Coming changes to Apple's App Store • Hacker News Board

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#281

Post by NEDM64 » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 6:31 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #105

chasing wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to address two things, here: 1) You're absolutely right: Pricing matters. If I charge you $10/mo for my app that sends you a text message every time there's a full moon, that would be way too expensive and you'd be well within your rights as a consumer to spend your money on something else. As far as I'm aware, Apple will not force you to subscribe to any apps. 2) "... subscriptions are immoral..." Bullshit. A…

Operating systems change, and companies/developers come and go, but not all software really needs ongoing maintenance, and some of it really can work indefinitely. I still have DOS games I legally purchased in the 1990s that run fine today. Why shouldn't that be true of mobile games? If the company stops updating the game, fine, but I should still be able to play it in 5 years if I bought it. Or at least, legally be…

Because resolutions change, for example. And it's the truth of most single player games.

Apple is not forcing anyone to adopt this model, and most people won't be comfortable with a subscription based game anyway.

However, for MMO's, subscriptions make sense.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#282

Post by NEDM64 » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 6:35 AM UTC

khedoros wrote: post #159

slededit wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you mention DOS games, which are one of my earliest examples of bit-rot. A lot of them stopped working with win95/98, and the rest are gone with 64-bit windows. DOS Box can help but there was a period of time when computers were too slow to emulate a DOS machine quickly enough.

Most of my DOS software ran fine on a Windows XP laptop in 2003 (sometimes with the addition of VDMSound to handle FM synthesis emulation). That same laptop will run most of the remainder quickly enough in Dosbox. I've also got a desktop with tech mostly circa 2000. It's got DOS and Windows 98 on it. Among my collection, I haven't found anything that I can't get to run. The hole that I see is during the time shortly…

But there, you were lucky to have an open source and free project to help you out.

Because without it, you could be 100% sure the developers won't be updating them.

Now, lots of games from the late 90's, early 2000's don't work anymore on modern Windows versions. And DOSbox isn't powerful enough to run them.

What you do now?

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#283

Post by NEDM64 » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 6:38 AM UTC

ominous wrote: post #267

chasing wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to address two things, here: 1) You're absolutely right: Pricing matters. If I charge you $10/mo for my app that sends you a text message every time there's a full moon, that would be way too expensive and you'd be well within your rights as a consumer to spend your money on something else. As far as I'm aware, Apple will not force you to subscribe to any apps. 2) "... subscriptions are immoral..." Bullshit. A…

Immoral or not, what is being said is: If I were to buy software X and place it on a box I control, without access to the internet, I expect it -- and its bugs -- to work forever. Ruling out time issues (y2k or similar), I expect notepad.exe (for example) or grep to work forever. I can extract from it all the use I am able to. > If you value a piece of software, then (...) No. Just no. If I value X, I value X. Don't…

Are you punished because what?

Do you really think people like subscriptions?

People prefer to pay $50 for a 64GB micro SD card in a store, than $1/mo for 50GB cloud storage.

Offering your app for a one time fee is an advantage for the developer.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#284

Post by NEDM64 » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 6:44 AM UTC

post_break wrote: post #79

salmonet wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been very pleased with the subscription experience on the App Store. The reason I usually hate subscriptions is that they are a headache remember, changing credit cards requires me to remember and update subscriptions in many different places, and providers make it hard to cancel. My experience with subscriptions on iOS has been very positive. It's easy to pay for and easy to cancel. Personally, I would rather p…

A simple trial period like Androids 2 hour window would avoid all of this subscription nonsense for your last point.

Apple has 14 days.

The only difference is that Google makes it easy for people to abuse the system.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#285

Post by NEDM64 » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 6:55 AM UTC

post_break wrote: post #64

Death by a thousand cuts. All those apps that charge to turn off the ads? Suddenly you pay yearly for that. iAP to unlock those extra levels/features/etc, better pay the tax man because those will now be yearly. Apps will no longer be "upgraded" from 1.0 to 2.0 where you have to pay for the new version. No, you pay that yearly fee whether you like it or not. Sorry this isn't going to turn out well and I might just ha…

Ignorant comment, I bet you already use Android. Apple gives 14 DAYS of refund policy, and Google just copied Apple model.

