If Apple holds the future of computing, I don't want to be a developer (2010)

http://blog.madhukaraphatak.com/if-apple-holds-the-future-of-computing-I-dontwant-to-be-a-developer/

by phatak-dev • 12 years ago

54 53 12 years ago

blog.madhukaraphatak.com

garrettgrimsley2• 12 years ago

Phatak ,what is with the oddly spaced punctuation ?

phatak-dev2• 12 years ago

It was one of my first posts. I kept it just to remind myself how I evolved over time.

garrettgrimsley2• 12 years ago

Ah OK. I thought that maybe it was for emphasis since the rest of the English is decent.

AnonNo15• 12 years ago

Seems like the fear of Apple monoculture is now less of a concern. Android marketshare is larger now then Apple's.

microtonal• 12 years ago

Worldwide, it is not only larger. iOS is now a tiny blip on the radar, compared to Android:

http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

(Of course, iOS users may be outspending Android users, etc.)

grouperfish• 12 years ago

Technically yes, but a lot of Android phones are used in lower-income countries and areas as essentially dumbphones.

In the high-end smartphone world, Apple is king.

aikah• 12 years ago

It doesn't matter if most paying customers are on IOS(which I dont know if it is the case or not,it's just that specific case where global market share is not that relevant).

It's a bit like TV,where a tv show can have loads of viewers it doesn't matter,advertisers are interested only in a specific demographic.

austinz• 12 years ago

This histrionics-filled article is a waste of time. There is far more to software engineering than building mobile apps for either iOS or Android. Even back in 2010 it should have been abundantly clear that mobile was not going to subsume all of software engineering.

coldtea• 12 years ago

Don't let the door hit you in your way out.

taylorlapeyre• 12 years ago

I'm sure that your thoughts are interesting, but the lack of grammar, punctuation, and spelling in this article makes it very hard to read.

exDM69• 12 years ago

Did you not notice that this was written by someone not speaking English as their primary language?

You will miss a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas if you don't put a bit of effort in trying to understand bad grammar, spelling and foreign accents.

RRRA• 12 years ago

Android won a lot, but I still don't think that is the openness I am looking for.

I need a true community around a project which entails a governance model that actually is more open, be it democratic or meritocratic.

I wish the Ubuntu phone and others would catch on faster.

spacefight• 12 years ago

Maybe more like Firefox OS?

fidotron2• 12 years ago

FFOS just encourages more dependence on the cloud, and thus less freedom.

Smart devices need to function without connection to the Internet. With the SPE hack there will be increasing noise about this and it's going to give Apple (especially their P2P protocols) a major boost.

fatihpense• 12 years ago

Also, Google Play is the dominant market for Android. A crucial thing as sharing your app is not that open practically. Sure you can share .apk file, however user also should enable third party apps, passing security warning dialogs... etc.

fidotron2• 12 years ago

The big question needs to be if the platform backer actually has the success of the platform at heart, or if it's just a moat for something else.

Apple have the killer advantage that the ongoing success of iOS makes them money directly, thus iOS gets improved in and of itself, and not as a gateway drug to something else. This is why they are proving stubbornly effective at holding on to all the valuable parts of the market.

everyone• 12 years ago

Mobile is the future..

Meh. Maybe mobile and some shit ecosystem like apple is the future for most people. But most people arent into interesting esoteric things. The pc and internet revolutions were started by small groups of some weird people. The fact that something has been embraced by all the 'norms' usually means that thing is not interesting anymore. For example, the internet used to be a crazy, mysterious, lawless place. Now people do their shopping and banking there and governments and big corps are policing it.

cinquemb• 12 years ago

Having developed on both android and ios, the platforms and the ecosystems leave a lot to be desired, not to mention I feel like I'm running a expensive dumbed down computer in my pocket.

If I want download a file on my phone and pipe it into another process, I shouldn't have to download an app that exports everything on the phone for w/e purposes or write one when a simple script would do…

jorgecastillo• 12 years ago

https://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/

This project hasn't received any updates in a while but so far it has never let me down when I need to do some text processing in my smartphone.

rubbingalcohol2• 12 years ago

Hitching your wagon to one company, whether it's Apple or Google, is a great way to set yourself up for being exploited.

