The difference between being an Apple developer and a Microsoft developer

At the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference

Check out this new technology! It will be shipping next year, and it is super awesome! It is the way we are going and we’re putting a huge amount of effort behind it!

It sounds neat, you drop your old silly code and jump on the bandwagon figuring you’ll be ahead of the game . The next year: silence. No mention. What happened? Microsoft dropped it. Whoops, too bad.

At the Apple World Wide Developer Conference

Hey, we’ve completely changed the OS! You’ve got 30 seconds to rewrite all your apps!

This sucks. It happened with the switch to universal and it is happening now with the switch to 64-bit. The worst part is the arrogance that comes from the stage when Steve talks about how easy it is. It makes the software vendors look like crap to their users. The switch to universal was as simple as checking a check box if you were doing nothing interesting. Wolfram Research’s products are unix products, there isn’t any altivec assembly in them. Real products of real substance like Adobe’s or Microsoft weren’t so simple. Everyone in those companies had to drop what they were doing and spend months rewriting code (switching to X-Code was a serious en devour in itself) just to get back to where they started. Now, with the switch to 64-bit, Apple is now saying that they are dropping Carbon support. However, that is not what they were saying up to a week ago. If you look at the cached page on google for Leopard 64-bit, you’ll see the following quote:

Leopard delivers 64-bit power in one, universal OS. Now Cocoa and Carbon application frameworks, as well as graphics, scripting, and the rest of the system are all 64-bit. Leopard delivers 64-bit power to both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs, so you don’t have to install separate applications for different machines. There’s only one version of Mac OS X, so you don’t need to maintain separate operating systems for different uses.

Dropping carbon is MAJOR. For apps that exist on both windows and OS X and for apps that predate Objective C, Cocoa is a non-starter. Many of Apple’s own major apps are written in Carbon. Apple just shafted their ISV’s and then told their user base that 64-bit was going to be awesome gearing them up for a second major revolt when the next set of apps come out and they aren’t 64-bit. This is the universal thing all over again. And WTF with Steve on stage saying “you’ve done a great job switching to universal, well, most of you.” Jackass.

Does virtualization herald the end of the platform war?

I was reading Marc Andreesen’s new blog and I came across this quote:

Virtualization — in the form of software like Parallels and VMWare Fusion — lets you deal with an individual operating system as if it were an application.

from blog.pmarca.com: At long last, switching back to Mac

and I realized that since Apple has completed the standardization of the X86-family as the chip architecture for 99% of the world, the platform really has gotten irrelevant. Now that OS virtualization technologies don’t require massive amount of processing power, you can mix and match all you want. Like OS X, but need to run some windows programs for work? No Problem. Like Vista, but really need to run that Linux app? Easy-peasey. This really got cemented when Parallels officially released version 3 of their windows virtualization solution which theoretically gives virtualized apps access to the GPUs for the first time. We’ll have to see what the cost (in performance) is, but we know that it will get more and more seemless over time.

This goes beyond just the OSes though. Flash/Flex/Silverlight all enter this as well, further blurring the lines between operating system, platform and application.

I could see that very soon, the OS that you run will be 100% based on personal preference and all the worries about compatibility will be gone. If that does happen, Microsoft better be scared. I think that Bootcamp and Parallels are much more of a long-term threat than Flash ever will be.

posting legislation BEFORE passing it

makecongressread2.jpg

This isn’t a new idea, but I started thinking about it after I heard a commentator on some political show mention that people wouldn’t know what was in some legislation until after it got passed. What about the idea that congress should post the text of a bill BEFORE it comes up to a vote. Once a bill has been typeset, it is pretty much simplicity itself for the congressional printing office to also put up a copy on-line for the American people to review it. I love this idea. It would give the chance for a million eyes to find the loopholes and pork. It is impossible for a small congressional staff to read one of these 7,000 page bills and really get all the nuances in the short time between when they get the bill on paper and when the congressperson has to vote. It would also help eliminate some of the stupid crap that gets passed into law because it would give the American people to call BS beforehand.

