Book sales mark shift toward Mac, iPhone development

[AppleInsider]

Retail book sales indicate the market for computer books has experienced a steady decline since the middle of 2008, with subjects related to Mac and iPhone development showing solid growth amid an otherwise morose outlook.

A report on the computer book market, published by O'Reilly's Mike Hendrickson and based on Nielsen Bookscan retail sales data, reflects the overall status of the computer industry itself and the economy in general. Hendrickson described the report as "lots of bad news peppered with small glimmers of hope."

Growth in Mac programming book sales
Within the top 121 categories of computer books, the report cited only 8 subject areas that could claim a year over year increase in sales during the first six months of 2009.

Within that short list of recession-defying growth was Mac programming, Objective C, online video, mobile programming, and open source topics, providing additional evidence of the significant shift in interest toward iPhone development. While none of those growth categories could claim a place within the top twenty in terms of units sold, the historically popular subjects all experienced major declines.

The data showed that books related to 'Windows consumer' experienced the greatest decline year over year. Sales of books on the Mac OS also fell significantly, although the market for Mac-releated books is and continues to be significantly greater than half as large as the market for Windows books, a sharp discrepancy from published market share figures of actual PC sales, where Macs account for less than ten percent of US sales.

Objective C takes off
At the same time, interest in Objective C, the language used to develop both iPhone apps and Mac programs, has grown dramatically from a "a small (low unit sales) language into a large (high units sales) language," Hendrickson wrote.

Apple's unique use of the Objective C language has tended to isolate Mac development in contrast with more mainstream computer languages such as Java or C++/C#, despite Objective C being a superset of C that many programmers claim is relatively easy to learn. Mac applications can also be written using more common languages such as Java or plain C, although some knowledge of Objective C is needed to make full use of the Mac's Cocoa frameworks.

On the iPhone however, Apple has made Objective C the required development language, and has taken steps to prevent third parties from installing alternative runtimes. This complicates efforts to simply port over existing Java apps, for example, requiring developers to get familiar with Apple's own Xcode environment and the standard but often less familiar Objective C language.

Without an installed base of millions of eager software buyers using the iPhone and iPod touch, Apple's Objective C iPhone development strategy would likely have dampened developer interest outside of core Mac developers already familiar with the language, the same way Apple's very novel development environment for the 1994 Newton Message Pad, which was not even familiar to Mac developers, appeared to stifle interest in writing apps for it, which in turn did nothing to induce additional device sales.

In contrast, the blockbuster sales of iPhone mobile apps through iTunes, protected from rampant piracy by DRM and accelerated by Apple's efforts to actively push software sales at low "impulse buy" prices, have resulted in launching book sales of Objective C in the first half of 2009 past sales of C/C++ and JavaScript, and nearly as high as the three leading languages in front of it in terms of book sales: C#, Java, and PHP.

Objective C is becoming a hot programming language. | Image credit: O'Reilly.

In creating a new generation of Objective C programmers with the iPhone, Apple is also widening the audience of developers qualified to write native Mac applications, which use identical development tools and very similar frameworks to those used to build iPhone apps.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[neiltc13]

Will this website's editors ever stop slinging mud at Microsoft?

[Prince]

Originally Posted by iPhone1982

.You left out the most important part of the O'Reilly article that makes this article irrelevant"

The numbers presented are in comparison with the same numbers for the same market a year ago, not in contrast with unknown figures for the entire market of books sold. So yes, the large shift indicated in that change is very relevant.

[Prince]

Originally Posted by neiltc13

Will this website's editors ever stop slinging mud at Microsoft?

By "slinging mud" do you mean reporting relevant facts that are unflattering to Microsoft?

Are you from the Ministry of Truth? Should we bend facts and lie to make it sound like Microsoft is doing better than it is? Would that comfort you, or simply misinform readers?

[Damn_Its_Hot]

Originally Posted by neiltc13

Will this website's editors ever stop slinging mud at Microsoft?

