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I never understood why Canonical's attempts to be "brave" (as Apple would call it) result in Canonical pulling out, while attempts by other companies like Apple

I never understood why Canonical's attempts to be "brave" (as Apple would call it) result in Canonical pulling out, while attempts by other companies like Apple don't. For example, Canonical made a very brave decision to switch to Unity, and now they're having to move away from Unity, which hints that there were enough users against it, and they pushed Canonical into this position (along with Canonical trying to allocate resources better). But Apple "killed skeuomorphism" and there were tons of people complaining "MY NOTES APP WHITE INSTEAD OF YELLOW EWWW" (especially my parents), yet today they're still getting more users and they have so many on recent versions of their OSes. I supported the removal of skeuomorphism, but seeing so many around me and on the internet complain, I thought Apple would be forced to put it back everywhere. Instead, people just moved on. When Apple makes a "pro" laptop without any USB A ports, people laugh, but then buy it. When Ubuntu makes a phone, Ubuntu regrets it. Why?

romanovcode 9y ago
I guess it's because Unity is not a good product. It is slow and eats too much battery.
bad_user 9y ago
> which hints that there were enough users against it I'm pretty sure those users are a vocal minority. Personally I loved Unity. The only thing I disliked about Unity and Ubuntu's UI in general is the lack of configuration options, having to install extra buggy configuration managers to do really basic stuff, like turning Caps Lock into Ctrl. But that's a problem with the whole Gnome ecosystem and not Unity. And Unity I loved, because it has pretty good keyboard shortcuts, is space efficient and generally worked for me just fine out of the box. Going back to why Canonical dropped it, I'm pretty sure that's because they are giving up on the Linux desktop in general. As for the comparison with Apple, dude, you're comparing David and Goliath, except this is the real world.
- danieldk 9y ago
  Going back to why Canonical dropped it, I'm pretty sure that's because they are giving up on the Linux desktop in general. Indeed, Canonical had the same realization as Red Hat ~2000-2003: there is no money in the Linux desktop, there is a lot of money in enterprise services and support. Since Canonical has to make a profit, it is smart of them to drop unprofitable projects such as the phone.
  - bryanlarsen 9y ago
    And now Ubuntu has passed Red Hat in the # of servers metric because devs like me choose their Linux server OS based on familiarity with the Ubuntu desktop OS.
    - danieldk 9y ago
      On the other hand, Red Hat's revenue is steadily growing[1] and there are very few RHEL desktop users. Fedora is probably also less popular than Ubuntu and its derivatives. [1] https://investors.redhat.com/financial-information/financial-statements/income-statement https://investors.redhat.com/financial-information/financial...
      - bryanlarsen 9y ago
        I'd be very surprised if Ubuntu's revenue wasn't increasing at a much higher rate than Red Hat's.
        danieldk 9y ago
        Interesting question. Some data points that I could find. Canonical: 2009: ~30M, 2013: 65.7M, 2016: 103.3M Red Hat: 2013: ~1.4B, 2015: ~1.8B, 2016: ~2.1B, 2017: 2.4B Consequently: Canonical 2013-2016: ~1.57x, Red Hat 2013-2016: 1.71x. So, their revenue seems to be increasing at a slower rate and Red Hat's revenue is almost twentyfold that of Canonical. Moreover, Red Hat is operating on a quite large profit, while Canonical is on a loss.
Jedd 9y ago
There was a lovely TV show from the UK back in the 1980's called Yes Prime Minister - one of the frequent exchanges between the senior public servant, and the PM, when the former wanted the latter to back down on something, was for the phrase 'That's very brave of you ...' to be uttered. Brave does not necessarily imply profound, good, worthwhile, etc. Canonical's 'brave decision' to go out and create their own DE (despite two very competent options already existing) does not imply it was a good decision. > When Apple makes a "pro" laptop without any USB A ports, people laugh, but then buy it. This is the classic mixup of 'people'. The people that scoffed at a laptop with a single USB port (or a phone without a headphone jack, etc etc) are NOT the same people that bought those items. > When Ubuntu makes a phone, Ubuntu regrets it. The proverbial 800lb gorilla made a phone, and also regretted it. There are plenty of propositions explaining why two mobile phone platforms were all that the market could sustain.
duiker101 9y ago
Because Apple has enough money to force his decision onto the user. It will take something extreme to make the regret anything.
kossae 9y ago
