RIM Unveils New OS Based On QNX 262
New submitter HommeDeJava writes "Research In Motion unveiled a new operating system for its tablet and smartphones at the company's BlackBerry developer conference in San Francisco. Called BlackBerry BBX, the new OS combines features of the existing BlackBerry OS and its recently acquired real-time QNX OS. Could BBX attract software developers and spur interest from consumers?"
As a blackberry user, I don't need a crystal ball (Score:5, Insightful)
I already know the future. Fail, of the epic kind.
Re:As a blackberry user, I don't need a crystal ba (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. Too little, too late. It'll take years for them to turn things around, and they just don't have the time.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:As a blackberry user, I don't need a crystal ba (Score:4, Insightful)
Key measures are a) profit share and b) share of web browsing c) number of app downloads and total number of (quality?) apps availble; in other words, what matters is how much the user use and can use their phones. Android will overtake Apple in these measures but it is taking much longer [wikipedia.org]. If you think like this Apple is still ahead so far (and only just, and only if you include the iPod touch!).
Incidentally, this shows that WP7 has almost no hope. If you are an app developer you will do an iPhone app and some will do an Android app to show you support "alternative" people. Soon it will be the other way round (in fact I'd say that it's already the other way round in some markets). The inertia you need to overcome the leader is too much. The only reason that Android is succeeding is that Apple left a low end in the market available for them to develop in. Now the market has to be analysed as the 1990's PC market. Apple is Apple. Android is Windows and Windows is OS2, a late entry by an an over-arrogant computing incumbent.
Re:As a blackberry user, I don't need a crystal ba (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get ahead of yourselves.
Let's not forget that Apple came back from a far worse shape than this in the late 90s. It is way too early to say that "they just don't have time".
They better put a move on it, pronto, would be a much more accurate statement.
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Apple also doesn't have a dead dog in the race, with frequent outages of service due to a single point of email and message failure controlled by their proprietary network. Apple also innovated the hell out of their products. RIM has not done this. It's a "me too" effort at best, and not a very good one.
Outside of organizations married to its corp-friendly proprietary nonsense, RIM has zero reputation right now.
As a developer, I wouldn't spare a thought towards porting my applications to that platform. It's
correction (Score:2, Funny)
not pronto, procnto is the process manager in qnx.
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Let's not forget that Apple came back from a far worse shape than this in the late 90s. It is way too early to say that "they just don't have time".
Have you even heard one of their co-CEOs talk? One is all techno-babble and the other is a bean-counter with no real product experience. None of them are the caliber of Steve Jobs, and as a company, RIM is not the caliber of pre-Jobs Apple in the 90s (which was still quite innovative, just mismanaged).
Fire one or both of the current leadership, and we can talk turnaround. As it is RIM does not have the DNA for a massive course-change.
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I thought this was going to be a cut and paste of the BSD is dying usenet message from the 1990s.
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they could simply port the encryption and infrastructure to Android... I still believe they make awesome hardware and it's a shame to see it go to waste because of the same mistake done over and over and over again :\
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Given the legal challenges to Android right now, I would imagine they don't want to put all of their eggs in one basket. I can't blame them. It could turn into a win if the OS is well accepted. The game isn't over till it's over. If anyone in recent history has taught us that, it's Apple.
Android popped up in a smartphone market ruled by iOS and is now a huge player. RIM could pull the same move, although the OS won't be available for free, it could gain them needed traction in a market that is quickly slipp
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Android popped up in a smartphone market ruled by iOS and is now a huge player.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember seeing bunches of reports on Android back in the late Palm T|E days competing with Dell's Windows based mobile. iOS wasn't even on the radar then.
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That's correct.
Android was demonstrated and shown off a few weeks before the iPhone was even announced back in 2007. There's a CES 2007 video showing Android.
Looking remarkably... blackberry-ish or WinMo ish with a 5-way navigator and stuff like that.
Then the iPhone was announced, and a serious amount of re-engineering happe
Re:As a blackberry user, I don't need a crystal ba (Score:5, Funny)
I already know the future. Fail, of the epic kind.
I prefer fail of the EEPROM kind.
