'First to Do It' vs. 'First to Do It Right'

http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/first

by aaronbrethorst • 16 years ago

153 187 16 years ago

dreur• 16 years ago

It may applies to large corporation, but I don't think that for Startups it applies. We want a mix of those two ways of thinking to

1) Get some features out to gain traction/user

2) Make sure it works and that the user experience will not be negatively impacted.

We have to learn from our mistakes and also learn from what our users want. For that we need to experiment even if it means refactoring / do things differently when we need to.

mechanical_fish• 16 years ago

It's not startups vs big corporations. It's about the constraints on your ability to iterate.

You can't iterate on hardware the same way you do on software. If you're used to building the minimum possible thing that will work, shipping that, then gradually improving it day by day you are in for a rude awakening in the hardware business. You can't improve the hardware after it is out of your hands. All you can do is release a second piece of hardware that incorporates improvements. But you must charge all your customers over again, and not all of them will upgrade, and the whole process takes a lot of time and has a lot of friction.

You also can't iterate on a public API the way you do on an app. Once other folks have dependencies pointing to your API the cat is out of the bag. It is several orders of magnitude harder to deprecate an API than to release it. This is why, while iterating on software is good in general, you really don't have the option to reinvent your platform's basic copy-and-paste API too many times. It really pays to iterate internally until you get that right.

ericd2• 16 years ago

Excellent point, and one that I think many of us forget.

Also wanted to add that reputation and trust are extremely important in the hardware business (and the retail software business). Many people can buy Apple's next thing without doing much or any research about it, and without having to wait for reviews because they trust that Apple wouldn't subject them to a piece of crap, due to their track record. This is not something that can be said about many other companies, and it's an extremely valuable asset.

It also feeds their ability to create the "Reality Distortion Field".

ErrantX2• 16 years ago

It may applies to large corporation

More to the point it applies to Apple.

They have this brand image where everything is slick, tight, usable and so forth. It is "just right". To release (using Grubers example) half baked copy/paste would have appeased a few - but it wouldn't be the "Apple way".

That's not a bad thing; it doesn't make their products bad (and actually makes most products awesome!). More importantly it's their brand niche and they do it well. In fact they do it like no other.

cwilson3• 16 years ago

Are you serious? If developers and startup founders really think this way we need to do something about it stat.

Having amazing user experience and products that "just work" shouldn't be something that only Apple does. The fact that you think of something being slick, tight, and usable as a brand image makes me dizzy. Shouldn't EVERYONE strive for these characteristics? I know my startup does.

kenjackson11• 16 years ago

"Give them brand new still-in-the-box iPhone 4’s and HTC Evos. Now ask them to make a video call to one another. With the iPhone 4, they’re going to be able to do it. "

How can the person with the iPhone make a video call to the person with the Evo, yet only one succeeds? Isn't it the case that for a call to be successfull, both parties need to be able to communicate?

tvon2• 16 years ago

The idea is they'd be making iPhone -> iPhone and Evo -> Evo calls, not calls to each other.

kenjackson11• 16 years ago

Thank you. I guess I'm one of those people that needs an iPhone. :-)

ZeroGravitas8• 16 years ago

correction: iPhone 4 -> iPhone 4

For no obvious reason people buying Apples 3GS over the next year will not be able to receive such calls, nor make them with their back mounted camera.

Since you can't even call to the vast majority of other iPhones, you can guess how this competition would go if you had to show pictures of your newborn to your parents who only had a laptop computer.

So a big hurrah for Apple's sudden embrace of "open standards", as now maybe a 3rd party will bring this to us. Shame 3rd party software is by definition not as good as Apple stuff but I guess we'll just have to cope.

bradhe• 16 years ago

More importantly, how does he know what the user experience on iPhone 4 is like without using iPhone 4?

stevejohnson• 16 years ago

He got his hands on one after the WWDC keynote.

Anechoic• 16 years ago

He attended WWDC: http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/iphone_4

kenjackson11• 16 years ago

"Android and iPhone fans will read the preceding paragraph very differently. Android fans will read it and say, “Exactly — give us the hardware and let developers figure out what to do with it.” iPhone fans will read it and say, “I can’t wait to get an iPhone 4.”"

This quote sums up my issue with Gruber. Everything for him revolves around being a fan of a product (in his case Apple products). I just want great products. Might be iPhone today, Android tomorrow, and Windows Phone next year.

neonfunk2• 16 years ago

I don't think being a fan of the iPhone doesn't mean you can't also be a fan of Android; they're not mutually exclusive (I have an Xbox and a Wii). That said, in 2010, there is a strong break between not only the fanbases, but in the guiding philosophy of either platform. I read this last paragraph, laughed, and thought, "This is why I read Gruber."