I would think it would be due to the sheer power differences of each organization. While I'm sure Canonical isn't strapped for cash, it's clear Apple is far larger of a company. The fact that Apple has built its user following, along with the huge number of nearly religious followers, against Ubuntu's (or Linux's, really) much smaller audience gives concessions to Apple to make moves such as this. If I had hundreds of billions in cash as a company, I'd feel much more comfortable making "deal with it" decisions affecting my users than if I were running a much smaller operation.
- danieldk 9y ago
  The fact that Apple has built its user following, along with the huge number of nearly religious followers, against Ubuntu's (or Linux's, really) much smaller audience gives concessions to Apple to make moves such as this. That's too easy. Linux also has a contingent of nearly religious free software fanatics. Moreover, Apple is now strongly represented in niches that Linux was traditionally strong in, such as academia and developers. Let's not forget that Apple was in dire straits in 1997 and was only a tiny fraction of its current worth. It has only been the behemoth it is now since 2010 or so. The difference with Apple and Canonical is that when Apple introduced products they were often miles ahead of the rest, while Canonical is mostly catching up. OS X provided a UNIX with a modern display server and good usability in 2001. The first version of Ubuntu was released three years later and had a lot of shortcomings that were only solved later or just now (such as a modern display server). Apple defined the modern smartphone in 2007. The first preview of Ubuntu Phone was released six years later. Apple is now extremely large, but 2001 Apple and even 2007 Apple was not. I'd feel much more comfortable making "deal with it" decisions affecting my users than if I were running a much smaller operation. Except that Apple canceled unsuccessful products as well. Ping, iTools, .Mac, MobileMe, Aperture, Xserve.
StevePerkins 9y ago
For most Mac users, the only OS option is OS X. (Yes, you CAN run Linux on a Mac... but the experience isn't great. As far as I know, Linux still doesn't have support for suspend/hibernate when you close your MacBook Pro's cover. And although the Macs have the nicest touchpads, it seems weird to pay a 50% "Apple tax" if you're not even using Apple's OS. You lose half the benefits that Mac people buy into. So if you're a Linux person, then you might as well be using a PC.) Since most Apple customer's are using Apple's OS, when they don't like a change, their options are: (1) to switch to PC's, or (2) to hold off on upgrades, but eventually get on board with the changes begrudgingly. I've been seeing more #1's lately, but most fall into the #2 category. In the Linux world, however, there are hundreds of distro alternatives. And half of them are Ubuntu-based, anyway. Don't like the UI/UX choices that stock Ubuntu is shoving down your throat? In an hour you can switch to Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, or even Mint... and still retain compatibility with the same APT sources. Don't like systemd, or something else deeper under the covers? Then it's a little more effort to switch to a completely different distro family, but not MUCH effort. Open-source Linux distros just don't have the lock-in leverage to muscle their users around the way that propriety OS's do. By design.
zurn 9y ago
Apple is in dominant market position.
addicted 9y ago
Apple's user base is one that wants Apple to do all their thinking for them as far as computer decisions are concerned. Often this may lead to sub optimal solutions for them, but they are ok with this because the overall lack of worry with Apple products, and the fact that they have a good track record of making good decisions, still leaves them ahead in the net (this may be changing with pro Macs though). Linux users, OTOH, have an opinion on everything. Worse, a vocal minority is simply anti anything that is popular, which means Ubuntu's goals were entirely in conflict with this segment of their base.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- matt4077 9y ago
  Let me rephrase it in less condescending terms (or, more accurately, /different/ condescending terms): Apple users want to get shit done, instead of compiling custom kernels to fix font rendering issues when using Wifi while headphones are plugged in. "Pro user" means, for Apple, s/o using a computer to create something. It is not someone who's a professional at using computers, i. e. constantly optimising their 20+ USB gadgets and swapping hardware components.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - fauigerzigerk 9y ago
    I think both groups want to get shit done. It's more a question of what each group can tolerate. Apple users can tolerate a lack of choice. Linux users can tolerate a constant struggle with flaky device drivers.
  - atonse 9y ago
