6 ms·

Agreed that apps (web or native) shouldn't have free access to e.g. your contacts without permission. But Apple goes beyond security and actually makes it impo

by judah 9y ago

Agreed that apps (web or native) shouldn't have free access to e.g. your contacts without permission. But Apple goes beyond security and actually makes it impossible to build first-class experiences for iOS without paying $99/year + 33% in-app purchases. I think that's unfortunate. The free and opened web presents a challenge to Apple's app business. They have a perverse incentive to keep web apps second-class citizens on iOS. And this is a major reason why iOS Safari has become the new Internet Explorer 6.

kevin_b_er 9y ago
$99/yr plus buying an apple computing device.
al2o3cr 9y ago
Lemme get this straight: you're mad that a company you don't want to pay $99/yr to won't build APIs so you can make money on their platform. So sad, lemme find my tiny violin.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  I'm not mad at them. However their lack of support for industry standards is why I won't buy their product.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    And again that's the free market at work. There are enough people who have a different set of priorities to make Apple a very successful company.
    - foolrush 9y ago
      The ”free” market is not a sentient being.
      - scarface74 9y ago
        And nowhere did I say it was. The fact is every company hopefully has a business plan to be profitable the numbers show that Apple has one of the best business plans to do so.
  - tomcooks 9y ago
    Same here, and if it wasn't bad enough other companies copy this terrible attitude. Dinosaurs will die.
- wpietri 9y ago
  It's not their platform. The devices belong to the people who bought them.
- judah 9y ago
  Author here. I'm not making any money on their platform. I'm a non-profit, building a free app; this isn't about money. I mentioned money in the post as a list of all barriers to moving a PWA to app store. $99/year + 33% in-app purchases (plus a $1000+ Mac to build, and probably one or more Mac minis for CI) is a barrier. The bigger concern is Apple is lagging behind on web standards. I suspect the reason for that is because web apps undermine their app business; this is a replay of the 1990s when Microsoft lagged their browser behind web standards, knowing it undermined their business. So, keep your violin, brother. :-) My post wasn't a complaint, but a documenting of the hurdles involved in moving a PWA to the app stores.
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    > I'm a non-profit So the only thing that applies to you is the price to have access to a Mac. Since you're a nonprofit, Apple will waive your developer fee, and you wouldn't need in-app purchases anyways. Also, IIRC the cut Apple takes is 30%, not 33%, in line with the rest of their App Store policies.
    - oarsinsync 9y ago
      "non-profit" doesn't mean "not selling things"
      - codazoda 9y ago
        And it certainly doesn't mean it's not about money. Depends on the business, of course, but I've seen non-profits that pay million dollar salaries to employees and put millions in the bank as reserves. Fine with me but business is often about money; non-profit or otherwise.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > Since you're a nonprofit, Apple will waive your developer fee I thought you meant charities, not non-profits, but TechCrunch reports the latter: "Apple in early 2018 will waive the $99 developer fee for all government and nonprofits starting in the U.S. to make this transition easier." https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-revises-its-controversial-guidelines-on-template-based-apps/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-revises-its-controve...
- linkmotif 9y ago
  This is a ridiculous comment unworthy of this community. Safari doesn’t follow web standards that other browsers follow. That’s worthy of frustration. If they build a browser, they should implement standard APIs.
laythea 9y ago
Yes but given the current state of the App store, with the minor obstacle that is the $99/year, I hasten to imagine what the state of it would be without it!
gkya 9y ago
> The free and opened web presents a challenge to Apple's app business. The free and opened [sic] web is BS. The "web" was always free and open, if you had worthy and user-respecting stuff to publish. Autoplaying video and other similar features are just plain evil. And if web apps are second class citizens on iOS, that's really a nice thing to hear, IMnsHO, because they are second class citizens on the WWW itself. They are either castrated versions of the native applications they are pretending to be, or overtly bloated thin clients (i.e. glorified <form>s) anyways. There has been one web app that I've used and liked: the old Gmail app. The requirements of the platform are quite clear, and the service in return is quite desirable (apps being reviewed before publishing, user-centric permissions scheme, etc.) and even though I don't own an iOS device ATM, it sounds quite desirable to me, at least over Android where there is a hundred million billion versions of the OS out there and nobody bothers sending update my way so that I can has some granular control over what I allow the apps do. If you don't like it, don't take it. And it's nothing like IE because nobody has to use iPhones whereas Microsoft had put its OS and its browser on almost every computer out there, and I bet older IE browsers still have more market share than the sum of devices online with Safari installed. They are just a little island of the technosphere that want to get what they paid for, and enjoy the web like it was meant to be, possibly; and I'm just like them with my Qutebrowser where I have to disable JS and maintain a whitelist because the free and open web. Gosh.
- judah 9y ago
  The free and open web is BS? Well, I disagree. That any person with the will and the skill can publish something for all the world to see, without the need for gatekeepers? That's incredible freedom the world has never before seen. >> "Autoplaying video and other similar features are just plain evil." I'm not even asking for that. My app is a music player in the vein of Pandora. iOS Safari doesn't let me play the next song if I'm not in the fore. Apple has acknowledged this is an issue; maybe they will fix it in a future version. iOS Safari: As someone who has supported a web app (now PWA) for 7 years on iOS Safari, I say with knowledge and experience that yes, iOS Safari is the modern IE6. I say that because it is the slowest to adopt standard web features, and the reason for doing so is a business one. Both reflect 1990s IE and Microsoft.

