[raganwald]

Did I really just read Jeff complaining that Apple shipped something that duplicates third-party behavior and compare them unfavorably to Microsoft in that regard?

I won't excuse Apple for acting like a King, but I think Jeff should find another poster boy for benevolent dictators. Microsoft is famous for steamrolling third-party developers, both from their applications group and their systems group.

I think this rant would read better if it complained about ALL proprietary platforms and used Apple as an example, rather than disingenuously implying that they are the rotten fruit in the barrel.

p.s. Joel Spolsky once said that companies always try to "Commoditize their complements." If you as a developer can create something that adds value to the platform in a broad way, it's inevitable that the platform owner is going to want to commoditize it, either by giving it away or making it easy for your competition to drive prices down to negligible levels.

Building it into the platform is the ultimate commoditization.

[bcl]

I don't think he was implying that Microsoft was any better than Apple in this regard. He was pointing out that the complaints from developers has been relatively mild compared to the outrage when Microsoft does the same thing.

[raganwald]

The complaints from Apple developers have been around forever. Waxing nostalgic, I remember threads on the old Mousehole BBS about Apple and its love-hate relationship with developers. The reaction to Apple steamrolling Panic is classic, and there was a major furor over the dashboard and the way it steamrolled third party widget frameworks.

I suspect that Jeff is in a Microsoft-centric culture, so he simply doesn't spend as much time talking to Apple developers as he does Microsoft developers, so of course he hears more from them. Likewise, there are way more Windows developers than OS X developers, so you'll always hear more about anything from them.

iOS is popular, so there ought to be plenty of developers out there in the long tail. Maybe that's the real problem: Most developers are trying to grab a little tiny piece of the pie with a niche side-project, so they don't have the same perspective as someone who has employees and a big marketing budget sunk into their business.

If this supposition is correct, you'll see the same dynamic with other walled gardens from Microsoft and Google and whomever else gets into the "curated app store" business.

[glassx]

> The complaints from Apple developers have been around forever.

I have a theory. Apple developers and users are as angry and outraged when things break or their freedom is restricted, and they do complain (just look at the support boards for Logic, Final Cut, Lion), but they're not as loud to outsiders, because EVERY problem with Apple's ecosystem gets amplified 10x.

I still feel that after 10 years Apple still feels like an underdog to lots of users and developers, and, despite occasional problems, people still love it and want to protect it. Actually, I think the word is 'believe', and that's crucial to Apple success. I mean, who else has such a huge community with so many common goals today?

Funnily, I get the same vibes from the GNU/Linux community (oh, in both cases in a very positive way, btw).