

Developers: We are no longer Apple’s target market - adambrod
http://johnkary.net/developers-we-are-no-longer-apples-target-market

======
grey-area
Some interesting stats in the article:

iOS = 75% of company revenue

Mac OS = 14% of company revenue

 _Unlike the early days of Apple when the company embraced and found refuge in
the hacker mentality, Apple has emerged as a consumer company thanks to the
wide reach and accessibility of its iOS products._

The thesis is that Mac OS and being hacker friendly are becoming increasingly
less relevant to Apple, and consumers are now the focus. That's broadly true,
however as a long-time user I'd say the focus on consumers (not
developers/hackers) has been there since at least the late 90s, and possibly
the 80s (with a gap in the middle where they floundered).

Re Mac OS, I fully expect them to migrate desktops to iOS completely at some
point and just have a few interface tweaks for the mouse/window paradigm. The
move of AppleTV to iOS foreshadows this, and the numbers above make it almost
inevitable, given the cost of maintaining two ecosystems, and the fact they
now have an operations guy in charge. It'll be interesting to see just how far
they take developer restrictions and sandboxing on the desktop, and whether
that affects their market share at all. I suspect as they are a consumer
company that it won't matter to them if they lose the hackers/developers to
some extent, and they will continue to attract enough developers to survive at
least in the short term, while pulling them ever closer into the Apple orbit.
There is a great and growing tension there though between the interests of
developers (who ideally would like a cross platform solution and the
flexibility to use any tools) and Apple (who want lock-in to their ecosystem).

The broader problem of developing for an ecosystem like this is that it is in
the control of one vendor, and you must play by their rules - the Amazon,
Google, Microsoft and even Twitter platforms come with similar problems -
either you adopt their chosen technology this year, and accept the
restrictions they wish to impose, or you're suddenly frozen out and may fail
as a result. It's a lesson for anyone building a business on someone else's
ecosystem - it's hard to avoid, but does come with dangers.

I'll be interested to see if the open web has a second renaissance as people
recognise the deep difficulties of controlled ecosystems - its one great
advantage is that it sidesteps the question of control by one platform owner,
which sets it apart from all the binary or closed web platforms currently
being touted as the future.

~~~
pfisch
I have always used macs in passing, but in the past year I have really been
using OSX a lot and from what I have used I get the impression that Apple
never catered to developers or else their whole gui system would be very
different.

Has OSX ever really been a developer friendly environment? Every single actual
gui OS feature I have used is terrible and skin deep.

Having a terrible gui and slapping a linux console on it is not the same as
having a real visual OS. Yes having a linux console is wonderful, but it is
not an excuse for how completely lacking in features the actual visual
interface is. You know, the part Apple is responsible for.

What I mean by skin deep is that it works well for a consumer that isn't very
computer literate really and just wants to write documents and use the
internet, but if you try to do something deeper than that you basically
discover that you can't or it is terrible.

Finder is awful across the board. Yes you can get a replacement, but what the
hell is a gui operating system for if not looking at files in the file tree. I
could go into detail about why it is awful but if you have used it than you
really already know. I don't think windows 7 is the greatest os or has a
perfect file explorer, but it is crazy how much better it is than the one in
osx.

Outputting to multiple monitors and the management of the output is terrible.
Currently my understanding is that you basically have to go into the linux
console to have any control over it.(Like turning off your laptop monitor, or
any kind of management of the individual monitors past which one is located on
the right)

Apple seems to not give a fuck about backwards compatibility across ios and
osx. If you have an older mac(not even very old really, less than 4-5 years)
and you want to update the OS to the newest one the device can handle, which
is an OSX version before mountain lion; for some reason the only way to do
this is to call apple on the phone and read them your credit card info so they
can ship it to you which will take weeks. Even though they used to be
available in the app store and the physical store. Literally the day Mountain
Lion came out they basically discontinued any distribution of Lion outside of
this crazy calling apple method. Also new SDKs for ios break code in
undocumented ways including in features that Apple provides(like the video
controller). The simulator can give wildly different output than the actual
devices and each iteration of the ipad/iphone can give its own different
output on the same code. This can and often is App breaking stuff.

XCode is much worse than Visual Studio in too many ways to list. Even having
something basic like tabs for different files is terrible, also the vi plugin
for it is not good. Also imo obj-c is a pretty unpleasant language but that is
trivial.

I don't love windows or microsoft at all, but apple does not cater to
developers in any way. Even the way they deal with developers being in their
little ecosystems is very different. Microsoft XBLIG/WP/Win 8 sign up and
publishing system is no cake walk but it is orders of magnitude better than
how Apple treats us.

Apple makes great hardware, beautiful amazing hardware. However their software
is really awful and basically only caters to consumers, and really
unsophisticated ones at that.(Note: Apple did not make linux, any features of
OSX you are using from a console is really not something Apple is responsible
for. Apple is responsible for the gui, xcode, itunes, ios, and any other
little app they made that comes with osx)

~~~
danieldk
Note: the terminal (Terminal.app) has very little to do with the Linux kernel.
It is not a 'linux console'.

