Corporate Philosophy Comparisons

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Original post by zyrolasting—from your own blog: As of the time of this writing, I have one week left in the program. We are taking an iPhone programming course. My instructor told us that Apple requires us to register before we can even start developing on the iPhone. We can only work on Macs, and can only deploy on Apple devices that are registered in a provisioning profile. We must also submit security certificates for each Mac that works for them. You must also shell out $100 and everything you develop from that point on must be approved by Apple for resale. What the hell?

Seriously? You only just found out how Apple's development kits work? Is Google something that only happened to other people? Did you genuinely fail to do ANY RESEARCH WHATSOEVER into Apple and iPhone development? This is NOT news. Why the hell are you even raising an eyebrow over this, let alone whining about it?


Your blog post is yet another an ill-informed "I hate Apple!" rant written from the perspective of an insufferable ignoramus who thinks he knows everything.


Newflash: Apple are a design boutique company who sell hardware. Nothing more. They have never made a secret of this. Nor is there any secret to their general success over the past decade or so.

That's "hardware".

Not "software". To Apple, software is just another component. It's not special. It's just one of many pieces of the jigsaw. Apple don't make much (if any) profit from App sales, music sales, video rentals, etc. iTunes and OS X are just a means to an end: selling more Apple-branded hardware.

Apple are not developer-centric, like Microsoft. They're not hacker-centric like Linux and the FSF movement. They're user-centric. And doesn't it just burn to find yourself brutally kicked off the top of the entitlement heap most developers have been taking for granted!

You don't like Apple's way. So? Develop for some other platform then. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Apple won't shed a tear. They have plenty of developers ready and willing to code for their hardware already, and I don't see them complaining too hard about the money they're making.

You have a choice here: develop for Apple. Develop for Android. Develop for Symbian. Develop for (snigger) MeeGo. Develop for anything you damned well please. There's nothing "evil" going on. Apple just don't happen to agree with your philosophy. Sucks to be you, I guess.


Either grow the hell up, or get a job as a tabloid journalist.

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They're user-centric.

What isn't? One of my clients wants a website where the users are contractors. As a result, a lot of technical information is shown. You could say that the site was contractor-centric, but they are still users. I guess you could say that the course I was in was developer-centric, and I was a user of xCode.

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You have a choice here: develop for Apple. Develop for Android. Develop for Symbian. Develop for (snigger) MeeGo.

I know. I'll develop on anything I need to in order to get a job done. When did I say I would never work with Apple or any of it's devices?

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Your blog post is yet another an ill-informed "I hate Apple!" rant written from the perspective of an insufferable ignoramus who thinks he knows everything

I don't have anything against Apple. Whenever you see me say things like "Apple scares me" or something just sucks, I do not assert those statements as absolutes. I know better than that, and assigning meaning to my words will only take this thread in a bad direction. You are making three times as many assumptions as you are claiming I am. Your mini-crusade actually seems to be attacking arguments I've never even made.

I'm asking why development courses are further dumbing down material, and Apple gave me a bad experience and therefore served as a good example. Well, I can't blame Apple themselves for that, but I expected to learn about developing on the iPhone. I ended up learning more about the company that makes it. I thought that was a problem, since the course advertised instruction in programming concepts. False advertising.

There is no reason to get all bent out of shape because I do not agree with corporate philosophies.

[Edited by - zyrolasting on June 20, 2010 1:49:51 PM]

The provisioning profile stuff sucks but that's the sort of thing you spend an hour or two working out when you first do it and then you just renew them when they run out. Its not that much of a bother in the long run.

So you have to pay $100 a year? If you want to host a website with a decent company you probably pay that (or more) a year. It's peanuts really. In fact if you want to buy Visual Studio Pro that'll set you back $800 and they upgrade that every 3 - 4 years so you actually end up paying more to stay up to date with Microsofts development tool chain. At least you get the IDE, all the compilers, debuggers, excellent debugging software (Instruments has no parallel on any platform) for free.

Having said that if you don't want to test your software on actual iPhone hardware you don't need to pay a penny you can just use the iPhone simulator (included with the iPhone SDK) to learn on for free.

As for the programming environment I think it is actually one of the best out there. If you don't like Objective-C (I can understand if you don't) you can do the vast majority of your iPhone programming in C and then just simply do the GUI stuff in Objective-C.

Seriously though, whats wrong with learning this stuff yourself? Apples dev documentation is some of the best around and is free to access for both the Mac and iPhone / iPod / iPad. Just register for a free developer account.

