“It’s an understatement to say that Apple’s iPad generated a lot of chatter when it was announced on Wednesday; the scuttlebutt actually slowed down the Internet. Even Microsoft couldn’t help but weigh in, criticizing the iPad for being a ‘locked down device,'” David Worthington reports for Technologizer.
“‘It is a humorous world in how Microsoft is much more open than Apple,’ Brandon Watson, the director of product management in the developer platform at Microsoft, told me in an interview yesterday,” Worthington reports. “With Microsoft’s platforms, developers can build whatever they want, and target a broad array of devices using the same skill set, he added.”
“Watson claimed that many developers of applications for the iPhone OS–which the iPad uses–are not making money,” Worthington reports. “Developing applications for the iPhone and iPad is expensive, he said, because iPhone OS uses the Objective C language rather than Microsoft’s more pervasive .NET platform. And Apple’s control over the platform has alienated some people that make software for its products, he said.”
“Microsoft’s criticism misses the target altogether. What Apple has envisioned with the iPad isn’t a traditional PC–it’s more of an appliance… The iPad isn’t a PC,” Worthington explains. “I’ve gone on trips to Boston and Washington DC over the past several weekends, and spend hours riding Amtrak and on Wi-Fi-enabled busses. I didn’t bring a laptop with me, because I didn’t want to lug one around, and didn’t really need to have a full fledged computer with me. My iPhone provided me with entertainment along the way. Truth be told, I would rather have had an iPad with me to surf the Web, listen to music, watch movies and read. If the price comes down even further, Apple’s got a winner.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft bleats like a lamb being led to slaughter.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Irakli C.” for the heads up.]
Objective C language: I bet that really sucks!! Don’t know for a fact, but I bet it’s DAMM HARD to use.
Instead of A$=”hello” you probably have gsgdhjejjek/((ycdl(/// () 0 =P{0} {q@ “hello”pn
How about a SUPERBASIC language that LOOKS like english.
And is easy to program! Is that what C is? Can any consumer get the hang of it easily? What if I want to mess with programing it?
You write in SUPERBASIC.
You have a SUPERBASIC TO C translater.
C gets translated to 100% machine language.
What’s the problem, huh?
“The iPad isn’t a PC”! WHAT!!! The iPad has a OS X operating system. The iPad can be programed.
The talking heads problem is, as soon as the start counting the iPad, they have to start counting the iPhone and iPod touch as a PC, even the AppleTV will have to be counted.
SO, WHAT IS THE REAL MAC MARKET SHARE?
“Watson claimed that many developers of applications for the iPhone OS–which the iPad uses–are not making money,”
Yeah, because all Windows and WinMo app developers are stinking rich. Riiiiiight.
As a programmer, I’ll take Obj-C over .NET (especially VB) any day. VB needs to die, and die quickly.
I’m a Mac and the Apple iPad is my idea.
Waow! last time M$’s Ballmer criticised Apple iPhone it gave such a boost to the iPhone sales! Uge are going to be iPad’s sales! For sure!
Microsoft is “open” until it pulls a Zune. Just watch, by the time Windows Mobile 7 is released, no one will care and there will be very few phones that use it. So Microsoft will pull another Zune and try to sell their own branded phone, competing with (and screwing over) whatever WinMo partners they have left. At some point, they will probably also try to sell their own branded PC line too.
Microsoft acts like their definition of being “open” is a positive. But from a consumer perspective (the people who actually buy the products), Apple’s model is much more “open” to being a great user experience. That’s really what’s important, and Microsoft knows it; consumers don’t care how the product was created. Microsoft’s consumer electronics business model (we do the software, you do the hardware) might work better, if they had competitive and desirable software to offer to hardware developers – but they don’t.
You can see the future with MS on this. Half a year later Microsoft introduces… wait for it….. “ZunePad HD” They’ve been working on it for 5 years now….. yep… they swear.
Yeah, Brandon Watson. Because Apple is the one with the ludicrous product activation, Windows Genuine Advantage, an operating system that cripples itself if you dare to change your hardware too often, Direct X, proprietary formats out the ass, and as much DRM as they can possibly heap on to everything.
Microsoft really loves to pretend that inviting people to develop anything you want as long as it’s for Windows makes them open, don’t they?
Which is funny, because people can also develop anything they want on a Mac. But… Umm… I guess we’re not supposed to notice?
I have been developing software for over 25 years. I write .Net applications during the day (Full-time job) and iPhone (soon iPad) apps at night. I was a VB developer, then moved to C#. Moving to Obj-C was easy. if you are smart and understand OOD, Obj-C is great. Buy the way MAC OS X comes with ALL the development tools you need, M$ Visual Studio costs a LOT extra. I long for the day that I can develop MAC applications all day.
Companies… start developing Mac versions of your applications.
I’ve been critical about aspects of the iPad … being tough on something that surely will be great. But MS isn’t even in this game. They don’t even get it. It’s sad on some level.
MS was still chuckling before they realized Apple flew by them on smartphone. Same thing will happen here. MS is trying to cram Windows on a smaller device… not realizing the device needs a difference experience.
