Mastodon Feed: Posts

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Over time, of course, the subtler way the Android and Play teams kept the web out of the store (thanks in no small part to Apple's leadership on anti-web store policies) were allowed to play out, allowing the Java/native a wide berth on the basis of previous-year success.

And if it wasn't broken, and you could show handset activation growth and Search share wins, why would any money-oriented manager mess with that?

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

At a strategic level, the shotgun marriage for Android could be accurately described as "searchbox placement + market share".

The Androids took the market share thing _very_ seriously, while the short-term management culture of Google meant that as long as Search could get it's search bar in front of users, they didn't think much harder about the ecosystem.

Which meant Play sort of flew under the radar, as did the underhanded anti-web things the Androids demanded.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

The loathing was bi-directional, of course.

The Androids felt hard done by, with Googlers asserting that the web could be a great solution, while they struggled to keep their Linux+Java system off the fainting couch every time memory use crept up or apps became unresponsive. They had an instinctive feeling that as tough as it was to keep Java developers in line, webdevs would be incorrigible. They were not wrong, per sae, but also hated a platform they didn't own.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

For its part, the Android team played this freakout like a fiddle. In a truly ungoogly way, they demanded separate infrastructure, separate cafes, etc. etc. And they got it. There are lots of reasons to loathe Andy Rubin, but what he (and the Plus crew around the same time) helped do to the culture can't be overstated. He wanted a little kingdom to run like a petty tyrant, and he got it. Android was Not Google.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

If you were in the US in late '09 and consumed any mass media at all, you might still have dreams where Verizon flogs the Motorola Droid at you with teenage boy imagery. Real Lynx body spray territory.

That happened on the back of this same of desperation. Giving up the fundamental software stack, and doing heavy co-marketing for a single vendor's hardware launch, was not where telcos wanted to be (spoiler: still isn't, which is why we can't have nice things).

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

this isn't a new year's resolution but some time in the next few months I want to ship a major update to cursewords

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Think back with me to 2008 when Apple had launched the iPhone and Google had the struggling Android system.

This was a multiple-miracle moment: because AT&T had an exclusive w/ Apple for US iPhone distribution, every telco and handset vendor was FREAKING OUT.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

Does anybody feel like sharing any reliable sources of curated NYC cultural listings (events and openings and exhibitions type things)? I used to take pride in sifting through everything all the time but I've fallen out of practice

#brooklyn #newyork

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

This brings us to Google.

Why in the world has Google been more than complicit in nerfing the web's chances on mobile?

To answer this you need to grok that Google, like Apple and every other big company, is an agglomeration of small companies that happen to send their revenues to the same place, but probably don't have any love for each other.

And Android comes from an acquisition: Danger.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

NfNitLoop ("Cody Casterline 🏳️‍🌈") wrote:

Me: I dislike that the usual software engineer career path is to move into management. I just want to write cooode!

Also me: (leading standup today, being taskmaster, making sure we capture details into tickets, unblock people, shuffle priorities from Product Mgmt, volunteering to help other devs w/ something they're stuck on) I am actually quite good at this.

😑

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

This was *also* a bridge strategy play, FWIW. Smartphones seem ubiquitious now, and they felt like a potential future at the time, but were anything but a high-volume proposition at the iOS launch. So having first-rate access to that bridge corpus of content and apps was a massive advantage in de-risking the early iPhone which, again, was a luxury novelty.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

What Jobs et. al. *didn't* ever say (but was later confirmed in court documents) is that the reason the iOS 1.0 homescreen and first party apps weren't web based is that inside Apple, the web had already lost by the late '07 release of the iPhone.

There had been parallel tracks, and prototypes of a truly web-based OS, but they didn't launch. Cocoa was already Plan A when Jobs described the web as a "great application platform" at Moscone.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

The Mac is *still* a niche computing product to this day, and it's fascinating to me that the web continues to play this role for Apple in it's smaller business.

Then iOS happened.

