Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

bennettnotes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 535 posts

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#341

Post by danaris »

toyg wrote: post #165
filmgirlcw wrote: post #37

I’m not defending this, but after 15 years, I don’t see the point in complaining. We complain (rightfully) about the amount of crap in the App Store and Apple's capricious review policies that don’t stop the scammers, but for better or worse, the $99 fee IS a barrier to entry that I would argue has made the iOS ecosystem better than Android. I’ve been paying $99 a year for early access to iOS betas and for my own tes…

[flagged]

If you think the only value that exists is value that can be measured in dollars, then I would assert that you have a very limited and shallow understanding of the human experience.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#342

Post by Nzen »

rootusrootus wrote: post #264
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,…

> there's a class of users for whom a general computing device isn't just overkill, it's downright dangerous I am not sure if you are trying to come off as snobby, but that's how this reads. This 'class of users' is in many cases very technical people who just don't want their phone to be anything other than an appliance. It's quite common to love tinkering with things, while not wanting to tinker with everything .

Consider the impact on living standards for a person [0] who is capable of transferring money without understanding the consequences, ex a child or a demented person.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2023/01/30/1152448758/an-older-persons-m...

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#343

Post by livrem »

smoldesu wrote: post #115
lostgame wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's like giving someone a deck of cards and telling them that these cards can only be used to play blackjack. You can't invent a card game, or change the rules, or build a house of cards, or do card magic. Millions of people buy cards that can only be used to specifically only play, say; 'Magic: the Gathering' (MtG). You could probably invent some sort of new game with MtG cards, or do some sort of card magic wit…

> It is 'an offence against the entire notion of' what card games are? It would be if a WOTC employee came to my table every time I tried playing, personally overseeing every turn of the game to ensure that I didn't break the rules, engage in unsportsmanlike conduct, use my imagination, taunt my opponent or profit unfairly with their platform.

No, that kind of thing only happens with Games Workshop games, from what I hear.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#344

Post by rhaway84773 »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #297
a4isms wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>But Jobs never lost his vision that Apple should sell appliances, and people who wanted to "wrench their own devices" should buy PCs. You present an excellent historical case of how Apple got here, but here's where I see a dichotomy: Back in the day, tools like RezEdit, Hypercard, AppleScript came included. There were countless "apps" to reconfigure how the Mac looked and felt to create a personalized experience. Av…

AppleScript was a far more effective way of scripting your computer’s GUI apps than anything on a competing platform (even if AppleScript the language was terrible, Cocoa and Carbon made it incredibly easy for GUI apps to add AppleScript support) further strengthening the idea thst Apple was in favor of making macs programmable by the average user, even under Jobs. Heck, the AppleScript language was terrible precisely because it attempted to be approachable to regular users and resemble English.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#345

Post by jacksonkmarley »

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #198

My honest question is: What's the alternative. I'm not an apple fan. Most of my personal devices run Linux, but I feel essentially trapped on an iPhone. It doesn't seem like there's a truly useful open phone out there. I don't like Apple, and I don't trust them or their ostensibly pro-privacy stance much, but I want as little privacy invasion and as little advertising as possible on my phone, and I think as bad as Ap…

> dual-wield and use a Linux or de-googled android phone for daily use and keep a second device around for the apps that won't run there

I was thinking about this but what happens with on-the-spot payments? This seems like a functionality that's really convenient (not having to carry a bank card) but that would be on the official device, not the daily use device due to security issues. But paying for stuff in person is a daily use activity.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#346

Post by latexr »

mywittyname wrote: post #207
JasonFruit wrote: post #4

> I should be thankful they don’t make me pay a yearly developer fee for making python apps on my Macbook. Apple exec scribbles furiously

I doubt we are far from this. From what I've seen, a lot of startup are Mac-only - with the local dev stack and built system being built specifically for OSX. It's only a matter of time before vendor lock-in become so strong that companies would pay another four-figure a year fee to unlock development on OSX. Apple could sell the security angle on this too.

> I doubt we are far from this.

I do doubt it. Apple has specifically been removing language runtime environments but doesn’t stop you from installing them. And as far as I know they’re on good terms with (at least) Homebrew. Stopping you from running Python—which they ship to /usr/bin/python3 as part of the free Developer Tools—would have consequences on your other binaries.

