34 ms·

The future of my games on Apple and what this means for art games

211 points by tomgp 7y ago

unlinked_dll 7y ago
As a developer mainly on MacOS I feel the author's pain. There's also some legitimate gripes about Apple locking down their platform in a way that is ultimately hostile to users down the road. As a user I say suck it up. Notarization and 1st party QA will make users lives so much easier. I have yet to see people run into serious issues with either that weren't doing things that entitlements/signing were designed to prevent. The $100/year dev license kinda sucks if you just want to hack around and distribute code, but it also goes a long way to stopping people from creating spam accounts and evading bans. But it's a pretty trivial burden, if you're distributing software professionally and can't cough up $100 in revenue in a year... maybe try your hand at something else or just go the amateur route? I also don't get complaining about obsoleting 32 bit. Use obsolete software on an obsolete OS in a VM like the rest of us, we all hate supporting things until the end of time.
- codesushi42 7y ago
  "As a user... The $100/year dev license kinda sucks if you just want to hack around and distribute code" As a user, what does $100 a year even accomplish? It is nothing more than a racket.
  - dwaite 7y ago
    You don't need to pay to run your own code or distribute un-notorized code.
- damnyou 7y ago
  Apple is a trillion dollar company. It can easily support running 32-bit indefinitely, perhaps with a download for 32-bit libraries libraries and/or with some sort of containerization. As a platform holder it has the responsibility to do so. Failing to do that is a clear abdication. It is clear from the post that Apple's platforms are hostile towards any sort of digital executable art.
  - unlinked_dll 7y ago
    It's not about "could" but about "should." Apple hasn't sold a computer with a 32 bit CPU in what, 8-9 years? They deprecated 32 bit support almost a decade ago. Software has a lifespan and always has, to run obsolete code you need to jump through hoops to get an obsolete target running. This isn't new.
    - FussyZeus 7y ago
      I've always wondered, what exactly is the overhead on running 32-bit code on a 64-bit machine? Why is support eventually dropped? I'm sure there are good reasons but I've no idea what they are.
      - unlinked_dll 7y ago
        I believe there is a little bit of overhead when it comes to mapping virtual addresses and dealing with different pointer sizes for the OS, but imo the main reason Apple wants to ditch 64 bit support is so their OS isn't tightly coupled to an ISA that has 32/64 bit modes. In other words it's not about the overhead, it's about the reliance on x86.
        WorldMaker 7y ago
        If ISA decoupling is the goal then they should be mandating everyone write to a VM like the CLR or JVM (or variants like Dalvik). It seems kind of silly to block x86 modes on x64 chips when the backwards compatibility needs of Windows pretty much insures "eternal" x86 modes. It's going to be a while before x86 modes disappear on Intel or AMD chips, and there's evidence to support that like the Itanium (IA-64) failure, and the fact that Windows on ARM made it a commitment to emulate x86 (but not x64) on ARM. x86 is likely going to be a lasting "lingua franca" ISA. Right now I'd almost put more money on x64 being retired before x86, and if anything from that perspective Apple is more tightly coupled to an ISA than before this choice.
        pohl 7y ago
- cortesoft 7y ago
  > just go the amateur route? But how do you even go the amateur route? You still won't be able to distribute what you make. A big part of my childhood was making games, and sharing them on shareware sites in the mid 90s. It sucks that kids today aren't going to be able to do that. There was no way I could afford $100 as a 10 year old.
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    Thing is, for the common scenario of "safe enough for random users to install" we want some barrier of entry. The market where random creations of a ten year old are acceptable isn't the Apple Store, it's something like Roblox environment for user-created content or some other sandbox that is (a) isolated from the rest of the system and (b) makes it clear that it's likely not to meet even the (already low) standards of the generic Store. For all the major means of distribution the problem isn't not enough apps, the problem is too much garbage - so the direction of improving end-user experience is more filtering of apps and developers, not easier access to distribution.
    - Razengan 7y ago
      That is exactly what some developers just can't seem to get: Many users agree with Apple. But those developers are going: "No those users are wrong and should join my mob to make Apple let me do whatever I want to users' systems."
  - birdyrooster 7y ago
    The amateurs will have to start distributing source. I remember back in the day when I was a kid making GameMaker games on Mac in the late 90s, sometimes I would collaborate with other developers and we would just send the source files around which were completely useable, but of course we wanted to distribute executables as if we were legitimate companies, even though our users were typically other kid developers. We had fake company names and stuff, but if we were emulating open source projects instead of cloistered corporations, we could've gotten more done together. I predict this change will cause kids to embrace open source more and distribute their projects in a way that can be shared and reused.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  > ...if you're distributing software professionally and can't cough up $100 in revenue in a year... This is kinda where I'm at with this. Surely anyone even remotely garnering an audience could raise this amount annually. It's a decent cost to an individual but to even a humble audience, it's peanuts. If you can't raise even that, then IMO your game being lost is of little consequence. Not everything farted out by every indie developer is a lost masterpiece, sometimes stuff is lost because it lacks the traction to merit archival.
  - unlinked_dll 7y ago
    devil's advocate: $100 is a lot of money to spend on a hobby/side gig for a lot of people. Like some of us can blow more than that just on IDE's/Git clients in a year, but for some people it's a legitimate hurdle to cross. When I was in high school working on the weekends, that would have been two weeks wages, which I had other stuff to spend on. And that's from a privileged background, I know plenty of folks who's weekend/summer jobs paid towards rent/bills for their families. That said, Apple probably doesn't care about the teenagers or indie devs out there who want to make a little game for their platform. However I'd also say to those folks - if you're strapped for money, don't develop for Apple devices. Go make a doohickey on a windows or Linux box.
    - FussyZeus 7y ago
      > devil's advocate: $100 is a lot of money to spend on a hobby/side gig for a lot of people. Agree. But this isn't some lost nobody. This person has a Wikipedia Page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathalie_Lawhead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathalie_Lawhead], is an established game developer and artist, and lives in California. She's won multiple awards and she owns at least one Mac. Like come on. The refusal to drop a hundred bucks on something that is apparently so important to her reeks of good old fashioned stubbornness, or at worst, entitlement, but even then, she has a significant audience. Crowdfund it, cough up and stop whining. Like I don't entirely agree with the $100/year model being the only option from Apple, but we're all paying that particular piper. Why is she so special that hers shouldn't be subject to the same?
- pergadad 7y ago
  Yes, absolutely, poor people should not be able to try to develop their skills and attempt to make apps.
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    They can make apps and develop these skills, however, the apps listed for random end-users in the Apple store shouldn't contain all these experiments. This is about access to a particular distribution and advertising channel, which should happen after you've already developed the skills and are ready to offer something serious in context of which a $100/year investment is trivial.
    - damnyou 7y ago
      Notarization is a requirement for distributing your content outside the app store. Within it the requirements are even higher.
    - danShumway 7y ago
