What’s different though is that it feels like Microsoft is more interested in working with us as a partner whereas Apple has always given off a vibe of just sort of dealing with us because they have to. Maybe that’s a little sour grapes, but as a developer it was a nice change.
Justin Williams, in “Build 2014”
I don’t think it’s sour grapes. My experience of dealing with Microsoft last year when I was evaluating Azure was unlike anything I’ve experienced from Apple in my years of being a registered developer. There were personal calls from Microsoft, an assigned platform expert who actually worked on the Azure platform and tweets and offers of help from the top of the Microsoft development food chain here in Australia.
In my years of developing for Apple platforms, I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve had direct communication with an engineer who was actually working on the product I was talking to them about. Most of my contact comes through a small cadre of very proactive Apple engineers on Twitter (of which I’m very appreciative), and usually in response to one of my trademarked “Angry Tony Meltdowns™”.
With things like C#, the Rosyln compiler/frameworks, and the modern WinRT runtime, it feels like Microsoft is way ahead of Apple in the future looking regard. As a developer, I’m jealous of a lot of the technologies coming out of Microsoft.
Justin Williams, in “Build 2014”
I feel this, too. For a company with as much money, and as many insanely smart people as Apple has, the amount of energy they expend on developer tools, APIs and languages still seems quite low next to Microsoft. Of course, that could just be my perception.
All that aside, this is a conversation that’s played out many times on Twitter in the past and the simple reasoning that emerges is that at present, Apple doesn’t appear to place much value in the experience developers have when dealing with Apple.
I swear it’s not sour grapes. Just… spend some of those billions on looking after the tribes of developers that supported you on the way up, OK?