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Comment by migueldeicaza | Hacker News Reader

The terms have changed gradually over the years and now we are boiling IDEs on the iPad.

My plan is to ship something that is both a great iPadOS app and operates within the confines of the AppStore restrictions.

I find restrictions as a powerful motivator to think about a problem differently. Lots of great art (and software) is great when it explores and brings to light what’s possible with the limitations of a medium.

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I love the spirit here, but the limitations on iOS are not the limitations of the medium. Mobile computing has lots of interesting and inspiring limitations, we don't need apple to draw artificial squircles we can't cross in an api.

Users seem to like those squircles, judging by the popularity of Apple products. It’s not a fun walled garden to be a creative developer in.

20 years is a generation, however for many of us, Apple's walled garden was a refreshing concept versus the mobile operators gardens.

First of all, getting SDKs was akin to console devkits, back in 2004 getting a Symbian SDK was still a commercial only product for example, same for Windows CE/Pocket PC,...

Followed by about 80% tax, only to be listed on mobile phones magazines, with the SMS code to trigger the application download.

Hence why everyone rushed for the garden, it was indeed easier to be creative in Apple land.

Now 20 years later, there is another reality.

Is that significantly different now?

I could be wrong, but don’t you need to join the Apple developer program to get the sdk? It’s $100 a year, right?

I know you do to publish apps, which in the us is the only way to get apps to users.

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