Why? Because the landscape has changed?

People affected by this will just have to adapt and find their place in the new landscape. That's all.

The pie is so big there's room for everybody. And if you still don't think so, there are plenty of other pies no one has noticed yet. You just gotta find them.

Nothing to be "depressed" about. Happens all the time.

OTOH, this is an excellent example of the advantages of being small and nimble - you can adapt quickly while the big boys are stuck struggling.

Microsoft in comparison looks like a beautiful tour de force of openness. Free (arguably) open CIL, languages, document format, IDE, documentation. No one DECIDES who can develop on windows mobile. Or for that matter most other SDKs. As for the cost, absolute worst case for an individual - about $1k a year to get an MSDN subscription.

Meanwhile 4000 devs are going to make ALL the applications that the masses could ever want on an iPhone. Why not just open it up for $100/$300? Heck, why isn't it free to push open source projects? Why isn't it free to push to your own iPhone? Why hasn't anyone asked Apple these questions? This is insane. If Microsoft tried something this crazy everyone would be in an uproar. This will give a huge advantage to large or "in the know" tech companies. I don't see the advantage to the consumer. The iPhone SDK is already relatively locked down so I don't want to hear security.

This being said I have an iPhone and Macbook. They are beautiful elegant machines. They work great. The interface is excellent. FreeBSD is $$$$. They've replaced my linux boxes at home. My iPhone completely pwns my old samsung blackjack. I actually use the internet on my iPhone and I enjoy using it.

I am frustrated that I can't push my iPhone apps from my macbook to my actual iPhone. I'm frustrated that I can't get some of my linux apps to work in OS X. It seems like they have it out for open source / small business / hackers. I could jail break my iPhone, but I shouldn't have to. I could install Xen and Linux, but I shouldn't have to. Sadly, I would be happy if Apple gave us the same choices as Microsoft. That should not be too much to ask.

EDITED: Syntax and a sentence or two.

which might have something to do with why it's an ugly, unpleasant mess.

great technical products are not produced via democracy. they're almost always the vision of just a few people.

Meanwhile 4000 devs are going to make ALL the applications that the masses could ever want on an iPhone.

that's patently absurd. apple randomly picked 4000 iphone devs to let into the beta program. that's all. they will let in more later, once they've gotten feedback from the first crop, and understand better how the process will work.

I'm frustrated that I can't get some of my linux apps to work in OS X.

the linux community is not exactly known for making user-friendly apps. it's only natural that there would be a disconnect between their apps and macosx.

heck, i could spend all day addressing the misconceptions and downright falsehoods in this comment, but it sounds like you've already made up your mind.

Platforms, yes -- consistency goes a long way there, and a few coherent voices can build something where all the pieces work well together.

Applications? 'the talented few' still need access to the platform. The question is, is there a way for a few, talented people to develop and deploy the killer iPhone app?

That's not a rhetorical question -- is there such a route?

it's a shame that apple is not giving out many of the developer keys yet. but if you're serious about this, that shouldn't be much of an impediment. you can still develop for the iphone simulator. and if you really, really need to see your app on a real iphone, you can jailbreak your phone. it's not what apple wants you to do, of course, but i really doubt they're going to disqualify developers who use that method for testing.

I'll listen if you'd like to continue to comment.

great technical products are not produced via democracy. they're almost always the vision of just a few people.

This clearly puts you in the cathedral category from The Cathedral & the Bazaar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar). I think both approaches have their merits and operating systems should make room for both. Though, there are good arguments for both sides I tend to like enough openness for both approaches to compete.

that's patently absurd. apple randomly picked 4000 iphone devs to let into the beta program. that's all. they will let in more later, once they've gotten feedback from the first crop, and understand better how the process will work.

I could understand this for a few months following the launch of the beta. But at this point open it up, what are they worried about? I'd just like to be able to put my own apps on my own iPhone for starters. I don't see how that will hurt Apple's app store launch. I understand why they are doing it, I just don't agree.

I'm happy Apple is at least based on FreeBSD. If Apple is going to use Unix as a selling point then they open themselves up to some expectations from the Linux / BSD crowd. I've found ways around any problems, new apps, different work processes. But, that doesn't mean I wasn't frustrated.

my guess is that it's because this is somewhat tricky. the natural state of data is that it's easily copied. apple is creating artificial impediments to that natural state, in order to keep the iphone experience pristine and friendly for non-techy-types. they don't want to release something that's half-baked, then have to take it back. that would get everyone enraged.

also, apple does have an unfortunate tendency towards absolute secrecy. it's better than the endless vaporware announcements that most other companies seem to revel in, but i think they go too far sometimes.

apple's not perfect, but they do a better job than any other tech company i can think of, in my opinion.

Actually, Visual Studio Express doesn't even include a profiler, IIRC. The profiler is included only in the much more expensive enterprisey Visual Studio team edition (or whatever the hell it's called). All of Apple's developer tools are completely free and come with OS installation DVDs. Apple's compilers are based on gcc, and, per terms of the GPL, Apple's patches are sent back to gcc's maintainers.

