Fear of Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: Fear of Apple

#201

Post by debaserab2 » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:18 AM UTC

Nemcue wrote: post #154

alexashka wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody's really disputing that the App Store needs revision in a number of areas (discovery, refunds, trials, etc) It's a hard problem because curation is a hard problem. It is not unique to the app store - take a look at android's store or frankly, any online store that offers a wide array of products - curation is hard. I'm sure they're working on it. A time of fewer but higher quality apps may be coming - but then…

> Curation is hard. Oh please. They just don't care . Take Steam for instance, I have a thousand times better experience finding new games on there than I have on any mobile app store. I get recommendations from my friends, according to what Steam thinks I would enjoy playing, and they even have curators for apps so people whose reviews I can enjoy can list games with a short review. And those are just a few ways of…

Really? I find steams suggestions to be about on par with the App Store: it tends to highlight whatever bid budget game is upcoming and never seems particularly relevant to me.

Re: Fear of Apple

#202

Post by booruguru » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:22 AM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #134

Spooky23 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience is the price of admission to gain access to a global audience. The low barrier to entry is why you're fighting for pennies. Twenty years ago when I was in high school, I worked at CompUSA. They sold a lot of software in their day... in my region of the country, 40% of software sold passed through our store's door. To sell software at CompUSA or similar retailers, you needed to interface with a publish…

Or, more realistically, he could pay shit all for a domain name (.io, .ly is so last year) 10 usd/month for a VPS, 3% to Stripe (which is criminally high, but there you go) and have access to the global market. He is more likely to get customers and he isn't constrained to change pennies.

> 3% to Stripe (which is criminally high, but there you go)

Compared to what? I thought Stripe was famous for offering competitive fees.

Re: Fear of Apple

#203

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:35 AM UTC

clarky07 wrote: post #185

firloop wrote: post #56

This article summarizes the epitome of my experience as an Apple developer. I'm 17 years old and a developer on the app store. The App Store feels opaque and like a black box where I submit builds with little to no feedback or control. I get paid when Apple decides, and could be eradicated from the App Store at a moment's notice. I realized early on that being featured by Apple was unlikely, and have adopted a sustai…

Don't send them refunds, send them to https://reportaproblem.apple.com/ and tell them you are happy to refund them and here's how to do it. They can then go to Apple and they will process the refund for you. You and your app technically don't matter to Apple. The 30% feels high, but overall it's really a good deal. I've made several hundred thousand dollars on the app store without almost any marketing spend. That's…

[deleted]

Re: Fear of Apple

#204

Post by 15155 » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:36 AM UTC

shimfish wrote: post #101

nothrabannosir wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not me in particular, but there have been many suggestions: * Allow competing stores (like Android) * Allow customers to install raw packages (like Android) * Improve their search engine to "not be completely useless" * Fairer algorithm for featured apps Etc. This is not my list, it's just some of the common suggestions I hear for improving the App Store.

* That assumes other stores are better. They are not. * That would basically open the door to insanely easy piracy. Like on Android. * A fairly nebulous and meaningful requirement * I don't think it is an algorithm.

> * That would basically open the door to insanely easy piracy. Like on Android.

This is an awful argument.

Those who are going to pirate apps have the means and skills to do so. Even on the precious iPhone. Yes, you are able to pirate Android apps quite easily as a lay person.

An intermediate approach would be a system where binaries distributed exclusively via the App Store could (enforced using the same kind of signature system presently used) only be installed via the App Store.

Give developers a choice rather than making it for them.

Re: Fear of Apple

#205

Post by booruguru » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:37 AM UTC

clarky07 wrote: post #185

firloop wrote: post #56

This article summarizes the epitome of my experience as an Apple developer. I'm 17 years old and a developer on the app store. The App Store feels opaque and like a black box where I submit builds with little to no feedback or control. I get paid when Apple decides, and could be eradicated from the App Store at a moment's notice. I realized early on that being featured by Apple was unlikely, and have adopted a sustai…

Don't send them refunds, send them to https://reportaproblem.apple.com/ and tell them you are happy to refund them and here's how to do it. They can then go to Apple and they will process the refund for you. You and your app technically don't matter to Apple. The 30% feels high, but overall it's really a good deal. I've made several hundred thousand dollars on the app store without almost any marketing spend. That's…

Can you share more details? What do you sell? How much time do you spend (and money?) on development? Etc.

Re: Fear of Apple

#206

Post by 15155 » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:37 AM UTC

JimmaDaRustla wrote: post #78

dublinben wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of any technology news sites that aren't as obviously partisan and pro-Apple? It's pretty clear from the volume and depth of Apple coverage that most sites are dominated by Apple fans among their staff and leadership.

