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Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

jessesquires.com

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Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never accept web notifications, not even on slack. The problem is that if Apple singlehandedly decide what's right and what isn't we are back to IE.

There is a middle ground I would be okay with. A website is only allowed to ask you if want notifications if you added it to your home screen. If you delete the web page from your home screen, it automatically disabled the notification. It falls within the same paradigm that people are accustomed to.

AFAIK this is not the way Safari works and it's not the main motivation for Apple

They just don't want web apps to rival with the native ones skipping the whole store experience and fee

But that's just speculation on my side, I have no data to back it up

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#402
post #389
post #289

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Epic doesn’t care about anything except for their own profits.

Just because it's in their self interests does not mean getting rid of the forced walled garden does not benefit other developers. At the end of the users own the devices not apple. It should ultimately be up to the user.

The walled garden has been hugely beneficial for developers, the relative app sales rates between iOS and Android is proof of that. And iOS customers overwhelmingly prefer the walled garden, it’s the main reason they buy iPhones.

If the walled gardens was costing Apple customers instead of attracting them, the iPhone would have failed years ago. Android devices are cheaper, more diverse, and more flexible. There would be scant reasons to buy an iPhone.

That’s the very definition of choice.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a middle ground I would be okay with. A website is only allowed to ask you if want notifications if you added it to your home screen. If you delete the web page from your home screen, it automatically disabled the notification. It falls within the same paradigm that people are accustomed to.

AFAIK this is not the way Safari works and it's not the main motivation for Apple They just don't want web apps to rival with the native ones skipping the whole store experience and fee But that's just speculation on my side, I have no data to back it up

This makes no sense. As I said in another reply. If PWAs are so great, why aren’t companies bypassing creating Android apps and just telling Android users to use web apps?

On top of that, how many apps are really just surfacing server hosted services where there are no in app purchases?

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#404
post #394
post #384

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I wouldn't say it's not a big deal. It could very well be a big deal to them. Is it the end of the world? No, I don't think so, but it is very clearly causing a lot of developers pains today, you should at the very least acknowledge that and understand that just because you can shrug it off doesn't mean they can. Something that is severely missing from the world of software, and I suspect engineering in general, is e…

So what word would be good to describe your behavior in writing a long screed that accuses me of lacking empathy? Covid! Fires! Loved ones! US Politics! Oh my! Is this you giving a demonstration of empathy for me? I have plenty of empathy if developers are actually facing pain. Piling on to attack Apple, not so much. Apple employees also have families and many of them are in California too. I’m guessing they too are…

Everyone knew iOS was coming out sometime soon. Nobody knew that Apple would drop the actual update the day after the Golden Master. They had absolutely no reason to. The fact that this went out, and that Apple themselves were unable to ship their own software on time to support this release, is an extremely annoying move. You sitting there and saying there "should" be no bugs is nice but not indicative at all of reality, where Apple changes their software and ships new bugs in the GM itself.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#405
Do developers get a pre-release of iOS to test on or how can you release a new version of your app before the targeted OS is released? Also, why do you need to release a new version at all? I'd expect the platform to stay largely compatible.

(Obviously, I haven't developed anything for the Apple ecosystem, so these are genuine questions.)

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#406

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> I would personally like to continue paying higher prices to protect myself from low-quality background-syncing byte-code-obfuscated web-pages with push notifications are you really saying you would pay higher prices because you can' t press the "no" button and never visit the same website again?

Yes. I don’t want to press the “no” button for a 100 times.

I can relate.

Every time I pickup an old iOS device the stupid thing is nags me to update it, 100 times. And you can't just click no you have to click multiple things to get it to fuck off.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mother buys books when she wants to read My mother uses her phone to actually call people There's no risk she's gonna use apps that she doesn't know My mother is not stupid, for sure she' s not more stupid than me. I'm growing tired of this false and ageist retohric

Denying the existence of someone's mother is quite rude.

"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#408
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind that a company makes a fairly innocuous decision (which you would expect consumers to punish them for) like requiring all web views to use the same renderer as Safari, and there are people like you rushing to have the government jump in and regulate "the kind of rendering for web pages that a private company allows on their devices". Seems like total insanity to me and I don't understand it.

Apple does not own the device though. If they own the device, then I want my 1k back.

Buyer beware? Were you under the impression whatsoever that you were buying 'free' hardware?

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#409
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind that a company makes a fairly innocuous decision (which you would expect consumers to punish them for) like requiring all web views to use the same renderer as Safari, and there are people like you rushing to have the government jump in and regulate "the kind of rendering for web pages that a private company allows on their devices". Seems like total insanity to me and I don't understand it.

How could customers punish Apple for that, and that specifically? (I'm being careful with my wording to exclude the response of "switch to Android", because that is not a punishment for that thing specifically–the fact that people don't switch just means Android is worse to them, not that they agree with this particular part of the iOS.)

Consumers in theory would punish Apple by not buying Apple products. But they don't and I can only guess why (they don't care about browser rendering engines).

If you're trying to narrow your punishment to be specifically "the crime of not letting me pick my own browser rendering engine" then I can't help you. This is not a hill I even remotely interested in dying on or spending more time on.

Re: Why is Apple acting like an asshole?

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If SpaceX can have a web app for their astronauts, I think so can you even if it's "mission critical". I just don't see any argument why a web app cannot be mission critical and work just as fine as a native app would. Ok if you make an AAA-game title with extreme need of performance or if you make a database engine or something. This is however a very tiny minority of apps with extreme performance needs but again pr…

OK then, let me tell you an example, since you can't see any argument. I have this client, it's an Arkansas truck company that is hauling cargo all over US. So a few years ago they decided to ease the way, and also double check on their drivers, of how cargo is delivered. To optimize routes (fuel economy), to make it easier for drivers to enter/use data in the system, stuff like that. So they decided to give them dri…

> So they hire a developer who was just like you "if it can be a web app then should be a web app"

I can see arguments and I am not like that, you're portraying your predisposed view about me onto me.

This argument you have is not really saying a lot to me actually since you could use Rpis with a web app as well? Tbh I don't think you save that much battery on just making it native. You complain about battery, but fail to mention that Android phones needs to be switched to be able to use the newest api:s in android development. So if you want to use new shit, your client needs to update their phones, something they would not have to do if it were a web app. But in your case, I would probably also have made a native app but that app you built don't really describe how most apps are. You are talking about an exception to the rule IMO.

I can give you a pretty similar counter example:

I worked for a client once that made a newspaper. This client has a list with all shops, kiosks etc that sell their newspaper in a database. To save fuel and to be efficient, they used an old Java Swing application that would every day calculate the most efficient route for each driver. It did a lot of other stuff as well, but that isn't important for the story. The app was fine, it was just a pain to develop and release. Because it was still actively developed. In every release, a jar file had to be distributed to each user of the app since there was no good way of auto updating the app since it was so old. Any way, the users of the java swing application would run the calculation functionality and it would give a result that was printed out and given to the drivers.

What happened later was that the app was remade and presented in a web page. Each driver didn't have to wait for a paper printout of the result of the java swing app, they could simply open their phone, visit a specific url and see their route for that day. There was nothing to install for each driver, since drivers was often changed, no need to wait for some guy that had to print out a paper for them and everything was basically automated.

The benefit here of a web app was great, since as you say truck drivers aren't the most tech literate people in the world, managing a native app here would be a great pain.

So what can we learn from our examples? That the needs are different. I get that. I never said every app should be a web app. But if you can make it a web app, you probably should at least consider it. The benefits usually outweighs any negatives. My entire point was never to not make native apps, it was to avoid them if possible.

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