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An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

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Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#201

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

chuckadams wrote: post #149
bhpm wrote: post #128

This post changed my mind about sideloading on iPhones. Before I read it I was firmly in the camp of “lock it down, so grandma doesn’t get hacked.” But now I just think it stops people from making home cooked meal apps like this. I also think it propagates the notion that computers are magic and should only be programmed by magicians. But no software developer I have ever met has felt this way. I don’t feel this way.

I think grandma-mode should still be the default, but with some arcane startup ritual to enable sideloading that you only have to do once, with said process being replete with "HERE BE DRAGONS" warnings. Basically make it more like a mac or a typical chromebook. Pixel phones still let you root them, don't they?

Not only does Google let you root Pixels, but they don't appear to be interested in interfering with GrapheneOS, which is specifically for Pixels and lets you run all of the google stuff in userspace so that it has to ask your permission before doing things.

Google is plenty evil in their own ways, but they're at least not anti-tinkering.

Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#202

Post by piperswe »

worksonmine wrote: post #146
sgt wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't actually use SMS though, despite thinking that they use SMS. My mom still thinks she uses SMS, despite it just being iMessage in the end. Messages can be long, video, images etc are easy and we have about 4-5 different group conversations going at any given time in my family.

"Most people" do not own an iPhone or use iMessages, maybe in your bubble, but not in the real world.

The people that don't use iMessage probably use RCS, not SMS.

Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#203

Post by david422 »

keithalewis wrote: post #47
ssgodderidge wrote: post #16

> I burned some incense and threw some stones and the gods of Xcode allowed me to pass. Gave an audible chuckle at this one. I've done many a battle with those gods; they be beasts.

Lovely article but this made me sad/mad. How did we get to the point where this is acceptable? MAGA (Microsoft Apple Google Amazon) have a stultifying effect in our software sharing lives now.

I'm curious if Apple actually uses they software they write. Surely they must right? And if so, then how do they not improve it. Or if they don't ... perhaps they don't use other software so they don't understand how things could be different?

Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#204

Post by nxobject »

citruscomputing wrote: post #83

> In a better world, I would have built this in a day, using some kind of modern, flexible HyperCard for iOS. How much we have lost.

Once a while we get a post where everyone has an excuse to gush about Delphi/Lazarus/Free Pascal etc. in the comments, but no one's quite sure about the iOS story and no one really has the time to check up on it...

Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#205

Post by nxobject »

sotix wrote: post #130
spenczar5 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.” - Zawinski’s Law :)

I like that law! My law for the past few years has been every app expands until it is beyond bloat, which is recognizable when it has the feature du jour, which can be found across every popular and unrelated app. At the time, that feature was stories, which could be found in Snapchat, instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Uber eats, and I think even Venmo at one point. Once you got away from social apps, it was clearly fea…

And now it's microblogging, sadly (well, it very nearly was a digital wallet.) I think an AI chatbot's only a matter of time...

Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#206

Post by markemer »

ssgodderidge wrote: post #16

> I burned some incense and threw some stones and the gods of Xcode allowed me to pass. Gave an audible chuckle at this one. I've done many a battle with those gods; they be beasts.

Yeah, I’ve said in many interviews that I know a lot about signing Apple products, all learned entirely against my will.

Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#207

Post by enobrev »

rustyminnow wrote: post #180
enobrev wrote: post #87

When I first read this post, it helped me decide not to try to adjust my home automation app for the masses. I have a single JavaScript file that runs all the automations in my house. Everything runs on Mqtt and this file handles all timers and temperature adjustments and turning everything off in the house when the right button is pushed and checking that the doors are locked and keeping the front porch lit when the…

That's fantastic. Sounds so much simpler than using Node-RED or something. How do you monitor the laundry? Like is your washer/dryer "smart"? or do you have some sort of vibration/current/noise sensor to determine when they finish?

I'm using the power monitoring feature on a "heavy duty" z-wave power switch (zooz zen-15) to track the power usage. When it jumps over a threshold for at least a couple seconds, I assume the appliance is on, and then when it drops to zero for at least a couple seconds, I assume it's "done".

Same goes for the kitty litter box, although that's just a standard z-wave power switch, not a "heavy-duty" one. That one gets some false positives, so our counter gets a bit higher than the real one, but the discrepancy isn't a huge deal. Looking forward to debugging this one eventually.

Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#208

Post by eddieroger »

bhpm wrote: post #128

This post changed my mind about sideloading on iPhones. Before I read it I was firmly in the camp of “lock it down, so grandma doesn’t get hacked.” But now I just think it stops people from making home cooked meal apps like this. I also think it propagates the notion that computers are magic and should only be programmed by magicians. But no software developer I have ever met has felt this way. I don’t feel this way.

I think that's where the TestFlight "external beta" is genius. If there was a route for me to be treated like an enterprise for my friends and family, I would have years ago, but with TestFlight being so easy and the audience size so large, there's no barrier for me anymore. I just wish that was a route I'd have realized a while ago. And even though there's a cost barrier, I don't think it's that high given the tax to have a Mac in the first place.

You're right about the notion that computers are magic, but distribution isn't the cause of that. I think it's a shame people don't seem to want to do more with their computers. I remember my parents using pretty barebones database apps and stuff on a 386 back in the day, and somewhere since then the machines have become bigger and scarier, and they're less inquisitive. Maybe age, but maybe we've made the machines less friendly to new code.

Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#209

Post by jessekv »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #198
jimbokun wrote: post #110

> In our actual world, I built it in about a week, and roughly half of that time was spent wrestling with different flavors of code-signing and identity provisioning and I don’t even know what. I burned some incense and threw some stones and the gods of Xcode allowed me to pass. This resonated with me. This is a major source of friction to "scratching your own itch" in modern software development. Makes it extremely…

This is where a pi web server along with cloudflare tunnel and a website really shine. You don't need to ask anyone to run that service. I'm running a custom todo app off my pi without exposing my router. It's incredibly freeing.

Another way could be host it on a Tailscale network, then it can only be accessed by your own devices.

Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)

#210

Post by hiq »

caipira wrote: post #64
hiq wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have been working on a personal project for the last 10 years that replaces every other app I used to use - E-mail, calendar, and all the others we all use on a daily basis Would you be willing to describe how it works / record a video of how you use it? But maybe that goes against your last sentence: > My exclusive, differential, unique characteristic against the world, my joker card. ? I guess the idea is that…

> Would you be willing to describe how it works / record a video of how you use it? I'll definitely do it in the near future and post it here on HN. > My exclusive, differential, unique characteristic against the world, my joker card. In the sense that, if one day money becomes short, I could extract a few SAAS out of it and make some money or even sell it. > I guess the idea is that you integrated all the apps with…

I assume you choose the services you depend on wisely, to make sure it's possible to integrate with them? E.g. thinking of common apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, some email providers: they don't necessarily provide an API that you can call into, and sometimes you rely on a library a 3rd-party developed but which breaks regularly.

Looking forward to your post on HN!

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