

Daring Fireball: Pound the Quality - unalone
http://daringfireball.net/2009/10/pound_the_quality

======
10ren
(1) If Apple pursues massive mainstream success, it will alienate its
traditional supporters, because not everyone in the mainstream values design
so highly - some value cheap, performance, convenience or utility etc _at the
cost of design_. Sure, sometimes you can have everything, and sometimes
there's a trade-off (fast-cheap-good-pick-two).

(2) Ballmer is right that the iPhone cannot handle all webpages as well as a
desktop - it's just impossible to shrink the power of a desktop into such a
small, light and elegant form-factor (today, anyway). This is not a fault of
the iPhone, but a shortcoming of the web with its layers of inefficiency (esp
javascript, flash, java). Apple's genius was to strip those layers away, by
integrating the hardware and software to work well together. Only Apple has
enough expertise and market clout to do both, and to do it brilliantly.

But the above foreshadows dark days ahead: what will happen to the iPhone when
it _is_ possible to have a desktop in that form-factor? When ingenious
integration is no longer required, and an open market is favoured, with mix
and match, and webapps and so on? I see two ways for Apple to win:

i. Apple uses the new technology to move ahead to the next frontier (because
that's where they like to be). Perhaps an even tinier form-factor?

ii. Apple has become so established as the leader in this category, that no
one can catch up. This is within Apple's grasp, but I believe they will not
take it, because taking it would involve pleasing the mainstream (if you leave
major market segments unsatisfied, a competitor fills them), and, as Mr
Fireball implies, if Apple did so, it would no longer be Apple.

But Microsoft.

~~~
TetOn
I think you're leaving out the fact that an iPhone sized device with desktop
capabilities is _still_ going to require exquisite integration and interface,
the very qualities iTouch devices have _today_ in excess. Raw processing power
doesn't change that, it only adds to the advantage.

Everyone gets distracted by the phone. The phone is just an app (and some
extra electronics). The platform is the thing, and Apple is light years ahead
of the competition at this point. Use a Kindle. Then use an iPod Touch.

~~~
10ren
Yes, interface is important. The Macintosh also had a great GUI... which was
copied...

why couldn't the iPhone UI be copied? notwithstanding working around patents
etc.

------
ansonparker
"But my interest remains ... in the quality of the apps, not the quantity.
Let’s say ... Android winds up with far fewer total apps than iPhone OS, but
they’re of generally higher quality. That would make Android the Mac to the
iPhone’s Windows. I would switch to that platform."

This is a poorly thought out sentiment -- or maybe just poorly expressed. He's
saying if the quality of Android apps is "generally higher" he'll switch.

Who cares about the average quality? Any healthy app store is going to have a
couple dozen iFart variants -- who gives a shit. As long as I can find the
good stuff (which, by and large, you can with Apple's app store) and as long
as there IS good stuff then I'm happy.

To this point I can see the application ecosystem going the way of consoles
and relying on marquee titles to succeed. Halo had a huge role in legitimizing
Xbox as a gaming platform and you'd hope MS might learn from this with
handsets.

Actually, it's amazing Microsoft doesn't seem to apply the lessons it has
learned from its gaming console success more often. Maybe that's just big
company politics though.

~~~
mikedouglas
Average matters in the sense that I don't know which new application I might
be using in six months.

Usually my computing experience is dictated by the worse interaction that day.
If I have to deal with a text editor that uses tabs when I want spaces, or a
note application that won't sync, it doesn't matter how nice the web browser
is.

My experience on the mac has been that, generally, the developers of third
party software focus on the UI. It sounds like an odd version of the "broken
windows" theory, but it seems to be true. Because the average quality is so
high, applications with bad user experience just don't survive. This means I
can pickup the most popular task management app, and expect a certain level of
polish. That is why average matters.

------
ErrantX
The quote he opens with:

 _If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on
your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table._

Is probably one of the best I've seen for a while. It probably applies as much
to people here as the rest of the post alone.

~~~
iron_ball
If by "here" you mean "everywhere, ever, for all time," you are very right.

