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You are speaking from inside the walled garden here, from the outside the effort of porting to macOS is monumental. The naive way is: I have to buy hardware, le

by Meai 8y ago

You are speaking from inside the walled garden here, from the outside the effort of porting to macOS is monumental. The naive way is: I have to buy hardware, learn new Apple specific languages, learn a new OS, learn a new IDE, be compliant with their app store policies, distribution etc. (which applies to Windows now too I suppose).

reikonomusha 8y ago
I suppose I’m an outlier then. I just use normal UNIX tools. No Xcode, no IDE’s, no proprietary toolchains. Maybe my programs are too boring. :) There are some portability quirks for sure, though.
- Koshkin 8y ago
  Why not Linux, then? Why pay "the Apple tax"?
  - aoeusnth1 8y ago
    (not the OP). I develop linux services on a Mac, connected remotely to a linux workstation. My company pays the Apple tax, and the hardware is nicer. Plus, my friends use iMessage. I tried using a company Linux device only to find that its graphics drivers weren't supported, the 4k scaling didn't work nicely without spending ~30 minutes looking up how to do it the hard way, and it didn't play nicely when connected to a normal 1080 monitor. I returned the device after (thankfully) it failed.
- xnyan 8y ago
  If you don't mind me asking, if not developing for ios and need xcode for appstore access, why are you on mac?
dkarras 8y ago
Except for "I have to buy hardware", that's... just not true. Even buying the hardware can be circumvented but let's stay strictly legal here. As OP said, it's unix, at least extremely unix-y so you don't have to learn apple specific languages. You can choose to do so for better integration to their system and vision and UI idioms (and should I say, macOS native applications are the BEST thought out applications you'll ever have the pleasure of using in user experience side). But whatever code you run in Linux will be trivially ported to macOS. Learning a new OS is... I mean it is a new thing to learn but it isn't like you didn't learn the OS you are using at some point. Unless you think that there should be one and only one OS for the entire universe that everyone uses, this is an irrelevant point. For the IDE, again, you don't have to, but you can choose to learn. Most popular IDEs natively work on macOS just fine, and you can just use your terminal like in any unix system, use your build scripts etc. For macOS, you don't have to be compliant with anything, you can distribute your apps the old fashioned way. If you want to be in their dedicated store though, yeah they have rules. I think that makes sense. For iOS, that store is the only way to distribute software and your points would make a bit more sense. But I actually am on the fence about the merit of the walled garden approach of iOS. Android ecosystem is a cesspool of malware. I can deal with malware on my computer. My computer has the resources etc. And computers are my job. But my mobile phone IMO has to run trusted code, I will happily delegate some standards to a central body as long as they manage it sufficiently well. When I install an app, I want to be sure that there are reasonable protections about what they can and can't access in my phone. I take my phone with me everywhere, it knows A LOT about me. I can't disassemble all binaries I use to make sure they aren't doing anything shady. Apple has automated tests for this stuff. I know it can't be bulletproof but it is something. They are fast to respond to exploits and they manage to keep their platform secure. If a "free for all" device was popular, I'd still manage. I'd just have to be EXTRA EXTRA paranoid about what I install in my phone and it would decrease my productivity and quality of life quite a bit. That I can manage. But the whole ecosystem would be A LOT less secure. Not many people would exercise discipline. Viruses, malware, rootkits everywhere, billions of people carrying them in their pockets everywhere. My inclination right now is that that would be a worse deal right now for the world. While Centralisation and corporate power is something I generally despise, in this case (mobile OS, walled garden, corporate control over what apps can and can't do on their platform), I think can see the merit as long as they don't majorly screw it up.

by Meai 8y ago

reikonomusha 8y ago

I suppose I’m an outlier then. I just use normal UNIX tools. No Xcode, no IDE’s, no proprietary toolchains. Maybe my programs are too boring. :) There are some portability quirks for sure, though.

Koshkin 8y ago
Why not Linux, then? Why pay "the Apple tax"?
- aoeusnth1 8y ago
  (not the OP). I develop linux services on a Mac, connected remotely to a linux workstation. My company pays the Apple tax, and the hardware is nicer. Plus, my friends use iMessage. I tried using a company Linux device only to find that its graphics drivers weren't supported, the 4k scaling didn't work nicely without spending ~30 minutes looking up how to do it the hard way, and it didn't play nicely when connected to a normal 1080 monitor. I returned the device after (thankfully) it failed.
xnyan 8y ago
If you don't mind me asking, if not developing for ios and need xcode for appstore access, why are you on mac?

dkarras 8y ago

Except for "I have to buy hardware", that's... just not true. Even buying the hardware can be circumvented but let's stay strictly legal here. As OP said, it's unix, at least extremely unix-y so you don't have to learn apple specific languages. You can choose to do so for better integration to their system and vision and UI idioms (and should I say, macOS native applications are the BEST thought out applications you'll ever have the pleasure of using in user experience side). But whatever code you run in Linux will be trivially ported to macOS. Learning a new OS is... I mean it is a new thing to learn but it isn't like you didn't learn the OS you are using at some point. Unless you think that there should be one and only one OS for the entire universe that everyone uses, this is an irrelevant point. For the IDE, again, you don't have to, but you can choose to learn. Most popular IDEs natively work on macOS just fine, and you can just use your terminal like in any unix system, use your build scripts etc. For macOS, you don't have to be compliant with anything, you can distribute your apps the old fashioned way. If you want to be in their dedicated store though, yeah they have rules. I think that makes sense. For iOS, that store is the only way to distribute software and your points would make a bit more sense. But I actually am on the fence about the merit of the walled garden approach of iOS. Android ecosystem is a cesspool of malware. I can deal with malware on my computer. My computer has the resources etc. And computers are my job. But my mobile phone IMO has to run trusted code, I will happily delegate some standards to a central body as long as they manage it sufficiently well. When I install an app, I want to be sure that there are reasonable protections about what they can and can't access in my phone. I take my phone with me everywhere, it knows A LOT about me. I can't disassemble all binaries I use to make sure they aren't doing anything shady. Apple has automated tests for this stuff. I know it can't be bulletproof but it is something. They are fast to respond to exploits and they manage to keep their platform secure. If a "free for all" device was popular, I'd still manage. I'd just have to be EXTRA EXTRA paranoid about what I install in my phone and it would decrease my productivity and quality of life quite a bit. That I can manage. But the whole ecosystem would be A LOT less secure. Not many people would exercise discipline. Viruses, malware, rootkits everywhere, billions of people carrying them in their pockets everywhere. My inclination right now is that that would be a worse deal right now for the world. While Centralisation and corporate power is something I generally despise, in this case (mobile OS, walled garden, corporate control over what apps can and can't do on their platform), I think can see the merit as long as they don't majorly screw it up.