I'm a techie. I use a mac. I have an iPhone. I love the devices I have from apple.
Apple's strategy is not one of creating hardware. It isn't one of creating software. It's one of creating a digital ecosystem which interoperates with almost magical fluidity.
I'd consider myself to be in the top percentile in terms of technical ability worldwide - fine, sounds like bragging, but there are precious few people on this earth who know code from machine to assembly to a few dozen high-level languages, and also know how to build large, highly redundant and highly available systems. I know others like me - and the vast majority of them use apple hardware and software for their daily computing needs.
The reason? When you're ascending, and you're in that top 5%, you're still at the point where you want to tinker with everything. You want to switch motherboards. You want to upgrade your graphics card. You want to build a custom firmware for your phone just because. Eventually, you master those skills, and you move on - you move into industry, or you move into an area of expertise in which you don't want to have to worry about whether you've got enough cooling on your overclocked GPU.
The point is - apple make some of the best tools out there. The iPhone just works. Sure, you can't run custom, unvetted code on there, but the code you can run on it does what it says on the can and does it damned well. Sure, upgrading a mac is a pain in the jacksie, but those elements which you'd reasonably want to upgrade within the lifecycle, you can, easily. As for reliability? In the organisation I run, we have a 50/50-ish split between commodity hardware (think dell) and apple machines. The overall failure rate is roughly even between the two, and given that all of the macs are laptops, I think it's a fair cop.
Summary: apple make tools. They make tools which work for everybody from total noobs to über-leets. Plenty of people don't get this. One day they will. Therefore this doesn't matter.
There are a lot of anecdotal evidences supporting your arguments.
Most of us agree that some of the Mac computers are a benchmark for buying PCs. I personally think MacOS is a fantastic OS.
BUT the core argument here is regarding iPhone and what I think as a downside to buying it like its markets policies, objective-c, hurdle to develop an application in my PC. And why buying Android makes it more appealing to developers like me. I love my custom hardware, I love the ability to develop application that I want and just run it, I love interfacing Android to my Arduino, I love running my friends hacks on my Android.
1. You claim the reason why vast majority of proficient system designers use Apple because the designers would somehow not want custom hardware even if he is displeased with the product and would find such a task of customizing worrisome. The only user statistics you provide for such a claim is from the pool of your friends.
2. Then you go on to say Apple makes the "best tools out there" because "iPhone just works". Like they say define "works". I think no designer is all knowing to encompass every user base out there. That is why you have customizations, extension techniques and abstraction layers. The language layer extension is a amazing abstraction. You agree that "You can't run custom, unvetted code on there". For some of us that is a HUGE deal. My friends and I write apps all the time. Imagine a device that is packed with a good processor, a camera, bluetooth, touch screen, accelerometer, compass, runs on Linux and can connect to the Internet. It has an open source SDK, open source OS, open source VM. Fuck how could you NOT want to tinker with them? Sorry I degrade to emotional arguments. But seriously, this is a HUGE aspect of it.
3. "you can run on it does what it says on the can and does it damned well." Well so far what you have wanted it to do has been fulfilled and never had a need for extension. Maybe there were times when you thought of improving something but just let that thought pass. What it says on the can is a phone but we all agree it is more than that. It is a freaking powerful computing system.
4. You then argue for system reliability by comparing Macs with Dell PCs. I can't speak for either but can you make such generalizations on iPhone vs Android phones?
5. Then you ended up with what made me write this long rant. "Plenty of people don't get this. One day they will. Therefore this doesn't matter." I would argue that most of the people who buy iPhone would never be excited from the things I can do on Android. I would trade all of that "apple experience" to what I can do on Droid. Man you should really see what this shit is actually capable of. If you are still into hacking, you will have tons of fun.
I majored in electrical and telecommunication engineering in my undegraduate and I went to grad school in order to study computer science. I too understand the computer system abstraction layers and appreciate a good stack.
Right - but I think you may have slightly missed my point.
You're weighing the iPhone against android - they're similar devices, but with significantly different philosophies. My point is that apple's devices appeal to people who want to use them simply as tools to achieve a task. Android is bloody fantastic, as is arduino - and they aren't going to go anywhere, and you're going to be able to tinker on them 'til kingdom come.
Apple do things their way, because they can - and it's a philosophy that works very well for them, and so long as there are other, open, devices, I don't see how apple's design and market philosophy is any hurdle to innovation.
Also - I'm not talking about my friends (although plenty of them are), I'm talking about well known, well respected, extremely proficient industry leaders.
Apple's strategy is not one of creating hardware. It isn't one of creating software. It's one of creating a digital ecosystem which interoperates with almost magical fluidity.
I'd consider myself to be in the top percentile in terms of technical ability worldwide - fine, sounds like bragging, but there are precious few people on this earth who know code from machine to assembly to a few dozen high-level languages, and also know how to build large, highly redundant and highly available systems. I know others like me - and the vast majority of them use apple hardware and software for their daily computing needs.
The reason? When you're ascending, and you're in that top 5%, you're still at the point where you want to tinker with everything. You want to switch motherboards. You want to upgrade your graphics card. You want to build a custom firmware for your phone just because. Eventually, you master those skills, and you move on - you move into industry, or you move into an area of expertise in which you don't want to have to worry about whether you've got enough cooling on your overclocked GPU.
The point is - apple make some of the best tools out there. The iPhone just works. Sure, you can't run custom, unvetted code on there, but the code you can run on it does what it says on the can and does it damned well. Sure, upgrading a mac is a pain in the jacksie, but those elements which you'd reasonably want to upgrade within the lifecycle, you can, easily. As for reliability? In the organisation I run, we have a 50/50-ish split between commodity hardware (think dell) and apple machines. The overall failure rate is roughly even between the two, and given that all of the macs are laptops, I think it's a fair cop.
Summary: apple make tools. They make tools which work for everybody from total noobs to über-leets. Plenty of people don't get this. One day they will. Therefore this doesn't matter.