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Comment by codesternews | Hacker News Reader

Apple has made life of small developers hard. Mac software and app industry has died. Even after notarising apps they show malicious popup to users.

Same practices has adapted by apple like search ad etc etc. They make competing services and steal ideas of developers and those app dies. For eg screen time for Moments app.

They have unfair advantage and small developers could not complete. Only handful of indie developers making money from appstore and rest apps have died.

They killed the industry.

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> Mac software and app industry has died. Even after notarising apps they show malicious popup to users.

I maintain a handful of open source apps for macOS, and have for years. If I don't pay the $100 Apple tax, macOS will treat those apps as if they're radioactive, and it will trick users into believing the apps are either broken or malicious.

In order to run them, users must know how to change arcane settings and do a magic ritual with the UI, otherwise they just won't open.

If the tables were turned and it was Linux that wouldn't run apps that were not signed and approved by Red Hat without having to jump through arcane hoops first, people would be rightfully pointing out how user and developer hostile it is.

> They killed the industry.

Not only that, they helped usher in the race to the bottom when it comes to the app distribution market. Now everyone expects to spend a dollar or two for an app if they're spending anything at all. They also killed the paid update/upgrade model for apps.

Absolutely this. Apple's holier-than-thou approach to every settlement they reach is starting to blow back in their face, as the rest of our economy starts to realize how parasitic and destructive this tax-collection model is. Now that Apple can effectively set their own margins, they have no incentive to treat their users or developers fairly, and recently have started to bring the hammer down. I had a few friends who also maintained open source apps for iOS, and they constantly lamented how impossible it was to get Apple to review their accusation that their open-source manual app was malware.

Windows is getting close to macOS in that regard. Specifically, both browser and OS are arbitrarily marking installers as malware, scaring users. Even digital signatures don't help.

The only reliable workaround is publishing through Windows store.

Yep, been bitten by that myself.

Nowadays normal (OV) codesign signatures still trigger warnings for users on startup. Only a much more expensive EV codesign certificate guarantees a silent install.

The OV codesign certificate can become accepted by Smartscreen, but it can take a very long time with many downloads (in my case it took over 5 months, with thousands of downloads)

Can you provide an example?

I never had an issue with installing (mostly signed) Windows software.

> If I don't pay the $100 Apple tax

Please. If you can’t make enough in an entire damn year to cover that $100, you need to look at what you’re doing.

Hell I’ve seen obscure open source projects get more than $100 in donations every single month.

If people see any value in your work, then that $100 is not a barrier at all.

Not every OSS developer does, or wants to, request donations for their software.

You make a good point for commercial products. But what about open source or closed source softwares that the developer wants to distribute for free?

I'm not begging for donations, nor am I dealing with the tax implications of taking donations, sorry.

I made these apps before macOS enforced the $100 Apple tax on all apps. I would not have created them today if it meant jumping through the hoops that Apple imposes in 2021.

It actually costs me money to maintain these apps, because the time I take to maintain them could be time I bill to a client.

> I'm not begging for donations

No, you’re begging for free access to millions of users to do whatever you want with them. Which Android/Windows/Linux will happily give you.

What about OSS devs who don't make money from their apps?

There are not very many OSS apps on the iOS app store, probably caused by the difficulty in getting an app published.

> There are not very many OSS apps on the iOS app store, probably caused by the difficulty in getting an app published.

It's also because OSS apps on iOS often need to be dual-licensed, especially if they're *GPL licensed. That's because the App Store imposes additional restrictions on the software it distributes, and the GNU licenses mandate that *GPL software cannot be distributed with additional restrictive terms.

For Apple to distribute *GPL software via the App Store, it would mean violating those licenses.

Take a look at the iOS VLC situation. It had to be taken down and re-released under a dual license because of this problem.

Sure, because open-source devs really want to ask for donations just to turn around and hand them directly to Apple. Must feel great.

I can't say it was the right choice but when Apple announced their dev tools, demands, and "App Store" I read it over and decided I rather not get involved with that.

I focused on web apps that can run on most any platform and while it's true they still have hamstrings I've not been feeding that voracious Mac beast and dealing with the frustrations of getting bit when I do.

That's not to say it hasn't affected me. It's affected all of us.

Yet given all this, for a substantial cohort of customers, the Apple brand is still bought as a badge of "coolness".

Slightly off topic, but I do love the translucent terminal on the Mac. It is very cool

Pretty sure gnome-terminal and terminator both have this.

Quite a number of terminal emulators have this feature. Alacritty and xfce4 terminal as well.

