Apple... is it going rotten..?
Discussion
plasticpig said:
It's anti competitive for a start. I can't develop a custom application for one of my clients on the Ipad because I would have to release it through the appstore and have it approved by Apple. Even though it will only ever be used on 20-30 devices and is specific to the client. I do not have this problem if I use a tablet PC running Windows or Linux.
This is not an theoretical situation by the way; it is a current project. The client really wanted to use Ipads. They will probably be using windows tablets instead.
You can, provided the company is of a reasonable size. http://developer.apple.com/programs/iphone/enterpr...This is not an theoretical situation by the way; it is a current project. The client really wanted to use Ipads. They will probably be using windows tablets instead.
But Apple don't have an obligation to give you an open development platform: if you don't like it, buy something else.
TuxRacer said:
plasticpig said:
They are worse than Microsoft. Microsoft do not force developers to use their development tools. Apple do this for the Iphone and Ipad. Microsoft do not attempt to control the distribution of applications for their platforms. Apple do for the Iphone and Ipad.
I strongly disagree, Java and Internet Explorer spring to mind as two prime examples.They're both pretty terrible.
sjg said:
plasticpig said:
It's anti competitive for a start. I can't develop a custom application for one of my clients on the Ipad because I would have to release it through the appstore and have it approved by Apple. Even though it will only ever be used on 20-30 devices and is specific to the client. I do not have this problem if I use a tablet PC running Windows or Linux.
This is not an theoretical situation by the way; it is a current project. The client really wanted to use Ipads. They will probably be using windows tablets instead.
You can, provided the company is of a reasonable size. http://developer.apple.com/programs/iphone/enterpr...This is not an theoretical situation by the way; it is a current project. The client really wanted to use Ipads. They will probably be using windows tablets instead.
But Apple don't have an obligation to give you an open development platform: if you don't like it, buy something else.
Apple went rotten for me the moment I "upgraded" my iPhone to OS4 and it became basically unusable.
You have to live with Apple's s
t if you want to have an Apple device - up to now I didn't mind that but now my phone is totally buggered then all the other Apple control freak crap suddenly sticks in my craw.
You have to live with Apple's s
t if you want to have an Apple device - up to now I didn't mind that but now my phone is totally buggered then all the other Apple control freak crap suddenly sticks in my craw.plasticpig said:
Yet Microsoft were forced to do just that in the settlement with the DOJ. You can not have one rule for one mega corporation and a different rule for another.
Whilst I agree that there shouldnt be a pick and choose attitude to the enforcement of anti-trust laws, there is a fundamental difference between Microsoft and Apple though. One of these mega-corps controls over 90% of all desktops in the world.... the other less than 8%! You could accuse Apple of a lot of things, but they hardly control the market.... Microsoft on the other hand does.The same goes with the whole smartphone thing - yes, they provide a development platform for writing applications and selling this to the consumer. You are forced to use this, which isnt to everyone's taste. But that's fine because in reality they are only part of the market - you can use Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Andriod and even Symbian / Maemo platforms instead. So suggesting that they 'control' the mobile market for apps is a stretching it a little.
Of course, the vast majority of apps sold are on the Apple iTunes platform, but thats a historic thing rather than anything else. All of the other vendors provide a platform and development environment too - so you have CHOICE. The difference with the Microsoft desktop environments is that it is such a big market that competitors will try and compete, but lets face it, Microsoft do their best to kill of competition.
But, finally, what about Microsoft Xbox and Xbox live? You want to develop an application for the Xbox? Gotta use their development platform and environment (though other systems can interface with it for specific purposes). Wanna sell your Xbox app? Gotta go through Xbox Live. Is that anti-competitive?
_dobbo_ said:
Apple went rotten for me the moment I "upgraded" my iPhone to OS4 and it became basically unusable.
You have to live with Apple's st if you want to have an Apple device - up to now I didn't mind that but now my phone is totally buggered then all the other Apple control freak crap suddenly sticks in my craw.
I'm of much the same opinion. You have to live with Apple's s
t if you want to have an Apple device - up to now I didn't mind that but now my phone is totally buggered then all the other Apple control freak crap suddenly sticks in my craw.For a long time I resisted "going Apple" but when the iPhone 3G was launched I caved and bought one. It took some time to get used to living with iTunes but now, 2 years later, I'm all there with it. I even have a few other Apple products and get on well with them.
