mike-pulsifer.org - Latest Comments

Re: Too Many iPhone “Developers”

Justen Robertson — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 19:44:45 -0000

Man this is an old post but it came up in search and I felt the need to comment. Obviously the argument about whether these tools *may* be used is long settled, but the insulting and denigrating position taken by the author of this article regarding those who *choose* to use these tools deserves a response.

To that I say, there are innumerable shit apps in the iOS app store, approval process or no - many of which I've had the displeasure of stumbling on. You're trying to technologically solve very non-technological issues - user experience and design sense, which are unknowable to a compiler or a (mostly) automated approval process. Forcing people to use a specific IDE and programming language doesn't accomplish anything.

It's not about laziness on the developer's part. The only way you're going to be able to jump directly into Appcelerator or PhoneGap is if you have very deep technical understanding of javascript that does not apply in web development (unless you're doing nodejs or, perhaps, some really high end web app or web game work). Knowing the bare basics of the language familiar to a typical web developer will get you about as far as knowing C when you intend to write an application in Java. You obviously wouldn't know that, being neither a javascript developer nor a web developer nor understanding the difference between the two.

That aside, your average web developer has to know 2-4 programming languages and a couple different markup languages (with four or five different versions between them and substantial variances between target platforms) to do anything useful unless he's working for a shop big enough to employ a bunch of specialists, so you're preaching to the wrong crowd re: unwillingness to learn. Accomplishing anything beyond "my first ghetto blog", let alone doing respectable work for clients with high expectations, arguably requires a lot more diversity and flexibility than the walled garden of single platform development on locked down devices familiar to iOS "developers" (see what I did there).

It's not about being cheap either - you still have to buy a Mac to create iOS software (this may not have been the case at the time of writing). You also have to buy licensing for not one, but two, three, or more other platforms since you're doing cross-platform development. If you're working for a shop rather than as an independent/freelance developer the shop might save quite a bit on developer salary of course. But they're seldom going to complain about dropping the equivalent of a few days' pay and benefits on new development tools.

And although I know you wrote this article two years ago, as a matter of fact, Appcelerator *does* encourage and facilitate writing to the expectations of native interfaces, and cross platform developers as a whole are well aware that an app lacking native UI/UX will be poorly received.

What these frameworks *are* about is rapid cross-platform development. You're not necessarily going to create a brilliant AAA application with them, at least not with any less effort than doing so in native code, but you can deliver a solid experience to end users of many different devices that takes advantage of native UI and hardware capabilities simply not accessible in web apps. It's a stepping stone to reaching a broader audience quicker on a tighter budget. It's smart business, in other words.

Bottom line, regardless of the tools you use, you still have to have design sense and pride in your work to avoid falling into the murky quagmire of scamware and trash apps that lurk beyond the first page results in any app store.

Re: Slideware Shoot-Out: Keynote ’09, PowerPoint 2008, & OpenOffice 3 Impress

Nanah — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:07:28 -0000

Opt CLICK and Drag to create new Guides on the MAC (w 2 button windows mouse)
Control Click brings up menu

Re: Thomas Reynolds Is A Douche

hexv — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:36:17 -0000

Mike, I one person has stolen your content it's likely happening more than you know If you don't know or use copyscape.com I recommend you check it out to find duplicates of your content all over the net. I use if for most of my sites.

Re: Thomas Reynolds Is A Douche

darkwingdave — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:13:46 -0000

Something you should respond to?

Re: Test

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Re: Why Apple Won’t Dominate

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Excellently written article, if only all bloggers offered the same level of content as you, the internet would be a much better place. Please keep it up!

Re: Why Apple Won’t Dominate

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Re: 500px

Fred E. Miller — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:39:54 -0000

That's new information for me, Mike - Thanks!

Re: I Am A Photographer…

WVMikeP — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 04:53:33 -0000

Thanks for the kind words

Re: I Am A Photographer…

Rip Smith — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:19:36 -0000

Mike, the first time I saw your work I saw potential. More recently, I'm starting to see the realization of that potential. Keep learning! Rip

Re: Slideware Shoot-Out: Keynote ’09, PowerPoint 2008, & OpenOffice 3 Impress

small pendant lights — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 04:54:50 -0000

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great helpful, it's so right to me! Million thanks for the article,

Re: Farm At Sunrise

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Oooh, very well done!

Re: My Thoughts On the iPad

WVMikeP — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 16:06:52 -0000

Great, actually. I don't miss it. Just like how I don't miss the floppy disk, parallel ports, or serial ports.

Re: My Thoughts On the iPad

BR — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:43:53 -0000

So how's that we-don't-need-Flash-because-of-HTML5 thing working out?

Re: Too Many iPhone “Developers”

WVMikeP — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 07:52:59 -0000

Great points. All it takes is an open mind and a willingness to learn something new. Ultimately, our apps aren't for us, but other people. If we keep that in mind, we'll be less focused on our vain desires as developers and instead focus on using (and learning if need-be) the tools that will help create the best experience for our users/customers.

