There's pushback on another app store from Microsoft because nobody wants more walled gardens. The pendulum has shifted, and it's swinging towards PWA. Per Microsoft, Outlook is now a progressive web app. App stores are dying - they're just going to take a bit to timeout.
>>The pendulum has shifted, and it's swinging towards PWA Didn't Firefox recently announce they're discontinuing PWA features?
FF only removed the SSB (site specific browser) feature on desktop which was in an alpha state. There was no announcement that Mozilla was going to remove the entire PWA features (such as service workers).
PWA is a set of modern web standards. "Supporting PWA" can mean many things but "Removing unfinished SSB" doesn't mean "Removing PWA".
> The pendulum has shifted, and it's swinging towards PWA. It has for some things, and for others native is king. Native just delivers experiences that PWA can’t (yet). To take a simple example - let’s consider a ‘timer app’. On iPhone I ask Siri to set me a timer for 5 minutes, it sets the timer and I walk away from my phone. 15 minutes the timer pings on my watch where I can accept it. There are multiple steps in t…
These are all artificial problems created by Apple, though. The first three are all doable on Android PWAs, and you can do everything with a TWA in the Play Store.
I don’t disagree, although I think these reasons do mean that it’s far too early to say “App stores are dying” as in the post I was replying to - at least in Apple’s case they are still central, and even seem to be becoming more core with deeper integration into MacOS.
Also, in this context, a TWA isn’t useful as the post is about avoiding an App Store / central control using PWA.
>This is situational and opportunistic. It can change any day. In fact, managing an important app store is exactly one way to re-(un)-balance this relationship. I agree. Sorting huge, multinational, publicly traded companies in friends and enemies list is so obviously bogus and immature that it baffles me that this is so prevalent. Microsoft is not your enemy. It's not your friend (unless you're one of the shareholde…
It's repeated very often that companies maximize shareholder value, but that's not really true. Companies follow the personal interests of their management and employees, in proportion to their power within the institution, which sometimes involves shareholder value.
Ye. The belief in the "invisible hand" is strong. Boards and executives are not more rational than employees in general. Why would they not do things because they e.g. feel good about it or want revenge - like they were some super human well oiled machine.
No. Stop it. This is NOT what GitHub is for. Yes, it has become a place for software where users may download packaged "apps" from. But this is only a byproduct of GitHub hosting software. Do not ruin GitHub for me please. I don't wanna sound like a jerk, but I don't wanna have to deal with the same people who leave horrible comment on the App Store and Play Store. I'm sure you have good intentions, but this is a really stupid idea.
It's repeated very often that companies maximize shareholder value, but that's not really true. Companies follow the personal interests of their management and employees, in proportion to their power within the institution, which sometimes involves shareholder value.
Ye. The belief in the "invisible hand" is strong. Boards and executives are not more rational than employees in general. Why would they not do things because they e.g. feel good about it or want revenge - like they were some super human well oiled machine.
Furthermore (and I think this is the strongest evidence), if companies were really "amoral impersonal shareholder value maximizers," enterprise sales would consist of leaving a box outside their front door and billing them a day later. The fact that enterprise sales is the exact opposite of that, opposed to it in every form, is very strong evidence against the robot-corporate way of looking at it. Of the many techniques for getting corporations to do things, as practiced by professional influencers of corporate choices, all begin and end with relationships. Not relationships with the company; relationships with its members.
The funny thing about these "reasons" the article writes, is that it does not give any reason why GitHub would want to create such an app store. Most the reasons stated are basically what we will supposedly benefit. There is literally no reason from GitHub's point of view why they would be interested in creating such a product to begin with. Of course, there might be reasons form Microsoft to create an alternative to…
It also ignores the question of how: Apple - Blocked Android - Pointless without a drop in replacement for Google Services. Windows- This is possible, but Windows doesn't really have a distribution problem. There's no real need here. Linux - Again possible, but no real need
To note though, running Android everyday without GMS is very doable, both MicroG and Huawei do it.
> Backed by Microsoft. Microsoft has been playing good by the developers for years now. I trust them more than Apple and Google. Maybe we shouldn't trust MS, but ourselves. A MS controlled App Store is as bad or good as a Google or Apple controlled App store. Good for some peace of mind and trust, that they won't distribute malware ( ... already broken tough), bad for the fact that they control it we would still rely…
Yes, this.
Some of us remember Microsoft setting personal computing back ten years by using their market power to foist sub par, frankly rubbish, system software on computer users.
There is no sign they have changed their business practices. It is just now they are the underdog.
Full respect is due to MS for turning their business around, but they are playing catchup now. If they ever get back out in front, watch out!
The funny thing about these "reasons" the article writes, is that it does not give any reason why GitHub would want to create such an app store. Most the reasons stated are basically what we will supposedly benefit. There is literally no reason from GitHub's point of view why they would be interested in creating such a product to begin with. Of course, there might be reasons form Microsoft to create an alternative to…
It also ignores the question of how: Apple - Blocked Android - Pointless without a drop in replacement for Google Services. Windows- This is possible, but Windows doesn't really have a distribution problem. There's no real need here. Linux - Again possible, but no real need
Why would "Apple" be blocked? You can run arbitrary software on macOS.
> They already host source code of millions of apps. Release integration should be trivial to implement. Release integration is trivial for anyone. It's the easiest and most irrelevant part of the app stores. > Unlike Google they actually listen to their users. They were awesome during youtube-dl debacle. And controversial on others, like shutting down Popcorn Time's repository. As any other, they'll listen if there'…
> Sure, lets pipe user feedback directly into GitHub issues. Good luck with that if you have a hundred issues a day.
There's a more fundamental issue: GitHub issues are for developers to report bugs and file feature-requests, they aren't intended for user support, even if that's sometimes how they're used.
>This is situational and opportunistic. It can change any day. In fact, managing an important app store is exactly one way to re-(un)-balance this relationship. I agree. Sorting huge, multinational, publicly traded companies in friends and enemies list is so obviously bogus and immature that it baffles me that this is so prevalent. Microsoft is not your enemy. It's not your friend (unless you're one of the shareholde…
This really is a generational divide, those of US that were around for the 90's and early 00's Microsoft crap still have a bad taste for the "new Microsoft" that claims to love FLOSS (while still showing many signs of EEE.. ) During that time Google was very friendly to FLOSS, and open protocols (remember when GChat was just a XMPP client) Today MS and Google seems to have flipped, Google now is fully embracing Embra…
Yeah, LSP may be turning out to be a good example of Microsoft going back to EEE; with a twist, though: rather than embracing a pre-existing standard, they're proposing a new one