"Meanwhile 4000 devs are going to make ALL the applications that the masses could ever want on an iPhone."

Where did you get this idea? 4000 people are in the beta, and there is no reason to believe that Apple won't let absolutely anyone on Earth develop iPhone apps as soon as the SDK reaches its final release.

"Heck, why isn't it free to push open source projects?... It seems like they have it out for open source / small business / hackers."

The iPhone App Store is free of charge to developers who choose to release free software, so I have no idea what you're complaining about. The store also lets independent developers set their own pricing. If you don't like that you can't just zap apps from iPhone to iPhone, (1) that's mainly done for safety reasons, and (2) you actually can, with the ad hoc signing mechanism discussed in WWDC keynote.

The iPhone App Store is free of charge to developers who choose to release free software, so I have no idea what you're complaining about. The store also lets independent developers set their own pricing. If you don't like that you can't just zap apps from iPhone to iPhone, (1) that's mainly done for safety reasons, and (2) you actually can, with the ad hoc signing mechanism discussed in WWDC keynote.

Like I said, I enjoy Apple products. I have a problem with the way they run their business. Just because the iPhone will someday be supportive to open source and sharing doesn't mean that it is now. When they finally do allow new small-time iPhone developers I will be celebrating with everyone else.

It's more an issue of building closed platforms. Everyone knows they are bad news but it seems like Apple gets a free pass. Adapting is always a good move, but you have to go meta at some point. A rough parallel would be people living in a locked down communist country... sure you adapt, but on some level it's proper to object to any system that long term consolidates power and subjugates minority interests.

Apple doesn't lie to developers about their systems. They present a "my way or the highway" offer. And many excellent devs take them up on it, because they think that the OS X is worth the limitations developers face. Some users think that overall, that is a trade-off that is completely worth it. Others absolutely disagree. But Mac users don't hate "freetards" for their choices. The hate tends to be one-way. Ironic, because a lot of the condescension that Mac users get is from people who accuse them of being elitist.

And... that's my one-sided, rambling rant.

On the one hand, the OP reminds me of the people who were complaining about Microsoft killing firewall vendors by including basic security features in the OS -- you should expect to be destroyed if your entire business model is dependent on the elephant sleeping peacefully on one side of the cage.

On the other hand, Apple isn't creating an ecosystem with the iPhone, so much as a different type of cage. If you play by their rules, you're extremely susceptible to being squished when the elephant gets restless.

Exactly. Many people here may be too young to recall the late 80ies, but Apple were the ones who wanted to control the operating system and the hardware, whereas Microsoft settled for "just" the OS and open hardware. Remember the Apple "look and feel" lawsuit?

They make great products, but as a developer, I'm not sure I trust them a whole lot more than Microsoft.

A remnant of that issue may be present on your desktop. I believe this works on Windows XP and it should also work on Windows Vista. Select a window. Press Alt and release. Press Space and release. The menu that is revealed is to sidestep Apple's single click window closing patent which was filed circa 1984.

But i don't see how this behaviour is related to a single click patent. Btw. it doesn't work with Firefox.

After the patent expired, the keyboard sequences were retained for power users who were already familiar with the sequences. However, the prominance of the menu has declined.

> it doesn't work on Firefox

I'm not surprised. Firefox on Windows implements its own menu primitives. Many other applications have different versions of the same libraries statically compiled. Obviously, the Firefox implementation doesn't implement a legacy window.

The original complaint about Apple being anti-open is proof that there's still room for more than Apple.

Nothing to be "depressed" about. Happens all the time.

"Happens all the time" is a reason not to be depressed? I think "landscape changes" take place because someone/some group got tired of being depressed and actively sought some sort of change.

OTOH, this is an excellent example of the advantages of being small and nimble - you can adapt quickly while the big boys are stuck struggling.

What? The big boys are eating Apple pie because they, I assume, had an easier time getting to the table than the small and nimble.

Anyhow. Games consoles are pretty closed, I don't have a problems with the iPhone being closed to be honest. It has a very capabale web browser, which means you can run pretty much anything you like anyway.

Don't remind me :(

That's one of the biggest obstacles to independent innovation in gaming today. The PC is the current bastion of the small developer but PC gaming itself is in decline. We need more open access to the console space.

As one of the 21,000 "dicked over" developers, I am still hopeful that they will open the floodgate enough days before July 11th to let me deploy on Day 1 and stake my ground against any potential competitor before they are the incumbent. The nature of my application makes the emulator mostly useless, but I have written a suite of algorithms and when I learn the performance characteristics of the iPhone hardware I will be able to choose and tune rapidly to deliver the best user experience. It has been a lot of extra work that I could better spent if I could have chosen and tuned along the way, but I also understand their desire to limit load from the beta program. I suppose what I would have done differently is make a track for people whose applications need to run natively and made room for them... but that would probably be abused.