      Notarization isn't the same as the App Store. This is about whether a 3rd-party application downloaded from a 3rd-pary website can be run. It used to be that you only needed to pay to get onto the distribution and advertising channel, now you need to pay not to make your user jump through special hoops on an admin account. It's not implausible to suggest that in the future, that loophole will be removed as well. Apple does not want you to download apps that they can't personally vet. The complaint isn't that you need to pay to get into their store. Of course you do, that isn't surprising to anyone. It's about whether distribution channels exist outside of their store. As to why that's a problem? To quote the author: > It really upsets me because the iOS App Store policies basically prohibited art or anything interesting (nudity, glitch, error art...temperamental depending on who reviewed you for approval). > It was hell for me to get things approved, and even when I got them approved I had to change so much about my work it really wasn't my work anymore. A platform holder shouldn't dictate so much about someone else's work. Apple has been consistently behind the curve when it comes to recognizing the artistic potential of games[0]. On a cultural level, we don't want want them to be a gatekeeper for a medium. As a company they aren't responsible enough or smart enough for that job. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3879194/apple-app-store-guidelines-tell-game-developers-to-avoid-serious-themes https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3879194/apple-app-store-g...
- boudewijnrempt 7y ago
  Or just drop Apple and macOS. Even for an application like Krita, for creative people, macOS is a laughably small platform, with a very small user-base, bringing in next to nothing money-wise, nothing contribution-wise, and it tries to force everyone to use proprietary libraries like Metal, instead of properly supporting OpenGL and Vulkan. From an effort-to-income perspective, macOS isn't worth it.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - s_dev 7y ago
    >From an effort-to-income perspective, macOS isn't worth it. Apple has introduced Catalyst in Xcode -- this translates iOS apps to macOS, compile once and run on two platforms. Mac App store has been notirous for not getting as much love as the iOS one but this change might reverse the direction as there will be a lot more apps coming for the Mac App Store now that they can leverage their iOS dev ecosystem.
    - w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
      I don't know If the Mac App Store will bring better apps and grater for enthousiasm than it is now for Apple Store business model, but you can be sure of one thing : notarisation program will not last. The goal is to lock the platform like iOS and force force every user to get their apps through the App Store and nowhere else. I'm pretty sur once MacOS has switched to ARM, system partition will be in read only mode, you will not be able to install app outside of the AppStore except if you jailbreak thank to a "security flaw".
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Razengan 7y ago
    > for creative people, macOS is a laughably small platform, with a very small user-base, bringing in next to nothing money-wise, nothing contribution-wise ... As a user, statements like that – about any platform – honestly just make me want to avoid anything from the developers who make them.
- viraptor 7y ago
  > I also don't get complaining about obsoleting 32 bit. Use obsolete software on an obsolete OS in a VM like the rest of us You mean like games released last year which require heavy GPU usage? That's neither obsolete, nor a great experience.
  - Bud 7y ago
    Please cite one game—a single one—from last year which is 32-bit only and "requires heavy GPU usage". One will do. I'm sure this won't take you long. Even if you can cite one, all that will prove is that the developer was so incredibly stupid that they ignored a full decade of warnings about how 32-bit software would be deprecated soon.
    - viraptor 7y ago
      I'd be happy to tell you what it was, but I'm on holidays away from my laptop/steam account.
      - gowld 7y ago
        I'm not even sure it's possible to acquire hardware on which to compile and test a demanding game and not have a 64 bit Dev toolchain, without going to extra effort just to avoid 64bit for what purpose? A trivial performance improvement for an app that is resource intensive while also not needing 4gb Memory?
- w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
  Notarization will not last. In 2 ou 3 years max, they play the card of security again and will stop the notarization program. Why do you believe they want to bring MacOS and iOS together through same processor family and same developement api ? They want to bring iOS business model to MacOS. How is it not that obvious ?
macintux 7y ago
I don’t understand. I keep seeing developers complain about the $100/year developer fee but I also keep seeing strong indications that’s not required for notarization.
- kemayo 7y ago
  Every single story about it features a comment saying "I thought you only needed a free developer account to notarize apps?" with no replies. That said, Apple's membership-levels page features "software distribution outside the Mac App Store" as a benefit of the paid level: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
- Skywalker13 7y ago
  I've a certificate whish is valid until 2022 (valid for 5 years) (generated in 2017 after paied 100$). I distribute only free games (GPLv3) that I sign with this certificate. For Catalina, I can't notarize because I don't pay each year (my certificate is valid then it's useless to pay and I distribute only free softwares)... But I'm fucked by Apple for the notarization. It's too expansive to pay just to distribute games that will be even refused probably on the app store because it's GPL. Apple is just killing freedom and continue to take advantage of free softwares (free developers) on BSD, mach kernel, a lot of unix tools... even on projects started by Apple like LLVM Apple takes all advantages of all third contributions.
  - dwaite 7y ago
    FWIW, Apple doesn't care if apps being distributed contain code licensed under the GPL. They care whether you have the appropriate rights to distribute the app on their store under their terms - and that is asserted by you. A previous build of VLC was pulled from the store because someone claimed they had copyright on some of the code - because they did not want VLC in the store.
    - Skywalker13 7y ago
      Thanks I found more details here: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-gpl-enforcement https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store...
mariopt 7y ago
Does the notarization licence covers the iOS store or do we need to buy both licences?
- threeseed 7y ago
  Notarization costs nothing. But it's $99/year to be a part of the Apple Developer program which covers all platforms.
  - damnyou 7y ago
    https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ says that distribution outside the Mac app store is a paid feature. Who's wrong, Apple or you?
  - sukilot 7y ago
    Can you share a link to the web page where one can create a notarization account for free?
  - SahAssar 7y ago
    It specifically says that "Software distribution outside the Mac App Store" requires "Apple Developer Program" which costs 99 USD here: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
dessant 7y ago
This was heartbreaking to read. I don't understand how anyone can defend not being able to run software on their own devices, unless it was approved by Apple.
- Shivetya 7y ago
  I have not had the unidentified application issue that the author posted but a full two thirds of my games in my Steam Library are flagged as not compatible with Catalina and most likely never will be. Apple really needed a comparability method similar to how windows allowed you to simulate old environments. not always successfully but at least it was a chance That notarization fee / process, I have not read beyond this story, does look to be a burden beyond what should be reasonable.
  - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
    Most of games in my steam library are flagged incorrectly, e.g they still have a 64 bit binary and still run.
- damnyou 7y ago
  The Leviathan knows best, all hail the Leviathan.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  I think individual users can still disable the checks (how else can you develop software if you can't execute what you compile?)
  - dessant 7y ago
    The complete loss of control over your own devices is being gradually normalized.
    - jhanschoo 7y ago
      When macOS is completely unable to run unauthorized executables I'll revisit this comment. Until then, I'm completely in favor of putting all kinds of hurdles between uninformed users and executing random executables downloaded from the internet.
danielrpa 7y ago
We've heard the warnings about the rise of "proprietary computing", where all experiences in computers need to be approved by the policies of hardware and software manufacturers. I feel it's getting worse as we get pushed more and more to vertically integrated platforms (Pixel, iPhone, Surface, game consoles, Kindle+Fire etc). We still have Linux, thankfully - at least as long as hardware manufacturers let it run on their computers. https://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-purp.html https://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 4bpp 7y ago
  In a way, it's fortunate that hardware performance improvements have all but ground to a halt; according to online benchmarks, the CPU in my nearly 7 year old (3rd gen Intel M series) Thinkpad is only something like 50% slower than the most recent comparable models. (This is partly because after 3rd gen, they all switched to U-series CPUs, which were significantly slower.) This way, even if approved-OS-only hardware suddenly becomes the universal norm in the same way that chiclet keyboards did around then, I imagine I will still be set for a long time. (Just imagine using a computer from 1993 in 2000, for comparison...)
