Developers turn sour on Apple iPad

Just before Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, a survey of developers by webdesktopmobile kit maker Appcelerator indicated that 90 per cent intended to build an app for the Apple tablet over the coming year. As Apple prepares to unleash the device on Saturday in the US, that number now appears to have dropped to 80 per cent. …

[heyrick]

Numerical manipulation

90 dropping to 80, 58 dropping to 53... These aren't big changes given we're talking about how many INTEND to do something. What matters isn't exit polls, but how many people ACTUALLY develop.

Fail icon, because a minor fluctuation in what hasn't happened is hardly "turning sour" on the platform. It's just an attention grabbing headline for a non-story (though thanks for the listing of support for other platforms at the end, useful to know who is where in the game).

[Eponymous Howard]

Oh look...

...hit whoring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Advert

You're not a very good sales man.

[Adam Starkey]

CocoaTouch v4?

Given that it is a pretty poorly kept secret that Apple have multitasking in the pipeline for OS4, and given that we can reasonably assume that OS4 will drop with the next generation iPhone sometime around June, this is a bit of a non-story, isn't it?

[mark.010]

Wow.

That really doesn't read like a regurgitated press-release AT ALL.

[Robbie]

Moronic article

Typical El Reg rantgasm against Apple. Four out of 5 developers, when asked, now say they are intend to develop for the iPad ... yeah, that's sounds like a fail....

[dogged]

Be fair

4 out of 5 iPhone developers. Not 4 out 5 developers. I could easily find you 100 developers with zero plans to develop for the iPad but then, that's because they write code for real systems.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Be fair

"I could easily find you 100 developers with zero plans to develop for the iPad but then, that's because they write code for real systems."

Like WIndoze?

[dogged]

Possibly

At least it permits threading and direct hardware access.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh ffs

And the shuttle allows you to fly to the moon, but if my commute is just down the road, why the hell would I take the shuttle?

This argument, "it doesn't have this or this or this" means nothing. It's what you can do with the device, and if it does those things well, then it's a good device and it doesn't matter one bit that it doesn't allow threading or direct hardware access. Not every device has to be able to make coffee *and* grind the beans *and* clean itself.

So sick and tired of all the c*ck waving around this device.

[dogged]

Hey, you started this one, sunshine.

You can call it cock-waving if you like (or "c*ck waving" if you're a Daily Mail hypocrite) but multithreading is one of the foundations of programming and systems development. To work without it is a bit like telling a blacksmith "sure, this iron is for you! Make whatever you like! But no using a hammer, okay?"

The point of systems development is to utilize the available hardware to create efficient applications. If you can't utilize that hardware, either the full capacity of the processor or the inbuilt devices on the motherboard, your options are diminished. Calling app-writers "developers" is strongly akin to calling web-designers "programmers". Neither is exactly true (although in many cases the former are subsets of the latter).

You love your iPhone. Okay. Fine. Good for you. But it isn't the Messiah, it's a feature-phone with pretensions of grandeur. Better yet, it is not, as of this time of writing, a development platform that anyone doesn't wear a roll-neck takes seriously.

[Adam T]

Spam

This article's little more than advertising for appcelerator.

The numbers are meaningless. Believe it or not, not everybody eats the same brand of cereal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Groan

What an absolute failure of a non-story. Why do you guys have it in for the iPad so much? There have already been over 1,000 iPad-only apps added to the app store before developers have even gotten their hands on the thing. Over twice as many mobile app developers have expressed an interest in developing for iPad than for Android (http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/04/02/apple-now-controls-89-of-mobile-developers-mindshare/) yet "Developers Turn Sour On The iPad"?

Your anti-Apple agenda is as bad as the fanboism on the other side. You are in danger of losing credibility as an actual news source.

[sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD]

Credibility?

Errr... I read El Reg for entertainment, mate!

Jokes aside, I have to admit, while El Reg tends to have its own slant on things (who doesn't?) they are usually quite quick off the mark to alert me to some development that interests me.

And that's what counts.

[Greg J Preece]

For. The. Last. Time.

