May 2010: Sour Apples
admin:
May 2010: Sour Apples
Background
My article is late this month mainly because I've been
engrossed in my new iMac computer and trying to get the ball rolling with
possibly developing some of my software for Mac OSX and beginning some
development for the iPhone as well. As many who read my articles know,
I've been writing and selling PC/Windows software like
Qimage, Profile Prism, FlashPipe, and TT
Dyno for over a decade. My company is known for its excellent
support and feedback dealing directly with customers and the high quality
products we produce. Fueled by my own admitted addiction to my iPhone, a
couple friends with Mac computers, and maybe even a clever "Mac versus PC"
commercial or two (which I like BTW), I decided it'd be a good idea both for
my company and my users to develop some apps on the Mac and the iPhone.
Well, after more than 25 years of programming in the "open source" arena that
is PC/Windows, I was in for a rude awakening when it comes to developing for
the "closed world" that is Apple. This article is based on my own
research and opinion and explains why after weeks of trying, I have given up
on the Mac platform entirely and how Apple has made me a true PC/Windows "fan
boy" out of me!
The goodness that is Apple
I admit it. I love my iPhone. I've
also seen a friend or two (although statistics would tell you less than 10% of
them own Macs) with their iMacs and Macbooks talk about how nice their
computers are and how much easier they are to use than Windows. I've
seen them open and use programs that come with their Macs that I know don't
come with Windows and they say "look at what this thing can do right out of
the box". In the back of my mind I knew that you pay a premium for that:
I could get a comparable PC/Windows setup that is just as powerful and install
a lot of software (and I could pick the software that I need) for about
the same amount of money. But Mac users are so happy with their
computers. It's almost like a cult. While Macs still don't demand
a lot of market share, the percentage of happy customers must be high.
So as an owner of a software company who makes their customers happy too, why
not jump on the bandwagon? What could possibly be the down side?
Tight reigns
I guess I never knew how tight Steve Jobs holds
the reigns to his company. After 25+ years of programming on PC's, I'm
used to an open architecture. To me, programming is akin to freedom of
speech. I should be able to create whatever I want and then let the
users decide what they need and they'll tell you whether they like it or not
based on what they buy. Apple, as it turns out, is almost like its own
country in this regard. If Steve Jobs doesn't like it, you'll never see
it! Well, not so much for Mac computers maybe, but certainly for the
iPhone. Perhaps some of you are aware of some Apple strong-arm tactics
being brought to light in the news in recent months: cash being denied for
iPad purchases, homes of Gizmodo editors being raided in relation to leaked
"next gen" iPhone articles or what Apple calls a "stolen phone", and Ellen
DeGeneres being "forced" to apologize on the air for an iPhone
spoof/commercial (a funny one too). An
article on CNN outlines some of the most recent tactics. It may seem
that I focus a lot on the iPhone but I see the iPhone as a device that I could
bring into my own company plan. You see, I didn't just want to develop
my Qimage batch photo printing
and processing software for the Mac, I wanted to make Qimage for the iPhone as
well and link the products together. I saw it as an opportunity!
But at what cost?
The iPhone app store: it's not your iPhone!
When it comes to the App Store, that's
Apple's baby. They keep tight watch on their store and can deny apps
based on, well, just about any reason they see fit. Technically it is
their store so shouldn't they deny apps that could potentially be a
detriment to the devices they sell? One school of thought says yes!
Your local grocery store cannot be forced to sell guns or adult videos.
They choose what they sell as their establishment is meant to serve certain
customers. Why should the App Store be different? Well, the App
Store is a monopoly in my opinion. Unless you want to jail break your
iPhone (something that it seems only gutsy hackers and teens actually do
these days), there really is only one store. It's not like you can
make a choice. What Apple is doing with their App Store is akin to
selling you a DVD player but then telling you that you are only allowed to
watch movies "approved by the manufacturer". Sure, what Apple is doing
is not illegal and some would argue is a even a good strategy, but some
people are starting to realize that there are limitations to this strategy.