Edit: Also, don't forget this classic — Apple Needs a Nikon (http://daringfireball.net/2007/11/apple_needs_a_nikon)

Salient quote from Stephen Fry: "So you can guess that I certainly do think design is important. But it doesn’t have to come from Apple. In fact, I wish to goodness it came from everywhere."

hugh3• 16 years ago

I don't think being a fan of the iPhone doesn't mean you can't also be a fan of Android; they're not mutually exclusive (I have an Xbox and a Wii).

Well heck, so do I, but I wouldn't call myself a "fan" of either.

Actually I try not to be a "fan" of anything. Describing yourself as a fan of something seems to be a way of making the rather dull act of liking something into part of your identity.

ynniv3• 16 years ago

revolves around being a fan of a product (in his case Apple products)

How did you pull that from this article? He basically says, "I like things that are fully-baked," not, "I like Apple products."

I have been a "Mac Fanboy" for about 15 years, and it has always been about execution. I have no loyalty to Apple, but insomuch as they make better products than anyone else, I will unabashedly say that the competition is crap. If another company stepped up and made better products, I would start using those (and competition is great for the consumer).

Which is basically what you just said, except that you (as many people do) treat Apple as somehow special. I don't fully understand it, but I think that Jobs' often smug attitude turns people off to the entire company and their offerings. They see Apple as elitist-in-a-bad-way, and even if they are popular now they are somehow a fad. Which is fine, but in that case it would be more correct to say "I dislike elitist CEOs," than "(HP|Dell|Compaq)/(Windows|Linux)/(Android|Wince) is just as good as Mac/MacOS/iPhone." Because really, they're not and never have been (software compatibility complicates the Windows/MacOS comparison).

Cheaper maybe, but never just as good. (You can often spot the weaker competition by their extensive "feature" lists.)

kenjackson11• 16 years ago

Really, you're asking me how I conclude that Gruber is an Apple fan?

And if you've been a "Mac Fanboy" for the past 15 years, you haven't been a fan of quality. Until a couple of revs into OSX the Mac OS had been garbage. Mac OS Classic became a dog (it was great in '84).

If in '84 to the mid-90s you were an Apple/Amiga user. And then switched to Windows. And then switched back to Apple around 2002 then you may have a claim. If you didn't get the iPhone until the 3G came out, that's a good sign. If you never bought into the PowerPC being WAY faster than the x86 processors that's a good sign.

But in my experience, Apple "fans" are surprisingly not all that discerning when it comes to Apple products.

And let me be clear... the iPad is the best tablet on the market. The iPhone will be the best phone on the market again, starting next month (I give the nod the Evo right now). Altough I'll take Win7 as best desktop OS, and Google has the best web browser.

It's about looking objectively at each solution and technology. Not these weird claims that no one else does anything of merit, but Apple. The bozo bit gets set right when you say that, because there are several obvious examples of other companies doing good work.

pohl4• 16 years ago

Can you name any software or hardware product (or vendor) that you have a strong interest in or an admiration for?

kenjackson11• 16 years ago

I can name plenty. Apple and the iPhone are a couple. Google Search and AdWords, Visual Studio, and Mathematica are some others.

Are they perfect? No. Are the companies that made them flawless? No. But I can appreciate a product/company, yet not have my identity tied up with the product. I use an Apple product, but I'm not defined by that use any more than I'm defined by the fact that I use Sylvania light bulbs or Colgate toothpaste.

proee• 16 years ago

I have an HTC EVO and the device does not come with video-chat out of the box. This is insane. As mentioned in the article, you have to install an app from the appstore, sign-up with an account, and then proceed to figure out that you can't actually talk to the person without holding down on the screen (note there is no indication of this while in video chat mode).

It's been a major pain trying to call my wife and tell her how to set all these things up before we can attempt a video chat.

I'd like to see Dan Hesse and his board of directors watch two HTC EVO noobs attempt to video-chat. It would be downright embarrassing.

Please, before investing millions of dollars with your front-facing camera make it at least work out of the box without having to jump through a dozen hoops.

Tichy3• 16 years ago

So you bought the EVO because of the video chat feature? Video chat is suddenly the most important thing a phone can do? Or does the Evo maybe have some other capabilities, that also used to be enticting (until the world learned that video chat is the only thing that matters).

Nothing against your desire for video chat, I just don't agree that having no video chat is "insane".

Also, couldn't somebody create a better app for video chat on the Evo?

jonhohle• 16 years ago

Selling a feature that is known to not work is "insane". Nearly every time I've bought a gadget on the expectation that someday it was going to be great (Nokia N800, I'm looking at you), I've been disappointed.

Apple ships completed projects, many companies ship promises they never intend to fulfill.

orangecat3• 16 years ago

Developer support is lousy too. Sprint has a library (https://docs.google.com/View?id=dhtsnvs6_57d2hpqtgr#3_Second...) that lets you access the front-facing camera, but you can't just test at runtime to see if it's there; once you include that library, your app will fail to launch on any non-EVO. So you have to distribute a separate app for the EVO, which is mostly going to be a nonstarter.

guelo2• 16 years ago

This issue will be fixed when Froyo comes out for it, Froyo includes front facing camera support in the sdk. HTC released this hardware knowing that the software would have to catch up.

megablast2• 16 years ago

This is very bad. Even my Motorola e1000 from 5 years ago had one touch video chat.

