Apple's Mistake (2009)

by sillysaurus3 • 12 years ago

40 48 12 years ago

I submitted this because I just realized it's been half a decade since this was written, so if it's true then we should be able to see some evidence of whether or not Apple actually made a mistake. Has the essay turned out to be true? Mistaken? Or possibly true in the future?

And if Apple made no mistake, then what does that bode for the future of programming?

jonnathanson3• 12 years ago

On the whole, it's tough to say. But parts of it were certainly prophetic. The rise of Android is, at least to a degree, testament to the fact that a lot of developers believe Android is a better platform.

This is a crucial passage:

"But Android is an orphan; Google doesn't really care about it, not the way Apple cares about the iPhone. Apple cares about the iPhone the way Google cares about search."

Google ended up caring a great deal about Android. Maybe it didn't in 2009. Maybe it did, and it was just taking time to figure things out. But it's hard to argue now that Google doesn't take Android seriously. And now Android is a big threat to iOS.

In any event, I wouldn't say PG was wrong about this point. Rather, I'd say that hindsight is 20/20. Android was in its infancy when PG wrote the essay, and he was correct in calling it out as a viable threat to iOS.

I don't necessarily agree with the "why" of it, though. Android's rise isn't really the result of arrogance on Apple's part. It's largely the result of two factors: 1) its distribution as a decentralized platform; 2) the price-competitiveness of Android devices. To the extent a lot of developers prefer Android to iOS, it's an opportunistic preference -- not a moral or philosophical one. Developers will go where the users are. More and more users are on Android. A secondary factor is that Android is an easier testing and deployment environment.

IBM2• 12 years ago

Android isn't a threat to Apple, Android just replaced the incumbents Blackberry and Nokia. There is no Android OEM that can go head to head with Apple in the market they compete in but Samsung (high-end phones), and even there Samsung is losing ground to Apple. Market share is only an important statistic because it may influence developers to focus on one platform or the other. But Apple had great developers and apps on OSX on smaller market share and a smaller install base, so there's no way iOS is going to stop being a developer focus. As for what concerns Apple and their business, as long as they keep selling more iOS devices every year than they did the last year, they don't really care how small their market share is.

Market share could get so tiny that developers decide to switch to Android-first, but as of now iOS still holds the crown. Without other metrics like user engagement turning against Apple, developers have no reason to be Android-first.

melling2• 12 years ago

No, the rise of Android has everything to do with the fact that it's free, and supports many vendors, etc. It was pretty obvious in 2008 when I was telling everyone that Android was going to be big:

http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/messages/4171610/

It has absolutely nothing to do with being better. Apple simply gives up 80-90% percent of the market by being a premium phone.

theswan• 12 years ago

In a way, I think Google really did orphan "Android," the open source project. Key parts of the current Android experience (Google Now, Google launcher, music player, Hangouts/Messaging, etc.) are now closed source and only available to OEM parnters who sign with Google (http://www.tested.com/tech/android/458759-android-44-kitkat-...). The AOSP equivalent components are painfully ancient.

This has happened over the last few years as Google began exercising more control over the platform and secure a better experience; now - there's Android, the somewhat orphaned OSS, and Android, the Google experience OS.

Steko3• 12 years ago

The rise of Android has nothing to do with developers choosing Android over iOS. This is true most obviously because developers haven't chosen Android over iOS.

tsieling• 12 years ago

I started out pretty neutral about the approval process, but have come to think it was the best decision they could have made.

In Android world, rejections happen after something bad happens. That means some person who trusted an app got screwed, and enough have to get screwed, for Google to take down the offending app.

It doesn't always make life fun; we're submitting an app update tomorrow that is totally benign but will take 5-6 days to get approved. But on the other side of that is a customer base that installs updates from us without worry, and that's very valuable to us.