Some BIG limitations. It's not your phone... it's Apple's. You
are just using it. Don't even get me started on how
user-unfriendly iTunes is, and how difficult it is to just get simple
media onto the iPhone due to Apple's "big brother mentality", or make me
ponder why it takes Apple 2-3 hours to perform a backup of about 2 GB of
data over a USB port that, by its data rate, should be able to do that task
in just a couple of minutes max.
The developer side
This article is not meant
to dissuade people from buying Apple products. I know that customers are
happy with their purchases and most probably don't care what developers go
through to get product brought to the Apple platforms. But as a developer
who owns a small software company, I must care! From my
perspective, Apple is making it Hell for me to do my job. I applied to the
Apple iPhone Developer program, supplying the details requested on the web site
where they said it may take "a few days" to get approved, and as of this writing
it has been 9 days since filling out the form with my physical mailing address,
e-mail address, and phone number and not a word from Apple. Not even a
courtesy "we are working on your application" e-mail! I've also been
keeping an eye on a friend who already has some apps on the App Store. It
has been taking up to a week from submittal until the app even goes into review,
and then about half the time the app is rejected for some (in my opinion odd)
reason, causing another week delay before they get around to re-reviewing it.
For me, I've been successful in this business by dealing directly with my
customers and customer feedback and my quick responses are critical to business.
Apple is making that nearly impossible. In addition, programming for the
iPhone is quite restrictive. Apple doesn't allow Flash and won't let you
develop using anything but Mac computers. Sound like a monopoly?
Remember how people were turned off decades ago by a certain "other company" who
was seen to be trying to monopolize the market? Now anyone who wants to
develop apps for the iPhone must buy a Mac computer to do it. It is
possible to develop iPhone apps on a PC with Windows (people do it for jail
broken iPhones) but if you try to submit it to Apple's App Store, it'll be
rejected solely on the basis that they "detected" it wasn't written on a Mac!
All this just leads to making my job as a developer much more difficult and
Apple has lost a capable programmer as a result. And there's already talk
about developers moving to a more open platform where they have some freedom to
do what they do best. That platform is
Android, and it has recently overtaken Apple's iPhone OS as the most used
mobile operating system. And somehow
I
don't think I'm the only one with my eye on Android!
Enough about iPhones. What about the Mac
as a computer?
Okay here's the part that,
for Windows users will show me as one who sees the bigger picture, and for Mac
users will just show me as ignorant. It's about my brand new iMac.
I've used it. And I've really tried to embrace it. I honestly wanted
to give it a fair chance as I saw it as a way to renew my passion for coding on
a fresh platform. I've spent a LOT of time on it in the past couple of
weeks, which is the reason this article is three weeks late this month. So
I'll cut to the chase. I don't like it! I don't like reaching around
the back of the monitor to plug in my SD cards blind. I don't like the "kiddie
keyboard" that comes with it where everything but the arrow keys is performed by
some strange "command" or "control" sequence and a distortion of finger presses.
I don't like the funky "no button" mouse that has no tactile feedback for
left/right buttons. I don't like that there is nothing upgradeable about
it. And that's just ergonomics. The iMac and OSX really don't even
work that well based on my own review. People talk about Windows locking
up? This iMac has locked up cold about twice a week just doing esoteric
things in Apple installed software like iMovie, Photo Booth, and other included
software.
The first thing I did when
using the Mac was to get on the internet. While hooking it up to my
wireless network was really easy, probably easier than my Windows 7 experience,
using Safari (Apple's included web browser) was not. In fact, in my
opinion, the entire OSX user interface is inferior to Windows. Press the
green "+" button in Safari so you can get a broader view, and the Safari window
doesn't change size and it jumps halfway off the screen on the lower right so
part of the screen isn't even visible. Download FireFox, click the same
button, and it works properly. Apple "fan boys" will tell you that "+"
button is a "zoom" button and that it only expands the window to "as large as it
needs to be". How does Apple know how large the next web page I'm
going to view after the current one will be? I'd like to use my whole
screen, thank you! And every time the iMac comes out of sleep mode, it
takes a good 3 minutes to recognize my home network. If you open "Finder"
(Apple's equivalent of Windows Explorer) before that 3 minutes, the iMac locks
up completely and you get an endless spinning dial. The only way out is to
hold the power button or pull the plug. Oh, and BTW, you shut down an iMac
by holding the "Control" button while pressing the "Eject" button on the
keyboard. And people joke about having to click the "Start" button to shut
down a Windows computer?