    Agreed here. I have compiled probably a half dozen linux kernels in the last 15 years, and especially in college, tried many flavors of linux. So I've historically not been intimidated by tinkering. But now that I have a career that relies on getting stuff done, and don't have time to play with kernel modules and window managers just to get my computer running in a stable way. I have zero patience with the clusterf*ck that seems to still be the Linux desktop. I mean, look at this thread itself. When I see I hear all kinds of things like Wayland, Xwfm4, Compton, Unity, Gnome (the only one I recognize), multi monitor issues, tearing? Who has the time these days to deal with all that, unless it's part of their jobs, they're curious college kids, or they're kernel hackers? I mean, geez, it's 2017. Apple (and MS to an extent) figured these issues out for the most part more than a decade ago. Yea yea I get it, drivers, blah blah. But I simply don't have time anymore to futz with this stuff. I have to get things done and need a reliable machine. And my clients don't pay me to fiddle with my kernel to get nice animations. It's the same reason I don't build a Hackintosh, although I'm really tempted. SO this isn't an "I love apple" type thing – it's an "I want to get work done and not stare at a boot loader" thing.
notalaser 9y ago
As soon as Canonical blows something off in Ubuntu, users can switch to whatever other Linux distribution they like (or remove/replace the misbehaving component, like it happened with the Amazon thing or early-ish versions of Unity). Apple users can't very easily switch to a better version of macOS (especially when they need to migrate their data out of the walled garden it's hosted in).
acomjean 9y ago
Apple/ios users don't really have a choice of hardware vendor. They're locked in, so they're stuck with what apple serves up or can feel the pain of migration (I'm in that boat). Linux users are more fickle and can and will move to different distributions if they don't like one particular one. Canonical needs to listen its users in a way that apple doesn't. To be fair, we haven't seen what these changes Apple has made are going to do long term. Its clear there is some worry over there (the mac pro 2018 preview is very unlike apple)
felipeerias 9y ago
It helps that Apple has three orders of magnitude more employees and four orders of magnitude more revenue than Canonical.
keithpeter 9y ago
I think Canonical is attempting to identify other investors, and the 'due diligence' on that resulted in a desire to focus on server/container type activity and to pull out of projects that have no obvious commercial value in the medium term. Have a look here... https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cl... So nothing to do with organisational bravery, or indeed the relative quality of the design, just cold hard cash and revenue streams.
sfifs 9y ago
Developing Unity is a cost center. Presumably there's not much revenue from developing it. Presumably the money being spent on it is better spent on server side where people do pay Canonical money for support.
tgb 9y ago
Admittedly, when Apple "killed skeumorphism" it had already been killed by most of their rivals some significant time before. Microsoft already had Metro; Google had flat, skeumorphic-free designs for a long time but never had made a big fuss over it (until that Duarte android thing got big). Ubuntu's Unity situation is rather different.
nfriedly 9y ago
Marketing.
- jamescostian 9y ago
  I'm not sure it's that simple. For example, the people I knew who hated the removal of skeuomorphism didn't get over it when they watched WWDC, or some TV commercial. They just kept using their devices, and waited a long time before upgrading. But they then upgraded and shut up, and not because they saw a commercial.
  - Maken 9y ago
    It not that they were convinced the new look was better. It's just that no sane individual would stick to a iPhone from two generations ago just because he doesn't like his notes' background color.
ungzd 9y ago
Even Microsoft can't afford bravery and have to revert almost every time.
- sqeaky 9y ago
  Microsoft is not even in a position to think that way. They are constantly doing ass-backwards things that their enterprise and government customers want. So many of the messed up decision with Active Directory are because some upper manager that didn't know what was going on demanded a feature or threatened to switch away from microsoft.
matt4077 9y ago
When you're making controversial decisions, it tends to help to be right. But Canonical (and every other distro) are in a somewhat difficult position. UI isn't just an incredible hard problem. There's also a dearth of talent because the relevant people aren't a natural part of the OSS community. And, most importantly, UI suffers tremendously from the bazaar-model of development. It needs someone with near-dictatorial powers, and excellent taste, who can control the complete user experience from init to shutdown.