There are horror stories about terrible approval process decisions and being stuck in limbo. But for each one of those, thousands of developers see their apps approved or rejected in a pretty reasonable way. That ratio doesn't excuse bad decisions, but the approval process has made the iOS platform what it is for developers and customers today.

interpol_p2• 12 years ago

I don't know if I can agree with this essay. I've found the App Store review process has helped me as a software developer, and has helped my customers.

I've learned to take the rejections positively, and in many cases it has improved the quality of my software. Two cases specifically come to mind:

- Apple rejected an app for not putting in battery usage warnings when the app made use of background location

- Apple rejected an app for including placeholder artwork for in-game achievements

In the cases where I felt I was right, I have almost always been able to argue my point with the reviewer and was allowed through. This has been the case both for policy issues and software design.

That said, there have been moments of pain. Like when I was involved in a trademark dispute and was required to rename my app. Apple delayed the process a lot, causing the other party to become concerned (eventually Apple approved the update but it caused some tension). I think Apple has since improved their review mechanism to handle cases like this (e.g., now including the option "Is this update being submitted for legal reasons, such as copyright or trademark infringement?")

It sometimes feels like software developers think they should be above judgment; that they should be treated as first-class citizens and not their customers. I personally prefer Apple's approach. Though I'm glad there are platforms which cater to both sides.

mikeash2• 12 years ago

The review process can be great. But it can also suck. I'm sure you've read the horror stories. I won't reiterate them, but will say that I've been involved in some personally.

I don't think it's worth the tradeoff.

I'm glad there are platforms which cater to both sides, but I wish the all did. There is no reason iOS couldn't have the curated, reviewed, controlled App Store and the ability to sideload whatever apps you wanted, for those of us who don't want Apple deciding what we can or cannot run on our own hardware.

IBM2• 12 years ago

The "those of us" is too small a user base for Apple to make trade-offs for. Most people don't care.

interpol_p2• 12 years ago

I wonder about being able to sideload — because I sell a relatively expensive app on the App Store (at least, expensive in App Store terms: $10).

If sideloading were possible I wonder if it would increase the piracy rate for my app, on which I make a living.

Personally, I would love to do away with the certificates and signing and be able to run whatever. But I wonder if it would hurt my business. I realise that piracy is already possible, but I suspect any form of sideloading makes it a far more accessible option.

Edit: as I said, I'm pretty aware of the sucky bits. My review process (expedited!) went on for months while the trademark dispute played out. It was an incredibly anxious time.

philwelch• 12 years ago

The review process has undoubtedly been refined since 2009, too.

e28eta3• 12 years ago

The article said 4-8 weeks approval time, that has definitely improved (unless Eddy Cue is blocking approval of your ebook app or something)

caiob• 12 years ago

Unbelievable how we're still facing the same issues 5 years later.

gress• 12 years ago

That's because we're not.

marze• 12 years ago

I believe the process on Apple's side has improved significantly compared to four years ago.

argumentum6• 12 years ago

2009 seems like yesterday, it's crazy how different the world was merely 5 years ago.

Since then, Android has certainly grown into an viable competitor to the iPhone, though it's still far behind in many ways, particularly developer adoption and the high end of the market (which is by far more profitable).

Apple has also gotten a bit better and faster in app approval from what my friends say. Still, the iPhone is a lot less hackable than especially the nexus phones. It's still bewilderingly hard to test an app with real people (I'm writing my first iOS app right now and so wish I could just email an apk to even 5 friends). I know many get around this surreptitiously using the "enterprise" program (my hunch is Apple knows but quietly lets it slide knowing that a lot of the best developers do this).

Compared with rooting an android, jail breaking an iPhone seems more risky and less effective. And Apple seems to have succumbed to carriers wrt banning tethering apps not only from the app store, but also in code (from what I hear, haven't had the chance to see if it's possible yet).

However, there are a lot of reasons startups still start with iOS and leave android as a second thought:

1. iOS users actually buy apps, use them, and spend money in them which is extremely rare amongst android users

2. A lot more iOS users have the latest OS and enough also the latest hardware, which means you can do the coolest stuff the platform allows and (at least initially) not have to worry about deprecating well for legacy devices/OS.