And, yeah. That whole "mobile is the future" thing really was so 2010. But mobile only turned out to be _part_ of the future. Everyone was so convinced that tiny plastic devices with no keyboards or computing power would supersede decades of awesomeness that was, and continues to be, the personal computer.

"Mobile is the future" didn't pan out, similarly to how today's "enterprise is the future" fad is going to.

Developers should be able to see past all this noise, choose a compromise between what they enjoy doing and what makes money, and go do some cool shit.

phatak-dev2• 12 years ago

True. I was a fresher passing out of the college and I was not able to cut through the noise as I can do today. Today I work on Big data and other areas which have same momentum and importance.

ddebernardy• 12 years ago

"Mobile is the future" didn't pan out,

Really? Please enlighten me.

A recent mobile phone, such as an iPhone, has approximately the same computing power as Deep Blue when measured in Flops, i.e. the same as a super-computer from 15 years ago. It's about as powerful as a PC from a half decade ago. (And it's currently made of aluminum, rather than plastic.)

Moreover, Apple's iPhone revenue (just the iPhone) is in the same ballpark as the revenue from everything sold by Microsoft.

As for the equipment rate of smart phones, it's steadily growing higher than PC equipment rates. This is particularly true in developing countries and in lower-income segments of the population in developed ones (both groups are Android users for the most part). In both cases, a smartphone is becoming (indeed, has become in the case of the former, since they often skipped the PC step altogether) the main device they use to access the internet.

I'm not really seeing how "mobile is the future" didn't pan out... Please, please, enlighten me.

foolrush• 12 years ago

Agree with original sentiment.

Part of the future.

More serious work in the arts (imaging, music, architecture, etc.) and sciences is simply a ridiculous suggestion to accomplish on mobile devices. Horsepower, input / output contexts, technological hurdles, and a plethora of other issues make mobile devices simply useless in many of those contexts.

meesterdude5• 12 years ago

Because we still have/need PC's.

Mobile is a new market, a new branch of computing, so naturally there is going to be a lot of growth there. A lot of people don't need a full-blown PC at home, so a phone that lets them check facebook and read articles covers most of their needs. And as you mentioned with india: computers were simply not affordable for most, but smartphones are. But again, this is just growth potential and untapped markets.

Businesses will still use computers, as will gamers, developers, writers, filmmakers, accountants... and so on. Mobile has helped them, but it hasn't obsoleted PC's. We still need them to create the things to be consumed on mobile devices.

rubbingalcohol2• 12 years ago

I'm not really seeing how "mobile is the future" didn't pan out... Please, please, enlighten me.

Okay. Try editing a spreadsheet on your iPhone.

I said that mobile is _part_ of the future. It is not _the_ future. But you wouldn't have known that in 2010 when big tech companies were acquiring every tiny little mobile startup they could get their talons into. And then most of their products ended up languishing because none of the big tech companies knew what to do with them.

Those companies didn't see the whole picture, and it seems you still don't either.

(Also, 6 cores at 4.5ghz stomps on your iPhone :)

TheCoelacanth• 12 years ago

Multi-modal computing is the future. One device to do everything fails just as much when that one device is a phone as it does when that one device is a PC. There are many things that a mobile device just can't do as well as a PC (not in terms of computing power, but in terms of user interaction). There are other things that can be done better by a specialized embedded computer than they can by a phone or a PC. The future is in seamless interoperability between different forms of computing devices; not in a single form of computing device taking over all applications.

WorldWideWayne2• 12 years ago

A recent mobile phone [...] has approximately the same computing power as Deep Blue...

Computing power doesn't mean a whole lot when the screen is just 4 inches wide and the only way to interact with it's proprietary non-multitasking OS is by poking it with your finger.

Moreover, Apple's iPhone revenue (just the iPhone) is in the same ballpark as the revenue from everything sold by Microsoft.

Microsoft generally doesn't sell hardware, so I'm unsure how this comparison would be useful.

As for the equipment rate of smart phones, it's steadily growing higher than PC equipment rates. [...] a smartphone is becoming [...] the main device they use to access the internet.

