Now that WWDC 2011 keynote is finished, what’s everyone’s thought on WWDC/iCloud/iOS 5 and the future of Unity?
I am particularly dismay that iOS 5 is going to be only support iPhone 3GS/iPOD 3G onwards…(I have iPOD 2G!) but I guess its inevitable since it seems multi-tasking is now essential part of the OS.
I think the iCloud idea is fantastic, I can’t believe no other mobile gadget company thought of this or has the balls to even try to pull this off like Apple do (investing in construction of multiple billion dollar data centers). What is interesting is how will the iCloud benefit the developer like us - besides the obvious of storing save games in cloud. My thought is that perhaps we could even store game assets on the iCloud too and stream it to user on demand as a form of protection and also to cut down the initial program download size.
They have to fade out the older devices somehow, 1st Gen devices could never upgrade to iOS 4 and I am going to bet that 3rd Gen Devices can’t update to iOS 6. I see this as being a good thing for developers as we don’t have to support all the way back to 1st or 2nd gen specs and hampering the experience on more powerful devices.
Yeh, I agree. I am just bitter because my device is not supported!
Also, I am wondering just what’s the percentage of each iDevices’s market share??
We know that there are 200 million iDevices sold so far as shown in yesterday’s WWDC :
Would it be wise to support newer generation devices if the market is small compare to older devices?
Yeah, it really appears that Apple is betting the farm on the idea that 2 billion folks are going to want mobile computers, and that the desktop market will increasingly be limited to enthusiasts. I’m starting to think they’re probably right.
Ordinary folks just don’t care that the hardware’s well behind what you can get with a halfway-decent box; they care about their computers being reliable and simple to use. You only have to go deal with Aunt Edna’s computer, that she only uses to Web surf, type the occasional email, and play a few games with her kids (yet seems to get full of pop-up bugs at least once a year) to see that, for the ordinary folks, PCs really aren’t that attractive at this point, compared to mobile devices that are much more limited but are reliable and can be versatile enough to deal with games.
It could very well be that this area for Unity has a huge upside potential still, as the market expands and hardware gets a little more capable; Apple may have dreams of effectively killing the console market, too, if they can get their devices to communicate fluidly and easily with TVs (which are getting increasingly network-ready, even though I’d say few ordinary folks are using it yet). But one big issue that I don’t think Apple’s dealing with very well is the App Store; it’s been exploding in size and volume so fast, I get the impression that they literally have no clue about how to get it to behave like a reasonably-efficient market and give new entries a chance to find buyers. There are probably more works of small genius dying on the vine in the App Store right now than in any other marketplace for software, and it’s a big problem, because if developers feel like it’s a total crap shoot, unless they have giant marketing budgets, they’ll pull out and seek whoever builds a decent market first.
How strange that they are making the Page View Controller and a Full Page Curl Transisition available for developers when they have been denying approval on books that could be sold on the iBooks store.
I agree, I have been a PC diehard for decades, and have been recommending friends and family to use PC for ages. But after owning my first MAC last year because I want to get into iphone gaming that’s when I seriously looked at Macintosh platform. And I have to say I really thinks PC’s future is numbered. Like you said… most people don’t want to deal with all those incomprehensible problems on PC - not to mention gazillions of virus and trojan that’s menacing the PC everyday. By comparison, the mobile devices are so simple and elegant to use and with so little problem so far (few/if any virus or trojan target the Android/iOS platform so far) it makes one wonder why they have to put up everyday with desktop computers (Not to mention the cost of maintenance costs, anti-virus subscription).
In a year or two, the mobile device will have the processing power to rival the 2005 desktop computer - this year dual core is the standard, and next year or two the quadcore will be the standard when ARM push out Cortex-A15. Nvidia on other hand is busy demo their new Tegra Kal-El series:
Tegra (Kal-El) series
Processor: Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore, up to 1.5 GHz
Ultra Low Power GPU mode
40 nm by TSMC
Video output up to 2560x1600
NEON instruction sets from ARM
1080p H.264 High Profile video decode
12-Core Nvidia GPU with support for 3D stereo (12 unified shaders); about 5 times faster than Tegra 2[15]
To be released in the second half of 2011
Tegra (Wayne) series
Processor: Quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore ?
