Re: [Fed-Talk] ADC benefits
Re: [Fed-Talk] ADC benefits
- Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] ADC benefits
- From: "Michael Pike" <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 13:32:46 -0700
Amanda:
You said it perfect... I have no complaints on the support we get for released stuff, what I do have complaints about is the stuff that isn't released.
Unfortunately, we are not close to Apple's HQ, so we have a lab of our own stuff going back to the G4.... then the G5, and now all current Intel machines.... we only support the latest Apple build for several reasons.. 1) when apple releases something, it's usually amazing enough that we don't want to support older stuff, and 2) supporting the different OS's without the ability to roll back images (IE VMWare, Parallels) on OS X makes it too much trouble to deal with.
We are not a high security agency... so our needs are different than yours... but the one thing that really, really, REALLY pissed me off about ADC was this:
Notice how iTunes, iLife, etc all have a cool new "smooth grey look".... open iTunes and compare it to Safari (brushed metal)... everything apple is releasing has this "new look"... so it's a no brainer than Leopard is going to use this as a default look...
While at ADC ($1500 to Apple, plus a couple grand for travel, hotel, etc), I ask an engineer in the X-Code lab, "Hey, how do we make that cool new "smooth" look?"... his reply, "We cannot give you that information."
Case in point, before Vista was RTM, we asked MS how to make a certain transparent look..."Oh, that's easy, just do this, this and this... you need to load this first though."
Notice how Zune had accessories available from Griffin and other suppliers the DAY the Zune went on sale? That's because MS gives them access to material before the street date.... when the video ipod came out... nobody had anything because Apple wouldn't let the info out. When the (hopefully) new video iPod comes out at Macworld, nobody will have any accessories because of this.
Case in point, is Apple loses out, because last year when the video ipod came out, I bought it immediately... I could not use it for three weeks waiting for ZCover to come out with a case... as much as I will want to buy the new ipod if it's released, instead of doing it immediately, I will wait until accessories are available so I do not run into the same thing.
There are two Apple engineers that I work with, and they have went far beyond what they had to to help us with certain GUI elements, and it is really because of those two that we were able to do a lot of things that we would not have otherwise been able to do.
mike
On 1/1/07, Amanda Walker <email@hidden> wrote:
On Jan 1, 2007, at 5:11 AM, Marko Kostyrko wrote:
> The chance to play with everything is something that we recommend
> to any developers working in Mac OS X.
Compatibility labs are great for stuff that's already released, yes.
ADC has great benefits for developers when it comes to anything
that's been released. It has OK benefits for OS seed releases, and
zero benefits for either hardware seeding or features that are being
withheld from seed releases (if these get seeded outside of Apple at
all, it's on a case by case basis). For consumer products, this is
not a huge deal, but for either enterprise products or products which
have to hook in at low levels (kauth, spotlight, authentication &
access control, etc.) it's not great. For those types of products,
I've found that the most effective approach is to find individual
Apple engineers and buy them beer (or whatever their favorite vice
is). For those outside the Bay area, coding kitchens are good for
this, as is WWDC and to a small extent MacWorld.
One of the differences between Apple's marketing strategy and
Microsoft's is that Apple's is based on novelty (not unreasonably,
since consumers' attention is mostly attracted by novelty), which
Microsoft's is based on incremental, predictable improvement (puts
consumers to sleep, but makes IT managers and enterprise/government
purchasers a lot happier).
Amanda Walker
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