
Fertile Ground - mh_
http://www.marco.org/2013/06/11/fertile-ground
======
tolmasky
Yay change for change's sake.

This is exactly the wrong attitude in my opinion. How does it help _users_ to
all of a sudden have most apps feel ancient? Is it really something to be
proud of? That for the next year we'll be working on replacing existing
utilities so that they feel "right" and "fresh" instead of doing what we
should be doing: thinking of actual new software that is worthwhile to write.

I've been saying this for a while but I think what is happening, and what many
developers haven't noticed yet, is that we have exhausted the utility of
software for software's sake. The interesting stuff happening in mobile now
has nothing to do with "design" in the traditional sense any more. Its not
enough to just have a coder and a designer on the team. The really cool stuff
is all about what your phone actually allows you to do in the real world. Look
at apps like uber, postmates, spotify, and twitch.tv. Most of these have
terrible UI's, but that's not the point. The point is that they allow you to
_do things_. I can have a car on my doorstep! I can listen to almost any song
I want. They're not just another calculator app or news reader, so who cares
if its not the prettiest or easiest thing to use in the world. They are an
interface to actually useful services. Software was interesting on its own a
decade ago, but the industry has grown up, its time to _do things_ now. That
doesn't mean that "UI and UX" don't matter, it just means their definition
changes and grows beyond just how you tap things on glass and what pixels you
choose to animate.

The reason that iOS 7 seems comforting in the way its described in this
article is because it gives developers who haven't realized this something to
do again. Marco is absolutely right, for a long time it has felt like all the
major categories have been covered on the app store. That's a good thing! It
means we've solved lots of problems. We shouldn't daydream of a day when those
problems get artificially unsolved so we can have another shot at them. We
should move on.

~~~
LowKarmaAccount
> I've been saying this for a while but I think what is happening, and what
> many developers haven't noticed yet, is that we have exhausted the utility
> of software for software's sake...

> Software was interesting on its own a decade ago, but the industry has grown
> up, its time to do things now.

Smartphones are important because they allow people to use computers in a
manner that wasn't feasible in the past because of the size of computing
devices.

However, smartphones have not produced _any_ important innovations from a
software point of view. They are _not_ innovative because they don't need to
be; they are simply the logical consequent of the advances in the
miniaturization of hardware.

The market saturation you describe is not the result of a glut of innovation,
but rather is just a consequence of developers porting existing desktop
functionality onto a smartphone. You can take pictures and use voice
recognition software to ask where nearby restaurants if you carry around a
desktop or a laptop; you just probably wouldn't want to.

Actually, smartphones are a good example of how non-innovative and illogical
the computing world can be. Underneath the touch-based interfaces, they run on
a kernel written in a memory-unsafe, non-garbage collected, insecure, and
inexpressive language that was designed to target the PDP-11. Because the
operating system is so flawed and incompetent that it can't be trusted to
prevent rogue processes from stepping on others, you end up with a lack of a
useable file system and awful communication between apps. Of course, the joke
is that these restrictions are almost worthless because you can almost always
bypass the system security and jailbreak the device; then maybe you can do
something useful with your phone without.

Its part of a larger trend in the computing world to ignore history and
reinvent wheels, and call it innovation. Case in point: web apps, which,
unless you are replacing a legacy application, are a terrible idea. Not only
will they always face latency issues, but they also use awful languages
designed to serve and manipulate text and are at least twice as slow as native
code. Software on smartphones is interesting in the same way that a "Hello
world!" program is interesting to C programmer; the programmer is so surprised
that he has fought an unfriendly, unintuitive system full of kludges and
managed to output text to the screen without the program crashing and dumping
core that he doesn't notice how trivial the output is.

Of course, what we have today is better than nothing. In a way, the massive
and unnecessarily resource intensive process that we have now is uplifting
because it shows the determination of the human spirit; just imagine what we
could accomplish if we invested in the right things.

~~~
ghshephard
This is similar to suggesting that a Desktop computer isn't innovative because
it's just a few peripherals connected to a very fast turing machine.

Some examples of Smartphone innovation (in my opinion):

At 2:00 AM in bed, when I'm exhausted, and realize I have to wake up at 7:00
AM, but I'm tired enough that I might not be able to reach my alarm clock, and
I can just flex my thumb and say, "Wake me up at 6:00 AM" before drifting off
to sleep - I call that innovation. I don't know if you recall, there was a
time that the big "thing" at Hotels was having them give you a wakeup call, so
you wouldn't have to figure out how the alarm clock in the room worked (if
they had one). I haven't done that in 5+ years. Used to do it every night when
I was in a hotel.

