
Ask HN: Is Apple repeating the same mistakes it made 25 years ago? - fnl
This is a possibly interesting question; I will try to explain how I just arrived at this conclusion in a discussion with some friends. Back in the rainbow-colored Apple area we were big fans of the architecture, alongside with Amiga and Atari. However, all three of them faded away because of one simple mistake: they had either vendor-lock-in (Atari, Amiga) or made it hard to develop for the platform because of exclusively proprietary tools and compilers that were impossible to come by legally (Apple). They vanished against DOS on the long run and we (had to) moved on (to DOS :S). Then came Linux and we happily switched our development platform, yet mostly still using Windows for multimedia and/or games (except for the "core" Linux guys, but then to them this whole question should be irrelevant, anyways). Then Jobs "came back" with the glorious ideas of a FreeBSD-based OSX and moving on to Intel processors that combined the two worlds,  so we switched (again). In our discussion, we at least to some degree even agreed the true reason for the recent rise of Apple is not so much in iPad or iTunes alone, but the ability to develop open software on an Intel platform that works almost as if it were Linux while having the comforts of the "closed source" world: no longer we have to dual-boot Linux for work and Windows for multimedia (the games guys probably still are Windows, but whatever), and a platform that is dead-simple to use for non-IT guys. All was fine and up until recently there was nothing seriously wrong. But now Apple has dropped support for Java (the probably most followed language) and at the same time has created the "Mac App Store" (MAS). We have already seen the reception to the "iPhone App Store" (PAS) from the open source community - e.g. from the VLC guys, so I won't comment on that any more. And, for the MAS, you even need to pay $99 to get "into" it. I have no exact idea how open source-unfriendly the MAS is vs. the PAS, but I doubt even if it seems rosy now it will not be long before there is a real difference between the PAS and MAS. So, are the Apple guys apparently about to cut one of their "life support veins" after the other, and Android, etc. will take over the mobile sector and Linux/Windows will be again the norm in the home computing sector? I at least am seriously considering moving back to Linux again, and I am seeing patterns in Apple's current policies that make me think the question I put out to you guys has at least some substance. So, please, comment!
======
nl
The "Apple is closed, and in the 90's they tried the same thing and it failed"
meme is quite a common thing to hear.

But "winning" a market rarely has a single reason. One could easily argue that
Microsoft in the 90's was similar to Apple in that they went it alone,
abandoning OS/2, whilst Apple tried to build alliances like Taligent (with
IBM). Or perhaps that Apple's practices in controlling the AppStore are
similar to Microsoft's use of market power to build the Windows monopoly.

One thing is for sure: Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt (ex-Novell) etc all remember
the 90's pretty well, and they are all spending every waking hour making sure
they don't end up losing again.

History's echoes can be distracting enough to make one forget that it never
repeats itself.

~~~
fnl
But there is a minute, yet important difference: the App Stores are entirely
controlled by Apple, whilst Microsoft never restricted or controlled your
access to their platform as a software provider. So, maybe they "dominated"
because of Office et al., but they never pro-actively locked out other
providers - a policy common on the iPhone, formerly on the old Mac OS, and now
apparently coming "back to the Mac [App Store]". The same thing was (and, in
parts, even still is) the case with hardware: it was a piece of cake to sell
hardware for the Windows platform (worst case you had to write your own device
driver), but particularly tricky to do so for Mac. Apple now has the lead
because they were first with many neat things on OSX, the iPod, then the
iPhone and now maybe the iTablet. So they were first with a clean mobile
platform. But Android has caught up and Windows 7 has just downright copied
the entire OSX experience and maybe even added a few features of its own. So
can Apple stand its grounds with their tight policies? I say, only if they
manage to constantly stay ahead of competition, just as now maybe with the
tablet PC approach. But how much longer will they be capable of delivering
ahead of everybody else? And if they don't stay ahead, will they open up to
let independent and innovative developers to maintain the lead or will they
not? And in that respect I think current signals are rather discouraging.

------
DerekL
Why do you say that Macintosh tools were impossible to come by legally? Maybe
Mac development was limited to certain developers in the early days, but Apple
released MPW in 1986. THINK Technologies introduced Lightspeed Pascal and
Lightspeed C in 1986 too. Inside Macintosh was published in 1985.

(I had to research this, because I didn't own a Mac or program for Macs until
about 1995.)

