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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

#241

Post by lolinder »

adql wrote: post #232
lolinder wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jobs never lost his vision that Apple should sell appliances, and people who wanted to "wrench their own devices" should buy PCs. And honestly, I don't think information appliances are a bad thing to have in the world. It's not the kind of device I would choose for myself, but there's a class of users for whom a general computing device isn't just overkill, it's downright dangerous. Android is fine for my use case,…

But it's worse than appliance. Appliance doesn't actively block you from using it for something not listed in instruction manual

An appliance is engineered to serve a narrow set of purposes, which can also be said for iOS. The only way in which an iPhone is worse is that it is an information appliance built on hardware that could be general purpose if run with different software. But if you consider the appliance to be both hardware and software, it is no more restrictive than any other appliance.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#242

Post by cma »

a4isms wrote: post #97
sramsay wrote: post #68

What bothers me about this -- and it bothered me enough to leave the platform -- is not fees, or "hobby computing," or "it's just for my own use," or trying to figure out why this or that would be in Apple's interest. What bothers me is that it feels like an offense against the entire notion of what a computer is. I am, of course, aware that many (perhaps most) computers in the world are effectively appliances, but a…

First, you are right. Jobs himself said that he wanted to go beyond selling computers, and sell information appliances. In that respect, he and Woz were diametrically opposed. When he was squeezed out of management in his own company, it is not a coïncidence that he elbowed his way into Jef Raskin's Macintosh project: Raskin was also interested in building information appliances, the difference between the two men wa…

At NeXT it seemed like Jobs did the opposite, making workstations for professionals.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#243

Post by adql »

chongli wrote: post #131
smoldesu wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does letting people freely sideload apps conflict with this philosophy? You can still use your iPad as the world's most expensive e-reader if you want, letting other people run Linux on it doesn't somehow ruin your experience.

I think what Apple’s afraid of is an app like Facebook tricking/forcing users to sideload in order to bypass privacy protections and get full access to user data. I don’t think they’re at all worried about hobbyists sideloading open source apps. Everyone likes to say “but would Apple would lose the $100/yr from all those hobbyists.” How many hobbyists do you think are out there right now paying $100/year just to load…

> I think what Apple’s afraid of is an app like Facebook tricking/forcing users to sideload in order to bypass privacy protections and get full access to user data. I don’t think they’re at all worried about hobbyists sideloading open source apps.

Nah, they're worried someone might sideload a software with payment method that doesn't give them cut

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#244

Post by PedroBatista »

_trackno5 wrote: post #199
stakhanov wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree he has the right to complain, I call Apple "bad names" most of the time I log into App Store Connect!

But.. We also need to have some perspective. They will not change unless the incentive is there and even then they fight it with all their strengths ( ex: other payment services used to sell in-app stuff )

And frankly why are "we" so invested in changing Apple? They suck? they don't threat you well? Then fuck them.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#245

Post by JohnFen »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #168
sramsay wrote: post #68

What bothers me about this -- and it bothered me enough to leave the platform -- is not fees, or "hobby computing," or "it's just for my own use," or trying to figure out why this or that would be in Apple's interest. What bothers me is that it feels like an offense against the entire notion of what a computer is. I am, of course, aware that many (perhaps most) computers in the world are effectively appliances, but a…

> What bothers me is that it feels like an offense against the entire notion of a computer is . Yeah, as others are also saying, welcome to the 21st Century where they're not really computers anymore that they're selling. Your mistake is to still believe that they are. I view the phone the way perhaps a ham (ham radio operator) viewed the transistor radio. For those of us where a computer is a tool to build with, a t…

I agree wholeheartedly. It's why developing for phones isn't of interest to me, and why I stopped being a registered Apple dev.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#246

Post by adql »

gretch wrote: post #119
smoldesu wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does letting people freely sideload apps conflict with this philosophy? You can still use your iPad as the world's most expensive e-reader if you want, letting other people run Linux on it doesn't somehow ruin your experience.

My philosophy is that Apple can do whatever they want (as long as legal and ethical). They made a thing, and you bought it. Why would anyone with a bent on free computing walk into what they know to be a closed ecosystem. Just buy an Android phone. It’s like flying to a foreign country and expecting everyone to English to you imo…

All it takes for Apple to be open is for consumers to put the money where their mouth is and be loud about it. Which didn't happen, so it isn't.

Give it a year of lower than usual profits and some twitter complaints and they will backpedal at mach 10

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#247

Post by stakhanov »

_trackno5 wrote: post #199
stakhanov wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But his unwillingness to vote with his feet is the actual message here. He's basically saying: Here are the horrible things that Apple is doing to me and yet I'm still giving them my money and investing myself in their developer ecosystem. That's how much I love them, for some reason that remains unstated in the article.

That's what the parent commenter alluded to: There's some really weird psychology happening here, and that's the piece that's actually interesting.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#248

Post by cma »

sneak wrote: post #83
sramsay wrote: post #68

What bothers me about this -- and it bothered me enough to leave the platform -- is not fees, or "hobby computing," or "it's just for my own use," or trying to figure out why this or that would be in Apple's interest. What bothers me is that it feels like an offense against the entire notion of what a computer is. I am, of course, aware that many (perhaps most) computers in the world are effectively appliances, but a…

It's a bicycle for the share price.

A bicycle for sharecroppers.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#250

Post by superkuh »

bragr wrote: post #24

I doubt this is "Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps", so much as "Apple doesn’t want dev accounts to be an easy backdoor for sideloading apps" and hobby apps are an acceptable casualty.

The casual use of the word "sideloading" is dangerous to society. It is literal newspeak with the intent to eliminate even the idea of "installing" and make it so people cannot even think of applications outside of a corporation (or institution's) walled garden.

Users installing applications is the default. Walled gardens are the weird dangerous thing.

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