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Comment by enraged_camel | Hacker News Reader

You don't hear people claim that Windows is fragmented because everyone has become used to it, so much so that it seems like such a normal thing. When you develop for Windows, worrying about which version of .NET Framework might be installed on the user's machine or whether or not a certain feature of the OS might be turned on or whether their drivers might be outdated is a normal course of events.

The iOS development philosophy is that developers should not have to worry about any of this, and their apps should just work. I mean, when was the last time you tried to install an app on iOS and it gave you an error message about such and such prerequisite missing, or you installed it and the user experience was broken because the phone had an older version of the OS or a wacky manufacturer UI?

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The iOS development philosophy is that developers should not have to worry about any of this, and their apps should just work.

Microsoft, and IBM before them, had that same philosophy: if only everyone would use the current version of their OS, developers would not have to worry about cross-platform compatibility because everything would just work. Nobody liked that philosophy then, and most developers don't like it now either.

Web development can certainly be a PITA, but at least the web development platform is based on open cross-platform compatibility as a goal, rather than monoculture. It recognizes the reality that monoculture can't be achieved without giving up fundamental freedoms, and strives to work in that reality rather than in some company's monopolistic wet-dream.

>>Nobody liked that philosophy then, and most developers don't like it now either.

I'm not sure if the latter part of that sentence is correct, since iOS is the most popular mobile development platform.

Popular in what sense? Because developers like it, or because developers have to use it in order to reach their audience? By the latter measure, Ticketmaster is the most popular ticket vendor.

I find that devs have a far harder time dealing with apple's policies and fees than with android's fragmentation. One particular case is one startup where all the people involved use iphones but they moved to android to launch their app because they couldn't afford the complications of doing it for iphone, which was originally their plan.

I can find a way through a code problem, but when it comes to bureaucracy sometimes there is no alternative, or they shut it down the moment you find it.

Can you elaborate on the bureaucratic complications said startup faced?

Apple's fees are $99/year which is hardly prohibitive.

And I doubt you would see any difference between Apple's bureaucracy and Google's. Anytime you try and embarrass the company, try and take money away from them or be anti-user then of course you will have problems.

I don't remember having to 'hope' that Google accepts an app through a human review before allowing it on their store.

I like neither Apple nor Google but I believe we shouldn't overlook facts that clearly differentiate one from the other.

>> When you develop for Windows, worrying about which version of .NET Framework might be installed on the user's machine or whether or not a certain feature of the OS might be turned on

It's also not quite as big of a deal on Windows - you can simply include or launch the installer for the XYZ Library or ABC Framework version 3.9.

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