Fixing bugs and submitting apps to App Review this morning. As a long-time Apple developer going back to the 1990s, I now spend most of my time on web and cross-platform technologies. I’ll always love the Mac, but what a trap the Apple-only development rabbit hole is. Apple is too big and dominant.

@manton another great subject of discussion for this upcoming interview! 😉

@manton If you really believe that couldn’t you switch to publishing web apps? Encourage people to install the web app on their Home Screen.

Seems like from a UX and technical standpoint it’d be the same as side loading.

@pixelscience Native apps are still usually a better experience, and easier for people to understand in terms of how to install. Maybe we'll get there eventually, though.

@manton shakes fist in 1997 angst!!!

@Sci_Phi I almost miss 1990s Apple. They were great as the underdog.

@manton I miss the HIG and apps that worked well, 💯

@manton The web app “sweet solution” actually seems pretty good.

You can’t say it isn’t there. You can leave the App Store whenever you want.

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/ConfiguringWebApplications/ConfiguringWebApplications.html

@pixelscience @manton it is there. almost unchanged from the day it was announced 15 years ago.

separate and almost equal. which, as we all know, is totally fine.

i’m kidding of course, but in all seriousness, the problem is that it’s district, unnecessarily different, and treated as a second class citizen by apple. users find those things very untrustworthy.

that said i built a nice little ruby app for my pool controller and didn’t even bother with electron. in practice it works fine.

@manton @Sci_Phi My Apple device collection including 3 adult kids likes Apple as a large company we can rely on. And we don’t want web apps, particularly paid web apps (is there such a thing?) Anyway, you have to decide your own future of course 🙂

@isaiah @manton I don’t want to have a strawman argument. Do I understand everyone’s position clearly?

1. You want to publish apps
2. That run on iOS devices
3. Using the Apple-provided API
4. Distributed using Apple’s store
5. But without Apple’s publishing rules

Is that a fair representation?

@pixelscience @manton well, no. i can’t say that i agree with much there. sorry.

here’s a rundown:
1. yes, but only to platforms without single company gatekeepers.

2. i’m more interesting in desktop, but that would probably change if app stores changed.

3. id rather use an open api. apples use of the frameworks as a cudgel is also problematic. (e.g. mac sandbox)

4. nope.

5. i’m fine with rules so long as they are not owned and exercised by a single company.

@Sci_Phi @manton Agree about 1990s Apple. As I recall, the worst part was the supply chain issues. Tim Cook deserves credit, I hear, for fixing those issues and Apple’s subsequent growth created positive feedback that still drives Apple.

But the sharp elbows that helped fix the supply chain are hurting the company now. Apple seems to view developers as suppliers and is just as likely to compete with them as support the community that sustains their growth.

@isaiah @manton maybe I missed your problem statement. I was addressing Manton’s concerns.

Your issues seem orthogonal.

@pixelscience @manton ok. sorry to intrude. i’ll demure.

@isaiah @pixelscience We’ve probably drifted away from my original mini-rant, but I will add on #4… I’d love to distribute native apps outside the App Store. 🙂

@fgtech @manton Wrote about Twitter nostalgia among some and then scrolled down to read this thread. I think the same applies. Everyone is nostalgic for a time when Apple was an underdog but now is considered an upstart. They would’ve preferred it stayed small and scrappy and don’t prefer its large corporate reality coz reasons even though their wish - if only more people used a Apple computer - came true!

@manton @pixelscience 100%. very thankful it’s still a thing on desktop.

@isaiah @manton You can even distribute apps without using Apple API directly. It’s entirely possible to launch a macOS app with GTK or other renderer.

Your users may want your app to be notarized, though. And that requires Hardened Runtime.

@fgtech @pratik For sure. Apple did great work in the 1990s that I loved, but it wasn't healthy — for Apple or third-party developers — to have such a weak business foundation. But now I'd argue it's worse being a monopoly in some areas. No company should have so much power.

@fgtech I miss the early 2000s Apple. Their products had begun to move to unibody designs and giving up on technicolor themes of 90s, and there was a lot more polish without losing that 90s dev feel. Even their stores were such a joy to go to. @pratik

@manton Agree 100%. I think you and I are on exactly the same wavelength.

No company should have so much power.

So true, and yet this is what Wall Street demands of Apple to receive the market capitalization it has. I criticize Tim Cook, but I sympathize with his situation. The Wall Street earnings treadmill is unrelenting and brutal.

@stupendousman I count the unibody design as part of the foundation of the “new” Apple and agree that it is one of the best things to happen to laptops ever. It’s still unmatched elsewhere.

@fgtech @manton I'm afraid I have to disagree with the company having too much power. Apple's hold on the market is quite fragile compared to other sectors (energy, transportation, etc.). iPhones aren't the majority of phones sold in the world. It's the slight majority (not close to a monopoly, like in Search - Google or Retail - Amazon) in the U.S. I think it is good at doing a lot of things very well and making it a better experience for the customers (not all) it values. Wall Street, in fact, considers Apple overpriced based on its PE.

Most of the frustration from developers, I feel, comes from having to go through Apple's gatekeepers instead of directly selling to their users, which they used to do via the web (Mac apps).

@pratik 💯 #AppleFail was the mantra for years … ane at a stroke #AppleIsTooPowerful … with barely a breath between the two movements.

@JohnPhilpin Nostalgia isn't what it used to be anymore 🙃

@pratik @fgtech I don't want to blow this up into a major debate, but the monopoly is on iOS app distribution, where they hold 100% market share. The scale of how important these devices are and how many people they reach is unprecedented in the history of tech.

@manton (That aside, I've recently started wondering whether as an Android/Linux user I'm really a focus group of micro.blog development...🙈😁)

@manton @fgtech Why not a "major debate" as long as we're being respectful? I mean, I'll willing to learn more and change my mind. But I'll refrain if there's no inclination to discuss.

@pratik @manton I’m also fine with a vigorous debate that remains respectful. That said, I’ve transitioned to my work day, so it might be a bit before I can follow up. I may need to expand my thinking via a longer blog post because there’s some subtlety here that I think addresses the disagreement.

@fgtech @manton Same. Getting busy with the work day. We shouldn't expect anyone to respond immediately or within a couple of hours anyway. That's the beauty of asynchronous discussion. Plus it lets you digest and ponder on what others have said. I know that helps clarify my thinking.

@z428 More feedback about Android will help us! We started very Apple-focused, but the new version of the app was rewritten to give more attention to both mobile platforms, even if Android releases sometimes still lag behind a little.

@manton I've noticed at least version numbers seem to differ between Android and iOS, does that matter much? Otherwise... will test and report back.

@z428 We decided to let each platform have its own version number, because sometimes there are platform-specific features we might want to run with that don't affect other platforms. Not perfect, but that's how we're managing it for now.

@manton No worries, thanks. Helps understanding this. By the way is it intended that, unlike in the web app, I can't remove posts in Android?