------
ryanwaggoner
_The situation is so at odds with Microsoft’s view of the computing universe
that Steve Ballmer came up with this cockamamie explanation: “The Internet was
designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone. That’s why
they’ve got 75,000 applications — they’re all trying to make the Internet look
decent on the iPhone.” Pound the table, indeed._

Actually, I'm not entirely sure that he's wrong. I personally use apps on the
iPhone not because I want a dedicated app for that thing, but because it's
less usable or not available in the browser.

On my computer, 95% of the apps I use live in the browser. On the iPhone, it's
the opposite. Maybe Ballmer is on to something...

~~~
padmanabhan01
One good thing however is that there is less clutter in apps than their
corresponding websites. In some cases, I find using the app more convenient
than going to the site in computer browser. Lack of screen space maybe forced
them to include just the important part and skip the clutter and made the
whole thing better, in my opinion.

------
martythemaniak
Grubber misses the simple fact that at the time of it's debut, the App Store
was the best overall environment for writing mobile apps. Single
device/platform, central and easy distribution etc.

Today, both Android and BlackBerry have app stores, and Android is a far
better platform from a developers perspective (all apps are 1st class apps,
immensely powerful SDK, more mainstream language etc, easier distribution
etc).

So while Apple may have initially attracted developers because of quality,
they continue to attract them because they are popular and because their app
store focuses on payments more. With the coming onslaught of Android devices
its very likely that Android devices will outnumber iPhones, all Apple will
have left is a store that is more geared towards payment, and even there
Android might catch up.

Regardless, 2010 will be an interesting year in the mobile space. I'm working
on p a cross-platform app (iPhone/Android/BlackBerry), so I think it'll be
interesting to compare downloads, sales, rate of adoption, feedback etc across
all three.

~~~
unalone
Neither Android nor Blackberry has hardware or software as well-designed as
the iPhone's. One of Apple's major draws has always been its anal attention to
detail, which RIM and Google don't share. Google has one of the worst track
records regarding design, period.

Neither Android nor the Blackberry has a unified product. When I design for
the iPhone I know the exact product dimensions, I know exactly how the user
will be interacting with my program, and I know it will be the exact same a
year or two from now. I can make one app that any iPhone owner can use and it
will be used exactly as I want it used. With Android and Blackberry, that's
not the case.

 _all apps are 1st class apps_

Pardon my poor French, but what the fuck does that mean? I've seen Android
apps and iPhone apps, and the Android apps are uglier and less elegant.

~~~
dstorrs
Most likely he means that Android developers don't need to deal with their
apps being 2nd class citizens the way iPhone developers do. Unless you work
for Apple:

1) You are restricted as to which parts of the SDK you can use.

2) Your app may be rejected for any reason, no reason, or whatever reason. The
reason may or may not be explained, and may or may not make sense.

3) Even if it isn't rejected, it will still take weeks or months to get your
app into the hands of customers.

None of this applies to Apple apps, of course. Therefore, independent
developers are 2nd class citizens of the iPhone.

~~~
unalone
Gotcha. I'd misinterpreted the remark. Thanks!

------
RyanMcGreal
>The Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the
iPhone. That’s why they’ve got 75,000 applications - they’re all trying to
make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.

Ballmer has a point. The internet is an open platform with a relatively simple
set of open protocols and formats for transferring data, providing services,
and so on. Applications built on top of the internet stack are accessible to
any device that can read HTML, XML, JSON, YAML, and so on. Even the browser
makers are doing a good job of coalescing around the standards.

The iPhone, by contrast, is a narrow, closed, proprietary system built on top
of the open internet. If you don't have an iPhone, you can't use any of the
applications built for it. Similarly, if you want to develop an iPhone app,
you have no choice but to go out and buy a Mac to get the development
framework. Heck, you can't even _distribute_ an iPhone app without going
through Apple's App Store and conforming with its fuzzy terms of service.

