some degree, but I usually connect my Macbook Pro to a bigger display and close it—making touchbar useless. So disappointed by Apple lately...
- tinus_hn 10y ago
  The touchbar also increases security so it's not useless even if you close the laptop.
  - donatj 10y ago
    How's that?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
      I assume the fingerprint reader?
    - tinus_hn 10y ago
      The touchbar is similar to an iOS device so it is a separate computing device that has a small attack surface so it is difficult to hack. It for instance controls the camera, so without hacking the touchbar it is impossible to use the camera without the light turning on. It also controls the fingerprint reader in a way that makes it hard to get the secrets that are protected by the fingerprint without actually providing the fingerprint.
  - cbsmith 10y ago
    You mean the way my VPN software needs to have a backdoor in it just so that the touchbar keeps working while I'm connected? ;-)
    - slrz 10y ago
      Can you explain?
sh_tinh_hair 10y ago
OsX has always been the alt-users paradise. As a sysadmin and developer I've disliked it from the start. Windows I could use for gaming and when I had to. Linux and FreeBSD are fine for every conceivable use I have d2d.
mahyarm 10y ago
Just like the PS4 & Xbox?

CoolGuySteve 10y ago

I had whatever the latest iPhone was for the past 8 years. But at some point I realized a whole Huawei/HTC/LG/whatever Android phone could be purchased for the price of an iPhone screen repair and it's pretty much adequate for what I want to do. So now I'm using a Nexus 5X. It's okayish, but costs 1/3 the price of the iPhone 7 that would also be relatively ok. Phones are just phones these days. The awkward part is that if you've ever played audio or video on an iOS device, you've executed some of my code.

stoolpigeon 10y ago
I chuckled at this because I have a 5X too and I like it but my wife's Moto G4 Plus is amazing and cost something like half of what I paid for my Nexus, so I feel like I paid more than I needed to for a solid phone.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  I think the 5X gets security updates until September 2018. Meanwhile, my Moto X Style, which was top of the line not too long ago, got the September 2016 rollup... in January 2017. Nougat was rumoured but I'm not betting on it. I haven't installed Cyanowhatever it is now - mainly because the IR sensors and gestures are really handy.
  - j_koreth 10y ago
    > Cyanowhatever Sadly it's too late for Cyanogenmod. http://lifehacker.com/cyanogenmod-is-dead-and-its-successor-is-lineage-os-1790554964 http://lifehacker.com/cyanogenmod-is-dead-and-its-successor-...
    - spikengineer 10y ago
      It's now continued as LineageOS with the same core developers. http://lineageos.org/ http://lineageos.org/ and the builds are at https://download.lineageos.org/bullhead https://download.lineageos.org/bullhead
MrTonyD 10y ago
Funny. I recently got a new position and I couldn't find the terminal on the company mac - and a fellow came by and said "you obviously aren't an Apple person". I didn't tell him that I was a Mach kernel engineer at NeXT and that I'd worked on code that is probably still in the OS - or that I've been in way too many meetings with Steve Jobs. Instead, I just quietly nodded and agreed with him.
- alsetmusic 10y ago
  Sounds like you are a NeXT person and not an Apple person, so wasn't he right? No snark intended.
  - MrTonyD 10y ago
    Yeah. I guess I still think of Apple's OS as being essentially NeXTStep. Hard for me not to feel like I'm still looking at the same software - just with some superficial evolution.
- 0xC0DECAFE2020 10y ago
  I've been in situations like this as well. It's crazy to sit across from someone in an interview and think to yourself, "This person has no idea and I'm not going to let them in on it."
- carussell 10y ago
  I'm curious to hear what your setup for the intervening 20 years has looked like. Did it involve moving to GNUstep when NeXTSTEP was no longer viable, or is it something like, you came to NeXT by way of e.g. Sun (or something) and never had any particular affinity for the NeXT environment and so your setup has always been Linux/BSD/Solaris...?
  - MrTonyD 10y ago
    My skills have always centered around OS and Database. I've mostly worked on UNIX then Linux at command line. Lots of vi and compiling over the years. I'll use whatever desktop is around...and, practically speaking, that has usually been Windows at the Fortune 50.
slfnflctd 10y ago
I had an iPhone for several years as well. On my first attempt to switch to Android, I went swimming with my new phone in my pocket a few weeks after I got it. Very frustrating. I finally switched permanently last year, and man has it been worth it. I can actually browse my own files on my own phone, and it does virtual reality better than any current Apple product! I grew up with Apple around me and I used to love them, but they have fallen behind and made terrible choices and I won't feel bad for them if they fail.
newscracker 10y ago
> Phones are just phones these days. I disagree with this. Most Android phones have a bad track record of getting OS updates (which may not be extremely important with Play Services not being part of the OS) and security updates. Depending on what one buys, it may be a phone with an outdated OS and no security updates or something that gets by for two to three years (on average). Apple provides updates for four years or longer (this has been the minimum for the past several years). Combine the above with more malware spreading through APKs from random sites and "friends", I'd say Android is still stuck in the DOS era of PCs. Of course, I realize this is a very harsh comparison that doesn't touch upon the flexibility that some users love, but in my opinion, non-tech-savvy people shouldn't be using anything but the best flagship phones if they choose Android and stay away from getting APKs from different sources. Any cost advantage with respect to an iPhone then disappears.
- kupiakos 10y ago
  Non-tech-savvy users still have to disable the option to disable third-party APK's in order to be at risk in that area.
  - newscracker 10y ago
    If they aren't tech savvy, they're dependent on tech savvy people to show them this option and educate them. Even then, they may ignore it. I've seen many people using Android where they just get APK files from somewhere and pass it on tho "friends" (in quotes because this is indeed a large circle of acquaintances and several degrees of separation). It's probably luck that more Android users aren't being hit with malware around the world. The digital divide between those who can afford an iPhone and those who cannot is glaring on the security front. One of the ways this could get better is for Apple to introduce truly low priced phones (no, the iPhone SE is still quite expensive in developing countries). That's probably as much a pipe dream as getting Android manufacturers to care for their customers.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  I'm tech savvy, but I can have 3 very decent non-flagship Android phones (eg Oppo F1S) for the price of a similar sized iPhone. That's a massive deal breaker.

