He should have started with his first sentence - and then stopped.. Sry, but this article is far from being objective.
If you're going to say that a missing garbage collector is a feature, you could be one of those guys who use C for string operations. There always should be a choice of tools to get a job done. Of course: low(er) level languages have their justification (and I tend to like working in them!) - but the programmer is the one who should decide when to use what. Freedom in software development - of course - is something you value highly or you don't, that's a choice everyone has to make for her/himself.
But I don't see the "genius" here.
If I take one quote: "Our top priority is to provide a great end-user experience, not to make your life as a developer easy." - this EXACTLY is, what I don't quite get. In my opinion, the best developers are those who see no difference between work and fun. Imprisoning them in a set of rules will scare them away. That is something, every company in Apple's position should think twice about before risking it.
It's the same thing about the app store - the problem is not, that there is an app store or that the app store sucks. The problem is that you, as a dev, have no choices.
Apple is taking away choices and that is why I would never, ever make them profit through my work. They don't make the world a better place for me, even though they could easily.
This article is highly misleading: he talks about minor problems and ignores the big ones and drags the discussion to a level where Apple might have a stand.
If you're going to say that a missing garbage collector is a feature, you could be one of those guys who use C for string operations.
I don't do the latter. However, I do note that a lot of Mobile Web apps and a lot of Android phones have pauses and stutters when scrolling. From everything I've seen, not having GC on the iPhone is exactly the right contextual decision for its time and place, and this is from a long-time Smalltalker and GC advocate!
The built-in and really smooth apps are native code. The third-party apps are restricted to a managed runtime and are decidedly not really smooth. Though the Mango update will come with a better (generational) garbage collector which should improve things.
I never claimed to excuse every Apple business practice or App Store decision. My point was to try to show how if you assume the "average Apple customer" point of view, then you (Apple) may reasonably arrive at platform decisions and policies that aren't popular with app developers.
And much more than trying to apologize for Apple's policies, I was trying to explain the philosophy behind those policies because I think it's a useful thing for developers to understand. And to the extent that someone is arguing with Apple directly ('Letter to Steve Jobs'), then they're arguing philosophy and they may as well save their breath.
It's the same thing about the app store - the problem is not, that there is an app store or that the app store sucks. The problem is that you, as a dev, have no choices.
Apple is taking away choices and that is why I would never, ever make them profit through my work. They don't make the world a better place for me, even though they could easily.
This article is highly misleading: he talks about minor problems and ignores the big ones and drags the discussion to a level where Apple might have a stand.