Apple's Testy Developer Relationships Threaten to Hamper Vision Pro | Hacker News Reader

Apple's Testy Developer Relationships Threaten to Hamper Vision Pro

bloomberg.com

46 pointsmfiguiere50 comments

I've come to prefer websites over apps on my iPhone. I have more control and privacy protections in the browser thanks to my adblocker (1) and even userscripts (2).

But it's not just control and privacy; the experience is better, too:

- YouTube without ads (depending on the adblocker-YouTube war).

- Spotify lets me play any track I want with 'request desktop website', or an album from start to finish - in the app, it's shuffle-only without premium.

So using Safari for YouTube and or Spotify on the Vision Pro isn't a big loss for me.

1: I pay for 1Blocker.

2: https://github.com/quoid/userscripts

For me the main benefit of a browser over apps is you can have multiple windows open of the same thing.

This. And also that text is generally select- and copyable in the browser.

I’ve switched to web version of fb messenger.com as they finally respect “request desktop website” in safari. Still it’s pretty broken, doesn’t do push notifications and forces you to log in each time. All obviously on purpose.

Instagram is a little better, but won’t let you post videos for whatever reason.

TikTok is fairly useable if you manage to log in.

I don't know if it's worth the time, but a userscript to change some CSS and move or delete some elements could make Instagram or FB better on the small phone screen. That's on the long-tail end of my "this would be cool to do" list.

I recently noticed that quite a lot of my peers are now going with PopOS+LineageOS instead of MacBook+iPhone.

I'm still happy to build Windows and Mac apps if a client wants them. Taking advantage of dedicated Windows APIs is relatively easy, you just get a enterprise key from msdn and fire up a VM. But Apple is notoriously complicated about running their OS in a VM. So most Mac projects end up as Electron (tested exclusively on Linux) and then GitHub Actions to vomit out the Mac+iOS apps, because it's cheap and most companies don't care about quality, they just need Apple apps for their checklist.

In line with that, maybe the developers who could build cool Vision Pro apps have just been alienated out of Apple's ecosystem. And it certainly doesn't help that they are constantly in the news for their Sith-worthy iron-tight grab on developers' purses.

"Come lock yourself into a new ecosystem where you have no alternative tools and you'll forever give up 30% of your revenue"

just doesn't sound attractive to me. Once there are cross-platform engines for Quest and Vision, I might consider the latter. But as long as it's a prison run by Apple, I'll avoid Vision as much as I can.

Edit: In my opinion, the killer app for VR is still gaming. Robot Recall by Epic Games would probably be amazing on that hardware. But I don't think Epic is in the mood to support Apple with their new app store ;)

Apple has an opportunity to once again lead and make new things possible. But I think they are also seeing this as App store 2.0, and that's a shortsighted move which is obviously causing a lot of groans. This is disruptive tech, but apple isn't using it to disrupt.

I can understand Netflix not wanting to invest in developing something for the Vision Pro yet, but what would they lose by enabling its ipad app to work on the device?

Seems like the strategy only hurts a few users of their platform, without really gaining any leverage against Apple.

Netflix would rather the Quest succeed.

They'd update their Quest app if so

The Quest and the Vision Pro are competitors in the same way that a Porsche competes with my '98 Nissan Pulsar.

Netflix doesn't want Apple to have more power. All of the companies refusing to build apps for Vision Pro are doing it strictly to try to tank the product, or to try to force Apple's hand at the negotiating table re: IAP.

> but what would they lose by enabling its ipad app to work on the device?

I ask the same question when I see apps that work in portrait mode but not upside-down portrait. It's the same bloody dimensions!

It would be a commitment that costs money to run day to day, even if it is just running the iOS app.

https://archive.ph/DSSWg

Ps this site was really nasty with its paywall.. it even literally told me to turn off dark reader. That's just to improve readability, it doesn't block or bypass anything. Luckily archive.ph bypasses all that crap.

Except archive.ph has the never-ending CAPTCHA from Hell.

So, that's totally useless either way.

Huh? I never get that one. Weird. It always works perfectly for me (on Firefox on FreeBSD which is often served by captchas from other sites for being "suspicious").

I wonder what triggers archive.ph to serve that captcha? It's not the browser apparently.

Edit: I've been googling this, and it looks like the owner of archive.ph has some beef with cloudflare DNS and is returning the wrong addresses or something. Whatever. I'm using OpenDNS and it works fine.

Do you have a better option perhaps?

I'm just going to the link provided, with my iPad, using the Safari browser.

And every time, the CloudFlare CAPTCHA-from-Hell comes up. I thought it was being put up by archive.ph.

I struggle to see what new capabilities Vision enables that justify its inconvenient form factor.

Apple had how much time to come up with a killer app for Vision? And what did they come up with?

Apple should be bursting at the seams with crazy innovative app ideas. If they can’t come up with anything interesting, I doubt many independent developers will.

The only use case I see is for someone who lives alone and doesn't have space for a home theater. Compared to the cost of a huge OLED TV and surround sound system, it's worth consideration.

Otherwise, what use case is worth 3.5k? It's not a work device, because the sidecar is limited to a single display. It's not compatible with OpenXR, so it's not a simulation device.

The effective resolution will be lower than 4K of course. Because each display is roughly 4K per eye but both have a lot of overlap (necessary for the stereo effect) and the virtual display doesn't use the full visual field because that would be incredibly uncomfortable. Like sitting too close to a cinema screen.

I have my doubts about productivity too. One or two displays doesn't really make the most of it and you still need a Mac to run serious computing (better than iOS or iPad OS) apps.

