3 ms·
> Limited storage and battery life are important considerations on a MacBook just as on an iPad. No, I don't believe that's true. Laptops are bigger, so they
by bad_user 10y ago
> Limited storage and battery life are important considerations on a MacBook just as on an iPad.
No, I don't believe that's true.
Laptops are bigger, so they can afford bigger batteries. My Macbook Pro's battery holds without problems for 4 to 6 hours of intense work, which is not something I can say about my phone and I'm talking about working on and compiling Scala code and few things are more intensive than that.
Also, most of the time, laptops are used while sitting on desks for actual work. Oh, I know, you might pull your laptop at your coffeeshop to write an email or write comments on HN, or you might need it for work during a flight, which is cool, but overall laptops do get used pretty near an electrical outlet.
But the biggest difference is one of expectations. Phones are still communication devices which we rely on. If my laptop's battery goes out during a flight, I don't care because I do not need my laptop to make phone calls or to orient myself using maps or to call a cab or to open my travel documents or whatever. Whereas I do really need my phone. So the Scala compiler running on my laptop doesn't need to be battery efficient. But my phone needs to last for 12 hours while traveling, otherwise I'm fucked.
> Mac desktop software environment is more like iOS these days, if you want to go through the Apple-sanctioned route of using the Mac App Store ... the Mac desktop app in your example would have to use the Dropbox API too
Oh, I don't know about that and the reason is the Mac App Store is a wasteland and I can't think of a single app I installed from it. Also, the Mac App Store isn't the "Apple sanctioned" way and they know it's a wasteland too, it's not like they are blind.
No, the Apple sanctioned way is to sign your app. Signing apps needs an Apple developer account, which is fairly costly for open-source devs, but at least I can see the benefit to it. And as long as your app is signed, OS X gives you no problem in letting it be installed.