I give up - where is the mudslinging at Microsoft? Did I miss something? (Would not be the first time.)
I guess there is a ref to C#.

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by iPhone1982

. ... You left out the most important part of the O'Reilly article that makes this article irrelevant ... I'd call 50% scew of numbers more than "A Little Disclaimer Material"

This is a ridiculous argument.

The "missing" numbers you talk about would either contain the same data, or they would be skewed by what is being *taught* at major Universities (American Colleges), as opposed to what is popular, which is what the article attempts to describe. The University I work at teaches a lot of computer language and programming stuff that has nothing to do with today's market as I'm sure most do. The issue is what is selling and what is popular now, to people in the real world.

Nothing about your "disclaimer" means anything in the context of the article. Maybe that's why it was excluded?

[MacTel]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

In creating a new generation of Objective C programmers with the iPhone, Apple is also widening the audience of developers qualified to write native Mac applications, which use identical development tools and very similar frameworks to those used to build iPhone apps.

That is true but in practice I believe those developers prefer to develop for a stable mobile platform. What I mean by stable is that all the iPhone and iPod Touch devices have similar base hardware whereas the Mac lines do not. Varying graphic cards, displays and major versions of OSX require extra development to keep-up with. The iPhone OS is simpler to develop for and support.

[aaronsullivan]

Originally Posted by MacTel

That is true but in practice I believe those developers prefer to develop for a stable mobile platform. What I mean by stable is that all the iPhone and iPod Touch devices have similar base hardware whereas the Mac lines do not. Varying graphic cards, displays and major versions of OSX require extra development to keep-up with. The iPhone OS is simpler to develop for and support.

Unless you are talking about games development, most of that stuff hardly matters. Someone who knows how to program for the iPhone is now ready to easily transition to developing for Mac OS X computers. It's a major boon for Cocoa and Objective-C and ultimately Apple's OS platforms now and future. The rumored tablet, for instance, seems like it will be using another different flavor of Mac OS again, but you can bet that programs will be developed the same way.

Just sayin'.

[God of Biscuits]

Actually, the line that makes this article difficult to swallow is the assumption that just because you know how to program in Objective C....that you can be an iPhone dev or by extension, a Mac dev.

There are a lot of crap UIs out there on a lot of crap iPhone apps, and I'd be dollars to doughnuts that most of those come from people who never developed on a Mac before.

You have to acquire more than programming skills to be a good iPhone developer or Mac developer: you have to acquire the culture and the understanding of the expectations of the Mac user.

[iPeon]

Originally Posted by iPhone1982

You left out the most important part of the O'Reilly article that makes this article irrelevant

Heh. Funny to see you guys squirm.

PS: By "you guys", I mean, you that feels so very threaten (or jealous) by Apple's success.

[jfanning]

Originally Posted by Prince

The numbers presented are in comparison with the same numbers for the same market a year ago, not in contrast with unknown figures for the entire market of books sold. So yes, the large shift indicated in that change is very relevant.

So what you are saying is, you are only interesting in the numbers that help you make a point, not the 50% of numbers which may prove your arguement wrong?

[jrandersoniii]

It is too bad iPhone development book authors did not maximize the pre-release time for revamping existing books for iPhone OS 3.0. I have a couple books at home, and made it through about half way of each book, but now it is difficult to work through some of the exercises because of the changes. Not trying to be an expert developer, but was having fun playing with the phone at the programming end. Now it is just frustrating.

[iPeon]

Originally Posted by MacTel

That is true but in practice I believe those developers prefer to develop for a stable mobile platform. What I mean by stable is that all the iPhone and iPod Touch devices have similar base hardware whereas the Mac lines do not. Varying graphic cards, displays and major versions of OSX require extra development to keep-up with. The iPhone OS is simpler to develop for and support.

You are missing the point. The iPhone is creating (bringing in) new developers to the platform (OS X). People who never used OS X, will now see what it can do compared to Windows. Interest to then develop for the Mac will follow.

