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I think its fascinating that the embrace and extend (and wall-off in a garden) strategy being applied by Apple is still producing, nevertheless, a very pliable

I think its fascinating that the embrace and extend (and wall-off in a garden) strategy being applied by Apple is still producing, nevertheless, a very pliable audience even in this day and age. I see the 'heading off of open standards' play of Apple in a cynical light, because I believe Apple are playing platform games here. These breaks/incompatibilities are another reason for developers to not bother with other platforms, or at least limit themselves in a way that makes platform-dependent tooling inevitable. Basically, it's developers getting screwed by hardware guys, over and over again.

deleted 12y ago
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coldtea 12y ago
Cross-platform is not the be-and end-all in software. Cross-platform has the covenience (and bigger market), but it's also crippled by catering to the lowest common denominator. You won't get stuff that takes full advantage of a platform if it's cross platform. Some people like native dedicated apps. I, for one, like cross platform stuff for common infrastructure (servers, unix userland, etc), but prefer platform specific and integrated desktop apps that take full advantage of my OS (whether OS X, Windows or Linux).
- fit2rule 12y ago
  To me, 'native dedicated apps' just means: letting someone else do the GUI for you, even though it may suck.
  - rimantas 12y ago
    What does it mean, exactly?
    - leonatan 12y ago
      To me it reads like complete nonsense.
    - fit2rule 12y ago
      It means let Apple do all the GUI work for you. And then let them change their designs, and the design of your app of course, according to their whims. Its okay, I understand I'm getting downvoted for not following along with the groupthink that Apple can't do anything wrong in the GUI department, and therefore native is far superior to anything else, but I've still got the opinion that the native GUI toolkits/frameworks for each platform are really designed to lock users - and developers - into the platform. Far better to avoid this issue completely, and do cross-platform development with custom GUI controls, if you want to have an app that works wherever your users will run it ..
      - demallien 12y ago
        You're not getting down voted for not following groupthink. You're getting doe voted because you're making a bunch of assertions of your opinion as though it's fact, without actually trying to justify those opinions. On the substantive point, a couple of years ago I wrote a graphics framework. It used JavaScript core and directfb. I could have just told the app developers to use WebKit, but the performance just wasn't there. I'm pretty sure that's also the reason that apple, Google and Microsoft write native GUI sdks, and not to lock in developers.
      - LeoNatan25 12y ago
        And look terrible on all platforms while at it. Yes, a much better solution indeed. This is not to say Apple UI is good or bad. This has nothing to do with it. Users expect native look and feel from apps. I assume you are a Linux user, where there is almost no consistency to software (outside of teams purposefully designing software to look consistent, such as Elementary OS), but this is not how it is on Windows and Apple operating systems, and for the most part on Android. If you don't like the ecosystem, that's fine - don't develop for it, but don't dismiss something that users expect from this ecosystem.
      - coldtea 12y ago
        >Its okay, I understand I'm getting downvoted for not following along with the groupthink that Apple can't do anything wrong in the GUI department I think this "persecution complex" is more groupthink that what you accuse as groupthink. There are tons of discussions on HN, and highly voted comments, about Apple's errors in GUI work (and elsewhere). They just happen to do a better job than 80% of the developers out there. Furturmore, I disagree with the two basic premises of your comment: 1) Native doesn't mean "let the GUI to Apple". You conflate native with "follows a platform's GUI guidelines religiously". You can create a great native app, using Cocoa APIs et al, that still looks totally different from Apple's apps. Take for example Paper for iOS. Or Procreate. Or Elements. Or tons of stuff, really. You don't have to follow the GUI look at all, you can even have your own widgets for stuff. Just don't try using Swing in a Mac app, or some shitty Cocoa port on a Windows app. And let the common behavior of items like dropdowns and text-entry boxes be the same (e.g with regard to keyboard shortcuts). But for those that do want to "leave the GUI" (well, look) to Apple, it's because it saves them tons of fucking work. Redundunt work of having to implement common stuff for themselves and their app. 2) Second, I don't think "native GUI toolkits/frameworks for each platform are really designed to lock users - and developers - into the platform" makes much sense. What DEFINES a platform is the very presence of such things (native GUIs/frameworks, etc). Without those, what you ask amounts to OS landscape where everything is the same generic base, sort of like FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD/etc but also at the desktop level. What's the sense in having "platforms" for desktop OSes at all, if that's the case? If you just want one OS to rule them all, for everybody, just ask for that. It makes no sense to want to have different platforms but still be bound to not have unique APIs and frameworks for each.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