Re:As a blackberry user, I don't need a crystal ba (Score:5, Funny)
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That's the EPROM. EEPROMs are Electrically Erasable.
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Agreed.
I own a BB and a Playbook. The Playbook, BTW, i bought at 50% off with bonus accessories.
The BB is good as a cell phone. But OS 6 release (i upgraded my phone), has been crap. Some stuff is major improvement like faster browser but there are many bugs. Since I'm regrettably on contract, I'm considering buying an iPhone 3 and using that instead.
As for the Playbook, its got a really nice screen, responsive, good feel. And thats about it. I'm using it as an ebook reader - I read a lot of PDFs and the ei
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The BB is good as a cell phone. But OS 6 release (i upgraded my phone), has been crap. Some stuff is major improvement like faster browser but there are many bugs. Since I'm regrettably on contract, I'm considering buying an iPhone 3 and using that instead.
I have a BB Bold, which I agree is a good phone. Haven't gone to OS6. Has RIM figured out that people actually send html mail? As for the Playbook, I looked for one when they first cam out, but couldn't find a single working demo anywhere they were sold, so I gave up. I'd say RIM is toast.
haha... the announcement itself was the start it (Score:3)
QNX was NOT fast. It was however quite efficient and bragged for years about task switching times
Re:As a blackberry user, I don't need a crystal ba (Score:4, Interesting)
BB is still entrenched in Corporate America. There's massive inertia there.
Oh yeah? Is that why RIM's morning general session at its conference had a heavy emphasis on games? [infoworld.com] From what I can tell, the most recent BlackBerry hardware has been targeted squarely at the teenage/college student market. Apparently BlackBerry Instant Messaging is more popular than SMS in some parts of the UK and Europe. Meanwhile, white collar workers have increasingly been demanding to use their own devices in the workplace; The Economist even did a special report on the trend a week or so ago. You think the general public is buying up BlackBerrys? Nope. It's iPhones they want to use in the office, and once it's the C-level execs asking for it, the IT department won't have much choice but to allow it. Get rid of the BES lock-in and it's game over for RIM.
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good enough for nuclear reactors (Score:3, Insightful)
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You shouldn't have been rated down, but yeah I don't see this being a negative. With all the professional users of blackberry phones, their tablet's almost assured a user base.
MOD ABUSE above (Score:2)
good enough for nuclear reactors ... sounds like an industrial strength, secure platform that might actually be adopted by governments, enterprise companies, medical, etc.
not sure how it will be marketed to education and gaming though, except by showing nice 3d framerates
Seriously, how is this modded -1? QNX is all about special purpose dedicated applications. If the military needed a specialized tablet QNX may very well be the OS of choice, perhaps RIM the supplier. Likely, no. Plausible, yes. Similar story for specialized tablets for medical use, say something rated to be used in an operating room (note that this is more about the hardware than software, an iPad probably can't be sterilized without inadvertently destroying the electronics) to control equipment, display da
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In order for QNX to meet the specialized requirements you're thinking of, every part of the OS has to be certified, which means nothing Blackberry produces will be useful to the military for 2-4 years at the soonest or it will be stripped down to the point that RIM will have no advantage.
Contrary to popular belief QNX isn't that impressive anymore. It was at one point, but theres nothing about it now that isn't a well known and well understood concept, at least when your thinking of RTOS and security stand
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If you can boast an OS that doesn't lag while multitasking (eg. Music over bluetooth in the background) while doing other stuff (education, games, whatever) and furthermore that it'll keep running demanding workloads for months without becoming unstable or crashing, I think you'll be able to get pretty broad interest in the platform.
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But what advantage does QNX offer here? I sure want an RTOS in my car's anti-lock braking system, but I couldn't care less if my phone is "just" a Unix derivate. If Linux is good enough to run Google and Wall Street, and BSD is good enough to run a huge chunk of Internet routers, then either of them are good enough to run my phone.
Enterprises are mainly built around Unix, IBM, or Windows. Medical is very often centered around Windows. Education gets by fine on Macs and Windows. RTOSes aren't especially good
oh QNX (Score:3)
I last booted QNX something like 10 years ago...back then it was realtime, unix based (I think?), and relatively promising. I remember it was even more responsive than Linux (which was was more responsive than Windows).