True. But it feels like a chapter out of 1984 when people can't make ambiguous opinions without someone knocking at your door to correct you and deny you your speech.

> chapter out of 1984

We've come full circle. Everyone here knows THAT advertisement..

Re: Fear of Apple

#207

Post by guelo » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:48 AM UTC

You're a sharecropper. It doesn't matter how much you pour your heart and soul into someone else's platform it's still their platform. They don't owe you anything, they care about one thing, maximizing their profits. People sometimes appeal to the large corporation pleading that helping the "ecosystem" will make more money for everybody. But this is not necessarily true. There are many situations where screwing over the ecosystem in some way maximizes the corporations' profits while hurting everyone else, and the corporation will choose that route every time.

The only option is to stop being a sharecropper. We are incredibly lucky that their is one open platform out there: the web. It is an amazing accident of history that we ended up with the web as an open platform. And there are corporations working hard to lock it down, like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. But so far it's still open. If you don't want to be a sharecropper the web is your only option.

Re: Fear of Apple

#208

Post by analog31 » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:49 AM UTC

jasode wrote: post #46

jmduke wrote: post #17

This was a much better article than I was anticipating. (A lot of Apple criticism is either shallow or vitriolic, I guess a side effect of inspiring so much fervor on either end of the spectrum.) My new favorite anecdote of Apple's deficiencies in the services side of things is how the App Store and iTunes Connect was just down for at least half a day a couple weeks back, with no visibility except a press release: ht…

>Still, it makes sense that Apple would continue to deprioritize developer relations (either implicitly or explicitly.) Yes. I think it also makes sense to remind ourselves of how Apple and Microsoft started in the 1970s. They have very different origin stories. When Bill Gates and Paul Allen were burning the midnight oil for their first successful Microsoft product, it was a BASIC interpreter for the Altair computer…

I developed on both Apple II and MS-DOS. The Apple II was OK for developers, by the standards of the day: It had BASIC and an open hardware interface. In my view, the hostility towards developers started with the Mac, and may have had its roots in good intentions on Apple's part.

Apple wanted users to have a uniform, high quality UI across all apps. That required some policing and a close relationship with a small number of favored developers. Their API was probably too complex and brittle for widespread unfettered software development, and they probably didn't want their platform to be defined by a proliferation of "bad" software from developers like me who didn't care about their UI standards. Many users would accept "bad" software that got the job done: Small apps for automating business processes, engineering tools (cross assemblers for microcontrollers), games, etc. Developers turned to MS-DOS, which had a vastly simpler API. I wrote "bad" software, i.e., that respected no centralized UI standard.

I'm not sure Windows was much better before Visual Basic came along, but long into the Windows 3.1 era, programmers still used MS-DOS for simple things.

Today, I think the situation is much different. You can program an Apple because you can program any computer. Most developers have at least a dim grasp of GUI concepts, and the API's (including their documentation and development tools) have improved to the point where it's easier to use the built-in UI features of a platform than to re-invent the wheel. This doesn't necessarily produce great software, but it allows platforms to evolve without breaking existing apps. And you can write "bad" software that is utterly platform independent thanks to JavaScript running in the browser. Without the "passive curation" of an opaque API, Apple has chosen to actively curate apps

Re: Fear of Apple

#209

Post by gcb0 » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:52 AM UTC

msane wrote: post #18

gcb0 wrote: post #12

how times change. tomorrow i will have to put down my windows and Linux laptops to get a sanctioned apple at work. despite my claims that i won't be able to test touch screen interactions with it... apple hardware is the new Microsoft outlook in the corporate world. all i wanted was a sexy surface pro 3 :( how times have changed

"I know, how are you going to test touch screen interactions if you don't have a surface pro 3?" I hear that at the water cooler every day.

and then you proceed to not do it.

Re: Fear of Apple

#210

Post by gcb0 » Wed, Mar 25, 2015, 1:55 AM UTC

integraton wrote: post #38

gcb0 wrote: post #12

how times change. tomorrow i will have to put down my windows and Linux laptops to get a sanctioned apple at work. despite my claims that i won't be able to test touch screen interactions with it... apple hardware is the new Microsoft outlook in the corporate world. all i wanted was a sexy surface pro 3 :( how times have changed

Don't worry. There are still big parts of the world outside of the technology industry that are held hostage by Microsoft and their devoted IT department foot soldiers who refuse to acknowledge anything outside of the Microsoft bubble.

didn't get you point. you mean i have to choose a side on the holy wars of fanboism? ...yeah, i rather not.

but if i must choose any hardware which i will dual boot linux anyway, i rather not be stuck with a beige-box of the 21st century with glossy screen, and instead get something, you know, innovative? maybe, be as bold as, thinking differently. anyway. all that is moot since my CTO probably is swimming in apple shares.