  - sukilot 7y ago
    On Mac, the oldest supported computers (for High Sierra and Catalina are the only supported OSes) the 2012 vintage (plus older Mac Pros). Older devices (expensive, premium, devices!), which run fine and have specs matching today's cheapest new computers, cannot run a supported Mac OS. There are no longer any supported 17" Mac laptops.
- josteink 7y ago
  > We still have Linux, thankfully - at least as long as hardware manufacturers let it run on their computers. As a ThinkPading Linux-user I’m looking at all these other people and wondering wth they’re up to on their increasingly leased computer platforms. Whatever that is, I want nothing of it.
athirnuaimi 7y ago
I hope we can all agree that notarization is pretty valuable to users. Macs are a mass market product and most users are not technical. Also to create software for Apple devises you need... an Apple device. Isn’t the cost of the device a bigger burden than the $100/yr dev program license?
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  > I hope we can all agree that notarization is pretty valuable to users. I don't. As a user, I don't need Apple arbitrarily allowing big players' apps through their approval process while they hold smaller developers to a stricter standard. That will stifle innovation. If security is the touted excuse, macOS already has sandboxd[1] which can be used with arbitrary apps that aren't in the App Store. Linux solved the security problem with Snaps, Flatpaks and AppImages, which all use various layers of containers, kernel namespaces and isolation to provide a sandboxed environment for apps. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Security/Conceptual/AppSandboxDesignGuide/AboutAppSandbox/AboutAppSandbox.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Se...
  - Doingmything123 7y ago
    As a user, I don't need Apple arbitrarily allowing big players' apps through their approval process while they hold smaller developers to a stricter standard. I think by "user" it was meant the average user which by my estimation is not super technical and mostly sticks to larger apps anyways. Are smaller developers being held to a stricter standard though than larger developers on notarization?
    - heavyset_go 7y ago
      Less competition is bad for the entire market, not just power users.
  - mrpippy 7y ago
    Can you point to evidence that Apple is rejecting anything from being notarized? I haven't seen any. And sandboxing is completely orthogonal to the fine-grained revocation that notarization allows for. A sandboxed app could still be malicious: say, a weather app that asks for access to your Contacts ostensibly to show weather at your friends' location, but also uploads all the Contacts info to a malicious tracking service. With notarization, this app could have its notarization revoked once it's discovered.
simion314 7y ago
Some developers here forget that there are game developers that make free stuff, hobby games, This developers often get requests to also package for Linux and Mac because the engine used is cross platform. So this people won't afford to buy a Macbook and pay 100$ yearly for one possible user that would like to try his free game. I also see users asking for 32 Windows version of the games, there are still a lot of people running old computers and have bad internet connection and there is no good reason not to package some basic game app for them if it is possible.
fortran77 7y ago
One way may be to make distribute games as VM images that can "just work" in VMWare or VirtualBox. Use one of those bare metal frameworks for .net that just need a simple loader to start up. This will have the added advantage of working on Mac or Windows or Linux with one binary. It's not that hard to boot a vm that's ready to go.
- derefr 7y ago
  Or, if you're a fan of the retro aesthetic, just develop "home-brew" games for old consoles, and distribute (sell?) them as ROMs. Everything can run e.g. GBA ROMs: your phone, your tablet, your modern PC/Mac, your 20-year-old PC/Mac, your smart TV. Everything. They even run just fine in web browsers through WASM emulators. Web browsers on phones. It's kind of ridiculous. Maybe, on Windows or whatever other arches you are a deft hand with, you can package in a cute little customized emulator to wrap the ROM. (Use a GPLed one; it won't be viral to your ROM.) But ensure you leave the ROM freestanding in a directory for people to use as they wish, rather than hiding it inside the executable. (And, maybe, offer a ROM-only version of the download as well.) If you stop maintaining your installer, the emulator might stop working, but the ROM itself never will.
- q3k 7y ago
  This is a technologically insane idea. There is no benefit to this over a good sandbox. Heck, traditional VMs are worse in many aspects for desktop applications (like of native integration with desktop windowing, 3d acceleration is extremely tricky, memory overhead and lack of easy ways to apply backpressure, audio latency, ...). In addition, both technologies you mentioned are either non-Free (VMWare) or partially non-Free (Vurtualbox's PUEL). There is, as far as I know, no existing VM system that is truly cross-platform that would work here.
newnewpdro 7y ago
Stop supporting walled gardens, this has been a long time coming. Protect your rights, use free/libre software.
bcrosby95 7y ago
Companies are in the business of making money. Once they find out they can make more money by not supporting your use case, they will toss you to the curb. At this point, Apple does this by being a nearly completely consumer focused company. If you aren't the average consumer, they are going to toss you to the curb someday.
derefr 7y ago
As an indie software creator, consider that you likely don't have the resources to be a software publisher yourself. Software publishing is a separate job, a separate comparative advantage, and just because you want to be in ultimate control of your software doesn't mean you can't delegate or contract out that job. Depending on your size and your publisher's size, you might delegate any of these responsibilities to them: • their core responsibility: handling the jumping-through-hoops required by each distributor/retailer (in these days these are the app stores) and doing any ongoing liasing with them, leaving you free to just have your publisher as a single point of contact • doing any extra QA passes required to get your work accepted by each distributor/retailer (and sending the bug-reports back to you) • learning about changes in your software required to comply with the distributor/retailer's policies, and either reporting them to you, or fixing them themselves, making each of their "ports" into a downstream of your upstream codebase with their fixes living in it • handling ongoing codebase changes required to evolve your code to comply with minimum-runtime targets of each platform—in effect, giving them commit access to your upstream codebase (though they can do this as a downstream fork, I wouldn't recommend it) • porting your software to platforms that you can't afford to support yourself (because e.g. the SDK is ridiculously expensive), creating separate "port" forks of the codebase, or perhaps even entirely new codebases that just share art assets --- If you're an indie shop, getting a publisher has always been a necessity to sell on the more closed-down stores, like the console marketplaces. Well, that onerous-ness is just becoming more universal. That doesn't mean you're out of the market! It just means you have to take the idea of acquiring a publisher more seriously. And that doesn't mean that your publisher will bilk you out of most of your profits, either. Especially in the Apple case, the fixed costs on the publisher's part are pretty small, so development houses have a lot of negotiation room. You might get away with just paying a publisher a fixed fee to handle the glue-work. Or, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, if you just want to "write something then never touch it again", you could just sell your codebase as IP to the publisher, or make some arrangement where you keep the IP, they can make whatever derivative products they like, and you get royalties on those.
boudewijnrempt 7y ago
I'm also thinking of just dropping macOS as a supported platform for Krita: https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-krita/ https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-kri...
- q3k 7y ago
  Please do. Apple's behavior is not acceptable.
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    Seconded. The last time when I was forced to use a Mac laptop, I hated every minute of it... Not because it was smooth and worked well, but that I had less and less freedoms to manipulate the system.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      FYI, if you turn off SIP you can do quite literally anything. Rewrite random memory, install random unsigned kernel extensions, replace the kernel with a version you compiled yourself, the works. The only thing that has no built-in off switch is TCC ("this app would like permission XXX"), although without SIP the ability to nullify it with code is theoretically at your disposal. I wish someone would make a MacForge plugin...
