Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by teknopaul | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

teknopaul

This is Hacker news, everyone reading this should be able to hack up something of personal use on their phone.

View on HN

And they can. Nothing prevents that. If you think it does, you’ve been lied to.

Not true. Apple places a 7 day limit on developer mode side loaded apps when using a free account.

Sorry to link to Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/sideloaded/comments/8ht5uy/question...

It'd be pretty trivial to throw together some automation that reinstalls your sideloaded apps nightly.

The device has to be unlocked, and non-Xcode builds require connecting the device to the computer using a cable.

So it’s not as trivial as it seems.

I actually forgot that Xcode could install wirelessly! To me, unlocking the device and connecting it to the computer (which could be a mac mini next to my bed) is completely trivial. It really doesn't get much easier.

I love the logical gymnastics you iphone fanboys go through to make your views fit the world we live in.

The world we live in is one where nobody is forced to buy an Apple product. If you don’t like what Apple does, don’t buy their products.

I don’t like what they do, but I also like their products.

Now what?

It’s up to you. Buy them if you want them. Don’t if you don’t.

It's not. You obviously never really developed anything using both xcode, the automated xcode build tooling, or an iPhone before.

I operated a whole bespoke enterprise build farm for iOS that did hundreds of headless xcode builds per day, plus I wired up automated app re-signing with a signing identity repository. It's a pain because Apple isn't super helpful if you're not on the straight and narrow path, but it's not rocket surgery. Just hooking up some actions to automate a build and install when 'phone plugged in' event is detected isn't that hard.

Apple has been gradually improving its toolchain. Finally their Buddybuild acquisition is yielding results.

And there’s also a 3 app maximum

Although you can always pay Apple $99/year to get around it!

Plus the cost of an Apple computer to develop it on.

So what? There are plenty of other options if you want to develop software for you own use.

Not for on my iPhone! I can't compile on Linux and publish software onto an iPhone without major trickery.

You have to be the least informed hacker in the world if you bought an thinking you could do that.

There are plenty of alternatives to the iPhone if you want to compile on Linux.

I have the vision of hanging at the coffee shop, jamming to headphones, pop open the iPad, open the iCloud synced IntelliJ project I was working on my MacBook Pro in the morning. To those who would say, but that's not what an iPad is for - consider this thought: The iPad is a pretty good expression device. You can draw with the pencil in Good Notes. You can paint with your fingers in Procreate. You can make music with Garage Band. With the iPad keyboard, and Obsidian.app, it's a serious writing tool. So with all of these ways to express my passion, what I'd love to do is use the iPad to express my passion to code. Using my kindergarten brain, It looks like a computer that a person could use to code.

Apple seems to be investing in iPad software development capabilities - Swift Playground app. This is exciting - perhaps it will be the "iMovie" of Xcode...

An aside: When someone finally comes up with an eInk laptop, we developers in Austin can chill at patio bars and enjoy the sun.

It seems like you want to force Apple to adopt a roadmap you have laid out for them.

You can always buy a developer account.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com