It seems that HTC can add hardware features faster than they can add the software, or they are taking the stance that the software should be third party, which has its own advantages and disadvantages, as pointed out by the article.

You would think that at the very least they would have worked with the two companies offering video chat to get stuff working easily.

Maybe this will all be sorted out in the next few months.

blub• 16 years ago

Is it not possible to use 3g videocalls? All phones I've owned in the past 3 years had this feature in the firmware; it's as basic as voice calls.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

Cutting edge is always jenky. I personally figure Apple basically kicks back while other people develop and test, and then they release once it's been tried and sorted a bit so they don't have to release jenky products.

If you really believe Apple spent 2 years developing and perfecting cut&paste you are crazy. They waited until they wanted to implement it. What their cue was, I don't know, but I have my suspicions.

koffie• 16 years ago

I doubt Apple "waits", they prefer to limit them-self to a focussed feature set "done right". Apparently - the entire iPhone 1st gen was designed and developed by a very very small team. This helps consistency, and avoids having some parts of the team not knowing what another part is doing. If they then - like they did for the iPhone - start with a clean API and environment with future expandability in mind, you start out with a solid architecture on which they can build. The downside however is that the initial product has a very small/basic feature-set. Upside is, its core features are (mostly) "done right" and behave consistently. A ton of features, which the competition already has, are missing, but nobody uses them there because of complexity or weird behavior.

Copy-paste is actually a perfect example here. I have had many smartphones and PDAs (iPaq, Nokia communicator, Sony-Ericsson P910, P990 and a few others) - and in none of them I actually ever used the copy-paste (if it was there), or at least certainly not as much as I do now on my iPhone. Worst clipboard implementation I've ever seen was that when I copied text in a one application, apparently it was placed on the clipboard as UTF8 or Ansi text. No problem so far - but apparently, if your target app then only accepted ascii text - too bad, no copy-paste. Try explaining that-one to a normal user, good luck... I then prefer the focussed on core-features, "no clipboard" approach instead of a confusing, non-working or unreliable feature you end up not using at all.

Now I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I do have an iPhone (only Apple product I own). I'll be the last to say that it's perfect and everything is entirely "done right", but from what I've seen - from a user-point of view - it's without a doubt the best thing out-there. Yes there are on paper "better phones" with "more features" which are "more open", but whatever, it just works. On PC I might be considered a power-user, but my phone is a vital part of my life. I don't want to mess around on it too much - it has to simply work. I did consider buying an Android phone for the sole purpose of playing with it, but I simply don't have the time for that at the moment. I might still do this in the future, after having played with 1.5, 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2 on various models of friends - I have to say, I'm impressed by the technical improvements, but still - the user-experience is just horrible. There are some cool ideas, like the notifications - but the execution is mind-blowing irritating after a while. It feels to me as a linux desktop 10 years ago: editing your config file with vi is easy. Designed by an engineer, for an engineer.

usaar3332• 16 years ago

What do you consider the be the most "horrible" parts of the Android experience?

Tichy3• 16 years ago

The "bullshit" is just the claim that Apple always has the best implementation (sometimes they actually do, sometimes they don't). Nobody assumes that they are incapable of doing it in time.

Ultimately, it is an interesting marketing play, I suppose - the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" of marketing, maybe?

sachinag• 16 years ago

This is tangentally related, but I'm going to break my contract with Verizon after buying a Motorola Devour in March. I believe that Motorola and VZW have broken an implied promise to support my Android phone through the update cycle; it shipped with 1.6 and it appears that the powers that be have decided that it's not worthy of the engineering resources to get it up to 2.2, so it'll be at 1.6 forever.

I'm sorry, but a three-month old phone should not be obsolete. If I get a iPhone 4, I have every confidence that Apple will make every effort to ensure that subsequent iOS upgrades work on my phone until there's a legitimate technical reason to exclude it, not some bullshit profit/loss maximization algorithm.

The Android ecosystem will remain fragmented because every single phone+manufacturer+carrier combination requires a decision and engineering resources to upgrade. I could never recommend an Android phone to anyone but the anti-Apple hordes.

Splines• 16 years ago

> If I get a iPhone 4, I have every confidence that Apple will make every effort to ensure that subsequent iOS upgrades work on my phone until there's a legitimate technical reason to exclude it,...

Kudos to Apple for doing this, by the way. I have an iPhone 3G and really appreciate Apple's efforts in keeping my device up-to-date.

Apple's decision to own the phone from end-to-end (sans AT&T) has proven to provide a high-quality experience to customers. It's telling that the only part of the experience that Apple doesn't own is arguably the largest pain point of the iPhone.

