On Mar 14, 2010, at 10:47 AM, Martin Hairer wrote: > I am a bit worried that this is the beginning of a trend to reduce Apple's > commitment to the Mac platform in favour of the iPhone / iPad / iPod platform.
The *beginning*? Apple’s been showing their new focus on the iPhone for years, and the way they’ve presented the iPad has made it very clear that this is their general computing platform for the future, not the Mac. I’m skeptical that the Mac will be canceled outright anytime in the immediate future because pro apps like Final Cut and Xcode are clearly unworkable on an iPad-like device. But I would absolutely put any amount of money on them working on an iPhone-Pro OS for a large-screen form factor and professional workflows. I think it’ll be a few years before it shows up, and it’ll take a few more years to phase over the transition, but I think the writing is on the wall. > If this is true and we (i.e. the Mac developers in general) are forced to > rewrite our products almost from scratch for the iPhone OS just a few years > after being forced to rewrite them almost from scratch for Mac OS X, then I > start to seriously worry about Apple's ability to retain large software > developers.... Any thoughts? Honestly, I think that the large software developers aren’t the ones to be worried about. In the timeframes we’re talking, any big corp would find it a reasonable investment to port most apps over to the iPhone OS in order to take advantage of the greater audience and to be a part of the trendy new thing. They’ve got money (so they can heavily advertise, etc., and be able to stand out in the marketplace), are only interested in money (so they don’t have philosophical/moral objections to the way the system is being run), have fairly “normal” apps that are supported by the OS, and there’s examples (like the recent “sexy” app purge) of the big guys getting better treatment than the little guys. So really, I think the large developers are going to be fine. The small developers…well, we don’t have big advertising budgets, tend to listen more to our consciences, and many of us (like me) make utility-style apps that are forbidden or not supported by the OS. There seems to be quite a division among the indies. I think almost everybody is excited about the new platforms and interaction models, and think that there’s some amazing user experience to be had. But there’s a (growing?) collection of us that are just too disturbed by the general hostility of the environment to want to embrace the platform. It would be nice if we could still have the Pro niche to work in (anybody who’s been a Mac developer for a significant amount of time is obviously comfortable being in a niche market), but I’m not sure how long that’s going to remain business-viable, or even a market that exists at all. I don’t know what I’d do in that situation. I don’t really like developing for other alternative markets either, though that’s mostly for technical reasons. Most of the other objecting indies I’ve talked with are much the same. This being the Mac Software Business list, I’d be very interested in hearing any insight or ideas people have on the subject. It’s definitely a topic that keeps me up at night. Best, br -- Benjamin Rister President, Decimus Software, Inc. http://decimus.net/ ------------------------------------ MacSB email guidelines: http://tinyurl.com/2g55d6 Use MacSB-Talk for off topic messages: http://groups.google.com/group/macsb-talk Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/macsb/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/macsb/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
