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Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

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Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#191

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

tarotuser wrote: post #144
massysett wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't view the iPhone and iPad as "computers" or "personal computers" any more than I view my cable TV set-top box or Sonos speaker that way. Both are very powerful devices with Linux operating systems. But I don't expect to be able to program them. The iPhone is an appliance that can download "apps" that Apple permits. When I want a "computer" I open up my MacBook.

> I don't view the iPhone and iPad as "computers" or "personal computers" any more than I view my cable TV set-top box or Sonos speaker that way. Why should your personal view obviate the devices' nature? These are all computers. *Whose* computers is the more important question. And from a look at a lot of these 'narrow focused computer devices' have the company you bought it from still exert control years after your…

Apple could allow personal hobby apps at basically no cost.

The obvious upside is that people who start off building hobby apps may well move into developing apps - and perhaps even associated hardware - professionally.

This is very likely to lead to increased goodwill and significant further purchases of products and other services.

Development of Xcode (not the best environment ever...) and Swift/UIKit will continue anyway. There is no sense in which a few thousand/tens of thousands of hobby developers are paying for that to any significant extent.

This does not require sideloading or loosening the security. It requires a slight relaxation of the provisioning system for single devices - something which exists already.

I don't care what the fanboi justifications are. Not doing this makes absolutely no commercial sense. Apple is gaining a somewhat imaginary $99 a year, which hobby developers won't pay anyway, and losing extra sales of hardware and apps which are potentially worth far more. It's also driving hobby coders towards competing ecosystems.

Instead of expanding the ecosystem this contracts it.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#192

Post by fulafel »

bobleeswagger wrote: post #155
sneak wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not the $99, it's the fact that you can't publish anonymously. You must show ID to pay and participate, because of payment cards and the dev program signup.

Why should Apple allow anonymous publication on a marketplace which they are ultimately responsible for?

The article is specifically about apps that you don't want to distribute through Apple.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#193

Post by kagakuninja »

taraharris wrote: post #77

I poured a year of my life into an app written in Swift for iOS before I ran into a brick wall trying to figure out how to use Apple's stuff to encode frames into an mp4 video. It's a pretty slick thing that uses low-level APIs like Metal, Core Audio, CFRunLoop, etc. https://github.com/realtaraharris/arezzo I accidentally spilled a latte into my M1 MacBook Pro, which cost me $2000 to buy. At that point I decided to j…

You could have been building apps on a cheap Mac Mini; even cheaper if bought used. You (like me) choose to buy an expensive MacBook Pro.

Back when I developed iOS apps, I experienced a lot of pain (especially when everything was covered by an NDA). But I find it pretty bizarre to abandon an ecosystem because you spilled coffee on your expensive device.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#194

Post by aksss »

sneak wrote: post #88
_boffin_ wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand your take. not one iota. To me, it seems that you're complaining about something that was once free, isn't anymore. It's a business and it's their data, electricity, servers, users, etc...

They're not Twitter's users. They are independent publishers publishing their information on the open web, and Twitter is rentseeking. It'd be the same as a web host prohibiting certain browsers, or trying to block you from publishing RSS.

Is that a good comparison though?? I mean, an API is a luxury if it’s exposed to the outside world for free, you’re still free to screen scrape Twitter. Or cross post your own feed to RSS. Twitter, like any company, isn’t obligated to facilitate programmatic access by third parties for free. Usually that kind of thing is done to build an ecosystem but obviously Twitter feels they get less value out of this deep access now than third party developers do. Not sure how this is anything like “a web host preventing you from publishing RSS”.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#196

Post by _boffin_ »

sneak wrote: post #88
_boffin_ wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand your take. not one iota. To me, it seems that you're complaining about something that was once free, isn't anymore. It's a business and it's their data, electricity, servers, users, etc...

They're not Twitter's users. They are independent publishers publishing their information on the open web, and Twitter is rentseeking. It'd be the same as a web host prohibiting certain browsers, or trying to block you from publishing RSS.

- They have a Twitter account?

- They use Twitter resources?

- They use Twitter's platform?

- If Twitter went down, they wouldn't be able to post their Tweet?

> It'd be the same as a web host prohibiting certain browsers, or trying to block you from publishing RSS.

You have a wild imagination.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#197

Post by flohofwoe »

aksss wrote: post #164
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $99/yr is a ridiculous sum for the "privilege" of publishing in Apple's walled garden It’s a token amount, just enough to prevent spammers from creating thousands of accounts. It’s $99 for your entire organization for a year. Go check what Microsoft charges for a Visual Studio license per seat, per year. $99 doesn’t even buy you 1 hour of a developer’s time. Even if you develop apps a a hobby, this is not a large a…

Visual Studio Community Edition is free and quite capable for the individual hobby developer, same with VSC. Compared to developing for iPhone, which requires me to still have macOS (and legally Mac hardware) at my disposal somewhere to even get the app built completely, right? That would be the proper comparison between their approach to enabling developers on the tooling side, not the App Store fee. What’s the barr…

> that you can side load apps on Windows without using the app store at all

It's unfortunately not that simple anymore on Windows either with the SmartScreen popup getting in the way and the "Run anyway" button hard to find (not as bad as on macOS but still...).

Your executable needs a big enough "reputation score" for SmartScreen to remain silent, even when properly code-signed (unless it's signed with an expensive EV-certificiate apparently).

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#198

Post by rebeccaskinner »

My honest question is: What's the alternative.

I'm not an apple fan. Most of my personal devices run Linux, but I feel essentially trapped on an iPhone. It doesn't seem like there's a truly useful open phone out there. I don't like Apple, and I don't trust them or their ostensibly pro-privacy stance much, but I want as little privacy invasion and as little advertising as possible on my phone, and I think as bad as Apple is, they're still better than a fully Googled version of Android. Unfortunately, a lot of people, myself included, need at least some apps that require either an iPhone or a fully Googled version of android.

I suppose there's always the option to dual-wield and use a Linux or de-googled android phone for daily use and keep a second device around for the apps that won't run there, but that is both a pain I don't expect many people to buy into. I'm just about at the point of going this route for myself, but it does feel more like admitting defeat than anything else.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#199

Post by _trackno5 »

stakhanov wrote: post #187
PedroBatista wrote: post #128

The relationship some developers have with Apple should be a case-study with multiple PhD thesis in psychology. Not even in movies I've seen so many cases of children desperately chasing their emotionally unavailable parent. Apple is a trillion dollar company, it's the "parent" who sells you +$40 dongles for everything. "Hobbies" are only good if they make them money AND doesn't increase their risk or any liability.…

I agree. The whole article left me feeling a resounding "well, duhhhhhh". The author has simply chosen one of the least hackable compute platforms for his hacking hobby and is then complaining about it (I mean "hacking" in the original sense, not implying anything about illegal activities). If he were a farmer writing angry blog posts about how VW has made it damned-near impossible to plough a field with a VW beetle,…

Why shouldn’t he complain about it though? If nobody complains there’s no chance things will change. Sure people could vote with their feet, but not everyone is willing to do that. They should still be allowed to ask for improvements.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#200

Post by cyberge99 »

What if their motivation is creating a higher than normal barrier to entry? This alone probably reduces the number of scammers and malware cross section because those types will shift their focus elsewhere, knowing there is rigor involved with distributing their app.

It doesn’t eliminate it, it just makes is more difficult to even enter the property.

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