Comment by endisneigh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by endisneigh | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly there's a Web Assembly port of DeSmuME (https://github.com/44670/desmume-wasm), so it works (to a certain extent) entirely in a web browser. You can ban from the stores, but as long as browsers are allowed, it'll never be banned completely.

The greatest scam of Google and Apple is convincing millions of developers to learn Swift and Kotlin to make apps on their stores that can be swiftly (pun intended) removed from their stores. Though the average developer is unlikely to ever be banned, why even risk it?

Think about the performance hit of apps that don't need to be native apps being ported to Web Apps. Let's be extreme and say it's equivalent to a Native App for a device 10 years older. Alright, so a modern Web App is equivalent in performance to a 2012 Native App running on a flagship. That's iPhone 5 and Galaxy Note 2. Make this conversion once and optimize your app and you'll never need to worry about your app being pulled ever again. Not to mention you can write your app once and it'll work on all platforms.

At least in the case of this particular app it can be sideloaded, so it'll be fine in the end, probably.

> The greatest scam of Google and Apple is convincing millions of developers to learn Swift and Kotlin to make apps on their stores that can be swiftly (pun intended) removed from their stores

I certainly won't defend Apple and Google's app store monopolies and control. However, Kotlin was actually a case of Google listening to the developer community. Google could have, and wanted to, push Dart (see Flutter) on Android. But the Android development community was already adopting JetBrain's Kotlin. Google listened and embraced Kotlin instead of pushing their own thing. It was not a hostile act.

Dare I say Google embracing and pushing Kotlin on the Android ecosystem was the last good thing I can remember Google doing. The language is such a joy to to work in without the pitfalls that come with Scala

I don't know, Compose is fantastic as well. The way the runtime, foundation, and UI libraries are layered make it a breeze to extend, and the layout system is the only sane one I've used. Overall Compose is a paradigm shift that is too-often compared to React, Flutter or SwiftUI by those who haven't written code using it.

Our dev team is looking to switch as soon as we have time to learn it. I assumed it was going to be like React from the one tutorial I've done of it so far, which already excited us.

Is this the best resource for learning it well enough to come out with your opinion that its even better? https://developer.android.com/courses/pathways/compose

I'm also a little worried about missing components currently available in XML, although I know you can mix and match, but not sure how that actually is in practice.

The one time I had to mix so far, to display a CameraX preview view, it worked fine.

That is because only masochists use Scala

They each have their place. Kotlin is super Java. Scala is it's own thing, in a similar sense as Clojure or Groovy.

As someone with a lot of java experience and a small taste of scala, what are the pitfalls that Kotlin avoids?

implicits

Is Dart dead yet?

I narrowly won an argument with an evangelical principal engineer who wanted our whole company to switch to Dart around 7 years ago.

Not if you like flutter.

If Google actually listened to the Java developer community, they would have kept Java up to date instead of doing their own version of .NET.

Naturally after showing the finger to Sun and Oracle, "Android.NET" is the way.

I don't think the point was Kotlin and Swift vs. Java and Objective-C, but merely these native languages (listing the current generation) instead of, say, JavaScript.

The solution isn’t for everyone to make web apps, it’s to regulate the app markets.

Web apps are still at the mercy of Apple and Google. Plus, they’re always lagging in features. Wordle for example wouldn’t have been able to implement the sharing feature before ~2019 because the web share API wasn’t supported by major browsers (even though it’s a thing native apps could do since forever)

> The solution isn’t for everyone to make web apps, it’s to regulate the app markets.

I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps arbitrarily?

> Web apps are still at the mercy of Apple and Google.

Not really. Apple and Google don't control the entire internet. Though they do have some level of control of the APIs available, ultimately they themselves use the same APIs as well, so...

In any case I disagree with you - web apps are the solution because every app that becomes a Web App instead of native app results in a loosening in the grip that is the Apple/Google duopoly. Once at a critical mass, sites will pop up to curate all of these new found web apps, APIs will be developed to facilitate payments for these apps, and so forth.

Ironically Google initially was not able to compete with Apple with respect to app store curation and promoted PWAs aggressively, but no one really bit. If people just went with that to begin with we wouldn't be in this situation now. So instead of going with PWAs, Google just ended up copying Apple and now both of them just rent seek instead of one.

Prior to PWAs, there were "responsive pages" and Steve Jobs in 2007 actually thought that it would make more sense of all iPhone apps were just responsive apps instead of native apps, and locked down the API to strictly first party apps.

Hackers jail broke the iPhone to unlock all of the functionality, forcing Apple to launch the App Store, resulting in the situation now before us.

We're being given a second chance here with WebAssembly. Let's not screw it up this time around, ya?

> I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps arbitrarily?

Regulate the markets by letting other stores compete, not by regulating the current monopolistic stores. Force OS developers to make it easy and practical to use alternative app stores, and able to compete fairly with the first-party ones. On iOS, you can't do so at all without jailbreaking, and on Android, there's tons of scary warnings, and there's some stuff like automatic background updates that are impossible for anything but the Play Store unless you root.

Why would regulation result in more permissiveness? From my reading most implemented regulation has resulted in more restrictiveness, and things like DRM.

If that happened I'd love it though, as the precedent would presumably allow for all stores, like game consoles, appliances, etc. to open up their operating systems to allow any arbitrary software to be installed.

Even if there were more app stores I bet it would result in all apps having to be signed by Google, in the same way anyone can purchase their own domain but are still limited in that DNS is centralized.