I'm out walking at night in Redwood City, and Dark Sky pops up and tells me
it's going to start raining _in my neighborhood_ in about 15 minutes - so I
turn around and grab an umbrella.

I'm out at a customer luncheon in Singapore, and they ask me about a
presentation I did awhile ago, on my laptop, and I know backblaze has backed
it up, so I'm able to grab it _while standing there from my iPhone and mail it
to them_ \- that real time delivery makes a positive impression. (Replace
Backblaze with Dropbox/iCloud/SkyDrive/favorite cloud mechanism that you can
connect to from your mobile device)

Listening to a great german song in a Taxi in Aschaffenburg, and I pull up
Shazam - and 90 seconds later I have it on my iPhone (and it's now been synced
with iTunes match and is on my iPad and Laptop)

Late at night in PaloAlto, and I need a ride home - and Uber tells me there
will be a driver at the restaurant in 4 minutes, and shows them driving
towards me, and makes sure they show up - As somebody who had spent _hours_
waiting for cabs in the middle of the night - I call that innovation.

Walking down the Stairs at Southwark in London, and getting the real-time
update from TubeMap, that the London Bridge station is closed due to a station
fire - turning right around and grabbing a cab to an important symposium.

I could obviously go on - but I find it so hard to believe you don't recognize
all of this as, "innovation"

~~~
droopyEyelids
You're just talking past each other. He's talking about computer science
"software" innovation.

~~~
potatolicious
I think he knows. The disagreement here is that characterizing pure-CS-stuff
as "innovation" and the other stuff as not is an _incredibly_ narrow way to
define innovation.

It feels like LowKarmaAccount really defines innovation as how far down the
stack it is, which is a wholly arbitrary (and IMO nonsensical) criteria.

By that criteria a helicopter is not innovative because it's just a slight
rearrangement of fixed wing aircraft, an "evolutionary" progression. By that
criteria _the Internet_ is not innovative because it was just the natural
evolution and consequence of radio and telephony.

~~~
LowKarmaAccount
droopyEyelids was correct in saying that I was talking about software
innovation from a CS standpoint, so I didn't respond to the first reply to my
comment. After reading your comment, I realized that I should make it clear
that I'm using David A. Wheeler's definition of software innovation [1]. It
was linked to on HN a few years ago[2]; it has an excellent listing of
important innovations. The list was made to show that the most important
computer innovations weren't patented.

Wheeler does include the Internet (internetworking using diagrams, leading up
to the Internet's TCP/IP)as an important innovation.

On the page I linked to [1], Section 6 is called "What is not an important
software innovation?", which inspired my post in part. I'll quote a portion of
it below:

" As I noted earlier, many important events in computing aren’t software
innovations, such as the announcements of new hardware platforms. Indeed,
sometimes the importance isn’t in the technology at all; when IBM announced
their first IBM PC, neither the hardware nor software was innovative - the
announcement was important primarily because IBM’s imprimateur made many
people feel confident that it was “safe” to buy a personal computer.

"An obvious example is that smartphones are not a software innovation. In the
mid-2000s, smartphones rapidly became more common. By "smartphone" I mean a
phone that can stay connected to the Internet, access the internet with a web
browser capable of running programs (e.g., in Javascript), and install local
applications. There's no doubt that widespread smartphone availability has had
a profound impact on society. But while smartphones have had an important
social impact, smartphones do not represent any siginificant software
innovation. Smartphones typically run operating systems and middleware that
are merely minor variants of software that was already running on other
systems, and their software is developed in traditional ways.

"Note that there are few software innovation identified in recent times. I
believe that part of the reason is that over the last number of years some key
software markets have been controlled by monopolies. Monopolies typically
inhibit innovation; a monopoly has a strong financial incentive to keep things
more or less the way they are. Also, it’s difficult to identify the “most
important” innovations within the last few years. Usually what is most
important is not clear until years after its development. Software technology,
like many other areas, is subject to fads. Most “exciting new technologies”
are simply fashions that will turn out to be impractical (or only useful in a
narrow niche), or are simply rehashes of old ideas with new names."

[1]:
[http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html](http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/innovation.html)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813110](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813110)

~~~
ghshephard
I wonder, if even with this incredibly strict definition of "Software
Innovation" whether anything on a smartphone might still rise to the level of
innovation?

I'm thinking of the GeoLocation Applications - that just never existed before,
ever, like runkeeper. Or the BodyTelemtry apps, like FitBit. I'm still trying
to think if it's possible to categorize Dark Sky as innovation. Or the always-
available voice-recognition of Siri.