The software, called BlackBerry BBX, bridges RIM’s current BlackBerry operating system and its newer QNX platform, co-Chief Executive Officer Mike Lazaridis said today. That should remove developer “roadblocks” and make it easier for them to build applications for RIM. Lazaridis didn’t say when the new BBX program will be available
Anyone have experience programming for QNX? If it's "just another unix" shouldn't porting to it be straightforward?
If you like ASM sure (Score:2, Informative)
The entire OS is written in assembly along with the applications. So if thats your thing then go for it.
Re:If you like ASM sure (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds incredibly unlikely, considering it's ported to ARM, MIPS, PPC, i386, etc.
Vaguely Unixy, Tiny Microkernel, Fast (Score:2)
Yeah, it's been a decade or two since I've seen QNX too. It was a real-time OS with a message-passing microkernel that was only 4KB, which meant that it could be running on-chip in cache (assuming the cache didn't have better things to do, which it probably did, but 4-8KB was a typical cache size for a processor back then.)
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The big question is not the core POSIX APIs, but how you do UI, high-level networking and so on.
For UI, QNX has Photon, but I very much doubt that it's what they'll use in this thing; and even if they do, they'll likely wrap it in something higher-level (it's vanilla C).
QNX is not another unix implementation (Score:5, Informative)
I last booted QNX something like 10 years ago...back then it was realtime, unix based (I think?), and relatively promising. I remember it was even more responsive than Linux (which was was more responsive than Windows) ... Anyone have experience programming for QNX? If it's "just another unix" shouldn't porting to it be straightforward?
QNX is a real-time operating system. For programmer convenience some things are unix-like. However unlike Linux and other unix implementations QNX is a *hard* real-time OS, you are guaranteed that things will happen within certain timeframes. QNX is targeting embedded environments, in particular environments that require incredible reliability - for example military and aerospace. QNX is exactly the sort of thing you use when you are building a mars rover.
Re:QNX is not another unix implementation (Score:4, Interesting)
Except, of course, the Mars Rovers used VxWorks. :-) (Another hard real-time embedded OS which is used quite a bit more than QNX.)
I disagree (Score:2)
QNX is distributed, network aware implementation of POSIX APIs on top of a rather unique realtime kernel.
But it is a unix-based system, with most of the GPL tools cross-compiled. Your command line doesn't change much, if at all. The QNX GUI (if it survived the merger with Blackberry tech) is tight, slick, low-profile interface. Very responive.
Personally I'm interested in developing for any one platform, so I focus on Java 6 JEE based services that will eventually provide for HTML5 web interfaces to
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As I said, the question is whether you think Unix is a kernel or the tools.
If the tools and APIs are compatible, good enough. It's a unix system.
Every manufacturer's implementation of Unix uses a different kernel. If you think they're still on the original AT&T SVR4 or BSD 4.2 code bases, you're way off course. They've all been tweaked and tuned, with different advantages and disadvantages for scalability, tuning, and management.
QNX is another kernel, nothing more. A very slick kernel, but ju
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I last booted QNX something like 10 years ago...back then it was realtime, unix based (I think?), and relatively promising. I remember it was even more responsive than Linux (which was was more responsive than Windows).
The software, called BlackBerry BBX, bridges RIM’s current BlackBerry operating system and its newer QNX platform, co-Chief Executive Officer Mike Lazaridis said today. That should remove developer “roadblocks” and make it easier for them to build applications for RIM. Lazaridis didn’t say when the new BBX program will be available
Anyone have experience programming for QNX? If it's "just another unix" shouldn't porting to it be straightforward?
Yes and no, it's a no obfuscated obtuse set of APIs to program against. We can't even get stuff that worked in QNX 5 to compile under QNX 6. Two years ago one of teams decided to upgrade an existing system that ran QNX 5 and some proprietary hardware. They just planned an OS upgrade to QNX6 and swapping a few of the specialty cards out. It still doesn't work two years later. We could have ported the code over to Linux and been done a year ago. It really didn't help that mid-stream they got bought out
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I'm assuming you weren't very close to the project, seeing as there is no QNX 5.