I also wonder how well the eye tracking mouse pointer plus finger pinching for clicking will be when doing this for real work. I'd imagine it fatigues quickly. Oculus uses hand movements plus finger pinching and that's way worse for comfort than using the VR controllers.

And of course there's the elephant in the room, the price tag.

For watching movies I'd take a short throw projector over any VR HMD for the foreseeable future. Plus even if I were single, I'd probably be planning on guests at some point.

I've got a projector home theater, there's a couple of issues:

1. You need to have a lot of control over the room lighting. If you can't block out all the light the image quality suffers a lot.

2. You need to have a clear wall or projector screen, which might mean giving up some useful space in your home.

3. The black levels are awful compared to OLED.

As for guests, other than the occasional movie nights, we usually play a board game or are making something as our activity.

a short throw probector is far more cumbersome and inconvenient than a tv in that situation

"want to come over and watch me watch a movie?"

If they ever want to not live alone they'll still want a TV.

And against a low hundreds of thousands potential installed base with apple stealing 30% -- ie well over half your profit on typical 50% saas margins. How can developers make money on that? A super-high 10% of tam is optimistically 40k copies sold. That's borderline for a solo dev, and doesn't come close to covering the opportunity cost for any larger software shop.

Phones have completely fucked our posture because they have to be hunched over and our fingers need to contort into unnatural shapes and do repetitive motions. The form factor of being able to stand up straight (or sit back) naturally while computing is the killer feature.

I assure you our posture was already terrible

That’s an interesting take, and I can agree with it. How will you sell this however?

Be the one person who doesn't look like a hunchback endlessly poking at a small tablet - by standing upright and endlessly poking into the space around you.

Meh. This is just latching on to some large companies (Netflix, etc) who already stated they won't be building custom apps for it. Netflix doesn't even have a native Mac app, so it's not surprising that they wouldn't have a native app for the Vision Pro, especially if the built in Safari can do everything a native App could or would.

Now, if there was an advantage to building an app for Netflix, et al then they will. I suspect that the success of the device (or failure) will determine if/when these large companies start thinking more seriously about native apps.

Many companies jumped on to the Apple Watch bandwagon only to find its limited nature hindered app development too much. Apple pitched the use case for the Watch in 3 areas, turns out it thrived on notifications and fitness tracking.

Talk to me after the Vision Pro launches and users start providing feedback on needs, etc and what the actual use case is.

> especially if the built in Safari can do everything a native App could or would.

No downloads without a native app, which could affect the whole "using it on a plane" thing people keep mentioning.

Annoying, but if you're a first-gen user paying $3500 for the device, you probably either have Apple's TV/movies offering or don't care much about paying for it for your flight.

More and more flights (maybe 25% of my flights lately) have internet that is fast enough for and allows streaming video. This trend will continue I'm sure. Obviously downloads are still really beneficial but it's becoming less and less of an issue on flights.

> This is just latching on to some large companies (Netflix, etc) who already stated they won't be building custom apps for it.

Incorrect. They could have allowed their iPad apps to run on Vision Pro, but they specifically chose not to.

Developers who offer software for the iPad automatically see their apps pop up on the Vision Pro App Store. That is, unless they opt out — as Netflix, Spotify and YouTube are planning to do.

Both are true.

Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube are neither building custom apps nor enabling their iPad apps for use on Vision Pro.

It is not only NOT in their interest to do so (and users can use the web anyway; the download use case is a vanishingly small market segment), but it is ALSO a way for them to speak truth to Apple's power w.r.t. their draconian in-app purchases policy. Game on.

That just pushes more people to using AppleTV.

Media companies are really going to regret their choices to intentionally give up the entire market to Apple, because that only helps Apple build their walled garden just that much higher.

> That just pushes more people to using AppleTV.

Do you mean Apple TV (the device), Apple TV (the app), or do you mean Apple TV+ (their streaming service)?

I don’t see Apple outsmart Netflix or Amazon when it comes to creating and distributing shows and movies.

Well, Apple TV+ the service doesn't work without the Apple TV app. The Apple TV device is not a strict requirement for this scenario.

I do wish Apple had more distinctive naming, instead of overloading the same name for multiple things. Blech.

But you are correct that I meant the service.

That still requires resources to support. For a platform with an uncertain number of users.

For god’s sake, who buys a Vision Pro to listen to Spotify?

What else are you doing with it? What's the killer app?

You'll want background music while doing whatever it is you're going to do with it.

The killer app is not in what the device is capable of today.

The killer app is not in what we currently imagine the device to be capable of tomorrow.

The killer app will be found in the things we cannot possibly conceive of today, because our pre-conceived mindset hasn't allowed us to adapt to the new landscape.

It doesn’t block your ears, so if you want Spotify you can just play it through the same speakers you use now.

Nobody who wants this device is choosing not to buy it just because Spotify isn’t there.

Spotify is simply reducing their own appeal for no particularly good reason.

New categories of hardware don't need a killer app at launch to be successful.

VisiCalc wasn't available day one of the Apple II being released. What was the Macs killer app? Laser Printer? Adobe photoshop? The killer app for the iPod? The dock connector and iTunes for Windows. iPhone? The App Store itself.

I emailed some folks at Apple about some security issues with working in their ecosystem, their response has been from very underwhelming to no reply. So basically I'm on my own within my billion dollar business getting no support. Guess how I feel about developing for Apple products?

I spent a month of my time developing an IOS app, I paid their $99/year fee to publish the app and the app has sat “in review” for over a month (and counting). If you’re going to provide this shitty of support and take 33% of my profits anyway just make the damn thing free. Big companies suck to deal with and this ordeal makes me genuinely not care what happens to them.

30%.

15%, unless you make $1 million per year

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