Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 509 posts

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#231

Post by yellowapple »

quietplatypus wrote: post #46
justinpaulson wrote: post #40

> My brain no longer has the time and energy to deal with Apple forcing me to relearn how to program every few years. Is this just kind of how developing software works on every platform?

Well, compared to Windows, which up until Windows 7 let you run a bunch of very old games (and even then you could still get some of them to work in compatibility mode), I'd say no. And that's a software platform that has to run on a bunch of different hardware. Also, your Xbox 360 games will all still work on your Xbox 360, as long as you have the hardware around. AFAIK all the Xbox 360 software updates never broke…

Up until recently, consoles have been a bit of a weird case, since "game" in that context usually meant something more like "game plus a baked-in operating system communicating directly with the hardware". The Xbox360 and PS3 were among the first major systems (outside of the PC realm) to run games on top of an existing operating system. Even somewhat-recent consoles that ran proper operating systems (original Xbox, Wii, PS2, Gamecube IIRC) treated them more like really complicated firmware/bootloaders; execution would be transferred to the game itself even as late as the Wii (where each game would implement certain things like the Wii home-button menu individually).

In such cases, most console games were thus mostly protected from software updates on the consoles themselves, but this also made it much harder for developers to patch their games after release (they'd basically have to rerelease or otherwise introduce fixed copies of the game alongside broken ones). On the plus side, it meant that the only time one would likely have to learn a new programming method/framework/etc. was when programming for a new platform.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#232

Post by Steko »

walterbell wrote: post #188
eridius wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the modern strategies to commoditize ISVs on iOS What modern strategies? I've seen this theory proposed multiple times, that Apple wants to commoditize software, but I've never seen anyone actually demonstrate ways in which Apple is doing that, just speculation that it would be in Apple's interests.

It's more about what they don't do to help developers make money. A web search will find research papers on software ecosystems, which discuss best practices for mutually-reinforcing, virtuous circle, feedback loops between platforms and developers. Stardock's 2014 report touches on related topics, http://www.stardock.com/press/CustomerReports/Stardock2014.p...

For not helping developers make money, developers sure do make a lot of money on iOS compared to other mobile platforms.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#233

Post by walterbell »

eridius wrote: post #229
walterbell wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark patterns ("bad UX") and broken discovery are a means to the end of "commoditizing the complements".

Bad UX in an Apple component is not a "dark pattern". It's just, well, bad UX. Knowing Apple, knowing its history and people that work there and the things they care about, I think Apple is incapable of deliberately producing a bad UX. When it happens, it's caused by other factors rather than being an explicit decision. In the case of App Store discovery being broken, I think it's caused by the fact that the App Stor…

Why do you think there is no visible investment/improvement in App Store UX, from the world's premier design proponent?

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#234

Post by eridius »

walterbell wrote: post #233
eridius wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad UX in an Apple component is not a "dark pattern". It's just, well, bad UX. Knowing Apple, knowing its history and people that work there and the things they care about, I think Apple is incapable of deliberately producing a bad UX. When it happens, it's caused by other factors rather than being an explicit decision. In the case of App Store discovery being broken, I think it's caused by the fact that the App Stor…

Why do you think there is no visible investment/improvement in App Store UX, from the world's premier design proponent?

Because the people that care about design don't really care about the App Store (they care about products instead), and the people that run the App Store don't really have an incentive to try and make dramatic changes in something that, from their perspective, is wildly successful. Change might break things, especially when operating on the scale that Apple is (just think of what the load must be on the App Store).

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#236

Post by vinceyuan »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #104

I think that becoming the most profitable company in the world has negatively impacted Apple, at least how I view them. I wrote the chess program given away free with the early Apple IIs, made some good money on a Mac app in 1984, and until recently favored Mac laptops: a fan boy. That is changing. I bought an incredibly cheap and underpowered Windows 8.1 laptop in January (HP Stream 11) for $199 and like it quite a…

Microsoft is heading in a good direction. I do like Surface 3 and 3 Pro. But the battery life of Windows laptops (including Surface) is still not good enough. We have to admit Apple does well in Macbook's battery life.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#237

Post by broodbucket »

Mithaldu wrote: post #189
Steko wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

League of Legends, TF2, Minecraft, Dota 2, Hearthstone, World of Tanks (etc) are all wildly successful F2P PC titles.

How is minecraft free2play or free2pay? Also, afaik LOL, TF2 and Dota2 sell content as micro transactions, not consumable cheats. I don't know if the same is true for Hearthstone, and i know this is true for WoT, but its lunch is being eaten by War Thunder, which also only sells content.

Hearthstone doesn't sell anything that you can't get by playing the game longer. It's a card game, they sell card packs. You can earn them without spending but it takes a while, and your ability to do that is dependent on how good you are.

I wouldn't say it's pay-to-win, but players aren't on equal footing from day 1 like in Dota2.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#238

Post by mreiland »

lukeschlather wrote: post #207
zmmmmm wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of alternative solutions to share file systems between a VM and host ... is that all you're trying to solve? VirtualBox has it built in.

No, I'm also trying to share between my laptop and a remote server. (actually, I very rarely use VMs hosted locally)

I use a samba share, it works a treat and in the 3-4 years I've been running it I've never had much maintenance on it outside of the occasional update to the OS.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#239

Post by Mithaldu »

Steko wrote: post #230
Mithaldu wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gladly. First off, i need to clarify how the two work, since they work substantially different to one another: LOL boosts come in two variants, but the net effect is the same: XP income per time unit played is doubled. You can spend more money to have them apply to more time units played, but you can't increase the effects of the boosts. They do nothing else. (I assume rising in level also pushes one into higher leve…

That sure is a lot of words trying to disguise the fundamental truth that there is basically no difference between the effects of LoL boosts and gems. Both advance your summoner/base in exchange for money. They are both time "cheats"that you pay for to avoid a grind in each game. You say flatly that 'LOL boosts do not increase competitiveness' but this is frankly completely false. An identical clone of myself playing…

I may be wrong in stating that XP boosts do not affect competitiveness, but the main point still stands: You only get to advance twice as fast with your 300$ in LoL compared to CoC where you can just blow all of your 300$ in a single day, hour even. There are several orders of magnitude between the two "eventuals" here. Additionally, not having XP boosts in LoL does not block you from playing, which CoC does. And lastly, not buying boosts does not lock any content away from you.

Then again, you haven't discussed in good faith from the get go (which is funny, since I primarily game on pc), so I expect you don't actually want to grok these differences.

Re: Why We Are No Longer Developing for the iPad

#240

Post by walterbell »

eridius wrote: post #234
walterbell wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think there is no visible investment/improvement in App Store UX, from the world's premier design proponent?

Because the people that care about design don't really care about the App Store (they care about products instead), and the people that run the App Store don't really have an incentive to try and make dramatic changes in something that, from their perspective, is wildly successful. Change might break things, especially when operating on the scale that Apple is (just think of what the load must be on the App Store).

Apple executive leadership is responsible for successful change in all departments, they could make this a priority if they wanted.
Post reply on HN