It's too bad that Android/WinMo answer to the OEMs, and not the other way around. If Compaq or Dell dictated upgrade policies for PCs the world would be a very different place.

aston• 16 years ago

Here's a fun factoid: your iPhone 3G (and mine) will totally miss out on iOS4's multi-tasking. If Apple is better than Motorola/Verizon in terms of keeping older hardware up-to-date, it's not by much.

nlawalker• 16 years ago

My 3G became dog slow as a dog when I installed the software that was released alongside the 3GS. It has been ever since, through every following upgrade.

SandB0x• 16 years ago

Double-tangentially related. My contract with Vodafone (UK) is up for renewal soon and there's the HTC Wildfire, Nexus One, Desire, Legend, Tattoo listed on the website. Just to be clear, this is attempting to narrow it down to one carrier, one manufacturer, one operating system. How about a clear flagship model and a budget option rather than all this shitty confusion? Then maybe you'll have the engineering resources to keep the two or three models up to date.

This is similar to my laptop rant the other day. It's sad to see companies shooting themselves in the foot.

orangecat3• 16 years ago

Agreed that they're making things way more complicated than they should be. As far as the parent poster, I have no idea why the Devour even exists; it's inferior to the Droid in every way. In your case the Nexus One is clearly the way to go; nothing else is significantly better spec-wise, and being Google's "official" model it's guaranteed to get updates first.

usaar3332• 16 years ago

In your specific case, the only clear "dumb" redundancies are the wildfire and legend (the differences seem trivial). And yes, I agree, it makes little sense for HTC to be making such similar models.

The Desire is the flagship (to htc), the tattoo is the low-end budget and the legend/wildfire is mid-range.

All of the other models HTC makes seem to be due to deals with carriers/other companies. The Nexus One is a google-branded phone sans sense. The Sprint hero had changes from the regular due to Sprint. The last goes on.

I imagine HTC is somewhat forced into this position. They don't have enough market power, so if a carrier wants something different, they generally have to comply.

wvenable5• 16 years ago

In the same vein, if you get an iPhone 4 you can every confidence that Apple will make every effort to ensure that innovative and competitive software will be rejected or removed from the app store. I'd say that's as much of a problem with iOS platform as older OS versions is with Android. If you want the same iPhone upgrade experience with Android, your best option is to get a Nexus One.

As a WinMo user, I've long accepted that the OEMs are terrible. My solution to this problem is make sure that whatever phone I buy has a strong hacker community around it so that I can unofficially upgrade whenever I wish. With my current phone, I flashed away from the stock ROM within a week and I upgrade every 6 months or so. In fact, I can even run Android on my phone even though it didn't exist when my phone was originally released.

loewenskind22• 16 years ago

>In the same vein, if you get an iPhone 4 you can every confidence that Apple will make every effort to ensure that innovative and competitive software will be rejected or removed from the app store.

This is just nonsense. Looks like your one of the "anti-apple hoard" the GGP was talking about. It's pretty well known why the 2%-3% of apps get rejected: using a private API, violating the agreement, violating laws (e.g. ignoring codec copyrights).

Name one single piece of "innovative and competitive software" that was rejected without a good reason.

jasonkester• 16 years ago

My solution to this problem is make sure that whatever phone I buy has a strong hacker community around it so that I can unofficially upgrade whenever I wish.

This is awesome. Not because of any of the parent's points, but simply because we're living in a world where telephones have their own communities of hackers. How fast did that happen?

I still have a phone that does little more than make phone calls, and the best hackers in the world when it came out were barely able to get it playing "snake". And it's not a very old phone.

The future rules!

ahk5• 16 years ago

Oh come on. Blaming Android for Verizon/Motorola's failings (and your own in not realizing what everyone was saying was _the_ advantage of the Nexus One) as well as rapid technological progress is pathetic.

Do you even remember the stunt Apple pulled a few years ago where they dropped the price of iPhone from $599 to $399? Do you intend to ping pong between Apple and Android whenever they announce such decisions?

masklinn11• 16 years ago

> Blaming Android for Verizon/Motorola's failings (and your own in not realizing what everyone was saying was _the_ advantage of the Nexus One) as well as rapid technological progress is pathetic.

His point is that, unless he buys a N1 maybe, he will never ever have any guarantees that his phone will be kept up to date for even 2 years.

loewenskind22• 16 years ago

Ok, so Apple haters blast Apple for keeping such a tight control and cheer when savior Google comes out with something "open", but when that openness is used by the vendors to do what they want instead of what Google wants it's not Google's fault? Did you ever stop to think that perhaps the reason Apple behaves as it does is to avoid exactly this problem?

You're pointing at something you think should theoretically be better and pointing fingers when it doesn't pan out, meanwhile the "evil" alternative is giving users a great experience.

buster• 16 years ago

Does "currently evaluated" mean "we won't update"? Not sure how Motorola handled that. Is it just marketing talk or will they just drop the update?

https://supportforums.motorola.com/community/manager/softwar...

dannyr• 16 years ago

It depends on what somebody prefers.

