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"At this point, years into the social networking phenomenon, why not leave the social stuff to the social people who are good at it?" While I acknowledge that

by 51Cards 14y ago

"At this point, years into the social networking phenomenon, why not leave the social stuff to the social people who are good at it?" While I acknowledge that Ping was a huge failure the above statement strikes me as odd. If that's so obvious then... Why not leave Maps to people who are good at it? Why not leave voice recognition to people who are good at it? Why not leave... etc. Apple hasn't been shy about diving into competitor's markets... which I don't always agree with fully. But on the flip side, you don't know if you don't try I guess.

chj 14y ago
That explains why iOS is not a good platform. The owner of this platform loses his focus (building a good platform, giving developers more power), instead it starts to duplicate developers' effort in the name of user experience. Surely they have a chance of doing it better, but it is just because they can use their private APIs.
- ryannielsen 14y ago
  Are you very familiar with iOS development? I ask because those people I know who are were very happy with the improvements and APIs added in past iOS releases and seem to be delighted with what's being released with iOS 6. Perhaps you've found yourself hampered by the lack of certain APIs that Apple has yet to add or yet to promote from SPI. I know some devs in that boat. But I don't think you can accuse Apple of having lost focus on the iOS platform, or that they aren't feverishly working to give devs more power.
  - chj 14y ago
    A very important missing feature is external keyboard event support. I don't want to go too far into the details, just let me tell you this: ESC, Function Keys,CTRL, ALT are all dead. I submitted a feature request among other developers like the month iPad came out. So far, no any sign of adding it. Yet we continue to see Apple adding this message that reminder.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - nl 14y ago
      I'm probably not the worlds biggest Apple fan, but: A very important missing feature is external keyboard event support Umm.. no it isn't. It's pretty clear iOS is designed for devices without a physical keyboard, and if that is important to you then you will always be working on something Apple doesn't think is important. Their priority there is quite clear and I don't think it is reasonable to blame them for that. (Written by someone who likes a physical keyboard and is very happy with my Asus Transformer)
      - chj 14y ago
        Even if it is not universally important, it is very good for projects like: http://www.pcworld.com/article/229284/the_250_case_that_turns_your_ipad_into_a_laptop_almost.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/229284/the_250_case_that_turn... As a platform provider, why bother work on an app that thousands of developers can do better, and not work on a missing feature that can enable further innovation? We are not talking about a Siri level of feature, we are talking of a trivial platform feature that basically a decent engineer in Apple should be able to do it in a week, testing included.
        nl 14y ago
        As a platform provider, why bother work on an app that thousands of developers can do better, and not work on a missing feature that can enable further innovation? I'm not sure if you want to hear the answer to that or not. It's economics & platform strategy. Ping was created to attempt to increase the stickiness of the iTunes platform, to appease the record labels (who wanted an alternative to MySpace) and to bring Apple closer to Facebook. All of those things were major strategic goals for Apple at the time. Making the iPad something more like a laptop when the MacBook Air already exists? The only way your "bug" will get traction within Apple is if someone decides that is a goal of the iOS platform. That might happen, but pulling an Apple engineer for a whole week off other projects to work on it seems unlikely to happen without fairly major executive sponsorship.
- georgespencer 14y ago
  > That explains why iOS is not a good platform. I don't know anyone–not Android developers, not iOS developers, not Apple engineers, not Google engineers-who thinks that iOS is not a good platform.
dwc 14y ago
Just translate that from corp speak into normal human language: "At this point, years into the social phenomenon, I can't imagine what the heck we were even trying to accomplish with this."
taligent 14y ago
Why not leave Maps ? Because Google wasn't going to provide the APIs necessary to implement turn by turn navigation. Why not leave Voice Recognition ? They do. Apple didn't implement their own custom voice recognition software.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  Why not leave ebooks? I can't see anything Apple has gained that makes up for all of the problems that move has created.
- meepmorp 14y ago
  > Apple didn't implement their own custom voice recognition software. And Google didn't implement their own custom mobile OS. You don't have to build your own to move into a product space - it counts if you do so via purchase.
smackfu 14y ago
We'll see whether Apple Maps is actually better than Google Maps. I have doubts, Apple has always been a bit lackluster in online services. Even Siri is rather unreliable.

