8 ms·

Google doesn't get 'social', but Apple doesn't understand the Internet

113 points by jfrumar 16y ago

apress 16y ago
Apps are a return to the walled garden -- the anti-Internet, if you will.
- sfphotoarts 16y ago
  No they are not! apps mostly use the internet for their data, but provide a richer UX than what a web browser can do. The internet is the underpinning of most apps.
  - brd 16y ago
    Apps may not be the antithesis of the Internet, but the concept of an App Store arguably is. Internet = decentralized freedom, App store = centralized control. The data is not the problem, the communication medium is not the problem, the issue is the control over the distribution channel.
  - eftpotrm 16y ago
    But so much of the beauty of the Internet is its portable ubiquity; I can write a website once and it's available in much the same format to Windows, MacOS, Unix, iOS, Android.... you name it. Whereas in the mobile world we're seeing _millions_ spent on creating what are essentially platform-specific mobile data clients in parallel versions. They're barely even superior to what's possible with HTML now. This is madness.
    - redial 16y ago
      A lot of people are making the same mistake in this thread. the web != the internet. By focusing only on the web you are leaving out other great, open technologies that helped the internet become ubiquitous. IRC, FTP, VoIP, IM, USENET, just to name a few. Yes, HTML is a big part of the internet, maybe even the biggest, but its not the only one.
    - glhaynes 16y ago
      They're barely even superior to what's possible with HTML now. If this were really the case — not just in a spec-sheet way but in a user experience way — why are all these companies making apps?
      - eftpotrm 16y ago
        Beats me; so often IME it's true though. There've even been cases where I've installed the app and found I preferred the company's mobile website so used that instead.
      - mcav 16y ago
        Because customers can buy apps in one click, so they do. If webapps had the same payment/installation procedure, they'd take off like a rocket too. (Given HTML5's local caching and the like.)
        othermaciej 16y ago
        I'd love if it that was true, but the evidence isn't really there. For instance, Chrome Web Store offers a payment/installation for web apps, and it doesn't seem to be taking off like a rocket.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        If people are using apps because they make more money with them, then what is your basis for claiming web apps are superior?
      - notahacker 16y ago
        Obviously there are native app advantages to the end user beyond that, particularly given the slowness of 3G internet and the ease of making payments via the App Store. In many cases though its simply the same reason they also have Facebook fan pages and once had AOL keywords - branding. Steve Jobs even started extolling the virtues of Apple's ability to "bring subscribers" to digitl publishers, and going by their latest announcement, Apple themselves regard their platform as being worth 30% of the value of the content, even to those who would rather process payments themselves. It remains to be seen how far consumers and creators agree.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Couldn't disagree more. The "all apps should be web apps" movement is just an attempt to return to dumb terminals. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way again, but this time "fat client" apps can just be nicer front ends to web services. Personally, my strategy is to create my product as a REST web service and provide some kind of default web interface, but let native clients use the REST interface to provide a nicer experience where applicable. I.e. the HTML interface is just one possible "view" to the service. Why does my native app have to be the completely generic web browser native app when it could be a specific "web browser" custom tailored for my specific service?
Synaesthesia 16y ago
I'd venture to say the internet doesn't get Apple. Many geeks are just anti anything Apple, and have an irrational hatred for them. Apple have made huge contributions to the internet, such as Webkit, promoting web standards, the iPhone and yes, even the iTunes store - still the biggest internet-based media distribution channel.
- sfphotoarts 16y ago
  Nearly every geek I know has a MBP, and every startup I've worked at uses the same.
  - Synaesthesia 16y ago
    Sure, I think I over-generalized a bit - I mean the kind of comments you see from Android boosters and people who are just bewildered by Apple's success.
  - usaar333 16y ago
    His statement definitely feels true the other way though; the most ani-Apple people are geeks.
    - Kylekramer 16y ago
      Well, of course. That is how fandom works. I don't particularly care if Bella gets with Jacob or Edwards, but I don't like the Twilight books. In order to dislike a particular team/company/entity, you probably have to passionate about the field in general.
