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That's a rather incomplete, revisionist and rose tinted glasses view of the history of native vs web apps in iPhone. A much more plausible theory is that Apple

by hu3 2y ago

That's a rather incomplete, revisionist and rose tinted glasses view of the history of native vs web apps in iPhone. A much more plausible theory is that Apple likes their 30% app store commission from big players. > https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/developers-generated-one-point-one-trillion-in-the-app-store-ecosystem-in-2022/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/05/developers-generated-... "App Store developers generated $1.1 trillion in total billings and sales in the App Store ecosystem in 2022" People forget the only thing fueling big corps is profit.

reaperducer 2y ago
That's a rather incomplete, revisionist and rose tinted glasses view of the history of native vs web apps in iPhone. As someone who built one of the first web apps featured by Apple, I can say that your view, too, is incomplete and revisionist. A much more plausible theory Theories are not necessary. Apple was very up-front about its trajectory with the iPhone at launch.
- hu3 2y ago
  up-front at launch doesn't prevent changing their minds when looking at world record revenue. what makes you think it was set in stone?
  - kergonath 2y ago
    > what makes you think it was set in stone? It was not. But you got contradicted by people who actually remember what happened. It is fairly well documented, and was common knowledge even at the time. Jobs was initially sold on Web Apps for several reasons, and the state of iPhoneOS 1 and its internal APIs was very precarious and not stable enough for serious third-party development. Again, this was known at the time thanks to the jailbreak community, and it has been explained in details over the years by people who left Apple since then, and Jobs himself in Isaacson’s biography. When they pivoted towards the AppStore model, there was no predicting how big it would become, or even if it would be successful at all. The iPhone was exceeding expectations, but those were initially quite modest. It was far from world-record revenue.
chrisoverzero 2y ago
Sure, but at the time that Apple made the decision, they had $0.0 trillion in billings and sales.
- hu3 2y ago
  A decision which changed once, you know, they saw the income potential.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    I was there, part of a small community writing apps pre-SDK. Neither, I, nor anyone else, can promise you it wasn't just a simple $ calculation. That being said, literally every signal, inside, outside, or leaked, was that apps / public SDK, if it existed meaningfully before release, had to be accelerated due to a poor reaction to the infamous "sweet solution", web apps. I agree its logically possible, but I'd like to note for the historical record that this does not jive with what happened, at the time. Even setting that aside, it doesn't sound right in the context of that management team. That version of Apple wasn't proud of selling complements to their goods, they weren't huge on maximizing revenue from selling music or bragging about it. But they were huge on bragging about selling iPods.
    - hu3 2y ago
      Thanks. I appreciate your information. Always nice to know how things started.
runjake 2y ago
I was there, writing apps with the DevTeam's toolchain before Apple ever released theirs. Were you? Also, I assume you haven't read the Steve Jobs biography, which discusses this and contradicts your point. One positive outcome of your comment is that it reminded me I still have the 2008 book, "iPhone Open Application Development" by Jonathan Zdziarski. That was a nice walk down memory lane. https://www.amazon.com/iPhone-Open-Application-Development-Applications-ebook/dp/B0028N4W88 https://www.amazon.com/iPhone-Open-Application-Development-A...

by hu3 2y ago

reaperducer 2y ago

That's a rather incomplete, revisionist and rose tinted glasses view of the history of native vs web apps in iPhone. As someone who built one of the first web apps featured by Apple, I can say that your view, too, is incomplete and revisionist. A much more plausible theory Theories are not necessary. Apple was very up-front about its trajectory with the iPhone at launch.

hu3 2y ago
up-front at launch doesn't prevent changing their minds when looking at world record revenue. what makes you think it was set in stone?
- kergonath 2y ago
  > what makes you think it was set in stone? It was not. But you got contradicted by people who actually remember what happened. It is fairly well documented, and was common knowledge even at the time. Jobs was initially sold on Web Apps for several reasons, and the state of iPhoneOS 1 and its internal APIs was very precarious and not stable enough for serious third-party development. Again, this was known at the time thanks to the jailbreak community, and it has been explained in details over the years by people who left Apple since then, and Jobs himself in Isaacson’s biography. When they pivoted towards the AppStore model, there was no predicting how big it would become, or even if it would be successful at all. The iPhone was exceeding expectations, but those were initially quite modest. It was far from world-record revenue.

chrisoverzero 2y ago

Sure, but at the time that Apple made the decision, they had $0.0 trillion in billings and sales.

hu3 2y ago
A decision which changed once, you know, they saw the income potential.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  I was there, part of a small community writing apps pre-SDK. Neither, I, nor anyone else, can promise you it wasn't just a simple $ calculation. That being said, literally every signal, inside, outside, or leaked, was that apps / public SDK, if it existed meaningfully before release, had to be accelerated due to a poor reaction to the infamous "sweet solution", web apps. I agree its logically possible, but I'd like to note for the historical record that this does not jive with what happened, at the time. Even setting that aside, it doesn't sound right in the context of that management team. That version of Apple wasn't proud of selling complements to their goods, they weren't huge on maximizing revenue from selling music or bragging about it. But they were huge on bragging about selling iPods.
  - hu3 2y ago
    Thanks. I appreciate your information. Always nice to know how things started.

runjake 2y ago

I was there, writing apps with the DevTeam's toolchain before Apple ever released theirs. Were you? Also, I assume you haven't read the Steve Jobs biography, which discusses this and contradicts your point. One positive outcome of your comment is that it reminded me I still have the 2008 book, "iPhone Open Application Development" by Jonathan Zdziarski. That was a nice walk down memory lane. https://www.amazon.com/iPhone-Open-Application-Development-Applications-ebook/dp/B0028N4W88 https://www.amazon.com/iPhone-Open-Application-Development-A...