
If Apple holds the future of computing, I don't want to be a developer (2010) - phatak-dev
http://blog.madhukaraphatak.com/if-apple-holds-the-future-of-computing-I-dontwant-to-be-a-developer/
======
meesterdude
I think this article is HN worthy, but the lack of attention to grammar and
punctuation is off putting and makes it harder to take this seriously, or link
to coworkers.

> Mobile is the feature

and what a feature it is! But I know you meant "future". And on that, I
disagree. it is _NOT_ the future. They aren't going to obsolete PC's. They are
a new branch of computing, but PC's are still around and are still the primary
content creators, while mobile is primarily geared to consumption.

But I'm glad to be a web developer for many of the reasons you identified. i
don't need approval, I can use an array of technologies and techniques to
deliver the same end product, and collaborate with others via open source
projects or in online forums. It's really a great time to be a webdev.

My eyes glaze over a bit when people talk iOS or android development. I just
don't care. The apps I use the most are the ones that came with my phone, and
I only use a handful in addition to that. I have no desire to deal with all
the BS that's associated with mobile development or trying to turn a profit on
the app store. If I launch my side project and it does well, I'll certainly
consider native apps if the demand is there. Otherwise I'm quite happy to
develop for the web/mobile-web.

~~~
matthewwiese
> They aren't going to obsolete PC's.

Considering you were criticizing the author on his grammar, you made a mistake
yourself! "Obsolete" is an adjective, not a verb.

Also, I like your distinction between traditional PCs for creation and mobile
for consumption. Mobile devices can do little in the way of content creation,
disregarding the simple apps that allow users to change basic properties, such
as add a filter to an image. However, I see mobile eclipsing PCs merely
because the majority of people have no need to create content and merely would
like to consume their favorite media.

~~~
sheetjs
> "Obsolete" is an adjective, not a verb.

Merriam Webster recognizes the verb form of obsolete. The example is from
1936:

> "For radio itself deliberately obsoletes today what it built yesterday."
> —David Sarnoff, Television, 1936

[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obsolete](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/obsolete)

~~~
matthewwiese
I'll be damned, I see I was wrong! Props to you and another commenter for
pointing that out. It's fun how parts of the English language may be
manipulated like that, however bizarre it may sound.

------
rubbingalcohol
Hitching your wagon to one company, whether it's Apple or Google, is a great
way to set yourself up for being exploited.

And, yeah. That whole "mobile is the future" thing really __was __so 2010. But
mobile only turned out to be _part_ of the future. Everyone was so convinced
that tiny plastic devices with no keyboards or computing power would supersede
decades of awesomeness that was, and continues to be, the personal computer.

"Mobile is the future" didn't pan out, similarly to how today's "enterprise is
the future" fad is going to.

Developers should be able to see past all this noise, choose a compromise
between what they enjoy doing and what makes money, and go do some cool shit.

~~~
ddebernardy
> "Mobile is the future" didn't pan out,

Really? Please enlighten me.

A recent mobile phone, such as an iPhone, has approximately the same computing
power as Deep Blue when measured in Flops, i.e. the same as a _super_
-computer from 15 years ago. It's about as powerful as a PC from a half decade
ago. (And it's currently made of aluminum, rather than plastic.)

Moreover, Apple's _iPhone_ revenue (just the iPhone) is in the same ballpark
as the revenue from _everything_ sold by Microsoft.

As for the equipment rate of smart phones, it's steadily growing higher than
PC equipment rates. This is particularly true in developing countries and in
lower-income segments of the population in developed ones (both groups are
Android users for the most part). In both cases, a smartphone is becoming
(indeed, has become in the case of the former, since they often skipped the PC
step altogether) the _main_ device they use to access the internet.

I'm not really seeing how "mobile is the future" _didn 't_ pan out... Please,
please, enlighten me.

~~~
meesterdude
Because we still have/need PC's.

Mobile is a new market, a new branch of computing, so naturally there is going
to be a lot of growth there. A lot of people don't need a full-blown PC at
home, so a phone that lets them check facebook and read articles covers most
of their needs. And as you mentioned with india: computers were simply not
affordable for most, but smartphones are. But again, this is just growth
potential and untapped markets.

Businesses will still use computers, as will gamers, developers, writers,
filmmakers, accountants... and so on. Mobile has helped them, but it hasn't
obsoleted PC's. We still need them to create the things to be consumed on
mobile devices.

------
austinz
This histrionics-filled article is a waste of time. There is far more to
software engineering than building mobile apps for either iOS or Android. Even
back in 2010 it should have been abundantly clear that mobile was not going to
subsume all of software engineering.

------
everyone
Mobile is the future..

Meh. Maybe mobile and some shit ecosystem like apple is the future for most
people. But most people arent into interesting esoteric things. The pc and
internet revolutions were started by small groups of some weird people. The
fact that something has been embraced by all the 'norms' usually means that
thing is not interesting anymore. For example, the internet used to be a
crazy, mysterious, lawless place. Now people do their shopping and banking
there and governments and big corps are policing it.

~~~
cinquemb
Having developed on both android and ios, the platforms and the ecosystems
leave a lot to be desired, not to mention I feel like I'm running a expensive
dumbed down computer in my pocket.