      - q3k 7y ago
        I don't think the point isn't about you or me - we're perfectly capable of bypassing this (for now). The point is a) about Apple's hostility b) what to expect from your average macOS user as a developer (most will have no idea what SIP even is, and then telling them to disable SIP is borderline irresponsible).
        7y ago
teraflop 7y ago
A lot of people here are fixating on the $100/year fee -- and don't get me wrong, that's a problem -- but ignoring another significant part of the blog post: the fact that Apple is demanding what amounts to a non-trivial amount of creative control over the visual appearance of games that can be distributed on macOS/iOS. Just like the other restrictions on user freedom, this is a ratchet that will only get tighter as time goes on. What would happen to indie filmmaking if every TV and movie projector threw up a scary warning screen, requiring a cumbersome manual override, before playing anything that wasn't certified by the MPAA? If you develop webapps, would you be OK with not being able to get a trusted SSL certificate unless an anonymous reviewer at Mozilla was satisfied with your UI?
- Razengan 7y ago
  > A lot of people here are fixating on the $100/year fee -- and don't get me wrong, that's a problem How much should you have to pay for unlimited bandwidth, hosting, downloads, user ratings, reviews, feedback, crash logs, showing up in searches, the chance to get featured, and other features like CloudKit etc.? > Apple is demanding what amounts to a non-trivial amount of creative control over the visual appearance of games Where did you get that from? How is that different from Steam, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony not allowing certain types of content on their platforms? For example, you can't show explicit pornography in your game and expect it to be approved anywhere. As for not allowing "blue screens of death, simulated error, glitch art, brokeness" that TFA complains about: Have you seen those "YOUR PC IS INFECTED BY 42 VIRUSES!! CLICK HERE TO CLEAN SYSTEM32! PERMANENT HARD DISK DELETION IN 2 SECONDS!!!" ads? What if apps start doing that for fun then charge in-app purchases to clean the in-game viruses? Would you want the job of being an arbiter over whether something like that is malicious deception which preys upon user naïveté, or just a cute quirky joke?
  - q3k 7y ago
    This is not about the macOS store, but about notarizing off-store apps.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
buboard 7y ago
Developers have been worshiping mobile OSs for more than a decade. This is the endgame, and don't say we haven't been warned about it. We 've been burned by walled gardens way too many times to have an excuse. Phones are much less free platforms than desktops. If developers desert phones, people will follow.
Razengan 7y ago
Let me just place this signpost in the bandwagon's way: →» Users CAN run un-notarized apps if they WANT TO. «← You just have to make us trust you as a developer.
- stefano 7y ago
  Should the user click on "Cancel" or "Move to trash" to tell Apple that they trust a developer?
  - Razengan 7y ago
    I have to menu-click » "Open" Telling your users to do that (+ any other steps if needed) might take less effort than shaking pitchforks at Apple (though they're certainly deserving of ire in other areas.)
    - stefano 7y ago
      Good luck with that if you have a non-technical user base. Gaining trust when the first thing they see is a big warning telling them this software shouldn't be trusted will also be really tough.
      - Razengan 7y ago
        You could do it all passive-aggressive like Krita: https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-krita/ https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-kri... A developer who doesn't want to put any effort into gaining trust doesn't sound like someone I should allow to run non-sandboxed code on my machine anyway.
        simple_phrases 7y ago
        A developer who doesn't want to pay $100/year and spend countless hours going through Apple's arbitrary approval and notarization process, you mean.
msie 7y ago
“I was looking into the requirements and I cannot afford $100 a year.“ I don’t understand how someone can’t afford a $100/year expense on something related to their occupation.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  If they pay the expense, will their income increase by more than $100 per year? (not even counting the value of the hours it will take to notarize and renotarize apps)
  - dkonofalski 7y ago
    There are no guarantees but, statistically, Mac and iOS users are far more likely to make purchases than all their other counterparts combined.
kd3 7y ago
Yeah, I'm never going to own any Apple crap with these kinds of policies. Pay a crapload of money for a locked down product that you don't really seem to own. No thanks.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
I agree with the sentiment expressed in this article, but notarization is not the hill I'd want to die on. Want to play experimental itch.io games? Open a Terminal and type: sudo spctl --master-disable It takes all of five seconds, and it's permanent. It might take less technical users a bit longer, but entering text into a Terminal window really isn't difficult, and technophobes aren't using itch.io. Some people will say this is a bad solution because it makes your computer less secure, but, like, you can't have it both ways. Either you allow experimental software and accept the risks involved, or you don't. Maybe don't play experimental games on the same machine you use for important work.
asdkhadsj 7y ago
Dumb question - as a dev on OSX (not yet migrated to Catalina), I compile and run my own code all the time. I also install a ton of binaries, like the Rust installation manager. Would I see any issue here? I suspect everything I write or "install" via curl/bash/etc will be fine. Eg, if it's a downloaded binary in my $PATH, I expect it to continue to work. So if that's the case.. why is Apple being so harsh about all of this? I feel like malware will just move to curl scripts and all Apple succeeded at was making normal Apps more difficult to develop. I imagine some might argue that users will be somewhat informed, and will know not to run stuff in a Terminal. Cool.... but, how many times have we seen non-technical folks run stuff in the Windows command prompt? They can be walked through a malware installation process a thousand times over. So is Apple going to lock the entire platform down? Are they going to limit my ability to run binaries? My own and others? Because if they don't, this all feels pointless. And if they do, i'l _be forced_ to switch to Linux. I don't like you these days Apple. What is wrong with you.
- dwaite 7y ago
  When you download an app through a browser, it will set a quarantine file system attribute. By default, clearing this bit requires the app to be notarized. The user can also right-click open to allow an app to run, add a third-party certificate as trusted, or disable Gatekeeper altogether from the command-line. I believe Catalina also will be periodic checks to make sure the binary hasn't been modified. If you don't distribute software off of your own machine, you do not have to think about signing at all. The rust installation manager and cargo do not set the quarantine attribute, so there is nothing for quarantine to check when binaries are run.
- dwaite 7y ago
  > So if that's the case.. why is Apple being so harsh about all of this? I feel like malware will just move to curl scripts and all Apple succeeded at was making normal Apps more difficult to develop. The goal is to prevent users from running untrusted applications or mistrusted applications like trojans. If you can convince the user to click through a security warning or run commands from the terminal, then the user themselves have taken responsibility for evaluating trust. The current system does depend on the user having appropriate 'spidey sense' to what the developer is asking them to do - the yardstick is a certain level of informed consent. If malware driving the user through terminal prompts becomes a significant user problem, that may unfortunately lead to the system being locked down further. FWIW, other more serious changes (such as disabling SIP) go beyond a terminal command or requiring a password, to requiring you to reboot onto the rescue partition. Here, they are requiring a much higher degree of informed user consent.
draw_down 7y ago
Fine to disagree with notarization and the $100 fee, but it's silly to paint it as a cash grab. That $100 from developers isn't even a drop in the bucket for Apple's revenue.
Svoka 7y ago
So, I make game engine, Corona SDK. It is indie game engine. No issues with notarizing occurred. I really don't understand what all the fuss is about: * once notarized, always notarized. You don't have to continue to pay for old apps to work * You can notarize old apps, same as new apps * It is very easy. One command line command. That's that. There is also GUI wrapper for it, our user like. But in the end, it is very easy to do.