coldtea 12y ago

Cross-platform is not the be-and end-all in software. Cross-platform has the covenience (and bigger market), but it's also crippled by catering to the lowest common denominator. You won't get stuff that takes full advantage of a platform if it's cross platform. Some people like native dedicated apps. I, for one, like cross platform stuff for common infrastructure (servers, unix userland, etc), but prefer platform specific and integrated desktop apps that take full advantage of my OS (whether OS X, Windows or Linux).

fit2rule 12y ago
To me, 'native dedicated apps' just means: letting someone else do the GUI for you, even though it may suck.
- rimantas 12y ago
  What does it mean, exactly?
  - leonatan 12y ago
    To me it reads like complete nonsense.
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    It means let Apple do all the GUI work for you. And then let them change their designs, and the design of your app of course, according to their whims. Its okay, I understand I'm getting downvoted for not following along with the groupthink that Apple can't do anything wrong in the GUI department, and therefore native is far superior to anything else, but I've still got the opinion that the native GUI toolkits/frameworks for each platform are really designed to lock users - and developers - into the platform. Far better to avoid this issue completely, and do cross-platform development with custom GUI controls, if you want to have an app that works wherever your users will run it ..
    - demallien 12y ago
      You're not getting down voted for not following groupthink. You're getting doe voted because you're making a bunch of assertions of your opinion as though it's fact, without actually trying to justify those opinions. On the substantive point, a couple of years ago I wrote a graphics framework. It used JavaScript core and directfb. I could have just told the app developers to use WebKit, but the performance just wasn't there. I'm pretty sure that's also the reason that apple, Google and Microsoft write native GUI sdks, and not to lock in developers.
    - LeoNatan25 12y ago
      And look terrible on all platforms while at it. Yes, a much better solution indeed. This is not to say Apple UI is good or bad. This has nothing to do with it. Users expect native look and feel from apps. I assume you are a Linux user, where there is almost no consistency to software (outside of teams purposefully designing software to look consistent, such as Elementary OS), but this is not how it is on Windows and Apple operating systems, and for the most part on Android. If you don't like the ecosystem, that's fine - don't develop for it, but don't dismiss something that users expect from this ecosystem.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      >Its okay, I understand I'm getting downvoted for not following along with the groupthink that Apple can't do anything wrong in the GUI department I think this "persecution complex" is more groupthink that what you accuse as groupthink. There are tons of discussions on HN, and highly voted comments, about Apple's errors in GUI work (and elsewhere). They just happen to do a better job than 80% of the developers out there. Furturmore, I disagree with the two basic premises of your comment: 1) Native doesn't mean "let the GUI to Apple". You conflate native with "follows a platform's GUI guidelines religiously". You can create a great native app, using Cocoa APIs et al, that still looks totally different from Apple's apps. Take for example Paper for iOS. Or Procreate. Or Elements. Or tons of stuff, really. You don't have to follow the GUI look at all, you can even have your own widgets for stuff. Just don't try using Swing in a Mac app, or some shitty Cocoa port on a Windows app. And let the common behavior of items like dropdowns and text-entry boxes be the same (e.g with regard to keyboard shortcuts). But for those that do want to "leave the GUI" (well, look) to Apple, it's because it saves them tons of fucking work. Redundunt work of having to implement common stuff for themselves and their app. 2) Second, I don't think "native GUI toolkits/frameworks for each platform are really designed to lock users - and developers - into the platform" makes much sense. What DEFINES a platform is the very presence of such things (native GUIs/frameworks, etc). Without those, what you ask amounts to OS landscape where everything is the same generic base, sort of like FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD/etc but also at the desktop level. What's the sense in having "platforms" for desktop OSes at all, if that's the case? If you just want one OS to rule them all, for everybody, just ask for that. It makes no sense to want to have different platforms but still be bound to not have unique APIs and frameworks for each.