[dasein]

Originally Posted by jrandersoniii

It is too bad iPhone development book authors did not maximize the pre-release time for revamping existing books for iPhone OS 3.0. I have a couple books at home, and made it through about half way of each book, but now it is difficult to work through some of the exercises because of the changes. Not trying to be an expert developer, but was having fun playing with the phone at the programming end. Now it is just frustrating.

True, but that's the nature of a fast-moving beast. Try: http://apress.com/book/view/1430224592
Well written and released a few weeks ago.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by iPhone1982

.

You left out the most important part of the O'Reilly article that makes this article irrelevant



I'd call 50% scew of numbers more than "A Little Disclaimer Material"

Can you show that the other 50% is markedly different from the published figures?

If not, then the safest take is that it's about the same.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by neiltc13

Will this website's editors ever stop slinging mud at Microsoft?

Can you show what "mud" was slung? Other than published numbers, I don't see anything wrong.

If a PC centric site said that Windows book sales were almost twice as large as that for the Mac, and it showed a strong preference for Windows amongst buyers, would you have accused them of slinging mud at Apple?

[Robin Huber]

Originally Posted by neiltc13

Will this website's editors ever stop slinging mud at Microsoft?

Not speaking to the validity of your accusation, but come on. Microsoft fans danced on Apple's grave mercilessly during the years Apple was down. They made a fine art of it. It was not fun for us. Can't you let us have just a little satisfaction now that we are rolling in cash and popularity while MS is looking like the "sick man" of the computer industry?

[melgross]

Originally Posted by MacTel

That is true but in practice I believe those developers prefer to develop for a stable mobile platform. What I mean by stable is that all the iPhone and iPod Touch devices have similar base hardware whereas the Mac lines do not. Varying graphic cards, displays and major versions of OSX require extra development to keep-up with. The iPhone OS is simpler to develop for and support.

It's not that difficult. A long time ago when the Mac only had 512 x 340, and higher rez screens came about with the introduction of the Mac II, there was a problem, because developers had written for the one rez. Their programs showed up as a window in a blank screen surrounding it.

But once the methods and API's for variable rez screens came out, it made life much easier.

In addition, Apple has always had a central "clearing post" for graphics and video, unlike MS, where every program had to have separate drivers for every video card available.

We now have major versions for the iPhone as well, and are beginning to have major versions of the hardware as well.

That's to be expected, and guess what? Developers will manage just fine.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by jfanning

So what you are saying is, you are only interesting in the numbers that help you make a point, not the 50% of numbers which may prove your arguement wrong?

Or which may make the argument even stronger. You don't know.

Besides, he's right. It's a measurement from year to year of the same data points.

So you're saying, without any evidence, that these stats mean nothing because they're in Apple's favor and you don't like that?

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by MacTel

That is true but in practice I believe those developers prefer to develop for a stable mobile platform. What I mean by stable is that all the iPhone and iPod Touch devices have similar base hardware whereas the Mac lines do not. Varying graphic cards, displays and major versions of OSX require extra development to keep-up with. The iPhone OS is simpler to develop for and support.

By this logic, no one should want to develop for Windows at all since Windows runs on almost any kind of hardware.



Also,I don't think you really understand how the X-Code development tools work. I'm not even a developer and even I know that different graphics cards are not an issue unless you are doing games development and want access to the bleeding edge capabilities of said cards. The system handles the graphics coding for you in most situations.

[Synotic]

Originally Posted by jfanning

So what you are saying is, you are only interesting in the numbers that help you make a point, not the 50% of numbers which may prove your arguement wrong?

I wouldn't say that just because we're comparing a certain data point (computer books sold in retail stores and Amazon) invalidates his argument; it just constricts it. Even if we had the "full 100-percent," however you might define it, it might still likely be missing sales from say PDFs, Safari Tech Books, and used bookstores.

The thrust of his argument is simply that books about Objective-C have gone up roughly 500% while most other languages have gone down (the major exceptions being PHP and ActionScript). That this accounts for roughly 50% of recorded sales and we have comparative numbers, year-over-year for the past few years makes it an interesting data point. Or at least interesting enough for O'Reilly Mike Hendrickson to write about.