 _Currently my understanding is that you basically have to go into the linux
console to have any control over it._

I use multiple monitors (or a projector) daily, for me it has always worked,
and it's easy to toggle mirroring, indicate where the Dock should be, changing
the layout, etc. via the Display Preferences.

 _Apple seems to not give a fuck about backwards compatibility across ios and
osx._

Compared to...? Windows, yes. Linux? OS X is definitely better there. Usually
the only manner to guarantee compatibility on Linux is to compile software on
an older distribution and/or including the shared libraries with your
application. On OS X, I can at least trivially compile for older versions.

 _for some reason the only way to do this is to call apple on the phone and
read them your credit card info so they can ship it to you which will take
weeks_

What does that have to do with backward compatibility?

 _XCode is much worse than Visual Studio in too many ways to list._

At least they provide a C99 compiler ;). (And good C++11 support.)

 _I don't love windows or microsoft at all, but apple does not cater to
developers in any way._

clang? LLVM? Instruments? DTrace? Out of the box support for Python and Ruby?

 _I don't love windows or microsoft at all, but apple does not cater to
developers in any way._

It's funny that you compare Apple, which gives all its development tools away
for free, with a company that charges 615 Euro to get a Pro version of their
development tools, and suggest that the latter is developer-friendly.

 _Finder is awful across the board._

Agreed.

~~~
jheriko
bs. apples tools cost money, as does the developer license and vs express has
been around well for the last 4 years now at least...

~~~
pooriaazimi
Xcode, interface builder and Instruments are free. For a few weeks last year,
you had to buy them for 0.99$, but they changed their mind and now they're
free (as they have been previously).

------
spullara
If his site was still up, I would read it and then write the comment. But
instead, I will make some sweeping assumptions about what it says based on the
title.

We were never their target market. It is a happy accident that what works for
their consumers can also work great for developers. There were always pain
points adopting the Mac as your development platform. For example, when it
first came out, the JVM available for it was woefully old and out of date.
Generally you had to wait 6 months to a year to get the last GA version. Now
that the latest is built nightly by Oracle, this is a huge improvement. On
Mountain Lion, almost every command line utility (that isn't GPL v3) has been
updated like git, ruby, svn, python, etc. At the end of the day, this
developer loves that it is still a unix command line with a pretty face. More
than I can say for any version of Windows or Linux.

~~~
AskHugo
You might want to take a look at <http://elementaryos.org/> . It's an upcoming
GNU/Linux distribution that has a really "pretty face".

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
That dock showing favourites and applications that are open (with a dot below
those that are) and that top notification bar are strangely familiar... Trying
to place where I've seen them before.

~~~
xentronium
Unless I missed sarcasm, it's docky[1], which in itself is a clone of os x
dock.

[http://wiki.go-
docky.com/index.php?title=Welcome_to_the_Dock...](http://wiki.go-
docky.com/index.php?title=Welcome_to_the_Docky_wiki)

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
It was sarcasm. I was channeling my inner Gruber but I should obviously leave
it to him in the future.

Looking at it in more detail it's actually rather nice...

------
digitalengineer
It's not _just_ developers. It's PRO users of any kind. Graphic designers and
video professionals haven't been catered to as well. Heck, we're still waiting
for a new Mac workhorse that's not an iMac or laptop. Video editors have been
duped by the new iOS like Final Cut Pro that was not backwards compatible.

------
olgeni
> We are no longer Apple’s target market

And even that would be ok; the problem is when developers are actively
despised by Apple, or treated like digital peons.

But since I'm stuck with Android leaking file descriptors right now, even the
peon option seems attractive...

------
nicholassmith
Developers are a relatively small percentage, and in some ways not an overly
profitable one as whilst we want the best we're also prone to pushing machines
as hard as possible, as long as possible.

I've been developing on OS X for something like 8 years now, ranging from C++
dev work up to RoR and some other bits. I've never had any real issues with it
as a development platform, never felt like the OS was getting in my way or
anything similar. I also heavily use Linux in my day-to-day and that's
_definitely_ more developer focussed but it can also be way less productive at
times. ML is a solid consumer focussed OS but it's still a very nice
development platform as well, but thats my opinion.

------
alexyoung
I have no empirical evidence that Apple's turnaround was based on developer
advocacy, but my friends and family that can afford Macs use Macs due to my
recommendations in the mid 2000s.

One thing I've noticed about fellow British developers is many of us don't
actually have Macs at home because we simply can't afford them. You'll see us
with work-purchased Apple laptops at events, but back home we have our trusty
PCs, serving triple duty as games machines and entertainment devices. They
might use Linux, Windows, or dual boot; but you won't find many of us dropping
£1000+ for a personal Apple laptop.

