As I wrote in a previous post, every time Apple updates its OS, it includes two kind of changes. A new OS (with new low level functionality which is mainly interesting for developers) and new utilities for the general Macintosh users. Inevitably it seems that for each new OS release there is some controversy around these new utilities.
Why does Apple add these utilities? Well, that is easy, to convince end-users to move to the new version of the OS. Without these utilities, upgrade cycles would be much longer and that is bad both for Apple and third-party developers alike who need to support their apps on multiple OS versions which is costly and slows the adoption of new technologies available only on the most recent releases of the OS.
Should third-party developers be afraid of Apple (or Microsoft for that matter)? Sure. Everyone must be concerned by competition from the big guys. But that shouldn’t be such a big concern either. It is just a matter of carefully choosing what you are going to develop.
Suppose that now that Apple has unveiled Core Animation you decide to use it to create a 2D animation product. Well, that doesn’t seem like a good idea. Since most f the value is provided by the API, it is easy for any company to create something similar to your application. On the other hand if you plan to create a different kind of application that uses Core Animation o more easily display the information to the user, you should feel safe. Basically what I recommend is not to stay in the middle of a freeway for a truck to hit you.
Very long ago, the first releases of GS/OS did not support “dead keys”. Therefore, if you had an American keyboard it was very difficult to write letters in French since you had no access to accentuated vowels (you had to switch the keyboard layout to AZERTY). Since I could not wait for Apple to solve this problem, I wrote a NDA (New Desk Accessory) that did the trick. In this case I did not sell the product, instead published it on a couple of BBS and gave it away for free. Unsurprisingly, Apple later updated the OS and fixed the issue. My NDA was useless. Was I mad? No. Was I surprised? No.
It is not my intention to defend Apple on every issue, but we must remain calm. Many of us would love Apple to include some type of limited (or full-fledge) image editing software with the OS. Why? Because Apple normally produces great software. Sure, there are third-party options, but I would like to get one from Apple. Would this be bad for Adobe or others? Probably. However, as a consumer I do not care. I want the best software for my Mac. If Apple releases a product that is not good enough for my needs, such as iWeb, well I will not use it and buy from someone else. It is called competition.
So, the messages for developers are clear. If you want to compete for a large market, you need to invest a lot in differentiating yourself and create a high quality product. This is not the case for niche markets.