You could make the argument that the direct sales are dramatically different from the sales through Amazon and Barnes and Noble (and other retail stores). That Mac Programming barely moved and that spreadsheets accounted for the majority of sales. Although I personally would doubt this (and I don't have the data to back it up, although I did just recently purchase a Cocoa book from a direct sale, which wouldn't have been in these numbers), even if it were the case, it wouldn't make this article or the original blog post any less interesting or relevant. It's just one (of many) factors that can be considered when evaluating Cocoa development platform.

[MacTripper]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

In creating a new generation of Objective C programmers with the iPhone, Apple is also widening the audience of developers qualified to write native Mac applications, which use identical development tools and very similar frameworks to those used to build iPhone apps.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

Well now it's time for Apple to port these iPhone apps over to Mac OS X and for these reasons.


1: The App Store is flooded, there are too many apps and competition just got a whole lot worse with the big 3D gaming boys jumping in to boost their sagging sales. Too many fish in the pond and not enough food, developers are going to start dropping out due to lackluster sales or begin eating each other.

2: A Mac has a heck of a lot more capability than a iPhone, therefore the apps can be expanded and even work with the same iPhone apps. Perhaps even Xgriding with the at home Mac to run more powerful programs.

3: Trends, something is hot for only so long. It's obvious the higher sales of iPhone app related books means the trend is near it's peak and about to fall, unless there is a Next Step in hardware to keep people interested and buying.


Me, I am personally totally fscking sick and tired of the iPhone and I won't go into reasons why I haven't gotten one as not to be trollish. But then again, I am someone who tends to be right on the edge of new things.

The iPhone has matured, it's not going to get substantially any better than what you see currently. It's done. It's time for a New Device to cart those App Store developers over and build on their programs.

This New Device will have to solve a need, make things easier or cheaper and cause a "must have: atmosphere.


The Mac needs help, it needs to evolve to put PC's in their grave. And it needs to get rid of the annoying reflective screens.

[badNameErr]

Originally Posted by Prince

By "slinging mud" do you mean reporting relevant facts that are unflattering to Microsoft?

Are you from the Ministry of Truth? Should we bend facts and lie to make it sound like Microsoft is doing better than it is? Would that comfort you, or simply misinform readers?

No, the problem is that people come to this site for Apple news. Not to read about MS. Seriously, I really couldn't care if MS is up or down. They just aren't on MY radar. But AI seems to have this constant obsession with them. This article (like most on AI) would be so much better off without a mention of MS. When your articles mention MS it just comes off as fanboy bitterness. Seriously, we won, and MS is the past: let it go.

BTW, you state that

"....Mac applications, which use identical development tools and very similar frameworks to those used to build iPhone apps."

This is a little bit of a stretch. FoundationKit is very similar between the iPhone and Mac but AppKit is completely different to UIKit. They share some conceptual similarities but that's about it. I wouldn't call them "very similar". Maybe just "similar".

Just a minor quibble.
All the best.

[jfanning]

Originally Posted by melgross

Or which may make the argument even stronger. You don't know.

Besides, he's right. It's a measurement from year to year of the same data points.

So you're saying, without any evidence, that these stats mean nothing because they're in Apple's favor and you don't like that?

No I didn't say that, what I said was, he is using a subset of data which correctly proves his point, it is that 50% unknown that I don't like. Since 66% of my computers are Macs I am more than happy if more people are wanting to develop for OS X.

[mdriftmeyer]

How about showing a readable chart?

[MacTel]

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

By this logic, no one should want to develop for Windows at all since Windows runs on almost any kind of hardware.



Also,I don't think you really understand how the X-Code development tools work. I'm not even a developer and even I know that different graphics cards are not an issue unless you are doing games development and want access to the bleeding edge capabilities of said cards. The system handles the graphics coding for you in most situations.

