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If I had to bet money on WWDC announcements, I'd probably go with Gruber's predictions. Nothing mentioned stands out as particularly unlikely. And that's why t
by chroma 12y ago
If I had to bet money on WWDC announcements, I'd probably go with Gruber's predictions. Nothing mentioned stands out as particularly unlikely.
And that's why these predictions worry me. If you do the mental equivalent of zooming out, these predictions seem to focus on two things:
1. Centralizing storage of user-generated content.
2. Catering to consumers instead of professionals.
The vast majority of Apple's value captured (AKA revenue) is from consumer products: iPads, iPhones, iPods. But much of the value created by Apple products comes from professionals. Artists, programmers, writers; countless creative professionals use Apple hardware and software in their work. If Apple focuses on consumers, it will almost certainly be to the detriment of professionals.
I love my MacBook Air, but I can see Apple's trajectory. I can see my laptop becoming a locked-down Duplo version of itself. Then I'll be forced to switch to something else, and my knowledge and experience of OS X will become worthless. More importantly, many other professionals would be in the same boat. Millions could be stymied and frustrated by these changes.
- gfodor 12y agoWhat about the Mac Pro?
- prawn 12y agoI don't know anyone who has one and I've never heard anyone talk about even wanting one. I think dumbing down of the OS interface is what people might fear?
- gaelian 12y agoI'm not quite sure if you're saying that Apple may start selling the MacBook Air with some locked down iOS-like OS on them while leaving OS X on their other chunkier PCs, or if you're saying they're going to entirely get rid of OS X as we know it today. I think both scenarios are pretty unlikely, though the latter one would be most unlikely IMO. What would they expect people to develop iOS apps on if they fully lock down or take away OS X? The biggest single reason I switched to a Mac (about 5 years ago now) was because it was a reasonably well curated (in terms of the GUI) Unix machine with a lot of commercial support and I could employ the various *nix utilities that I was used to, having previously used a combination of Linux and Windows for my computing needs. If Apple no longer offered a full featured Unix based environment, they'd precipitate a mass developer exodus of which I would certainly be amongst. I believe such a move would be no less than the most egregious foot shooting of all time for any tech company ever. But all this is not to say I don't have a Plan B if against all reason, Apple was to decide to enrage just about every developer that builds on their platforms... I would sigh somewhat heavily, shake my head in disbelief and then it would be back to Linux with a touch of Windows (and possibly Android) on the side. Not my first preference obviously, but not such a bad thing all in all.
- snowwrestler 12y agoThe iPhone was announced in 2007. The SDK was released only a year later. So the iOS ecosystem, as a platform, is between 6 and 7 years old. Also in that time, Mac OS X has had 5 releases, with a 6th obviously coming later today. None of those version have substantially reduced the power available to professionals or developers. Yet I still see comments on HN about how Apple's "trajectory" is going to take away that power. The question is how Apple will choose to focus their own application development. Is it worth their time to continue to develop Aperture to compete with Lightroom? Lightroom runs great on Macs; what does Apple gain from competing? They've never bothered to compete with Photoshop. They never bothered to compete with Illustrator or InDesign or Quark Express.