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Comment by dnag | Hacker News Reader

Since we're here I have a suggestion to offer. When submitting your mobile app to the App Store there is a checkbox/option somewhere asking you to if you want to distribute the app to Mac as well. DO NOT do that. If enough people do that we'll end up having a Mac app store walled garden powerful enough to extract its 30% tax.

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After Authy discontinued their Mac app, there was a several month period where I could install the iOS app on my Mac laptop to keep using it anyway.

It stopped being installable a few weeks ago, presumably because they unchecked this box. (I bit the bullet and started paying for 1password and using it for my TOTP needs, btw)

As a MacOS user, if you have only an iOS app and not a MacOS app, why not allow Macs to run it too? You're suggesting that if enough people allow iOS apps to be installed on Mac, MacOS will stop allowing you install apps from anything but the app store? That seems unlikely to me. If you have a Mac app and choose not to distribute it via app store, that's fine though.

The forthcoming MacOS Sequel will have an option to use your iPhone and its apps on a Mac.

https://www.apple.com/macos/macos-sequoia-preview/

Also: Apples Password stuff has some TOTP stuff build in.

(Personally I'm a little bit depressed about the iOS-apps-on-Mac stuff - they are never good, not as Mac Apps not in general. I'd like to live in a world with better desktop apps.)

Yeah, I totally understand not wanting to deal with any extra support overhead of enabling the Mac app.

But this also seems like harmful advice if someone is trying to grow their app user base. I'm far more likely to purchase iOS apps that have Mac apps. Depending on the app, it's just far more valuable to me, and I'll prioritize what I buy based on this, e.g. if it's a note taking app, it needs to have a Mac version.

The day Apple stops allowing people to install their own apps outside of the App Store is the day I and many other people stop using Apple products as daily drivers. Apple is aware of this, and already under scrutiny from regulators.

> It stopped being installable a few weeks ago,

Well that sucks, I just recommended it to someone. I assume this also means it will eventually stop working for me once I upgrade something or other.

I've been using a very simple app called "OTP Auth" since I heard Steve Gibson talking about it on his Security Now podcast.

It's a few dollars, works well, and I've been really happy with it after using Authy for years.

I personally started using 2FAS. It’s a wonderful little app with push notifications and autofill, it really is the nicest little 2FA App I’ve used thus far

Even worse, a lack of software and market penetration on the Mac App Store is the only thing stopping Apple from disabling non-App-Store applications on Macs like they do on iOS. They've already implemented the technical side of it under the guise of "security."

That's the only thing stoping Apple? Not the fact that if they did that every mac out there would become unusable?

I see your point but also note that they have already done something similar with the M1. Pre-DMA and Epic lawsuit, I could potentially see them drop support for installing apps outside their app store. All they would really need is Adobe to agree and the rest would just have to follow, similar in some ways to the ARM transition. (With the notable difference being that one was free for developers aside from the cost of porting their software.) I don't expect that to happen now though.

What did they do similar with M1?

I don’t believe they changed anything about app installation in relation to their arm processors.

I meant that they made developers make changes to their apps. The obvious difference is that this change will cost the developers more money. The point was that developers didn't simply abandon Apple when they switched to ARM. I guess this point may be obvious now but IIRC there was a lot of discussion around if Apple would be able to make developers make native ARM versions of their apps or if they would just abandon MacOS (although perhaps I am remembering wrong here). The point is that they made "every mac out there unusable" to an certain extent, (although obviously there was a Rosetta 2) and it didn't matter because developers followed Apple's direction and made them usable again by making ARM versions of their software.

Macs would become unusable because so much software doesn't come from the App Store. If they can get enough market penetration through other means first, that wouldn't be a problem. It would break all kinds of development processes, but Apple doesn't care about developers. They'd work out some kludge and do it anyway.

> but Apple doesn't care about developers

Why? Their whole "Pro" line is targeting developers. How many enterprises/startups would have to switch away from macs if they cannot be used by their devs any more?

Apple targets developers of software for Apple platforms, who will always be able to operate (obviously). Everyone else is not a priority.

They'd still be usable by devs. We'd get VS code on the App Store and some kind of iOS-style ability to run unsigned binaries on some limited number of computers with an Apple Developer subscription.

As for why Apple doesn't care about devs, I don't know, but they are not afraid of massive, breaking changes. Remember a few years ago when they permanently deleted the entire MacOS game back catalog by removing 32-bit support?

I wonder how many people this actually applies to. Is it primarily developers who need non-app store software?

Is there still a sizable number of people using Macs for other work (like school or design) like in the old days?

I would say about 95% the software on my MacBook have nothing to do with the App Store. Whether for work, research, normal student stuff.

They've gone further than that, they're now trying to make independent app developers look incompetent and shady by falsely claiming that the app is "damaged" [1][2] and the only way to get around it is to run some scary-looking commands in the terminal [3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41306678

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41310844

[3] https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop/issues/53

So what's the alternative then? Because when developers uncheck this box I have to go through the trouble of decrypting the IPA and sideloading it, and I usually just end up not bothering to use the app at all.

I don't follow. How does withholding apps from the Mac App Store make it stronger, and what do you mean by "powerful enough to extract its 30% tax"? Legit question, I just don't get what you're saying, no argument.

Apple won't pull the trigger and ban 90% of apps to profit on the other 10%.

Apple may pull the trigger and ban 10% of apps to profit (more) on the other 90%.

Honestly i don't think i care lol. I'd be pissed, but i'd move to back Linux.

If they're that hostile to me as a user i'd prefer they just show their hand sooner hah.

Apple is a two (three?) trillion dollar company.

Their interests are different.

Yea, and so far their interests have not been misaligned enough for me to care.

When they are, i'd like to know. The sooner, the better.

That....really doesn't follow.

If it were "when you submit your app for notarization, there's a checkbox to distribute it through the App Store", then that would be valid. But the Mac App Store doesn't become "more powerful" just for having a crapload of iOS apps you can install from it on your Mac and run through Catalyst. It would become "more powerful" if fewer Mac apps were distributed by other channels.

That checkbox does absolutely nothing for or against that. You are advocating for developers to reduce their own reach, and users to lose a minor piece of utility, for zero gain.

Also, full of badly-ported Catalyst apps.

Or get rid of your iphone and mac's.

Yeah, I’m perfectly fine using my Apple devices but if your relationship with a company is that strained stop buying their products.

Doesn’t the EU’s DMA fix this?

It doesn’t apply to macOS, since it doesn’t have the numbers to be a Gatekeeper platform

Are you sure? Apple argued that but the actual designation seems to ignore any attempt at OS breakdowns for the store itself but I’m not 100% sure of that

https://digital-markets-act-cases.ec.europa.eu/cases/DMA.100...

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