Putting iOS4 on my 3G has sullied the whole experience for me though. The device is now useless. Constant freezing, incredibly slow when it is working, lots of app crashes etc. The inability to go back to a 3.x OS is just not on IMO.
It's been enough to drive me away from them, well, at least made me keen to try something else again rather than enter into another 18 months of being ruled by them with an iPhone4.
tinman0 said:
where as Apple is business is solely built by themselves. The iPad has a single manufacturer, Apple.
and OSX came from......apple soley???err no
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X
lestag said:
tinman0 said:
where as Apple is business is solely built by themselves. The iPad has a single manufacturer, Apple.
and OSX came from......apple soley???err no
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X
The only thing you don't have access to is the source for the UI, which has always been held by Apple themselves, for good reason.
You can also install what you want on the Mac, and you can also install your own operating system on a Mac. Mac's were running AUX from quite early on, and Linux was ported to the Mac in the mid 90s iirc. And today, you can run Windows on a Mac, with Apple's blessing.
The iPad and iPhone has never been touted as anything but a closed system. You should have no expectation of what you do with the device outside Apple's control, because they have never given you any reason to.
This is not the same as Microsofts behaviour over the years.
jamieboy said:
tinman0 said:
plasticpig said:
They are worse than Microsoft. Microsoft do not force developers to use their development tools. Apple do this for the Iphone and Ipad. Microsoft do not attempt to control the distribution of applications for their platforms. Apple do for the Iphone and Ipad.
They are nothing like Microsoft. Microsoft have been prosecuted under Anti-Trust Laws because they were so bad. And Google are getting threatened with it at the moment, and Google are even finding itself on the end of several criminal charges with the wifi payload thing.There may be an investigation of Apple, but it is nowhere near Anti Trust at the moment. The difference between the PC and Apple in general is that Apple is a closed system from the start. The PC was built from the cumulative effort of many companies, where as Apple is business is solely built by themselves. The iPad has a single manufacturer, Apple.
The PC is an open platform, but Windows is only open because the DoJ for the last 15 years has been riding Microsoft's ass. Windows isn't open and compliant because Microsoft wanted it that way. It's because they created an OS monopoly on the x86 platform and were forced to allow other developers on it.
And how long has the row about undocumented APIs been going on? I think the Samba project is still working to get api specs sent to them this very day.
Remember about 8 years ago when Linux because available at Dell and a few others? And was quietly killed off less than a year later? MS changed the terms of their Windows licensing policy. They would not allow Dell or the others to sell a competing OS on the x86 platform. Until the DoJ rang them up a few years ago as to enquire about this new sales policy they had.
So whatever the sins of Apple today, they have a long way to go before getting close to the sins of Microsoft.
Engineer1 said:
I strongly suspect iOS4 is the one designed to get people shifting from old iPhones, such as the 3G to the 3Gs or the 4. It's a shame that they haven't taken into account the fact that the 3G is still out and about with people having 20+ months on their contract.
I think that we can take this as a given. Instead of limiting the functionality available from the OS they should have just stopped support for the 3G. At least that would have left people with working handsets.tinman0 said:
Depends. How good is your computing history?
It's good enough to remember why Microsoft got to be in the position they're in today, to remember what else was on offer before Windows became established as the default choice. 
tinman0 said:
So whatever the sins of Apple today, they have a long way to go before getting close to the sins of Microsoft.
That may be true, but it's not a reason to pretend that Apple's "sins" are somehow OK, just because they're shiny.tinman0 said:
jamieboy said:
tinman0 said:
plasticpig said:
They are worse than Microsoft. Microsoft do not force developers to use their development tools. Apple do this for the Iphone and Ipad. Microsoft do not attempt to control the distribution of applications for their platforms. Apple do for the Iphone and Ipad.
They are nothing like Microsoft. Microsoft have been prosecuted under Anti-Trust Laws because they were so bad. And Google are getting threatened with it at the moment, and Google are even finding itself on the end of several criminal charges with the wifi payload thing.There may be an investigation of Apple, but it is nowhere near Anti Trust at the moment. The difference between the PC and Apple in general is that Apple is a closed system from the start. The PC was built from the cumulative effort of many companies, where as Apple is business is solely built by themselves. The iPad has a single manufacturer, Apple.