Re: Too Many iPhone “Developers”

Rik-J — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 06:24:24 -0000

The irony here is that devs are so reluctant to adopt obj C when it is actually a really easy language to learn and use. I used to work for MGS and so windows/ vis studio/ c++ were my native environment. When I left to do indie mobile games I took a big gulp, got myself a mac, xcode, iphone, and a big mug of coffee and started learning. Best decision I could have made. ObjC is a snap, xcode has built in instruments and memory tracking facilities allowing profiling on the device, and everything fits together with a certain harmony. I managed to port my game complete with bells and whistles in two months, including the learning curve, testing, and app store submission. Programming natively allowed me to optimise the code, the UI and take advantage of exclusive hardware features.
Generic multi-platform apps short change the end user and that is why platform owners like Apple want you to use their propriety tools.
Compared to dedicated console game platforms Apple are still incredibly lax in enforcing their own rules and standards. Try using flash or java script to publish to a Nintendo platform.

Re: Snow Leopard Really IS That Big Of A Deal

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Re: Too Many iPhone “Developers”

WVMikeP — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 11:40:43 -0000

No, it's pure laziness.

A Mac Mini will cost you well under a grand. You can even get one for less used.

XCode runs only on OSX. Visual Studio runs only on Windows. That's just the way it is. Don't like it? Then don't play the game.

Cross-platform apps that ignore the specific OS's UI standards are user experience failures from the start. That kind of development benefits only the developers. UI guidelines are there to benefit the users, first and foremost.

Google's game is quantity over quality. Just look at the camera and photo apps. It's clear those were designed by geeks and not by anyone with any design skills.

I know I'm not going to change your mind. Geeks tend to hate companies that don't cater to them. Apple caters to normal people at the expense of hard-core geeks and those stuck in the OS flame wars of the 90s. Judging from by your comment, those two fit you to a 'T.'

Re: Too Many iPhone “Developers”

Yammo — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:00:11 -0000

Horseshit. You are just an apologist for Apple's closed-shop policies. There are plenty of proper developers out there, who would like to support the iPhone but don't fancy shelling out $3000 for the system, tools and licenses needed to do so. This is why such a high percentage of iPhone apps are crap - because it's a pain in the ass to support iPhone, and even make an iPhone version of your J2ME or Android application.

This is why Apple's ascendancy is nothing but temporary. This is the company that could inherit the whole world, but can't open it's tight little fist and allow people to innovate. The iPhone may be superior in quality, but the rest of the world has nowhere to go, except create accessible shared platforms, standardised APIs and compatible software.

I don't know why you assume that developers specifically align themselves to Microsoft. You conveniently don't mention the Java developer. Or the cross platform developers. Or the Linux guys. Or the androidians.
This is a race Google will win, because there is simply nowhere else for the world to go - Apple's doors are closed.

It's Apple's loss, that developers can't just fire up an emulator and begin to learn about iOS. If you develop on the Mac, you can develop apps for other platforms, without too much difficulty. Where would Java be, if Sun had blocked it's development on PCs? It's ludicrous. It's based on a selfish idealogy, - which cannot win long term, and when your Apple shares crash in 5 years, you may remember this comment.

The iPhone is a gorgeous brick, chained to a sub-standard, unintuitive, megalomaniac application called iTunes. It's like an olympic swimmer tied to a concrete block. It's best efforts are numbered, and will ultimately end up a high quality failure.

It's not even just it's current market that will fail, but many other market areas it could have ventured into - which will not exist, until some competitor stumbles across them in 3 or 4 years.

Re: Farm At Sunrise

WVMikeP — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:37:15 -0000

Thanks!

Re: Farm At Sunrise

Steve — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:49:46 -0000

Hi Mike
Great photograph and site.
Came across it whilst looking at a comment relating to ITIL.
Happy New Year.
Cheers
Steve@itilnews.com
Http://www.itilnews.com

Re: Decay

Steve — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:46:06 -0000

Nice photographs and great site. Having added a comment to an article around itil I clicked on your comment and came across this blog or site. Happy New Year.

Steve@itilnews.com
Http://www.itilnews.com

Re: Cross-platform PowerPoint

johnnya — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 23:32:34 -0000

I recently wrote an article regarding embedding video in PowerPoint with specific emphasis on ensuring video playback works across platforms - essentially, my recommendations were MPEG4 container / MPEG4 video stream for new Mac OS X / Windows 7 machines and AVI / XviD video stream for Mac OS X / Windows XP/Vista machines. If you are interested, the whole article is here: http://techinstruct.com/wik....

Re: Lesson In How To Stir-Up the Nerdocracy

Jenny — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 15:07:24 -0000

I've just read the text and can say there are some useful tips there. Thanks and regards from Jenny at http://inforeview.edublogs....

Re: ArtBerkeley Art Exhibit

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