  - pnathan 16y ago
    I can't stand the walled garden approach Apple takes. I think the OSX/Mac overall experience is the best out there, beating Ubuntu 10.10 and W7. (Reliability, programmer-friendliness, 'normal' programs).
  - dagw 16y ago
    The two aren't as mutually exclusive as one might think. I'm anti-Apple when it comes to their walled garden media strategy, their iOS App store approach and most things connected those. I am however very pro nice, solid, laptops with a unix based OS that just works out of the box, and that basically means buying Apple.
Synaesthesia 16y ago
Also I think Google get social, they appreciate it's potential but just haven't succeeded at it yet. They weren't focused on it.
- Travis 16y ago
  What is your evidence to support that statement? All I see is many attempts that indicate Google gets that social is important. All those attempts seem to illustrate (to me), that they don't get how to do it, or what the core ideas in "social" are about.
epistasis 16y ago
iOS tries hard to make web apps first class citizens. And the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript parts that make this possible are in HTML5. It's not that Apple doesn't understand the internet, it's that many geeks want "native" apps, rather than having web apps on mobile devices. Apple tolerates these apps, but just barely, and offers the web as the way out of their walled garden.
- kbutler 16y ago
  >Apple tolerates these [native] apps, but just barely, and offers the web as the way out of their walled garden. Geeks wanting native apps, and Apple reluctantly going along may have been the case when the iPhone & App Store first began, but Apple has long since realized that the app channel is very valuable to users and to the platform, and that control over that channel will be hugely profitable. If Apple really wanted to have webapps be first class iOS citizens, they would provide Phonegap capabilities standardized in the native browser (http://www.phonegap.com/ http://www.phonegap.com/).
  - epistasis 16y ago
    PhoneGap seems interesting, but I don't fully understand it yet. Which of its capabilities should be added to the browser? Should they be standardized in HTML5 or should they be part of a devices OS?
    - semanticist 16y ago
      PhoneGap provides, if you include its JavaScript file in your PhoneGap-wrapped web app, JavaScript APIs to the camera, stored photos, the address book, and some other stuff. Some of this stuff is in 'HTML5', like geolocation, but much of it isn't. Apple could have provided custom APIs to the camera and so on and allowed people to access it from their iOS-specific web apps. The way that an API gets to be a standard is that someone implements it and people use it - if Apple had included a camera access API in Mobile Safari, it probably would have found its way into a spec and been implemented by other browsers. Your last question seems confused: HTML/CSS rendering and JavaScript processing is part of the device's OS (in the form of its web browser). No browser does everything that's in the standard, and most browsers do things that aren't in the standard. Just adding it to the spec for HTML5 wouldn't be directly meaningful.
larrik 16y ago
Exhibit A: iTunes (the service) is essentially blocked off from being accessed by people who don't have iTunes (the program) installed. This becomes VERY obvious if you run Linux. The App Store and the iTune music library are not easily searchable or browseable from your Linux PC. 3rd party websites that do this instead aren't really the point, either.
- sudont 16y ago
  Not quite, iTunes is a proprietary service that just happens to utilize HTML as it's markup language, at least in Apple's intent. It's use is similar to the use of XML in other applications: the service is strictly there for one client, it just so happens that a lot of other applications implement it. The web-accessible version is a benefit of this, but it really reveals the bullshit motive behind keeping iTunes' store closed.
- pohl 16y ago
  I don't think that makes a very compelling exhibit, given that "the internet" is not "all things you can get to via a web browser". The internet, rather, is IP, TCP, UDP, etc...and every protocol built on top of it. This includes HTTP & HTML (which iTunes leverages heavily) but also a many other things that are not browser-oriented. Regardless, I think your exhibit is more easily explained by Apple understanding exactly who is likely to spend money and making them want to be their customers. I'm a huge Debian fanatic, but I have to admit that the linux users are the most tight-fisted demographic I've ever seen.
  - krakensden 16y ago
    We're not that tight fisted, and besides, what's the point of actively working to make it harder for us to give Apple money?
  - btmorex 16y ago
