Lemme get this straight: you're mad that a company you don't want to pay $99/yr to won't build APIs so you can make money on their platform.
So sad, lemme find my tiny violin.
So sad, lemme find my tiny violin.
I mentioned money in the post as a list of all barriers to moving a PWA to app store. $99/year + 33% in-app purchases (plus a $1000+ Mac to build, and probably one or more Mac minis for CI) is a barrier.
The bigger concern is Apple is lagging behind on web standards. I suspect the reason for that is because web apps undermine their app business; this is a replay of the 1990s when Microsoft lagged their browser behind web standards, knowing it undermined their business.
So, keep your violin, brother. :-) My post wasn't a complaint, but a documenting of the hurdles involved in moving a PWA to the app stores.
So the only thing that applies to you is the price to have access to a Mac. Since you're a nonprofit, Apple will waive your developer fee, and you wouldn't need in-app purchases anyways. Also, IIRC the cut Apple takes is 30%, not 33%, in line with the rest of their App Store policies.
"So the only thing that applies to you is not wanting to pay upwards of a thousand US dollars for yet another development machine."
I'm still uncomfortable with the extent to which Apple's walled garden is walled though. 25 USD/month does add up, even if you unsubscribe during months where you aren't using the service.
I have an account with them to do testing on different versions of macOS than the one installed on my development machine, and it only costs a few dollars a year.
I thought you meant charities, not non-profits, but TechCrunch reports the latter:
"Apple in early 2018 will waive the $99 developer fee for all government and nonprofits starting in the U.S. to make this transition easier."
https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-revises-its-controve...
BTW, the best solution for your case is VS App Center (https://appcenter.ms), which has a free tier and does CI/CD (on Macs) across platforms.
Google’s bright ideas aren’t necessarily standards. Service workers are only a working draft, and only implemented in 2 of the major browsers.
Obviously Google and Apple have different priorities, and clearly service workers benefit Google more than the other vendors.
Maybe ask jon at apple
What is stopping them from doing both?
There's no reason developers should jump through arbitrary hoops to make their applications available to users. Yes, quality control, security, etc. is very important, but the publishing process should and can be as user friendly as their platform claims to be for end users, and that is what the article is showcasing.
FWIW I didn't notice any bias against Apple in the article. Just a lot of understandable frustration with their processes and platform.
> Web app restrictions by ~Apple~ hostile mobile platforms
Their developer story needs work, especially around web apps.
Thanks for letting me know. I'll change my tone in future posts.
The author would prefer to just have a web app / website that plays audio, but it is not possible. On iOS, apparently you need to use Cordova and submit an app to the store if you want to play the next song while the app is in the background. And it is not possible to use lock screen controls to control playback (apart from stopping it).
iOS Safari doesn't let me play audio until user interaction. OK, that's fair.
But it also blocks me from playing the next song when the current one ends. That's not cool. It breaks my app. It forced me to bundle my PWA as an app in the store, just to get around this restriction.
FYI, I reported this problem to Apple's iOS Safari team. They acknowledged the issue and said they can probably fix it in the future. (That was 2 years ago.)
In other words, having a presence in app stores is important to marketing. And indeed, his new users per month rate went up after he listed in the actual app stores.
I hope they lose their dominant market position soon so everyone doesn't have to play by their rules.
Dinosaurs will die.
Safari doesn’t follow web standards that other browsers follow. That’s worthy of frustration. If they build a browser, they should implement standard APIs.