"Macintosh Keyboard (M0110): Introduced and included with the original Macintosh in 1984, it debuted without arrow keys to control the cursor nor an integrated numeric keypad." [1]
"Few will remember, but, when the Mac debuted in 1984, there were no arrow keys on the keyboard. That was a big deal. Almost every application then in existence depended on the arrow keys (then called cursor keys) for navigation. With that one stroke, Steve reduced the number of apps that could be easily ported to the Mac from tens of thousands to zero, ensuring that this new computer would have a long and painful childhood.
Steve’s button mania, which grew from his earlier parts-count mania, was already in full flower, and many have ascribed this crippling omission to some sort of self-destructive obsession. It was not. It was one of several strategies specifically designed to ensure that existing software would not run on this new machine because existing software, in Steve’s eyes, sucked (an opinion I share). The absence of those four keys ensured that any developer who wanted to have software appear on the Mac was going to have to start over and write software that conformed to the Mac interface, not the keyboard-oriented precursors to MS-DOS.
Steve’s fearless crippling of that original Mac saved that computer and saved the graphical user interface." [2]
Random comment on the title (as it occurs in the original post) -- is there anyone in the universe that is actually less offended by "sh!t" than "shit"? I've never really understood why on earth someone would bother obscuring potentially offensive word choice by such silly techniques. Either rephrase things in such a way that they do not contain such words, or just write them out...
At the very core, he has a point. The delivery I don't care for, but again. He does have a valid point. It's hard to say that the AppStore wants quality.
But like I said in a comment earlier today, I'll gladly welcome a lack of 'quality' for a nice big helping of choice as a consumer.
If Apple has a problem with junk in the AppStore already, that's just an even better reason to try to keep more of it out.
I don't understand the thought process that leads to the conclusion that since there are low quality apps in the AppStore, Apple should go out of their way to bring even more of it in.
Also, Apple would get a world of crap if they decided to add something as arbitrary as taste policing to their AppStore review process.
But you can make crap by any means, including objective-c, as evidenced by all the 'buddha quotes' etc apps. My idea is that having to pay per app published, say $25, would help disincentivize the shotgun approach.
If that was Apple's sole reason for not wanting cross-platform "shovelware", absolutely. But it isn't.
It's more like Apple doesn't want meta-platforms on top of iPhone PS for completely different reasons (control, independence, etc), and aren't willing to compromise because nothing about more cross-platform shovelware intrigues them.
The AppStore is at a place right now where quantity is not an issue; quality is, so that's what they're going to optimize for. Who knows, maybe they'd be more welcoming of cross-platform apps if the AppStore had a quantity-problem (probably not, if history is anything to go by).
Apple can't really control for quality when they've got a million apps in the store. I mean, the idea of rejecting crappy apps probably came about when people were thinking "oh, apps will trickle in a few hundred at a time" instead of flood in. So they take steps like saying "must use Apple tools". On a Mac, cross-platform Java/QT/Wine apps that totally ignore UI custom are incredibly annoying, so that's probably where Apple is coming from in terms of viewing "non-Apple tools" as resulting in poor UI.
And it's silly to ask why Apps are censored but movies/music/TV isn't. The answer's obvious - iTunes includes parental controls for media that allow for blocking content based on industry-standard ratings, and there's no such rating/control system for apps. If the App Store contains a Daily Tits Calendar App, then parents have to completely block their kids from getting apps from the App Store themselves, whereas parents can let kids buy PG-13 stuff in the iTunes store without worrying about them buying R-rated movies or explicit songs.
On a Mac, cross-platform Java/QT/Wine apps that totally ignore UI custom are incredibly annoying
That's true, but it doesn't really apply to games, where even "native" apps almost always use their own UIs. And it doesn't apply at all to frameworks like MonoTouch, which call exactly the same native UI methods that ObjC apps do.
It's a power grab pure and simple. Flash is the primary target, Android is secondary, and if as a tertiary effect it reduces the percentage of crap apps, that's a nice bonus.
It really doesn't apply to games because often people simply don't bother to port them to the Mac. And a regularly given reason, beyond the obvious market size issue is that Apple simply doesn't support game developers, often to the point of being antagonistic. Déjà vu, all over again?
Doesn't support game developers how? The largest category in the App Store is games. Regarding OS X, then I would agree it might have something to do with the size of the market.
UI components don't but touch makes all the difference in the world. Most flash/java games for mobile are button oriented. I, for one, find ports painful.