mobiletelephone 10y ago

I don't buy this argument. Developers will work on platforms that have users with money to spend, even if the development hardware is poor value. In this sense, Apple has us hostage!

_ph_ 10y ago
Yes, as long as iOS stays a solid market, iOS developers are going to own one Mac at least. But when the Mac platform itself stops being attractive to developers and they are only using it because they "have to", it is going to have an impact onto iOS as well. Innovations go, where the developers like to be.
gurkendoktor 10y ago
I have no data, but I'd wager that iOS developers who sell directly to end users are rare nowadays. Most of us are paid good money to build apps for bigger companies that make their money outside of the App Store. Often we don't even use our own Mac for that, so as a first step, we might use a Mac at work and Windows/Linux at home. If we left the ecosystem, the cost of native iOS development would increase, and companies would build portable (and/or crappy) apps instead. macOS indie apps would also lose some customers, and IMHO these apps are what makes the Apple world worthwhile in the first place.
- jclardy 10y ago
  Paid apps are essentially dead on iOS and Android, thanks to both of their terrible policies. Both search algorithms for each platform place way to much weight on volume (downloads, ratings, reviews) over other attributes which they could track (like user retention.) This means a well polished, but expensive app can be easily ousted out of a top search result spot by a rushed clone at a lower price point, even if people end up deleting the crappy one after a day or two anyways. Basically both modern app stores place a ton of value on "new" things but don't care about software built to last. So as a dev you are incentivized to abandon your old projects and just stick out new ones every few months. And on iOS it gets even worse with paid search ads which can be targeted at competitor app names. Couple that with a 30% revenue cut, no access to your users (So you have no ability to refund them or discount future purchases), and the stores having the ability to oust you at any time and it becomes obvious that the only sustainable business is continuous crap-ware or SaaS with your main business outside the App Store. Just look at the Top Grossing chart, there isn't a single paid app till around 80 and even then the app is Minecraft.

OverThere 10y ago

I'm still disappointed by no Cinema Display and Apple leaving the display business. I'm baffled by this. Touchbar is innovative to some degree, but I usually connect my Macbook Pro to a bigger display and close it—making touchbar useless. So disappointed by Apple lately...

tinus_hn 10y ago
The touchbar also increases security so it's not useless even if you close the laptop.
- donatj 10y ago
  How's that?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
    I assume the fingerprint reader?
  - tinus_hn 10y ago
    The touchbar is similar to an iOS device so it is a separate computing device that has a small attack surface so it is difficult to hack. It for instance controls the camera, so without hacking the touchbar it is impossible to use the camera without the light turning on. It also controls the fingerprint reader in a way that makes it hard to get the secrets that are protected by the fingerprint without actually providing the fingerprint.
- cbsmith 10y ago
  You mean the way my VPN software needs to have a backdoor in it just so that the touchbar keeps working while I'm connected? ;-)
  - slrz 10y ago
    Can you explain?

sh_tinh_hair 10y ago

OsX has always been the alt-users paradise. As a sysadmin and developer I've disliked it from the start. Windows I could use for gaming and when I had to. Linux and FreeBSD are fine for every conceivable use I have d2d.

mahyarm 10y ago

Just like the PS4 & Xbox?