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Comment by tasn | Hacker News Reader

I have an iPhone and macOS for development. I clocked a lot of hours on them over the years.

I admit, I was sometimes jealous of mac hardware, for example the new M1, magsafe, and etc (though not the terrible keyboards). Though I was never jealous of an iPhone's hardware. I was never ever jealous of the software. I always found it buggy and user-hostile.

The line you quoted was specifically about the user-hostility. You are using a machine that you can't control and actively fights you. It's mind boggling to me that developers agree to use such a system. Is this such an unreasonable opinion?

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My Macs and my iOS devices are neither hostile nor obstructive to me. Again, if you are confused by this, you aren't trying hard to understand.

I control my Mac just fine. I've built tools from source; I run whatever I want; I can automate tasks I find tedious using the same shell tools available on Linux, and I still have access to MS Office (and no, open/FOSS "alternatives" don't work sufficiently well for me) and other COTS tools I depend on.

The Mac is absolutely the right platform for me, and I don't find it limiting or broken or hostile AT ALL. And neither do millions of other folks.

I also work regularly with Windows, and have a higher-end Dell XPS on my desk for that purpose. Windows is so profoundly broken and un-discoverable and inconsistent (not to mention unstable over time) that I cannot fathom choosing to use it over anything else -- and it's the only OTHER platform where I could get access to some of the tools I rely on. Linux isn't there, and hacks to try to make things like Win software run there imply a level of tedious fiddling that I'm 100% retired from.

>Is this such an unreasonable opinion?

I guess it depends on whether you consider an unstudied, single-POV opinion reasonable.

I've used both platform, and I find iOS user friendly and easy to use. I also found iOS easier to develop for than Android, though admittedly it's been a few years since I've developed on either. Opinions are funny like that.

I think it depends on what you're doing. Are you developing native apps with one or two person teams? iOS seems easier to start. Are you developing multi platform apps with teams of hundreds of engineers? Well, Android is much much better.

Just to give an example, it is quite easy to build Android apps in a CI, while iOS is a pain (specially because there is no way to build an iOS app in anything other than a Mac). Also, most bugs specific to a platform happens in iOS (they happen in Android too, but my experience is maybe 10 bugs in iOS for 1 in Android).

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