- GrayShade 7y ago
  Sure, the article even links to a page describing the process: https://www.molleindustria.org/blog/notarizing-your-flashair-applications-for-macos/ https://www.molleindustria.org/blog/notarizing-your-flashair....
droithomme 7y ago
Apple's goal is obviously not security, nor is it to force things to work with the latest version. The purpose is to break backwards compatibility of the apps themselves. Make apps stop working on older versions of the OS. And the OS isn't supported on hardware more than a few years old. So your software you depend on breaks and requires an OS update and an OS update requires a hardware update and a hardware update costs $2,000 if you're lucky and 12,000-$20,000 if you have a lot of peripherals like color laser printers and scanners and audio converters that no longer have working drivers and the only option is to buy a new one of each.
Terretta 7y ago
This is both the most compelling and poetic argument in the article, and the most wrong: > ”Apple’s vision involves us constantly updating work, constantly adding to our games, constantly paying to exist here, even when some of this stuff is done. Often when a game is done, it’s done. Games aren’t a service. It’s like asking for a director to keep updating a movie, or for a musician to keep changing their song so it can keep running. Decisions like this erase our history.” On the contrary, you chose an ephemeral medium for your art. That choice, like making sandcastles, has consequences.
asperous 7y ago
One thing I don't see people talking about on here is.. html5. Probably the greatest number of individual indie games are games made to be played in the web browser. It strikes me that as a developer if you can't afford $100 and just want to make games, why not make them in the safety of the browser sandbox?
- knolax 7y ago
  What if it's a graphically/resource intensive game that would necessitate running it natively? Imagine trying to run an Unreal Engine equivalent in webgl for example.
deleted 7y ago
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jakobegger 7y ago
This article mixes up a lot of issues and is not very coherent. Here are some important clarifications: 1. You can run any unsigned or unnotarized software from any developer by right-clicking the app, selecting "Open", and then click the "open" button in the scary warning. It's really simple. I wish people would stop pretending like it was really hard to run unsigned software. 2. Apple does not "curate" or "review" software distributed outside the Mac app store. The notarisation process runs some automated malware checks, and that's it. The goal is to block malware, not to limit the content you put on your computer. 3. Notarisation takes less than ten minutes. It's easy to automate it, and you can also do it manually if you want. You can staple the notarisation ticket to the app, but you don't have to. MacOS will look up the ticket via a webservice if you don't staple it. The documentation sucks, but that's the only bad thing you can say about it. 4. Apple does review stuff you submit to the Mac app store, but fortunately it's entirely optional to submit stuff to the Mac app store, there's nothing stopping you from releasing software outside the app store without any review. 5. Apple did end support for 32bit apps, which sucks, and I don't have anything good to say about that.
- pvg 7y ago
  The article addresses your first item directly and doesn't actually say what what your second one claims it says. It's not clear to me how three and four are responsive to the article. You might be able to clarify your clarifications if you give it a closer re-read.
  - jakobegger 7y ago
    While the article may technically address these points, it's not very effective, judging by what people post here. At the time I posted my comment, all the top comments here on HN were complaining how Apple is limiting artistic expression or how hardware makers decide which software we can run. That's why I wanted to post my clarifications. I don't think that the article is technically wrong, but it seems that people have not read it closely and just came to weird conclusions.
    - pvg 7y ago
mnm1 7y ago
This article reminded me of the other major reason I've left OS X, other than five years of shitty Mac hardware which has been covered to death: shitty Mac software. Apple's software has always been on the lowest levels of quality, however, this generally excluded OS X. It's clear to me that Apple intends to remedy that and has already started so with this system protection bullshit that prevents running programs and resets itself on upgrades and possibly at other times randomly (I assume it does so just to fuck with users and show them who's the real boss and owner of their computer). The author of this piece is 100% correct: none of these changes have anything to do with security. It's all about control. Apple, like most companies, just wants to control everything, whether relevant or not. The end goal is to control exactly what software is ran on their platforms, as clearly evidenced by the linked articles. I highly doubt that we'll be able to run any non-Apple approved tools in a year or two. They are turning OS X into iOS and have already renamed it macOS to let people know it's just going to be a walled garden of shit. The only reason to ever purchase an Apple computer was OS X. Now that OS X is turning into a shitty version of iOS, that last reason is gone. And that's before we get into the garbage hardware. I simply don't understand why anyone would want to support this platform going into the future. It's a platform that stands for censorship. Every component on the platform is designed around it. It's no longer a general purpose computing platform. In the future, it will be even less of one. All in the name of "security" and "privacy." Yup, save the children. But plenty of smart people fall for such stupidity.
pier25 7y ago
I've been in love with OSX/macOS since I switched during the Vista fiasco but I feel it's a sinking ship these days. I recently was looking to get a new machine for music production and ended up building an Ryzen PC with Windows 10. It cost me the same as an i7 Mini but it is many times more powerful, expandable, and silent. Thank god I moved away from Logic years ago. Windows is not as pleasant to use as macOS, but it's just as stable. A lot of software seems to run better there (eg: Firefox, Chrome). For dev work I will keep using my iMac and 2014 MBP with Mojave, at least for the foreseeable future. Unless something dramatic happens at Apple I will most likely end up moving to Windows or Linux in a couple of years when these machines die.
scandox 7y ago
Last time I used a MAC within 5 minutes it asked me for an F-ing credit card. Why would anyone expect a platform that can do that to be anything but a walled garden?
zackmorris 7y ago
Apple has lost its way.
- noisem4ker 7y ago
  Apple is exactly on its way, as it's always been. You've just been crushed under its wagon.
madrox 7y ago
I kind of blame UX for this. Most of these attempts at curating installation all started as well intended means of keeping malware out of the OS. If you think it’s bad today, you forgot what it was like 20 years ago. However, the evolution of platform protection slowed down as it became clear this was an amazing revenue generator. Incentives became blurred, and it’s why you have so much malware on the App Store masquerading as casual games.
madrox 7y ago
I kind of blame UX and bad incentives for this. Most of these attempts at curating installation all started as well intended means of keeping malware out of the OS. If you think it’s bad today, you forgot what it was like 20 years ago. However, the evolution of platform protection slowed down as it became clear this was an amazing revenue generator. Incentives became blurred. A new type of malware showed up aimed purely at collecting your data, and our protections haven’t kept up, because that’s no longer the goal.
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xylophoner 7y ago
Every Macbook/Mac Pro should come with a free developer account that remains active as long as the purchaser of the machine is using the laptop. Doing so would further distinguish “pro” from non-pro machines, would make notarization less like an annual tax, and would thus encourage rather than discourage such malware-free certifications. That said, I agree with the article’s author that devs should be free to distribute whatever they want without warnings and without having to update annually. Not every piece of software gets maintained but it can still be useful, especially for artistic works. Let the App Store be the place where Apple certifies safety and leave the rest to the user.
- sukilot 7y ago
  Much like charities know that the best source of donations is previous donors, Apple knows that the best source of revenue previous customers who've already shown a willingness to open their wallets to pay extra for the Apple experience.
Ericson2314 7y ago
Hehe, hopefully it's just more fodder for an anti-trust case 1-2 years from now.
dreamcompiler 7y ago
Windows: Spies on you and shows you ads. Apple: Censors and controls everything you do on your computer. Linux: Neither of the above. It's your computer. The choice seems clear to me.