~~~
fnl
Well, for us back then the only ways to lay hands on a good C compiler -
except buying some extremely expensive proprietary software we could not
afford (we all were under 20 and w/o regular income) - would have been via
not-so-official channels (no comment...) and in the end more of a pain than it
was worth it. For me at least, therefor, it was far more easier to develop on
an Atari and then a Linux PC than it ever was for Apple's machines (before
OSX).

------
bsk
Steve Jobs probably has a different view on what caused Apple downfall.

------
brudgers
The current trend of Apple shifting its marketing emphasis from innovation as
what differentiates their hardware to access to content as the differentiator
is, in my mind, a radical shift.

I think the MacApp store may be a sign of a more fundamental issue for Apple -
they have one UI that _looks and feels_ less cutting edge every day and
doesn't scale well beyond a 5"-9" screen...and another which hasn't had
significant architectural improvements for some time (and doesn't scale down
to 5"-9").

Apple may not have mortgaged the farm for iOS, but it appears that they have
bet a significant portion of their future on it, perhaps without fully
acknowledging the scaling issues. The shift towards content and media access
as what makes an Apple product "insanely great" is not a good sign for those
whose concern is utility.

------
Mithrandir
There are still people who think GNU/Linux is for "techies" and if you don't
know C++ and a half a dozen other languages, your computer will explode.

GNU/Linux is gaining popularity, but it will take awhile for it to be on most
computers.

~~~
GDH
With the ease of learning due to the unlimited resources we have these days
more and more people are labeling themselves "techies" and running Linux. I
think Linux will gain some ground as more people run it with the notion that
it will make them a better programmer, when the reality is that they will
still work a day job at Futureshop for the next 10 years (that is if large
tech stores exist in 10 years).

~~~
fnl
And, if I may add, ever since Ubuntu (not that I like it, personally, but
whatever) I've seen more people using Linux than ever before. Give it another
ten years and they might have something really competitive on the end-user
side, especially if Microsoft and Apple keep creeping more and more digital
restriction management BS into their OS's.

------
hasenj
I don't know about their downfall from before, but the way I see it, Apple is
focused on consumers, not developers/hackers. That is, they will always choose
the consumer's experience over the hacker's convenience.

The recent move with the Mac App Store just confirmed my suspicions.

That's kinda why I want to stay away from the Mac, even though their laptops
are _very_ tempting. Damn, today I went to the apple store and saw the new
Air. Very seductive.

But, I'm sticking to Linux. I don't do lots of multimedia stuff, so Linux
works fine for me.

~~~
fnl
If I may ask - why is that so that you don't want to switch? The best reason
IMO for following your model might be the increasing amounts of DRM we are
seeing in the two big desktop alternatives. It honestly makes me think that
there is no free software/open source future on the Apple, either (and I'll
accept that RMS would probably mentally kill me just for thinking even that...
:)).

~~~
hasenj
This was all based on my experience with the DRM in the iPhone. The iPhone is
sort of a gadget, so it's ok. But my main development machine? The place where
I do my real work? No way!!

------
bigwally
From a slightly different point of view; I was always under the impression
that Apple got trounced by Microsoft in the desktop PC market. People quickly
realized Apple didn't have a lot of software past Adobe, plus of course you
could copy software from your friends.

History is now repeating with Android/Google as they start to dominate apple
with much the same situation. The Iphone is an overpriced toy for a lot of
people.

You could always blame the Apple downfall on that bloke from Pepsi.

The next big fight is going to be Apple TV vs Google TV. Apple already has
Disney on their side, while Google is just giving Google TV away much like
Microsoft did with with DOS and Windows.

~~~
fnl
Well, I sort of tried to say that - although, my impression is that it was
harder to develop for Apple than DOS because of the unavailability of
developer tools for Mac OS. Although I must admit I stuck to Atari to the
bitter end and directly jumped to Linux, so my impression might be wrong.
However, as you say, in any case, they faded away because of insufficient
software and did solve that by opening up in OSX and having XCode and other
stuff directly available. So, are they doing that again with their recent
policies?