As far as I know pretty much every Linux terminal emulator has an opacity setting so long as you have a compositor installed

And konsole

(And pretty much every Linux terminal)

And powershell (if I understand what is being described).

That would be Windows Terminal, the application inside of which PowerShell and other shells run.

It's a performance hog that provides little value.

The Apple brand is still where things mostly "just work". Sure, it's significantly declined in the last few years, but it's still ahead of Linux, and while Windows was great during the Windows 7 era and Microsoft definitely has the resources to compete, it seems like they're intentionally degrading the experience with Windows 10.

Why do you say they’re degrading the experience?

The other day I had a windows upgrade and suddenly had weather on my desktop. I thought it was some malware I’d downloaded. Nope, new windows feature with a confusing way to disable it so I had to Google it.

My next laptop will definitely be a MacBook.

I had that weather widget show up a few days ago as well. Beyond being unwanted it is also incompetent at the basics. I have my Windows regional settings correctly configured and yet this weather widget still showed me temperature in Fahrenheit.

To each their own, but I find it hilarious that the weather widget is the straw that broke the camel’s back for you not wanting Windows anymore. There are so many better reasons to move away from Windows.

Well me selling off my $1200 video card (my midlife crisis gamer “Ferrari”) and quitting video canes completely has a lot to do with it too. I just don’t have a compelling reason to stay. My work laptops have always been MacBook Pros, they’re nice, and funnily enough my favorite feature is things like iTerm that just doesn’t something as good on Linux.

Good luck with that. I hated Windows, then Linux, got a Mac, hated that as well, now I'm back and I hate all major operating systems. I'm back on Windows, at least I can run any application I want without Microsoft's approval.

Desktop computing is all going to shit really quickly, and we're powerless to stop it. Linux is our only chance but it's still a rag tag of unpaid volunteers with no real goal or vision, except for its kernel.

I only just now realized that weather icon isn’t malware. Thanks for letting me know.

I really don’t know how long I’m willing to buy this argument that Apple is a “luxury” brand or that Apple or its customers are disproportionately concerned about coolness or fashion. All the competing flagship smartphones have similar products at similar prices, including all the branded accessories, as well as extremely similar marketing and advertising. And at least in the United States, Apple has nearly a 50% market share, which makes it really hard to buy the narrative that people are only interested in Apple products because of Apple’s marketing and their desire to fit in or look cool.

I can't tell you how many comments I've gotten (in jest I know) about how their text bubbles to me are now green.

> Apple has nearly a 50% market share

What market are you talking about? I haven't heard the 50% market share number in the US. - iOS is 59.71% of smartphones in the US - macOS is 27.16% of Desktop PCs in the US

https://www.mobileapps.com/blog/android-vs-ios-market-share#... https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-st...

I’m talking about smartphone market share. Most sources show around 40-50% market share in the US for Apple, sometimes spiking higher in quarters with popular iPhone releases.

Apple is to app developers what uber is to taxis and carpoolers.

Better in every conceivable way but make lots of people mad because of the way they deliver which is talking end-to-end control of the product?

App developers are Apple contractors, not small business owners.

I spend more for mac apps every year than the year before. And I do out it outside of the app store (mostly). Obviously HN crowd isn't representative of the general populace but this is my limited anecdotal experience.

I am developer of mac app which rely on system events. From mojave each time I request for permission user see popup this app wants to control etc etc. I got it but every time? It killed lots of apps.

>>It killed lots of apps.

how?

People see that, don't understand the popup, get scared and stop using the app.

Do you think that all apps should have access to system events without asking permission? I sympathise with the frustration, and I agree that Apple could’ve done more to help less tech savvy users navigate the challenge of increased security. But every operating system is a series of trade-offs between developer convenience and having the system defend the user’s interests.

But if I was in your position, my response would be to do the best job I can to educate my users about this and hold their hand through the process as much as possible. If your competitors face the same challenges, doing this well could be a real competitive advantage.

It should have all that, when you install the app. And you should probably be able to see what apps are using what permissions when. Both of which you can do already.

A prompt at every instance is just fear mongering.

They also don't pay the same taxes as small businesses. The market is completely rigged. Apple should be split and fined.

Apple is the largest taxpayer in the US. (and incorporated in California instead of Delaware, which presumably means higher fees)

Apple is incorporated in CA, they're incorporated in DE, they're incorporated in Ireland, they've got corporations all over the place.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/business/how-delaware-thr...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_v_Commission

Rather weak tax evasion argument when Ireland doesn’t want the taxes and the shell company employs 10ks of people and runs a factory.

