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

481–490 of 535 posts

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#481

Post by WWLink »

ta3564664 wrote: post #415
danaris wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And these days, every Mac comes with a full Unix terminal built-in. Xcode is a free download (remember, if you wanted to develop Macintosh applications back in the day, you had to buy something like CodeWarrior!), and, as you say, they've developed Swift Playgrounds specifically to make a nicer onramp for people interested in developing their own stuff. It's never been trivial to configure the Mac in terms of things…

Even though its now probably 20+ years old, the CodeWarrior experience was vastly superior to XCode. For a company with Apple's budget, XCode is a disgrace.

The ironic thing is that today, Codewarrior is just a crappy reskin of Eclipse for developing for NXP chips.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#482

Post by danaris »

error503 wrote: post #471
danaris wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (rela…

From a technical perspective, of course it is possible to give users control of the trust on the devices they ostensibly own, rather than giant megacorps, and I remain extremely unconvinced that this leads to a meaningful loss of security or privacy for those users. From a socioeconomic perspective, it's a much bigger question; the allure for those megacorps is far too strong and the economics of the industry makes i…

Oh, this is certainly a question primarily about the social aspects and second-order effects. The technical perspective is much more solvable, though still not, I think, a solved problem.

The problem with "I control my device" is, and always has been, twofold:

First, that when some malware gets in, it looks like you.

Second, that people who are not technically savvy will not be able to use that control to protect themselves, but will instead very often have it used against them.

The former of these is, in fact, a technical problem; the latter is social, and much harder to control for.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#483

Post by closeparen »

ttubrian wrote: post #349
closeparen wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The time limit prevents this from becoming a normal distribution channel for legitimate apps, which would condition users to click mindlessly through it. It an attacker wants to try, most people will think it’s weird and scary. But developers only need to do basic developer things (cut builds) to get around it. Pretty clever if you ask me.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#484

Post by bobleeswagger »

sneak wrote: post #478
bobleeswagger wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should Apple allow anonymous publication on a marketplace which they are ultimately responsible for?

Because there is no alternative that users can choose instead of Apple's marketplace, and with only one source of apps for a billion+ devices and no way to configure those devices to use any other, Apple has effectively banned anonymous publishing for a seventh of Earth.

> no alternative

20 years ago we didn't have app stores. I'm not sure where your level of entitlement comes from, Apple doesn't have to allow anonymous publishing and I fully understand why they have put reasonable barriers to entry into their ecosystem. You don't.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#485

Post by user_7832 »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #73
mmastrac wrote: post #14

I wrote an Android app for my little programming news aggregator, and published that on the Play Store because it was basically free (IIRC there might be a one-time signup fee). $99/yr is a ridiculous sum for the "privilege" of publishing in Apple's walled garden, and it's just not something I'm willing to do. The arguments for paying for review, distribution, advertising, search, etc feel so disingenuous when the co…

> $99/yr is a ridiculous sum for the "privilege" of publishing in Apple's walled garden It’s a token amount, just enough to prevent spammers from creating thousands of accounts. It’s $99 for your entire organization for a year. Go check what Microsoft charges for a Visual Studio license per seat, per year. $99 doesn’t even buy you 1 hour of a developer’s time. Even if you develop apps a a hobby, this is not a large a…

> Even if you develop apps a a hobby, this is not a large amount of money. Few hobbies are a cheap as this.

Let me guess, you’re from a 1st world country and probably make 6 figures a year (pre tax), likely working in FAANG?

As a guy in a 3rd world country, $99 is a hell lot of money. Your comment comes across as quite tone deaf. If you grew up middle-upper class and relatively sheltered that’s not necessarily your fault, but trust me in many parts of the world $99 is worth much more converted.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#486

Post by closeparen »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #318
closeparen wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they can use devices and operating systems with that philosophy. A Linux sysadmin absolutely can and should be free to do whatever they need to their company’s servers. Instead people are angry about the existence of any consumer device with barriers to arbitrary code execution.

The broader problem then becomes the smartphone duopoly. You can choose Android instead of Apple, but this is a compromise in terms of privacy. You can also choose an alternative Android distribution or a Linux phone, but this is a compromise in terms of being able to run apps. Video game consoles are just as locked down as iPhones, but ~nobody complains about that since you can just buy a PC instead. There is no goo…

The fact that Android is a compromise in terms of privacy is not incidental to but because of its prioritization of app developers' freedom.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#487

Post by jjav »

sramsay wrote: post #68

What bothers me about this -- and it bothered me enough to leave the platform -- is not fees, or "hobby computing," or "it's just for my own use," or trying to figure out why this or that would be in Apple's interest. What bothers me is that it feels like an offense against the entire notion of what a computer is. I am, of course, aware that many (perhaps most) computers in the world are effectively appliances, but a…

> What bothers me is that it feels like an offense against the entire notion of what a computer is.

You said it better than I could.

The irony of this being Apple today. What would be the computer industry even be if the Apple ][ had existed under this twisted restrictive mindset.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#488

Post by jjav »

yamtaddle wrote: post #350
a4isms wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The fact that I constantly have to fiddle with the damn things is why I don't ride more.

Nothing turns more people away from riding bikes than entry-level bikes. Which is unfortunate. Yes, they're constantly needing work and adjustment and never quite shift or brake well.

It doesn't have to be that way though. Mid to top tier components are very reliable and work so much better, even when old. It makes a night and day difference in how pleasant it is to ride.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#489

Post by closeparen »

sublinear wrote: post #321
closeparen wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In a properly virtualized environment it doesn't matter since all resources are decoupled from the environment the software runs in. This gives all the control back to the user. Nobody should be bullied into just accepting all permissions the developer wants. The developer should be forced to gracefully degrade their UX when their dependencies are denied without preventing access to the core service and should be sue…

That's the dream. But while the browser is now sandboxed well enough to stand up to the wide open internet, it can't compete with native on performance. And native can't (yet) be sandboxed as well as the browser without giving up its performance. Power-constrained mobile environments will likely be the last to fall on that one. I look forward to it, though!

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#490

Post by Tijdreiziger »

closeparen wrote: post #486
Tijdreiziger wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The broader problem then becomes the smartphone duopoly. You can choose Android instead of Apple, but this is a compromise in terms of privacy. You can also choose an alternative Android distribution or a Linux phone, but this is a compromise in terms of being able to run apps. Video game consoles are just as locked down as iPhones, but ~nobody complains about that since you can just buy a PC instead. There is no goo…

The fact that Android is a compromise in terms of privacy is not incidental to but because of its prioritization of app developers' freedom.

Does not track. Windows before Windows 8 gave developers freedom, was private, and was the most popular computing platform on the planet.
Post reply on HN