PC hardware's biggest customer is and always has been business. That's not being replaced by mobile. College kids aren't writing their papers on mobile devices in large numbers. Government agencies aren't switching to mobile devices for their data entry. So in that respect, "mobile is the future" didn't pan out because "the future" is generally expected to wholly replace the "the past" and that is certainly not happening.

please, enlighten me.

Consider yourself enlightened.

meesterdude5• 12 years ago

I think this article is HN worthy, but the lack of attention to grammar and punctuation is off putting and makes it harder to take this seriously, or link to coworkers.

Mobile is the feature

and what a feature it is! But I know you meant "future". And on that, I disagree. it is NOT the future. They aren't going to obsolete PC's. They are a new branch of computing, but PC's are still around and are still the primary content creators, while mobile is primarily geared to consumption.

But I'm glad to be a web developer for many of the reasons you identified. i don't need approval, I can use an array of technologies and techniques to deliver the same end product, and collaborate with others via open source projects or in online forums. It's really a great time to be a webdev.

My eyes glaze over a bit when people talk iOS or android development. I just don't care. The apps I use the most are the ones that came with my phone, and I only use a handful in addition to that. I have no desire to deal with all the BS that's associated with mobile development or trying to turn a profit on the app store. If I launch my side project and it does well, I'll certainly consider native apps if the demand is there. Otherwise I'm quite happy to develop for the web/mobile-web.

rebootthesystem• 12 years ago

The App Store quickly became a lowest-bidder marketplace with flash-in-the-pan hits here and there and state lottery level probability of success. We jumped in and gave it an honest try in the education category. We soon realized we could make a far greater impact and have massively better control with equivalent web-based products. We can control the design, marketing, business model, interface, analytics and more.

Right of the line the value proposition is enhanced by the fact that you can easily differentiate from a sea of crappy free mobile apps and we can communicate directly with our customers with depth and personal engagement.

On iOS we had to deal with such nonsense as not being able to disable multitouch gestures frim the app (and only for the app, not globally). The use case being small children or developmentally disabled children, where multitouch gestures can range from a distraction to a usability nightmare.

Anyhow, this is jut to echo some of what you said about web dev.

meesterdude5• 12 years ago

A great reflection, and wonderful comment! It echos the echos of others I've talked to who went back to a web focus after mobile development bit them in some way.

matthewwiese2• 12 years ago

They aren't going to obsolete PC's.

Considering you were criticizing the author on his grammar, you made a mistake yourself! "Obsolete" is an adjective, not a verb.

Also, I like your distinction between traditional PCs for creation and mobile for consumption. Mobile devices can do little in the way of content creation, disregarding the simple apps that allow users to change basic properties, such as add a filter to an image. However, I see mobile eclipsing PCs merely because the majority of people have no need to create content and merely would like to consume their favorite media.

atlantic• 12 years ago

Considering you were criticizing the author on his grammar, you made a mistake yourself! "Obsolete" is an adjective, not a verb.

That's not quite right. In the context of American English, "obsolete" can be used as a verb.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/obsolete#Verb

sheetjs• 12 years ago

"Obsolete" is an adjective, not a verb.

Merriam Webster recognizes the verb form of obsolete. The example is from 1936:

"For radio itself deliberately obsoletes today what it built yesterday." —David Sarnoff, Television, 1936

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obsolete

meesterdude5• 12 years ago

Thanks for the grammar lesson! I love language and articulating correctly. I know that wasn't your purpose in pointing it out, but I appreciate the correction all the same.

There's a difference between making a mistake, and just paying no attention at all to grammar or spelling. Wasn't asking for perfect, just that he try.

Yes, I agree with your later point; most people don't need a PC for what they want to do. Or in places like india (as another HN user pointed out) there is huge growth because they're affordable, versus PC's which are not. But people will still need PC's for work, for school, and for play; so it'll be interesting to see the long term effects.

api• 12 years ago

Yup. Last week cloud+web was the future. Now it's mobile. Next it'll be Internet of Things and nobody will ever fund another mobile startup.