So now those friends and family with ageing Macs are buying tablets, because
they do 90% of what they need to do at less than half the price. Meanwhile,
Chromebooks have a certain appeal, and I think Google should look adapting
them to suit developers (outside of switching on Developer Mode and installing
another Linux distribution.)

~~~
coob
As a fellow UK developer, I resent you extrapolating your personal anecdotes
out to cover others you know absolutely zero about.

Your generalisms don't ring true at all.

------
Aardwolf
I think there is hope for this whole mobile and tablet future if, and only if,
it will be possible to plug your phone/tablet into something that has a
keyboard, mouse and two large monitors on your desk to work on that (and then
take it elsewhere and do the same there). On top of that, optionally the
device needs allow you to install and run any software you want without
restrictions, and basically have unix shells and desktop UI when plugged in
the stuff mentioned above. Of course, also, the CPUs and RAM need to be on-par
with current desktops, but it's kind of realistic that this can happen, and
the actual desktop box could be reserved for things that require some extra
computing power.

~~~
hdra
sounds a lot like the Surface, minus the unix shells, that is..

I guess the real question is whether it is possible to simplify computing for
the general customers while at the same time preserving the ability to tinker
with the computer comfortably for the developers..

------
mpweiher
Well, the Mac was the "Computer for the rest of us", so I am not sure how this
is news: developers were never the target market.

IIRC, the original Mac also needed a Lisa for development with the MPW
(<http://www.faqs.org/faqs/macintosh/programming-faq/#b>).

So things have actually improved tremendously since then, with free and
improving dev tools, open-source Unix underpinnings etc. The end of the world
will be postponed...

------
jyap
TLDR summary: "I recently upgraded from a mid-2008 17″ MacBook Pro to a
mid-2012 13″ MacBook Air"

"I finally had statistical evidence to backup the feelings shared in the
development community that Apple doesn’t prioritize OS X anymore"

iOS happened. Technology progresses. You adapt. iOS also gives you another
platform to target and make apps for.

~~~
z3phyr
How to create software on a tablet?(not for a tablet)

Consumerism is --- all the touch interface support, dropping the desktops and
laptops, dropping the workstations, and paving the way for not-developer-
freindly tablets, glasses, cellphones, put anything.

~~~
mtgx
You can do Android development on Android tablets with AIDE:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5haWRlLnVpIl0).

I think Google needs to do more in the future about making Android useful or
compelling for large screens, too, though.

~~~
z3phyr
Software can also be developed using SL4A....

The problem is, tablets do not provide the native - feel at home - environment
to the programmers. To me, and probably to any serious developer out there,
desktops (with maybe a tilling wm) provide the best dev environment.

If you don't believe it... Try to give your desktop a tablet like interface
with something like Gnome3 or metroUI and then see the difference ;) .

The touch interface is not designed for power users. It is designed for the
people who like to have beer and listen to music.

~~~
Aardwolf
I like to have beer and listen to music and write code productively, at the
same time!

~~~
z3phyr
:) I can not possibly do it..... But, I am going to try it someday ;)

------
diminish
Being persuaded in another discussion on HN, that chromebooks should not aim
to be for developers, now I read the complaints that Apple does not target
developers neither. I am curious, how is the situation with Win 8? What is the
future machines for developers?

~~~
alanctgardner2
This is a facetious question if I ever saw one. Apple machines should be
developer-oriented, the author is complaining that they've lost/given up on
the plot for the power users who catapulted iOS to popularity by developing
for it. If you are developing for Mac or iOS, use a Mac. If you've developing
for the web, maybe a Mac.

The thing is, you were complaining about the lack of an octocore, 8GB RAM
chrome book, which is at odds with the purpose of a chromebook. You can
develop web apps on a Mac. You can even SSH to a Mac or Linux box from your
chrome book. The chromebook model is to provide the bare minimum a user needa
to get into the Google ecosystem, so that the hardware is attainable for low-
income users, and becomes a complete commodity for businesses. Nowhere in
there do they account for power users; it's not part of their plan, and they
don't need developers on their platform to succeed

~~~
diminish
"The chromebook model is to provide the bare minimum a user needs to get into
the Google ecosystem, so that the hardware is attainable for low-income users,
and becomes a complete commodity for businesses" Could you point me where you
get this if it is not your idea? In contrary, I always thought ChromeOS is the
model where web is the app; and all you need is a web browser to do anything
you want; which includes "development". As a developer, using Firefox/Firebug,
Chrome Dev tools, Online editors/Ace to do everyday job, I am myself
developing on a cloud IDE to do anything I want online.

The question is, why can't I only use a browser,(then why not Chromebook) to
do development? And what is facetious here?

~~~
alanctgardner2
You're conflating this post, which is about Apple more or less mistreating
developers, with Google's conscious decision to produce $200 ARM thin clients.
They're not really the same; Apple still wants you to develop on their
hardware, they more or less shackle you to it.

Based on what you described your development stack is supported on
Chromebooks. That's cool. Eclipse used to run on my 11" netbook as well, it
doesn't mean it was a good way to develop, nor was it designed to be.

------
jpalacios
FYI adding a trailing forward slash to the url fixes the database error:
[http://johnkary.net/developers-we-are-no-longer-apples-
targe...](http://johnkary.net/developers-we-are-no-longer-apples-target-
market/)

------
jheriko
Wait what? Didn't MS squash Apple before their comeback precisely because they
catered so much more to developers... ?