MS incompetence is trying. I truly wish they would do something cool… but they’re not wired to nowadays. They just don’t get it.
Oh, M$! Monkey see, Monkey do do………
M$ has millions of millions of millions of Slate PC’s out there. Apple has zero.
ehh, uhm, psst boss… actually no. We have nada!!
The M$ vision of one operating system allowing many hardware solutions might work if it weren’t this M$ creating the system. This M$ insists they must have access to every machine and so there are gates/holes left open for others to find. This M$ thinks customers are dups to be taken to the cleaners and so they develop the best OS feature set they can and sell a host of others with things left out. This M$ pays others to use their products and so Bing is made the default brouser on hosts of machines without earning the market share away from others.
The thing is the employees know Uncle Fester lies and cheats and works against the consumer’s interest. They are a bit demoralized and cynical. “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
For the consumer, ‘open’ means they can go just about anywhere and get an accessory, if they need it. Or that it works with any of their friends’ computers, too. Or that they can take it anywhere. Use it all the time.
When’s the last time someone took out anything besides an Apple product at a party to show a YouTube clip, or a photo of his new baby?
Seriously, it’s all about the purchaser who’s using his own money. And that money is heading Apple’s way, not µ$oft’s. Glory be.
Microsoft self-proclaiming “openness” is just hilarious.
.
Making the claim that “Microsoft just doesn’t get it” is very shallow-minded. Microsoft would love to build a product like the iPad, but they have lock-in that Apple doesn’t. For example, supposed Microsoft made the mPad. There would be every expectation that the mPad would have to run Windows 7 or Win7 Mobile. It would have to compatible with all the PC software out there and it would have to use industry standard silicon. If an mPad didn’t run Excel, play all video games on the market and run all web browsers, with flash, it would be the joke of the industry (see Big-Ass-Table).
Apple has none of that pressure on it’s shoulders. And Apple already has a successful pocket OS with hundreds of thousands of apps. Apple can get away with creating a new processor from scratch because there’s no demand for them to use an Atom, AMD or latest i7 processor. Microsoft has to do things the way they do – they’re backed into a corner.
I’m sure M$ will make another go at a tablet PC. But it won’t be anywhere near what Apple has just introduced. It’s just not what they’re capable of – and I think they do get that.
@montex,
You’re missing my point … or I wasn’t clear. Saying “Microsoft just doesn’t get it” is in no way “shallow-minded.” It’s more an observation.
Specific example: A friend pulls out his WinMo phone. Pulls out a stylus. And on the little screen touches the stylus to a tiny start button. Goes through several screens to not get to the content he wanted to show me. He was trying to show what it could do but ended up embarrassed.
MS tried to cram Windows onto a form factor that didn’t work. They didn’t adapt to the mobile computing experience at all. They could have made a mobile experience … but ended up with a “portable” traditional Windows experience. That has *nothing* to do with the hardware platforms they have to accommodate.
MS laughed at the iPhone. Now they’ve been killed in the phone market.
They have a different development and support model to be sure… but as Seth Godin has pointed out… “Style is free.” They have no style.
Now, just to be clear, when I say MS I’m not talking about everyone there — more the process of innovation and the management team/vision — those are broken. I know good people at MS, but it’s difficult to deliver something *truly* new.
Is arrogance a prerequisite for working at Microsoft? One wonders, with the attitude displayed from the execs and employees on high. They can never give praise to a competitor; only provide disingenuous “criticism” and ego-boosting. There’s nothing wrong with saying “Hey, they’ve got a good product over there; we look forward to competing with it.”
/*
“Developing applications for the iPhone and iPad is expensive, he said, because iPhone OS uses the Objective C language rather than Microsoft’s more pervasive .NET platform.”
*/
Developing apps for OS X, iPhone, iPad, touch etc. is done via xCode which is free. Objective-C is object based; inheritance, protocols, etc. – Access to pure C functions, frameworks and is not that difficult to learn once you wrap your head around the object approach. In fact- much cleaner code and scalable code can be written- Once you have the foundation – it’s actually easier and much more powerful than .NEVER
I’m going to be an exec or a journalist. Fck I’ll even be a financial analyst! Everything spewed out is unimaginitive and they’re all naive and ignorant. Sign me up for those salaried jobs.
iCal this, in 12 months Apple will have a larger market cap than Microsoft. How do you like those apples?
The guy is actually mistaken about .NET. You can indeed develop iPhone (and now iPad) apps using .NET with C# using Monotouch (monotouch.net, I think). Some apps in the app store were even developed that way.
haha, i was wondering where he was going with that, the iPad’s software is pretty incredible, I had no idea MS was going to try and say iPhone developers were complaining….wow, I thought the App Store was a pretty obvious blockbuster success.
How’s Windows Mobile going these days…?
Overheard in Steve Ballmers lair…
“And it doesn’t even have a keyboard which doesn’t make it a very good…” oh wait, it has two keyboards….”
“DAMMIT!”