5 ms·

How is "never the case" derived from this email? This email was sent after iPhone shipped and doesn't say anything about shipping Cocoa Touch as a goal before t

by trimbo 5y ago

How is "never the case" derived from this email? This email was sent after iPhone shipped and doesn't say anything about shipping Cocoa Touch as a goal before this point.

shellac 5y ago
Seems like clear case that is _was_ the case, unless Steve Jobs liked to ensure his intended features were very secret indeed, and delivered late.
wayneftw 5y ago
You think Apple planned to run forever with just web apps at any point during the development of the iPhone? No. Clearly web apps were a stop-gap until they got their SDK done. They always planned on having an app store and pushing web apps to the side once they got their gatekeeping mechanism in place.
- rgovostes 5y ago
  This claim is directly contradicted by this e-mail exchange from October 2007, the very e-mail exchange in which they decided to move forward with a native app SDK. The iPhone was announced in January 2007, a full 9 months earlier, and was in development for a few years before that. If they "always planned" the App Store, why would Bertrand, one of Steve's direct reports, be writing as if this were a brand new idea? One of the original iPhone's "killer features" was a full, desktop-equivalent web browser in the days of the "mobile web" and WAP. They invested significant engineering effort into making it performant, adding UI affordances for zooming and panning around pages that couldn't fit on a 3.5" screen, and so on. It's completely believable they thought this solution was enough for third-party apps.
  - wayneftw 5y ago
    OK, so you think an email that starts with "Fine, let's enable Cocoa Touch apps" is presenting "Cocoa Touch apps" as a new idea? Please. It's an idea they'd obviously been discussing. There is no way in hell that Apple, a company that has always, always, always kept very tight control over their platform ever actually planned for web apps to be the one and only type of app for the iPhone. > One of the original iPhone's "killer features" was a full, desktop-equivalent web browser Nobody is disputing that. Of course they needed the web...until they didn't - and they absolutely planned the switch from web apps to native apps from the get go. Anyone who actually believes otherwise - I've got a bridge to sell you. Looks like I underestimated the amount of stockholm syndrome surrounding this company though. Oh well - enjoy your dystopian new world order!
    - mcphage 5y ago
      > is presenting "Cocoa Touch apps" as a new idea? Cocoa Touch apps wasn't a new idea, since that's what all of the Apple-developed native iPhone apps used. What's new to this email is getting approval for enabling 3rd parties to write & release them without jailbreaking your phone.
    - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
      Ah yeah, the deluded (you) thinking everybody else are the insane ones. If you look back at that time period, the "Fine!" surely came about because iPhone jailbreakers had extracted the API from the apps and were making their own Cocoa Touch apps and sideloading it onto the iPhone. "Let's enable" sounds like they decided to open it up to the public, if your theory about stop-gaps is correct I would've expected the wording to be "Fine, let's enable CT apps early.". The rest of the email also talks about the jail which is the app store, which seems to be a rough concept of "What we need to make this happen", rather than something that they've been preparing in the background. It looks more like you're having a stockholm syndrome with your own "knowledge".
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    You have to keep in mind that with iPhone they built a truly revolutionary device not even remotely like anything that had ever been built. And then the jailbreak community took it and ran with it and immediately demonstrated the next level of what was possible. It’s not that strange it didn’t all work out the way they had planned. If, prior to the original demo, you had asked just about anyone how long it would take to build something like the iPhone they would have probably said it was a decade away. There is a reason the Android project had to throw their whole UI out of the window and start over. And if took years before they were anywhere near the iPhone experience.

by trimbo 5y ago

How is "never the case" derived from this email? This email was sent after iPhone shipped and doesn't say anything about shipping Cocoa Touch as a goal before this point.

shellac 5y ago

Seems like clear case that is _was_ the case, unless Steve Jobs liked to ensure his intended features were very secret indeed, and delivered late.

wayneftw 5y ago

You think Apple planned to run forever with just web apps at any point during the development of the iPhone? No. Clearly web apps were a stop-gap until they got their SDK done. They always planned on having an app store and pushing web apps to the side once they got their gatekeeping mechanism in place.

rgovostes 5y ago
This claim is directly contradicted by this e-mail exchange from October 2007, the very e-mail exchange in which they decided to move forward with a native app SDK. The iPhone was announced in January 2007, a full 9 months earlier, and was in development for a few years before that. If they "always planned" the App Store, why would Bertrand, one of Steve's direct reports, be writing as if this were a brand new idea? One of the original iPhone's "killer features" was a full, desktop-equivalent web browser in the days of the "mobile web" and WAP. They invested significant engineering effort into making it performant, adding UI affordances for zooming and panning around pages that couldn't fit on a 3.5" screen, and so on. It's completely believable they thought this solution was enough for third-party apps.
- wayneftw 5y ago
  OK, so you think an email that starts with "Fine, let's enable Cocoa Touch apps" is presenting "Cocoa Touch apps" as a new idea? Please. It's an idea they'd obviously been discussing. There is no way in hell that Apple, a company that has always, always, always kept very tight control over their platform ever actually planned for web apps to be the one and only type of app for the iPhone. > One of the original iPhone's "killer features" was a full, desktop-equivalent web browser Nobody is disputing that. Of course they needed the web...until they didn't - and they absolutely planned the switch from web apps to native apps from the get go. Anyone who actually believes otherwise - I've got a bridge to sell you. Looks like I underestimated the amount of stockholm syndrome surrounding this company though. Oh well - enjoy your dystopian new world order!
  - mcphage 5y ago
    > is presenting "Cocoa Touch apps" as a new idea? Cocoa Touch apps wasn't a new idea, since that's what all of the Apple-developed native iPhone apps used. What's new to this email is getting approval for enabling 3rd parties to write & release them without jailbreaking your phone.
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    Ah yeah, the deluded (you) thinking everybody else are the insane ones. If you look back at that time period, the "Fine!" surely came about because iPhone jailbreakers had extracted the API from the apps and were making their own Cocoa Touch apps and sideloading it onto the iPhone. "Let's enable" sounds like they decided to open it up to the public, if your theory about stop-gaps is correct I would've expected the wording to be "Fine, let's enable CT apps early.". The rest of the email also talks about the jail which is the app store, which seems to be a rough concept of "What we need to make this happen", rather than something that they've been preparing in the background. It looks more like you're having a stockholm syndrome with your own "knowledge".
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  You have to keep in mind that with iPhone they built a truly revolutionary device not even remotely like anything that had ever been built. And then the jailbreak community took it and ran with it and immediately demonstrated the next level of what was possible. It’s not that strange it didn’t all work out the way they had planned. If, prior to the original demo, you had asked just about anyone how long it would take to build something like the iPhone they would have probably said it was a decade away. There is a reason the Android project had to throw their whole UI out of the window and start over. And if took years before they were anywhere near the iPhone experience.