Developer Story (Premium)

Apple's developer story contrasts sharply with the visions and solutions offered by Google and Microsoft. That's probably not surprising at a high level, but what may be surprising is how similar Google and Microsoft are in this regard.

As I'm sure you know, Apple held its annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) this week, end-capping what I think of as "developer conference season" as it followed Google I/O in early May and Microsoft Build in late May. As a fan of these shows, I think of this time period as the most wonderful time of the year, not just because it's peak Spring where I live, but because this is when we learn how the three most important personal computing platform makers are improving their offerings over the coming year.

Each event begins with a keynote address that is broadcast live to the public and while each has evolved over the years and each has influenced the other, each is likewise unique. Microsoft's Build keynote is by far the most developer-centric, and it's split into two separate 90-minute events over two days, offering a bewildering array of announcements that are mostly business/cloud (and now AI) focused. Apple is at the other extreme: its keynote is purely a marketing event aimed at consumers, and it relegates its developer announcements to a separate Platforms State of the Union session that no consumers will ever see. Google is the Goldilocks in this scenario, offering a mix of consumer and developer announcements in its Google I/O keynote, though, like Apple, it has a separate developer keynote that consumers will never watch.

I prefer the Apple and Google approach over Microsoft's, and for a few reasons. Three hours of keynote presentations over two days gets monotonous quickly, and I know from experience that it often buries important announcements in the most unlikely of places in these keynotes, making them easy to miss and hard to find later. And while we can debate the merits of using the opening keynote of a developer show as a marketing event for consumer products, I like that Apple and Google provide a separate and shorter (60- to 90-minute) keynote just for developers. This lets people pick what they want to watch.

But if you're a developer, there are broader issues to consider than how these companies market themselves to different audiences. And key among them is how each provides developers with the tools and technologies they need to write apps that run on their platforms.

And this, to me, is where things get interesting.

Apple's strategy for developers is no different from its strategy in general: reduce and then eliminate the reliance on third parties and make sure that customers get everything they need directly from Apple. On the outside, this strategy is called "lock-in" for obvious reasons. And while that term is accurate, it ignores the benefits that Apple provides as the sole provider.

"A great platform is more than a collection of great frameworks and te...

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