I think it's interesting that "OS X", "Cocoa", and "Core Animation" in the Keynote were essentially marketing points. I can't see how these things matter to the end user save for their associations with the brands -- i.e., "Cocoa == stable", "Core Animation == glitzy". I mean, listen to the crowd's reaction in the Keynote video -- the response to "it runs OS X" was almost as loud as the response to "it's the iPhone!"
I'm not so sure anymore that the closed platform will open up in time -- the iPod still hasn't, even after a couple of years and a hundred million units. Perhaps the thing for us to understand is that the Mac desktop world, and its rich culture of independent developers, is an oasis; the future of desktop applications looks pretty dry on other platforms. MacHeist sold 16K bundles in a week? Steve's looking to sell 10M units in the iPhone's first year.
Apple's off chasing Hollywood and high-volume devices because that's its best bet for future growth. But the indie market? Even if you sell 100K copies of your app in a year, that's %1 of 1% of the market in which the iPhone plays. Food for thought, I guess.
by David Young — Jan 15
I'm not so sure anymore that the closed platform will open up in time -- the iPod still hasn't, even after a couple of years and a hundred million units. Perhaps the thing for us to understand is that the Mac desktop world, and its rich culture of independent developers, is an oasis; the future of desktop applications looks pretty dry on other platforms. MacHeist sold 16K bundles in a week? Steve's looking to sell 10M units in the iPhone's first year.
Apple's off chasing Hollywood and high-volume devices because that's its best bet for future growth. But the indie market? Even if you sell 100K copies of your app in a year, that's %1 of 1% of the market in which the iPhone plays. Food for thought, I guess.