    but I have to admit that the linux users are the most tight-fisted demographic I've ever seen. This seems to suggest the exact opposite of what you just said: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28471/Humble_Indie_Bundle_Charity_Drive_Approaches_700000.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28471/Humble_Indie_Bundle...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Samuel_Michon 16y ago
Apple understands the internet, it just doesn't like what it sees. There's a lot of smut, hate speech, pirated content, and malware out there. Just as Google has tried to do with its search engine, Apple is building a system that makes it easy to find quality content. Content that is legal, age rated and doesn't harm your devices. A lot of families value those qualities over 'absolute freedom'.
- Lewisham 16y ago
  I would disagree. Apple fundamentally doesn't understand the Internet. MobileMe/.Mac has been a decent disaster for a long time, not even able to meet the quality levels of services that Google gives away for free. That's not because Apple chooses to not like bits about the net, that's because Apple doesn't seem to have any idea what its doing in that space. I'd say that Apple doesn't just not understand the Internet, but at a higher level, it doesn't understand communication. Look at the iOS notification system: it is, and always has been, fundamentally broken. It assumes you'll only get a single notification, and that that notification is so important that it should interrupt your current app to get it. Apple have been selling computers in phone formats. Android, Microsoft, and especially Palm, are selling you communicators, that pulls in data from all over your communication space and centralizes it. Apple doesn't seem to know how to do this (or assumes most people don't have an online persona in various locations, which I think most people really do).
  - Samuel_Michon 16y ago
    What you're saying is that Apple doesn't understand social networking and cloud services. I agree, but I suspect Apple is working on those; although it's anyone's guess what they're going to do with the massive data center they've just built in NC. The article was about Apple trying to control how people interact with content on the internet. The author feels that that's against the nature of the internet, hence: "Apple doesn't understand the internet".
    - Lewisham 16y ago
      Well, to be fair, the author only has one paragraph about Apple and the Internet, and you could get multiple readings from it :) When I read control and centralization, I don't just think of iTunes, but I do think of Apple's dogged insistence that everything you do is essentially tied to one machine. Your iPhone, and (as I think Tim Bray described it "monsterously") your iPad, need to be sync'd to a computer when they start up, for no compelling reason. My Android phone lets me type in my Google ID and off I go. Honestly, I think Apple's attitude towards the Internet is not because they don't like it. I think they just don't know what to do with it, certainly aren't willing to partner with companies that do, and they're letting their market get chipped away little by little. I've felt like Apple have been resting on their laurels for years, software-wise. Jonathan Ive is producing great hardware, but year on year competitors are catching up or surpassing Mac OS X and iOS, and Apple doesn't seem to notice/care.
alsomike 16y ago
Google has failed multiple times at launching social apps. Is there an equivalent series of Apple failures from being too controlling? If not, what makes this a blindspot?
- redial 16y ago
  iTools, .Mac and MobileMe. Also, Ping.
  - foljs 16y ago
    Those are failures from "being too controlling"? I'd say there are from being lackluster.
  - yardie 16y ago
    The first 3 are the same thing and aren't even social apps. But, iTools was great when it was around. Way ahead of its time and free! When they went to subscription model I think most early adopters had a hard time justifying the price when you could get hotmail for nothing.
  - alsomike 16y ago
    Evidence that these failures are due to Apple's blindspot of being too controlling?
zipdog 16y ago
Thinking about the questions at the end, Microsoft is (or was) really good at backwards compatibility (and making it easy to import other formats into their own). This is their weakness: they are focused on getting content into their own formats. Facebook's strength is to get people to impart information into their system. Their weakness is in always trying to make it public (or at the least visible to anyone you friend)
- notahacker 16y ago
  My slightly different spin: Microsoft is very good at understanding the median user. Their sweet spot is good enough to justify paying rather than reassuringly expensive, and they impress users with feature lists and [sometimes illusory] choice over usability and extensibility. As a result their products can be pretty horrible for beginners and power users alike, and their blindness towards early adopters leaves them paying catchup in markets like smartphones Facebook's strength is addictiveness; they understand how to get eyeballs in. Their weakness is a failure to add much value to users' lives beyond voyeurism and distraction.
