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Apple-Developer Relations

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Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#31

Post by handrous »

mathgladiator wrote: post #10
anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

This is why I'm optimistic about WebAssembly, beyond time and investment, what prohibits it from achieve performance parity with native?

> This is why I'm optimistic about WebAssembly, beyond time and investment, what prohibits it from achieve performance parity with native?

It's cross-platform VM-enabled bytecode? Approaching native performance very closely is the best plausible outcome. Measured on all metrics and not just pure number-crunching (start-up time generally, "cold" start-up, memory use, memory use over time, et c., all in real-world applications and not bespoke benchmarking programs) it's unlikely it'll even get very close. Close enough? Maybe, but I'm skeptical that there is such a (realistic) achievable state as "close enough" on a platform that runs on a small battery. Look at Android's decades of playing catch-up on performance & power use, for instance.

[EDIT] Down-voters, please comment: do first-year CS principles and direct observation of existing, long-lived, real-world cross-platform VM systems (the JVM, for example) somehow not apply to WebAssembly?

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#33

Post by echelon »

fanatic2pope wrote: post #32

Apple cannot force developers to develop for the Apple ecosystem. If you don't like the terms, leave. And I say this as someone who did just that. I used to be all-Apple all the time, but even as far back as 20

> If you don't like the terms, leave.

Apple captured 50% of the American economy. You have no choice. This is why the DOJ must act to bring an end to these anticompetitive behaviors.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#34

Post by judge2020 »

post_break wrote: post #13

I used to love browsing the app store looking for cool apps. Now I can't even trust searching for the app by name because sometimes a completely different app shows up, and then there is the case of appstore ads. It's a joke.

At least the App Store ads are completely contextual.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#35

Post by enos_feedler »

enos_feedler wrote: post #30

"The “way” is already paid by the hardware — but Apple uses their position of power to double-dip." I understand the optics of this don't look good, but is it wrong to have multiple sources of revenue derived from the "way"? 1. what happens if supply chain dynamics and smartphone market competition negatively impact the hardware margins? What happens when consumer appetite for innovation in the phone stagnates and ma…

First law of Hacker News: taking the “pro app store fee” argument in any thread comment results in “k” karma points, where “k” <= 0.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#36

Post by Uehreka »

wayneftw wrote: post #22
anonymouse008 wrote: post #6

I'm wondering if webapps are achieving parity with native apps. My intuition says that most of the use cases today could transfer over if they really wanted to. Does anyone have any insight into the major differences between native and web app in 2021? The biggest disparity between webapp and native used to be Notifications - but with Twilio, it appears trivial to make an arguably better notifications user flow throu…

I'd like to hear the thoughts on this of people who are arguing with me in another thread that "Apple planned for web apps to be the only apps for the iPhone until they just happened to come up with the idea for the store full of native apps". Honestly, if you believe that Apple ever planned for iPhone to be web only you've got to buy this bridge from me. No kidding. Apple used the "web only apps" angle as a stopgap…

Sure thing.

Apple told developers that webapps were the solution. They didn’t give any public indication that this would change. Now, one could argue that this was just cover while they got the native SDK ready, but that Bertrand Serlet email from the other thread was the point at which they even officially decided to have a native SDK at all (months after telling devs to write webapps).

I think the real issue is with the phrase “Apple planned”, because Apple is not one person, and the people disagree on “the plan”. We mythologize them sometimes as an all-planning “the Vatican thinks in centuries” kind of organization. But as emails like that one and others show, there are often legitimate arguments within Apple. In this case, some folks[0]were arguing that native apps would be too much of a security nightmare to be worth it, and that anything that needed to be native could just be built by Apple themselves.

So in conclusion: “Apple” planned nothing, some people at Apple had clear plans to push through a native SDK from day zero, and some people at Apple spent months being deadset that that would never happen.

[0] I’m too lazy to look up these sources right now, check out Melton and Ganatra’s multi-part interview on the Debug podcast.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#37

Post by minimaxir »

echelon wrote: post #33
fanatic2pope wrote: post #32

Apple cannot force developers to develop for the Apple ecosystem. If you don't like the terms, leave. And I say this as someone who did just that. I used to be all-Apple all the time, but even as far back as 20

> If you don't like the terms, leave. Apple captured 50% of the American economy. You have no choice. This is why the DOJ must act to bring an end to these anticompetitive behaviors.

50% is not 100%, which matters if you're accusing a company of monopolistic practices. (and why the Epic lawsuit is fighting that gray area)

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#38

Post by actuator »

atonse wrote: post #2

I am deeply invested in the Apple ecosystem and yet, can’t wait for the DoJ to throw the gauntlet on the App Store. I really hope they get broken up, with the App Store being extracted into a separate business.

App Store should be just the start.

Mobile web for more than 50% of the US users is also restricted to Apple's whims. They should be forced to allow competing browser engines(not just skins on Safari engine) on the platform. If Microsoft couldn't even bundle IE on Windows, it should be possible to make an alternative browser(along with engines) for iOS.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#39

Post by judge2020 »

izacus wrote: post #29
orbz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand, the developer in me agrees with you that it does make life harder. On the other hand, as a consumer I've found that I'd rather not trust developers to write software however they want. I want them to have restrictions on how much of my stuff they can access, how they can update their software and how much of a blast radius there would be from messing something up.

Those two things are not fully related. Apple could (and to some extend does) design a system that keeps YOU in control without being an anti-competitive platform that prevents competition in non-OS / non-platform markets. Preinstalling and pushing Apple Music / iCloud (not to mention giving it private entitlements the competitors can't use) is not related to the iOS security model by itself. There's also no reason t…

I don't think that's possible if your goal is zero (system-altering) malware - pretty much all (with the exception of checkra1n) recent iOS releases have had a jailbreak that works by chaining exploits to break out of the app sandbox and can be installed via just signing an IPA, gain root and install Cydia/other dpkg frontends. Without the app store you would see these making their way to things people can download, just in the form of 'free vbucks' or other illegitimate apps that silently alter the system to install system-wide adware that replaces ads in other apps with their own.

Re: Apple-Developer Relations

#40

Post by wilde »

judge2020 wrote: post #34
post_break wrote: post #13

I used to love browsing the app store looking for cool apps. Now I can't even trust searching for the app by name because sometimes a completely different app shows up, and then there is the case of appstore ads. It's a joke.

At least the App Store ads are completely contextual.

Not for long. The search page by default shows one non-contextual app above their ranked list of apps you might like.
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