A. No 'cut and paste' for 2+ years and then a well-executed solution.

B.'cut and paste' that can be used now. Cumbersome but gets the job done.

Personally, I'd go with B.

ericd2• 16 years ago

One of the issues with that is that solutions that get the job done tend to be overlooked for reworks in the future.

ajg1977• 16 years ago

Absolutely.

In another year or two Apple may provide the notification system of my dreams, but after three years I'm ready for anything that doesn't involve a button press, screen swipe, and passcode, just to checkif I have unread email.

sirn• 16 years ago

I'd go with A. If something does not exist, then nobody will expect it to, and apps are more likely to built with that limitation in mind. The reverse is Windows Mobile. Copy and paste does not work most of time (you can't even select webpage text in IE!), but everyone knows it's there so nobody cares to do something about it.

statictype3• 16 years ago

>I'd go with A. If something does not exist, then nobody will expect it to

Copy and Paste existed in smart phones long before the iPhone was ever released. It's something that existed and people expected in the iPhone from day one. (And since most of those phons had physical keypads, the UI mechanism for doing it was fairly intuitive)

Lazlo_Nibble• 16 years ago

A. Being single for 2+ years and then getting into a relationship with someone you genuinely like being around pretty much all the time.

B. Being with someone now who's a constantly unreliable, annoying reminder of how you could do better.

Personally I'd go with A. (And yes, I think tools::relationships is a valid analogy.)

donaq2• 16 years ago

I'd liken it more to

A. Being jobless for 2+ years and then getting the perfect job.

B. Having a job now that kinda sucks, but pays the bills.

B for me. :)

werrett• 16 years ago

People we are talking about features on a consumer device -- these are not life changing events! No where near the level of importance you'd ascribe to choosing a life partner or a career.

So I propose you swap being single to being celibate in the metaphor.

Personally I'd choose the short term gratification route :) Although strangely I've chosen iPhone over Android...

mjcohen• 16 years ago

The (original) Palm had well-executed cut and paste from the beginning. Of course it uses a stylus, but that also means much greater precision when selecting. Too bad that Palm stopped developing its original OS - I still enjoy my Treo, but will probably switch to the iPhone when it dies.

smackfu• 16 years ago

Funny that Apple went for B with notifications.

sovande• 16 years ago

I wonder if I will be able to use the iPhone4 front-facing camera to do video over 3G here in Norway or if the iOS software will require a wifi connection. Anyone know? BTW, the US is really in a telecom-technical backwater. Cellphone users on the other side of the atlantic have enjoyed video conference calls on their handset for many years and over true 3G, not as a wifi hack. So the whole "'First to Do It' vs. 'First to Do It Right'" is kind of amusing as this is rather old outside of the US.

brisance3• 16 years ago

http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/06/estimate-of-network-ba...

The existing 3G network infrastructure wouldn't be able to take the beating.

ZeroGravitas8• 16 years ago

The first assumption in that article is wrong, the video is sent at the camera resolution (VGA) not the screen resolution. That's not only wrong, it's kinda stupid so maybe we shouldn't listen to him on the rest either.

drivebyacct4• 16 years ago

Oh it's funny because he thinks iOS multitasking is better.

Or real.

drivebyacct4• 16 years ago

No really. It's not actually multitasking. Downvote away, it's your ignorance.

loewenskind22• 16 years ago

Do you like functional programming? One of the nice things about functional programming is that I can see right away what is being done with a collection. Map is applying or "mapping" some translation to the list to create a new one, filter is taking a subset of the collection that meets some criteria. In e.g. C you just have that big dumb for loop. You want to know what is being done to the the collection? Well, you're just going to have to read the whole thing. Every time.

The problem is that there are several different kinds of things you want to do to a collection, but in C you just have the for loop and have to keep writing e.g. filter every time you need one. Over and over.

Apple gives you the functional approach to multitasking: there are a handful of things you actually want to use multitasking for and they're all supported with the api. You're complaining that they didn't give you that dumb for loop so you could just do it all yourself by hand. Over and over.

csmeder• 16 years ago

I like how Gruber can take an idea that seems completely obvious to me, but when ever I try to explain the idea and the reasons behind it I come up short. I don't have good examples or details. I end up looking dumb. So I keep my ideas to my self.

Its kind of like he takes what my intuition tells me, and then takes the time to explain why and give examples.

Before you down vote me, this is a personal opinion. I can understand if you think I'm crazy. If you disagree with Gruber's view (and I have a few times), then in your view my intuition is wrong and his articles are contrived -- and this may be true.

sumeeta• 16 years ago

What is that idea? I read it again and I’m still missing the moral of the story.

Zakuzaa• 16 years ago

You don't even need to read the whole story to get the gist of it, title does the justice.