None of it rises to the level of "Software innovation from a CS standpoint" if
we look carefully? Honestly asking now.

~~~
resu_nimda
By LowKarmaAccount/David Wheeler's definition, no. If you browse the list in
Wheeler's article, the only things that jump out at the "application feature"
level are word processing and the spreadsheet. Clearly, Runkeeper, Dark Sky,
and the like are not going to make that list. It really is focused on the
"pure CS/EE" side of things, and since smartphone app development is mostly
business as usual with a few different quirks, none of it is likely to
qualify.

I'm thinking that something like "robust speech recognition and parsing" might
fit on there (though it's tough to determine when such a system would be
considered mature enough, and simultaneously differentiated from full strong
AI). But that's not a smartphone innovation, it just happens to be a good use
case.

It really comes down to the definition/interpretation of "innovation," and I
think many people (myself included) would feel a slight when certain things
are excluded, but I can see how "taking things that already exist and putting
them together in new ways or usefully extrapolating on them" (which is what
any "innovative" app has done) doesn't really fit. As he explained about the
smartphone, something can be world-changing in a very real way, without
necessarily being innovative.

------
btipling
It seems hypocritical to laud fragmentation when it happens in iOS and decry
it in Android. These changes seem similar to the Android differences in
gingerbread and post-honeycomb. The resulting effect on developers will be the
same. iOS 7 has made it apparent which bloggers are unable or unwilling to be
fair in their criticism when it comes to Apple. The mismatched gradients on
the new icons are beautiful to them, the wire frame and confusing UI elements
are revolutionary, and fragmentation is simply just creating fertile ground
for change. Great.

~~~
chasing
It's not fragmentation. Within a year, the vast majority of iOS users will be
on iOS 7. It's evolution.

~~~
btipling
Except for all those not so old iPhones that are stuck on iOS 6 forever.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
> those not so old iPhones that are stuck on iOS 6 forever.

Of all the devices supported by iOS 6, only the iPhone 3G S and the 4th gen
iPod touch won’t get the upgrade. The iPads that could run iOS 6 will also be
able to run iOS 7.

The iPhone 4 has been out for 3 years and will be able to run iOS 7 when it is
released later this year. How many 3 year old Android, Blackberry and Windows
Phone models do you know of that can run the newest version of the OS?

 _(This post was edited to reflect that the 4th gen iPod touch won’t get the
upgrade to iOS 7. The ‘iPod touch 16GB’ was listed on iOS 7’s page, I
understood that to mean the 4th gen model, which also came in 16GB capacity.)_

~~~
myko
This is mostly a good point, but is missing an important difference. A lot of
important Android APIs are provided as part of Google Play services and made
available back to Android 2.3, whereas an iPhone 4 running iOS 7 still will be
unable to use Siri.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I understand your point, and it’s a good one, but iPhone 4 isn’t allowed to
run Siri because of hardware reasons, not API support. The noise reduction in
newer models is a lot better than on iPhone 4. Hackers have managed to get
Siri running on iPhone 4, it just doesn’t work as well.

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/05/apple_iphone_4s_a5...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/05/apple_iphone_4s_a5_chip_incorporates_audience_earsmart_noise_reduction_tech_for_siri.html)

------
jbail
_" iOS 7 is different. It isn’t just a new skin: it introduces entirely new
navigational and structural standards..."_

Beyond the parallax effect, what are these new navigation and structural
changes? I'm not trolling here, I'm genuinely curious. I'm about to build a
new iOS app and I did not see major navigation or structural changes that
would drastically affect how I design an app's UI or UX.

~~~
bennyg
SpriteKit is going to be huge. Expect about a year of getting developers ready
with it, and good at it, then Apple TV may have something awesome for us.

~~~
Kiro
What's SpriteKit? Sugar Cube Software's Cocoa Sprite Kit? How is it related to
iOS7?

~~~
smackfu
No, it's a new iOS 7 / OS X framework. Since it's an API, I think the only
real discussion is in the developer docs, which are NDA'd.

------
foobarbazqux
> Fertile Ground

I'm getting pretty tired of blog post titles that give no real hint at all as
to the topic. My mind labels them as "pretentious" because they're pretending
to be deep when they're not; by that I mean that rarely do the posts offer up
any kind of non-trivial insight. (Compare with PG's similarly titled essays.)
Earlier today we had "Two i's" from DHH's crew (where you had to infer from
reading the post that it was i for interesting and i for important). Dustin
Curtis recently had "Glass". Please, you will still be the coolest people on
the planet if you don't try to title your posts per the ineffable style of
Apple product advertisements, and as a bonus we will even like you and your
work a little bit more.

