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Comment by NikolaNovak | Hacker News Reader

It's astonishing that there were things which existed decades ago with only inferior substitutes today. Ms Streets and Trips had functionality google maps doesn't seem to aspire to; and same of course goes for Encarta. It seems a no brainer something like that shoild exist for tablets - but it doesn't. The myriad data and graphs you could overlay and chart on maps was wonderful.

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This is the natural product of having these walled off gardens. You can't just build a simpler and better product yourself. There would be a dozen clones of Streets and Trips on github for iPad if only you'd be able to run unsigned code on the device you purchased yourself.

It's like, we could be in this amazing emergent world of open source and constantly iterating software with these handheld devices, but we decided instead to chain an anchor to it and throw it overboard with how locked down they are. Don't these companies want better engineers long term? That starts with letting 10 year olds write scripts on their ipad without any training wheels attached or patronizing abstractions. Let people tinker.

Why cant you take $100 in donations to make an apple developer account and throw it on the app store?

That’s a ridiculous amount of friction for a kid who wants to mess around with programming on a phone. With $100 they could, I don’t know, pay to see a doctor or get a tank of gas, or throw a party. Immediate needs like that come first to teenagers who don’t know what to do with their life yet. Apple is limiting the next generation of hires to keep up the walls today.

I took the trouble of logging in to HN to call bullshit on this whole thread. The reason these teenagers aren’t building standalone apps is generally because they know that web apps are the future. Moreover, there are dozens of new travel planning startups every year (YC regularly funds them!) and they seem to discover the same thing that Microsoft did—the real reason they stopped updating this magical app—which is that everybody wants better travel apps but nobody wants to pay for it.

I’m sure someone will crack the code someday and I’m glad they will keep trying, but I refuse to accept the premise that $100 Apple developer accounts are their primary impediment.

You know who else said web apps are the future? Steve Jobs when he launched the iPhone.

$100 is $100, you seem to comment from a position of privilege. When I learned programming, in my early 20s, that was close to my monthly salary. Granted I've been a paid programmer for more than 15 years now and I make more than that, but, even so, seeing as app development is not what brings me money it looks like a waste to me to throw $100 at something each year so that I'd have the privilege of running my code on a piece of hardware I already own.

And let's say that maybe I'm a cheap bastard, but the reality remains that $100 is still a lot of money for a lot of young people around the world who have just gotten into programming.

No way my parents would have forked over $100 to me on some computer thing they didn't understand. Being able to spend your parents money on the internet as a kid is rare.

Maybe web apps are going to be used for commercial things but nothing beats the power of being able to write your own tools, and its just so easy to do that locally as its always been. A little bash script or some python goes far.

Op here - I understand the perspective toward walled gardens, but I do not believe this is the issue here. A single developer is likely not going to make a new Encarta Atlas equivalent.

(street and trips, maybe, using google maps APIs or something and relying on 3rd party data?)

Given the hundred thousand meaningless apps in existence though, it really doesn't feel like the walled garden is the problem here. Either there's no interest in making these, or no interest in consuming, or both. But to this day it astonishes me that searching for Atlas in either Google play or Apple app store, finds me Nothing like encarta or Compton atlas used to bring to the table. :-(

I don't see why you couldn't write a bespoke tool that meets your needs and build out your own functionality. It doesn't have to be pretty or perfect. I do this a lot with other things with my laptop. I imagine there are already plenty of apis that make this easy with open street maps.

Encarta atlas and Compton atlas had a phenomenal amount of information presented in myriad ways. They were (for thr time) polished and comprehensive and extensive and powerful. I may be underestimating the power of a hyper dedicated solo super developer. But if so, nevertheless the $100 dev fee remains even more the least of the obstacles here.

You don't have to build out every feature much less at once. You just need to be able to iterate your own novel features. That's what writing your own code for your own tooling lets you do, and what you can't do currently with these walled gardens.

Thanks; I do not believe we are discussing the same topic though - what I'm discussing (modern Encarta Atlas or Compton Atlas) is primarily about content, whereas I believe you're primarily talking about code.

I understand the dislike of walled gardens; I do not believe they have any bearing whatsoever on the gap that I've brought up though.

> Ms Streets and Trips had functionality google maps doesn't seem to aspire to

Is there a list of that functionality somewhere?

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