ZeroGravitas8• 16 years ago

The moral of the story is the "no true scotsman" fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

You act like your the "first" to do something (or at least since the jetsons), then when someone calls you on it you fall back to a subtly different claim to be the "first to do it right" where right is a subjective opinion that can be argued with, but not an objective fact that can be disproved like your first claim.

It helps if you and your audience are both american and have little idea of what has been done and/or done right in telecommunications for years overseas. Then you can focus on the Android phone that introduced front facing cameras to the world last month as your benchmark for better.

Personally, I think video calling will be niche, but having a front facing camera will open the door to all kinds of cool 3rd party software like photo manipulation software similar to Photobooth on Mac OS X or the software built into the Nintendo DSi, or eye-tracking etc. This is where the policy that Apple only ships hardware that it finds a slick 1st party use for falls down. I have a video camera on my Macbook, only ever used for Photobooth and Skype, never video iChat.

natmaster2• 16 years ago

It's bullshit because daring fireball - like always - is employing deceitful marketing tactics (yes, I'm implying intent) to make claims that simply are not true (going beyond subjective statements).

Take the front facing camera. HTC Evo? I don't even know what that is! I have ALREADY made video calls with other skype users using my Nokia N900. Not only that, I sometimes do it over 3G, if I'm out of range of a wifi. Oh yeah, and it's all integrated into the normal phone experience - I don't have to launch a separate app just to make calls (how does that integrate with contacts?) Apple was not first. They restrict video calling to wifi and only through the apps they approve. They did it WRONG.

Do I sound harsh? Yes, probably. I think this is the only way for "daring" fireball to stop writing bullshit.

brisance3• 16 years ago

I'm not familiar with the Nokia N900.

Does it do HD (720p) video calls? Do both parties need to setup a Skype or GTalk account to have video calls?

natmaster2• 16 years ago

720p would be impressive over 3G. No, it is not that awesome. :P

Yes, you can't make video calls to your friends microwave oven - they'll need to use whatever protocol you are using. And yes, the N900 supports gtalk as well (although I haven't tried video chat with it myself).

artsrc• 16 years ago

Apple has a legal responsibility to their shareholders.

First to do it 'right for me', or first to do it 'right for Apple's shareholders'?

loewenskind22• 16 years ago

Every company has this problem (including Google). What point are you making?

ergo9812• 16 years ago

I have to confess my bias upfront and say that I'm not a fan of John Gruber. He eloquently spins bullshit, constructing superficially supported arguments that don't bear any scrutiny at all. He is so far down the Apple rabbit hole that he seldom convinces anyone other than the already convinced (which, for historic reasons, includes much of HN).

In this case he's talking about video calling. Ignoring the fact that nobody is actually going to use video calling (it has come so many times on many devices. The Evo was far from the first device to implement it), let's humor his point.

So let's compare-

Apple iPhone 4 - video calling between iPhone 4 devices, only over wifi, using Apple's completely new, completely non-standard protocol. Apparently it "works great", at least for people using demo units at an Apple conference under controlled circumstances.

Evo 4G - Android device with a front-facing camera. Apps support it to talk on any network you want. Fring, for instance, allowing you to call Skype video users on pretty much anything including PCs. This is over wifi, or a 3G/4G connection that can support it.

Gruber has close to no experience with the iPhone 4G, and his entire experience with the Evo 4G is one reviewer's take. Nonetheless, that has made him an expert.

Is iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 calling considered done? Seriously? To me that barely qualifies as beta. It barely qualifies as alpha. There are a legacy of long existing, open video calling protocols, and many existing implementations. Only the truly faithful could call Apple's take done.

EDIT To draw from a comment I left elsewhere, here's an exercise for Daring Fireball supporters: Imagine, if you will, that Motorola just introduced their latest Android device, front-facing camera and all, called the iDroid. The iDroid comes with an easy to use, ultra-simple video conferencing solution, but it only works on wifi, and it only works between iDroid devices.

How, I ask, would John Gruber respond to that? Imagine that it's been tightly polished and all.

Would he post a praise-filled entry lauding their innovation, heralding this great new functionality? Maybe I'm just being a jerk, but I think he would viciously attack it.

jodrellblank2• 16 years ago

How can you start off saying Gruber is awful for spinning superficially supported arguments, then go on to claim "nobody is going to use video calling" as a fact.

Especially when the whole point of Gruber's article is that nobody uses video calling because it's a confusing and complex mess, and when it isn't so (e.g. skype) it gets used, and when iPhone 4 comes out it will get used a lot more.

So let's compare-

Apple iPhone 4 - instantly popular with millions of people using the exact same make and model with the same software within a few months. Video calling baked in as a single button visible on every phonecall, advertised as a primary feature, designed for easy use.

Evo 4G - Phone with camera on the front. Not such a one-off instantly popular hit. Video calling not possible until specific apps heard of, downloaded and installed, configured, then still different and more hassle to use than a normal phonecall. Other features vary by app.