  - bgruber 16y ago
    this bit of thread makes me feel like it's time for neal stephenson to write a sequel to in the beginning was the command line, only this time the car companies are apple, google and facebook instead of microsoft, apple, be, and linux.
jarin 16y ago
What this is basically saying is that the software these companies create doesn't understand the complexities and chaos of human interaction and thought. Pretty sure people have been working on this problem for a while, and it won't be solved anytime soon.
- Travis 16y ago
  Agreed. How can you possibly expect a computer to make a non-optimal decision, such as humans regularly do (e.g., the lottery, short versus long-term output, etc.)? Until we can model these decisions, there will be areas that tech falls flat.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
joshes 16y ago
The author claims that Google doesn't "get" social because social relies on messiness and Google's forte is providing order. However, Facebook, an organization who does seem to understand social exceedingly well, is known for its emphasis on organization. We see stories about the higher-ups in Facebook, such as Zuckerberg, and their heavy hitters whom have gone on to other projects (colloquially known as the "Facebook Mafia") all sharing this desire to organize messy, chaotic information across numerous domains. If Facebook succeeds in social, at least in part because of its attention to order and organization, why is this fatal for Google?
- philsalesses 16y ago
  In my opinion, facebook can see order where others would see chaos. Order does not mean hierarchical yet too often those are the buckets information is placed in. Facebook identifies hubs and organize things around those hubs. Flexible yet rigid organizational structures are the future.
pdenya 16y ago
This article doesn't make sense. Recap: Apple gets people but doesn't get the internet because the internet is too messy. Google gets the internet but doesn't get people because people are too messy.
rradu 16y ago
"Google doesn't know how to have fun" Has anyone ever actually said this? Between the logo doodles, April fools jokes, and bright colors, Google is one of the funnest companies around.
- seabee 16y ago
  Don't forget silly extras you find from time to time (kayak across the Pacific in Maps, 'Undo send' in gmail). How often do you find things like that from large companies?
  - nickpinkston 16y ago
    Undo send is awesome - my ADD ass always remembers one more thing just after hitting send. The delay helps on a mental level oddly enough.
YooLi 16y ago
People buy Apple because they like the way they work in comparison to everything else. Since a lot of people seem to be buying Apple devices, by extension does that mean a lot of people don't understand the internet?
rbarooah 16y ago
I think it would be more accurate to say that from Apple's perspective 'the internet' is more than just the World Wide Web. Apps (and desktop applications) are peers to the browser - not something that necessarily has to run within it. Part of the reason so much online activity shifted to the web in the web 1.0 era was that the browser sidestepped the problems of distributing and updating client applications. With its app stores, Apple has solved these problems, and put applications back on an equal footing with web apps. Whether or not this is is the winning strategy over the long term remains to be seen, but I think it's hard to make the case that Apple doesn't understand the internet.
vinceval 16y ago
I think facebook understand human intra-actions. It understand community. But it lacks understanding complications in relationships. What is lacks is understanding of what is excess of usual social-ness. I dont really think they are helping anyone with their social gaming time-waste-con or their wall post advertisements or lot of means to do completely unproductive stuff. For Microsoft its simple. They understand customers, and they understand that avg customer never needs over-excellence in product. So, they would never be creative like apple, or tech-savvy like google. Its sad, but the software giant will never be upto the mark when it comes to driving technology and innovations.
tatti_ke_tukde 16y ago
what is this article about? It is totally random, not edited. It clearly lacks lack of thought.
leon_ 16y ago
Internet != Web
brudgers 16y ago
>"What, for example, is Microsoft really, really good at? Or Facebook?" Microsoft is really good at B2B. Facebook has a great email replacement because it does not fill your inbox with your friend's vacation photos, but still provides the opportunity to view them.