I guess the best way to put it is
that Macs are great as long as you want to do things "the Mac way". There
is little flexibility there. I was surprised that, out of the box, the
iMac had no clue how to display an MTS video file: the video format used by just
about every HD camcorder and HD capable digital camera on the market today.
Not only does Windows Media Player play them happily without conversion and
without any extra software, it'll stream them to my other computers on the
network and even my 60 inch HD TV via my Xbox 360. Considering it's
limitations and (in)stability and that the iMac has locked up or treated me to
access violation type errors more times in 2 weeks than my Windows 7 computer
working even harder for 9 months, I can't say that I see the allure of Macs just
yet. Not that
my initial Windows 7 experience was any better. In fact, admittedly I
spent more time getting my Windows 7 setup to work the way I wanted it, but I
was also using that computer to go well beyond just the "out of the box"
functions as I was coding (programming) heavily on that system.
To me, the "kiddie keyboard", the
"funny mouse", iMovie, Photo Booth, the oddball placement of USB ports, and just
the overall user experience make the iMac seem, well, just more like a toy than
a computer. Who knows, maybe that's why people like them: they don't feel
like "work". To me, the iMac's "crazy widgets" just seem like something to
play with rather than things that make your computer more productive. The
bells and whistles just don't seem to make your computer any better but might
make you sit back and say, "Hmm. That's pretty cool." I've found
little use for the fluff, but I'm not your average user as I must get things
done on my computer, and done efficiently. So if you are a
Qimage user and you just asked
me whether or not I/we plan to develop a version for the Mac, I probably sent
you to this article for the answer. If you've read the article, I think
you have your answer. :-)
Is there anything I like about the
iMac? Sure. It looks kinda cool sitting on my desk and I really do
like the screen. The iMac's 1920 x 1080 screen is really sharp and is one
of the best monitors I've seen. So there! I'll end with something
nice to say. ;-) As I pack my iMac back up in the box and as it
leaves my office to go to a more "deserving" Appleite who can better appreciate
it, I find myself a little saddened by its absence. It's like watching a
reality show where you know the guy is letting go of someone good, but he just
wasn't able to fall in love with her. While the iMac just isn't for me, at
least in its current state of affairs, I'm not blind to why others might fall in
love . The Apple products are certainly different, and that alone has an
allure! As they say, different strokes for different folks!
Mike Chaney
vsteffel:
Here's a quote that says as well as any:
#10: Adobe Flash is too proprietary to run on any of Apple’s beautifully open systems (except for all Macs).http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/17744/top-10-reasons-why-steve-jobs-and-apple-reject-adobe-flash/
UltraChrome:
Couldn't agree more about the entire product line. I tried to use Apple computers more times than I care to remember, only to always return to the PC. "Cute" just doesn't work for me!
Owen Glendower:
Thanks for the inside view, Mike. Sounds like you gave it your best shot.
In another thread, I commented about the Mac fanboys who seem to go out of their way to say, "Tut-tut, this program doesn't run on Macs." I find that sort of thing tiresome, especially since it appears that 85% of Mac households include a PC: http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_091005.html
admin:
I really hate failing at anything and I really wanted to make this work. I guess some of us just have "Mac brains" and some of us have "PC brains". Fortunately for me and my business, less than 10% of the computer users out there have "Mac brains" and from what I saw working as hard as I could work on that Mac for two weeks... I don't see that number going up any time soon! Steve Jobs seems to have a way to make people want something "trendy" whether it works well or not though. That's the only thing that worries me: I may not like his company but he is a marketing genius. Even with his big brother tactics of late, people still see Apple as David and Microsoft as Goliath. But that may be changing!
BTW, 11 days and counting... not a word from Apple about their developer program that I applied for. I just can't work in an environment where developers are expected to bow down to the self proclaimed messiah before you are allowed to publish work in "His" hardware. Now back to my PC to do some real work. Let (coding) freedom reign... that's how most of you on this forum got your prized Qimage and I have to do what works. ;)
Mike
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