I am not terribly familiar with with this MG author but he comes across as a self-righteous egotistical bigot.
His quote:
"I don’t know about you, but when I read my favorite technology writers, I want an opinion. Is the iPhone 4S the best smartphone, or is it the Galaxy Nexus? I need to buy one, I can’t buy both. Topolsky never gives us that. Instead, he pussyfoots around it. One is great at some things, the other is great at others. Barf.
Fucking pick one. I bet that even now he won’t."
I must be getting old but I thought the job of a journalist/columnist was to give a fair unbiased assessment in their review. No MG, I don't need you to pick one over the other. I have a brain and can reach my own conclusion, thank you very much. I don't need you to tell me what to spend $200-$300 of my own hard-earned money.
He seems to forget his job (I assume he has a job). What we need from journalists/columnists is a balanced honest review with pros and cons, that's all.
Or even more softer/friendlier sounding "Schedule gifts for women" (gifts are usually sent or given and can be assumed as so, and it's assumed they are for women in your life and not random women in the universe).
"I like how HN is often first to criticize, but sometimes you're just missing the point."
Welcome to the internet. Not sure how long you've been here but anything posted publicly will get criticized and torn apart regardless of where it's posted.
I don't know whether this person is trolling or not but if he's not, I doubt he's going to be good at running a business (might be great at running an app/product though).
While all the stated reasons are correct and beneficial, they are only to one party - the developers themselves. And unless all your money is coming from the developer (which by definition is not), you probably want to care more about what your users need and want rather than tell them what you can and will not support.
Running a business (a profitable one) is all about meeting customers' needs, expectations and wants. No matter how ridiculous they are. No matter if they are wrong and you are right. No matter if they are running your app on a machine from the 90's while you only support the latest and greatest HTML5/Canvas/Node.js/blah blah.
One customer that you don't support is not just one customer that you've lost. It's one customer that you've turned away from your product AND incentivized to spread the bad karma to everyone they talk to about your product. The next time they hear someone discussing your product, they're going to chime in "Yeah, I loved using them until they turned me away by not supporting <whatever version they had>. They don't care about me at all." While this statement is false or at least untrue (I'm sure you care about all your customers right?), the reality is that it doesn't matter. They are spreading a negative review and it's only going to fester and grow from that point on.
So whenever you're ready to build a business out of your successful website/app/whatever, remember that you need to support whoever is ready to pay you. That's all that matters.
You have to put yourself in the shoes of a normal iPhone user. Many users don't even know how to download apps and therefore never do.
The people who do know to download apps never imagine an "app" can be a "website". Therefore, they look to the "App store" as their first choice whenever they're searching for a solution to their problem (e.g. "oh, I need to know the latest news, let me search on the app store" or "oh, I want pictures of cute kittens, I wonder if they have those in the app store").
Which if you only have a web presence, you're never going to get discovered. That's why many app developers make native app wrappers over their HTML5 webapps - just to solve the discoverability problem.
Gruber is like a person who really enjoys eating cupcakes. He knows all about cupcakes, and even goes so far as to think he knows how to make them. He's probably baked a few things here and there. Sadly, he also thinks his 'expertise' on all things cupcakes makes him an all round bonafide chef.
You might have been inadvertently employing the "disarming" technique used by pick up artists. "The Game" is an amazing book detailing the techniques used by pick up artists (and no, it's just for people who want to pick up ladies but more generally about influencing people).
Honestly, this myopic view of the ad world is why there is such a disconnect between our industry and the ad industry.
While the normal computer engineer/entrepreneur is far too 'sophisticated' to have a personal connection with a brand, there are 'real-world' people that do have connections. It's not the cheap "let me play this memory game on their FB page" connection, but a deeper connection.
There are people who feel for brands like Khan Academy and what they're doing for education, there are couples who have a soft spot for their local restaurant where the guy proposed to the girl, there are even families that fondly remember their first beat-up Honda that was reliable through thick and thin.
Sure, we may not have these deep connections given our fast paced lives, but please realize that there are others who do have human feelings for non-human entities that have made their lives better.
2. It's always funny to hear these 'was-fanboy-turned-hater' stories because they suggest passion and then some kind of spurned ex-gf syndrome. If you don't like Google products anymore, don't use them. Move on brother.
1. Discovery - the YT integration becomes your own radio while you're on G+.
2. Sharing - brings the ability to share the YT videos you're listening to currently easily on G+.
In one swift motion, it nullifies the need for other radio sites like rdio, Spotify, <INSERT_NEW_COOL_INTERNET_RADIO_STARTUP_HERE>
I don't think you've ever designed a scalable webapp that requires synchronized user data to be available across browsers, platforms, sessions, etc.
It's a basic fundamental tradeoff decision that all app developers have to make - store client-side or server-side and if you want any kind of sanity for the user, it's usually better to store server-side.
It used to be a better world when they just tried their best to get acquired without making public claims to the contrary.