Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

ish.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 484 posts

Re: About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

#121

Post by young_unixer »

threeseed wrote: post #44
mortenjorck wrote: post #28

This isn’t sustainable. Software developers can’t build on a foundation that is constantly, capriciously shifting. This on top of the App Store's already-onerous restrictions and the fact that it’s the only practical way to get your software on one of the world's largest computing platforms has already engendered a deep antipathy [1] among Apple developers, and there are no signs it’s getting better. Something has to…

iOS developers have made over a half a trillion dollars over the last decade on this unsustainable, constantly shifting foundation that they hate so much. Makes you wonder why they bother ? Maybe it's because the very rules you say developers hate are the ones users find appealing.

Most software developers in HN are not in it only for the money.

Software is an essential part of our modern life: transport, communication, manufacture, finance, etc. depend on software.

At least in those areas, we need reliable software and we need device owners to have control over their devices. We need to have a good software infrastructure if we want to progress as a species.

The current software landscape is bad, and Apple is actively trying to make it worse.

If Apple made game consoles, it would be OK, because game consoles are not essential to our society, but smartphones have become essential to our personal lives.

Re: About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

#122

Post by alexvoda »

l3s2d wrote: post #89
yakz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can build on it... developers have been building on it for years and making money doing it. Don't make an app that allows users to run unapproved software. I think that's a pretty clear rule. If your app makes money (directly or indirectly), pay Apple whatever portion of your revenue that Apple demands. I also think that's a pretty clear rule. If there's something that should obviously be regulated out of existe…

Absolutely. As much as I dislike Apple, their ecosystem works for them and their users. Unfortunately the general public isn't aware of the restrictions imposed on them until it matters, like when their screen is broken and they can't pay $$$ for a first party repair. We need regulation coining and enforcing accurate terminology for the relationship between vendors like Apple and Tesla, and their users. It's not owne…

This is something that should definitely be discussed a lot more. And in defining this new relationship we should also define the responsibilities of the parties. Like for example who is responsible for recycling. I believe such a relationship is fine as long as it is not confused with traditional ownership.

Re: About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

#124

Post by saagarjha »

williamscales wrote: post #93
mullingitover wrote: post #87

> Advanced users are welcome to build iSH themselves—it’s free and open source and always will be! I mean, the app store fiasco sucks, but at the same time if you're advanced enough to want a command line on an iDevice you're probably advanced enough to do 'git clone', hit the build button in XCode, and do a local install. It's grade school level of difficulty. Ideally they'd offer a release that you can build and in…

I’m actually not sure about that, as far as I can tell there’s no way for me to build the app without having access to another Apple machine running the full MacOS. I just have an iPad and a Linux desktop, which generally suits me fine. So, the App Store fiasco sucks, and doubly so for those who are not already entirely inside Apple’s walled garden.

FWIW, iSH has prebuilt binaries: https://github.com/ish-app/ish/releases

Re: About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

#125

Post by clusterfish »

williamscales wrote: post #107
mullingitover wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked it was possible to run Mac OS in a VM on linux and install via USB tether. This isn't quite the grade school level of difficulty, but if you're using linux as your daily driver you're already accustomed to doing things the hardest way.

I’ll have to check that out. The feasibility would depend on whether I have to buy a Mac OS license just to do this.

Haha, you can't just buy a macos license. You also are not allowed to use it on non-apple hardware iirc.

Re: About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

#126

Post by nucleardog »

josteink wrote: post #111
yakz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can build on it... developers have been building on it for years and making money doing it. Don't make an app that allows users to run unapproved software. I think that's a pretty clear rule. If your app makes money (directly or indirectly), pay Apple whatever portion of your revenue that Apple demands. I also think that's a pretty clear rule. If there's something that should obviously be regulated out of existe…

> Don't make an app that allows users to run unapproved software. I think that's a pretty clear rule. Translation: don’t make an app that put users in control of their own devices. I’m sorry, but I take issue with such user-hostile behaviour.

Then don’t buy their products?

The issue is whether the App Store restrictions are arbitrary and constantly shifting, and that has been consistent basically since Apple started allowing third party software on iOS.

Re: About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

#127

Post by jariel »

yakz wrote: post #78
mortenjorck wrote: post #28

This isn’t sustainable. Software developers can’t build on a foundation that is constantly, capriciously shifting. This on top of the App Store's already-onerous restrictions and the fact that it’s the only practical way to get your software on one of the world's largest computing platforms has already engendered a deep antipathy [1] among Apple developers, and there are no signs it’s getting better. Something has to…

They can build on it... developers have been building on it for years and making money doing it. Don't make an app that allows users to run unapproved software. I think that's a pretty clear rule. If your app makes money (directly or indirectly), pay Apple whatever portion of your revenue that Apple demands. I also think that's a pretty clear rule. If there's something that should obviously be regulated out of existe…

"Don't make an app that allows users to run unapproved software. I think that's a pretty clear rule."

This is a non sequitur.

"Don't do things that are not 'approved' even though 'approvals' are to a great extent, arbitrary"

Apple shifts their interpretation of rules all the time, more problematically, they literally change the rules themselves, and can do so at any time.

They will continue to push and try to eat into other business models to the extent they have the power to do so.

If Apple could interpret or change their rules so as to take a 30% cut of Uber's business - they would. They only reason they don't, is because they don't have enough power to do so. Yet.

This 'just follow the law' rhetoric reminds me of some other kind of populism ...

Re: About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

#128

Post by mullingitover »

kencausey wrote: post #120
mullingitover wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but also irrelevant.

I'm generally curious and somewhat ignorant on this subject. I would appreciate if you could explain why it is irrelevant.

The original complaint was that you can't run your own unapproved code on your iDevice. I explained why this was false, and then the goalposts were moved to to some other concern.

Re: About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

#129

Post by philistine »

II2II wrote: post #99
jeremy_wiebe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that Amazon also takes their chunk of flesh from book publishers/authors. Honest question then: how is that different? You can publish a book but if you aren’t on Amazon you drastically limit your exposure to potential readers.

You do run into a bit of a problem though: Amazon wants their cut, Apple wants their cut, the credit card company wants their cut, the publisher wants their cut, and there are likely others in the chain as well. That's not to say that each party doesn't deserve payment for their services, but there does have to be some limitations on how much they can take.

And that limit should reflect how involved they are in the existence of the product. Is a credit card company intrinsically vital to the existence of a book? No. Then their cap should be reasonably low, like in Europe.

Is Apple intrinsically vital to the existence of an ebook?

Re: About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store

#130

Post by paultopia »

yakz wrote: post #78
mortenjorck wrote: post #28

This isn’t sustainable. Software developers can’t build on a foundation that is constantly, capriciously shifting. This on top of the App Store's already-onerous restrictions and the fact that it’s the only practical way to get your software on one of the world's largest computing platforms has already engendered a deep antipathy [1] among Apple developers, and there are no signs it’s getting better. Something has to…

They can build on it... developers have been building on it for years and making money doing it. Don't make an app that allows users to run unapproved software. I think that's a pretty clear rule. If your app makes money (directly or indirectly), pay Apple whatever portion of your revenue that Apple demands. I also think that's a pretty clear rule. If there's something that should obviously be regulated out of existe…

But its absolutely not true that this is enforced consistently. My iPhone currently contains three full programming language interpreters from the App Store---one for JavaScript, one for Python, and one for Clojurescript. I know one of those can make arbitrary network requests because I've done it, and I think the other two can as well.

So how is that different from iSH? Apple has approved a bunch of apps that can go get third party code and run it.

Post reply on HN