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The App Store turns 10

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Re: The App Store turns 10

#81

Post by stevekemp »

tonyarkles wrote: post #80
ISL wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apt also gets package distribution right, and it predates the app store by many years. When I get a new Debian box, I just sudo apt-get install a list of my most-common programs and I'm off to the races.

Apt is so close. So close! The one feature that would make it so much better is to be able to export the list of packages that I’ve directly asked for (maybe you can do that?). On the other side, apt install could consume that. Being able to take a new machine running, say, Ubuntu 18.04 and get all of the stuff installed that I had on my old 14.04 box in a really easy way would be deadly.

Package names/dependencies change through releases, but you can kinda do what you want via dpkg.

Export the packages:

     dpkg --get-selections > list.txt
Then install those same packages on a new box:

     dpkg --set-selections

Re: The App Store turns 10

#82

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

thisisananth wrote: post #67
waivek wrote: post #33

Whenever I get a new Windows laptop, the first four or five hours are spent reinstalling software that I use on a daily basis. I can just leave a new phone next to the router. With windows, I have to sit and monitor a lot of things for those four hours along with hunting down the most updated executables and setup files. I feel that mobile got software distribution correct. Thanks a ton, Scott Forstall.

Did you try scoop for windows.It is a command line installer and you can avoid all the annoying popups. https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop

How is this different from Chocolatey or its pseudo-wrapper PackageManagement(OneGet)?

Re: The App Store turns 10

#83

Post by nailer »

abhiminator wrote: post #40
waivek wrote: post #33

Whenever I get a new Windows laptop, the first four or five hours are spent reinstalling software that I use on a daily basis. I can just leave a new phone next to the router. With windows, I have to sit and monitor a lot of things for those four hours along with hunting down the most updated executables and setup files. I feel that mobile got software distribution correct. Thanks a ton, Scott Forstall.

>I feel that mobile got software distribution correct. It's more like mobile got package management right. Windows is terrible as an example to use for installing/removing software as it has extremely crude (almost non-existent) package management system (referring to Windows Installer here -- .msi files). [0] I like to think of the App store (and equivalent) as a Linux command-line beautified by a GUI shell in a mob…

This is what 'Click n run' was - one of the first app stores, created on the (ugly named) 'Lindows' Linux distribution.

Re: The App Store turns 10

#84

Post by waivek »

yread wrote: post #64
waivek wrote: post #33

Whenever I get a new Windows laptop, the first four or five hours are spent reinstalling software that I use on a daily basis. I can just leave a new phone next to the router. With windows, I have to sit and monitor a lot of things for those four hours along with hunting down the most updated executables and setup files. I feel that mobile got software distribution correct. Thanks a ton, Scott Forstall.

have you tried ninite it can install lots of free software without interaction

I did try it. I use PotPlayer, Unity, Unreal as my daily drivers.

Re: The App Store turns 10

#85

Post by waivek »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #53
waivek wrote: post #33

Whenever I get a new Windows laptop, the first four or five hours are spent reinstalling software that I use on a daily basis. I can just leave a new phone next to the router. With windows, I have to sit and monitor a lot of things for those four hours along with hunting down the most updated executables and setup files. I feel that mobile got software distribution correct. Thanks a ton, Scott Forstall.

On the one hand, AppStore/Package Management models allow you to do that, on the other hand applications that aren't in the store/repo may as well not exist. To me, part of what makes PCs "Personal Computers" is that I don't need to go through some third party to distribute or acquire software. I don't need anyone's blessing, and I don't need to jump through hoops rooting the device or compiling from source, I just d…

PortableApps are still not as good as mobile where I don't have to store backups of outdated apps personally.

Re: The App Store turns 10

#86

Post by waivek »

abhiminator wrote: post #40
waivek wrote: post #33

Whenever I get a new Windows laptop, the first four or five hours are spent reinstalling software that I use on a daily basis. I can just leave a new phone next to the router. With windows, I have to sit and monitor a lot of things for those four hours along with hunting down the most updated executables and setup files. I feel that mobile got software distribution correct. Thanks a ton, Scott Forstall.

>I feel that mobile got software distribution correct. It's more like mobile got package management right. Windows is terrible as an example to use for installing/removing software as it has extremely crude (almost non-existent) package management system (referring to Windows Installer here -- .msi files). [0] I like to think of the App store (and equivalent) as a Linux command-line beautified by a GUI shell in a mob…

With Linux desktops I have to know command line stuff and risk having to debug initial wifi issues myself.

Re: The App Store turns 10

#87

Post by waivek »

thisisananth wrote: post #67
waivek wrote: post #33

Whenever I get a new Windows laptop, the first four or five hours are spent reinstalling software that I use on a daily basis. I can just leave a new phone next to the router. With windows, I have to sit and monitor a lot of things for those four hours along with hunting down the most updated executables and setup files. I feel that mobile got software distribution correct. Thanks a ton, Scott Forstall.

Did you try scoop for windows.It is a command line installer and you can avoid all the annoying popups. https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop

Can it install Unreal Engine, Unity and Visual Studio?

Re: The App Store turns 10

#88

Post by kochikame »

wmeredith wrote: post #24
sillyquiet wrote: post #7

The App Store is great, but the App Store interface sucks. It was bad enough even when there were only a couple thousand apps in the store, but 10 years and hundreds of thousands of apps later and discoverability is abysmal. Unless you are a big player can advertise your app otherwise, having an app 'hit' is about a scientific a process as making viral videos.

I feel like good search is to Apple as good taste is to Microsoft. It's like it's against their DNA or something.

With the huge exception of Spotlight on Mac OS

Re: The App Store turns 10

#89

Post by pjmlp »

duxup wrote: post #42
mankash666 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite initial plans, that ship has long sailed. Apple's all about exerting control over the app store, and purposefully breaking the open web on their platform, to drive users and devs to the app store. Non exhaustive list of web APIs broken on iOS Safari: 1. WebRTC Data channel 2. WebGl 2 3. Limiting WebApp storage to 50MB, just because. Oh, and purging it at random, just because 4. Web push notifications 5. Disal…

Oh I don't doubt it, they're not interested in going back. I just thought it was an interesting fact if true about their perspective early on. Heck I'm just getting into web development and honestly... web apps seem to be JUST barely now getting there when it comes to app quality, polish.

Yep, 20 years trying to beat native and now the browsers are turning into general purpose VMs.

Re: The App Store turns 10

#90

Post by coldtea »

duxup wrote: post #78
threeseed wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the fact is that mobile web apps are still terrible. In almost all cases they still resemble HTML pages rather than feeling like a native app.

I'll stick my neck out and say we're REALLY close to getting web apps ... close, at least for productivity (not so much pretty graphics) apps. But People thought that not long ago too... ;)

For games, multimedia, editors, graphics heavy, etc it's a non starter and will probably always be. If not in absolute terms, then compared to the native equivalent.

Even for simple apps (like productivity) they eat battery like crazy.

Slack does less than what ICQ could do 20 years ago, and wastes 1000 times the resources.

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