No the unsaid logic is that Windows has 90% of the market and DirectX that helps in game development. And yes I am referring to game development which we all know is lacking on the Mac and has not bled over from the iPhone market despite over a year of an iPhone SDK that has allowed devs to make apps on the iPhone OS.

Yes, I understand how the Xcode IDE works just as much as Visual Studio as, guess what, I am a developer. Making a windowed productivity application is much different than making a game. Again, the hardware on the iPhone makes it easier. There are no minimum requirements on the iPhone for any of the game apps but there are on Mac games and from that you've limited your market in an already small market.

If Apple had an App store for Mac games then I believe developers attitudes toward Mac development would change and they'd put in the extra effort to tweak iPhone OS games for the Mac. If Apple ever updates the AppleTV to play games then I think we'll see this happen.

[addabox]

Originally Posted by badNameErr

No, the problem is that people come to this site for Apple news. Not to read about MS. Seriously, I really couldn't care if MS is up or down. They just aren't on MY radar. But AI seems to have this constant obsession with them. This article (like most on AI) would be so much better off without a mention of MS. When your articles mention MS it just comes off as fanboy bitterness. Seriously, we won, and MS is the past: let it go.

BTW, you state that

This is a little bit of a stretch. FoundationKit is very similar between the iPhone and Mac but AppKit is completely different to UIKit. They share some conceptual similarities but that's about it. I wouldn't call them "very similar". Maybe just "similar".

Just a minor quibble.
All the best.

Huh. The only thing I can find in the article that even mentions MS is a passing reference to the fact that the original source being cited notes that books about the Windows consumer experience showed the steepest declines. Since the whole article is about relative changes in retail computer book sales, noting the segment of biggest decline seems fairly pertinent.

How we get from there to bitter fanboy MS bashing or evidence of an obsession escapes me.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by badNameErr

No, the problem is that people come to this site for Apple news. Not to read about MS. Seriously, I really couldn't care if MS is up or down. They just aren't on MY radar. But AI seems to have this constant obsession with them. This article (like most on AI) would be so much better off without a mention of MS. When your articles mention MS it just comes off as fanboy bitterness. Seriously, we won, and MS is the past: let it go.

This IS Apple news. Do you think that everything takes place in a vacuum?

Apple is about 8.7% in the US now. Did that happen without MS losing marketshare? If the article said that Apple is up to 8.7% and MS's OS share (according to reports) is now down to a bit over 90%, then that would not be relevant? Of course it would.

So are all the articles in PC magazines about IE moving down to 66% while Firefox moves to over 20% and Safari to about 8%, unfairly mentioning MS? Or Apple? Or Mozilla?

When it's mentioned that Android has increased its worldwide smartphone OS requests (a measure of use on the internet by AdMob), and for the first time, passed Win Mobile, you think that thats an unfair mention of MS?

http://www.mobilespeedia.com/android...he-first-time/

How does one make comparisons without mentioning the thing being compared to?

[melgross]

Originally Posted by jfanning

No I didn't say that, what I said was, he is using a subset of data which correctly proves his point, it is that 50% unknown that I don't like. Since 66% of my computers are Macs I am more than happy if more people are wanting to develop for OS X.

It read that way.

We can only compare data that we have. It's significant that 50% of all computer books sold are in the report that AI used.

[timgriff84]

Im not certain this really shows anything about what developers are developing in but more about how different developers learn different platforms. I would currently expect developer text books to be in a sharp decline. Admittedly I occasionally buy text books to learn from but at the same time I know I hardly ever read them. I you want to learn to program these days you knowledge comes from internet guides, blog posts, forums etc. As far as I can the future of books in development is they will probably hang around for a long time, but its going to be more about learning for certification rather than doing some actual programming.

At least that's what its like in the MS dev world. If you want to learn ASP.NET you go to the ASP.NET website, if you want to know something about IIS you go to the IIS website and if you want to know something about Silverlight you go to the Silverlight website. Not to mention the MSDN site that basically covers anything. All have forums on which you will generally get an answer fairly quickly and definitely a lot sooner than a book arriving in the post. Not to mention its a lot easier to learn something from a video of which this site have hundreds.