The PC is an open platform, but Windows is only open because the DoJ for the last 15 years has been riding Microsoft's ass. Windows isn't open and compliant because Microsoft wanted it that way. It's because they created an OS monopoly on the x86 platform and were forced to allow other developers on it.
And how long has the row about undocumented APIs been going on? I think the Samba project is still working to get api specs sent to them this very day.
Remember about 8 years ago when Linux because available at Dell and a few others? And was quietly killed off less than a year later? MS changed the terms of their Windows licensing policy. They would not allow Dell or the others to sell a competing OS on the x86 platform. Until the DoJ rang them up a few years ago as to enquire about this new sales policy they had.
So whatever the sins of Apple today, they have a long way to go before getting close to the sins of Microsoft.
jamieboy said:
tinman0 said:
Depends. How good is your computing history?
It's good enough to remember why Microsoft got to be in the position they're in today, to remember what else was on offer before Windows became established as the default choice. tinman0 said:
So whatever the sins of Apple today, they have a long way to go before getting close to the sins of Microsoft.
That may be true, but it's not a reason to pretend that Apple's "sins" are somehow OK, just because they're shiny.If you have a forecourt and you sell cars, and some other guys pitches up to sell cars from your forecourt, if you throw him off - are you being anti-competitive? Not at all. He's making no contribution to the cost of the forecourt, so has no right to be there.
Apple haven't stopped developers developing for the platform, they've simply said "this is the tool". So access to the platform isn't restricted in the slightest. Unless you don't know how to use the tools, but then that's your problem.
The difference between MS and Apple, is that DOS was originally quite an open platform. There were many flavours of DOS, but through some moves, MS DOS came predominant. But the history is that DOS was open, and that Microsoft became a monopoly from that open environment.
Apple's system is the complete opposite. It's largely home grown, and its never been open. iOS (as apposed to OSX) has never been an open platform. So people (mainly Adobe) can't complain that they are locked out of something that they never had an investment in in the first place.
And as for Adobe - they were part of the reason Apple had a shaky 90s. Apple learned the lesson of being reliant in some respects to Adobe. They got kicked in the head for it. Apple learned that lesson about having powerful 3rd parties in their business.
plasticpig said:
If Microsoft attempted to control the applications that could be used on it's platforms there would be general outrage. Apple appear to have gotten away with it so far. It really does smack of control freakery on Apples part.
Unfortunatly, Windows Mobile 7 will be the same as the iPhone. Only signed apps from the Windows Marketplace can be loaded.In fact its worse than that. 3rd party applications can only be developed in either Silverlight or with C#. No P/Invoke either. (both microsoft development tools!)
This basically means that users can only load 'approved' applications and even developers can't access the low level API's. Also, C# (or anything .net) is dog-slow on Windows Mobile.
Whose phone is it anyway?
gamefreaks said:
Unfortunatly, Windows Mobile 7 will be the same as the iPhone. Only signed apps from the Windows Marketplace can be loaded.
Beign realistic about it, how long will that last? It didn't take long for IOS to be unlocked, and that was on proprietary hardware, proprietary OS, with some half-decent concessions to security. Windows has historically been fairly easy to crack.I imagine it will be the same.
rsv gone! said:
Despite their (considerable) hype, they are no different to Microsoft.
In fact, their hardware is more restrictive. You can't play the formats you want (You need to tediously convert movie files). itunes is a clunky piece of software but I have to tolerate it because I like my ipod and at the time of buying my car stereo (2005) it was the only player supported by the likes of Alpine. And it's lack of bluetooth is annoying - do iphones have bluetooth now?
I don't know! They seem to have a fair contempt for their end users.
And how did Steve Jobs attain his near angelical status?
No restrictions on Mac's though. You'd have to convert video codecs on any handheld device though as most require more power than a portable device could render.In fact, their hardware is more restrictive. You can't play the formats you want (You need to tediously convert movie files). itunes is a clunky piece of software but I have to tolerate it because I like my ipod and at the time of buying my car stereo (2005) it was the only player supported by the likes of Alpine. And it's lack of bluetooth is annoying - do iphones have bluetooth now?
I don't know! They seem to have a fair contempt for their end users.
And how did Steve Jobs attain his near angelical status?
Edited by rsv gone! on Wednesday 7th July 09:14
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