211 points by tomgp 7y ago

As a developer mainly on MacOS I feel the author's pain. There's also some legitimate gripes about Apple locking down their platform in a way that is ultimately hostile to users down the road. As a user I say suck it up. Notarization and 1st party QA will make users lives so much easier. I have yet to see people run into serious issues with either that weren't doing things that entitlements/signing were designed to prevent. The $100/year dev license kinda sucks if you just want to hack around and distribute code, but it also goes a long way to stopping people from creating spam accounts and evading bans. But it's a pretty trivial burden, if you're distributing software professionally and can't cough up $100 in revenue in a year... maybe try your hand at something else or just go the amateur route? I also don't get complaining about obsoleting 32 bit. Use obsolete software on an obsolete OS in a VM like the rest of us, we all hate supporting things until the end of time.

codesushi42 7y ago
"As a user... The $100/year dev license kinda sucks if you just want to hack around and distribute code" As a user, what does $100 a year even accomplish? It is nothing more than a racket.
- dwaite 7y ago
  You don't need to pay to run your own code or distribute un-notorized code.
damnyou 7y ago
Apple is a trillion dollar company. It can easily support running 32-bit indefinitely, perhaps with a download for 32-bit libraries libraries and/or with some sort of containerization. As a platform holder it has the responsibility to do so. Failing to do that is a clear abdication. It is clear from the post that Apple's platforms are hostile towards any sort of digital executable art.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  It's not about "could" but about "should." Apple hasn't sold a computer with a 32 bit CPU in what, 8-9 years? They deprecated 32 bit support almost a decade ago. Software has a lifespan and always has, to run obsolete code you need to jump through hoops to get an obsolete target running. This isn't new.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    I've always wondered, what exactly is the overhead on running 32-bit code on a 64-bit machine? Why is support eventually dropped? I'm sure there are good reasons but I've no idea what they are.
    - unlinked_dll 7y ago
      I believe there is a little bit of overhead when it comes to mapping virtual addresses and dealing with different pointer sizes for the OS, but imo the main reason Apple wants to ditch 64 bit support is so their OS isn't tightly coupled to an ISA that has 32/64 bit modes. In other words it's not about the overhead, it's about the reliance on x86.
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        If ISA decoupling is the goal then they should be mandating everyone write to a VM like the CLR or JVM (or variants like Dalvik). It seems kind of silly to block x86 modes on x64 chips when the backwards compatibility needs of Windows pretty much insures "eternal" x86 modes. It's going to be a while before x86 modes disappear on Intel or AMD chips, and there's evidence to support that like the Itanium (IA-64) failure, and the fact that Windows on ARM made it a commitment to emulate x86 (but not x64) on ARM. x86 is likely going to be a lasting "lingua franca" ISA. Right now I'd almost put more money on x64 being retired before x86, and if anything from that perspective Apple is more tightly coupled to an ISA than before this choice.
        pohl 7y ago
cortesoft 7y ago
> just go the amateur route? But how do you even go the amateur route? You still won't be able to distribute what you make. A big part of my childhood was making games, and sharing them on shareware sites in the mid 90s. It sucks that kids today aren't going to be able to do that. There was no way I could afford $100 as a 10 year old.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  Thing is, for the common scenario of "safe enough for random users to install" we want some barrier of entry. The market where random creations of a ten year old are acceptable isn't the Apple Store, it's something like Roblox environment for user-created content or some other sandbox that is (a) isolated from the rest of the system and (b) makes it clear that it's likely not to meet even the (already low) standards of the generic Store. For all the major means of distribution the problem isn't not enough apps, the problem is too much garbage - so the direction of improving end-user experience is more filtering of apps and developers, not easier access to distribution.
  - Razengan 7y ago
    That is exactly what some developers just can't seem to get: Many users agree with Apple. But those developers are going: "No those users are wrong and should join my mob to make Apple let me do whatever I want to users' systems."
- birdyrooster 7y ago
  The amateurs will have to start distributing source. I remember back in the day when I was a kid making GameMaker games on Mac in the late 90s, sometimes I would collaborate with other developers and we would just send the source files around which were completely useable, but of course we wanted to distribute executables as if we were legitimate companies, even though our users were typically other kid developers. We had fake company names and stuff, but if we were emulating open source projects instead of cloistered corporations, we could've gotten more done together. I predict this change will cause kids to embrace open source more and distribute their projects in a way that can be shared and reused.
FussyZeus 7y ago
> ...if you're distributing software professionally and can't cough up $100 in revenue in a year... This is kinda where I'm at with this. Surely anyone even remotely garnering an audience could raise this amount annually. It's a decent cost to an individual but to even a humble audience, it's peanuts. If you can't raise even that, then IMO your game being lost is of little consequence. Not everything farted out by every indie developer is a lost masterpiece, sometimes stuff is lost because it lacks the traction to merit archival.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  devil's advocate: $100 is a lot of money to spend on a hobby/side gig for a lot of people. Like some of us can blow more than that just on IDE's/Git clients in a year, but for some people it's a legitimate hurdle to cross. When I was in high school working on the weekends, that would have been two weeks wages, which I had other stuff to spend on. And that's from a privileged background, I know plenty of folks who's weekend/summer jobs paid towards rent/bills for their families. That said, Apple probably doesn't care about the teenagers or indie devs out there who want to make a little game for their platform. However I'd also say to those folks - if you're strapped for money, don't develop for Apple devices. Go make a doohickey on a windows or Linux box.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    > devil's advocate: $100 is a lot of money to spend on a hobby/side gig for a lot of people. Agree. But this isn't some lost nobody. This person has a Wikipedia Page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathalie_Lawhead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathalie_Lawhead], is an established game developer and artist, and lives in California. She's won multiple awards and she owns at least one Mac. Like come on. The refusal to drop a hundred bucks on something that is apparently so important to her reeks of good old fashioned stubbornness, or at worst, entitlement, but even then, she has a significant audience. Crowdfund it, cough up and stop whining. Like I don't entirely agree with the $100/year model being the only option from Apple, but we're all paying that particular piper. Why is she so special that hers shouldn't be subject to the same?
pergadad 7y ago
Yes, absolutely, poor people should not be able to try to develop their skills and attempt to make apps.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  They can make apps and develop these skills, however, the apps listed for random end-users in the Apple store shouldn't contain all these experiments. This is about access to a particular distribution and advertising channel, which should happen after you've already developed the skills and are ready to offer something serious in context of which a $100/year investment is trivial.
  - damnyou 7y ago
    Notarization is a requirement for distributing your content outside the app store. Within it the requirements are even higher.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Notarization isn't the same as the App Store. This is about whether a 3rd-party application downloaded from a 3rd-pary website can be run. It used to be that you only needed to pay to get onto the distribution and advertising channel, now you need to pay not to make your user jump through special hoops on an admin account. It's not implausible to suggest that in the future, that loophole will be removed as well. Apple does not want you to download apps that they can't personally vet. The complaint isn't that you need to pay to get into their store. Of course you do, that isn't surprising to anyone. It's about whether distribution channels exist outside of their store. As to why that's a problem? To quote the author: > It really upsets me because the iOS App Store policies basically prohibited art or anything interesting (nudity, glitch, error art...temperamental depending on who reviewed you for approval). > It was hell for me to get things approved, and even when I got them approved I had to change so much about my work it really wasn't my work anymore. A platform holder shouldn't dictate so much about someone else's work. Apple has been consistently behind the curve when it comes to recognizing the artistic potential of games[0]. On a cultural level, we don't want want them to be a gatekeeper for a medium. As a company they aren't responsible enough or smart enough for that job. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3879194/apple-app-store-guidelines-tell-game-developers-to-avoid-serious-themes https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3879194/apple-app-store-g...
boudewijnrempt 7y ago
Or just drop Apple and macOS. Even for an application like Krita, for creative people, macOS is a laughably small platform, with a very small user-base, bringing in next to nothing money-wise, nothing contribution-wise, and it tries to force everyone to use proprietary libraries like Metal, instead of properly supporting OpenGL and Vulkan. From an effort-to-income perspective, macOS isn't worth it.
- deleted 7y ago
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- s_dev 7y ago
  >From an effort-to-income perspective, macOS isn't worth it. Apple has introduced Catalyst in Xcode -- this translates iOS apps to macOS, compile once and run on two platforms. Mac App store has been notirous for not getting as much love as the iOS one but this change might reverse the direction as there will be a lot more apps coming for the Mac App Store now that they can leverage their iOS dev ecosystem.
  - w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
    I don't know If the Mac App Store will bring better apps and grater for enthousiasm than it is now for Apple Store business model, but you can be sure of one thing : notarisation program will not last. The goal is to lock the platform like iOS and force force every user to get their apps through the App Store and nowhere else. I'm pretty sur once MacOS has switched to ARM, system partition will be in read only mode, you will not be able to install app outside of the AppStore except if you jailbreak thank to a "security flaw".
- deleted 7y ago
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- Razengan 7y ago
  > for creative people, macOS is a laughably small platform, with a very small user-base, bringing in next to nothing money-wise, nothing contribution-wise ... As a user, statements like that – about any platform – honestly just make me want to avoid anything from the developers who make them.
viraptor 7y ago
> I also don't get complaining about obsoleting 32 bit. Use obsolete software on an obsolete OS in a VM like the rest of us You mean like games released last year which require heavy GPU usage? That's neither obsolete, nor a great experience.
- Bud 7y ago
  Please cite one game—a single one—from last year which is 32-bit only and "requires heavy GPU usage". One will do. I'm sure this won't take you long. Even if you can cite one, all that will prove is that the developer was so incredibly stupid that they ignored a full decade of warnings about how 32-bit software would be deprecated soon.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    I'd be happy to tell you what it was, but I'm on holidays away from my laptop/steam account.
    - gowld 7y ago
      I'm not even sure it's possible to acquire hardware on which to compile and test a demanding game and not have a 64 bit Dev toolchain, without going to extra effort just to avoid 64bit for what purpose? A trivial performance improvement for an app that is resource intensive while also not needing 4gb Memory?
w1nst0nsm1th 7y ago
Notarization will not last. In 2 ou 3 years max, they play the card of security again and will stop the notarization program. Why do you believe they want to bring MacOS and iOS together through same processor family and same developement api ? They want to bring iOS business model to MacOS. How is it not that obvious ?