~~~
unalone
Marco's not attempting to communicate clearly in the sense of "push data down
foobarbazqux's infohole." He's trying to communicate clearly in the sense of
"grab foobar's attention, state his perspective provocatively, and attempt to
not only reach an audience but make them think and talk."

Clearly he's succeeded, from the conversation going on in this post. Marco is
occasionally pretty obnoxious, and his ideas are frequently not always well
thought-out, but I like writers who attempt to be not only clear, but
compelling.

Paul Graham has plenty of terrible essay names, and plenty of terrible essays
at that. One of the things that frustrates me about him as a writer is that on
occasion he attempts to strike an "objective" tone while offering a skewed and
entirely subjective perspective. Besides, conveying pure abstract information
should _not_ be the point of an essay. Tone, emotion, purpose, and
construction should all be deliberate. Otherwise you get
Mashable—ultraspecific titles geared to ultraspecific articles which are so
drained of anything beyond pure bullet-point content that you could train a
machine to read and interpret it. It's such a waste.

It takes you two seconds to click on a link and look at it, ten seconds tops
to decide if you're going to gain something by reading it. If you're clicking
on so many links per day that twelve seconds here and there is putting a dent
in your productivity/well-being, then there is a worse problem here than
ambiguously-titled essays, and ironically, it's a problem that you'll start to
solve by seeking more challenging pieces of writing to tackle to distract
yourself from the constant useless information mill that the Internet so
readily provides.

~~~
foobarbazqux
To be honest, I only clicked on Fertile Ground out of a yearning for self-
punishment. I knew exactly what kind of article to expect from a title like
that, it's just that I like to complain when it happens that I get what I want
and I also don't like what I want. The sense of superiority makes me feel a
bit better, kind of like those cranky old guys that think most everyone else
is an idiot. The main difference with PG seems to be that I have to read 5000
words before arriving at that all-too-familiar sinking feeling. Well, I hope
I've contributed to the overall cynicism levels around here, and I wish you an
absolutely rotten day.

------
SwellJoe
I don't think this is going to play out this way.

Look to other operating systems that evolved their UI in similar fashion and a
few of their dominant software players over the years:

Windows-Office, Quickbooks, Quicken, IE/Chrome/Firefox/Netscape (which have
shifted favor over years, but not because of UI changes in the OS)

Mac OS (X and classic)-Adobe PS, Illustrator, ProTools, Office

UI changes, even major ones, have had little to no effect on the dominant
software titles for those systems. There have occasionally been new categories
of software introduced. For instance, high quality video editing software for
the home market, which was made possible by better home cameras and major
advances in speed and resources of home computers. Pervasive internet allowed
the browser wars to happen. It wasn't minor UI changes in the OS that allowed
new players to come onto the scene, it was major technological advances.

If you go back far enough, you can argue that the change from command line to
GUI allowed for just such a revolution described (it definitely did:
Wordstar/Wordperfect lost to Word, Lotus lost to Excel, AutoCad nearly lost
its throne, etc.). But, nobody in their right mind is arguing that iOS 6 to
iOS 7 is the difference between DOS and Windows 3.1 or between an Apple IIe
and Lisa or the first Macintosh.

History isn't always the best indicator in the tech industry, but in absence
of other indicators, I'll bet on history repeating in some form.

~~~
egypturnash
There were some notable changes in the Classic-to-X change. Quark XPress
replaced by InDesign, BBEdit replaced by TextMate. Probably a few others, too.

Adobe's tools stood unchanged in the X switch, in no small part because they
got X versions out pretty quickly that felt relatively at home. Quark, IIRC,
took forever to make an X version, so Adobe was able to bring out an X page
layout app and eat their lunch. Of course, it didn't hurt that everyone pretty
much loathed XPress, especially its heaviest users...

~~~
SwellJoe
While I agree there were some shakeups, I think it also proves my "major
technological change" point. Mac OS to OS X was a major technological change.
Went from a pretty, but clunky, single-tasking, OS to a quite advanced UNIX-
based multi-tasking OS. UI was the smallest of the changes that happened
there. There was also a major processor and architecture change in that story
line. Big differences. Having a native app was mandatory to take advantage of
a huge jump in capability.

------
bitops
I hope I'm not in some crazy minority here, but I actually value stability and
UIs not changing radically all the time. I feel like there's a craze afoot at
the moment to "redesign everything all the time" and I'm not a big fan of it.
If you're in tech, sure, it's the "price of progress" but for the lay user
(i.e. the people who pay us money for software) it's just annoying.

