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There are lots of tools you can use to develop iOS apps other than Xcode. Phonegap/Cordova/OutSystems, Visual Studio, Xojo, Mendix, LiveCode et al. End of the

There are lots of tools you can use to develop iOS apps other than Xcode. Phonegap/Cordova/OutSystems, Visual Studio, Xojo, Mendix, LiveCode et al. End of the day, Apple like any other corporation does what it does because it makes money for them. The alternative is to use a "free" operating system like Android and you subject yourself to constant surveillance. It's like that scene in The Big Short; "tell me how you're f*ing me." At least with Apple, you know straight up what you're getting yourself into. Your relationship with Apple ends when you stop using their devices. Not so with Google/Facebook, where your data lives on in perpetuity, used for purposes beyond your control. Now I'm not saying it's not possible to have your cake and eat it too. I'm saying, where is this mythical product, where a user is free to do whatever he wants with his device? What's the market size? How come no one has built it yet?

FiveSquared 8y ago
It's called a "hand-built Linux desktop."
- brisance 8y ago
  Yes, and the market size for that is…? We don't all grow our own crops, make our own clothes, brew our own beer, refine our own crude oil etc, even though we may have the knowledge to do so. Some things are better left to specialists, due to efficiencies/legal reasons. Surely we can agree on this?
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Typing this on a netbook, the only surviving Linux desktop I still use. For some reason most Linux conferences end up being about file systems, containers, device drivers and what not, seldom about desktop development.
  - eddieroger 8y ago
    Because conferences require money to run, and the kinds of people who back conferences tend to only run Linux on their servers, not their workstations. Enterprise Linux in general is happy enough being in the data center, and could have made harder pushes for the desktop for years now, but haven't.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Basically what Apple and Microsoft have found out, it suffices to offer a POSIX CLI for UNIX "desktop" users.
      - eddieroger 8y ago
        (Apple user disclaimer) Apple isn’t really offering just a CLI, it exposes the UNIX on which it is built. My understanding of Windows is that it just offers a runtime and abstraction layer.
        pjmlp 8y ago
        Windows offers a complete personality for Linux syscalls. Objective-C/Swift Frameworks have nothing to do with UNIX, Apple could easily port them to another kernel architecture. Likewise OS X driver model has nothing to do with UNIX, being modeled on an C++ subset, which was originally written in Objective-C back in the NeXTSTEP days. The only UNIX GUI certified as such is Motif, which Apple certainly isn't offering on their products. Nor is the audio stack in any way related to UNIX.
        eddieroger 8y ago
        I never claimed macOS was UNIX, but Darwin is certified UNIX[1]. Opening Terminal in macOS gives you a real bash without any of the rest of macOS. 1. https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm
        pjmlp 8y ago
        And access to Bell Labs teletype style applications like a command shell, because everything else built on top isn't UNIX related, just like NeXTSTEP.
drb91 8y ago
> How come no one has built it yet? People are greedy and have no values.

FiveSquared 8y ago

It's called a "hand-built Linux desktop."

brisance 8y ago
Yes, and the market size for that is…? We don't all grow our own crops, make our own clothes, brew our own beer, refine our own crude oil etc, even though we may have the knowledge to do so. Some things are better left to specialists, due to efficiencies/legal reasons. Surely we can agree on this?
pjmlp 8y ago
Typing this on a netbook, the only surviving Linux desktop I still use. For some reason most Linux conferences end up being about file systems, containers, device drivers and what not, seldom about desktop development.
- eddieroger 8y ago
  Because conferences require money to run, and the kinds of people who back conferences tend to only run Linux on their servers, not their workstations. Enterprise Linux in general is happy enough being in the data center, and could have made harder pushes for the desktop for years now, but haven't.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Basically what Apple and Microsoft have found out, it suffices to offer a POSIX CLI for UNIX "desktop" users.
    - eddieroger 8y ago
      (Apple user disclaimer) Apple isn’t really offering just a CLI, it exposes the UNIX on which it is built. My understanding of Windows is that it just offers a runtime and abstraction layer.
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        Windows offers a complete personality for Linux syscalls. Objective-C/Swift Frameworks have nothing to do with UNIX, Apple could easily port them to another kernel architecture. Likewise OS X driver model has nothing to do with UNIX, being modeled on an C++ subset, which was originally written in Objective-C back in the NeXTSTEP days. The only UNIX GUI certified as such is Motif, which Apple certainly isn't offering on their products. Nor is the audio stack in any way related to UNIX.
        eddieroger 8y ago
        I never claimed macOS was UNIX, but Darwin is certified UNIX[1]. Opening Terminal in macOS gives you a real bash without any of the rest of macOS. 1. https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3555.htm
        pjmlp 8y ago
        And access to Bell Labs teletype style applications like a command shell, because everything else built on top isn't UNIX related, just like NeXTSTEP.

drb91 8y ago

> How come no one has built it yet? People are greedy and have no values.