The iPhone is not a new invention, but Apple makes smartphones cool.
The problem here is that as soon as the suits discover it, the cool factor will vanish. I still remember one of these analysts talking about the iBook tangerine saying something like: who wants a laptop with a handle? Or a laptop that is tangerine? These guys just don't get it. And thats why either apple will not dominate because the suits don't buy it, or apple will cease to be cool.
Well, I don't see the point with objective-C at all (and besides, whatever it is, its not a fast language and its not easy, especially not the api and also not the documentation of the api.).
I have a hard time believing that a platform that doesn't allow for beige boxes and software (ahem) sharing can become dominant. I can see the iPhone making a mint, defining the future mobile platform even -- kind of like the Apple II and the Mac back in the day. But to dominate, you need to have the cheapskates on board.
A lot of people seem to make the argument that Apple can never win this market because they aren't cheap enough. But saying that makes the fundamental assumption that there will never be a cheap version of the iPhone platform. Similarly, it ignores the story of the iPod, which started out as a $500 mac only toy, and is now the number one music player by far. Apple is not the company it was 20 years ago.
I think that this article overlooks some of the previously discussed issues with the iPhone API. Objective C apps can only be run on Mac stuff, unlike Javascript which can be (mostly) be run on all web browsers. When Android starts supporting Objective C, then we'll talk about how Apple won.
Comparing Objective-C (which actually is a gcc supported language, and can be compiled on any platform that supports GCC -- Cocoa is what only runs on "mac stuff") to Javascript isn't fair. The discussion is about native applications, not web applications -- a more apt comparison would be to C# which only runs on "windows stuff".
No. Apples focus is on the consumer market - they have fought the war for the business customers and lost. Now they are fighting in the consumer market and making a killing.
I suppose IBM and Sun will just evaporate as people buy Xserves to run their businesses? Apple doesn't even use Objective-C 100% of the time as they can get to the libraries with C++ .
Of course Apple doesn't use Objective-C 100% of the time. Microsoft doesn't use C# all of the time either. Doing so wouldn't make sense for either company.
The author's point is not that Objective-C will be the only language that matters, it is that Objective-C is about to matter a whole lot more, because it is the only way to write native apps for the iPhone. Secondarily, he's suggesting this is a good thing because the Cocoa frameworks (note I didn't say the language) have a proven track record of allowing small teams to ship big apps that are very successful.
Interesting, but I have also read it is more difficult to code for OSX than it is for Windows, but then again, I am not a programmer, so maybe I'm not qualified to even comment. I'm just a happy OSX user, and reluctant Windows user.
The iPhone is not a new invention, but Apple makes smartphones cool.
The problem here is that as soon as the suits discover it, the cool factor will vanish. I still remember one of these analysts talking about the iBook tangerine saying something like: who wants a laptop with a handle? Or a laptop that is tangerine? These guys just don't get it. And thats why either apple will not dominate because the suits don't buy it, or apple will cease to be cool.
Well, I don't see the point with objective-C at all (and besides, whatever it is, its not a fast language and its not easy, especially not the api and also not the documentation of the api.).