> Even if there were more app stores I bet it would result in all apps having to be signed by Google

That's the kind of thing I'd want the regulation to ban.

I'm sure, but what I'm saying what proposals that are realistically going to pass do that? Look at the history of software regulation, it generally restricts things.

The whole point of regulating app markets is so that monopolies aren't the only ones capable of doing regulating.

So there is precedent, OFC it doesn't exist in a vacuum, but whem Microsoft was forced to provide browser alternatives, most people went with other browsers. Sure, some used IE or edge still, but it meant people knew it was even an option, which was arguably big.

Of course, we are currently in danger of Chrome being the monopoly, and seeing already all the awful things that brings. But this is in part directly related to the scam going on with device lockin - it's not just Android, but that plays a large part in Chrome takimg majority market share.

Demanding app stores are allowed, or better that devices can be repaired by anyone, would mean more alt OS installs, more aftermarket devices, healthier software ecosystem, more economic activity.

The Irony of these tools not being widely available, means in Western countries there is not much of a third party market, not much software support, whereas countries like China can have built up the infrastructure to manufacture novel phones almost overnight...

I can see where the disagreement stems from. What you're attributing to regulation, is more accurately attributed to who is lobbying for that regulation. You are giving up on a useful tool, because you don't like how someone else is using it.

> From my reading most implemented regulation has resulted in more restrictiveness, and things like DRM.

What reading is that?

DMCA for one

The DMCA gave websites carte blanche to host user uploaded content with practically zero copyright liability as long as they responded to DMCA requests and let the third parties fight over it in court. I wouldn't call that restrictive.

That was already possible before DMCA. All it did was give power to corporations to remove content. The DMCA is restrictive by definition

That is incorrect. Without the DMCA, the company running a site is liable for everything on the site if it does any moderation at all, and they wouldn't just be ordered to remove content, the financial penalties would be massive. Yes, the DMCA is deeply flawed, but it was passed to solve real problems.

Even with the DMCA in practice the safe harbor provisions have proven ineffective and sites in practice are still liable for content, see YouTube v Viacom. The main benefit for DMCA is for the ISPs, mainly.

In practice DMCA simply made it easier to take down supposed infringers of copyright violations and spread the popularity of drm. In theory, yes it’s good, and it probably made companies like YouTube and Facebook more comfortable with user content. The other benefit is that because you can accept DMCA requests and assume they are correct as long as you respond promptly your liability should be limited

In any case you’re probably right but haven’t heard of any high profile lawsuits prior to DMCA regarding internet content so it’s hard to really say.

What the law says though is that DMCA criminalizing circumventing drm and other access control and related technologies, services or tools.

This may be the case nowadays with the pretty severe regulatory capture we have going on, but in the 60s, the FCC decreed that any lawful device may be electronically connected to the telephone network, despite what AT&T wanted. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone) Without it, we wouldn't have modems, fax machines, answering machines, etc. etc. etc.

Regulation can most certainly result in permissiveness.

> Why would regulation result in more permissiveness?

Why assume that people who have bought into devices with closed ecosystems want more permissiveness? Who does this benefit?

Most of this seems like question begging for ad-tech and similarly scummy business models.

> I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps arbitrarily?

Forcing them to allow alternative app stores for starters. The only reason they can get away with doing this stuff is because they each have 100% market share.

> regulations that are likely to pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps arbitrarily?

Any proposals?

> I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps arbitrarily?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/271...

Wordle could have used copy to clipboard or link to share eg. Twitter https://twitter.com/home?status=blabla

Wordle does use copy-to-clipboard.

No it doesn’t. The share button opens a native share dialog, which is only possible with the web share API.

For me, tapping Share pops up a toast message saying "Copied results to clipboard", and then I go to my family group messaging thread and paste the results. I know that it's possible to invoke the native share dialogue because Reddit does it, but for me, Wordle does not.

Firefox on Android.

Sounds like Firefox hasn't implemented the API. No surprise, Firefox is always miles behind on stuff users actually want. It works with the native share box on Edge Android.

You misunderstand. Firefox has implemented the API, because it works on Reddit and other websites.

Same for me, Chrome on Windows 11.

You really think those regulations won’t be heavily lobbied by Nintendo and DRM loving lawyers, and somehow end up even worse for consumers or more importantly small developers?

Maybe I’m cynical but I highly doubt it’s going to be “make your app stores completely replaceable without DRM/billing/taxation/etc schemes and allow unrestricted sideloading”.

It can’t possibly get worse for consumers

I can think of plenty of ways where mega-companies and governments could make power-grabs and increase control/administration over app stores ("get your app approved by EU/US/Japanese agency to get a geo license to distribute your app"). As opposed to simply forcing tech companies to take a more hands-off approach.

I can think of 100x examples of the former in other industries and almost no modern examples of the latter happening (besides maybe right-to-repair, which hasn't meaningfully happened anywhere yet).

It can always get worse

I remember the DS being my most capable portable computer. Seeing an emulator for it in the browser feels weird.

(also, more on topic for your comment): Going the browser route now (counter intuitively) gives you more flexibility with language/tooling. I think as far as cooperate/closed source apps go the browser is absolutely the way to go. It's a very battle hardened sandbox and the W3c does a pretty good job accumulating portable standards for things. It even has push notifications and file I/O now (although Apple has been stingy with that.)

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