113 points by jfrumar 16y ago

apress 16y ago

Apps are a return to the walled garden -- the anti-Internet, if you will.

sfphotoarts 16y ago
No they are not! apps mostly use the internet for their data, but provide a richer UX than what a web browser can do. The internet is the underpinning of most apps.
- brd 16y ago
  Apps may not be the antithesis of the Internet, but the concept of an App Store arguably is. Internet = decentralized freedom, App store = centralized control. The data is not the problem, the communication medium is not the problem, the issue is the control over the distribution channel.
- eftpotrm 16y ago
  But so much of the beauty of the Internet is its portable ubiquity; I can write a website once and it's available in much the same format to Windows, MacOS, Unix, iOS, Android.... you name it. Whereas in the mobile world we're seeing _millions_ spent on creating what are essentially platform-specific mobile data clients in parallel versions. They're barely even superior to what's possible with HTML now. This is madness.
  - redial 16y ago
    A lot of people are making the same mistake in this thread. the web != the internet. By focusing only on the web you are leaving out other great, open technologies that helped the internet become ubiquitous. IRC, FTP, VoIP, IM, USENET, just to name a few. Yes, HTML is a big part of the internet, maybe even the biggest, but its not the only one.
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    They're barely even superior to what's possible with HTML now. If this were really the case — not just in a spec-sheet way but in a user experience way — why are all these companies making apps?
    - eftpotrm 16y ago
      Beats me; so often IME it's true though. There've even been cases where I've installed the app and found I preferred the company's mobile website so used that instead.
    - mcav 16y ago
      Because customers can buy apps in one click, so they do. If webapps had the same payment/installation procedure, they'd take off like a rocket too. (Given HTML5's local caching and the like.)
      - othermaciej 16y ago
        I'd love if it that was true, but the evidence isn't really there. For instance, Chrome Web Store offers a payment/installation for web apps, and it doesn't seem to be taking off like a rocket.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        If people are using apps because they make more money with them, then what is your basis for claiming web apps are superior?
    - notahacker 16y ago
      Obviously there are native app advantages to the end user beyond that, particularly given the slowness of 3G internet and the ease of making payments via the App Store. In many cases though its simply the same reason they also have Facebook fan pages and once had AOL keywords - branding. Steve Jobs even started extolling the virtues of Apple's ability to "bring subscribers" to digitl publishers, and going by their latest announcement, Apple themselves regard their platform as being worth 30% of the value of the content, even to those who would rather process payments themselves. It remains to be seen how far consumers and creators agree.
loewenskind 16y ago
Couldn't disagree more. The "all apps should be web apps" movement is just an attempt to return to dumb terminals. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way again, but this time "fat client" apps can just be nicer front ends to web services. Personally, my strategy is to create my product as a REST web service and provide some kind of default web interface, but let native clients use the REST interface to provide a nicer experience where applicable. I.e. the HTML interface is just one possible "view" to the service. Why does my native app have to be the completely generic web browser native app when it could be a specific "web browser" custom tailored for my specific service?

Synaesthesia 16y ago

I'd venture to say the internet doesn't get Apple. Many geeks are just anti anything Apple, and have an irrational hatred for them. Apple have made huge contributions to the internet, such as Webkit, promoting web standards, the iPhone and yes, even the iTunes store - still the biggest internet-based media distribution channel.

sfphotoarts 16y ago
Nearly every geek I know has a MBP, and every startup I've worked at uses the same.
- Synaesthesia 16y ago
  Sure, I think I over-generalized a bit - I mean the kind of comments you see from Android boosters and people who are just bewildered by Apple's success.
- usaar333 16y ago
  His statement definitely feels true the other way though; the most ani-Apple people are geeks.
  - Kylekramer 16y ago
    Well, of course. That is how fandom works. I don't particularly care if Bella gets with Jacob or Edwards, but I don't like the Twilight books. In order to dislike a particular team/company/entity, you probably have to passionate about the field in general.
- pnathan 16y ago
  I can't stand the walled garden approach Apple takes. I think the OSX/Mac overall experience is the best out there, beating Ubuntu 10.10 and W7. (Reliability, programmer-friendliness, 'normal' programs).
- dagw 16y ago
  The two aren't as mutually exclusive as one might think. I'm anti-Apple when it comes to their walled garden media strategy, their iOS App store approach and most things connected those. I am however very pro nice, solid, laptops with a unix based OS that just works out of the box, and that basically means buying Apple.

