[semanticist]

The OP isn't talking about iPhone devs, they're talking about a decade before that when Apple was called 'Apple Computer' and had mad a series of bad business choices (confusing product line up, allowing other companies to make Mac clones, etc).

Developers had started to abandon the Mac OS platform - or at least start making Windows versions of previously Mac-only software - and getting developer confidence back was one of the key things that kept the company alive to grow into the consumer electronics manufacturer that it is today.

[jasode]

>The OP isn't talking about iPhone devs,

OP's wording was somewhat confusing because they were talking about the later iPhone devs with, >", now they think devs need them" by comparing them to the 1997 Mac OS devs.

As though possibly implying that Apple incorrectly misjudged the later iPhone-era devs' leverage as if it's the opposition situation of "Apple is the one that needs the devs" and somehow Apple misunderstands that.

I was clarifying that Apple didn't misjudge the devs and they correctly predicted that devs would want access to millions of new iPhone customers. It isn't just "Apple thinks devs need them", it's more definitive in "Apple _knows_ that devs need them." The timeline of events reinforced in Apple's mind that it was "Apple's customers" more than the "dev's customers".

Seeing customers camp out overnight in front of Apple's stores for iPhones that didn't have any 3rd-party apps -- and still sell millions of them -- is why they're so arrogant. Apple concluded it was Apple's efforts alone that recruited those customers to their new platform and not the 3rd-party devs. (Apple itself created the first Youtube app instead of 3rd-party Google devs doing it.) The 2008 devs may have had a chance to flip that narrative by rejecting iOS and only create apps for Android and Windows Phones but they didn't do that and instead, went along with Apple's gatekeeping and 30% fees.

>Developers had started to abandon the Mac OS platform [...] and getting developer confidence back was one of the key things that kept the company alive to grow

Well, the 1997 dev confidence behavior for a Mac platform with only ~5% market share at that time wouldn't be relevant to Apple's attitude about iPhones because devs never abandoned the iPhone. iPhones were an instant hit with 100% market share of touchscreen smartphones until Android came out a year later.

[pjmlp]

In US maybe, we had plenty touch screen smartphones in Europe, between Nokia, Siemens-Ericson and PocketPC/Windows CE.

[jasode]

>, we had plenty touch screen smartphones in Europe, between Nokia, Siemens-Ericson and PocketPC/Windows CE.

Those were older TFT resistive touchscreens and not the newer capacitive touchscreens that could detect multi-finger gestures like swipes and pinch-to-zoom. TFT touchscreens requiring finger pressure instead of finger swipes is not as intuitive a UI.

That's why the audience at Macworld 2007 gasped in astonishment when Steve Jobs demonstrated gentle finger scrolling on a capacitive screen. Deep link to that demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQKMoT-6XSg&t=16m05s

Keep in mind that MacWorld tradeshow attendees are technology geeks who are aware of the latest gadgets and phones. Many of those in the audience would already have the latest 2006 Palm Treo 680 in their pocket that had a TFT touchscreen. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treo_680)

The iPhone's touchscreen capabilities made that Palm phone's TFT touchscreen technology obsolete.

You can check the Europe news archives back in 2007 to see both the telecoms and customers there were also eagerly awaiting the iPhone. If Europe already had equivalent touchscreen smartphones with Nokia, Siemens-Ericsson etc, the iPhone would have been a non-event and flopped in sales.

Nokia/Blackberry/WindowsCE/Android/etc switched to capacitive touchscreens to compete with the iPhone.

Why didn't European devs collectively just ignore the Apple iPhone and instead, focus on Nokia Symbian OS? Devs did ignore platforms if they wanted to. E.g. the devs mostly ignored the Blackberry OS and Microsoft Windows CE Mobile.

[pjmlp]

I was a Nokia employee at the time....

I even happened to be in Espoo, the tragic week of the burning platforms memo.

I could write a lengthy comment, however it appears it would be a waste of my time.

[jasode]

>I could write a lengthy comment, however it appears it would be a waste of my time.

It won't be a waste of time if you correct something I wrote that was factually incorrect. I won't debate it.

>I even happened to be in Espoo, the tragic week of the burning platforms memo.

Was Stephen Elop's assessment of Nokia's fading market share by both consumers and developers in 2011 incorrect? What Nokia phone in 2007/2008 was compelling that people were not buying and the developers not adopting compared to Apple iPhone? What do you believe happened?

excerpt of Elop's memo from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2011/feb/09/noki... :

>In 2008, Apple's market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.

And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry's innovation to its core.

[...] While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.

The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.

[...] At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.