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by jakobe
5325 days ago
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There are two reasons why the platform matters: 1) You might not want to build the next Facebook. Many developers don't actually plan to start multi-billion-dollar companies. If you are an individual developer, or a small team, you cannot cater to everyone, you must pick the one platform most suitable for you. And then you can go create a niche app and make a decent living from it. 2) Even big and successful companies started on a single platform. A classic example would be Adobe: Photoshop was initially a Macintosh-only application, and has been ported only when it was already hugely successful. But actually Rovio is the best example that the choice of platform is extremely important: They have been hugely successful only when they started selling their iPhone app, and started porting to other platforms only when they were already extremely successful. Hell, even Facebook, Twitter, Google started on a single platform: the web. |
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Whatever you create, even if it's for iPhone first, don't get bogged down on it being on "platform X". Photoshop, as you mentioned, is a great example, it didn't need to be on a Mac to be great. It just was developed there first, and now sells more on Windows (I think).
If you focus too much on the platform, once that market wanes, you end up nowhere. This is what I meant by the MFC guy -- maybe an even better example is the VB 6 guy. We know this guy, right? He's an expert with VB 6. He made a damn good VB6 app 10 years ago, which he's supported since then. But he spent too long focused on VB6, so god help him trying to get a job today doing C#.
Your idea doesn't have to be as big as Facebook. All I'm saying is, don't get so focused on the platform that you become that VB6 guy. Focus now, sure, but developers over time should be broad and flexible. And if you are starting something new, your idea should be too.