~~~
smacktoward
That was my thought too. I'm a bit agog at seeing a developer lauding a
platform owner for _burning down the platform._ If you're going to invest time
and money in a platform, the _last_ thing you want is to find out after that
investment has been sunk that the platform steward likes to periodically smash
everything.

Marco argues that while this behavior is bad for incumbents, it's good for new
entrants, but that doesn't make any sense; if you're a new entrant, your goal
over the long term is to _become_ an incumbent. Blowing everything up may
benefit you today, but if you survive long enough to see the next demolition
spree, then _you 'll_ be the one getting 'sploded. It's like arguing that
living next to a volcano is good for development because it periodically
clears out old building stock.

A good platform is one you can build a business on. Sudden, dramatic change
that flushes your investment to date down the toilet is bad for business.

~~~
pazimzadeh
A platform that is popular or has the most apps is not necessarily the "best",
as Windows proves. I'm not sure that Apple ever wanted 750,000 apps on iOS. It
seems that they should prefer 100,000 great apps to 750k mediocre ones.

The platform was designed the iPhone platform between 2005 and 2007, and while
it served its purpose very well I don't think that we should limit innovation
for the sake of supporting old apps.

------
Steko
There's a huge tendency for designers to overstate the importance of "looking
modern" as an actual end. A lot of people honestly wouldn't care if the
buttons on their phone were modelled to look like 3d photorealistic rainbow
poop. The designers tell them they don't need cases but they all buy the most
garish hideous cases to say nothing of the bedazzler people.

Sign me up as skeptical re: the coming app store revolution.

------
Samuel_Michon
I noticed something curious on page 10 of Apple’s iOS 7 Transition Guide[1],
in the section “Things Every App Should Do”:

”Examine your app for hard-coded UI values – such as sizes and positions – and
replace them with those you derive dynamically from system-provided values.
Use Auto Layout to help your app respond when layout changes are required.”

Now, I may be reading too much into this, but the use of the word ‘when’
sounds to me like Apple is preparing products with other resolutions than are
on the current iOS devices. I think there would be a market for a budget
iPhone with a smaller screen, and a high-end iPad with a larger screen.

Also, the icon size for apps is different in iOS 7. It’s going up from 114x114
to 120x120.

[1] [http://es.slideshare.net/evgenybelyaev16/transition-
guide](http://es.slideshare.net/evgenybelyaev16/transition-guide)

~~~
smackfu
This could also be related to iOS 7 having a system-level font size setting.

------
Negitivefrags
Unless Apple has significantly improved new app discovery on the App Store, I
don't think we are going to see any changes.

The algorithms that apple uses for the top lists promote established players,
the search functions suck, and the interface for scrolling through lists of
apps are so slow and clunky that it discourages users from exploring beyond
the first 5-6 results in any list.

------
cheald
So when Android is fragmented, it is awful and is the reason the platform
sucks. When iOS is fragmented, it's innovative and fresh, masterfully executed
to bring new opportunities to developers. Got it.

~~~
shinratdr
How do you even draw such a connection in your head? Nobody once, ever, has
said that the new UI that came with ICS was a bad thing. The problem is that
even now, years later, the most in-use Android version is three years old.

Android fragmentation is about VERSIONS. APIs, bug fixes, security updates,
and available features to a lesser extent. It has NOTHING to do with look and
feel. At all. This tactic from Android fans is sad. Just expand the definition
of fragmentation until it no longer means anything.

Ridiculous. When 90% of devices are using the latest OS within a year of
release, trying to call that fragmentation is complete bullshit. No platform
in history has been able to tout those kinds of upgrade numbers, and it's a
distinct advantage for both users and developers.

~~~
cheald
Did you read the post?

Fragmentation is about your userbase being split across incompatible platforms
and the paralyzing effect that has on development, which is precisely what
Marco was lauding as a good thing in this post.

~~~
alayne
That is not what he's saying at all. He's saying there is disruption and an
opportunity now, not that continued disruption (fragmentation) is a good
thing!

~~~
cheald
For what it's worth, I think he's right about it being an opportunity. If you
can throw away some percentage of your potential market and leave them to your
competitors, you might be able to work that to your advantage. This isn't
really a novel concept; every major change in every major ecosystem undergoes
a similar period.