28 nm by TSMC ?
Improved GPU core: about 10 times faster than Tegra 2
To be released in 2012
With a mobile device capable of decoding more than full HD (2560x1600) resolution video… and able to do complex physics on the palm of your hand (as demo by NVIDIA Kal-El), I really don’t think you will need the desktop anymore. 90% of the people already use mobile devices to do everyday stuff - and with Apple bring a lot of their desktop programs to iOS - I think future is definitely mobile.
I have just read it from somewhere (I forgot where…) that it is even worse on Android marketplace. On Apple’s appstore, they are at least very active in promoting new apps - at least 10 times more than Google’s Marketplace. Google practically is not making any effort to promote new software at all.
I saw this when I saw my mother and practically everybody in my family suddenly become iPhone users overnight. Word-of-mouth; nothing like being able to Google up the meaning of a word during a dinner conversation to convince the other apes that this is the social power toy to have. I honestly think that’s the biggest driver; fast access to information on the go, and it is a mobile phone, a camera and can play games, too? Sold!
I think the iPad’s still very much an infant product, in terms of total sales; this kind of interaction with a device has been a dream very long in coming, and it’s not even clear that Apple will remain the king here, once the cheap-but-decent knockoffs show up. I really think this will become a very fierce market.
Yeah, Android’s market is even worse atm.
My feeling, though, is that the situation’s very fluid; the first company to change that ballgame could win the show, regardless of how great the hardware is, since that’s a constantly-moving target. I think it’s the equivalent of developer sign-up for the consoles was, honestly; the problem isn’t getting developers this time, though, it’s making sure that enough of them get paid for it to be worth it. At least with Unity, it’s not a life-or-death decision; we can deploy to both… if we can afford test hardware, licenses, and the rest. Which is not a minor barrier to entry, but isn’t a total killer. Remember, one of the main reasons Microsoft became the 800-lb. gorilla was because Apple was a pain in the arse about getting into its software market; they’ve obviously learned lot and the App Store approaches that, but frankly they’re still not doing it right yet. I figure it’s pretty likely that somebody will notice that Steam’s working well any minute now, and buy them out.
I don’t see much changing with this for devs and Unity.
Out of my view it only changes the field for the end users:
Data will finally move better between your devices thanks to cloud syncing
Apple is doing all to lock you in harder than ever before
so to what degree it will be a gain or lose situation has to be seen basing on the usage and spread of these new things.
As for hardware: Already 2 cpu cores are more than your mobile is able to use reasonably in most cases at the time and I don’t see that getting better with the NVIDIA and Qualcomm Quadcores landing this year. my iPad 2 as well as my Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100) both show that the second core is more of decoration than active help in 99% of the cases. The only real gain I see for Kal-El on normal mobile (aka not a dedicated gaming device like NGP) is that it has a stronger gpu than Tegra2 which automatically has a gain, at least for well scaling GPUs. To what degree tegra will scale will have to be seen as its not tile based.
so my conclusion for the time being: Not much is gonna change, iOS just is not so much 1999 anymore by stealing stuff that worked for a long time on android.
As for the drop of old devices: You didn’t really have the dream that the 128mb ARMV6 devices would get iOS5? After all the feature cuts on 4.0 for them (or not supporting 1st gen itouch which is stronger than iphone 3g) but at latest after 4.3 it was clear that they are finally dead and that we are in ARMV7 + 128mb RAM free at least world. Question on that end out of my view is more on what day apple will enforce 4.3+ as minimum SDK for sending in new applications.
For me it was clear that Apple is definitely seeking to get rid of ARMV6 as soon as possible as optimizing the OS etc for 3 cpu architectures is a nightmare due the out of order execution of the ARM9 cpus + the in order other differences ARM8 + ARMV6 devices which lack on many ends deltas. iOS4 has already shown this in action for all that recall the performance probs of games on ARMV6 devices.