Synaesthesia 16y ago

Also I think Google get social, they appreciate it's potential but just haven't succeeded at it yet. They weren't focused on it.

Travis 16y ago
What is your evidence to support that statement? All I see is many attempts that indicate Google gets that social is important. All those attempts seem to illustrate (to me), that they don't get how to do it, or what the core ideas in "social" are about.

epistasis 16y ago

iOS tries hard to make web apps first class citizens. And the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript parts that make this possible are in HTML5. It's not that Apple doesn't understand the internet, it's that many geeks want "native" apps, rather than having web apps on mobile devices. Apple tolerates these apps, but just barely, and offers the web as the way out of their walled garden.

kbutler 16y ago
>Apple tolerates these [native] apps, but just barely, and offers the web as the way out of their walled garden. Geeks wanting native apps, and Apple reluctantly going along may have been the case when the iPhone & App Store first began, but Apple has long since realized that the app channel is very valuable to users and to the platform, and that control over that channel will be hugely profitable. If Apple really wanted to have webapps be first class iOS citizens, they would provide Phonegap capabilities standardized in the native browser (http://www.phonegap.com/ http://www.phonegap.com/).
- epistasis 16y ago
  PhoneGap seems interesting, but I don't fully understand it yet. Which of its capabilities should be added to the browser? Should they be standardized in HTML5 or should they be part of a devices OS?
  - semanticist 16y ago
    PhoneGap provides, if you include its JavaScript file in your PhoneGap-wrapped web app, JavaScript APIs to the camera, stored photos, the address book, and some other stuff. Some of this stuff is in 'HTML5', like geolocation, but much of it isn't. Apple could have provided custom APIs to the camera and so on and allowed people to access it from their iOS-specific web apps. The way that an API gets to be a standard is that someone implements it and people use it - if Apple had included a camera access API in Mobile Safari, it probably would have found its way into a spec and been implemented by other browsers. Your last question seems confused: HTML/CSS rendering and JavaScript processing is part of the device's OS (in the form of its web browser). No browser does everything that's in the standard, and most browsers do things that aren't in the standard. Just adding it to the spec for HTML5 wouldn't be directly meaningful.

larrik 16y ago

Exhibit A: iTunes (the service) is essentially blocked off from being accessed by people who don't have iTunes (the program) installed. This becomes VERY obvious if you run Linux. The App Store and the iTune music library are not easily searchable or browseable from your Linux PC. 3rd party websites that do this instead aren't really the point, either.

sudont 16y ago
Not quite, iTunes is a proprietary service that just happens to utilize HTML as it's markup language, at least in Apple's intent. It's use is similar to the use of XML in other applications: the service is strictly there for one client, it just so happens that a lot of other applications implement it. The web-accessible version is a benefit of this, but it really reveals the bullshit motive behind keeping iTunes' store closed.
pohl 16y ago
I don't think that makes a very compelling exhibit, given that "the internet" is not "all things you can get to via a web browser". The internet, rather, is IP, TCP, UDP, etc...and every protocol built on top of it. This includes HTTP & HTML (which iTunes leverages heavily) but also a many other things that are not browser-oriented. Regardless, I think your exhibit is more easily explained by Apple understanding exactly who is likely to spend money and making them want to be their customers. I'm a huge Debian fanatic, but I have to admit that the linux users are the most tight-fisted demographic I've ever seen.
- krakensden 16y ago
  We're not that tight fisted, and besides, what's the point of actively working to make it harder for us to give Apple money?
- btmorex 16y ago
  but I have to admit that the linux users are the most tight-fisted demographic I've ever seen. This seems to suggest the exact opposite of what you just said: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28471/Humble_Indie_Bundle_Charity_Drive_Approaches_700000.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28471/Humble_Indie_Bundle...

