This provides yet another reason for a FOSS phone platform.
Write code for the web
31–40 of 364 posts
Re: Write code for the web
#32I really like the sights and sounds section on your website
Re: Write code for the web
#33Apple provides thousands of APIs to make developing on the platform easier, has created their own programming language that integrates nicely with the platform and has a fully integrated IDE that works with both above. Sure, buddy… They don’t care about you unless you develop for their platform. And who can blame? The above is a terribly expensive and timely investment.
I likewise have a fairly sunny perspective of Apple development, I even like XCode (since SwiftUI, at least… could never get the hang of Interface Builder).
But the fact that he got in to work on a music app is illuminating. The Apple audio APIs are an absolute mess. Media Player, AVPlayer, Core Audio, AVFoundation, AVAudioEngine… it's like competing teams dating all the way back to NeXT kept writing their own libs and somehow they all persisted through the iPhone era.
I spent about three months of the COVID lockdown trying to make a Shoutcast/Icecast player, it was excruciating.
Re: Write code for the web
#34> One would think that of all the leetcode certified staff…
I’m sure they left shortly after finding out all they’ll actually be doing is putting fields in structs and waiting on CI/CD to see if it worked.
Re: Write code for the web
#35Writing for the web would be great if you didn't have to learn a new framework every six weeks because people will not stop coming with new ways to do the same thing over and over again.
Not even new ways, just old ways repackaged and reorganized based on a developer’s ability to get 15 minutes of fame.
Re: Write code for the web
#36Apple users are conditioned to pay for things. Apple applications have higher buy rates than other platforms because outside of HN the average Apple user is less capable and less likely to pirate or need "Free" to entice their attention. I don't think anybody writes software for Apple thinking that they "care" any more than Google or Microsoft.
Same concept with more charitable framing: Apple has built an ecosystem where users don’t want to mess with tech and are willing to pay for value.
But yeah, there is no morality here, it’s just business.
Re: Write code for the web
#37Apple provides thousands of APIs to make developing on the platform easier, has created their own programming language that integrates nicely with the platform and has a fully integrated IDE that works with both above. Sure, buddy… They don’t care about you unless you develop for their platform. And who can blame? The above is a terribly expensive and timely investment.
You left out that they lock down anything that isn't those things. I tried developing an app of my own on macOS, not using Swift and their tools, and it's a huge pain. They have deprecated and version locked OpenGL for no other reason than to push their own tools. Trying to just get an external DLL to load was nearly impossible. Anything cross-platform needs to be converted down to their tooling, such as Vulkan to Metal. MacOS is even more of anomaly and special case than all the Linux distributions.
It's crazy how much easier development on Windows is. And Microsoft's is almost all cross-platform. None of those things you mentioned allow you to work in a platform agnostic manner. Whereas Windows supports their own stuff like DirectX but still allows direct running of Vulkan, OpenGL, etc.
Re: Write code for the web
#38I don't think it's true that developers do nothing for Apple. If there were no third party apps for iPhone, Apple would sell many fewer phones. I suppose many could theoretically move to the web, but then the point still stands that third party apps are still making the iPhone much more worthwhile to own.
With proper competition, OS makers work hard to attract developers - think of Ballmer's "developers developers developers" clip from back in the day - as they recognise that developers add value to their platforms and help sway consumers. The trouble these days is there is no meaningful competition. No matter what Apple's rules are, developers are obliged to provide something for iPhone, and Apple can rest assured there is negligible chance of a third mobile platform gaining traction.
Apple know this and through their strict policies have imposed a cruel reversal of the situation: they claim they are doing developers a favour by deigning to allow them to access all of Apple's iPhone customers, and tax all their revenue for the service they ostensibly provide, even though developers do a lot to make iPhones worth having. It's an abuse of their market position and there's not much anyone can do about it - except as the blog says, publish to the web instead. It's not perfect but it's the only meaningful alternative to regulation, which Apple are obviously going to use every trick in the book to wriggle out of, because why willingly shut off billions of revenue from taxing app developers? Hopefully the web can gain traction as a way to avoid abusive app publishing rules.
Re: Write code for the web
#39[deleted]
Re: Write code for the web
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lol. Have you ever used their “IDE”? My guess is you haven’t based on the tone of your remark. Apple has been developer-hostile for years, and OP was just synthesizing their thoughts around this and TBH I found the conclusion to be fairly nuanced and apropos.
Lol. Have you ever used Android Studio IDE? The grass always looks greener on the other side but Xcode and iOS development is miles ahead of how slow and unhelpful Android Studio is the majority of the time. Don’t even get me started on opening up your app 6 months later to update the code and it’s a 99% chance some Android gradle build system or dependency has changed and broken the build…
You should try to write an app for a GNU/Linux phone, to see how being free from a duopoly helps in real life. For that, you simply use all desktop tools (and the app will also run on desktop).