SV is ridiculously trendy and short term. It's not wholly irrational, but a function of how VC works. If growth is under 20% it doesn't exist. That's what they mean when they say PC is dead, etc., and of course mobile will be dead the instant growth dips.

rokhayakebe• 12 years ago

Most people who write in English are not native, and they did not have the required minimum training to write properly in English.

WorldWideWayne2• 12 years ago

I wish you would have just stuck to the subject instead of picking on grammar.

You have a good comment regarding the technology, but wrapping it in with the comment about grammar just added a bunch of noise. Try not doing that next time and see what happens. I guarantee you that the conversation as a whole will be much better.

zubspace• 12 years ago

I wonder, what's the next hot thing made by apple? Whats going to be the next iPod/iPhone/iPad...? How long will apple be able to continue without a new, unique and hot-selling thing?

I know, that apple has a ton of money, but the apple tv and the iWatch are not something major. And i don't see them on the front of interesting stuff (cloud, containers, virtual reality, social networks).

How long can they increase the screen of the iphone each year? how long can they let the app store like it was, well, since forever...?

antranigv• 12 years ago

Lucky us, now we have Jolla and Sailfish OS (: there are also platforms like mer - nemomobile - maemo - tizen... but the average user likes iPhone/iOS and Android, that is marketing of course...

Personally, I'd go with Jolla and Sailfish, as now I have N900 with maemo, and I feel the freedom, even after 5 years, it is still the one of the best phones. Communities are what we need, not capitalism.

tvon• 12 years ago

FWIW:

Develop in their own hardware and OS

Strictly speaking this is still true, though a Hackintosh isn't hard to setup.

Closed minds : iPhone SDK policies states that you cannot share what you are making with your fellow

I think something is lost in translation here. You can certainly share code, there is loads of it on github. Perhaps the author is talking about the core iOS source...?

No choice in language and tools

This may have been true in 2010 but it is not true now, you can write iOS apps in Ruby, Swift, Objective-C, C# and a few other languages. There is also the excellent App Code IDE if you don't like Xcode.

Big boss has to approve your application in order to reach the users

Sort of, ad-hoc distribution is an option (though a pain in the ass). But if you want to write an app for 10 of your friends, or whatever, you can do so without going through the App Store.

ZanyProgrammer2• 12 years ago

But its a markedly inferior experience to write iOS apps in those non Apple approved languages. That's like saying Linux is easy to install on your Windows laptop, except the machine doesn't hibernate when you close the lid and the battery life has been halved.

solomone• 12 years ago

It's what I always find odd about the incredible open armed love of developers for Apple. People used to hate Micro$oft ( $ uses for emphasis. ) I can't imagine what the 90's would look like if MS took 30% of every software sale and decided what software could and could not exist on it's OS. The walled garden's have peeps and minor outrage, but I never understood why it wasn't more of a roar.

archagon• 12 years ago

Apps are the spiritual successor to the single-purpose applets that riddled our pre-smartphone phones and other appliances. They were always proprietary and always relatively simple. It's only recently that we've gotten the ability to perform more complicated tasks with our apps.

Animats2• 12 years ago

"Mobile" has dropped the price for software applications has dropped by about two orders of magnitude. Huge volumes are necessary to make up for that.

It's also given the "app store" vendors much more control. Previously, that level of control only appeared if you were developing for game consoles.

Sometimes I go over to Hacker Dojo, which is near Google HQ. They have a big, bleak room with overhead industrial mercury-vapor lamps, cheap tables and power outlets, and broken vending machines. People sit there in silence, working on their laptops. They pay about $100 a month for that space. Most think they're writing the next killer app. Most are wrong.

ZanyProgrammer2• 12 years ago

Its a good place for personal work or as a co working space, but yeah, a lot of people there are trying to make the Silicon Valley Dream work. They've really bought into the VC hype.

MichaelGG• 12 years ago

The picture makes it look like a school gym at a science fair.

Animats2• 12 years ago

Appslaves of Silicon Valley - Hacker Dojo, 8 PM on a Friday: http://tinyurl.com/qfl5msh

If Apple holds the future of computing, I don't want to be a developer (2010)

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