romanovcode 9y ago

I guess it's because Unity is not a good product. It is slow and eats too much battery.

bad_user 9y ago

> which hints that there were enough users against it I'm pretty sure those users are a vocal minority. Personally I loved Unity. The only thing I disliked about Unity and Ubuntu's UI in general is the lack of configuration options, having to install extra buggy configuration managers to do really basic stuff, like turning Caps Lock into Ctrl. But that's a problem with the whole Gnome ecosystem and not Unity. And Unity I loved, because it has pretty good keyboard shortcuts, is space efficient and generally worked for me just fine out of the box. Going back to why Canonical dropped it, I'm pretty sure that's because they are giving up on the Linux desktop in general. As for the comparison with Apple, dude, you're comparing David and Goliath, except this is the real world.

danieldk 9y ago
Going back to why Canonical dropped it, I'm pretty sure that's because they are giving up on the Linux desktop in general. Indeed, Canonical had the same realization as Red Hat ~2000-2003: there is no money in the Linux desktop, there is a lot of money in enterprise services and support. Since Canonical has to make a profit, it is smart of them to drop unprofitable projects such as the phone.
- bryanlarsen 9y ago
  And now Ubuntu has passed Red Hat in the # of servers metric because devs like me choose their Linux server OS based on familiarity with the Ubuntu desktop OS.
  - danieldk 9y ago
    On the other hand, Red Hat's revenue is steadily growing[1] and there are very few RHEL desktop users. Fedora is probably also less popular than Ubuntu and its derivatives. [1] https://investors.redhat.com/financial-information/financial-statements/income-statement https://investors.redhat.com/financial-information/financial...
    - bryanlarsen 9y ago
      I'd be very surprised if Ubuntu's revenue wasn't increasing at a much higher rate than Red Hat's.
      - danieldk 9y ago
        Interesting question. Some data points that I could find. Canonical: 2009: ~30M, 2013: 65.7M, 2016: 103.3M Red Hat: 2013: ~1.4B, 2015: ~1.8B, 2016: ~2.1B, 2017: 2.4B Consequently: Canonical 2013-2016: ~1.57x, Red Hat 2013-2016: 1.71x. So, their revenue seems to be increasing at a slower rate and Red Hat's revenue is almost twentyfold that of Canonical. Moreover, Red Hat is operating on a quite large profit, while Canonical is on a loss.

Jedd 9y ago

There was a lovely TV show from the UK back in the 1980's called Yes Prime Minister - one of the frequent exchanges between the senior public servant, and the PM, when the former wanted the latter to back down on something, was for the phrase 'That's very brave of you ...' to be uttered. Brave does not necessarily imply profound, good, worthwhile, etc. Canonical's 'brave decision' to go out and create their own DE (despite two very competent options already existing) does not imply it was a good decision. > When Apple makes a "pro" laptop without any USB A ports, people laugh, but then buy it. This is the classic mixup of 'people'. The people that scoffed at a laptop with a single USB port (or a phone without a headphone jack, etc etc) are NOT the same people that bought those items. > When Ubuntu makes a phone, Ubuntu regrets it. The proverbial 800lb gorilla made a phone, and also regretted it. There are plenty of propositions explaining why two mobile phone platforms were all that the market could sustain.

duiker101 9y ago

Because Apple has enough money to force his decision onto the user. It will take something extreme to make the regret anything.