by 51Cards 14y ago

chj 14y ago

That explains why iOS is not a good platform. The owner of this platform loses his focus (building a good platform, giving developers more power), instead it starts to duplicate developers' effort in the name of user experience. Surely they have a chance of doing it better, but it is just because they can use their private APIs.

ryannielsen 14y ago
Are you very familiar with iOS development? I ask because those people I know who are were very happy with the improvements and APIs added in past iOS releases and seem to be delighted with what's being released with iOS 6. Perhaps you've found yourself hampered by the lack of certain APIs that Apple has yet to add or yet to promote from SPI. I know some devs in that boat. But I don't think you can accuse Apple of having lost focus on the iOS platform, or that they aren't feverishly working to give devs more power.
- chj 14y ago
  A very important missing feature is external keyboard event support. I don't want to go too far into the details, just let me tell you this: ESC, Function Keys,CTRL, ALT are all dead. I submitted a feature request among other developers like the month iPad came out. So far, no any sign of adding it. Yet we continue to see Apple adding this message that reminder.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - nl 14y ago
    I'm probably not the worlds biggest Apple fan, but: A very important missing feature is external keyboard event support Umm.. no it isn't. It's pretty clear iOS is designed for devices without a physical keyboard, and if that is important to you then you will always be working on something Apple doesn't think is important. Their priority there is quite clear and I don't think it is reasonable to blame them for that. (Written by someone who likes a physical keyboard and is very happy with my Asus Transformer)
    - chj 14y ago
      Even if it is not universally important, it is very good for projects like: http://www.pcworld.com/article/229284/the_250_case_that_turns_your_ipad_into_a_laptop_almost.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/229284/the_250_case_that_turn... As a platform provider, why bother work on an app that thousands of developers can do better, and not work on a missing feature that can enable further innovation? We are not talking about a Siri level of feature, we are talking of a trivial platform feature that basically a decent engineer in Apple should be able to do it in a week, testing included.
      - nl 14y ago
        As a platform provider, why bother work on an app that thousands of developers can do better, and not work on a missing feature that can enable further innovation? I'm not sure if you want to hear the answer to that or not. It's economics & platform strategy. Ping was created to attempt to increase the stickiness of the iTunes platform, to appease the record labels (who wanted an alternative to MySpace) and to bring Apple closer to Facebook. All of those things were major strategic goals for Apple at the time. Making the iPad something more like a laptop when the MacBook Air already exists? The only way your "bug" will get traction within Apple is if someone decides that is a goal of the iOS platform. That might happen, but pulling an Apple engineer for a whole week off other projects to work on it seems unlikely to happen without fairly major executive sponsorship.
georgespencer 14y ago
> That explains why iOS is not a good platform. I don't know anyone–not Android developers, not iOS developers, not Apple engineers, not Google engineers-who thinks that iOS is not a good platform.

dwc 14y ago

Just translate that from corp speak into normal human language: "At this point, years into the social phenomenon, I can't imagine what the heck we were even trying to accomplish with this."

taligent 14y ago

Why not leave Maps ? Because Google wasn't going to provide the APIs necessary to implement turn by turn navigation. Why not leave Voice Recognition ? They do. Apple didn't implement their own custom voice recognition software.

fpgeek 14y ago
Why not leave ebooks? I can't see anything Apple has gained that makes up for all of the problems that move has created.
meepmorp 14y ago
> Apple didn't implement their own custom voice recognition software. And Google didn't implement their own custom mobile OS. You don't have to build your own to move into a product space - it counts if you do so via purchase.

smackfu 14y ago

We'll see whether Apple Maps is actually better than Google Maps. I have doubts, Apple has always been a bit lackluster in online services. Even Siri is rather unreliable.