Re: OT: Apple iPad Message #31 Posted by Egan Ford on 3 Feb 2010, 10:54 a.m., in response to message #26 by Don Shepherd
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The Apple model with software development, i-whatever, and $99 developer/subscription fee bears no resemblance to the PC (and Mac) world of 20 or 30 years ago, which is what this old fossil is used to.
In general OS/X Mac development today is really no different than Apple II development 30 years ago. The APIs are well documented and the development tools are free (e.g., BASIC in the 70's and C/C++/Objective-C today) and the code generated royalty free.
The iPhone, iPod, iPad is different. It follows the traditional consumer electrics model. If you think $99/year is bad look at the costs to be an official Nintendo, XBox, Playstation, PSP, etc... developer. These platforms all have closed development models, high fees, rigid approval processes, etc... Makes i* development look like a breeze. And the volume of Apps in the App Store proves it. IMHO, i* development compared to other embedded machines in its class (close proprietary embedded systems) is superior.
Bottom line Apple stopped being a computer company when the iPod was released. They even changed their name from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. to reflect that. Apple wants to be the next Sony, Nokia, etc...
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Around 1987 or 88, I developed an air traffic control simulator on my Macintosh. I forget what model of Mac that was on; it was something between the original 128k Mac (which I bought in 1984) and a PowerBook Mac laptop. But in those days, you could buy a Microsoft QuickBASIC compiler, write and compile your code and create the executable, put it on a floppy disk and sell it to whomever you wanted for whatever price you wanted. And then they could run it on their Mac. I'm sure the MS compiler cost around $100, probably.
You can still do that today, except that you pay nothing for Xcode.
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I did have to pay Apple some amount of money to license MacinTalk, which was the Apple speech synthesis application that my app used, and that was a yearly fee. I only paid it once because a year after I started selling it, I stopped. My advertising expenses always exceeded by sales receipts, and it just wasn't "fun" anymore. The things that made it worthwhile were (1) it was fun to learn how to develop a Mac application, (2) since I was the designer and implementer, I could write it exactly as I wanted, and (3) I met lots of great people who bought it and had suggestions about how to make it better, many of which I implemented. I am still friends today with one gentleman who lives in San Francisco and who was one of my first customers. So it was fun and I never regretted it.
I think that is why most of us still do it. I still write Apple II programs for my Apple //c for fun. Lately I have been using the cc65 C cross compiler. But I dabble in Forth and ASM as well.
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I still have a copy of the source code (but it won't run on anything I currently own).
There are a number of great vintage Mac emulators. My 2nd computer was a Mac 512K. I use vMac to emulate it. Every now and then I'll write a program for it for fun. Apple's support site still contains Apple II and vintage Mac OS files free for download and use. More vintage Mac abandonware can be found here: http://www.macintoshgarden.org/. For PowerMac emulation use SheepShaver.
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So when I saw the neat-looking iPad, I thought it would be nice to develop an air traffic control simulation that would run on that nice platform, with all of it's innovative user-interface features. Like, if you tilt the thing, all the planes will fall to one side of the radar screen! But, seriously, I thought it would be cool to see what is required to code on that platform. Of course, that would require an Apple PC, which I don't currently own. And the $99 fee I could live with as long as it was a one-time fee and I wouldn't have to keep paying it in future years, because, despite the iStore, I have no interest in selling whatever it is I create, I'm just doing it for fun and to learn. But apparently Apple isn't predisposed to "fun" and the individual programmer who just wants to learn and play. Not that they ever were, really, but my experience base, even with the PC, is you buy a language compiler once, you don't keep "re-buying" it in the future.
What you are really buying/year is the license to develop, execute, and publish on the i*. Again when you start to think of the i* more like a Nintendo DS or PSP and less of a computer and given the history it makes sense.
Of course there are alternatives, Linux and WinMo are "open" and have a different model. MS wants you to create apps for WinMo so that more OEMs have to license WinMo to run your apps. Apple, Nintendo, Sony, and the rest of the consumer electronic giants do not license their tech to anyone. It's a closed model, you sign an NDA, they approve/reject your code, etc... E.g., Nintendo has to approve your retail artwork--if you suck at drawing, you are out.
Linux is the light at the end of the tunnel. I've had two embedded Linux PDA's and run Linux on everything but my MacBook. My job is Linux-based. I really like Linux, but so far Linux on my PDA's and desktop have been seriously lacking in one way or another. Android/Chrome OS may change that, but it sure is taking a long time. I got the iPhone because of the apps, not because of Apple. BTW, same reason I abandoned Mac for Windows years ago--Apps.
Linux has numerous advantages, but a big disadvantage shared by WinMo--it has to support multiple devices making app development a challenge. E.g. I could not run a EMU48 on my WinMo device because it had a keyboard and no stylus. Sony, Nintendo, Apple, etc... keep it all inside, the apps and the experience are awesome.
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So I'll wait and see. I'm not saying I will never do this, but I'm not going to sink money into buying an Apple computer to develop on, buying the iPad, paying the $99, and then find I must continue paying $99 forever.
There are other reasons to buy a Mac. I'd make recreational i* development your last priority.
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That's just too high a price for "fun."
Can you put a price on "fun"? :-)
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And I don't know what "jailbreak" means, but it sounds like something I wouldn't want to do.
Every closed consumer electronic device has some sort of hack to allow hobbyists to develop applications without any restrictive license or costs and/or to repurpose. This is true of the PSP, Playstation, Nintendo DS and Wii, iPhone, iPod, iPod Classic, XBox, TI83, etc... E.g., the 50g has a hacked firmware to run HPGCC3 code! BTW, when the "open" Android phone first released it needed a Jailbreak to run unauthorized apps. How ironic. Unsure of the current state of things.
Each platform hack is different, some require a hardware mod, others a software mod. To jailbreak an i* requires that an unauthorized program be added to your list of programs so that you can install more unauthorized programs. It's just software and it is reverseable. Given the smorgasbord of authorized apps today, fewer and fewer jailbreak.
BTW, this computer hacking mentality goes all the way back to the late 50's. Open vs closed, the individual vs the institution, etc... is nothing new. (Read the book "Hackers" by Levy for the complete history--a must read IMHO).
Bottom line the embedded space is still mostly closed. Development of i* products compared to many other non-traditional-computer consumer electronic products is actually not that bad. Protecting profits is clearly the motivator--not necessarily a bad thing.
Edited: 3 Feb 2010, 10:59 a.m.
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