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Apple's Shifting Differentiation

(stratechery.com)
292 points kaboro | 7 comments | 11 Nov 20 13:21 UTC | HN request time: 1.612s | source | bottom
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darksaints ◴[11 Nov 20 14:36 UTC] No.25058726[source]▶
I really wish Apple sold its hardware independently from its software. They make amazing hardware, and their latest silicon releases practically make me want to buy their computers again.

Their software is shit though, and their walled garden, and insistence on using apple programming languages and IDEs for development, practically ensures that third party software will either not exist or be shit as well. There are only a handful of software shops that make decent software for apple, and they are all fully specialized on apple and therefore do not make software that plays nice with collaborators on other computers, nor used on a cloud server, etc. And if there actually exists better software from third parties that competes with apple software, you can forget about it ever being fully integrated. "Hey Siri, navigate to city hall using Google maps". Yeah right.

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naravara ◴[11 Nov 20 14:50 UTC] No.25058817[source]▶
> practically ensures that third party software will either not exist or be shit as well

I don’t see this at all. The Mac has long had a culture of extremely dedicated developers who have fully acculturated themselves into a design-oriented, performance focused culture that presents a stark contrast to the cultures of Windows or Web development. Third party software in the Mac has generally been extremely thoughtful and well designed.

There is plenty of shitty software on iOS, but that has a lot more to do with the amount of shovelware thrown into the store than anything inherent to Objective C.

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1. joshspankit ◴[11 Nov 20 15:03 UTC] No.25058916[source]▶
Agree on this: 3rd party software on Apple’s Operating Systems have reached really stunning, intuitive, and beautiful heights.

Unfortunately I feel that the current trend towards more restriction is making many of those talented developers tap out, and is burying the older software that would otherwise be just as excellent today if it was still allowed to run, but the possibility of those wins keeps me on MacOS through all the losses.

I may have a gambling problem.

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2. zepto ◴[11 Nov 20 16:23 UTC] No.25059636[source]▶
I think this is a transition phase. It is true that increasing restrictions have been making it harder for old school developers.

It’s also true that Apple has had a pattern of first locking things down, and then finding new, more secure and reliable ways of opening them back up again. Extensions are an obvious example of this pattern.

This is just a consequence of moving from a benign network environment to one in which hostile adversaries are trying to both socially engineer as well as exploit any computer or individual that is vulnerable.

We all have to adapt to this reality.

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3. joshspankit ◴[11 Nov 20 16:59 UTC] No.25060100[source]▶
My instinct says otherwise regarding this being a transition phase on the road to being more open, but I genuinely hope you’re right.
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4. zepto ◴[11 Nov 20 17:06 UTC] No.25060198{3}[source]▶
By ‘open’ I don’t mean that Apple will cede control of the platform. I see that increasing.

I mean open to customization and the development of a wider range of user experiences - which is what old school apps were about.

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5. naravara ◴[11 Nov 20 20:37 UTC] No.25062694[source]▶
Admittedly I haven’t had much direct experience of this, but most of the old guard Mac developers I follow seem more put off and burnt out by the vagaries of the App Store than by technical limitations at the OS level. I think there is plenty to complain about on that front.
6. joshspankit ◴[12 Nov 20 01:00 UTC] No.25065049{4}[source]▶
Even if it’s just the openness of the customization, I’d still like to see that
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7. zepto ◴[12 Nov 20 01:30 UTC] No.25065334{5}[source]▶
That, I do expect.