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Apple has one of the most damaging two-faced approaches where on the public side they say they are all about openness and power users and security but on the pr

Apple has one of the most damaging two-faced approaches where on the public side they say they are all about openness and power users and security but on the private side they are intentional and severe about keeping that public image at the expense of users. I agree that there’s no responsibility on Apple to document this specific protocol but it’s important to see it in context.

brookst 3y ago
> they say they are all about openness and power users and security They do mention security a lot, but “all about openness and power users”? That’s not my impression. They famously eschew the “make everything a setting” philosophy. The whole Apple thing is simplicity at the expense of configurability and control. Do you see them otherwise?
- joshspankit 3y ago
  > but “all about openness and power users”? That’s not my impression. ...! I feel like a frog that’s just been shown the bubbles forming on the bottom of the pot. Granted I’ve been pretty “meh” on Apple the last few years but I’ve still watched the keynotes and kept up with their growth. I didn’t even notice that Apple cleaned developers and pro users from their brand! (pro users as defined by those that are always stretching the limits of the tech, learning, and finding new optimal ways to do things). I just finished re-watched the uncut WWDC keynote and when developers are mentioned they are now almost entirely talked about in 3rd person while Apple is talking directly to upper management. The most hands-on-tech thing they did was talk for a couple seconds about the WebKit features. My impression of Apple is shockingly outdated in their favour. The product pages for both Mac Studio and the Mac Pro (both “Pro” products) either talk specs without highlighting what can be done with them or they talk about media creation. The target demographic here is creative professionals and not technical ones, power users, or developers. They have served creative professionals for a long time for sure, but they also served power users and technology professionals because they recognized that it was them working with the creative professionals (and sometimes working on their own) to build products with huge markets. I thought that this was still an underlying corporate value at Apple but I see now that they’ve just conveniently dropped it without even a whisper. I guess their new core demographic is content creators and movie studios? Apologies if this rambles. I had to get it out. I’m still processing this.
  - microtherion 3y ago
    This year, there were lots of product announcements, so the keynote was end user centric. It's really platforms state of the union address the same afternoon that has the developer focus: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/102/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/102/
    - joshspankit 3y ago
      I just watched the intro and conclusion for the Platforms State of the Union and cannot see the pro focus we’re talking about. Yes, it’s now directly talking to developers, but with a tone of “Here are new APIs and features we decided to make. Use them how we designed them.” (like talking top-down to a workforce)
  - CharlesW 3y ago
    > I just finished re-watched the uncut WWDC keynote… The WWDC keynote/state of the union is a public-facing event for enthusiasts, press and analysts. This is why Apple invites say, "Join the developer community for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms". If you want to evaluate Apple's prioritization of the developer community, you can watch any other content that Apple creates for WWDC, along with the non-keynote events listed at developer.apple.com/wwdc23. Additionally, Apple developers have their own dedicated site at developer.apple.com.
    - joshspankit 3y ago
      It’s Apple’s choice what they do and the directions they go, but if the WWDC keynote really is for enthusiasts, press, and analysts it’s disingenuous to say it’s part of a Developer Conference. Unfortunately I have to see “join the developer community” and “dedicated site at developer.apple.com” the same way as I see a big brand responding to a high-traction social media complaint with “Contact us privately so we can look in to it”: a way to pull the issue out of the public eye and in to a tightly-controlled environment that favours the brand over of the end user.
      - 3y ago

brookst 3y ago

> they say they are all about openness and power users and security They do mention security a lot, but “all about openness and power users”? That’s not my impression. They famously eschew the “make everything a setting” philosophy. The whole Apple thing is simplicity at the expense of configurability and control. Do you see them otherwise?

joshspankit 3y ago
> but “all about openness and power users”? That’s not my impression. ...! I feel like a frog that’s just been shown the bubbles forming on the bottom of the pot. Granted I’ve been pretty “meh” on Apple the last few years but I’ve still watched the keynotes and kept up with their growth. I didn’t even notice that Apple cleaned developers and pro users from their brand! (pro users as defined by those that are always stretching the limits of the tech, learning, and finding new optimal ways to do things). I just finished re-watched the uncut WWDC keynote and when developers are mentioned they are now almost entirely talked about in 3rd person while Apple is talking directly to upper management. The most hands-on-tech thing they did was talk for a couple seconds about the WebKit features. My impression of Apple is shockingly outdated in their favour. The product pages for both Mac Studio and the Mac Pro (both “Pro” products) either talk specs without highlighting what can be done with them or they talk about media creation. The target demographic here is creative professionals and not technical ones, power users, or developers. They have served creative professionals for a long time for sure, but they also served power users and technology professionals because they recognized that it was them working with the creative professionals (and sometimes working on their own) to build products with huge markets. I thought that this was still an underlying corporate value at Apple but I see now that they’ve just conveniently dropped it without even a whisper. I guess their new core demographic is content creators and movie studios? Apologies if this rambles. I had to get it out. I’m still processing this.
- microtherion 3y ago
  This year, there were lots of product announcements, so the keynote was end user centric. It's really platforms state of the union address the same afternoon that has the developer focus: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/102/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/102/
  - joshspankit 3y ago
    I just watched the intro and conclusion for the Platforms State of the Union and cannot see the pro focus we’re talking about. Yes, it’s now directly talking to developers, but with a tone of “Here are new APIs and features we decided to make. Use them how we designed them.” (like talking top-down to a workforce)
- CharlesW 3y ago
  > I just finished re-watched the uncut WWDC keynote… The WWDC keynote/state of the union is a public-facing event for enthusiasts, press and analysts. This is why Apple invites say, "Join the developer community for an in-depth look at the future of Apple platforms". If you want to evaluate Apple's prioritization of the developer community, you can watch any other content that Apple creates for WWDC, along with the non-keynote events listed at developer.apple.com/wwdc23. Additionally, Apple developers have their own dedicated site at developer.apple.com.
  - joshspankit 3y ago
    It’s Apple’s choice what they do and the directions they go, but if the WWDC keynote really is for enthusiasts, press, and analysts it’s disingenuous to say it’s part of a Developer Conference. Unfortunately I have to see “join the developer community” and “dedicated site at developer.apple.com” the same way as I see a big brand responding to a high-traction social media complaint with “Contact us privately so we can look in to it”: a way to pull the issue out of the public eye and in to a tightly-controlled environment that favours the brand over of the end user.
    - 3y ago