Actually I’m pretty sure that anything but ipad2 and iphone4 will see feature cuts on iOS5 with different features due to the limited amount of RAM too before iOS6 (only iphone4 and ipad2 have 512MB RAM, the rest, including itouch4 is only 256mb)
I highly doubt others can compete with Apple. The very announcement of Apple building multiple data centers costing BILLIONS to support their FREE streaming iCloud service - that’s something NO OTHER COMPANY currently willing to do. Samsung? LG? HTC? They are still too cheap to develop their own OS, and relying on Google to provide the platform for their smartphones. If they are not even willing to invest in something as “comparatively trivial” as operating system (and continue to bring innovations to the platform like Apple do), they are not going to dream big and do something as ambitious as iCloud and all the new services Apple is bringing. Apple is now beyond just investing in software platform and hardware design itself. Apple is now investing in infrastructural platform that’s way beyond what most companies would do. So yeh, all Samsung/LG/HTC they will continue to be the dinosaur in the mobile business and destine to extinct - when Apple is bringing their A-Game to the next level already.
I view this as more of “who puts in more effort” - and clearly Apple is the one putting the most effort in innovating, and risking big for costly ideas. Samsung, LG, HTC (the big three - Motorola and Nokia are practically out of the picture) can continue to make “cheap knock offs” but they will be relegated to be the dying breed just like dumb phones were to the smart phone. When software become increasingly more important on the platform level, how much it can do to entertain/help/increase productivity/increase connectivity…etc. The next stage of revolution is about CONNECTIVITY which the iCloud service is bringing. It will perhaps evolute into something like OnLive which I think will make hardware irrelevent. So yeh, those cheap knock offs will eventually find themselves cornered when they discover software matters. Platform matters. I guess Apple really learn their lesson from the past failure against IBM PC.
Nothing revolutionary here. People that love the “package deal” on ease of use that Apple charges a premium for will relinquish control to them willingly. Those of us that want options will buy other stuff and deal with having to learn things, but have options. Clouds are not new there is Microsoft, Google, Amazon, just to name a few. Just big corporations trying to shift more of what YOU own to THEIR control, with the publishing, software and music industries cheering them on in hopes it will minimize/eliminate piracy at the expense of eliminating a lot of competition as well.
You know, I keep hearing this ‘aunt edna’ argument that purports that there are people out there who just use their computer ‘for surfing,’ and yet I’ve never actually ran into this straw person. Pretty much everyone I know and have ever helped with a computer issue does more than just surf on their computer.
This cloud thing is a terrible idea. More control given to a corporation ;/
You would make a good Apple Lawyer, calling Apples blatant and flat steal of WP7, Android and HTC Innovation newly as Apple innovation and nocking down their efforts to “cheap knock offs”.
Fact is that Apples “innovation” is not about innovating, but about getting the computer out of the picture which will ultimatively prevent you from ever shifting away from iOS without losing all your data. Already now its a fair pain to get the contacts data from iOS to any other competing service if you switch, you have to invest in software that crawls apples datasets to do so (had to do it myself last autumn when switching the phone to Android).
Apple does a few things pretty well, other things are just natural evolutions like online backup etc, thats nothing new, google has kept the android stuff in their public api accessable cloud since Android start. Apple is just good at packaging up “being years behind the standard” as being innovative, as iCloud is innovative for sharing your data with other devices - its just a change from their former $165 offer called MobileMe which you needed to get calendar and contacts sync between devices and pcs wirelessly / over www, a thing the competition had for an eternity for $0 too as its just standard in the connected world to offer it for free.
I’m not saying iOS5 is bad. But its an evolution from the former dark eternal space iOS hid itself in when apple tried to milk you for any dummwit feature into the “current days of smart phones”, not an innovation or “all new thing”
and OnLive level cloud enforcement will actually be the end of all reasonable computer and smart phone usage. Going there is no innovation or step forward, its a major step backward from owners of hardware owning anything at all, as it will then be 100% owned by the company and at its sole decision on if you can even access your data any longer.
Thats a big fat no-will-never-happen go for me
I followed a couple of liveblogs of the keynote. I didn’t hear anything about game saves syncing as part of iCloud. Does anyone know if this is happening?