I was positively surprised when Shortcuts for macOS shipped with specific support for AppleScript and other language runtime environments. I was convinced they would just not do it as the feature is not available on Shortcuts for iOS and that they’d use that as a way to add another nail in AppleScript’s coffin. The fact they did ship the feature commits them to support it. Maybe not forever, but removing it would require a non-immediate deprecation.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#347

Post by danaris »

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #198

My honest question is: What's the alternative. I'm not an apple fan. Most of my personal devices run Linux, but I feel essentially trapped on an iPhone. It doesn't seem like there's a truly useful open phone out there. I don't like Apple, and I don't trust them or their ostensibly pro-privacy stance much, but I want as little privacy invasion and as little advertising as possible on my phone, and I think as bad as Ap…

My question, building on that one, is: Can there be a true alternative?

This is a genuine question, not an attempt to paint Apple as the be-all and end-all or a paragon of perfection (for all that I'm an unapologetic Apple fan, I recognize that they have serious faults).

I think there is a strong case to be made that the limitations Apple has placed on the iPhone are instrumental in guaranteeing the privacy and (relative) freedom from crap that makes it as good as it is. There is also a strong case to be made that it should be possible to create a phone (or computer) with nontrivial privacy safeguards, but without the specific limitations Apple imposes.

I lean somewhat toward the former camp, as I believe that in a space like smartphone apps, bad actors are both willing and able to do whatever is necessary to make their unethical money, whether that's with extra ads, crapware apps, or just actual malware, scams, and theft. But I would genuinely love to be proven wrong, and I hope that there comes a day when we have a meaningful competition in the space without sacrificing our collective ability to use our phones without fear.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#348

Post by bkdbkd »

a4isms wrote: post #15

I feel this developer's pain, I remember writing a vituperative blog post about Apple's habit of buying or building their own clone of some independent app and muscling developers out of their market. With time I've mellowed. Running a business means that you have to say "no" to a bunch of things for which there is a perfectly plausible and rational reason to say "yes." The reasons for saying "no" to good ideas are s…

This ^^

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#349

Post by ttubrian »

closeparen wrote: post #280
sublinear wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a false dichotomy. Nobody sane is arguing for a vulnerable computer. The desire is just less friction and fewer restrictions on what code can be written and executed by the owner on the device. Really this is what virtualization is for, and the only thing keeping mobile operating systems working as they do is that most consumers don't demand the same features as businesses, but in my opinion they shou…

Most malware is executed by the machine's owner in some sense. The level of friction that establishes that the owner knows what's going on and actually intends to execute particular code with particular privileges is not small. It's important that it be surmountable, but it's not small.

But the owner is able to bundle any arbitrary code into an app and run it locally on their own phone for 7 days.

Then it auto-deletes and there's nothing you can do about it.

The only class of malware that the currently-mandated friction is preventing is the kind that appears benevolent for 7 days then strikes on day 8.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#350

Post by yamtaddle »

a4isms wrote: post #240
Terretta wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs called it "bicycles for the mind".* Back in the beginning there was lots of talk of "toasters" as an appliance every household has and even a child can use (to the point there was a famous screensaver of flying toasters). The Mac 512, Plus, and SE were embodiments of this. (The Apple //c with LCD attachment and carry handle was an earlier attempt.) Note that all of those included portability as a feature, while…

I remember "Bicycles for the mind" well: http://raganwald.com/assets/images/bicycle-jobs.jpeg But as a metaphor, I don't think of a bicycle as an appliance. Mainstream bicycles are brutalist: The chain and gears are usually on display and user-serviceable. Parts like wheels, saddles, and handlebars are standardized in a way that allows users to mix and match components freely. In the days of steel frames you could ma…

I wish they were more like an appliance. The fact that I constantly have to fiddle with the damn things is why I don't ride more. If they were more like modern cars or, indeed, iPads, that'd be ideal. Instead it's like "well, let's go discover what work I'll have to do on my bike before I can ride it...." Ugh. I do enough handy shit, I don't need a bicycle-maintenance hobby.
Post reply on HN