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Avoid the Apple App Store

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Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#101

Post by sigmar »

ectospheno wrote: post #13

I love the App Store. If you want my money then you will be on the App Store. I have purchased zero items for use on my phone from places outside the App Store. I am very happy with this. I love my walled garden. I purchase apple products for this as I consider it a feature. I understand why some people don’t like this and don’t participate. I spend very little time discussing it as people should be able to make thei…

Wouldn't all of these arguments also apply to Internet Explorer in the 90s? Just because you currently love the quality of the bundled and "approved" software packages doesn't mean that will keep being true or that you shouldn't be allowed to install software from other sources

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#102

Post by fsflover »

viktorcode wrote: post #45
fsflover wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a better time to escape the walled garden and develop for mobile Linux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30364337

You are implying that the walled garden keeps developers in, whereas in reality those walls are for keeping developers out. One does not escape walled garden; one infiltrates it.

I think it's both.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#103

Post by amelius »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #91
kmeisthax wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an alternative if you want the Apple ecosystem.

But it sounds likely people in this case do not want the apple ecosystem. If you want the apple ecosystem, you want the app store.

But this explains the problem.

When there are only 2 companies, both providing a multitude of features, then the more features there are, the easier you run into the problem that the features you want are not covered by both companies.

Therefore, the features should be decoupled from the platform companies as much as possible. Features should be orthogonal to the platform.

For example, imagine you cannot buy shoes separately from your pants and your shirt. If there are only two companies making outfits, then you'd easily run into trouble finding an outfit you like.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#104

Post by badsectoracula »

jamil7 wrote: post #66
fsflover wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a better time to escape the walled garden and develop for mobile Linux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30364337

What would this look like practically? Say I want to port an iOS app to mobile linux? I know it's early days but what does the toolchain and distribution look like?

Aside from perhaps using some GNUstep classes for the non-visual parts, you'd need to separate the application's logic from its OS integration and then use whatever library you want to target.

One way to go for it would be to make your app use Qt (which is also available on Linux) instead of iOS-specific functionality and then port that Qt app to Linux. But whatever you do, if your app is made for iOS (or any other specific OS), you'd need first to untangle iOS from it and then make a port.

But FWIW i think fsflover had new applications in mind instead of porting existing ones.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#105

Post by vinceguidry »

eldaisfish wrote: post #78
vinceguidry wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think Apple is doing this because they care about you, gentle user, then you will get burned, eventually, probably really badly, and you won't even have any kind of inkling as to why or how you could have avoided it. Behind the cutesy facade is a rapacious, consumer-hostile monster. The facade is paper-thin, and it's only a matter of time until you rub it the wrong way and it flakes off, then the monster will…

Comments like these are needlessly cynical. Corporations care about money else they would not have a reason to exist and apple is no exception. What apple sell is something that is accessible to the majority and usable by most. Their sales are testament to this as is the fact that several ios apps are generally higher quality than their android equivalents. This is a natural consequence of the average ios user spendi…

Excuses. Please understand that these are excuses. You are accepting lower quality products and accepting nothing in return, even accepting higher prices. Apple doesn't make the iOS apps that people use and love. They just provide an increasingly crappier platform to put them on.

That's what people make for Apple every single time they get burned. Apple lowers the quality of their manufacturing, people don't care. They remove features, people don't care.

The reality is, people are irrational and will stay in the pot long after the frog has jumped out. With other products, with other companies, people will absolutely not accept this kind of behavior. The nation empowered Teddy Roosevelt to bring down Standard Oil. Today's robber barons have slicker marketing campaigns and PR departments and social media managers.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#106

Post by curt15 »

pbronez wrote: post #47
wackget wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't see anything wrong with the obviously highly subjective and demonstratably hypocritical approach that Apple is taking here?

I like the AppStore and want it to be good. Clearer, more consistent app reviews and better developer experience would increase the quality, quantity and variety of apps available to me in the AppStore.

So the answer is no?

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#107

Post by mrtranscendence »

Unlike many people here, I'm not ideologically opposed to the idea of a walled-garden phone (though my preference would be to have the ability to sideload). But it kills me just how poorly Apple is behaving here. It's like they don't care at all about pissing off the developers that help make their platform attractive, and they'll belligerently go on not caring even as government agencies around the world gear up to take them to court, consequences be damned.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#108

Post by nazgulsenpai »

Semaphor wrote: post #33
InTheArena wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Apple still sucks at curation (as does google, as does Steam), and needs to be more consistent here.

Steam curates? I always thought they let anything in considering what you can see on the later pages of some search.

Steam basically doesn't moderate content unless its illegal as a matter of policy.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/27766192/view/

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#109

Post by bastardoperator »

vinceguidry wrote: post #59
ectospheno wrote: post #13

I love the App Store. If you want my money then you will be on the App Store. I have purchased zero items for use on my phone from places outside the App Store. I am very happy with this. I love my walled garden. I purchase apple products for this as I consider it a feature. I understand why some people don’t like this and don’t participate. I spend very little time discussing it as people should be able to make thei…

If you think Apple is doing this because they care about you, gentle user, then you will get burned, eventually, probably really badly, and you won't even have any kind of inkling as to why or how you could have avoided it. Behind the cutesy facade is a rapacious, consumer-hostile monster. The facade is paper-thin, and it's only a matter of time until you rub it the wrong way and it flakes off, then the monster will…

I feel like you hate Apple more than Apple hates me. Your boogieman analogy is over the top or laughable. Also:

  bash --version
  GNU bash, version 5.1.16(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin21.1.0)

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#110

Post by badsectoracula »

ben_w wrote: post #69
gameswithgo wrote: post #62

Developers and consumers really need to rise up against walled gardens in computing. Sadly we have a whole generation of young people who don't even know what they are missing.

Even inside a mobile browser’s sandbox, JavaScript gives me way more for free today than Metrowerks CodeWarrior Learning Edition gave me for ten weeks of pocket money back in the late 90s. I’m not a fan of Apple’s puritanism, but I really don’t think people are missing out in the way you do.

The problem with this is that while it gives you freedom as a developer, it takes a ton of freedom away from the user who has practically zero control over where and how to use your application or even which version of your application to use (some people may prefer to stick with an older version even if they lose support or whatever because they don't like later changes - this is something people often do with native/desktop apps, but it is impossible to do with web apps) - and that is the minimum of issues, without entering into accessing data, etc.
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