Assuming the code was actually from QNX 4, I don't know why you expected it to be a simple recompile. QNX 6 was a completely new operating system rewritten from the ground up. Just imagine getting your old Mac OS9 programs to compile for OSX.
You're right, I think it was QNX4. I try to distance myself from that project given how over budget and way past schedule they are, but I keep getting asked to help with basic problems like networking. They really got in over their heads with the assumption that they could just upgrade QNX. I think they were envisioning more of a Windows 2000 to XP kind of upgrade. It didn't help that vendors kept claiming they had drivers for the hardware - the team wasted lots of time re-writing and debugging drivers
Why Not Android Already? (Score:2)
If RIM is going to switch OSes, why wouldn't they go with Android? Cheaper to obtain and support, far larger app and developer base, easier to market it than "QNX? What's that?", bigger security community.
RIM is just trying to protect its "different" status, despite the actual cost/benefit.
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I have a feeling that they're following Palm down the long winding road of obsolescence. A Unix OS that isn't compatible with either of the two main players.
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This argument shows up here all the time, and it's lame as hell.
When Ford was doing alright, why didn't GM and Chrysler just sell CKD fords? They'd have done better, in the short term at least.
When Apple came into the game, symbian was number one by a long long stretch. Why didn't they just paste an apple logo onto a Nokia phone?
If you go to android, you're just another commodity manufacturer. You can make money that way, sure, but when you hit it right, with your own design, the thing prints money.
That sa
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QNX and Linux are _really_ different. QNX is a realtime OS for embedded applications, since as controlling car engines and factory equipment. This means that performance is extremely reliable (realtime OSs guarantee no glitching/slowdowns), it never crashes, and it runs efficiently on very limited hardware, on pretty much any CPU. For example, QNX is the OS running 200+ models of cars, in 20m+ cars on the road. It's proprietary and expensive, but for some applications you don't care about that as much as yo
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If RIM is going to switch OSes, why wouldn't they go with Android?
Maybe you guys suggesting RIM "just go android" are living in lala land? Why not just hand over the keys of the castle to Google and be done with it all?
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If RIM is going to switch OSes, why wouldn't they go with Android?
Yeah why not just do what everyone else is doing.
far larger app and developer base
Blackberry runtime for Android apps. They've already tapped into that community to a degree.
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One fantastic reason is native executable code, however they are now too late to the game for it to make any difference.
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I'm quite sure that the patents Microsoft owns are already needed by RIM (they most likely have a licensing agreement where they share patents). Switching OS's would make little difference on how much they have to pay Microsoft.
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Comeback Kid (Score:3)
It sure seems like RIM is thrashing around looking for a path forward. Apple seemed to suffer from the same thing, limping along with an OS that lacked basic features like memory protection and preemptive multitasking until 2001, but look at them now.
Are RIM users loyal enough to wait out the problem years?
Re:Comeback Kid (Score:4, Informative)
Well... (Score:3)
If, by some strange chance, the answer is yes, then yes, they should come flocking.
Otherwise, their fortunes will likely continue to depend on how pleasant their systems are to develop for, and how many devices capable of running applications are in the hands of users interested in buying them...
By all accounts, QNX is an accomplished OS; but it doesn't(in itself) solve the direst of problems with RIM's 3rd party dev efforts, which are not so much kernel limitations as user environment, dev tool, and API ones. If RIM can outperform its historical self in those areas, good for them. Otherwise, this "BBX" is going to offer the delightful choice of the same old blackberry crap, or Adobe Flash running like a wounded fainting goat [wikipedia.org] on some flavor of ARM SoC; but with a rock-solid foundation...
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QNX Neutrino (Score:5, Interesting)
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If properly utilized, I could see Blackberry overpowering all other mobile phone manufacturers.
I have a feeling, based on this blog entry from an attempted Playbook developer [jamiemurai.com] that unfortunately it's not going to be "properly utilized".
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QNX was a fast and fun OS when I ran it back around 2002/2003 but damn it was buggy and unstable mess, I could crash by playing a mp3 or make the file system do a little bit of work. It sucked on my desktop.
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Funny. I would have said that QNX crashes often in 1988.
Are their any QNX success stories?
