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April 13, 2007

geekery

Painting yourself into a corner

Posted Apr. 13, ’07, 5:32 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Geekery

Leopard Delayed New Mac OS X releases have been a big deal since the original rather slow release. More recent versions have put a lot of emphasis on new APIs for software developers to utilize. This aspect has been a double edged sword for Apple. It allows for new software doing innovative new things to be released quicker and with more predictable behavior. Developers can write less code and deliver to the customer quicker. On the other hand, the inescapable perception that the new release offers little for customers ends up overshadowing the fact that in the long run, they’ll be getting more out of those APIs than they realize. I digress.

We’re all very saddened by yesterday’s announcement that Apple would be delaying the release of Leopard until October. Trust me, no one was anticipating its release more than I. I’ve been an OS fan boy since before it was popular. The thought of a new OS to play with made me squirm in joy. We’ve already gone a very long time since the last OS X release (and all indications point to the release cycle doing nothing but getting longer). While most of us are really disappointed, the people that most affected by this in the short term are software developers that have already made the commitment to releasing one or more new products/versions of products for the new OS only.

We have a couple examples in Gus Mueller with Flysketch 2, Delicious Monster with Delicious Library 2.0, and Textmate 2.0. I’m sure there are others, but these are the three highest profile that immediately leaped to my mind. The problem here of course is that in the computer world, when users know something new and great is coming (whether it be software or hardware), they’ll postpone a purchase until the can get the new and improved version. That means that if you’ve tied a release to an OS release, you’ve tied a sale to an OS release. Continuing in the logic, you’ve also tied money to an OS release.

You’ve essentially tied your own prospective earnings to the performance and progress of another company, that in this case, doesn’t really care about your bottom line for the next six months. That becomes an unhappy fact of life. I’ll tell you this: I don’t envy any of these fine developers at this very moment. Some of the impact can be mitigated by offering the current product with a guaranteed free update for when the time comes. The problem then becomes that some of your existing user base may feel somewhat cheated if you don’t give the new version away for free to existing users. Giving it away to all users is another way to make a more permanent dent in your income (as that eliminates all upgrade income).

This is all very dangerous mojo and I have to wonder if each of these developers would still make the decision, knowing what they do today.


9 Comments

Brian said:

Is there a point to this post? Seriously...you wrote all that to tell us that developers occasionally get hamstrung by OS delays? To whom, exactly, is this news? Surely not Gus Mueller or Delicious Monster, I can tell you that.

April 13, 2007 6:57 AM
mandaris said:

@Brian I think Derik is reminding the general populous that this effects not just them and their desires for a shiny, new OS, but developers for the platform.
I mean, let's look at the events. (Please forgive/correct me if I'm wrong)
1) WWDC '05 Developers were told that the OS was the heart of Apple and that they are a major reason why Apple is able to do what they can do.
2) Apple release their development box to help developers transition their programs onto Intel machines.
3)WWDC '06, more of the same, and it looks like Apple is really committed to getting the developers to...um...develop. Every blog that I've read had glowing things to say about going there...
4) Apple hosts little development conferences to help ease & promote the transition to 10.5

This is actually a lot of big stuff to a developer. And I would probably think, 'hey, Apple has made a commitment to me as a developer, and everything looks ok so far, so I don't see a reason not to have my app work in their next os'


April 13, 2007 8:36 AM
mandaris said:

As my mind was writing that last entry, a paranoid thought entered my head...

What if Apple new that they were going to be late? What if they had all the "special features" & tech talks to guarantee some kind of buzz until they made the release... It's a thought that I've been having for a while now...

But then, I'm just paranoid...

April 13, 2007 8:40 AM
DBL said:

I thought I was about to read about *Apple* painting themselves into a corner. And they sort of have. After saying that Leopard is being delayed so that they can do it right (later) while concentrating their resources on doing the iPhone right (now), well they'd better do both things pretty right now *and* later, hadn't they? I predict there will be much less tolerance for flaws in both the iPhone and Leopard first releases, because of this announcement.

They should have just said it was taking longer than they had hoped, and not even mentioned the iPhone.

Not very gracefully handled, this one. Which is surprising.

April 13, 2007 8:58 AM
42 said:

@DBL: my take is that the impetus for "blaming" the Leopard delay on the iPhone is that Wall Street analysts (whom I hold in a great deal of contempt for a huge number of reasons) have flogged AAPL forecasts based on huge iPhone sales. If the phone were to slip it would be disastrous for the stock price. Leopard? not so much.

April 13, 2007 11:22 AM
Dave said:

Anyone trying to mass market anything should know that you can't accommodate every irrational expectation of your customers. If a developer offered a deal to anyone who buys their software now that they'd get a free/reduced price upgrade, I wouldn't expect it for myself as a long-time user. That's just dumb. If they are worried about short term sales, they should make that offer, or just reduce the price of the software now. If you think about the amount of time spent with the product, it makes perfect sense.

Also, this is a four month delay, your comment that Apple "doesn’t really care about your bottom line for the next six months" is misleading. It's not like their sales dried up with this announcement. If sales are slow for the next two months, that is something they should have planned for.

April 13, 2007 11:38 AM
James Bailey said:

"We’re all very saddened by yesterday’s announcement that Apple would be delaying the release of Leopard until October. "


Who's we? I'm not very saddened or even a little saddened by the delay. I'm pretty much neutral on the issue. It would have been good if a complete, debugged, high-quality release came out by the end of June but having a 4 month delay does not affect my life in any measurable way.

I would much rather wait another 4 months for a high quality release than have a buggy 10.5 release that needs multiple updates before it is reliable. If Apple has decided to prioritize the iPhone over a not-much-needed release of OS X, I'm fine with that. Tiger is very stable and has no issues that I'm aware of.

I will buy 10.5 when it is available but this need for it sooner rather than later seems a little strange to me.

April 13, 2007 1:51 PM
Snipes said:

This blog post was written entirely from the viewpoint of a software developer.

The article has no sympathy (as it should) for customers who must contend with software that is not backward compatible with older verions of OSX.

This sort of thing forces us to pay exorbitant OSX upgrade costs, when we don't want to, if we need to use the new software.

As a Windows users for a decade, I am still able to use most of my major software. What's more, Microsoft doesn't charge crazy prices for dot upgrades, whereas Apple calls each dot upgrade by a new name, and charges big bucks for it.

There's an article on the net which shows that these high costs, for dot upgrades, costs Apple users far more than Windows users.

e.g. Windows XP SP2 was a major upgrade, but we got it free.

I'm using Office 2000 very happily, without being forced to upgrade to Vista.

Someone has to talk some sense into Apple developers, to make their software backward compatible with older versions of OS-X.

I hope this delay teaches them a lesson.

April 13, 2007 3:09 PM
DBL said:

Yeah buddy you keep believing that your Windows computer is cheaper to maintain.

April 15, 2007 6:42 PM

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