macintux 7y ago

I don’t understand. I keep seeing developers complain about the $100/year developer fee but I also keep seeing strong indications that’s not required for notarization.

kemayo 7y ago
Every single story about it features a comment saying "I thought you only needed a free developer account to notarize apps?" with no replies. That said, Apple's membership-levels page features "software distribution outside the Mac App Store" as a benefit of the paid level: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
Skywalker13 7y ago
I've a certificate whish is valid until 2022 (valid for 5 years) (generated in 2017 after paied 100$). I distribute only free games (GPLv3) that I sign with this certificate. For Catalina, I can't notarize because I don't pay each year (my certificate is valid then it's useless to pay and I distribute only free softwares)... But I'm fucked by Apple for the notarization. It's too expansive to pay just to distribute games that will be even refused probably on the app store because it's GPL. Apple is just killing freedom and continue to take advantage of free softwares (free developers) on BSD, mach kernel, a lot of unix tools... even on projects started by Apple like LLVM Apple takes all advantages of all third contributions.
- dwaite 7y ago
  FWIW, Apple doesn't care if apps being distributed contain code licensed under the GPL. They care whether you have the appropriate rights to distribute the app on their store under their terms - and that is asserted by you. A previous build of VLC was pulled from the store because someone claimed they had copyright on some of the code - because they did not want VLC in the store.
  - Skywalker13 7y ago
    Thanks I found more details here: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-gpl-enforcement https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store...

mariopt 7y ago

Does the notarization licence covers the iOS store or do we need to buy both licences?

threeseed 7y ago
Notarization costs nothing. But it's $99/year to be a part of the Apple Developer program which covers all platforms.
- damnyou 7y ago
  https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ says that distribution outside the Mac app store is a paid feature. Who's wrong, Apple or you?
- sukilot 7y ago
  Can you share a link to the web page where one can create a notarization account for free?
- SahAssar 7y ago
  It specifically says that "Software distribution outside the Mac App Store" requires "Apple Developer Program" which costs 99 USD here: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/

dessant 7y ago

This was heartbreaking to read. I don't understand how anyone can defend not being able to run software on their own devices, unless it was approved by Apple.

Shivetya 7y ago
I have not had the unidentified application issue that the author posted but a full two thirds of my games in my Steam Library are flagged as not compatible with Catalina and most likely never will be. Apple really needed a comparability method similar to how windows allowed you to simulate old environments. not always successfully but at least it was a chance That notarization fee / process, I have not read beyond this story, does look to be a burden beyond what should be reasonable.
- thatfrenchguy 7y ago
  Most of games in my steam library are flagged incorrectly, e.g they still have a 64 bit binary and still run.
damnyou 7y ago
The Leviathan knows best, all hail the Leviathan.
cortesoft 7y ago
I think individual users can still disable the checks (how else can you develop software if you can't execute what you compile?)
- dessant 7y ago
  The complete loss of control over your own devices is being gradually normalized.
  - jhanschoo 7y ago
    When macOS is completely unable to run unauthorized executables I'll revisit this comment. Until then, I'm completely in favor of putting all kinds of hurdles between uninformed users and executing random executables downloaded from the internet.

danielrpa 7y ago

We've heard the warnings about the rise of "proprietary computing", where all experiences in computers need to be approved by the policies of hardware and software manufacturers. I feel it's getting worse as we get pushed more and more to vertically integrated platforms (Pixel, iPhone, Surface, game consoles, Kindle+Fire etc). We still have Linux, thankfully - at least as long as hardware manufacturers let it run on their computers. https://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-purp.html https://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-...

deleted 7y ago
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4bpp 7y ago
In a way, it's fortunate that hardware performance improvements have all but ground to a halt; according to online benchmarks, the CPU in my nearly 7 year old (3rd gen Intel M series) Thinkpad is only something like 50% slower than the most recent comparable models. (This is partly because after 3rd gen, they all switched to U-series CPUs, which were significantly slower.) This way, even if approved-OS-only hardware suddenly becomes the universal norm in the same way that chiclet keyboards did around then, I imagine I will still be set for a long time. (Just imagine using a computer from 1993 in 2000, for comparison...)
- sukilot 7y ago
  On Mac, the oldest supported computers (for High Sierra and Catalina are the only supported OSes) the 2012 vintage (plus older Mac Pros). Older devices (expensive, premium, devices!), which run fine and have specs matching today's cheapest new computers, cannot run a supported Mac OS. There are no longer any supported 17" Mac laptops.
josteink 7y ago
> We still have Linux, thankfully - at least as long as hardware manufacturers let it run on their computers. As a ThinkPading Linux-user I’m looking at all these other people and wondering wth they’re up to on their increasingly leased computer platforms. Whatever that is, I want nothing of it.