The issue with obscure operating systems is in the device driver support. If the project will take two to three years to develop, and be in the market for another five to ten years, then several different hardware platforms will be required. If you are not running an operating system that supports a wide range of hardware with pre-built drivers, then multiple different device drivers may be needed over the life of
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QNX is probably the best operating system ever.
I think you forgot to insert the "Imma let you finish" part.
Can you run Android on the new OS, BBX? (Score:2)
Dear RIM (Score:2)
The real news here, folks! (Score:2)
You know what I find really interesting about this story? BlackBerry is trying to save their hide by moving their telephone O/S to a Unix variant. Now that iOS and Android are both Unix-derived, it's old hat, almost a given. But it was just a few years ago that it was understood that Unix was old, antiquated technology to be replaced by newer, sexier Windows/Mac systems.
What a difference a decade makes! Linux has since come to dominate the server and engineering workstation spaces, MacOS has been reborn as
Re:If it's not as closed as iOS/(locked down)Andro (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me that that's really the only way to get in the game at this point--make things as easy as possible for developers. Free SDK, free publishing license, and higher payouts for devs. Hopefully RIM has learned a lot from these days [jamiemurai.com] (and if you read the followups, it looks like they're making an effort).
Though I've never owned or really even used a Blackberry device, I do wish them well, just like I wish Microsoft well. I don't want the only players to be Google and Apple anymore than I wanted the only players to be RIM and Microsoft. We could use more honest competition in this space.
Re:If it's not as closed as iOS/(locked down)Andro (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple pays 70%.
Suppose RIM were ultra generous and paid 100%.
So long as I sell 43% more on the Apple platform, I'm still making more money.
Put it another way, I'd have to sell 70% of my iPhone sales on the RIM before I made as much.
Ain't going to happen.
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That's assuming you develop apps that are exclusive to one or the other. What if RIM had compilation software that could read 90% of your iOS files untouched?
100% Pure Java (Score:2)
What if RIM had compilation software that could read 90% of your iOS files untouched?
That'd be a change. The last time I looked into BlackBerry, everything had to be in 100% Pure Java or in another language that compiles to JVM bytecode. And I don't think Objective-C is one of those languages.
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Good point.
To elaborate, people tend to own only one phone, so in terms of app sales each phone's market is a separate market, which you would independently decide whether to sell into. That is, you're not choosing either to sell into Apple or RIMs market, you're choosing each one independently. If you can sell enough to be profitable as an iOS app, you will do that, and (assuming you have the resources) if you can sell enough to be profitable as a RIM app, you will do that. And so on for each mobile OS. Th
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There's a bit more to it. Sure, if your app is trivial, then adding another platform is a simple formula of cost vs profit. But, for any app with any real complexity, each platform you write a native app for increases your design complexity in a non-linear fashion.
For example, if you have just one platform, adding a feature is a simple process of of writing that feature, testing (etc), and deploying.
Now, if you have two, you need to write the feature twice, test it twice, and coordinate deployment across m
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I'm assuming RIM isn't completely clueless and doesn't require developers to only give exclusive apps.
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You can write Flex apps that are compatible with iOS, Android and Playbook all at once. Even if you don't like Air or Flex, you can use HTML5 for your iOS app and port to WebWorks for Playbook and BlackBerry.
How much overhead per year? (Score:2)
So long as I sell 43% more on the Apple platform, I'm still making more money.
In the lower (that is, hobby and portfolio-building) sales bracket, that also depends on how much it costs to keep your developer certificate renewed. On iOS, that's an overhead of $250 per year: $100 per year for the iOS Developer Program and an estimated $600 for a new Mac every few years to run the new version of Xcode that is required to target new devices but isn't compatible with your older Mac. How much does RIM charge per year for access to the SDK, access to run homemade apps on a device, and publi
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On iOS, that's an overhead of $250 per year: $100 per year for the iOS Developer Program and an estimated $600 for a new Mac every few years
You do of course also have to replace a PC every few years if that's your development platform.
Let's stick with like for like. The overhead is $99 per year for an iOS developer to get on the App Store.
For Android it's $25 per year to get on the Google Android Market. And/or $99 per year to get on the Amazon store.