The data showed that books related to 'Windows consumer' experienced the greatest decline year over year. Sales of books on the Mac OS also fell significantly, although the market for Mac-releated books is and continues to be significantly greater than half as large as the market for Windows books, a sharp discrepancy from published market share figures of actual PC sales, where Macs account for less than ten percent of US sales.

Doesn't this go against the argument that Macs are easier to use if a larger percentage of Mac users are buying books compared to PC users?

[iStevo]

Originally Posted by aaronsullivan

Unless you are talking about games development, most of that stuff hardly matters. Someone who knows how to program for the iPhone is now ready to easily transition to developing for Mac OS X computers. It's a major boon for Cocoa and Objective-C and ultimately Apple's OS platforms now and future. The rumored tablet, for instance, seems like it will be using another different flavor of Mac OS again, but you can bet that programs will be developed the same way.

Just sayin'.

Right on! I fully agree.

Apple´s strategy for the Tablet is coming along:
1. Cocoa only development for the iPhone (ARM), as mentioned in this article;
2. OS utilities and Apple Apps rewritten to use Cocoa in Snow Leopard (Intel).

This means a large base of Objective C/Cocoa developers.

And it also means that it will become much easier for Apple to develop and deploy a 4th OS platform for the upcoming Tablet (iTouch OS?), in addition to the existing iPhone OS, Mac OS X Client and Server.

All Apple will need to do is to recompile Snow Leopard using iPhone APIs targeting a PA Semi designed ARM hardware, with some tweaks, of course.

It could look like Mac OS X, but it would be fully compatible with the iPhone OS App Store applications, battery will last much longer than regular netbooks that use Atom, and lt will be able to run much more powerful games and graphics apps, well beyond what a netbook can do Today.

It would also support multitasking, multi-cores, GPU processing and would be able to run iLife, iWork and iChat, all Cocoa apps.

But those vendors that still rely on the carbon API for their Mac applications will not be able to port them to the Tablet without some hard work. Tough luck, but Apple has warned them several times!

Add to that 4th gen (LTE) mobile connectivity and a data only plan on the Telecom operator of your choice (Verizon first?), and you have a winner.

Imagine that for an Apple netbook!

A super iPod Touch (iTouch?), not a crippled notebook.

And how about using this same Tablet OS on a redesigned Apple TV, running on ARM? Running much more powerfull games, but remote controlled by your iPhone or iPod touch or Tablet? Having access to a premium App store, with more powerful apps?

It will not be a hobby anymore.

Just thinking aloud....

[Synotic]

Originally Posted by timgriff84

I you want to learn to program these days you knowledge comes from internet guides, blog posts, forums etc. As far as I can the future of books in development is they will probably hang around for a long time, but its going to be more about learning for certification rather than doing some actual programming.

I'd find this disappointing, although I don't disagree that it's true, or that it's the direction that things are going.

From what I've seen (and I'm biased), most of the crowd that "learns" from scraps of advice on blogs and reading a few overviews tend to only create what you can find on tutorials. The crazy people, the ones who are actually out there making all the tools we're using (engineers at Apple, Facebook, Google, etc...) however didn't learn this way. They either started programming when it was simpler and kept up, or learned through books and school. I don't think this is the only approach, but when you're doing things like multithreaded programming, networking (like creating Facebook chat which scales to however millions of users they have) a tutorial or two on the web isn't going to cut it.

Also I think it's important to clarify that a book isn't necessarily something you have to hold in your hand. I admittedly haven't bought as many physical computer books lately, but rather do most of my reading on a Safari Books subscription. I do think that the era of the physical book is over.

[badNameErr]

Originally Posted by addabox

How we get from there to bitter fanboy MS bashing or evidence of an obsession escapes me.

Have a quick look at the main page. Two MS articles on Friday, one more on Thursday. MS is a very regular topic on AI. I've been a regular AI reader (and a big fan of the site) for years and years and have noticed a big difference in recent months.

