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I'm simply not interested in owning devices that I can't load my own code on The average consumer doesn't care about this.

davidw 17y ago
Good for them, I was talking about myself in that phrase, which is why I prefaced it with "I sure hope so". I do think that open tends to win out over closed, though, with time, because the advantages for developers and businesses translate into advantages for everyone.
- tjogin 17y ago
  I agree that advantages for developers and businesses are key to success in the long term, for any platform. But I don't agree that openness of the platform is necessarily the exclusive nor primary way of doing that — it's just a way of doing that. Right now, Apple's platform is clearly offering key advantages to developers and businesses, in spite of not offering a very open platform. Personally, I hope both Google, RIM and Palm manage to catch up in this department. Strong competition between these vendors should offer plenty of incentives for them to improve their own platforms. Apple certainly seem to need a bit of extra motivation to improve the train-wreck that is the AppStore approval process — right now I think their success is blinding their ability to see many of their flaws.
  - davidw 17y ago
    > Right now, Apple's platform is clearly offering key advantages to developers and businesses, in spite of not offering a very open platform. It absolutely blew the competition out of the water, so yeah, that's what the 'key advantages' are. Everyone had been muddling along with their fiddly Nokia interfaces, which aren't bad, but nowhere near as nice or cool as the iPhone. However, Android looks to be 'good enough' in terms of competition, much like Windows was 'good enough' when competing with the Mac, and much more open in terms of what it ran on. The big open question for me about Android is fragmentation. With j2me staring them in the face, it's something they have to be thinking about a great deal, and I'd really love to know what they actually think about it. In any case, between a closed, proprietary platform and an open source one, I know where my own loyalties lie. There is tons of work in this field, and I will simply not bother with mobile if it ends up being 'owned' by Apple.
    - tjogin 17y ago
      I'm not talking about the interface of the device, I'm talking about the complete picture of developing mobile apps — Apple's offering, while flawed, is a huge step up from the state of mobile development prior to the iPhone.
      - davidw 17y ago
        I think that: * The app store is a good idea and a win for developers. * The tools/environment suck. I don't use a Mac and I do not want to. Java ME lets me use Linux, Mac or Windows. Same with Android. * The hoop jumping sucks. Reading about all the hoops just to get something on your own phone makes it look unpleasant. * The single platform does make things easier, but that has some costs for consumers who don't get as much freedom as with, say, Nokia (who have way too many offerings, but that's another post, another time). So, they've had a few good ideas, but on the whole I don't think it's revolutionary. I think the hardware/software themselves are what was really the great leap forward.
        tjogin 17y ago
        If their offering to mobile app developers isn't revolutionary, why is the number and quality of apps revolutionary?
    - nuclear_eclipse 17y ago
      They've been preparing ways of dealing with fragmentation since day one: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/resources-i18n.html#AlternateResources http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/resource...

davidw 17y ago

Good for them, I was talking about myself in that phrase, which is why I prefaced it with "I sure hope so". I do think that open tends to win out over closed, though, with time, because the advantages for developers and businesses translate into advantages for everyone.

tjogin 17y ago
I agree that advantages for developers and businesses are key to success in the long term, for any platform. But I don't agree that openness of the platform is necessarily the exclusive nor primary way of doing that — it's just a way of doing that. Right now, Apple's platform is clearly offering key advantages to developers and businesses, in spite of not offering a very open platform. Personally, I hope both Google, RIM and Palm manage to catch up in this department. Strong competition between these vendors should offer plenty of incentives for them to improve their own platforms. Apple certainly seem to need a bit of extra motivation to improve the train-wreck that is the AppStore approval process — right now I think their success is blinding their ability to see many of their flaws.
- davidw 17y ago
  > Right now, Apple's platform is clearly offering key advantages to developers and businesses, in spite of not offering a very open platform. It absolutely blew the competition out of the water, so yeah, that's what the 'key advantages' are. Everyone had been muddling along with their fiddly Nokia interfaces, which aren't bad, but nowhere near as nice or cool as the iPhone. However, Android looks to be 'good enough' in terms of competition, much like Windows was 'good enough' when competing with the Mac, and much more open in terms of what it ran on. The big open question for me about Android is fragmentation. With j2me staring them in the face, it's something they have to be thinking about a great deal, and I'd really love to know what they actually think about it. In any case, between a closed, proprietary platform and an open source one, I know where my own loyalties lie. There is tons of work in this field, and I will simply not bother with mobile if it ends up being 'owned' by Apple.
  - tjogin 17y ago
    I'm not talking about the interface of the device, I'm talking about the complete picture of developing mobile apps — Apple's offering, while flawed, is a huge step up from the state of mobile development prior to the iPhone.
    - davidw 17y ago
      I think that: * The app store is a good idea and a win for developers. * The tools/environment suck. I don't use a Mac and I do not want to. Java ME lets me use Linux, Mac or Windows. Same with Android. * The hoop jumping sucks. Reading about all the hoops just to get something on your own phone makes it look unpleasant. * The single platform does make things easier, but that has some costs for consumers who don't get as much freedom as with, say, Nokia (who have way too many offerings, but that's another post, another time). So, they've had a few good ideas, but on the whole I don't think it's revolutionary. I think the hardware/software themselves are what was really the great leap forward.
      - tjogin 17y ago
        If their offering to mobile app developers isn't revolutionary, why is the number and quality of apps revolutionary?
  - nuclear_eclipse 17y ago
    They've been preparing ways of dealing with fragmentation since day one: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/resources-i18n.html#AlternateResources http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/resource...