There are more than a few developers that have been porting ActionScript to multi-touch platforms for a couple years now. As long as the original code was well structured, porting is relatively painless (attaching different event listeners).
Applications in the App Store can be rated "R" or "mature" or something like that as well. At one point there was a nice pocket shitstorm because Apple was requiring anything pulling in content from the internet to carry this rating. Because kids might search for "fuck" in your twitter app.
Also, not to sound like a broken record, but Playboy app is there and doing well.
I'm not familiar with exactly how CS5 generates iPhone apps but I'm curious how these apps would have handled something like multiple cameras. If Adobe's UI control doesn't include a camera switching button what happens when you install the app on an iPhone 4G? Do you have to wait for Adobe to update their library and for the developer to re-submit the application? Do previously submitted applications using Apple's APIs directly automatically inherit the camera switch button? Is the user going to sit there fumbling with the app annoyed that they can't use the features of the new phone they bought? To me that's a very compelling case to restrict non-Apple approved tools. Not sure this is actually the case or not -- just speculation. I think we're entering a phase of technology being so widely used that even the smallest glitches, bugs and inconsistencies are increasingly unacceptable to people.
I don't understand what you are trying to say. Will today's apps magically support the features of tomorrow's phones, just by using Apples SDK? Like even if it has no awareness of a camera, suddenly buttons for two cameras appear out of nowhere? That doesn't seem to make much sense to me.
Typically, you'd use the technology that supports the things you want to do. If you want to program a 3d shooter, at the time being you wouldn't choose HTML 5 as the underlying technology. For a Twitter client HTML 5 might be preferable to OpenGL. Likewise, if your app needs a camera, you'd pick a framework that supports a camera.
Also, even if you don't use the Apple SDK, you would still have to use the Apple API, so you would still get all the benefits of the Apple UI anyway.
> If Adobe's UI control doesn't include a camera switching button what happens when you install the app on an iPhone 4G?
Flash CS5 isn't going to be used to build the next big application. It will, however, be very useful for creating (or porting) games and other multimedia experiences. The iPhone 4G will likely have a higher resolution screen and Flash itself mostly resolution independent -- it might not take long for Adobe to update CS5 and all those developers could have 4G ready high-res apps in less time than it takes an Objective-C developers to fire up Photoshop. It's really not as simple as you make it out to be.
> Do previously submitted applications using Apple's APIs directly automatically inherit the camera switch button?
Most likely not.
> Is the user going to sit there fumbling with the app annoyed that they can't use the features of the new phone they bought?
It's been mentioned many times when discussing Apple's rule changes that developers and apps are easily replaceable. If Joe Developer doesn't update his app, it'll just be replaced by another app by another developer.
> it might not take long for Adobe to update CS5 and all those developers could have 4G ready high-res apps in less time than it takes an Objective-C developers to fire up Photoshop.
Right, because Adobe has always been known for the speed and quality of its updates, especially on the Mac platform.
This seemingly unending speculative rant by the blogosphere will continue until Apple either publishes a concrete set of step by step guidelines, or opens the floodgates. Neither of which will happen, and the process will most likely remain a black box. I am sure that Apple is doing their best to make the process as efficient as balanced as possible, and they do make good when they can - but yes they make mistakes too, it happens when you have a morally biased human process for decision. Yet they simultaneously manage to keep their options open and make a substantial profit, which is not an easy task.
"Few will remember, but, when the Mac debuted in 1984, there were no arrow keys on the keyboard. That was a big deal. Almost every application then in existence depended on the arrow keys (then called cursor keys) for navigation. With that one stroke, Steve reduced the number of apps that could be easily ported to the Mac from tens of thousands to zero, ensuring that this new computer would have a long and painful childhood.
Steve’s button mania, which grew from his earlier parts-count mania, was already in full flower, and many have ascribed this crippling omission to some sort of self-destructive obsession. It was not. It was one of several strategies specifically designed to ensure that existing software would not run on this new machine because existing software, in Steve’s eyes, sucked (an opinion I share). The absence of those four keys ensured that any developer who wanted to have software appear on the Mac was going to have to start over and write software that conformed to the Mac interface, not the keyboard-oriented precursors to MS-DOS.
Steve’s fearless crippling of that original Mac saved that computer and saved the graphical user interface." [2]
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Keyboard#History
2: http://www.asktog.com/columns/082iPad&Mac.html