kossae 9y ago

I would think it would be due to the sheer power differences of each organization. While I'm sure Canonical isn't strapped for cash, it's clear Apple is far larger of a company. The fact that Apple has built its user following, along with the huge number of nearly religious followers, against Ubuntu's (or Linux's, really) much smaller audience gives concessions to Apple to make moves such as this. If I had hundreds of billions in cash as a company, I'd feel much more comfortable making "deal with it" decisions affecting my users than if I were running a much smaller operation.

danieldk 9y ago
The fact that Apple has built its user following, along with the huge number of nearly religious followers, against Ubuntu's (or Linux's, really) much smaller audience gives concessions to Apple to make moves such as this. That's too easy. Linux also has a contingent of nearly religious free software fanatics. Moreover, Apple is now strongly represented in niches that Linux was traditionally strong in, such as academia and developers. Let's not forget that Apple was in dire straits in 1997 and was only a tiny fraction of its current worth. It has only been the behemoth it is now since 2010 or so. The difference with Apple and Canonical is that when Apple introduced products they were often miles ahead of the rest, while Canonical is mostly catching up. OS X provided a UNIX with a modern display server and good usability in 2001. The first version of Ubuntu was released three years later and had a lot of shortcomings that were only solved later or just now (such as a modern display server). Apple defined the modern smartphone in 2007. The first preview of Ubuntu Phone was released six years later. Apple is now extremely large, but 2001 Apple and even 2007 Apple was not. I'd feel much more comfortable making "deal with it" decisions affecting my users than if I were running a much smaller operation. Except that Apple canceled unsuccessful products as well. Ping, iTools, .Mac, MobileMe, Aperture, Xserve.

StevePerkins 9y ago

For most Mac users, the only OS option is OS X. (Yes, you CAN run Linux on a Mac... but the experience isn't great. As far as I know, Linux still doesn't have support for suspend/hibernate when you close your MacBook Pro's cover. And although the Macs have the nicest touchpads, it seems weird to pay a 50% "Apple tax" if you're not even using Apple's OS. You lose half the benefits that Mac people buy into. So if you're a Linux person, then you might as well be using a PC.) Since most Apple customer's are using Apple's OS, when they don't like a change, their options are: (1) to switch to PC's, or (2) to hold off on upgrades, but eventually get on board with the changes begrudgingly. I've been seeing more #1's lately, but most fall into the #2 category. In the Linux world, however, there are hundreds of distro alternatives. And half of them are Ubuntu-based, anyway. Don't like the UI/UX choices that stock Ubuntu is shoving down your throat? In an hour you can switch to Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, or even Mint... and still retain compatibility with the same APT sources. Don't like systemd, or something else deeper under the covers? Then it's a little more effort to switch to a completely different distro family, but not MUCH effort. Open-source Linux distros just don't have the lock-in leverage to muscle their users around the way that propriety OS's do. By design.

zurn 9y ago

Apple is in dominant market position.

addicted 9y ago

Apple's user base is one that wants Apple to do all their thinking for them as far as computer decisions are concerned. Often this may lead to sub optimal solutions for them, but they are ok with this because the overall lack of worry with Apple products, and the fact that they have a good track record of making good decisions, still leaves them ahead in the net (this may be changing with pro Macs though). Linux users, OTOH, have an opinion on everything. Worse, a vocal minority is simply anti anything that is popular, which means Ubuntu's goals were entirely in conflict with this segment of their base.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
matt4077 9y ago
Let me rephrase it in less condescending terms (or, more accurately, /different/ condescending terms): Apple users want to get shit done, instead of compiling custom kernels to fix font rendering issues when using Wifi while headphones are plugged in. "Pro user" means, for Apple, s/o using a computer to create something. It is not someone who's a professional at using computers, i. e. constantly optimising their 20+ USB gadgets and swapping hardware components.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago
  I think both groups want to get shit done. It's more a question of what each group can tolerate. Apple users can tolerate a lack of choice. Linux users can tolerate a constant struggle with flaky device drivers.
- atonse 9y ago
  Agreed here. I have compiled probably a half dozen linux kernels in the last 15 years, and especially in college, tried many flavors of linux. So I've historically not been intimidated by tinkering. But now that I have a career that relies on getting stuff done, and don't have time to play with kernel modules and window managers just to get my computer running in a stable way. I have zero patience with the clusterf*ck that seems to still be the Linux desktop. I mean, look at this thread itself. When I see I hear all kinds of things like Wayland, Xwfm4, Compton, Unity, Gnome (the only one I recognize), multi monitor issues, tearing? Who has the time these days to deal with all that, unless it's part of their jobs, they're curious college kids, or they're kernel hackers? I mean, geez, it's 2017. Apple (and MS to an extent) figured these issues out for the most part more than a decade ago. Yea yea I get it, drivers, blah blah. But I simply don't have time anymore to futz with this stuff. I have to get things done and need a reliable machine. And my clients don't pay me to fiddle with my kernel to get nice animations. It's the same reason I don't build a Hackintosh, although I'm really tempted. SO this isn't an "I love apple" type thing – it's an "I want to get work done and not stare at a boot loader" thing.