That's the very opposite of the open internet. It's easy to hate on Microsoft
for being closed and proprietary, but Apple is at least as bad.

~~~
unalone
You just made an argument by _completely ignoring what Ballmer said_. Ballmer
was making an insult to the effect of, every application on the iPhone is
trying to make the Internet look good, which is _a fucking bizarre insult_.
The iPhone makes the Internet look _really_ good, it loads pages much faster
than any phone Microsoft supplies the OS for, and half the Internet redesigned
itself to work better for the iPhone. I browse HN on my iPhone without a
special interface and it works perfectly. So Ballmer's just really throwing
out bullshit with that comment.

I disagree with your comment. Microsoft wasn't bad for being closed, it was
bad for attempting to use its monopoly to force its competitors out of
business. Apple's closed, but they have plenty of competition, so it's all
right. As for the Internet being open, I'd like to see you download the source
code for a 37signals application. You can't, because it's closed. But you can
use APIs to export data? Well, good news! You can export your iPhone's data
also, and they give you APIs to do so!

But it doesn't _matter_ that I disagree with your comment, because my actual
point is that Ballmer doesn't have a point, is a terrible executive, and
should have been fired two years ago for his riotous incompetence as a
businessman and a marketer.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> You just made an argument by completely ignoring what Ballmer said.

Or maybe I _interpreted Ballmer's comments differently than you did._ I might
be wrong in my interpretation, but it sounds to me like Ballmer is complaining
that the iPhone interacts with the internet via proprietary applications on
the device rather than web applications.

> Microsoft ... was bad for attempting to use its monopoly to force its
> competitors out of business.

That's certainly a valid point. It's unfortunate, because what made Microsoft
successful in the first place was its relative openness (particularly its
cheap OS licencing terms) compared to its competitors. They seem to have
forgotten this after becoming the _de facto_ standard for desktop PCs.

However, Microsoft was also bad for being closed and proprietary. Ask people
who developed software in VB6, only to have Microsoft abandon them and break
backwards compatibility in the .Net framework.

> As for the Internet being open, I'd like to see you download the source code
> for a 37signals application.

That's true, but it's not what I was claiming. What I meant by "open" was that
anyone with any kind of computer that has a reasonably modern browser can
access and use a 37signals application. You don't need a special proprietary
application or framework _running on your own device_ to do this.

~~~
unalone
> What I meant by "open" was that anyone with any kind of computer that has a
> reasonably modern browser can access and use a 37signals application. You
> don't need a special proprietary application or framework running on your
> own device to do this.

And I need Windows to run Steam, and I need a Mac to run iPhoto. You're
suggesting an absurd fantasy wherein everything runs on everything. If I want
"open" by your definition of "it's on the Internet" on the iPhone, _I go to
the Internet_.

------
buugs
It is obvious that gruber is an avid mac user from his posts and generally
dislikes windows as many mac users due but this:

    
    
        But Windows is proof that popularity doesn’t guarantee market-leading quality.
    

Makes me wonder what market he is speaking of, if it is something along the
lines of graphic design (both OS and for uses) sure the mac ranks pretty high
up but what about corporate environments, average home users, aging adults,
engineering software (civil,electrical,mechanical) these are all things that
windows ranks pretty high for market quality.

Windows may be a pain in the ass for some power users or home end users but I
bet if the market shares were reversed mac would be heckled as much as windows
by average users and certain power users.

~~~
unalone
His emphasis in that sentence is on _quality_ , not on _market-leading_. The
quality of application design on Windows is dreadful. The best applications
are the ones that create an entirely separate interface and run in full
screen, and even then you don't have very many that are attractive or
appealing. I think the only real stand-out I've seen is Google Chrome, which
was better-designed when it came out on Windows than any browser on the Mac,
and which still holds a slight edge over Safari 4 in terms of pure elegance.
Everything else ranges from mediocre to terrible. Office 2008: Mediocre. And I
_liked_ Office 2008 because I had a Mac.

For whatever reason, Apple's hardware attracts brilliant software design. I
can name ten Mac-only apps off the top of my head that blow away their
Windows/Linux rivals for design superiority. I could name several dozen for
the iPhone that are of a similar make. I couldn't name one for any other
platform. The difference is staggering.

 _Windows may be a pain in the ass for some power users or home end users but
I bet if the market shares were reversed mac would be heckled as much as
windows by average users and certain power users._

I'd take that challenge. Last year I went to a college with computer
diversity. This year I'm at a Mac-only college. Last year everybody bitched
about their computers; this year, there's literally _no_ comment about
computer usage, because everything just works within the sphere of my
acquaintances.

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StrawberryFrog
Past a certain point, numbers don't matter. People stopped caring how many
videos are on YouTube a while back.