I used to work in a retirement village and fix up computers and internet of individual tenants. And practically every person I met there is “Aunt Edna” type - they know very little about computer, and all they do is play puzzle and card games online, surf the net and do a little bit of spreadsheet and word processing and that’s about it.
My feeling is that majority of the people born before X-Gen are not technically minded like us (who most likely comes from technically minded / higher income family), and unless they are train to use computer at work - they are most likely “Aunt Edna” type.
About the iCloud thing, it seems many people here mention it is another form of control. Its understandable - your data, now reside at some remote place under someone else’s control.
My argument is that, nowadays, most people at some point store their private data online. For example, you store your private photos and data on Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Twitter, Online e-mail account…etc, this iCloud is not different from that.
Think of it this way - you don’t store all your money in your house do you? LOL. Last person I heard did that was Pablo Piccaso. So why do you put all your life’s saving in the bank? Why do you put all your life’s saving in someone else’s hand??
I think the real issue here is really about security - seeing how Sony is now royally shafted by hackers on their PSN/Sony wide network. But since iCloud is a cloud computing platform, I think they could be implementing a form of decentralized/fragmented data storage procedure where the data is slice to chunks and encrypted, then get store in various locations so in event of data theft, each chunk of data won’t make any sense to the hacker even if decrypted.
I AM! WHERE DO YOU LIVE? I AM GOING TO SUE YOU FOR DEFAMATION!!
I would argue any platform developer who invested in hardware (and their design - Google doesn’t count because their hardware is designed/developed by HTC) would do the same. Look at Sony with PS3, Microsoft with XBOX, Nintendo with Wii. They want to keep YOU in their platform for as long as possible.
I don’t know. I think OnLive type cloud computing platform is inevitably the way of future. Just like bank vs storing your money at home.
Also, it will make piracy a thing of the past - since no code is store on your device. It will be a real win for the developer.
Just for the record, I didn’t want to get involved in an argument, nor am I an Apple apologist or enthusiast. I just think that things are changing fundamentally here; after decades of waiting for mobile computing to actually be useful beyond the laptop phase, general-purpose computing is finally coming to small enough platforms that the rules of the game are probably very fluid right now. What that means, in terms of final winners and losers, is really not foreseeable atm; Apple’s crystal ball seems to be saying that it’s finally time to beat Microsoft at its own game, by playing hardball with the OS, and thus far it’s working, but I really don’t think anybody knows where this is headed yet.
For example, one of the outcomes might be that somebody will invent and deploy a combinative-computing strategy, where you can plug multiple mobile devices into an ad-hoc Beowolf cluster and get rid of the need for office PCs and many home PCs, for example. The future of computing is about as fluid as it’s ever been, frankly, and it’s hard to see where the next disruptive technology will come from. Right now, Apple’s strategy of being more organized and less fragmented than the Android market seems to be working pretty well, but it’s just a matter of time before the ground shifts again, I think.
My guess is that, for now, the only expectation we should have is that mobile computing and users running hardware that can deal with games is going to continue to rise well into the foreseeable future, and that we’re looking at a period like the mid-1990s in terms of Moore’s Law after-effects on the PC gaming market. It won’t surprise me one bit if at some point in the not-distant future, somebody starts offering enthusiasts bare-bones kits and drives the hardware in a modular direction again, as touchpads become the new desktop.
I have ridden the IBM Mainframe wave in white smocks, the PDP 11 wave in shirt and tie, Apple/II and IBM PC wave in jeans, and every good wave I could catch.
Apple iOS is a good set of waves. Ride it for all it’s worth!
I’ve been “obsolete” at least 6 times in my computer career. Somehow, I made it back out there to catch the next wave. Please do the same.
I hope I’m still alive when Bill Gates and company delivers on his dream to have infallible voice recognition and a “Star Trek” holodeck.
iCloud API was probably the most important thing that came out of this for me. I wonder if it will be possible to create sort-of generic iCloud accounts that could be used for asset distribution. I’m thinking of it as a potential new way to do In App Purchases, and I think that would be awesome.
I just haven’t and wont have for a while the time to really dig into this to see what I can do with it, but I’m looking forward to it.
