4 ms·

He's right and certainly more levelheaded about these kinds of issues than most, but what most don't realize is that many of the software platforms we love have

He's right and certainly more levelheaded about these kinds of issues than most, but what most don't realize is that many of the software platforms we love have had worse policies for years. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Sega all have/had extremely rigorous review process that was even worse than Apple's if you want to be on their game platform. Phone companies had all these build processes if you wanted to write Java ME apps to work on feature phones. And so on and so forth. The problem is, as devs we are spoiled by the web, where you can just push out new code that says or does whatever you want it to without any consequence because the web is a "relatively" safe runtime, so nobody cares. We are like children who grew up with a silver spoon in our mouth and we've been asked to endure plastic. Sure, it's still a spoon, but it's not silver and that pisses us off.

mcantelon 15y ago
>We are like children who grew up with a silver spoon in our mouth and we've been asked to endure plastic. Sure, it's still a spoon, but it's not silver and that pisses us off. No, we're like adults used to being able to do what we want with our own hardware. Being able to do what you want with hardware is the historical computing norm (gaming consoles being the exception). Android-based devices carry on this tradition so I use them, rather than paying Apple $99/year for the privilege of putting applications I've written on my own hardware.
- Derbasti 15y ago
  Really, you are paying for the privilege to be listed in the App Store and to be distributed to customers.
  - mcantelon 15y ago
    Unless you jailbreak, you can't even make your own app and have it run on your own phone without paying $99/year. And as far as paying for the privilege of being including in the App Store, seems like the 30% cut Apple takes should more than cover that.
caf 15y ago
Long before the web, coding for Plain Old DesktopS also had the property that you could push out new code without a gatekeeper between you and your users.
gbog 15y ago
> Phone companies had all these build processes Well, yes, and that's why we had crappy phones for years before iPhone and Android arrived, as noted by Jeff Atwood. I think it shows again that, not unlike the first PCs and their open slots for third-party cards, openness is the right move. Many people here seem to renounce to this, mostly because Apple's walled garden is currently at a pinnacle, but in my opinion it is an accident. Apple's products manage to grasp most of the attention around for emotional reasons, and some forget that the future is not built on closed formats, closed markets, etc. I am surprised that it is not so obvious, especially for US citizens. The Web builds on open protocols. The PC-era built on the fact that you could open the box and plug things of your doing in it. Wikipedia, which everyone uses constantly and forget, is an open community task. My two years-old kid is learning a lot, but it is not linear, he sometimes go backward a bit. I think we are in this backward pulse, with everyone suddenly dissmissing the possibility to open, change, modify softwares, in exchange of a (temporary) slightly better user experience. To the Apple lover crowd: please feel free to downvote, and check my past comments to downvotes them also if you didn't already. I'm used to it now, I don't care about my karma. Anyway, I'll loose some more re-upvoting all those perfectly acceptable comments I find grayed in some threads, apparently because they are not respectful enough to the King. Oh, and I like Apple, I learnt computing on an Apple ][, I applauded to the very smart Unix move for MacOS, many of my colleagues and friend own a MPB or A, but none would be enough of a zealots to try to hide out comments expressing concerns about walled gardens.
- raganwald 15y ago
  Your comment would read better without the argumentative side-excursion in the second-last paragraph. You make this great point, then instead of resting on it, you distract me from thinking about what you're trying to say and ask me to start thinking about whether everyone who down votes you is an Apple lover. Wy make me work to re-read your comment to remind myself what you actually came here to say?
  - gbog 15y ago
    You are right, I should have split it in two probably.

mcantelon 15y ago

>We are like children who grew up with a silver spoon in our mouth and we've been asked to endure plastic. Sure, it's still a spoon, but it's not silver and that pisses us off. No, we're like adults used to being able to do what we want with our own hardware. Being able to do what you want with hardware is the historical computing norm (gaming consoles being the exception). Android-based devices carry on this tradition so I use them, rather than paying Apple $99/year for the privilege of putting applications I've written on my own hardware.

Derbasti 15y ago
Really, you are paying for the privilege to be listed in the App Store and to be distributed to customers.
- mcantelon 15y ago
  Unless you jailbreak, you can't even make your own app and have it run on your own phone without paying $99/year. And as far as paying for the privilege of being including in the App Store, seems like the 30% cut Apple takes should more than cover that.

caf 15y ago

Long before the web, coding for Plain Old DesktopS also had the property that you could push out new code without a gatekeeper between you and your users.

gbog 15y ago

> Phone companies had all these build processes Well, yes, and that's why we had crappy phones for years before iPhone and Android arrived, as noted by Jeff Atwood. I think it shows again that, not unlike the first PCs and their open slots for third-party cards, openness is the right move. Many people here seem to renounce to this, mostly because Apple's walled garden is currently at a pinnacle, but in my opinion it is an accident. Apple's products manage to grasp most of the attention around for emotional reasons, and some forget that the future is not built on closed formats, closed markets, etc. I am surprised that it is not so obvious, especially for US citizens. The Web builds on open protocols. The PC-era built on the fact that you could open the box and plug things of your doing in it. Wikipedia, which everyone uses constantly and forget, is an open community task. My two years-old kid is learning a lot, but it is not linear, he sometimes go backward a bit. I think we are in this backward pulse, with everyone suddenly dissmissing the possibility to open, change, modify softwares, in exchange of a (temporary) slightly better user experience. To the Apple lover crowd: please feel free to downvote, and check my past comments to downvotes them also if you didn't already. I'm used to it now, I don't care about my karma. Anyway, I'll loose some more re-upvoting all those perfectly acceptable comments I find grayed in some threads, apparently because they are not respectful enough to the King. Oh, and I like Apple, I learnt computing on an Apple ][, I applauded to the very smart Unix move for MacOS, many of my colleagues and friend own a MPB or A, but none would be enough of a zealots to try to hide out comments expressing concerns about walled gardens.

raganwald 15y ago
Your comment would read better without the argumentative side-excursion in the second-last paragraph. You make this great point, then instead of resting on it, you distract me from thinking about what you're trying to say and ask me to start thinking about whether everyone who down votes you is an Apple lover. Wy make me work to re-read your comment to remind myself what you actually came here to say?
- gbog 15y ago
  You are right, I should have split it in two probably.