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Original post by zyrolasting Dumbed down material can be a problem to begin with. When companies [competitors] that promote simplicity take over a lesson plan, what lies in the future for the students that listen?

We're already in that future. Do you know what Computer Science looked like before it became a Java vocational program?

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Seriously though, whats wrong with learning this stuff yourself? ... Having said that if you don't want to test your software on actual iPhone hardware you don't need to pay a penny you can just use the iPhone simulator (included with the iPhone SDK) to learn on for free.

Let's clear the air here: I don't have any problem with the material. I already am familiar with the Obj-C syntax from a night of reading. Let's try not to make this about me.

All I'm saying is that the course promised material that I think is key for some students, and people who work for Apple did not deliver it. They instead promoted the company. To me, that's an issue.

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So you have to pay $100 a year? If you want to host a website with a decent company you probably pay that (or more) a year.

Meh, I think that it's tough to compare development freedoms on a website to select products.

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We're already in that future. Do you know what Computer Science looked like before it became a Java vocational program?

...Touche.

Disclosure: I say this as someone who has an iPhone and thinks it's awesome.

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Original post by Cromulent As for the programming environment I think it is actually one of the best out there. If you don't like Objective-C (I can understand if you don't) you can do the vast majority of your iPhone programming in C and then just simply do the GUI stuff in Objective-C.

Are you joking? If I don't want to use Objective-C, I can use C? That's not exactly an improvement.

I don't have an issue with Apple charging for the SDK/developers' programme, simply because it only encourages the serious and the capable. Same goes for the XNA Creators Club on the Xbox 360.

If you've got an unrestricted development platform, alongside an unrestricted sales/delivery platform, then you're going to invariably end up with swathes of half baked rubbish; annoying at best, dangerous at worst - what if someone's app bricks your phone or steals your data?

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Original post by ChaosEngine Are you joking? If I don't want to use Objective-C, I can use C? That's not exactly an improvement.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. Personally I love C.

If C++ is more your thing you could use that I guess instead of C, although I'd rather stab myself in the eye and BBQ my own testes than use that.

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Original post by ukdeveloper I don't have an issue with Apple charging for the SDK/developers' programme, simply because it only encourages the serious and the capable. Same goes for the XNA Creators Club on the Xbox 360. If you've got an unrestricted development platform, alongside an unrestricted sales/delivery platform, then you're going to invariably end up with swathes of half baked rubbish; annoying at best, dangerous at worst - what if someone's app bricks your phone or steals your data?

The difference between Apple and Microsoft here is that with Microsoft, you can develop without paying and only pay when you want to release. With Apple, you must pay to even develop.

I don't mind paying to release on a platforms "official" channel - it makes sense. However, I prefer if the platform provides an unofficial channel - and that I don't need to pay to try out the technology before building a serious piece of work in it.

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Original post by rip-off Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper I don't have an issue with Apple charging for the SDK/developers' programme, simply because it only encourages the serious and the capable. Same goes for the XNA Creators Club on the Xbox 360. If you've got an unrestricted development platform, alongside an unrestricted sales/delivery platform, then you're going to invariably end up with swathes of half baked rubbish; annoying at best, dangerous at worst - what if someone's app bricks your phone or steals your data? The difference between Apple and Microsoft here is that with Microsoft, you can develop without paying and only pay when you want to release. With Apple, you must pay to even develop. I don't mind paying to release on a platforms "official" channel - it makes sense. However, I prefer if the platform provides an unofficial channel - and that I don't need to pay to try out the technology before building a serious piece of work in it.

Not entirely true as I have said before. You can use the iPhone simulator for free to test your work. You only need to pay when you want to deploy it on your device for final testing.

Admittedly it would be somewhat silly to wait until you have finished your app before testing it on the actual hardware but for simply playing around and testing things out the simulator should suffice.

As our prof once mentioned, the simulator can not mimic some functionality of the iPhone such as GPS capability or some motion. For apps like those, a price may actually be put on debugging.

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Original post by rip-off Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper I don't have an issue with Apple charging for the SDK/developers' programme, simply because it only encourages the serious and the capable. Same goes for the XNA Creators Club on the Xbox 360. The difference between Apple and Microsoft here is that with Microsoft, you can develop without paying and only pay when you want to release. With Apple, you must pay to even develop.