notalaser 9y ago

As soon as Canonical blows something off in Ubuntu, users can switch to whatever other Linux distribution they like (or remove/replace the misbehaving component, like it happened with the Amazon thing or early-ish versions of Unity). Apple users can't very easily switch to a better version of macOS (especially when they need to migrate their data out of the walled garden it's hosted in).

acomjean 9y ago

Apple/ios users don't really have a choice of hardware vendor. They're locked in, so they're stuck with what apple serves up or can feel the pain of migration (I'm in that boat). Linux users are more fickle and can and will move to different distributions if they don't like one particular one. Canonical needs to listen its users in a way that apple doesn't. To be fair, we haven't seen what these changes Apple has made are going to do long term. Its clear there is some worry over there (the mac pro 2018 preview is very unlike apple)

felipeerias 9y ago

It helps that Apple has three orders of magnitude more employees and four orders of magnitude more revenue than Canonical.

keithpeter 9y ago

I think Canonical is attempting to identify other investors, and the 'due diligence' on that resulted in a desire to focus on server/container type activity and to pull out of projects that have no obvious commercial value in the medium term. Have a look here... https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cl... So nothing to do with organisational bravery, or indeed the relative quality of the design, just cold hard cash and revenue streams.

sfifs 9y ago

Developing Unity is a cost center. Presumably there's not much revenue from developing it. Presumably the money being spent on it is better spent on server side where people do pay Canonical money for support.

tgb 9y ago

Admittedly, when Apple "killed skeumorphism" it had already been killed by most of their rivals some significant time before. Microsoft already had Metro; Google had flat, skeumorphic-free designs for a long time but never had made a big fuss over it (until that Duarte android thing got big). Ubuntu's Unity situation is rather different.

nfriedly 9y ago

Marketing.

jamescostian 9y ago
I'm not sure it's that simple. For example, the people I knew who hated the removal of skeuomorphism didn't get over it when they watched WWDC, or some TV commercial. They just kept using their devices, and waited a long time before upgrading. But they then upgraded and shut up, and not because they saw a commercial.
- Maken 9y ago
  It not that they were convinced the new look was better. It's just that no sane individual would stick to a iPhone from two generations ago just because he doesn't like his notes' background color.

ungzd 9y ago

Even Microsoft can't afford bravery and have to revert almost every time.

sqeaky 9y ago
Microsoft is not even in a position to think that way. They are constantly doing ass-backwards things that their enterprise and government customers want. So many of the messed up decision with Active Directory are because some upper manager that didn't know what was going on demanded a feature or threatened to switch away from microsoft.

matt4077 9y ago

When you're making controversial decisions, it tends to help to be right. But Canonical (and every other distro) are in a somewhat difficult position. UI isn't just an incredible hard problem. There's also a dearth of talent because the relevant people aren't a natural part of the OSS community. And, most importantly, UI suffers tremendously from the bazaar-model of development. It needs someone with near-dictatorial powers, and excellent taste, who can control the complete user experience from init to shutdown.