Why is Apple acting like an asshole? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#291

Post by jefftk » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

leptons wrote: post #232

srtjstjsj wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS is 60% of the mobile (phone+tablet) market https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...

>Statcounter is a web analytics service. Our tracking code is installed on more than 2 million sites globally. Sorry but this is not an effective way to gauge market share of a browser or a platform. That 60% figure you're throwing around is not an absolute metric. It's based only on visitors to websites that use the "Statcounter" tracking code. There definitely is a large margin of error using this to gather statist…

If you track shipments, how do you handle iPhones generally staying in use longer than Android phones?

(Disclosure: I work for Google)

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#292

Post by spieglt » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:18 PM UTC

I like making my side projects cross-platform when possible. But I'm done trying to get code signing to work, I won't pay Apple $100 to distribute free software, and I have no interest in using XCode, so I feel basically restricted to Linux and Windows only at this point.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#293

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

spiderfarmer wrote: post #261

scarface74 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to name some web apps that are successful on Android but are required to be apps on iOS?

Why rephrase the question? Lots of apps could have been just a webapp. It doesn’t have to be popular or succesful to prove that point, because it’s the smaller apps / teams like my one man company that would profit the most. Let larger companies spend their money on squeezing out maximum performance via native code. And let me use the browser for the 10k users of my app.

If the argument is that Apple is holding back PWAs, then there should be a lot of corresponding web only apps on Android that are forced to be native on iOS. The developers would have a web app anyway for the desktop so you should see a lot of apps that are PWA apps with iOS apps.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#294

Post by ksearch » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

I feel like I should spend that time testing and making my app ready for release rather than ranting and typing the article.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#295

Post by dangus » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

What’s the supposed downside to running an app designed for iOS 13 on an iOS 14 iPhone?

File this one under “things that won’t matter and will be entirely forgotten in two weeks.”

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#296

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #255

scarface74 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to name some web apps that are successful on Android but are required to be apps on iOS?

You've got it wrong, because Android has much looser review policies so these apps don't have to be web pages on that platform. People (including Apple!) push web apps on iOS to not be subject to App Store review.

It doesn’t matter. If PWAs were good enough on Android, and seeing that you would probably need to build a web app anyway. Why not just build a web app + iOS app and not build an Android app at all?

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#297

Post by selykg » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #288

selykg wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more being prepared to ship their product. Usually there's a period of time between announcement and when it ships, such that a developer can get the release version of Xcode (if necessary), do some final testing, then send any updates to Apple for review. With enough lead time that their updated app can be available on the App Store the same day as the iOS update being available. That isn't really possible this…

What’s the downside of the update not being in the store today vs next week?

Several downsides

Say the iOS update has brand new features. Your app can't take advantage of those fancy new features and your users don't get them until next week either.

Possible marketing, usually Apple has categories in the App Store for apps that support the latest features or are ready for that iOS version. They could in theory do this next week I guess, but point is there's excitement today, and will be less next week.

Possible bugs in your current app that aren't fixed but exist only in the latest iOS. If you base your entire process on past experience you planned to release bug fixes for iOS 14 with a larger update and now those updates aren't available to a majority of your userbase.

Edit: removed a part that was inaccurate.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#298

Post by apazzolini » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #288

selykg wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more being prepared to ship their product. Usually there's a period of time between announcement and when it ships, such that a developer can get the release version of Xcode (if necessary), do some final testing, then send any updates to Apple for review. With enough lead time that their updated app can be available on the App Store the same day as the iOS update being available. That isn't really possible this…

What’s the downside of the update not being in the store today vs next week?

The fact that some apps are broken and users with auto-update turned on are now unable to use those apps for a week?

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#299

Post by firloop » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #288

selykg wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more being prepared to ship their product. Usually there's a period of time between announcement and when it ships, such that a developer can get the release version of Xcode (if necessary), do some final testing, then send any updates to Apple for review. With enough lead time that their updated app can be available on the App Store the same day as the iOS update being available. That isn't really possible this…

What’s the downside of the update not being in the store today vs next week?

You need to compile your app with the new version of Xcode to target iOS 14, and you couldn't do that until the GM version of Xcode was released yesterday. Meaning that if there's any iOS 14-showstopping bugs, depending on the type of bug, you wouldn't be able to get a fix out promptly. There's also the work of e.g. verifying that your app works as advertised on the iOS 14 GM, which also was only released yesterday.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#300

Post by lttlrck » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

JonathonW wrote: post #287

xvolter wrote: post #264

Maybe I am missing something, but iOS 14 has had beta versions out for developers for months; I had been running iOS14 and Big Sur for testing for weeks. Apple has always had developer previews and at some point, when mostly stable, they often release public previews to get a few interested users involved in testing as well. They've been working with developers for a long time on the new App Clips functionality and t…

Past major iOS releases have usually given about a week between the release of the final build to developers (with app submissions opening at the same time) and the release to the general public. This gives developers time to validate their code against the final build of iOS and submit updates if needed, allowing plenty of time for App Review to do their thing. This is also the first point where Apple will accept ap…

1 week is completely arbitrary. If they had 1 week notice as usual there would most likely still be complaints because this is an unusual year...