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Comment by Donzo | Hacker News Reader

I guess what we're seeing here is a developer/development-first ideology versus a platform-first ideology.

Should the developer/development have to resubmit to the benevolent platform? Or should the platform have to support the development that has occurred?

I don't really care, but I know that I'd rather develop somewhere where my contributions aren't under constant threat of being wiped off the landscape.

Again, good luck with the other thing.

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You have painted this false dichotomy.

In Apple's world: The users come first. Everyone else second.

The policies described in the root comment we're replying to have nothing to do with putting the user first. Apple puts Apple first, even when it's bad for users.

Maybe. But how bad would the user experience be if every time a user went to do an IAP, they were presented with a link to an external web page asking for their credit card information? Would that affect the security and privacy of the platform? Would it affect users' trust in the platform?

Maybe if Apple didn't charge many times more than credit card processors to handle payments, developers wouldn't be trying to avoid getting robbed.

Maybe if credit card processors started inventing platforms for software distribution and made them available and easy to use for anyone, they wouldn’t.

Yes. Unless you want to use Google Maps. My SO just asked me to fix her phone to give her biking directions again. She uses the "Google" app to look up stuff, as far as I can tell the OS is now intercepting calls to https://maps.google.com and opening them in Apple Maps instead?!

That doesn’t happen. If you click on an address from Google’s website, it opens in Google Maps if it is installed. If you click on a link from any Google app it opens Google maps by default.

Mmm, well yes, happening now. From the "Google" app made a search, a long touch on the Directions link shows a maps.google.com URL, Google Maps is installed, even reinstalled GM thinking the registration was corrupted somehow. It opens in Apple Maps. Uninstalled Apple Maps and it prompt me to reinstall.

Perhaps since this is the Google app the URL they show for long touch is not actually what is getting executed when you tap, maybe they are sending a routing command directly, but either way there's a number of UI "nudges" to push you to Apple Maps over Google Maps that you cannot adjust or turn off without jailbreaking the phone.

I just clicked on a direction from Google on Safari and it took me to Google Maps.

I did the same from Chrome. It took me to Google Maps

I went to a third party web site within Chrome, click on "get directions", it took me to Google Maps.

Want to install a pepe the frog app? You can't. Apple decided it's too sensitive. Want to play a porn game? You can't.

Moral panics come first. User second. Developers third.

I strongly disagree. Apple has made a lot of user-hostile moves recently. Suppressing ports to sell more dongles, constant nagging for apple paid services, uping prices to make up for lack of growth in volumes. Profits first, users and developers not on the map.

Apple has been "suppressing ports" since they introduced the iMac over 20 years ago. The USB-C transistion didn't happen as quickly as the original USB transistion.

You don't have to buy dongles from Apple.

I am a developer but if more developers put users before themselves, we wouldn't have Electron apps.

I find it amusing that people think a company making $10B in profit a quarter is trying to use $30 dollar dongles to make money.

Not so much platform first as user first. Platforms are nothing without users and developers are nothing without platforms. And luck isn’t needed when your platform is already the best. :)

That's fair, but currently being "the best," doesn't ensure that status.

And then you end up with Windows. Hack upon hack upon hack to keep old software running. It increases the surfaces of bugs and security vulnerabilities.

And you need that if that platform is to be used for anything serious. I don’t see Macs in the enterprise. And linux has the same obsession with backward compatibility / not breaking user space when making changes in the kernel.

Yet and still iPhones and iPads are. There are many reasons that Macs aren't in the Enterprise. But backwards compatibility isn't the main one.

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