Have fun with your LG.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#286

Post by post_break » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 1:39 PM UTC

NEDM64 wrote: post #285

post_break wrote: post #64

Death by a thousand cuts. All those apps that charge to turn off the ads? Suddenly you pay yearly for that. iAP to unlock those extra levels/features/etc, better pay the tax man because those will now be yearly. Apps will no longer be "upgraded" from 1.0 to 2.0 where you have to pay for the new version. No, you pay that yearly fee whether you like it or not. Sorry this isn't going to turn out well and I might just ha…

Ignorant comment, I bet you already use Android. Apple gives 14 DAYS of refund policy, and Google just copied Apple model. Have fun with your LG.

I have an iPhone 6s. Can you show me where Apple says out right that they will refund an application before 14 days? I'm not being snarky, I just haven't seen that written before.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#287

Post by rarepostinlurkr » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

khedoros wrote: post #233

derefr wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd consider myself entitled to an update to fix the issue. Either that or a refund If a company publishes an app and then goes out of business, and then years later the platform shifts out from under that app such that it no longer works, do you feel like you deserve a refund? If so, who do you expect to pay? The platform gave your money to the developer; the developer ceased to exist. Neither one has "your" money…

I'm not talking about years later. I'm talking about an immediately obvious shortcoming that manifests on the platform supported by the product at the time of purchase. If I buy it and they're out of business 5 minutes later, then I guess I should've been paying more attention to who I give my money to.

I don't think Adobe supports CS6 anymore, but it sure looks like the desktop platform supports it even when the developer doesn't.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#288

Post by rarepostinlurkr » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 4:38 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #238

rpgmaker wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More importantly, subscriptions are immoral because the end result is robbing users of any sense of ownership. I don't know why people allowed this transition from software ownership to subscription to happen (although they really weren't given the choice). It's ridiculous that the customer is giving away his MS Office ownership in exchange for the marginal improvements that MS has been doing in the last couple of…

> I don't know why people allowed this transition from software ownership to subscription to happen I don't know why developers allowed to happen the transition of reasonably priced software to ridiculously underpriced almost-free apps.

Developers were free to set whatever price they chose and free seemed to be the price settled.

A bed was made. This bed worked worked out well for IAP driven consumer apps but not so great for less disposable software.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#289

Post by rarepostinlurkr » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 4:39 PM UTC

tdkl wrote: post #266

dntrkv wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think $150 is too expensive for a piece of software you use ~8 hours a day to do a $100k+ salary job? Go ask a mechanic or carpenter how much money they spend on their tools for a job that pays significantly less.

> Go ask a mechanic or carpenter how much money they spend on their tools for a job that pays significantly less. That's a hilarious example, because they don't rent and pay subscription for those tools, they buy them.

You'd be surprised to learn how many CATs and so on are rented not owned. United Rentals seems to do well renting equipment out.

Re: Coming changes to Apple's App Store

#290

Post by khedoros » Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 4:44 PM UTC

NEDM64 wrote: post #282

khedoros wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my DOS software ran fine on a Windows XP laptop in 2003 (sometimes with the addition of VDMSound to handle FM synthesis emulation). That same laptop will run most of the remainder quickly enough in Dosbox. I've also got a desktop with tech mostly circa 2000. It's got DOS and Windows 98 on it. Among my collection, I haven't found anything that I can't get to run. The hole that I see is during the time shortly…

But there, you were lucky to have an open source and free project to help you out. Because without it, you could be 100% sure the developers won't be updating them. Now, lots of games from the late 90's, early 2000's don't work anymore on modern Windows versions. And DOSbox isn't powerful enough to run them. What you do now?

> What you do now?

Me, Personally? I have a Pentium 3 desktop running Windows 98, with a GeForce 4 video card. It's also got a Sound Blaster 16 video card. I consider it my machine to cover an era from the 80s to about 2002, when I can't run the software anywhere else. Actually, I mentioned that machine in my last post.

An example piece of software: Rayman 2. I had trouble running it under Windows XP, 7, and Wine in Linux. It won't run in a VM because it requires (I think) DirectX 7 and hardware acceleration. It's a flawed example, though: it's had a few re-releases, including a compatibility fix by GOG for modern Windows versions.

A more recent example: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. It'll run on more recent versions of Windows, but has trouble with having over 2GB of RAM (or was it 4?) available. Some lovely group logged the system calls and developed a binary patch to allow it to run on modern systems. This illustrates another option: banding together as a community and doing what the publisher won't (or can't).

A lot of the posts in this thread (including yours) seem to elevate convenience to the level of a technical requirement. At some high-90s percentage of coverage, that isn't a problem for old software. Every once in a while though, you have to do the inconvenient thing.