If I want download a file on my phone and pipe it into another process, I
shouldn't have to download an app that exports everything on the phone for w/e
purposes or write one when a simple script would do…

~~~
jorgecastillo
[https://code.google.com/p/android-
scripting/](https://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/)

This project hasn't received any updates in a while but so far it has never
let me down when I need to do some text processing in my smartphone.

------
fidotron
The big question needs to be if the platform backer actually has the success
of the platform at heart, or if it's just a moat for something else.

Apple have the killer advantage that the ongoing success of iOS makes them
money directly, thus iOS gets improved in and of itself, and not as a gateway
drug to something else. This is why they are proving stubbornly effective at
holding on to all the valuable parts of the market.

------
RRRA
Android won a lot, but I still don't think that is the openness I am looking
for.

I need a true community around a project which entails a governance model that
actually is more open, be it democratic or meritocratic.

I wish the Ubuntu phone and others would catch on faster.

~~~
spacefight
Maybe more like Firefox OS?

~~~
fidotron
FFOS just encourages more dependence on the cloud, and thus less freedom.

Smart devices need to function without connection to the Internet. With the
SPE hack there will be increasing noise about this and it's going to give
Apple (especially their P2P protocols) a major boost.

~~~
icebraining
FirefoxOS apps work without Internet connection, they're a package that gets
downloaded and installed on the device. See "Installable apps for Firefox OS":
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/Apps/Build/installable_a...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/Apps/Build/installable_apps_for_Firefox_OS)

------
Animats
"Mobile" has dropped the price for software applications has dropped by about
two orders of magnitude. Huge volumes are necessary to make up for that.

It's also given the "app store" vendors much more control. Previously, that
level of control only appeared if you were developing for game consoles.

Sometimes I go over to Hacker Dojo, which is near Google HQ. They have a big,
bleak room with overhead industrial mercury-vapor lamps, cheap tables and
power outlets, and broken vending machines. People sit there in silence,
working on their laptops. They pay about $100 a month for that space. Most
think they're writing the next killer app. Most are wrong.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
Its a good place for personal work or as a co working space, but yeah, a lot
of people there are trying to make the Silicon Valley Dream work. They've
really bought into the VC hype.

~~~
MichaelGG
The picture makes it look like a school gym at a science fair.

------
AnonNo15
Seems like the fear of Apple monoculture is now less of a concern. Android
marketshare is larger now then Apple's.

~~~
danieldk
Worldwide, it is not only larger. iOS is now a tiny blip on the radar,
compared to Android:

[http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-
share.jsp](http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp)

(Of course, iOS users may be outspending Android users, etc.)

~~~
aikah
It doesn't matter if most paying customers are on IOS(which I dont know if it
is the case or not,it's just that specific case where global market share is
not that relevant).

It's a bit like TV,where a tv show can have loads of viewers it doesn't
matter,advertisers are interested only in a specific demographic.

------
tvon
FWIW:

> _Develop in their own hardware and OS_

Strictly speaking this is still true, though a Hackintosh isn't hard to setup.

> _Closed minds : iPhone SDK policies states that you cannot share what you
> are making with your fellow_

I think something is lost in translation here. You can certainly share code,
there is loads of it on github. Perhaps the author is talking about the core
iOS source...?

> _No choice in language and tools_

This may have been true in 2010 but it is not true now, you can write iOS apps
in Ruby, Swift, Objective-C, C# and a few other languages. There is also the
excellent App Code IDE if you don't like Xcode.

> _Big boss has to approve your application in order to reach the users_

Sort of, ad-hoc distribution is an option (though a pain in the ass). But if
you want to write an app for 10 of your friends, or whatever, you can do so
without going through the App Store.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
But its a markedly inferior experience to write iOS apps in those non Apple
approved languages. That's like saying Linux is easy to install on your
Windows laptop, except the machine doesn't hibernate when you close the lid
and the battery life has been halved.

------
zubspace
I wonder, what's the next hot thing made by apple? Whats going to be the next
iPod/iPhone/iPad...? How long will apple be able to continue without a new,
unique and hot-selling thing?

I know, that apple has a ton of money, but the apple tv and the iWatch are not
something major. And i don't see them on the front of interesting stuff
(cloud, containers, virtual reality, social networks).

How long can they increase the screen of the iphone each year? how long can
they let the app store like it was, well, since forever...?

------
solomone
It's what I always find odd about the incredible open armed love of developers
for Apple. People used to _hate_ Micro$oft ( $ uses for emphasis. ) I can't
imagine what the 90's would look like if MS took 30% of every software sale
and decided what software could and could not exist on it's OS. The walled
garden's have peeps and minor outrage, but I never understood why it wasn't
more of a roar.

~~~
archagon
Apps are the spiritual successor to the single-purpose applets that riddled
our pre-smartphone phones and other appliances. They were always proprietary
and always relatively simple. It's only recently that we've gotten the ability
to perform more complicated tasks with our apps.

------
taylorlapeyre
I'm sure that your thoughts are interesting, but the lack of grammar,
punctuation, and spelling in this article makes it very hard to read.

~~~
exDM69
Did you not notice that this was written by someone not speaking English as
their primary language?

You will miss a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas if you don't put a bit
of effort in trying to understand bad grammar, spelling and foreign accents.

------
antranigv
Lucky us, now we have Jolla and Sailfish OS (: there are also platforms like
mer - nemomobile - maemo - tizen... but the average user likes iPhone/iOS and
Android, that is marketing of course...

Personally, I'd go with Jolla and Sailfish, as now I have N900 with maemo, and
I feel the freedom, even after 5 years, it is still the one of the best
phones. Communities are what we need, not capitalism.

------
garrettgrimsley
Phatak ,what is with the oddly spaced punctuation ?

~~~
phatak-dev
It was one of my first posts. I kept it just to remind myself how I evolved
over time.

~~~
garrettgrimsley
Ah OK. I thought that maybe it was for emphasis since the rest of the English
is decent.

------
coldtea
Don't let the door hit you in your way out.

