Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels • Hacker News Board

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#241

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sun, May 10, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

copperx wrote: post #133

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without disabling security features? With Gatekeeper turned off, you’ll still get a warning on first launch which you can easily click through. (Unless Apple changed something in the last few versions—let me know if that’s the case—but it would be out of character for them to remove a warning...) The “security feature” you don’t want to disable is precisely the thing you are complaining about, so I don’t understand…

> I don’t imagine Apple makes a substantial amount of money from $99/year developer subscriptions. The App Store is another story of course. It has a chilling effect on releasing free apps. It's going to be an interesting time soon, when even your dog will have a vibecoded app he'll want you to use.

I'm not saying it's good or that I like it, I just don't think Apple is doing it for the sake of developer subscription revenue, it's not enough revenue.

(To be clear, my position is that most people should probably turn off Gatekeeper and then developers don't have to pay Apple anything, unless they're making very mainstream software which probably generates revenue anyway.)

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#242

Post by grujicd » Sun, May 10, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

hermitcrab wrote: post #37

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…

It's much more expensive on Windows side of things. DigiCert and Sectigo are now in the $700--$1000 range per year for regular OV code signing certificate.

Microsoft has it's own Azure Artifact Signing which is comparable to Apple yearly cost (give or take), but since a month ago installers signed with it often display SmartScreen warnings [1]. Even though Microsoft controls both pieces!

Store option is not free for organizations (although it's a one-time setup fee), but the worse thing is it forces you to its simplified licensing/trial model, typically not compatible with B2B software where paid upgrades, yearly support contracts, controlled updates, extended trials are used.

[1] https://github.com/Azure/artifact-signing-action/issues/128#...

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#243

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sun, May 10, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

kqp wrote: post #92

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #5

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…

> what do you actually want? Give me the ability to choose what I trust. “You can either trust Apple and nobody else, even yourself, or you can trust literally everybody” is obviously not a good faith implementation of this. Apple excels at steering the narrative with false conflation and false dichotomy, I’d also remind you of the came-and-went secure boot debate, which Apple successfully steered into Apple owns the…

> I’d also remind you of the came-and-went secure boot debate, which Apple successfully steered into Apple owns the encryption keys vs no encryption, and people just kind of forgot to ask, wait, why can’t I have the keys to my device?

The Asahi Linux folks are building their own SecureBoot chain[1].

I guess you could argue they shouldn't have to do that. But it feels reasonable to me that that the party you're trusting should be the one who builds the trust chain.

1: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/open-os-interop/#m1n1

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#244

Post by lotsofpulp » Sun, May 10, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC

Gareth321 wrote: post #226

musicale wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 stab…

>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.

Apple earns almost twice as much revenue from selling iPhones ($210B per year) than it does from "Services" ($109B), and "Services" includes far more than just App store commissions.

https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/11/apples-fiscal-2025-in-cha...

https://bullfincher.io/companies/apple/revenue-by-segment

However, I do see the incentive for Apple to push subscriptions due to the enormous scalability and thus resilient margins.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#245

Post by tpmoney » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

Gareth321 wrote: post #226

musicale wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 stab…

Apple has been dropping older subsystems and backwards compatibility layers long before app subscriptions were the default way people got paid for software. The 68k -> PPC transition happened in the mid 90's and 68k support was dropped entirely somewhere around OS 8 and the start of the iMac era. The Carbon framework might have been the most long running one, going from about 2000 to 2012 for deprecation and basically ending once the 64 bit transition happened around 2018. The PPC -> Intel transition, including the original Rosetta emulator was ~2005-2011. The app store itself only debuted in 2011.

I do agree that Apple does this in part to force developers to either stay active and maintain their apps or stop shipping for the platform, but I personally posit that the move of more and more apps to subscription models is simply due to how many more apps are connected and user expectations for update timeliness (and the devaluing of updates both by increased popularity of "free as in beer" open source apps and also the distribution of no-cost OS updates by Apple. People expect more for free and expect it as soon as someone notices a problem. I think the idea of not only waiting a year or more to have new features or some bugs fixed and then on top of that having to shell out more money for that is just not something people are as wiling to do. So subscription models become necessary to fund the continuous work that goes into keeping up with all the new trends. Apple's dropping of old libraries and frameworks is part of that churn, but it's only one part in a sea of other pressures driving the subscription model.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#246

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:15 PM UTC

vor_ wrote: post #153

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #5

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…

> what do you actually want? I want to be able to right-click on an app and choose "Open" to run the program with an authentication dialog. You used to be able to do this, but Apple removed it in favor of an incredibly annoying process of having to go into System Settings every time.

...I guess I just don't understand why this makes such a big difference to you versus having Gatekeeper off? You're asking for a very specific flow, where you can run anything but only if you right click the app instead of double clicking the app.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#247

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

gblargg wrote: post #228

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #5

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 a…

You can still open unsigned apps with Gatekeeper on, you have to go into Settings to whitelist it. I find this extremely annoying, but as I said, that's the point of Gatekeeper, if you don't like it then turn Gatekeeper off.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#248

Post by odo1242 » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #206

IsTom wrote: 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?

They disabled the right-click-and-select-open feature; you now have to go to Settings to run the app.

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#249

Post by odo1242 » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:22 PM UTC

krackers wrote: post #139

novafunc wrote: post #20

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 remember you used to be able to right-click and then press open instead of double-clicking which would bypass gatekeeper just for that run. Not sure if it still exists though, I don't have any unsigned apps handy to test.

They removed it

Re: Distributing Mac software is increasing my cortisol levels

#250

Post by kbolino » Sun, May 10, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

musicale wrote: post #94

hermitcrab wrote: post #37

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…

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