Apple acquires app testing and advertising company Burstly

2»

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 36
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    To me, its a great sign that I usually have never heard of the companies that apple buys. It means their purchases are based on deep, intelligent research on what best serves their needs, and not name recognition.
  • Reply 22 of 36
    I am now a bit worried about TestFlight. It's a very popular tool and it is indispensable in the software production cycle of many developers including me.
    I hope Apple will integrate the platform with Dev portal and Xcode and not abandon it.
  • Reply 23 of 36
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    earl gray wrote: »
    I am now a bit worried about TestFlight. It's a very popular tool and it is indispensable in the software production cycle of many developers including me.
    I hope Apple will integrate the platform with Dev portal and Xcode and not abandon it.

    Presumably integration is the reason to buy them. So life should get easier. Now they need increase the 100 device limit.
  • Reply 24 of 36
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    asdasd wrote: »
    Seriously most people in Apple should be better than app devs as most people write code to a much higher standard and at a much lower level. The problem for everybody is that OS devs are not that common. And the best apple devs are calling in rich.

    Brichter helped build/design iPhone OS 1.0 when he worked at Apple. He's the top dog.
  • Reply 25 of 36
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    foad wrote: »
    Mike Matas as well as a few other folks from PPP worked at Apple before.

    I know the whole story. The Steve Jobs threats. The fact that Apple ripped his app off with iBooks Author. If Facebook acquired his company long after Jobs died Apple could have got him.
  • Reply 26 of 36
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    ireland wrote: »
    Brichter helped build/design iPhone OS 1.0 when he worked at Apple. He's the top dog.
    Bas Ording also worked on iOS but he left Apple last year.
  • Reply 27 of 36
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    asdasd wrote: »
    Instagram is about talking to a web service and getting back text and pictures, and it's pretty slow at doing that. It's like my first App by the standards of most Apple engineers.

    Exaggerate much? Instagram was more than a my first app project, dude. It was a great social network until its dick owner sold out to Zuck and ruined the exclusive nature of it. If Apple had have acquired Instagram instead at the time or sooner for $1B and plugged the app and its "secure" network of the then 30,000,000 people right into the Photos app that would have kicked ass!! And that "square" aspect ratio in Camera would now be called Instagram. All that would be better for iOS than the current setup we have. Built right into iOS the network would probably have more than its current 150M actively monthly users, and the general quality of user and photography would be better too. That's what I'd have loved Instagram to have been and that's why I wish Apple would have acquired them. And for Apple it would make the iPhone even more appealing.
  • Reply 28 of 36
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    Oh yeah. Bas is Mr Aqua, Mr OS X, probably lead designer on iOS. Did he leave because of the flatness?
  • Reply 29 of 36
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    ireland wrote: »
    Exaggerate much? Instagram was more than a my first app project, dude. It was a great social network until its dick owner sold out to Zuck and ruined the exclusive nature of it. If Apple had have acquired Instagram instead at the time or sooner for $1B and plugged the app and its "secure" network of the then 30,000,000 people right into the photos app the Photos app would kick apps. And that "square" aspect ratio in Camera would now be called Instagram. All that would be better for iOS than the current setup we have.

    I was talking about the level of engineering challenge involved - since you were talking about hiring great devs. Great devs are often anonymous, no kernel engineer or assembly programmer is going to be as famous as a shiny app. But the main thing that Instagram does is talk to a web service, parse the JSON or XML, display in a list and show pictures. Which isn't rocket science. To my mind it does that very badly. But that may be a design consideration ( the app would be much faster if it quickly downloaded less quality images and then, when scrolling stops, update the images to higher quality.).

    It has marketing genius and clout, no real software or design talent.
  • Reply 30 of 36
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    asdasd wrote: »
    It has marketing genius and clout, no real software or design talent.

    The end user doesn't even know what code is. I was referring to UI, design, concept, idea, and the certain je ne sais quoi the network had all the while it was iOS exclusive. That was a company, feature and exclusive network I think Apple should have acted upon. In terms of good engineering I wasn't really pointing to Instagram for that. Mike Mathas? Brichter? Now you're talkin'. But I'm speaking more to design than anything.
  • Reply 31 of 36
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,804member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by asdasd View Post



    Oh yeah. Bas is Mr Aqua, Mr OS X, probably lead designer on iOS. Did he leave because of the flatness?

     

    Flatness has been a dud so far, at least it isn't Ribbons.

  • Reply 32 of 36
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,804member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Slurpy View Post



    To me, its a great sign that I usually have never heard of the companies that apple buys. It means their purchases are based on deep, intelligent research on what best serves their needs, and not name recognition.

     

    Apple over year's have bought companies that fit into a existing on going project, they don't seem to buy companies just for the sake of buying them, and then try to fit them in afterwards, that's why there won't be any big wasteful billion dollar acquisitions. Unless it's Tesla.

  • Reply 33 of 36
    "....terminating TestFlight's Android support and deprecating access.."

    Music to my ears
  • Reply 34 of 36
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    sailorpaul wrote: »
    "....terminating TestFlight's Android support and deprecating access.."

    Music to my ears

    Less important to android devs as they can just send their apks by email. However if google bought these guys iOS devs would have been shagged.
  • Reply 35 of 36
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    asdasd wrote: »
    Oh yeah. Bas is Mr Aqua, Mr OS X, probably lead designer on iOS. Did he leave because of the flatness?
    No idea. According to his linked in profile he was at Apple for 15 years so maybe he just wanted to do something different.
  • Reply 36 of 36
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    slurpy wrote: »
    To me, its a great sign that I usually have never heard of the companies that apple buys. It means their purchases are based on deep, intelligent research on what best serves their needs, and not name recognition.
    It seems like Apple buys technology based on future plans but the technology gets integrated into an Apple designed solution. They don't say "here's a hole we have so let's buy company X to fill that hole". Google does that all the time. Apple rarely, if ever buys a company because just to eliminate a competitor. That's clearly what Facebook did with Whatsapp. I think it's quite remarkable that Apple has become the most valuable company in the world without ever making a large acquisition. Everything they've done for the most part has been organic.

    All the Wall Street types screaming for Apple to spend $$$ on some large acquisition are just looking for some short term growth without thinking about how difficult it is to integrate large companies and especially how difficult it would be to integrate into Apple's org structure and culture. Not many large companies are organized functionally. If Apple was like a typical large company, Mac, iPhone and iPad would all be their own divisions with their own hardware, software, marketing, etc. leaders and their own P&L ownership. In the case of Apple it's one set of functional leaders who have ownership across product lines. Very difficult to integrate another large company into a setup like that.
Sign In or Register to comment.