I mostly take umbrage at the specific attitude taken towards this, when the
same move in similar ecosystems (the ICS/JB upgrade, for example, which saw a
huge market open up for "Holo-themed" apps) was mocked and derided as pulling
the rug out from under users' feet.

iOS' consistency has been tirelessly lauded as a good thing, until Apple goes
and changes it. I'm happy with progress and change, and am fine with the
broken eggs required to make that particular omelette; I just think it's funny
how the pundits' headlines change based on how their particular horse is
doing.

~~~
shinratdr
> I mostly take umbrage at the specific attitude taken towards this, when the
> same move in similar ecosystems (the ICS/JB upgrade, for example, which saw
> a huge market open up for "Holo-themed" apps) was mocked and derided as
> pulling the rug out from under users' feet.

I would love to see such an example. As a follower of many Apple themed blogs,
I saw nothing but good thoughts directed towards the release of ICS, which was
a sorely needed UI revamp. I don't remember anything even close to this
sentiment being expressed.

~~~
cheald
Perhaps I just read too much HN. ;) I'll see if I can dig up a few examples.

Edit: After 15 minutes of googling, I'm unable to find an example to back up
my assertion; I withdraw it. I'm still pretty sure it's out there, but I won't
ask you to take my word for it. :)

------
jmduke
Another point that I think has been understated thus far:

Android, WP, and iPhone's visual philosophies are closer now than ever before.
I can only assume this will lead to fewer "ecosystem-exclusive" apps, which I
think is a net positive for everyone.

~~~
gbog
You give way too much importance to the visual part, the reason for some apps
to be ecosystem exclusive are technical or legal limitations. Writing this on
a rooted Android phone with third party keyboard, through a vpn...

------
Breefield
I felt this way after IOS started to flourish in 2008-2009. "Why didn't I
start building iPhone apps back then." Now IOS7, and Marco saying this, I can
anticipate the same sensation if I don't hop onboard after this refresh.

------
bcl
This is wrong. The vast majority don't want their OS (whether it is phone,
desktop, laptop, etc.) to suddenly change. They want stability. They have
invested the time and effort to learn the UI and integrate it into their
lives, change disrupts this and wastes their time.

If you force them into learning a new way to do things you have just reduced
the friction of them switching to some other platform. And that's how you lose
customers.

~~~
bennyg
It's honestly not that different. Messaging is just as easy as before. Using
Calendar is just as easy as before. All of the apps that aren't Apple's are
the exact same and will be for the beginning of the official release. You
underestimate people and their ability to adapt to change.

------
modernerd
Thousands of developers will be perfectly happy to drop iOS 5 and 6 support
and remodel their apps for iOS 7 – myself included – because:

a. The new APIs and Xcode look lovely to work with.

b. Dropping support for iPhone 3G and 3GS devices four years after they were
released doesn't feel unreasonable.

c. Apple has a long history of featuring apps that use their latest APIs.
Having your app featured is still the only reasonable hope to make money in
the App Store, unless your business model revolves around selling
Smurfberries.

d. Many developers will have been holding back from making major app changes
because they were waiting to see how iOS 7 would change the design language.
Now that they know, they can spend the Summer redesigning.

e. Apple are openly inviting developers to "reimagine your apps on iOS 7" \-
that's the language they've used in their developer emails.

f. A successful developer with a widely read blog has just come out and said
that everyone who drops support for older iOS versions to build afresh on top
of iOS 7 stands to gain a lot.

So there will probably be a huge host of "new, nimble" apps with new takes on
tired old setups come Autumn.

But I bet a lot of torch app developers are feeling very hard done by.

------
kcoop
So says the guy that just sold all his legacy apps.

~~~
lostlogin
Money where his mouth is? Although it would seem unlikely unless he had a
prior glimpse of what was coming. Is this that unlikely?

~~~
ruswick
Although he wasn't aware of the exact details or extent of the changes, rumors
of a total overhaul have been circulating for months. He probably anticipated
having to input hundreds if not thousands of hours of development time to
prepare for iOS 7. At the very least, this must have been a factor in his
decisions.

------
idbentley
This is ridiculous. One uninnovative developer getting excited about fewer
choices and lower quality in iOS application.

~~~
pazimzadeh
You're ridiculous, and I predict that Marco will be laughing his way to the
bank. Let's revisit this in say December or Spring of next year, shall we?

~~~
gwern
> getting excited about fewer choices and lower quality

> laughing his way to the bank

Error: type mismatch identified.

~~~
pazimzadeh
What users need is not more choice; as Marco said, the App Store is crowded.
What users need is higher quality apps, which iOS 7 will purportedly enable.
Therefore, developers who take advantage of this opportunity will make more
money than those who don't.

I am using the beta on my primary phone, and I am starting to see what Marco
is talking about.

~~~
sillysaurus
There's a fallacy in your reasoning: that quality wins.

This isn't always true. Word of mouth is a much more powerful force than raw
quality. Look at eBay, for example.