Test devices are more expensive for iOS, but you won't need to buy as many.
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Then perhaps I should charge the difference between the cheapest PC and the cheapest Mac. For example, compare a $1000 MacBook to an (admittedly heavier) $400 laptop running Windows. That's still $600 for a Mac.
Hey if you're scratching around to save money, the MacMini is the cheapest Mac. $599.
But really, if you're choosing your development platform based on what's cheapest, then you're destined for a pitiful life.
If you're monetarily challenged, you're better off making a good app, and selling it on the more profitable platform, covering your costs and making a profit.
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I haven't upgraded to Xcode 4.2 yet, but I fully expect to be running it on my 6 year old Macbook.
6 years old... October 18, 2005... first Intel MacBook in April 2006...
I was under the impression that Xcode 4.2 required Snow Leopard [quora.com] and Snow Leopard required an Intel CPU.
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"primarily BIS/BES services"
Yeah, how's that working out for them?
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RIM has no restrictions on how YOU sell your apps. You can put the files (.cod and .alx) on any webserver in the world and let people download & install your app.
Unlike Apple, blackberry applications have never been a closed shop.
A one stop shop results in more app sales.
Now, the one best thing Apple did was to get your billing information FIRST so that Apple can bill your mobile account for apps.
They don't bill it to a mobile account. Apple get a credit card number and charge apps, songs, movies, whatever to that.
The Apple shills don't get it. (Score:2)
The less roadblocks you have to development, the faster that cash comes in.
Actually its all about customers ... (Score:3)
The less roadblocks you have to development, the faster that cash comes in.
Actually its the more customers you have. The hardware/platform that developers target is chosen by the customers, not the developer's convenience and preferences.
That said, what roadblocks to develop for iOS? A Mac, a device and $99 a year to publish on the app store? To be honest that is an extremely low barrier to entry.
1250 USD is a lot of money (Score:3)
That said, what roadblocks to develop for iOS? A Mac, a device and $99 a year to publish on the app store? To be honest that is an extremely low barrier to entry.
For students who have trouble paying for college, 1250 USD (Mac + iPT + certificate) is a lot of money. For people living in countries with undervalued currencies compared to the USD [wikipedia.org], 1250 USD is a lot of money. And I haven't been able to find one way or another whether high school students under age 18 are eligible.
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For students who have trouble paying for college, 1250 USD (Mac + iPT + certificate) is a lot of money.
No its not, thats 3 weeks of working McDonalds. Before your training is complete, you can own a macbook and an iOS cert, add another week and you've paid for an iPhone too.
For people living in countries with undervalued currencies compared to the USD [wikipedia.org], 1250 USD is a lot of money.
And Windows PCs are free there? No, but you're pretending they are because 'everyone owns a PC'. A full Windows license alone is ~30-40% of the cost of the entire buyin for mac development. You're making up costs based on picking and choosing what you're paying for.
No, Linux isn't a viable option to consider, you'll make exactly $0 a
You don't need Windows to make apps (Score:4, Interesting)
thats 3 weeks of working McDonalds.
Which is impractical if you're already working McDonald's to afford tuition.
And Windows PCs are free there?
Neither are Linux PCs, but a Linux PC is a lot cheaper than a Mac.
No, but you're pretending they are because 'everyone owns a PC'.
The installed base is such that one is far more likely to own a Windows PC than a Mac. Perhaps I should multiply the expected [wikipedia.org] Mac buy-in by 90% to reflect the 10% chance of already owning a Mac.
A full Windows license alone is ~30-40% of the cost of the entire buyin for mac development.
You don't need Windows to develop for certain popular platforms that compete with iOS.
Anyone under 18 can't enter legally binding contracts in any sane part of the world
I don't know about BlackBerry, but if you own a device running Android OS, you don't need to enter a legally binding contract before you're allowed to load homemade programs onto it. This is one of the differences between Android and iOS.
Actually $800, then subtract student discounts (Score:2)
That said, what roadblocks to develop for iOS? A Mac, a device and $99 a year to publish on the app store? To be honest that is an extremely low barrier to entry.
For students who have trouble paying for college, 1250 USD (Mac + iPT + certificate) is a lot of money.