And only the truly antiApple could suggest that people are calling Apple's take "done" in any final sense as if nobody believes it will ever change ever.

ergo9812• 16 years ago

>then go on to claim "nobody is going to use video calling" as a fact.

It was obviously a personal opinion. See, I'm not making a grand blog entry waxing poetically on why no one will ever make video calls, carefully creating a curated (word of the month) list of support blog and tweet entries to bolster my supposition.

I offered zero supports to my opinionn. I think you're missing a big difference there. I don't pretend that I have supports for personal opinion.

>So let's compare-

Apple is big and successful (biggest tech company...yet people still pretend that they're counter-culture supporting them. Funny, that). Therefore their "we're big and successful" gives them leave to build things only for their, to use the trite descriptive, walled garden?

"You can made all the video calls you want...as long as anyone you want to call has an iPhone 4 and is currently on wifi...and so are you. Easie-peasie!"

Seriously, this pushes to the point of being comical.

>And only the truly antiApple could suggest that people are calling Apple's take "done" in any final sense as if nobody believes it will ever change ever.

Obviously it will change. Gruber considers it "done right". I think it is done absolutely horrifically, and it is done in a way that is exactly the problem many people have had with Apple's actions.

vetinari3• 16 years ago

Video calls are available in any UMTS network (read 3G, without any extension) since they were deployed (i.e. early 2000). They do not involve any setup, just selecting "video call" instead of "audio call" when choosing contact and the phone number. To this day, any 3G phone with front-faced camera does support it.

Despite this, the adoption is near zero. I remember that I tried it once, just for the novelty and have quickly forgotten about it. Most people didn't even try it, despite the ad campaign by mobile companies.

So what makes you think, that when Apple comes with some features decades later, with many more limitations and complications (Am I on the wifi? Does the contact have iPhone? What it was called? Face-what?), that it will be more popular than zero-setup and seamless compatibility in billions of Nokias, Sony-Ericssons, Samsungs and LGs already shipped and used daily?

thewileyone• 16 years ago

I agree. Gruber is full of shit. Forward facing cameras on Nokia phones have been working on non-3g telephony networks for a while.

Saying that "it works right" between two iPhone 4Gs and limited to a wifi network, is like saying the AMC Gremlin is the greatest car in the world on a local track.

astrange2• 16 years ago

> Apple's completely new, completely non-standard protocol.

It uses a standard Internet protocol (SIP+SRTP) as they said in the keynote.

Skype actually does use a proprietary codec (On2 VP7, which Google hasn't released) in their Skype<>Skype video chat. Does Fring use that, or does it support 3G too?

In any case I'd see not using 3G as a major advantage for FaceTime, since H.264+AAC is much better than low-bitrate H.263 used in 3G.

ergo9812• 16 years ago

>It uses a standard Internet protocol (SIP+SRTP) as they said in the keynote.

While it draws from a lot of existing standards, it embraces and extends. It isn't interoperable with anything currently deployed.

Which is interesting because one alternative world would have seen them introducing the standard a year ago, to be met by broad acceptance and compatibility at release. They chose not to do this, meaning that early adopters enter a very scarce world.

asmosoinio• 16 years ago

> Ignoring the fact that nobody is actually going to use

> video calling (it has come so many times on many devices.

> The Evo was far from the first device to implement it),

> let's humor his point.

I just discussed video calls with some of my friends (we all work/have worked with mobile phone software). We agreed that it is one of the biggest technologies that the manufacturers have specified and implemented that _nobody_ has _ever_ used.

Now this article was the first time I read about iPhone 4 and video calls. I wonder if Apple is going to be the first one to have people actually using the feature. I mean it's not that odd a feature, people chat on Skype with webcams all the time.

Also kind of interesting that video call was one of the main arguments to spend billions to build 3G networks (at least here in Finland).. what.. almost 10 years ago? And IF this works for Apple, it's not going to use any of the technology built back then (not the 3G network and not the software specifications).

dieterrams• 16 years ago

> Imagine, if you will, that Motorola just introduced their latest Android device, front-facing camera and all, called the iDroid. The iDroid comes with an easy to use, ultra-simple video conferencing solution, but it only works on wifi, and it only works between iDroid devices.

How, I ask, would John Gruber respond to that? Imagine that it's been tightly polished and all.

Would he post a praise-filled entry lauding their innovation, heralding this great new functionality? Maybe I'm just being a jerk, but I think he would viciously attack it.

----------

I love how you're using a hypothetical scenario in which Gruber would very plausibly praise the implementation in question in order to undermine his credibility. He has often pointed out when a competitor does something better than Apple does, or otherwise markedly improves on the status quo.

All you've done is create a gestalt which people who don't know any better will interpret according to their biases. Talk about arguments that don't bear any scrutiny.

ergo9812• 16 years ago

>I love how you're using a hypothetical scenario in which Gruber would very plausibly praise the implementation in question in order to undermine his credibility.

