Hacker News Reader

Comment by filleduchaos | Hacker News Reader

> Anyway, were any of you who are complaining in this thread planning on actually publishing an app for macOS, or just here to beat a dead horse?

Anecdotally, I find that the people who are loudest about Apple's misdeeds (both real and assumed) are often people who've never even used an Apple product.

There is plenty of legit criticism of Apple to be made, and you certainly don't have to be an Apple customer to make it. But half the time what I see instead is pearl-clutching from people who don't have enough experience with the platform in question to tell what an announced change even does, blowing up what amount to minor inconveniences into the end of all life as we know it.

View on HN

> Anecdotally, I find that the people who are loudest about Apple's misdeeds (both real and assumed) are often people who've never even used an Apple product.

The other side of this is, when I complain about Apple not allowing sideloading on iOS, I get asked why I use an iPhone if I don't like the policy.

(fwiw, I have no issues with macOS as long as unsigned apps can still be run, and lots of issues with iOS where they cannot be.)

But you can sideload an application, you just need to use as computer to do it.

there’s no way to publish apps to iOS except paid Apple Developer account. That’s different than all other platforms where we can get any binary to run.

Other companies only require account for using non-OS API such as Firebase / Google Services for example.

You very much can build and sideload an IPA on iOS if you have (access to) a computer running macOS.

Sure that's beyond the reach of most people, but how on earth do you people imagine that people develop and test new apps on iOS devices if you think an app _must_ be published to the App Store to run at all?

I feel like I have this discussion every week. It’s technically possible but—by design—practically unworkable for apps you actually want to use rather than just test. They expire after seven days, at which point you need to reconnect to a computer and reinstall them.

It only works for a short amount of time which makes this rather impractical.

You don't actually need the latter.

Have you heard/of looked at AltStore?

Yes. It’s interesting approach. Still your apps will be timebombed for 7 days. Imagine making a app for private use by my family and going on vacation longer than 7 days. I must have access to my computer...

And that's a legitimate complaint, and one I have as well (though my issue is less with not allowing sideloading and more with the pretty high barrier to entry to the only official distribution method. I'd be pretty much okay with being unable to sideload apps on iOS, but having a free and more lax tier of the App Store for hobbyists (somewhat akin to Youtube's unlisted videos or Qt's licensing).

I'm not sure that I follow. You can sideload apps on iOS. Is the issue that you have to use a computer to do it?

I kinda like that requirement because it means that I'm technically capable enough to make a potentially system-breaking change. It's not as nice and friendly about it as macOS but I think it's a fair compromise.

No, its the fact that you need to re-upload that app every 7 days..

> Anecdotally, I find that the people who are loudest about Apple's misdeeds (both real and assumed) are often people who've never even used an Apple product.

Interesting. The number of people of who I know that they have complained about Apple, and of who I also know that they have never used an Apple product is zero.

And the number of people I know who complain about Apple and who have never used an Apple product is non-zero. _Interestingly_, that's kind of what the word "anecdotally" implies.

If one actually considers the spirit of my comment (people getting caught up in outrage about issues they can't actually judge properly), several of the comments of this very post make it pretty clear that their authors have likely never interacted with a Mac for a day in their lives but are nevertheless very opinionated about how this change will affect macOS users.

Interestingly, I find the same to be true about people who complain about Android here on HN. And I feel it is for the same reason as you've mentioned. I cannot count the number of times I've had to laugh in pain at the shocking ignorance displayed by a large number of users when talking about Android and other associated Google products.

> Anecdotally, I find that the people who are loudest about Apple's misdeeds (both real and assumed) are often people who've never even used an Apple product.

And those who are loudest about animal abuse in factory farming, don't eat meat.

I have to use so Apple products, although mainly mobile devices. I don't have any deeper prejudice against the users but think the devices are mostly useless.

Should people be required to own a Mac to release desktop software for the Mac? It is - or at least was - quite possible to make an application in Electron or Java or some other tool and release it cross-platform, having beta testers handle platforms specific testing.

Now, Apple is making that impossible, which hurts developers who can't afford to go all-in on the mac platform.

Should people be required to own a Mac to release desktop software for the Mac?

How do you test your software without the machine you're targeting? Every programmer knows that VMs aren't as good as the real thing.

You send it to a friend of yours that has a mac, but isn't a developer.

I hope you are being sarcastic! That’s a low quality assurance bar, even by a hobbyist’s standards. “My friend with one Mac running one OS version says it works, therefore I’m ready to release?”

I'm not. When you're a high school student releasing your first computer game on a well-tested engine, that's a perfectly valid level of quality assurance.

Not everyone can afford to keep around a lab full of macs running multiple versions of macOS.

No one says you need a bunch of Macs. People are saying that you need one, which is one more than the OP wanted to use.

I’d think any developer would want at a bare minimum two test machines: one representing the minimum system required by your application including minimum targeted OS version, and a higher end machine running the latest.

Judging my the reaction to my comment, Today I Learned it’s acceptable to release software with only cursory testing on a friend’s computer. Explains a lot about recent software quality actually...

I don't quite see how that at all follows, considering that notarization is something you can do from e.g. a CI server.

I'm concerned at this point about if anybody that this supposedly effects has actually done any research at all on it.

The last place I worked at, it was socially forbidden to automate the digital signing process, such as in a CD pipeline. Now I'm curious to hear if we were being paranoid.

And that's why Electron is popular. People don't have to deal with these issues.

More specifically, developers don't have to deal with these issues. They simply create more issues for their users.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com