I don't see that mobile carriers got kicked in the teeth here. AT&T appears to be loaning you $200 for a stream of 24 monthly $10 payments. That works out to about a 15% return on their money. Then read the articles about AT&T no longer paying a monthly share to Apple and justifying it "because they are using that to subsidize the phones". I call bullshit. The $10/mo more than covers the $200 subsidy.

Calling the extra $10 a 3G upgrade is one more bit of mirror in the smoke.

The walled garden is not as huge an impediment as you believe it to be. Figure out if it is fiscally prudent for your organization to work on the iPhone platform. If not, move on. There are a ton of ideas that need to be worked on on a wide range of platforms.

AppStore could be another Facebook platform situation where Apple kills startups at will simply by releasing their own version of a application. And Apple wont need to push icon updates, their apps can run as background services just fine.

I'd like to be optimistic about other emerging mobile platforms, but everyone else is so dreadfully far behind and thats a bit concerning for a developer.

the only thing those 4k developers got that the rest of us didn't is a key to install apps onto real iphone hardware. everybody else can still develop for the iphone simulator, which is very good. and if you really really need to see your app on a real iphone, you can go the jailbreak route.

My worry is that Apple will dominate the smartphone market (like the MP3 player market), which will cause everyone else to try and play catch up. It already seems to be happening - other companies seem to be concentrating on touchscreen phones they call "iPhone killers." When was the last time someone made an innovative MP3 player that gained a significant share of the market?

I hate to make the obvious comparison but its better then having something like Vista; an OS that dominates the market and the competitors succeeding by trying to be better, by not being like Vista.

Apple deserves the top spot if all the competitors can do is make a touchscreen, instead of improving the UI as a whole and focusing on the user experience.

Do you want a single monopoly controlling this? That type of situation has historically been bad for innovation.

As an analogy, how would things be if every internet web app created had to operate at the mercy of another company? Startup A has a great idea and wants to release an innovative new webapp. But they need to pay and have permission to do so, must operate in a tightly defined sandbox, and must share profits that they make. And the webapp could be kicked off the internet at anytime for breaking these rules.

Does that make you comfortable?

As a founder I would understand the business strategy taken by Apple who naturally aims to keep a maintainable standard in it's softwares components.

Keeping technical standards is pretty common for any company acting as a platform. In this scenario the end goal seems to be ensuring a level of performance.

A company who decides to create an innovative app should of considered whether or not it can meet those standards. Otherwise their time creating something innovative should of been applied to a better market or when the platform in place can handle the innovation.

By the way, the smart phone market is far from monopolistic so I'm not really worried.

Likewise, eventually apple will corner the hardware market in some platform and sell hardware that I do not like at which I will just have a problem with all parts of their products. Better not to let them monopolize the marketplace in the first place.

Instead, we should think about all the great things we can do with the imaginary Android phones that are available today. My older model is relatively limited, but I'm told that the new Android 3e^i, shipping in July, will cure cancer!

Take that, iPhone!

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=213895

Problem is that many carriers are backtracking on their support for Android. Google hoped that the newly opened spectrum would be a fertile ground for Android and now it looks like Verizon will fight Google over that agreement with FCC. It will be a mess in any case.

If I were betting money on mobile market, I'd bet on Apple.

It's not like open source projects like OpenMoko haven't had a chance to make an amazing phone. Indeed, I'm frustrated because before the iPhone announcement, the OpenMoko looked like a top-of-the-line sort of gadget, and then Apple leapfrogs all their efforts on the first try. But I want a great phone, so now I'm stuck with AT&T and buying an iPhone.

If these independent "great products" want to compete, perhaps they need to start forming explicit alliances with other service providers to form an integrated solution that people want. It's very clear that at least the Apple-buying public wants that kind of integration.

I'm from Australia and mobile internet is currently just way too expensive and so nobody uses it. If the iPhone (and competitors) can drive demand and push prices down, it could really open up some opportunities for developers working on applications for mobiles.

(*) A non-geek friend told me she thought Nokia was bankrupt, because she hadn't heard anything about them for a while.

Since he wanted cheap email on the go, the iPhone was too expensive for him. I have read a lot of articles about the fact that the iPhone now includes GPS is a game-changer, but I think that the price cut to $199 is more important.

I think we are witnessing a pivotable moment in history.

I'm a bit concerned with your tone. It's almost as if you don't have faith that the Steve will do what is right. Has he not given us the iPhone, freed us from shitty cell phones, and gifted us, from some unknowable realm only he walks in, this beautiful 15 in. macbook pro I am typing on. After all the Steve did, you still want to leave the cult? In spite of everything, you just have to see the spear marks and stick your finger in. In your dark night, you even compare our savior (Steve) to microsoft. Luckily for you, the Steve's ability to make totally awesome gizmo's with a touch of LSD in each one is only parrelleled by his limitless compassion, and he is willing to forgive you, if only you would open your heart up to his forgiveness.

Why don't you sit down and talk for a bit, doubting thomas? You are free to leave, just sit down and talk for a minute first, my friend. We're not going to stop you from leaving. Just sit down and chat first.