El Reg lay into EVERYONE. Windows is continually slated as being insecure, and MS are continually berated for their crappy attitude to security updates. Apple are lambasted as the cultish fanboy club they are, with devices that are technically inferior but hyped to the point of Godhood, and the Linux sector (into which I fall) are derided for being unwashed OSS-fanatic nerdy boys. Which we are.

I have a feeling you are surfing the site on Safari.

[Daniel B.]

Fanboi fest! Yay!

Dude, chill off. The iPad devel sourness is happening with those who *aren't* already iPhone devs, which are quite a bunch of us. The iPhone's lack of multitasking isn't acceptable, but transferring this "feature" to the iPad is just downright stupid. The last portable computer I had that didn't multitask was a 386 Portable PC. Even my 1996 PalmPilot was able to multitask.

Heh, if anything, the iPad isn't being the "big hit" the iPhone was, so that should be a wake-up call for the Church of Jobs. And no, it ain't El Reg who's saying that the iPad isn't living up to the hype. Its all the other media...

[Lou Gosselin]

Multitasking

Slightly off topic, but:

"The last portable computer I had that didn't multitask was a 386 Portable PC"

Actually multitasking on the intel platform was possible on 386, which had fully functional protected and V86 modes to separate applications. It also had the necessary interrupt handling to allow the OS to switch processes preemptively.

However in those days, DOS wasn't up to the task of running applications in parallel. I guess one could say the same thing about the ipad, the hardware is ahead of apple's os.

I'd be temped to get one with linux installed.

[MD Rackham]

So says...

So Appcellerator says the drop in interest is due to lack of multitasking but offers no evidence to back that assertion up.

Are we sure that developers aren't merely discovering what a hack toolkit Appcellerator is?

But I'd guess that that possibility wasn't in the original press release this was taken from.

[Blain Hamon]

Hack toolkit engineer here

I've been working on getting 1.2 out the door, so I didn't even know of the survey. It's actually at

http://www.appcelerator.com/mobile-developer-survey/

if you're interested, but I'm guessing not. Anyways, the sample was taken from people using Titanium, so anyone abandoning Titanium wouldn't be part of the survey and it's probably likely that they'd not significantly affect the iPad numbers either way. I honestly don't know if they contacted the same people that they did in January.

[Anonymous Coward]

Skeletor Will Not Be Happy!!!!

You will buy his shiny crap and buy into the Apple "mind hive" you heathen scum!!

[Rupert Stubbs]

Oh, Lordy...

Here The Reg goes again, with yet another "Apple FAIL" story, using - yet again - the very dodgiest of statistical justifications, which - yet again - when examined turn out to have the very opposite meaning of the oh-so-provovative headline.

I really thought that The Reg was better than this - I thought that you guys were the ones who were supposed to be exposing the dodgy stats and media bullshit that makes establishing some sort of truth so difficult these days. I'm all for deflating hype, but this sure as hell ain't it.

[Stuart Halliday]

I'm just pig-ignorant

Tell me why we need multi-tasking in the iPad for?

It opens documents where you left off and you can play music whilst you web surf or read email. So what's the problem?

[Atli]

@Stuart

But you just said it, didn't you: "whilst you web surf or read email." -- The keyword there being "or".

A $500 "computer", released a decade into the 21st century better be able to surf AND read email at the same time. Anything else is laughable. -- Not that an overlarge iPhone, without the "phone", and with... well... really nothing else worth mentioning, wasn't a bit humorous before.

I'll happily continue to use my phone as a phone and my laptop as a laptop. If I ever find myself in need of neither... I'll just use neither :)

If you find a use for it, I'm happy for you. I'd be more than a happy to be proven wrong on my opinion on it. (I do like the fact that it doesn't include Flash... I don't like Flash!)

[Anonymous Coward]

The real pain...

is the lack of ability to be on skype and then check something in safari...

i have the same gripe on my iPhone...

[bennet278]

Birthday iPad app!

What I find truly fascinating about the iPad is that birthday app that got featured in the latest Modern Family episode in the US. The user can literally blow out candles on a virtual birthday cake. Works really well on the iPhone too. The app is called Birthday A La Carte.

[Rodrigo Rollan]

I come from planet Ergaoml 234....

@bennet278: was that what is often described as Sarcasm ? I am yet to understand this form of human humorous expression