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We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

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Re: We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

#181

Post by amelius »

fouc wrote: post #43
askafriend wrote: post #21

I'm sorry but as a user, I trust my relationship with Apple more than I trust random third party devs. As a user, I want Apple to lock down the system and make things hard for developers. As a developer, I empathize with my perspective as a user and build products that take this into account.

I want things sandboxed for sure but I definitely don't want to be forced to use App Store. In reality App Stores are bad, too much enforced centralization. Takes the power out of the user's hands.

> In reality App Stores are bad, too much enforced centralization.

This holds for any kind of store, from supermarkets to Amazon.

Re: We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

#182

Post by t0ddbonzalez »

Marazan wrote: post #163
t0ddbonzalez wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you could go back to 1996 and say the Nokia Communicator was the first smartphone. I think what he meant by "Apple created THE smartphone" is that Apple created the first mass-market smartphone which was desired by regular consumers (rather than niche buyers).

The N95 sold more units than the original iPhone.

And the iPhone is still around, whereas Symbian isn't.

Possibly proving that iOS (and the hardware it runs on) was what consumers wanted in the mid-2000's and onward?

Re: We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

#184

Post by buboard »

etchalon wrote: post #16

I completely understand why developers would find the restrictions of the App Store ridiculous, time consuming, expensive, and frustrating. But as a user, whenever I need an application, I always check to see if it's available on the App Store first. Because I can trust the App Store.

I mean of course you do, they give you app review for free. The question is if it's sustainable for the market.

Re: We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

#185

Post by teddyh »

api wrote: post #127
echelon wrote: post #65

The fact that we have to have humans look at our software before we can go to market in 2019 is absurd. I had high hopes for the future as a teen growing up with Napster, Bittorrent, IRC, Trillian/Pidgin, and an explosive WWW. Look at what a pinheaded mess everything has become. Greed destroyed the open and experimental Internet.

Spam and malware destroyed the open experimental Internet.

Only partially. Spam can be filtered, as PG himself was early to point out, and malware can be countered with better security. This could have been fixed, given enough time.

The kill shot, instead, has been delivered by ad-sponsored media; clickbait, fake news, mass rage-storms, fake reviews, etc.

Re: We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

#186

Post by t0ddbonzalez »

pjmlp wrote: post #150
t0ddbonzalez wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you could go back to 1996 and say the Nokia Communicator was the first smartphone. I think what he meant by "Apple created THE smartphone" is that Apple created the first mass-market smartphone which was desired by regular consumers (rather than niche buyers).

So Europeans and Asians using Symbian, J2ME and Docomo handsets weren't regular consumers?

Docomo phones were(are?) a Japan-only irrelevance.

Granted - Symbian was a thing back then, but can you buy a Symbian phone today? Consumers voted with their money, and they wanted iPhones, not Nokias.

Fast forward to 2019, Nokia is nothing more than a trademark - making generic Android phones on one hand, and cashing in on nostalgia with their feature phones on the other hand.

Re: We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

#187

Post by ljcn »

platistocrates wrote: post #144
jen729w wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also stopped “check[ing] weekly for new things”, but that’s because I don’t need any new things! Do you? I don’t have Instagram but I imagine it’s a bit like the App Store. I’m waiting somewhere. I’m bored. I know, I’ll check for a shiny thing. Oh, no shiny thing. That was disappointing. To compare, do you go to the internet regularly and check for new things? I don’t think this is the App Store’s fault. It’s no…

~ means "approximately".

~= means not equal in MATLAB. Also it often means one's complement (C and others). Hence the gp used it to mean NOT.

Re: We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

#188

Post by nogridbag »

cytzol wrote: post #168
dijit wrote: post #7

Actually; now that I think about it, from a user perspective I also really dislike the App Store. I used to _love_ it, I would check weekly for new things, maybe there was some new shiny (often beautiful) program to do something really well. The experience was on the 'better than passable' side, nobodies favourite interface maybe, but certainly not terrible. But I actually avoid the App Store these days, both on MacO…

> I also really dislike the App Store. [...] I used to _love_ it, I would check weekly for new things I used to do this too, and like you, I've now grown to really dislike it. My reason is different, though: the App Store app has _plummeted_ in quality. It's now so hard to use, I don't bother using it. 1. The UI is all over the place. Some UI controls cause pages to swipe up from the bottom. Some cause pages to swipe…

I used the OSX App Store for the first time in years a few days ago. For the life of me I could not figure out how to download a simple free app. I had to ask my SO, who usually comes to me for tech questions, how to use it. Keep in mind I've been using computers for decades and have an above average understanding of UI design.

1. Upon clicking the App Store icon and entering my apple ID and password I get a 500 error. No amount of restarting can fix it. After a quick search, one of the top 5 search results led to a cryptic command I had to enter at the Terminal to fix it. This actually happened with a previous MBP and I just never used the app store (pretty much a factory install of OSX on both machines).

2. Clicking the icon to download the app ("GET" I believe) started a loading spinner with no progress indicator. Given it was only a 38MB app, I waited around for a while. Then I took a shower and came back. Still the same loading spinner. Decided to reboot the machine and try again.

3. I searched for the same application clicked GET again and then it turned into a cloud icon. Clicking the cloud icon seemed to do absolutely nothing. At this point I asked my wife who told me I had already downloaded the app to my account and now I need to download it to my machine. EDIT: I just remembered I was seriously confused at this point. I clicked the cloud icon several times and given there was zero feedback I opened both Launchpad and the Applications directory in case it magically already installed.

4. The above explanation made no sense to me. I'm familiar with the concept given I've used every version of Android and I understand I can download previously downloaded things from my account (that I installed on old devices). But that's not how the series of events unfolded. Anyway, I clicked the cloud icon a second (or third?) time and it turned into an install icon and all was good.

Re: We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

#189

Post by Wowfunhappy »

kevingadd wrote: post #124
lilyball wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple meanwhile created the entire OS and all of the developer APIs that your apps rely on, including things like Metal that games rely on. And Apple gives this all away for free.

It's free, is it? How do I install it in a vmware image for automated testing, or on this PC with compatible hardware I built? What you're looking for is something like "free for owners of Apple hardware", which is true, but very different. You paid for it.

I realize it’s not what you’re really talking about, I’ve been doing those things for years, first with Chameleon and now with Clover.

Re: We are leaving the Apple App Store and all its problems

#190

Post by Wowfunhappy »

twoslide wrote: post #148
epse wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying for updates has been the standard software model for ages, and with good reason. It still takes money to update and add new features. It still takes time. To some extent new users can pay for this, but then developers have to severely limit the time spent on updates in order to nod spend too much, or they risk not even making a profit on the first version. That is why most "big" software packages these days ar…

That is a good point, is creating a new app feasible within the app store? It seems if there are enough new features added, then it would become a new app which would be chargeable as a new purchase (with a discount code for users of the existing app). Presumably, such a milestone release would only happen every 2 - 3 year so there is time to think of an appropriate addition to the title ("Pro," "Premium", "Plus", et…

Lots of developers do this.
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