Most apps luckily don't have many network effects. But I won't be switching
PDF readers just because the new one looks more like iOS 7.

~~~
pazimzadeh
I agree with you, although I think that Apple is betting that "looks more like
iOS 7" is more like "works better thanks to features only available in iOS 7".

See this tweet by @flyosity:

"Damn, the UIKit animation/dynamics effects in iOS 7 are some seriously
futuristic stuff. Can't wait to see what people do with it."

[https://twitter.com/flyosity/status/344642697241436160](https://twitter.com/flyosity/status/344642697241436160)

------
kenjackson
Fertile ground is Google Glass, the new Kinect sensor, 3d printing, etc...

There are so many more interesting targets, I hope we don't focus our best on
new skins for flashlight apps.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Flashlight is built into the iOS 7 control panel. Innovation FTW ;)

------
kunai
iOS 7 is in many ways a new beginning for both Apple, its users, and its
developers, but I think the OA is relying a bit too much on hyperbole. In the
DP, there weren't really too many navigational changes, and the UI was still
instantly familiar. Yes, there are new APIs and other neat fancy rendering
stuff, and you can't discount the influence of the application's look and
feel, but... it didn't feel very different, at least with regards to an
experience perspective. It looks markedly better (apart from about 5-6 odd-
looking icons on the home screen), and designing around that will perhaps be
the most daunting challenge.

It will separate the best from the worst, however, and this beginning, this
chance to start fresh, is what I look forward to.

------
mangoman
As a developer who hasn't published an app in the iOS App store, I love the
point that Marco's making. One of my biggest biggest hesitations in developing
an iOS application has been, how the hell can I differentiate myself? By being
one of the first iOS 7 apps! I don't have to have some crazy sense of design,
or think too hard about what gradients I use, since my app will stand out from
the start. I think that's one of the main points in the argument.

As a developer who has friends who have developed "non-trivial" iOS apps,
damn. This is pretty spot on exactly what happened (happening still even) on
Android with pre/post 3.0 applications. Making sure that the UI works on both
categories of devices is just awful. There are a few projects out there to
help (ActionBarSherlock, HoloEverywhere), but it takes a lot of diligence,
ESPECIALLY if you're trying to do combination tablet and phone apps.

A lot of the posts I've read on this thread are missing the point of the post.
It's not just about change, its not about fragmentation, its about the
excitement for newcomers to join an ecosystem that has felt super saturated
for years. It may not actually shake the foundation of the app store, but it
at least allows for new talent to enter on the same playing field as those who
have been developing iOS applications for years. That's just exciting.

------
jared314
You have to be fast to pick up nickels in front of a steamroller.

There is some money in porting something between the old and the new playing
field, but the incumbents will eventually update.

~~~
hrabago
That's where the opportunity is. If "eventually" is six months, then you have
six months to make your mark. By then, if you play your cards right and/or you
get lucky, you can get in a good position and try to hold it, which you may
not have had the chance before.

------
buro9
Good design is long-lasting - #7 of Dieter Rams ten principles of good design.

I wonder how many app designers will realise that the apps they produced were
subject to the fashion of the design of the operating system, and now that the
fashion and trend has moved, whether the app designers will be confident
enough to apply their own timeless design.

The iOS7 colour palette and style is fresh and new (to iOS users), but it is
just the next fashion, and as fresh and new as it feels today, it will feel
equally old and stale (like iOS6) at some point in the future.

Good design is long-lasting. App designers should concentrate on getting their
design right for their application, and not just follow the trend and wear the
attire of the operating system.

Marco is right that when the fashion changes, those who cannot keep up with
fashion leave a large opportunity for those who can. I also agree that there
is also a lot of money to be made by being one of those who can follow fashion
closely.

But from a design perspective... those who follow others (the operating
system) rather than having the courage to lead (the right design for the app),
will always be subject to vulnerability when the fashion changes.

------
csomar
1\. Given Apple history of screwing developers, I doubt they are doing it for
developers.

2\. It's my opinion. I think the hybrid new design is much worse than the old
one. I like the old design. It's different and not old.

3\. How is starting from scratch is good for users? Remember, we are here for
users and not developers. Also, there are lots of apps not affected by this
change: games and apps with their own UI just come to my mind.

