4 ms·

"Here's a list of some major PC software products. Do you know what they all have in common? They were first successful on Apple systems, and only later took of

"Here's a list of some major PC software products. Do you know what they all have in common? They were first successful on Apple systems, and only later took off in the PC world." Call me crazy, but maybe the PC is easier to develop for. At least the software listed there is still available for the Mac. When Apple bought Emagic, production of the PC version of their digital audio workstation Logic ceased. I remember the year Photoshop's sales for PC were higher than Photoshop's sales on the Mac. More and more, the myth that Macs are better for creative software eroded. Nonetheless, it does basically boil down to philosophical differences. I'm still a big fan of my iPhone and will probably even get the iPhone HD (or whatever), but Apple's made it very difficult for me to transfer that enthusiasm to anything else they do.

stcredzero 16y ago
Call me crazy, but maybe the PC is easier to develop for. Not crazy, but maybe confused. Wouldn't market share be a better explanation? The profit motive is the primary motivation to develop for any platform. It easily trumps ease of development.
- vetinari 16y ago
  At the time, Win32s/Win32 was definitely easier to develop for than MacOS classic. While Win16 was definitely very similar to MacOS classic, Win32 brought better multitasking and memory management, so developers could tell good bye to memory handles and locking/unlocking them. The tools for Win32 development were also better. There was a range of compilers and IDEs you could choose from (not only Microsoft, but also Borland or Watcom). For MacOS, you had the terrible Apple tools or Codewarrior kit. Note that the apps that were created on PC, never crossed to Mac (e.g. AutoCAD or 3D Studio). I'm not saying that PC market share was not primary motivator, but at the time, PCs were technically better.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    AFAIK "is" is present tense!
Tamerlin 16y ago
The author also conveniently ignored the fact that a lot of those applications exploded on the PC market partly because the PC's were so much more advanced. Apple didn't lose all those developers because of freedom, those developers were after customers, and it's hard to convince customers to buy your product when you tie them to the high-priced and technologically backward option. The reality is that Apple fears competition. It's never been able to handle any competition. When NuTech cloned the mac, Apple sued them into oblivion. When Apple start the clone program, the clones sold better machines... so Apple killed the program. When Apple bought eMagic and Nothing Real, it killed off the Windows version of both, because no one in their right mind would choose Apple's platform for such compute-intensive applications when it was so technologically behind the rest of the industry (except Sun, who was even farther behind). So when buying a mac meant buying a vastly inferior machine, Apple lost a LOT of customers (including most of the high end film and visual FX industry, who went Linux + x86), largely because of the inferiority of the platform. Today, the mac isn't an inferior platform, it's an identical platform. (I'm talking under the hood, not the ergonomics and OS.) If Apple were smart, they'd be emphasizing their platform, and encouraging developers by doing the exact opposite of what they're doing. By continuing to support .NET, Apple would be making it easier for developers to make the transition to the iPhone and iPad. Sure, they'd get lots of generic apps, but they already have a huge pile of crud with a few gems here and there, and the better .NET developers who want their apps to success will put in the effort to make their apps iPad/iPhone/OSX compliant in order to better serve their users.

stcredzero 16y ago

Call me crazy, but maybe the PC is easier to develop for. Not crazy, but maybe confused. Wouldn't market share be a better explanation? The profit motive is the primary motivation to develop for any platform. It easily trumps ease of development.

vetinari 16y ago
At the time, Win32s/Win32 was definitely easier to develop for than MacOS classic. While Win16 was definitely very similar to MacOS classic, Win32 brought better multitasking and memory management, so developers could tell good bye to memory handles and locking/unlocking them. The tools for Win32 development were also better. There was a range of compilers and IDEs you could choose from (not only Microsoft, but also Borland or Watcom). For MacOS, you had the terrible Apple tools or Codewarrior kit. Note that the apps that were created on PC, never crossed to Mac (e.g. AutoCAD or 3D Studio). I'm not saying that PC market share was not primary motivator, but at the time, PCs were technically better.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  AFAIK "is" is present tense!

Tamerlin 16y ago

The author also conveniently ignored the fact that a lot of those applications exploded on the PC market partly because the PC's were so much more advanced. Apple didn't lose all those developers because of freedom, those developers were after customers, and it's hard to convince customers to buy your product when you tie them to the high-priced and technologically backward option. The reality is that Apple fears competition. It's never been able to handle any competition. When NuTech cloned the mac, Apple sued them into oblivion. When Apple start the clone program, the clones sold better machines... so Apple killed the program. When Apple bought eMagic and Nothing Real, it killed off the Windows version of both, because no one in their right mind would choose Apple's platform for such compute-intensive applications when it was so technologically behind the rest of the industry (except Sun, who was even farther behind). So when buying a mac meant buying a vastly inferior machine, Apple lost a LOT of customers (including most of the high end film and visual FX industry, who went Linux + x86), largely because of the inferiority of the platform. Today, the mac isn't an inferior platform, it's an identical platform. (I'm talking under the hood, not the ergonomics and OS.) If Apple were smart, they'd be emphasizing their platform, and encouraging developers by doing the exact opposite of what they're doing. By continuing to support .NET, Apple would be making it easier for developers to make the transition to the iPhone and iPad. Sure, they'd get lots of generic apps, but they already have a huge pile of crud with a few gems here and there, and the better .NET developers who want their apps to success will put in the effort to make their apps iPad/iPhone/OSX compliant in order to better serve their users.