by judah 9y ago

kevin_b_er 9y ago

$99/yr plus buying an apple computing device.

al2o3cr 9y ago

Lemme get this straight: you're mad that a company you don't want to pay $99/yr to won't build APIs so you can make money on their platform. So sad, lemme find my tiny violin.

shkkmo 9y ago
I'm not mad at them. However their lack of support for industry standards is why I won't buy their product.
- scarface74 9y ago
  And again that's the free market at work. There are enough people who have a different set of priorities to make Apple a very successful company.
  - foolrush 9y ago
    The ”free” market is not a sentient being.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      And nowhere did I say it was. The fact is every company hopefully has a business plan to be profitable the numbers show that Apple has one of the best business plans to do so.
- tomcooks 9y ago
  Same here, and if it wasn't bad enough other companies copy this terrible attitude. Dinosaurs will die.
wpietri 9y ago
It's not their platform. The devices belong to the people who bought them.
judah 9y ago
Author here. I'm not making any money on their platform. I'm a non-profit, building a free app; this isn't about money. I mentioned money in the post as a list of all barriers to moving a PWA to app store. $99/year + 33% in-app purchases (plus a $1000+ Mac to build, and probably one or more Mac minis for CI) is a barrier. The bigger concern is Apple is lagging behind on web standards. I suspect the reason for that is because web apps undermine their app business; this is a replay of the 1990s when Microsoft lagged their browser behind web standards, knowing it undermined their business. So, keep your violin, brother. :-) My post wasn't a complaint, but a documenting of the hurdles involved in moving a PWA to the app stores.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > I'm a non-profit So the only thing that applies to you is the price to have access to a Mac. Since you're a nonprofit, Apple will waive your developer fee, and you wouldn't need in-app purchases anyways. Also, IIRC the cut Apple takes is 30%, not 33%, in line with the rest of their App Store policies.
  - oarsinsync 9y ago
    "non-profit" doesn't mean "not selling things"
    - codazoda 9y ago
      And it certainly doesn't mean it's not about money. Depends on the business, of course, but I've seen non-profits that pay million dollar salaries to employees and put millions in the bank as reserves. Fine with me but business is often about money; non-profit or otherwise.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Since you're a nonprofit, Apple will waive your developer fee I thought you meant charities, not non-profits, but TechCrunch reports the latter: "Apple in early 2018 will waive the $99 developer fee for all government and nonprofits starting in the U.S. to make this transition easier." https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-revises-its-controversial-guidelines-on-template-based-apps/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-revises-its-controve...
linkmotif 9y ago
This is a ridiculous comment unworthy of this community. Safari doesn’t follow web standards that other browsers follow. That’s worthy of frustration. If they build a browser, they should implement standard APIs.

laythea 9y ago

Yes but given the current state of the App store, with the minor obstacle that is the $99/year, I hasten to imagine what the state of it would be without it!

gkya 9y ago

> The free and opened web presents a challenge to Apple's app business. The free and opened [sic] web is BS. The "web" was always free and open, if you had worthy and user-respecting stuff to publish. Autoplaying video and other similar features are just plain evil. And if web apps are second class citizens on iOS, that's really a nice thing to hear, IMnsHO, because they are second class citizens on the WWW itself. They are either castrated versions of the native applications they are pretending to be, or overtly bloated thin clients (i.e. glorified <form>s) anyways. There has been one web app that I've used and liked: the old Gmail app. The requirements of the platform are quite clear, and the service in return is quite desirable (apps being reviewed before publishing, user-centric permissions scheme, etc.) and even though I don't own an iOS device ATM, it sounds quite desirable to me, at least over Android where there is a hundred million billion versions of the OS out there and nobody bothers sending update my way so that I can has some granular control over what I allow the apps do. If you don't like it, don't take it. And it's nothing like IE because nobody has to use iPhones whereas Microsoft had put its OS and its browser on almost every computer out there, and I bet older IE browsers still have more market share than the sum of devices online with Safari installed. They are just a little island of the technosphere that want to get what they paid for, and enjoy the web like it was meant to be, possibly; and I'm just like them with my Qutebrowser where I have to disable JS and maintain a whitelist because the free and open web. Gosh.

judah 9y ago
The free and open web is BS? Well, I disagree. That any person with the will and the skill can publish something for all the world to see, without the need for gatekeepers? That's incredible freedom the world has never before seen. >> "Autoplaying video and other similar features are just plain evil." I'm not even asking for that. My app is a music player in the vein of Pandora. iOS Safari doesn't let me play the next song if I'm not in the fore. Apple has acknowledged this is an issue; maybe they will fix it in a future version. iOS Safari: As someone who has supported a web app (now PWA) for 7 years on iOS Safari, I say with knowledge and experience that yes, iOS Safari is the modern IE6. I say that because it is the slowest to adopt standard web features, and the reason for doing so is a business one. Both reflect 1990s IE and Microsoft.