------
kevincrane
I've seen this in several places, but when people say Apple "changed
everything about how use it" in this version of iOS, what did they actually
change? The only big things I've seen with regards to the OS seem to be the
flat iconography and the pull-up menu from the bottom that has the setting
changes. Everything else looked approximately identical functionally (at first
glance anyway).

~~~
hrabago
There are changes, for instance, about how multitasking works, that an
application can take advantage of. If one app doesn't take advantage of it,
and another does, I may use one over the other more often. For instance, there
was an app that used Push Notification and the Icon Badge to show the current
temperature, and for a time I used that over The Weather Channel's app. Small
things like this creates opportunities, this is what Marco was saying.

------
programminggeek
Apple is one of the companies that can really get away with an en-masse OS
transition simply because they are basically guaranteed to get 80% on board in
less than 6 months simply because they control the distribution mechanism and
the device hardware itself. They can plan for these transitions.

Google and to a lesser extent Microsoft screwed up and are struggling to be
able to keep their users on the latest and greatest. This is such a huge
advantage for Apple that it can't be overstated.

On Android at least 36% of devices are still running Gingerbread (which is 2.5
years old). Android 4.x is finally up over 50% after being out for just over a
year and a half.

So, whenever Google gets around to Android 5.0, it will probably be a whole
year later (or more) before that is the mainstream targetable version of
Android.

As a developer, you could argue this gives you more time to get around to
building against the new api's, but at the same time that's remarkably slow
user uptake compared to iOS.

------
cromwellian
Fragmentation :)

------
drpancake
I disagree with the significance being given to these UI changes. Many App
Store niches are dominated by incredibly ugly apps that are functional and get
the job done. Take a look at WhatsApp for a prime example.

------
mbq
This is precisely why I think modern approach to software UX and design is
crazy. Like 15 years ago, in the Windows hegemony every sane designer was
heavily relying on widgets, metaphors and flow defined by the system and MS
could almost flawlessly upgrade the look of the entire ecosystem with XP's
Luna. And without breaking the user experience.

Now everybody is looking for some virtual perfection in a different place and
the user gets an awful, inconsistent, non-customizable and anti-interoperable
clutter. WHY?

------
ianstallings
I've faced it in other platforms and it's easily overcome with software
patterns that you should already be using. If you have a good separations of
concerns and the UI is truly decoupled from your logic and models you should
not be having any issues. If you don't already have that use this time to
refactor and move forward. Some things won't be possible across both
platforms. Find those now and address them first.

------
mwfunk
I'm not sure how a new OS update that changes more things than usual is
fragmentation, especially when that OS has a very small number of devices that
it runs on and a user base that by and large quickly updates to the new
releases. It might be more of a disruptive update than usual, it might be good
or bad for users in the short term, it might be good or bad for developers in
the short term, but it's not fragmentation.

------
coderguy123
How can this be sustainable? all this fragmentation/versions - iOS new >=7 and
<7, all different versions of android, windows 8 metro etc etc. how many
different platform specific versions are these service providers like say
pandora suppose to create?

I feel like unless the app is taking advantage of some inherent hardware
capability of the phone/tablet everything should eventually be HTML5.

~~~
hrabago
Your example illustrates what Marco is saying. A big player that needs to
support all those different versions of different platforms may take more time
updating their iOS app to adapt the latest standards. An indie developer, who
has more agility and can choose to only support iOS 7, now has a possible
advantage, if s/he chooses to take advantage of it.

------
nadam
"Most can’t afford to write two separate interfaces. (It’s a terrible idea
anyway.)"

Why? If the newcomers can afford to write an interface for iOS7, the
established players also can. If there is money in it for newcomers, there is
money in it for established players too. This article assumes that established
players are dumb. They will estimate how users adopt iOS7 over time, and act
accordingly.

~~~
smackfu
I think it assumes that established players are conservative, not dumb. They
will do the least effort necessary to make their app look good in iOS 7, at
least at first.

------
jusben1369
Aren't the well/better funded dev shops and apps going to more easily make the
transition? Won't the smaller ones feel the pain of backward/multi version
support more acutely? Didn't we just empower the status quo? True there'll be
net new revs with no legacy issues but not sure how game changing that is.

------
ojbyrne
Or, in the six months before the new shiny iOS appears, every single dominant
or near-dominant application on the app store decides that it makes more sense
for them to build a version that targets the _other_ ecosystem.

------
jeffpersonified
I've been a rails developer for a while now, and contemplating whether or not
to focus my energies on a js frontend framework or learning iOS. I think this
post was all I needed to make a decision. Thanks Marco.

------
shinratdr
In case you've ever wondered why Marco frequently dismisses the Hacker News
community, the comments on this article are a fantastic example. Never has
"give it five minute" been more apt.

------
chj
Every disaster is opportunity. In the case of iOS 7, the opportunity belongs
to Android and windows.

------
gaving
Can't help but think the Vesper guys wished they had waited until next year.

------
mamcx
And how that fit for non-standar UIs?