Well, yes and no; you can develop your XNA game on the PC for free of course, however even if you want to run it on your local XBox you need to hand over your cash for a Creators Club membership before you can do so.

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Original post by zyrolasting As our prof once mentioned, the simulator can not mimic some functionality of the iPhone such as GPS capability or some motion. For apps like those, a price may actually be put on debugging.

The same is true of Android devices I believe. I don't think you can hold up Apple as being 'evil' without also criticising other companies doing the same thing.

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The same is true of Android devices I believe. I don't think you can hold up Apple as being 'evil' without also criticising other companies doing the same thing.

Again, I'm not that much of a hardass. I don't EVER truly follow the notion of X being 'better' than Y in such an abstract trade. I just do not see many occasions where I need to invest time or fork out money for something when 'free' (in both senses of the word) alternatives exist. The speaker that came into class told us that Apple works to empower us as individuals. Looking at what they need us to do in order to write code that implicitly supports them... I just... God, I can't think of a nice way to put it. Bottom line is, I see development in any form as more spontaneous and free than how I see Apple treat it.

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I don't have an issue with Apple charging for the SDK/developers' programme, simply because it only encourages the serious and the capable

Makes sense, but I think that's a little too optimistic. I always went on the notion that the serious and the capable can do whatever they wish, and they need no encouragement.

Okay man, I somewhat understand your frustation, but in a time when many CS universities have turned into java schools, you seriously expected that an Apple-funded program about iPhone dev was to be centered around *learning*? It doesn't take much thought to figure out that this program is part of the marketing department, not R&D! You got the stipend, as you said, you got a piece of paper that says you completed the program, whatever that may worth, move on. Don't tell me you enrolled because you expected to learn...with as many emulators and documentation on the internet as you like, you could do it on your own.

It's just the corporate world dude, with their horrible cliches, nonsensical slogans and buzzwords, but what can you do. Those stuff seem to work, so we just tolerate the stupidness, or get out :)

Let's not forget that Blackberry is 200 a year and the MSDN subscription to MS is a Minimum of 2k per year.

Objective C does lack some extensibility that MS has, but then again if you don't like it, make an add in.

All seminars from programming companies are always dumbed down. MS does the same thing because there will always be 10% of them experts, but most will be newbies sent by a company. So if they get all tricky with the code, half the group will be lost and the instructor will spend hours explaining things that are fundamental at best.

Apple is cheap. Programming is much simpler, less compiler headaches. It's just a better experience all round. Although I would kill to be able to write iPhone apps in .net's IDE.

Basically this rant doesn't make any sense. Other than google, no one gets to program for free.

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Original post by nick5454 MSDN subscription to MS is a Minimum of 2k per year.

Wait, what?

XNA Creators Club is $99.
MSDN membership ISNT required for software develop.
VS Express is free.
VS Express, as used by XNA, is free.

You can also get MSDN membership for much less than 2k/year, I had once which set me back around £800 for a year (and that gave me access to all the OSes (and mulitple keys) and upto professional versions of the various Visual Studio versions).

So, yeah, you might want to check your facts there.

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Apple is cheap.

Define 'cheap'.

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Programming is much simpler, less compiler headaches. It's just a better experience all round.

At the cost of freedoms like publishing an application without council approval, or publishing data where you please or how you please. We heard a story in class of a person getting their app denied because of button placement.

I agree completely with what the OP is saying, especially considering Apple. I look at it this way, if I want to make an app for a Windows OS, or Linux, I dont have to pay a cent, if I want to learn Python, c++, java, its all free my only limits are my brains & effort.

With apple it is trying to turn the free market that is software development - where developers decide which are the "best" & most suitable langauages, platforms etc to create an App with 'x' requirements - into some sort of "state run dictatoriship" but in this case "company run dictatorship", if developers cant decide what format to do something in (refering to Apples non support for Flash) or the market auotmatically shuts out some developers(because of the need for a "licence" pfiff) then the standard & development of software on their platform will suffer & we will have applications made with the main objective being an aim for compatibility with an I-whaterva than an application where the main focus is solving the problem is was designed to do, efficient data handling, or anything avante-garde.

Its like they are capping the potential of software developers with their "rules" which are just aimed at increasing market dominance. Google can achieve market dominance through much more sophisticated methods & actually doing the opposite of "tieing the hands of developers". And the result is many software developments that may not be as economically successful as Apple's but are far more useful, evolutionary & avante-garde, ie, Google maps, word suggest, chrome, etc.