The Daydream Blog

Over the last 18 months spent developing Differencia, I have been surprised by the number of arguments that have broken out amongst the Mac developer community. Prior to WWDC ‘06, they had mostly seemed to be a cohesive community, with a united goal to promote the Mac platform. Since then there have been several ugly arguments over Cocoa vs Carbon, The Delicious Generation, Code Bloat, Software Distribution formats, Marketing Promotions (MacHeist, et al.) and even racism. Mac developers have not argued this much since Apple’s reverse take-over by Steve Job’s NeXT.

This might feel quite unseemly and create a negative image of the Mac developer community amongst our customer base. It may even suggest that there is some fragility in the traditionally zealot-like support for the Mac. As I suggested in “The Year of Hubris“, there is certainly a new willingness to criticise Apple, by its customers and developers.

Should customers be worried? Should Developers keep their arguments private? Or is Daniel Jakult right, when he suggests that the developer community is still one big happy family?

Well, I would argue “No” in all cases. The infighting amongst Mac developers signals the end of a siege mentality. We are no longer worried that Apple may go bust, that the Mac may disappear as a product and our beloved platform will be swamped by Windows. For the last decade, or more, the Mac community has stuck together to defend their platform. Now that the Mac market is buoyant, Apple is financially healthy and the future looks bright, the need for solidarity is gone.

In fact the Mac market is large enough and growing at such a pace, that there is room again for multiple competing products. Developers want to do their best to differentiate their products, and promote their approach to their customers, as being “better than the next guy”. In short, traditional market forces have come into play.

As with any good, transparent, competitive market, competition is a great thing for customers. It means that developers are desperately fighting to improve their products to steal a march on their competitors. All of the arguments are centred around what is best for customers. Customers who now have a genuine choice.

Why the sudden change? After all Apple has been financially healthy, and the Mac market has been growing, for quite some time. I would suggest that the speed, success and mere fact of the Intel transition has been the catalyst. Apple is no longer one failed delivery from its chip vendor away from disaster. Intel is a reliable partner, and if they stumble, AMD and IBM are waiting in the wings. I have been nervously waiting for a bake off showing how much faster Windows is than OS X on the same hardware. Instead we discover that a Mac is, in fact, the fastest Vista capable laptop.

If the Mac developers stop arguing, start worrying. In the mean time, sit back and enjoy the fireworks.

Earlier in the week I suggested that developers should get over the lack of a “proper” iPhone SDK. Looking at Apple’s Web Apps directory, I felt that a lot of developers were getting on with things.

Of course the next day, Apple announced that there would be a proper iPhone SDK in Feb. This does highlight Apple’s hubris at claiming that Web tools were a full SDK as I had previously claimed.

More importantly along with the iTunes Plus price reductions, it does appear that Apple is responding to the wave of criticism that has come its way over the last few months. With a bit of luck, Apple will also open up iPhone ring tones as part of that response.

Back the the iPhone SDK, my biggest concern is that I will fall into the same trap I did with my previous smart phone. Installing all manner of “cool” apps that I never use and which clutter up the limited resources on my phone. When I get an iPhone, I’ll be interested to see whether I prefer using web based tools to full blown, native, apps. Of the shareware that I currently use on my Mac, a GTD solution is the only app that I feel that I would want on my iPhone. Of course I’d happily do without the YouTube and Stocks apps as well.

Whilst many Mac developers have bemoaned the lack of a “proper” iPhone SDK, it appears that the web developers have wondered what all the fuss was about and just got on with it. Apple has created an online directory of iPhone optimised web apps, which has grown to over 200 hundred entries, in less than a week. Perhaps we Mac developers need to be less afraid of change. We petulantly worried about Carbon vs. Cocoa before realising there was a place for both in the same app. So perhaps we need to accept web development as part of our necessary armoury of tools, for OS X development beyond the Mac.

Presenting web tools as a “proper” iPhone SDK was patronising to developers at WWDC ‘07, and symptomatic of Apple’s “Year of Hubris”. But developers need to accept that this is the reality of the situation. We also need to accept that iPhone updates will delete third party hacks, close loop holes and possibly render the phones inoperable.

The iPhone Elite Team have released a way to unlock “bricked” iPhones, having accepted the reality of the situation. John Gruber has it completely correct when he says that there is a “misguided mindset” in thinking Apple “screwed them over” with the 1.1.1 update.

As a developer, if you want to bring your app to the iPhone, you either need to add web development to your tool-chest or get involved in the hacking process. However, making money out of that app on the iPhone maybe a tricky business model.

My prediction is that, as with iPod games, there will be a coterie of developers who will be allowed to bring Apple sanctioned apps to the iPhone and iPod Touch, delivered through the iTunes Store.

I woke up this morning and thought I need to post on Apple’s Year of Hubris, only to find that Wil Shipley had beaten me to it.

