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Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

david.dev

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Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#221

Post by jjcm »

ajxs wrote: post #30
Razengan wrote: post #18

As a user I am glad. As is custom for all Electron discussions, someone must point out its flaws. Why the dislike, you ask? A picture is worth a thousand 64-bit words: https://imgur.com/a/XnCOHUD And mind you, GitHub Desktop is taking that much just for showing a mostly empty window! while Fork and Tower are displaying a lot more UI, more controls, trees, custom drawing, more text, and have overall more features (bes…

While working on a project that uses a service built in Typescript I've been using vscode. I was wondering what was wrong with my laptop's battery, it had gone from lasting around 2-3 hours unplugged doing reasonably intensive to lasting around 40 minutes. As soon as I stopped using vscode the battery life went back to what I'd normally expect. It's honestly outrageous that applications built on Electron strangle you…

This is the bigger thing for me. The CPU usage of many electron apps is through the roof. It's so convenient to use that I'll probably still make electron apps, but I'd love to see Apple and Microsoft partner with each to make both more performant.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#222

Post by michaelmrose »

Scapeghost wrote: post #193
creatornator wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dependencies of your dependencies! Imagine installing a library that depends on a couple dozen libraries in its own right. You may not have time to inspect every single node in the dependency graph.

> Dependencies of your dependencies! Imagine installing a library that depends on a couple dozen libraries in its own right. You may not have time to inspect every single node in the dependency graph. Excuse me, are you, the developer, telling me, a user, that you don't know what you're giving me to run on my computer?

Hi my name is node_modules have you met me? If you invite me to a party I bring my 500 closest friends as my plus one!

I just looked at the node_modules folder for a project that runs user configured code when your imap server gets a new mail via imap idle. It's called imapnotify and inside its node_modules dir I see it pulls in 549 js files.

The majority are under 100 lines per file dozens are between 1 and 30.

Cutting just the last segment so that /foo/bar/baz.js and /bam/baz.js both appear as baz.js and removing dupes reduced the number of unique filenames to 383.

Basically every js dev is either telling you or not telling you that they don't know what they are giving you to run on your computer.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#223

Post by kirb »

verroq wrote: post #186
biggestdecision wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in the past, developers have obfuscated their use of private APIs rather than removing them. They are threatening to ban people who abuse the platform. They aren't going to ban anyone making an honest effort to eliminate their use of private APIs.

Where as on Windows there is no such issue.

Yep - instead, Windows is dragged down by 20-40 years of bug-for-bug API compatibility, even in the things that were never documented as public API and pretty clearly look like internal solutions that the author at Microsoft never designed for public use.

There is a good reason for how Apple approaches use of their private APIs, and for how Microsoft approaches use of their private APIs. Not saying either one is correct, there really is no answer, but consider that for any public API that exists, there may be undocumented details that some software somewhere relies upon whether they realise it or not. Apple is just taking a more aggressive approach than Microsoft here by detecting and disallowing private API use in their store so as to avoid issues down the line.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#224

Post by root_axis »

Scapeghost wrote: post #193
creatornator wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dependencies of your dependencies! Imagine installing a library that depends on a couple dozen libraries in its own right. You may not have time to inspect every single node in the dependency graph.

> Dependencies of your dependencies! Imagine installing a library that depends on a couple dozen libraries in its own right. You may not have time to inspect every single node in the dependency graph. Excuse me, are you, the developer, telling me, a user, that you don't know what you're giving me to run on my computer?

Is that a joke? Surely you aren't suggesting that developers should have full knowledge of all transitive dependencies that compose their application stack.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#225

Post by flukus »

autoconfig wrote: post #81
natch wrote: post #8

The lesson here is write native apps using the preferred native tools of the platform, and avoid shortcut solutions.

I think this is a really elitist and unsympathetic statement. It completely ignores the fact that there are people out there whose only realistic option if they want to release on multiple platforms is to use something like electron. You can preach native all day long but the reality is that some people simply do not have the time (i.e. money) to learn, build and maintain three completely different systems and archit…

> I think this is a really elitist and unsympathetic statement

I think that describes the attitude of electron developers toward their users, you're putting your time and convenience over them.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#226

Post by ptlu »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #167
kjksf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How short are memories. I remember how Microsoft was vilified for supposedly having secret Windows APIs that allowed Microsoft apps to get better performance. That was mostly made up and even if such APIs existed, any program could have used it. Even at the height of corporate arrogance Microsoft didn't dream of banning developers for using undocumented APIs. Apple seems intent on becoming more evil than Microsoft ev…

Apple wants to own the user's machine. They want to make it so their computers run only the software they approve. This is already true for iOS and it's only a matter of time before it also becomes true for macOS. It's the opposite of a free system. Giving up software freedom for "ease of use" seemed like a fine deal at first but then Apple started making decisions that don't quite align with what neither users not d…

As a user of macOS, I want developers who makes apps to use public APIs that will be supported so I don't get breakages on system upgrades or migrations.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#227

Post by belltaco »

cageface wrote: post #209
thomascgalvin wrote: post #22

The basic concept isn't too disturbing; Apple packages private APIs that have no guaranteed behavior or expectation of support. If you depend on those APIs, it's very possible that your app will break in a future OS update. This is conceptually no different than calling something in the sun.* packages in Java. For years it was ok, and then ... it wasn't. This, however, is draconian: > Continuing to use or conceal non…

Getting out of iOS development and back into web dev was the best career decision I ever made. I feel like I escaped an abusive relationship. So much of what's wrong with computing and tech right now stems directly or indirectly from the culture at Apple.

It's funny how the general consensus on here is against Microsoft's abuse of private APIs in Windows to help Word and DOS against WordPerfect and DrDOS, 20+ years ago. But Apple doing it right now in a much worse way is considered acceptable and defendable.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#228

Post by jonny_eh »

saagarjha wrote: post #66
freehunter wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Electron developers might say "we fixed it" and the app developer might resubmit based on that and now they're banned due to a mistake made by an upstream dependency. It's not like this app developer is intentionally using private APIs. "Resubmitting the same thing and hoping that it doesn't get caught" seems to be a strawman.

Hence why you should audit your third-party dependencies in cases like these.

How exactly?

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#229

Post by diminoten »

Razengan wrote: post #18

As a user I am glad. As is custom for all Electron discussions, someone must point out its flaws. Why the dislike, you ask? A picture is worth a thousand 64-bit words: https://imgur.com/a/XnCOHUD And mind you, GitHub Desktop is taking that much just for showing a mostly empty window! while Fork and Tower are displaying a lot more UI, more controls, trees, custom drawing, more text, and have overall more features (bes…

57 MB. The horror. How will you survive.

Is there a software engineering equivalent to "ok boomer"? Seems appropriate here. I can't wait until people who think MBs of memory usage matter to retire/stop hanging out on the Internet...

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#230

Post by drenvuk »

belltaco wrote: post #227
cageface wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting out of iOS development and back into web dev was the best career decision I ever made. I feel like I escaped an abusive relationship. So much of what's wrong with computing and tech right now stems directly or indirectly from the culture at Apple.

It's funny how the general consensus on here is against Microsoft's abuse of private APIs in Windows to help Word and DOS against WordPerfect and DrDOS, 20+ years ago. But Apple doing it right now in a much worse way is considered acceptable and defendable.

I don't think anyone here considers Apple's abuse of private APIs vs developers an ok thing. I will never subject myself to their app store if I can help it.
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