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Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

gridsagegames.com

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Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#21

Post by lstamour »

jchw wrote: post #12
dexter0 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to pay the $99/yr to be in the developer program, to access to the notarization service.

Also I heard that you need fairly new Mac hardware to actually use the notarization service. Now try to integrate it with your CI, because the feedback that the notarization is complete is sent via email. (FWIW: I don’t have first-hand experience, though I still have an Apple developer license. Probably won’t renew.)

You’re not kidding about the email. It’s email or manual polling, no webhooks. Strange. Well, I can suddenly imagine a lot of CI servers will be running SMTP. ;-)

> After uploading your app, the notarization process typically takes less than an hour. When the process completes, you receive an email indicating the outcome. Additionally, you can use altool with the notarization-history flag to inspect the status of all of your notarization requests

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_y...

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#22

Post by kunai »

rufius wrote: post #10
wjdp wrote: post #3

Does Apple have to sign games distributed through Steam? I thought that only applied to their own app store.

Mojave and Catalina added more restrictions around non-App Store programs where you need to sign and notarize. I know I’ll probably catch downvotes for it but I think this is a good thing for the average user as someone in security. I know it makes it more of a walled garden but I also know that the harder it is to run untrusted code, the better for the average user. The “terrible burden” is a couple of extra button…

Letting megacorporations decide what you do and do not get to do with your personal property isn't really what I would count as a "good thing" in any circumstance.

Apple has gotten away with eliminating user freedoms time and time again under the guise of security. In many scenarios Apple's attitude towards its end-users increases perceived security while causing significant hurdles for actual security, such as how iOS no longer allows you to turn off Bluetooth or WiFi from the Control Center. Somehow I've never really seen an explanation for why this is better for security for the vast majority of people.

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#24

Post by judge2020 »

lstamour wrote: post #21
jchw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I heard that you need fairly new Mac hardware to actually use the notarization service. Now try to integrate it with your CI, because the feedback that the notarization is complete is sent via email. (FWIW: I don’t have first-hand experience, though I still have an Apple developer license. Probably won’t renew.)

You’re not kidding about the email. It’s email or manual polling, no webhooks. Strange. Well, I can suddenly imagine a lot of CI servers will be running SMTP. ;-) > After uploading your app, the notarization process typically takes less than an hour. When the process completes, you receive an email indicating the outcome. Additionally, you can use altool with the notarization-history flag to inspect the status of all…

Electron-notarize polls: https://github.com/electron/electron-notarize/blob/b3156157f...

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#25

Post by spsful »

Despegar wrote: post #13

64-bit support first arrived in Leopard in 2007. Everyone has had plenty of time.

That's what I don't understand about this. He's using 32-bit deprecation as one of his main reasons for dropping macOS support, yet his decision to exclusively use the older architecture arguably makes the user experience worse. Of course they would like new features, but a modern 64-bit foundation should not be out of the question. It's almost like Microsoft has incentivized this by supporting the older architecture. I know that probably isn't the case, but it seems like this developer should modernize his program.

Edit: take my words with a grain of salt-- I'm not an experienced developer.

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#26

Post by trothamel »

new_realist wrote: post #16
trothamel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to pay for the signing. You also have to wait several minutes for the notarization process to finish, and submit every program to Apple.

All malware checkers must read the app binary to be effective. Apple forces the app to be scanned once, not one million times on one million desktops.

Apple also forces every single app for macOS to be submitted to them. Seeing as how Apple has historically been willing to compete with the applications on their platform, that seems to at least have the potential to be a problem.

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#27

Post by AndriyKunitsyn »

jayd16 wrote: post #8
kgarten wrote: post #4

So the major points are dropping 32bit support and Apple forcing you to sign your executable? The author claims that you need to pay Apple for the signing. as far as I know this is not true. You just need to pay for being on the application stores ...

If it's anything like iOS dev, you need Apple hardware to access the tools to sign your builds. You can't just run osx in a VM.

Well, you can... using hacked VMware and Hackintosh tools, it's just illegal :)

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#28

Post by stordoff »

wjdp wrote: post #3

Does Apple have to sign games distributed through Steam? I thought that only applied to their own app store.

> Beginning in macOS 10.15, notarization is required by default for all software.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin...

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#29

Post by delfinom »

gok wrote: post #23

Yikes. If you can't figure out how to make your code 64-bit safe, or how to make code signing work, you are effective requiring your users to give you root access. Completely unacceptable for a game.

> you are effective requiring your users to give you root access

Wait, it's either code sign and you don't get root or don't code sign and get root? How retarded is macOS? Why is there no "no code sign and no root, just run as the user"?

Re: Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us devs

#30

Post by dmix »

atroche wrote: post #7
tmaly wrote: post #2

why is dropping 32-bit support even a consideration?

Maybe Cogmind depends on libraries which don’t support 64 bit? I agree though, it’s a bit weird. Maybe it’s harder for game-related libraries to switch, compared to the ones I’m used to using in my apps.

Does this mean they are using unmaintained gaming libraries? Or is it just turtles all the way down of people not wanting to take responsibility to switch to 64bit because some random thing they depend on didn’t upgrade so they aren’t to blame?

And this chain of side stepping of an obvious issue went on for well over a decade?

I know it’s in human behaviour to delay things until they absolutely have to do something. Like we all learned in school doing less important homework. But in software there are always dialing pressures to modernize while supporting backwards compatibility.

10yr timeframes are sufficient here and from there if you want to use old stuff then it’s on both the user or the publisher to use some virtualization solution to provide long term support beyond this.

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