But perhaps that is just me. Nobody else has noticed this???

[badNameErr]

Originally Posted by melgross

How does one make comparisons without mentioning the thing being compared to?

If only that was the case - AI has been doing much more than just "comparisons" recently.

Seriously, if I want to read about how MS is doing I can read that on the PC sites - they are full of MS stories. It's not needed on AI and it isn't why I visit.

Just my 2c. This is intended to be constructive criticism, BTW.

[jfanning]

Originally Posted by melgross

It read that way.

We can only compare data that we have. It's significant that 50% of all computer books sold are in the report that AI used.

It is more significant that 50% of books are not. Without that additional data it is a waste of time trying to discuss anything here. You don't know if the drop in sales was made up with direct sales, or in fact if the people that previously gaining the information from books are now gaining the same information from online sources, or training courses.

[addabox]

Originally Posted by badNameErr

Have a quick look at the main page. Two MS articles on Friday, one more on Thursday. MS is a very regular topic on AI. I've been a regular AI reader (and a big fan of the site) for years and years and have noticed a big difference in recent months.

But perhaps that is just me. Nobody else has noticed this???

Possibly, I'd have to take a look at the types of articles over the last year or so. I was just responding to the notion that the article at hand was an example of MS bashing, which I don't think it is.

If there has been more direct references to MS, it's probably a conscious effort to drive page hits by putting up some contentious material. Seems to be working-- we have a lot more aggrieved MS apologists/Apple bashers than we used to.

If that's the case, I think it's unfortunate.

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by iPeon

You are missing the point. The iPhone is creating (bringing in) new developers to the platform (OS X). People who never used OS X, will now see what it can do compared to Windows. Interest to then develop for the Mac will follow.

Exactly right. This is yet another element in the overall alignment of planets as Apple ascends into the sky and M$ descends into the darkness (sorry I mean ... ' into the mud' just to make the writer complaining about mud slinging happy)

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by badNameErr

Have a quick look at the main page. Two MS articles on Friday, one more on Thursday. MS is a very regular topic on AI. I've been a regular AI reader (and a big fan of the site) for years and years and have noticed a big difference in recent months.

But perhaps that is just me. Nobody else has noticed this???

Perhaps it is the underlying goodness in us Apple users wishing to save the M$ folks from their awful plight coming out?

[Oh-es-Ten]

Originally Posted by Synotic

From what I've seen (and I'm biased), most of the crowd that "learns" from scraps of advice on blogs and reading a few overviews tend to only create what you can find on tutorials. The crazy people, the ones who are actually out there making all the tools we're using (engineers at Apple, Facebook, Google, etc...) however didn't learn this way. They either started programming when it was simpler and kept up, or learned through books and school. I don't think this is the only approach, but when you're doing things like multithreaded programming, networking (like creating Facebook chat which scales to however millions of users they have) a tutorial or two on the web isn't going to cut it.

I agree with you here. I am teaching myself Obj-C (coming from a web dev background in PHP) and although I could get something made fairly easily but cutting and pasting sample code from forums etc, I am starting at the beginning by learning the basics, as it is a huge change in methodology and I want to be able to see my problems without asking for help. At the moment I am using the Goldstein 'For Dummies' book which has been quite good, as well as following some of the excellent video tutorials at icodeblog. These together are making this less painful that it could be by slapping something together...

[mjtomlin]

Originally Posted by MacTel

That is true but in practice I believe those developers prefer to develop for a stable mobile platform. What I mean by stable is that all the iPhone and iPod Touch devices have similar base hardware whereas the Mac lines do not. Varying graphic cards, displays and major versions of OSX require extra development to keep-up with. The iPhone OS is simpler to develop for and support.

This is not true... OpenGL hides the underlying graphics hardware. All programmers need to do is check if "feature A" exists within the system if not, ignore those features in the game. Most graphic games are done using vector rendering with bitmap overlays for texture... this scales well across higher resolutions.