> incorporated in California instead of Delaware

This was my main point. They're incorporated in Delaware as well as incorporated in California. That way, they can look all hoity toity when it comes to paying their CA taxes while still enjoying the DE tax status many other corporations enjoy. On top of that, their tax attorneys also are some of the best at using the Double Irish method for avoiding global taxes.

Pointing to Apple as an example as a company that pays their share of taxes is missing the forest for the trees. Sure they pay a lot in taxes in CA (they're a MASSIVE employer in CA, they do a ton in sales, they own a lot of property, etc.) they're also pretty much doing as much as they possibly can to avoid paying taxes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to apply a moral stance to this either way in this comment. Its just disengenious to try and paint them as a company that willingly pays their CA taxes while they're also the leading example of the Double Irish tax structure.

Larger != pays the same tax in terms of %.

If the market is rigged, blame the market.

I don’t like many of the accounting tricks Apple pulls either, but as long as Apple’s competitors are pulling the same tricks, singling out Apple doesn’t solve the problem. Yes Apple are a huge company, but they are utterly minuscule relative to the overall economy.

I'm not sure if Apple are utterly miniscule + they only have to lobby for a very select few.

Apple is, I think, the biggest company in the world. But they’re still minuscule compared to the market as a whole.

Interesting take. I felt developers, by racing to the bottom on price, killed themselves.

When a neighbor I did not even really know (and this was perhaps close to 10 years ago) told me she never buys apps anymore, she only downloads the free ones, I knew the jig was up.

Note that Apple and Google are also behind this partly, as they also own advertising networks and thus support and promote adware apps on their platform. Most adware apps are free because they are ad supported.

No.

I’m a small developer and Apple made my life easier than Microsoft or Google ever did.

> They killed the industry.

A bit dramatic for an industry that is very much alive. — at best they damaged it.

> Mac software and app industry has died

And yet for me there are far more apps than there has ever been.

> steal ideas of developers

Nobody owns an idea.

> They killed the industry.

This notion that Apple killed the mobile apps industry which it arguably started is ridiculous.

We have companies like Instagram, Snap, WhatsApp, Niantic etc who built billion dollar businesses on the back of the iOS platform. And a wide array of small developers e.g. Calm who are likely to be the next billion dollar company. Not to mention all the indie developers who are thriving.

Those of us who run startups know how difficult it is to build a robust channel to market. And Apple gives you one on a silver platter for far less than what other ad platforms charge.

You can still kill something that you start.

I think what they’re saying it’s now a lot harder for indie developers. Sure if you’re Instagram or FB you’re OK (though even those companies take issue with the 30%)

They just haven’t looked after smaller developers. The introduction of paid search ads was just so hostile to anyone without a massive budget - or rather anyone without a high lifetime value per user, making initial outlay on acquisition make sense. All it does is incentivise this dumb model of free apps with endless sneaky bullshit in—app purchases.

Or, worse, the new subscription-everything. I don’t want to pay a monthly subscription for a god damn gif editing app! I just want to buy it and that be that. But this is now rife.

The $1 / $2 app model was pretty good by comparison IMHO

You still need a $100 a year developer subscription to develop your app though, right?

You need a subscription to distribute your app via the AppStore, not to develop it or to use the app you wrote personally.

If you don't pay the rent-seeking Apple tax, there are severe restrictions for iOS:

• You can only install on a very limited number of devices, and the HW IDs are kept by Apple, so installing from a different Mac won't help. It's tied to your developer ID, indefinitely. They don't mention that in the “On-device testing” bullet point.

• Your app install will only work for a week. After that, you have to reinstall because some certificate timed out.

Nota bene, this is for local installs, no AppStore involved. Yet they bully you into paying rent just so you can run your own app on your own devices.

No, you can develop your app for free. Here are details from Apple's own site about the free vs. paid memberships.

https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/

You only need it for iOS/ iPadOS/ watchOS development.

You can make a macOS app without a developer license, and just distribute it yourself (outside the Mac App Store). But the iOS app store is the only way users can get iOS apps, so you need to be on the apple developer program

Notarizing the app with require you to pay.

Yes true, but that's not required. You can still distribute apps, and your users can just "right click" and click "open", though this might be a little secret, since most people think they need to go into system preferences.

Nobody goes to that bar anymore because it’s always far too busy!

> mobile apps industry which it arguably started

Just a friendly reminder that Japanese carriers had a $1B mobile app/content economy going before the Apple app store launched.

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