Many older web developers pass down a story of how iOS isn't actually anti-web because Jobs initially pitched it as a web-first OS. As someone who was in the room for the unveil, I can tell you that was also my first impression, but it wore off a year later when iOS 2.0 launched.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

In this era (~'98-'12), the web provided a bridge over a moat formed by a competitor's proprietary stack winning through momentum and network effects. The web went "over the top" of both Macs and PCs, and while Apple desperately coveted native app builders for the Mac, was at least savvy enough to know that if it could add the universe of great web apps to the Mac experience, it would be a market-reality help at point of sale.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Apple's motives are easy to understand over the macOS -> iOS arc, as Apple is now a mobile company that happens to make computers. The A-series -> M-series chips are stunning proof of that.

But I digress.

When Apple was a niche PC maker, it needed the web as a way to help potential customers de-risk the purchase of luxury computers. While it enjoyed outsized influence, the Mac never had enough share to create a sufficiently large software ecosystem w/o the web.

/cc @chriscoyier @tomayac

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

This post from @chriscoyier (via @tomayac) frames an urgent problem I've spent many years working to solve, often with push-back from the frontend community who would variously claim that "Apple isn't anti-web" and "Google should want the web to win":

https://chriscoyier.net/2023/01/04/what-does-it-look-like-for-the-web-to-lose/

While Chris is crisp about the problem and the consequences of not solving it, he doesn't have answers for why Google and Apple act the way they do, working to snuff out the mobile web.

Allow me...

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
tomayac@toot.cafe ("Thomas Steiner :chrome:") wrote:

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
davidgerard@circumstances.run ("David Gerard") wrote:

Attachments:

• three price graph, s 1. What Bitcoiners think will happen price goes up fast, "regulation", price rises much more slowly 2. What Bitcoin critics think will happen price goes up fast, "regulation", price drops low and goes flat 3. What will actually happen price goes up, price crashes low and goes flat, then "regulation" (remote)

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io ("mekka okereke :verified:") wrote:

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

It's 2023, which means the race is on! Will Apple release iOS Push Notifications for the web before mid-April?

Hitting that mark would squeak Cupertino in below the 8-year-late line, which I'm sure would be a huge relief.

Reblogged by jeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein"):
kityates@mas.to ("Kit Yates") wrote:

Attachments:

• 1afad09e8ae289c5.jpg (remote)

Reblogged by jeffsonstein ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jonathansterne@assemblag.es ("Jonathan Sterne") wrote:

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Spotless guidance for this new year of our lord, 2015; no notes.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-reserve-fdic-and-occ-warn-banks-about-cryptocurrency-risks-11672783296?mod=djemalertNEWS

xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

rip "1899", 2022-2022

Reblogged by xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins"):
xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

Reblogged by technomancy@icosahedron.website ("tech? no! man, see..."):
t54r4n1@mspsocial.net ("pine trees (real)") wrote:

Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):
baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

Attachments:

• This is a picture of the opt-out form. "Content Analysis: Adobe may analyze your content using techniques such as machine learning (e.g. for Pattern recognition) to develop and improve our products and services. If you prefer that Adobe not analyze your files to develop and improve our products and services, you can opt out of content analysis at any time. This setting does not apply in certain limited circumstances." (remote)

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

Ask me questions about photoreceptor evolution at 2pm Central today!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/01/04/photoreceptor-evolution/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhexF9rEo-M

xor@tech.intersects.art ("Parker Higgins") wrote:

@darius just as a continuing data point: fedimonster got this instance upgraded to 1.1.0 overnight with seemingly no issues

Reblogged by lloydmeta ("Lloyd"):
molly0xfff@hachyderm.io ("Molly White") wrote:

Attachments:

• A post on Web3 is Going Just Great, titled "Doodled Dragons takes at least $30,000 after tweeting "our charity will instead now be... my bank account"". There is a yellow star icon at the top right indicating that it is a starred post. (remote)
• A screenshot of the header of Web3 is Going Just Great, with an arrow pointing to the checkbox in the filterbar allowing people to see starred posts. (remote)