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Samuel_Michon 16y ago

Apple understands the internet, it just doesn't like what it sees. There's a lot of smut, hate speech, pirated content, and malware out there. Just as Google has tried to do with its search engine, Apple is building a system that makes it easy to find quality content. Content that is legal, age rated and doesn't harm your devices. A lot of families value those qualities over 'absolute freedom'.

Lewisham 16y ago
I would disagree. Apple fundamentally doesn't understand the Internet. MobileMe/.Mac has been a decent disaster for a long time, not even able to meet the quality levels of services that Google gives away for free. That's not because Apple chooses to not like bits about the net, that's because Apple doesn't seem to have any idea what its doing in that space. I'd say that Apple doesn't just not understand the Internet, but at a higher level, it doesn't understand communication. Look at the iOS notification system: it is, and always has been, fundamentally broken. It assumes you'll only get a single notification, and that that notification is so important that it should interrupt your current app to get it. Apple have been selling computers in phone formats. Android, Microsoft, and especially Palm, are selling you communicators, that pulls in data from all over your communication space and centralizes it. Apple doesn't seem to know how to do this (or assumes most people don't have an online persona in various locations, which I think most people really do).
- Samuel_Michon 16y ago
  What you're saying is that Apple doesn't understand social networking and cloud services. I agree, but I suspect Apple is working on those; although it's anyone's guess what they're going to do with the massive data center they've just built in NC. The article was about Apple trying to control how people interact with content on the internet. The author feels that that's against the nature of the internet, hence: "Apple doesn't understand the internet".
  - Lewisham 16y ago
    Well, to be fair, the author only has one paragraph about Apple and the Internet, and you could get multiple readings from it :) When I read control and centralization, I don't just think of iTunes, but I do think of Apple's dogged insistence that everything you do is essentially tied to one machine. Your iPhone, and (as I think Tim Bray described it "monsterously") your iPad, need to be sync'd to a computer when they start up, for no compelling reason. My Android phone lets me type in my Google ID and off I go. Honestly, I think Apple's attitude towards the Internet is not because they don't like it. I think they just don't know what to do with it, certainly aren't willing to partner with companies that do, and they're letting their market get chipped away little by little. I've felt like Apple have been resting on their laurels for years, software-wise. Jonathan Ive is producing great hardware, but year on year competitors are catching up or surpassing Mac OS X and iOS, and Apple doesn't seem to notice/care.

alsomike 16y ago

Google has failed multiple times at launching social apps. Is there an equivalent series of Apple failures from being too controlling? If not, what makes this a blindspot?

redial 16y ago
iTools, .Mac and MobileMe. Also, Ping.
- foljs 16y ago
  Those are failures from "being too controlling"? I'd say there are from being lackluster.
- yardie 16y ago
  The first 3 are the same thing and aren't even social apps. But, iTools was great when it was around. Way ahead of its time and free! When they went to subscription model I think most early adopters had a hard time justifying the price when you could get hotmail for nothing.
- alsomike 16y ago
  Evidence that these failures are due to Apple's blindspot of being too controlling?

zipdog 16y ago

Thinking about the questions at the end, Microsoft is (or was) really good at backwards compatibility (and making it easy to import other formats into their own). This is their weakness: they are focused on getting content into their own formats. Facebook's strength is to get people to impart information into their system. Their weakness is in always trying to make it public (or at the least visible to anyone you friend)

notahacker 16y ago
My slightly different spin: Microsoft is very good at understanding the median user. Their sweet spot is good enough to justify paying rather than reassuringly expensive, and they impress users with feature lists and [sometimes illusory] choice over usability and extensibility. As a result their products can be pretty horrible for beginners and power users alike, and their blindness towards early adopters leaves them paying catchup in markets like smartphones Facebook's strength is addictiveness; they understand how to get eyeballs in. Their weakness is a failure to add much value to users' lives beyond voyeurism and distraction.
- bgruber 16y ago
  this bit of thread makes me feel like it's time for neal stephenson to write a sequel to in the beginning was the command line, only this time the car companies are apple, google and facebook instead of microsoft, apple, be, and linux.