Most who reads DF would come to a common prediction about how Gruber would have responded to that hypothetical. It doesn't undermine his credibility, but simply puts into context that he is, failing to have a better word, a fanboy.

isleyaardvark2• 16 years ago

He has commented on Droid features in the past, vicious attacks like:

"The email client adds support for Exchange and, moving ahead of the iPhone’s MobileMail, adds support for a combined “all accounts” inbox view." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/27/android-20)

"Interestingly, browser scrolling in Android 2.0 seems to have far less “friction” than the iPhone — flick the page and it seems to scroll until you stop it." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/28/engadget-droid)

"The best thing that could happen for iPhone users would be for the Android and/or WebOS communities to start shipping apps that make iPhone owners jealous. Google Voice for Android is the best example so far." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/08/10/torrez-android)

I think it's a shame that you're attacking him for a counterfactual.

ergo9812• 16 years ago

You went searching through the DF archives to find some damning praise and that's the best you could come up with. In each case you selectively chose what you thought was a compliment (protip: His friction comment was not a compliment), yet if you quoted the whole entry you would see that it's damning praise. A compliment sandwich wrapped around a "it's a second class platform" filling.

It's also interesting that the best you could find was from over a half a year ago.

Most criticism of Daring Fireball has to do with how it has turned so rabidly one-sided over the past few months. Gruber has somehow taken up the battle as a personal mission, now valiantly defending Apple against the evils of Google or Adobe. While before he did the whole "compliment sandwich around an insult" thing, now he doesn't even bother with that and it's instead just all criticism.

rbreve• 16 years ago

The Japanese did video calls 7 years ago, some nokia phones have also integrated this without third party software and its very easy to use. Apple is not the first to do it right

guelo2• 16 years ago

Google doesn't control all the stuff that all the different manufacturers and carriers are doing with Android so they cant enforce quality. But, Froyo has the front-facing camera in the SDK and Skype is working on their Android app. So, in a year or two Apple will be left in the dust when all these devices are capable of video-chatting with each other across different manufacturers and carriers, and with PCs and Macs and even with WinMos and Nokias, and who knows what else.

Apple has a pretty good headstart but they have to compete against a whole industry, they don't have a shot.

loewenskind22• 16 years ago

What in Apple's recent behavior makes you think they're just going to sit and wait to die?

>Apple has a pretty good headstart but they have to compete against a whole industry, they don't have a shot.

Odd to see an opinion like this on a site that leans toward Entrepreneurs.

masklinn11• 16 years ago

> Apple has a pretty good headstart but they have to compete against a whole industry, they don't have a shot.

iPod.

ZeroGravitas8• 16 years ago

Recently Gruber pointed out that just because you don't like something (in this particular case, the closed nature and strange policies of the App store) doesn't necessarily mean it's a fatal flaw that will doom a platform.

The incredibly illuminating example he used to demonstrate this? The crappiness of the Windows GUI:

It occurs to me that the App Store’s restrictions and control are to this coming mobile era what Windows’s inferior user interface was to the PC era: something that offends some critics to a degree such that they will insist for years, despite the success and popularity of the platform, that it’s a fatal flaw that will ultimately doom it.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/19/fitzgerald

So will "doing it first" doom Android and limit its growing success and popularity, or does he just not like things that aren't done "right"? I also think, like the Windows GUI, that you'd be surprised about how much what you think is "right" has to do with what you're used to.

danielh• 16 years ago

The existence of a front-facing camera may fairly be considered a “catch up” feature on iPhone 4. But the ability to use the front-facing camera to actually make video calls is first on the iPhone.

I once saw a guy standing in the subway, looking on the floor, gesticulating like crazy. I though the guy was either drunk or mentally ill.

As I left the subway, I realized that the guy was holding a phone in his hand. I could glimpse on the display and saw another person gesticulating.

Apparently the guy was deaf and was talking in sign language in a video chat. On a subway, which probably had no Wifi. That was in 2007.

I was amazed by technology (and felt like an idiot for the snap judgement).

rythie• 16 years ago

Apple had to do the copy+paste work because no one else could.

However, the could have put the front facing camera on without the software, since people can write apps to use. As for doing it right, I don't think an app that only works from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 on WiFi is doing it right. Doing it right would to be able to Skype video call to anyone who has the app, be that on the Mac, Windows etc.

Also, if you think Apple themselves have to use all the hardware in the phone, then look at the gyroscope, Apple have no software that uses it.

loup-vaillant• 16 years ago

> "I think many people have little understanding of the difference between Wi-Fi and 3G data — at least insofar as why a feature would work over one but not the other."

Easy: the difference is that 3G data is not an internet connection.

Sure, you can browse the web, but most 3G data package don't give you a public IP, so your phone can't be a server, and they tend to block many TCP and UDP ports. Your phone is effectively in a private network which has a very limited access to the rest of the Internet.

That, plus the fact that carriers make you sign a contract that forbid you to use their bandwidth in certain ways.

'First to Do It' vs. 'First to Do It Right'

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