Live data from Hacker News

Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

blog.kronis.dev

221–230 of 299 posts

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#221

Any user who does not like Gatekeeper can turn it off on their machine in ten seconds by running this in a Terminal: sudo spctl —-master-disable People will say, no, that’s too big a hammer, it’s not safe… but then, like, what do you actually want? Either you keep Gatekeeper because you like the friction it introduces, or you don’t like that friction and you should go turn it off. Pick one, you obviously can’t have b…

I just wish Homebrew was not planning to remove packages because of this.

> $ brew doctor

> Warning: Some installed casks are deprecated or disabled. You should find replacements for the following casks:

> alacritty

> librecad

Is there workaround? Probably. But macos lost benefit of OS X's "it just works". Time to move elsewhere I guess.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#222

Any user who does not like Gatekeeper can turn it off on their machine in ten seconds by running this in a Terminal: sudo spctl —-master-disable People will say, no, that’s too big a hammer, it’s not safe… but then, like, what do you actually want? Either you keep Gatekeeper because you like the friction it introduces, or you don’t like that friction and you should go turn it off. Pick one, you obviously can’t have b…

I just wish Homebrew was not planning to remove packages because of this. > $ brew doctor > Warning: Some installed casks are deprecated or disabled. You should find replacements for the following casks: > alacritty > librecad Is there workaround? Probably. But macos lost benefit of OS X's "it just works". Time to move elsewhere I guess.

Yeah, I think this is a terrible decision on Homebrew's part. Lots of people said that to the Homebrew maintainers and they refused to budge.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#223
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could like, just trust a single binary. Have a button right there in the popup that already shows up.

Isn't that what right clicking and selecting Open does?

Nowadays (as of Sequoia, I think), I find that I need to run `xattr -c Foo.app` to clear the “this was downloaded from the Internet” bit on the application bundle before I can right-click, “Open” it. Used to be that you only needed to do that with .apps extracted from zip archives, but it seems to apply to .apps copied out of disk images (DMGs) now, too.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#224
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can charitably believe this comment is not disingenuous, however, there are effectively two options, which are Windows and macOS, regardless of three manufacturers making more Windows machines than Apple at number four with Mac. I would call it an effective duopoly

There are effectively two options if you dismiss Linux a priori . Which yes, many people do. There are plenty of people who have no desire to try Linux. And if you're a developer then you have to consider those people, because many of the people who use your software are the type with no desire to try Linux. But there are fewer and fewer reasons not to try Linux, and that group of "I'd never use Linux", while still l…

> But there are fewer and fewer reasons not to try Linux

Does my existing hardware connect to the internet and go to sleep when I close the lid? Does the hardware I can buy from major retailers do the same thing?

I know these are _technically_ vendor problems and not Linux problems, but I’ve got enough things to figure out without adding “what chipset does this high end laptop use” to the mix

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than just having the options "Done" and "Move to Bin", give me an option to actually run it without having to manually go into System Settings each and every time without disabling security features? The added friction feels more like a way to force developers to pay Apple an annual fee for distributing rather than for my safety. Not saying it doesn't help with safety, just that it's more weighed to the former…

> give me an option to actually run it without having to manually go into System Settings each and every time without disabling security features? People reflexively hit yes to these things.

At what point does optimizing the experience for those who refuse to read or think stop making sense?

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#226

I have been developing software for Macs and PCs as an Indie for 20 years now. I sympathize with the author of the post. You get the feeling that Apple thinks you should be grateful that they allow you to develop apps for their platform. The author didn't mention Apple's contempt for backward compatibility. Apple like to regularly nuke their entire developer system from orbit. Try running an app developed 10 years ag…

> Apple's contempt for backward compatibility This is absolutely correct. Instead of maintaining any sort of ABI and API stability, Apple offloads a constant burden of maintenance updates across thousands of developers, just to keep existing apps from breaking every year with a new iOS version. This takes time which could be spent in more productive ways such as fixing bugs, adding features, or developing new apps. I…

> This is absolutely correct. Instead of maintaining any sort of ABI and API stability, Apple offloads a constant burden of maintenance updates across thousands of developers, just to keep existing apps from breaking every year with a new iOS version. This takes time which could be spent in more productive ways such as fixing bugs, adding features, or developing new apps. It seems like the wrong trade-off, since stability would offer huge, multiplicative benefits across the whole ecosystem. Apple does seem to want apps to die to mitigate the glut of shovelware in the app store, but there has to be a better way (human curation still seems like the only reliable approach for app surfacing and discovery.)

I keep trying to explain this to people but it's hard enough to describe the issue, even harder to get people to care, and an impossible battle to change Apple. I don't actually think they're doing this to kill old apps. I think it's a very cynical and calculated plan to require developers to actively maintain their applications, *thereby requiring the use of subscriptions as the only viable business model for developers.* That is Apple's primary revenue stream by far, and they're making far more money now that we have to subscribe to workout apps instead of buying them once and using them for years.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fwiw you can ship through Microsoft Store for free and not have to pay for signing.

Last time I looked the MS Store was just a sad catalogue of shovelware. Has it improved?

Yes but it's free and easy to link customers there. They don't have to interact with the store outside of your product's listing.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#228

Any user who does not like Gatekeeper can turn it off on their machine in ten seconds by running this in a Terminal: sudo spctl —-master-disable People will say, no, that’s too big a hammer, it’s not safe… but then, like, what do you actually want? Either you keep Gatekeeper because you like the friction it introduces, or you don’t like that friction and you should go turn it off. Pick one, you obviously can’t have b…

> People will say, no, that’s too big a hammer, it’s not safe… but then, like, what do you actually want? Either you keep Gatekeeper because you like the friction it introduces, or you don’t like that friction and you should go turn it off. Pick one, you obviously can’t have both!

Refusing to let you open an app isn't friction, it's complete obstruction. How about warning you and letting you run it this one time or allow it to run normally from there on?

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#229
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than just having the options "Done" and "Move to Bin", give me an option to actually run it without having to manually go into System Settings each and every time without disabling security features? The added friction feels more like a way to force developers to pay Apple an annual fee for distributing rather than for my safety. Not saying it doesn't help with safety, just that it's more weighed to the former…

I also have things I want to change in gatekeeper, but that feature is not one of them. Just gut feeling but I would say 110% of all users, would just click ”start” on every unsigned app if it was that easy.

So have a buried option that power users can flip one time to add an allow button to opening untrusted apps.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#230

Any user who does not like Gatekeeper can turn it off on their machine in ten seconds by running this in a Terminal: sudo spctl —-master-disable People will say, no, that’s too big a hammer, it’s not safe… but then, like, what do you actually want? Either you keep Gatekeeper because you like the friction it introduces, or you don’t like that friction and you should go turn it off. Pick one, you obviously can’t have b…

Rather than just having the options "Done" and "Move to Bin", give me an option to actually run it without having to manually go into System Settings each and every time without disabling security features? The added friction feels more like a way to force developers to pay Apple an annual fee for distributing rather than for my safety. Not saying it doesn't help with safety, just that it's more weighed to the former…

adding a button means osascript driven malware could approve itself and you might not even see it happen
Post reply on HN