jarin 16y ago

What this is basically saying is that the software these companies create doesn't understand the complexities and chaos of human interaction and thought. Pretty sure people have been working on this problem for a while, and it won't be solved anytime soon.

Travis 16y ago
Agreed. How can you possibly expect a computer to make a non-optimal decision, such as humans regularly do (e.g., the lottery, short versus long-term output, etc.)? Until we can model these decisions, there will be areas that tech falls flat.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

joshes 16y ago

The author claims that Google doesn't "get" social because social relies on messiness and Google's forte is providing order. However, Facebook, an organization who does seem to understand social exceedingly well, is known for its emphasis on organization. We see stories about the higher-ups in Facebook, such as Zuckerberg, and their heavy hitters whom have gone on to other projects (colloquially known as the "Facebook Mafia") all sharing this desire to organize messy, chaotic information across numerous domains. If Facebook succeeds in social, at least in part because of its attention to order and organization, why is this fatal for Google?

philsalesses 16y ago
In my opinion, facebook can see order where others would see chaos. Order does not mean hierarchical yet too often those are the buckets information is placed in. Facebook identifies hubs and organize things around those hubs. Flexible yet rigid organizational structures are the future.

pdenya 16y ago

This article doesn't make sense. Recap: Apple gets people but doesn't get the internet because the internet is too messy. Google gets the internet but doesn't get people because people are too messy.

rradu 16y ago

"Google doesn't know how to have fun" Has anyone ever actually said this? Between the logo doodles, April fools jokes, and bright colors, Google is one of the funnest companies around.

seabee 16y ago
Don't forget silly extras you find from time to time (kayak across the Pacific in Maps, 'Undo send' in gmail). How often do you find things like that from large companies?
- nickpinkston 16y ago
  Undo send is awesome - my ADD ass always remembers one more thing just after hitting send. The delay helps on a mental level oddly enough.

YooLi 16y ago

People buy Apple because they like the way they work in comparison to everything else. Since a lot of people seem to be buying Apple devices, by extension does that mean a lot of people don't understand the internet?

rbarooah 16y ago

I think it would be more accurate to say that from Apple's perspective 'the internet' is more than just the World Wide Web. Apps (and desktop applications) are peers to the browser - not something that necessarily has to run within it. Part of the reason so much online activity shifted to the web in the web 1.0 era was that the browser sidestepped the problems of distributing and updating client applications. With its app stores, Apple has solved these problems, and put applications back on an equal footing with web apps. Whether or not this is is the winning strategy over the long term remains to be seen, but I think it's hard to make the case that Apple doesn't understand the internet.

vinceval 16y ago

I think facebook understand human intra-actions. It understand community. But it lacks understanding complications in relationships. What is lacks is understanding of what is excess of usual social-ness. I dont really think they are helping anyone with their social gaming time-waste-con or their wall post advertisements or lot of means to do completely unproductive stuff. For Microsoft its simple. They understand customers, and they understand that avg customer never needs over-excellence in product. So, they would never be creative like apple, or tech-savvy like google. Its sad, but the software giant will never be upto the mark when it comes to driving technology and innovations.

tatti_ke_tukde 16y ago

what is this article about? It is totally random, not edited. It clearly lacks lack of thought.

leon_ 16y ago

Internet != Web

brudgers 16y ago

>"What, for example, is Microsoft really, really good at? Or Facebook?" Microsoft is really good at B2B. Facebook has a great email replacement because it does not fill your inbox with your friend's vacation photos, but still provides the opportunity to view them.