Downsize DC has even posted the draft test of the “Read the Bills Act” and is collecting signatures.

The Seattle micro-startup community is organizing

I was around and in fact active in the first web bubble in Seattle. It was a heady time, cocktail parties and pitches. Companies grabbing up every inch of pioneer square loft space and such. Then it all went away and I retreated back into the corporate world so that I could pay the bills. When the new bubble came a knock’in it seemed that Seattle wasn’t jumping on the bandwagon as fast. I would hear about events and some new companies, but it didn’t seem like a tectonic shift like last time.

However, it seems like the Web 2.0 bubble hasn’t completely passed Seattle by. The Seattle PI has a nice article: Coffee, muffins and entrepreneurs, that is covering some of the local gatherings of entrepreneurs around Seattle. It seems like, this time around, the companies are keeping it on the down-low and small at first.

Here some of the links:

Parkour

So, I guess that if you grow up in Europe and want to show how bad-ass you are, but skateboarding is too American, then Parkour is your sport. This stuff is seriously cool.

Dear Airlines

yeah, those days are gonePlease make up your mind.

Either, enforce your rules about carry-on bags or make the overheads infinitely large.

“Two Bags only, one bag and one briefcase or purse” you announce over the loud speaker. Meanwhile, I’m walking down the jetway behind some other business traveler who has a roll-away large enough for me to fit into, a backpack, a briefcase, and a garment bag. I then have to watch him stuff them into TWO overheads, filling both. He then walks to the back of the plane where his seat actually is. So not only does everyone have to wait for him, but then, everyone else has to scramble for overhead space. Of course, he isn’t the only problem. Half the people are carrying on over-sized bags that either take an entire overhead compartment or most of one.

I fly enough now that this is really a pain in the ass. It leads to people trying to board early so that they can make sure that they can stuff their bags into the overhead. It makes the entire trip crappier for the rest of us, especially if we have to put something into the overhead. (my bag takes up 1/4 of an overhead, thank-you-very-much).

Sure, if you actually start enforcing your rules, it will be a painful transition, making it take longer to get people through the gate, and annoying those who think that their bag really can fit even though it can’t. Long term though, all your passengers will be much happier.

In the meantime, GFY.

ok Apple, now you are really starting to piss me off

At this point, I’m just used to the horror show that developing software for the mac is. But as a user, it has always been sweetness and light mostly and with Apple service, it has always been awesome.

Now, Apple is crossing the line. My 30 GB iPod photo is busted. It has been lovingly taken care of, never dropped, doesn’t have a scratch on it. The problem? Sometimes (not always), the buttons on the scroll wheel are treated like you are pressing the middle button instead. This will last for a while and then go back to working. However, when you are trying to pause your iPod and you just keep flipping between the song, the rating, the position, the cover art, etc… it can be insane making.

So I put the details into a service report and got a box delivered lickity-split. Score one for Apple service. 3 days later, I got a box back! Joy! Apple service would remain in my heart. Until I opened it and read the note that said, (I paraphrase) “works fine, no problems found”. When in my description, I had said that the problem was intermittent, so I hope they did more than try it out for half a second. They reformatted it, of course. I tried it and it seemed to work ok. So I loaded up my music onto it and was able to repro the problem again within 10 seconds. I didn’t update the OS of the iPod, I just put music onto it.

So, I sent it back, saying in my service report, “no really. you have to try it before reformatting it. It really does happen. It is intermittent.”

I just got it back. Same story. “works fine, no service performed”

So, now I have to drag my ass into the genius bar to get some pimply faced UW freshman to ask me stupid questions since there is no fucking phone number I can call to talk to anyone at Apple service. The net result of which will probably be that they drop the DHL box in the mail for me and I get it back reformatted AGAIN with no service performed.

It is this kind of crap that made me switch to Apple in the first place, and it will be this kind of crap that will make me switch again.