I think you are wrong about Java on the Mac. It didn't do well because of Apple. They never kept up with releases and didn't bother to put much effort into it. You can't blame Java for that. I'm surprised Sun didn't take Apple to task about getting updates out there quicker.
If you are an application developer, you want your application to look and behave the same everywhere. Otherwise there are differences on every platform you have to program for and that costs money. You have to train users on different versions and that costs money. And then there is the confusion of a customer trying to use the same application on different devices and things not working or looking the same. Users hated that in the past and a lot of time has been spent creating libraries, frameworks, and other tools to avoid the duplication of work. If you want something to look different, implement skins and then skin the Android, iPhone, and Blackberry versions differently. But why should a developer be required to use different tools and reimplement the same thing multiple times? What really bothers me are the reasons for the rules they keep coming up with. If you boil them all down, it is to make money. Simple as that. Why else stop developers from creating applications any way they want? To sell more ObjectiveC tools? Why stop certain applications from being sold on the iStore? Because they stop the flow of money from another tool in some way. Do they really need to make that much more money? Couldn't they worry more about creating a great device, development environment, and use the best 3G services out there? They chose AT&T because they could bully them and make lots of money. I would think after a while that it is more important to give people what they want, not try to squeeze every possible dime out of them. Soon customers will tire of it and go elsewhere, even if the alternative is less functional. It will be more appealing because you won't be getting dime'd to death. On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 6:44 PM, [email protected] < [email protected]> wrote: > Here is a good look at the apple view: > > http://www.macworld.com/article/150539/2010/04/apple_world.html?lsrc=twt_jsnell > > I think this guy nails why Apple is doing what they are doing. I > disagree with Apple's policy, but it does make sense. To me, make > people use public APIs and how they get the code together is their > business. > > "Apple doesn’t want Flash-created apps on the App Store for a simple > reason: It reduces the iPhone to a lowest-common denominator platform, > and at that point Apple loses all control over the iPhone OS > experience. > > Once developers can create an app in one development environment— > Adobe’s—and compile it to run on every smartphone known to humankind, > many developers will decide to save themselves a boatload of money and > stop developing native apps for the iPhone, Android, and other > platforms. They’ll just develop once, for Flash, and let it run > anywhere. > > Sounds good, but the develop-once-run-anywhere philosophy is something > that makes more sense to bean counters and development-environment > vendors than it does to platform owners and discriminating users. In > the ’90s we were told that Java apps would be the future of software, > because you could write them once and deploy them anywhere. As someone > who used to use a Java-based Mac app on an almost daily basis, let me > tell you: it was a disaster. Java apps didn’t behave like Mac apps. > They were ugly and awful and weird, but hey, at least they ran on the > Mac. > > It’s the same way I feel about Adobe’s AIR environment today. It’s a > Flash and/or HTML-based system that lets developers write cross- > platform desktop apps. A good example of an Adobe AIR app is > TweetDeck. A lot of people like TweetDeck for Mac, and bless ’em. I > can only assume they like it because they like its feature set. It’s a > horrible Mac app, though. It’s got no menu bar to speak of, a strange > and limited preferences window, weird scroll bars... the list goes on. > It feels, in short, like a Web app that’s been mashed into a window so > that it can pretend to be a native Mac app. And—spoiler alert—that’s > because it is. > > Apple doesn’t want apps that don’t feel like native iPhone apps on the > iPhone. It doesn’t want Adobe to aid developers in creating a world > where App X for iPhone and App X for Android are indistinguishable > from one another. Apple doesn’t want to introduce new iPhone features > and then watch as nobody takes advantage of them because Adobe hasn’t > updated its development system yet. Or, worse, watches as Adobe > refuses to adopt them because the other operating systems don’t > support those features. > > If iPhone apps are one of Apple’s greatest assets, a lowest-common- > demoninator app world is Apple’s greatest nightmare. Apple wants the > iPhone app experience to be created using Apple’s native tools by > developers who are engaged with the platform and falling over > themselves to support Apple’s latest features. These are the > developers who were downloading and installing iPhone OS 4.0 on > Thursday and poring over the documentation, getting ready to dig in > and start updating their apps for this summer’s release." > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<javaposse%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > -- Robert Casto www.IWantFreeShipping.com Find Amazon Filler Items easily! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