3. the devices themselves are (as pg wrote) just too much better designed compared to to even the best android phones. I have a nexus 5 and iPhone 5s and slowly over time I pretty much only use the iPhone except when developing for android. It's little things that cause this behavior, like being able to plug in the iPhone's power cord in the dark (since it's symmetric).

It's still too early to decide whether Apple's tight control is purely a good or bad thing. You could make a decent case either way.

threeseed• 12 years ago

It's still bewilderingly hard to test an app with real people.

Pretty simple with TestFlight.

Companies who have iOS apps deal with this every single day.

argumentum6• 12 years ago

Doesn't test flight still require you to add those devices somehow, like I couldn't just email something I just hacked together to anyone (and tell them to enable the developer mode).

SomeCallMeTim2• 12 years ago

iOS users actually buy apps, use them, and spend money in them which is extremely rare amongst android users

So do Android users. Over a year ago iOS and Android phone apps were dead even in revenues. [1]

Android tablets are behind the curve still, but for the first time Android tablets are outselling iPads -- Android tablets took 62% of the market in 2013. [2]

It will take a while for that lead to actually cause Android tablet revenues to exceed iPad revenues, but it seems inevitable. So in eventually the Android tablet revenue numbers will match or exceed the iPad's as well.

the devices themselves are (as pg wrote) just too much better designed compared to to even the best android phones

iPhones are nice, but they totally don't trump the features if that's what you care about. I have the Nexus 5 and I wouldn't give it up for an iPhone; the screen size alone makes a huge difference to me.

The Lightning connector is elegant. But I can buy a micro-USB cable for a dollar; a Lightning cable is at least $9. I can have extra cables everywhere I need one for next to nothing. And yes, getting the polarity wrong sucks, but having a standardized cable that works on ALL the devices I need to charge is even better.

It depends on what you care about.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/03/27/android...

[2] http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/03/gartner-195m-tablets-sold-i...

codr• 12 years ago

"Over a year ago iOS and Android phone apps were dead even in revenues. [1]"

From the Forbes article:

"A year ago, that lead shrunk to iPhone users being 50% more valuable – and right now, if the app is designed specifically for Android and some segmentation is considered, the revenue generation potential is the same."

That's a big if, and a qualifier to boot.. I don't think what that article is saying (potential for revenue can be the same in some cases) is the same as "dead even in revenues".

argumentum6• 12 years ago

Often good design is what you leave out just as much as what you put in to a product. The biggest reason I resisted the iPhone at first was its late adoption of 4g. At the time I had a galaxy nexus, one of the earlier phones with 4g, but I ended up getting a 4s as well for my startup. Even without 4g, I noticed slowly moving over to the iPhone, because at the time batteries were not good enough for the 4g radio. Even if the speeds were much faster, if I wasn't diligent with charging (which I'm not) I rarely had the opportunity to use 4g (or the phone at all actually). This was by design on Apple's part, as clearly it wasn't technical inability.

I agree that screen size is crucial, but I have an iPad for reading etc. If I had to choose only one device, then screen size would be a bigger deal.

Regarding profit/revenue, what about articles like these (also from last year):

http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/31/android-in-app-downloads/

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/27/apples-ios-brings-...

I find this understanding of the numbers far more prevalent then what your article described.

e28eta3• 12 years ago

> iOS users actually buy apps, use them, and spend money in them which is extremely rare amongst android users
So do Android users. Over a year ago iOS and Android phone apps were dead even in revenues. [1]

That statement was new to me. I'm guessing it is specifically talking about revenue from ads, since the source of the quote works for an ad network. This discounts revenue from sales (which I believe is nearly nonexistent on Android), IAP (which drives major revenue for "free-to-play" games on iOS, but I don't know about Android), and subscriptions (who knows).