Actually its $800 in hardware (mini + touch) and that is regular retail prices. Students are able to get significant discounts.
...and add a certificate (Score:2)
Actually its $800 in hardware (mini + touch) and that is regular retail prices.
At that point, you have a Mac mini, an iPod touch, the iOS simulator, and no way to load your app onto the device to test it. That requires an iOS Developer Program certificate, which costs $99 and will stop working at the end of one year. Plan on renewals for years 2, 3, and 4, and we're close to the $1250 mark that I quoted. Do students get a discount on certificates too?
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Actually its $800 in hardware (mini + touch) and that is regular retail prices.
At that point, you have a Mac mini, an iPod touch, the iOS simulator, and no way to load your app onto the device to test it. That requires an iOS Developer Program certificate, which costs $99 and will stop working at the end of one year.
Yes, thats why I mentioned $99 a year to publish in the first post and specifically pointed out that the $800 was in reference to hardware in the second post.
Plan on renewals for years 2, 3, and 4, and we're close to the $1250 mark that I quoted. Do students get a discount on certificates too?
And now factor in that the students can sell their apps. Something that was *far* more difficult to do in the not so distant pass. Apple also lowered the barrier to reaching a large consumer market.
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And now factor in that the students can sell their apps. Something that was *far* more difficult to do in the not so distant pass. Apple also lowered the barrier to reaching a large consumer market.
Apple took the first step; Google took the next step by lowering it further.
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The less roadblocks you have to development, the faster that cash comes in.
Apple are resting on their laurels. They've done good and have come out of nowhere to dominate the market ... but Android is still outselling them. Wow. 4 million iPhone 4S sold .. who's willing to bet that will be a significant number of the total sales?
If Apple had complete faith in their product they wouldn't be trying to hamstring Samsung and Android. iPhones and iPads are cool and sexy today, that's no guarantee of future success. Ask Sony/Ericsson and Nokia, both headed for the bin heap of commodi
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Wow. 4 million iPhone 4S sold .. who's willing to bet that will be a significant number of the total sales?
Considering that Apple sold over 13 million of the old iPhones in just the last three months, I'll take that bet
If Apple had complete faith in their product they wouldn't be trying to hamstring Samsung and Android.
Absolutely. Because when you have complete faith in your product, you don't care if someone tries to rip it off. It's times like this I wish Slashdot had a :rolleyes: emoticon.
------RM
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Yes, because a profit seeking entity making 66% of all mobile phone profit worldwide is "failing".
http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/apple-captured-two-thirds-of-available-mobile-phone-profits-in-q2/ [asymco.com]
And before you reply with the usual slashdot retort about de
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Wow. What reality are you in? It sure isn't this one!
You have no clue at all.
Android devices are doing remarkably well, and I welcome that, but my goodness you're wide of the mark on Apple's prospects and endeavour.
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In a fantasy, sure. Reality is never so simplistic and it makes you look ignorant to suggest that it is.
I've written my own OS and apps for it, there are 0 road blocks in my way ... and not surprisingly, 0 income from it.
Somebody else can do all the work and hand you an absolutely flawless piece of perfectly functioning software and it still won't sell if no one wants it or it runs on a device that no one owns.
You can put all sorts of road blocks in front of me and it'll still be more profitable than no ro
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You have no clue. What developers care most about is how much profit is there to make.
RIM builds a failing platform, and an acquisition won't change that, nor does your 'openness' - the only thing who can change that are consumers, and they care about UX, not features.
But give it one thing that it does well, that people like and they remain with a seat in the big game. Otherwise they are as doomed as Nokia.
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I agree that what developers (companies, not always individuals) care most about is being able to make a profit on their investment. And on that front iOS wins, because they provide the best app store, and have trained millions of users to pay for software.
This is as distinct from the Android store, which is not as good, and which sells far less software per person.
But a close second (first for many individuals) is how easy it is to write software for the platform. As an extreme example, iOS is very easy to
source request... (Score:3)
I have heard this 1% > $1000 several times, although I have yet to hear a reputable source for this statistic. Apple doesn't give out such stats, at least as far as I can tell. Who provides this metric? Competitors marketing slides don't count.
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