Apple has hat its “Year of the laptop” and “Year of HD” and this year seems to be the “Year of Hubris”. A number of decisions this year have led to major backlashes from their normally ultra loyal customer base.

Most of the controversy has centred on the iPhone. Before WWDC there was strong demand for an “iPhone SDK”; a set of tools to allow developers to create iPhone applications. Steve Jobs tried to fob developers off with web based tools. Many felt Apple would have been better stating they were not offering a proper SDK, rather than patronise intelligent developers, by telling them Web 2.0 tools were just as good.

Then there was the dramatic iPhone price cut. Whilst I appreciate the humour that suggests that this “was a repeal of the nerd tax“, it highlights that whereas most handsets are subsidised when on a contract, the iPhone was actually sold for two months at a $200 premium.

Ring-tones for the iPhone are another sore point, with users having to pay an additional $0.99 to use a snippet of a song they already own and no way to create ring-tones from songs not bought from the iTunes Store. John Gruber covers this issue far better than I can. Though I would point out that long before the iPhone, ring tone buyers have shown a bizarre willingness to pay through the nose for poor quality song snippets. The best that Apple can say is that they are pricing below the current market rate.

Of course in the UK, at the current exchange rate, the iPhone should be priced at around £200 before tax or £235 incl. VAT. The extra £34 for additional business costs seems a little excessive.

Some criticism from the press feels contrived to avoid appearing to pander to Apple. Unfortunately in the UK, we all to often like to bring success stories down to earth. For example, the criticism of the iPhone’s lack of 3G seems perverse. 3G has hardly lit up the UK market since its release in 2003 and it appears to be a flawed technology. Jobs’ complaints about 3G battery consumption are completely valid. Power consumption should have been resolved long ago, given how long 3G has been available. I, for one, am happy that Apple is not championing a technology that benefits networks looking to sell content, more than is solves problems for consumers.

As with each succession of the iPod, the press are always keen to point out missing features without justifying the customer benefit for those features.

Away from the iPhone, Apple’s decision to charge more for DRM free tracks from EMI has surprised many, given Steve Jobs’ open letter of criticism of DRM. Apple’s recent public stance on DRM has also been somewhat confused.

iMovie ‘08 has also generated criticism for being a step backwards in many ways. Apple, fully aware of this, quietly ensured that iMovie ‘06 was still available for free to iLife ‘08 purchasers. Whilst there is a need for an app like iMovie ‘08 in this modern Max Headroom / YouTube era, there is still a need for iMovie ‘06 type app as well. Many feel that Apple should have found some way to have both applications coexist within iLife and update the original iMovie, rather than replace it.

And finally there was considerable disappointment at the “Top Secret” features in Leopard and the redesign of key UI elements in the new OS. There will undoubtedly be further backlash if Leopard is delayed again beyond its October time frame. The lack of new seeds for developers and testers, suggests a delay is more than possible. I personally predict that Leopard will be delayed until MacWorld in January.

Many of these issues come down to poor PR or Marketing, or simply bad timing. They suggest some hubris on Apple’s approach to its existing customer base. As Wil Shipley says:

That sure reminds me of the old, crappy Apple. The one that almost went bankrupt because of its hubris.

Apple will undoubtedly learn from the backlash, but more worrying than the Marketing missteps are the ring-tones pricing and restrictions, along with Apple’s drive to increase gross margins despite strong sales volumes. It appears that Apple is trying to maximise returns from loyal customers. Fortunately, Apple continues to produce great products to increase its customer base, unlike its previous period of hubris.

In their recent joint interview at D5 (video, transcript), Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were both asked what they had learnt from the other. Bill said that he wished he had Jobs’s taste – to much laughter. It is not clear from the video whether he realised that he was mirroring Jobs’s 1996 criticism that Microsoft “has no taste”. Whereas Steve, in the background, and the audience clearly did.

Jobs’s answer was more interesting. He stated that Apple’s original strategy was to “build the whole banana”, and as a result there was not much scope for partnering with other companies. Microsoft, he felt, was excellent at this. Ironically he felt, quite correctly, that the one company Apple has successfully partnered with throughout its history is Microsoft itself.

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Apple may be one of a rare breed of companies that can generate business by actually shutting up shop for an hour or two. Every time their online store displays their customary “We’ll be back soon”, the Internet goes into a slight frenzy with the non-news that you cannot actually buy anything for now. The result is additional traffic to their website; and sometimes they don’t even appear to have released anything at all.

For most of these updates Apple should not need to bring down their store at all. Most other companies update their online stores on a regular basis without having to shut them down. Combined with often releasing new products on a Tuesday, Apple has created a buzz around even the most minor of updates. A minor speed bump generates press, compared with Dell who update their products regularly without a flicker of interest. Apple have also learnt to spread their releases out rather than focus them on the MacWorld Expo or their Developer Conference, thus keeping them in the headlines for longer.

All businesses should learn from this successful marketing strategy. Now more than ever it is not sufficient just to make great products, you have to have great marketing to go along with it.