I also find the "Android tablets outsold iPads" interesting news. The breakdown of tablet by manufacturer shows Apple clearly winning (36%), Samsung #2 (19%), and everyone else below 6% with a large bucket of "Other" (31%). That's still a strong position for Apple at the high end of the market, and mirrors the smartphone market where Apple & Samsung make all of the profit.

I think Apple has staked out the premium devices, and will continue to be successful there. But, won't most of the growth come from global markets where their products are out of reach for most consumers? Where does that leave them, and can they afford to continue to ignore the rest of the market?

shinymark• 12 years ago

I run a small game development studio in San Francisco. This still resonates with us. So much so that our most recent game is Google Play only, at least to begin with.

We can iterate on the product at near web-speed on Android. Our last game started on iOS first and at one point it had an update take 22 days to go through Apple's approval process. It was a complete black box to us - there was no reason given why it was taking so long and there was no one to contact regarding why. After not being able to submit a critical bug fix for 22 days to our players we decided that it wasn't the right place for us to launch on in the future.

So far I've been very happy with our decision to focus initially on Google Play. Launching first on that platform has allowed us to iterate on our latest game quickly, improving the experience continuously for players. Our players appreciate the quick improvements, and I'm not just talking about bug fixes here; we're also adding features to address player requests.

Once the rate of change slows we'll port it back to iOS.

jobu• 12 years ago

I've heard that rapid-fire updates to Android apps can hurt rankings. Have you had any problems with this?

Steko3• 12 years ago

Four years and change later the central thesis that developers will abandon Apple en masse because the App Store is a great crime against programmers rings hollow. iOS is still the first target for many developers and for those where it isn't, they're more likely following the enormous Android userbase most of which Apple doesn't even compete for. I'm sure it has cost them some developers but the short list of big time Android first apps tells you the score.

At the end of the day hot dog vendors sell hot dogs in highly regulated NYC because people in NYC buy hot dogs. Companies sell their goods to Wal-Mart and Neiman Marcus instead of at the flea market because that's what keeps the lights on. Small publishers work with Amazon despite horrible terms because it puts steak on the dinner table.

One thing this article reminds us of it that pg has the not uncommon HN blind spot for Google who he claims has "remained true to their founding principles". I guess stabbing a close partner in the back by releasing a clone of their flagship product is not being evil. I wonder if he's also a fan of the Samwer brothers?

MichaelApproved2• 12 years ago

"I guess stabbing a close partner in the back by releasing a clone of their flagship product is not being evil."

What is the product you're referencing?

droopybuns• 12 years ago

facebook?

e28eta3• 12 years ago

Steve Jobs would say the iPhone

argumentum6• 12 years ago

I guess stabbing a close partner in the back by releasing a clone of their flagship product is not being evil

1. All these companies "stab each other in the back" and engage in cut throat competition for everything, including (notoriously now) employees and customers.

2. Of all the things google has done, or is doing, or might do releasing Android was one of the more benevolent. At least the "victim" was a giant corporation not defenseless employees, factory workers, developers or customers.

3. Evil is what Sergey says is evil.

I'm a huge fan of Apple products, but "benevolent" is certainly not a word you might use to describe them as a company. In many cases (not all), the opposite can be said of Google.

moeedm• 12 years ago

Way off the mark.

The number of independent iOS Developers that are out there, who make a great living building a few apps and supporting their users grows everyday. They didn't alienate Apple, they reaped the benefits of a well thought out system that works for everyone.

salem• 12 years ago

My impression of this is that Apple and Android still cannot 100% guarantee that your personal information is safe from apps, or that content is used as licensed. Apple's mitigation for this is aggressive curation of the Appstore, while Google attempts to automate this (there is a delay of a few hours), which is far more developer friendly. Hopefully over time Android and iOS will improve further and reduce information leaks in the platform, make granting permissions optional (no take it all or leave it), and perhaps add an ARM version of Intel's software guard extensions (SGX) so we can have mutual distrust between apps and the platform, and have the platforms be far more open by default.

Apple's Mistake (2009)

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