athirnuaimi 7y ago

I hope we can all agree that notarization is pretty valuable to users. Macs are a mass market product and most users are not technical. Also to create software for Apple devises you need... an Apple device. Isn’t the cost of the device a bigger burden than the $100/yr dev program license?

heavyset_go 7y ago
> I hope we can all agree that notarization is pretty valuable to users. I don't. As a user, I don't need Apple arbitrarily allowing big players' apps through their approval process while they hold smaller developers to a stricter standard. That will stifle innovation. If security is the touted excuse, macOS already has sandboxd[1] which can be used with arbitrary apps that aren't in the App Store. Linux solved the security problem with Snaps, Flatpaks and AppImages, which all use various layers of containers, kernel namespaces and isolation to provide a sandboxed environment for apps. [1] https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Security/Conceptual/AppSandboxDesignGuide/AboutAppSandbox/AboutAppSandbox.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Se...
- Doingmything123 7y ago
  As a user, I don't need Apple arbitrarily allowing big players' apps through their approval process while they hold smaller developers to a stricter standard. I think by "user" it was meant the average user which by my estimation is not super technical and mostly sticks to larger apps anyways. Are smaller developers being held to a stricter standard though than larger developers on notarization?
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    Less competition is bad for the entire market, not just power users.
- mrpippy 7y ago
  Can you point to evidence that Apple is rejecting anything from being notarized? I haven't seen any. And sandboxing is completely orthogonal to the fine-grained revocation that notarization allows for. A sandboxed app could still be malicious: say, a weather app that asks for access to your Contacts ostensibly to show weather at your friends' location, but also uploads all the Contacts info to a malicious tracking service. With notarization, this app could have its notarization revoked once it's discovered.

simion314 7y ago

Some developers here forget that there are game developers that make free stuff, hobby games, This developers often get requests to also package for Linux and Mac because the engine used is cross platform. So this people won't afford to buy a Macbook and pay 100$ yearly for one possible user that would like to try his free game. I also see users asking for 32 Windows version of the games, there are still a lot of people running old computers and have bad internet connection and there is no good reason not to package some basic game app for them if it is possible.

fortran77 7y ago

One way may be to make distribute games as VM images that can "just work" in VMWare or VirtualBox. Use one of those bare metal frameworks for .net that just need a simple loader to start up. This will have the added advantage of working on Mac or Windows or Linux with one binary. It's not that hard to boot a vm that's ready to go.

derefr 7y ago
Or, if you're a fan of the retro aesthetic, just develop "home-brew" games for old consoles, and distribute (sell?) them as ROMs. Everything can run e.g. GBA ROMs: your phone, your tablet, your modern PC/Mac, your 20-year-old PC/Mac, your smart TV. Everything. They even run just fine in web browsers through WASM emulators. Web browsers on phones. It's kind of ridiculous. Maybe, on Windows or whatever other arches you are a deft hand with, you can package in a cute little customized emulator to wrap the ROM. (Use a GPLed one; it won't be viral to your ROM.) But ensure you leave the ROM freestanding in a directory for people to use as they wish, rather than hiding it inside the executable. (And, maybe, offer a ROM-only version of the download as well.) If you stop maintaining your installer, the emulator might stop working, but the ROM itself never will.
q3k 7y ago
This is a technologically insane idea. There is no benefit to this over a good sandbox. Heck, traditional VMs are worse in many aspects for desktop applications (like of native integration with desktop windowing, 3d acceleration is extremely tricky, memory overhead and lack of easy ways to apply backpressure, audio latency, ...). In addition, both technologies you mentioned are either non-Free (VMWare) or partially non-Free (Vurtualbox's PUEL). There is, as far as I know, no existing VM system that is truly cross-platform that would work here.

newnewpdro 7y ago

Stop supporting walled gardens, this has been a long time coming. Protect your rights, use free/libre software.

bcrosby95 7y ago

Companies are in the business of making money. Once they find out they can make more money by not supporting your use case, they will toss you to the curb. At this point, Apple does this by being a nearly completely consumer focused company. If you aren't the average consumer, they are going to toss you to the curb someday.

derefr 7y ago

As an indie software creator, consider that you likely don't have the resources to be a software publisher yourself. Software publishing is a separate job, a separate comparative advantage, and just because you want to be in ultimate control of your software doesn't mean you can't delegate or contract out that job. Depending on your size and your publisher's size, you might delegate any of these responsibilities to them: • their core responsibility: handling the jumping-through-hoops required by each distributor/retailer (in these days these are the app stores) and doing any ongoing liasing with them, leaving you free to just have your publisher as a single point of contact • doing any extra QA passes required to get your work accepted by each distributor/retailer (and sending the bug-reports back to you) • learning about changes in your software required to comply with the distributor/retailer's policies, and either reporting them to you, or fixing them themselves, making each of their "ports" into a downstream of your upstream codebase with their fixes living in it • handling ongoing codebase changes required to evolve your code to comply with minimum-runtime targets of each platform—in effect, giving them commit access to your upstream codebase (though they can do this as a downstream fork, I wouldn't recommend it) • porting your software to platforms that you can't afford to support yourself (because e.g. the SDK is ridiculously expensive), creating separate "port" forks of the codebase, or perhaps even entirely new codebases that just share art assets --- If you're an indie shop, getting a publisher has always been a necessity to sell on the more closed-down stores, like the console marketplaces. Well, that onerous-ness is just becoming more universal. That doesn't mean you're out of the market! It just means you have to take the idea of acquiring a publisher more seriously. And that doesn't mean that your publisher will bilk you out of most of your profits, either. Especially in the Apple case, the fixed costs on the publisher's part are pretty small, so development houses have a lot of negotiation room. You might get away with just paying a publisher a fixed fee to handle the glue-work. Or, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, if you just want to "write something then never touch it again", you could just sell your codebase as IP to the publisher, or make some arrangement where you keep the IP, they can make whatever derivative products they like, and you get royalties on those.

boudewijnrempt 7y ago

I'm also thinking of just dropping macOS as a supported platform for Krita: https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-krita/ https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-kri...

q3k 7y ago
Please do. Apple's behavior is not acceptable.
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Seconded. The last time when I was forced to use a Mac laptop, I hated every minute of it... Not because it was smooth and worked well, but that I had less and less freedoms to manipulate the system.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    FYI, if you turn off SIP you can do quite literally anything. Rewrite random memory, install random unsigned kernel extensions, replace the kernel with a version you compiled yourself, the works. The only thing that has no built-in off switch is TCC ("this app would like permission XXX"), although without SIP the ability to nullify it with code is theoretically at your disposal. I wish someone would make a MacForge plugin...
    - q3k 7y ago
      I don't think the point isn't about you or me - we're perfectly capable of bypassing this (for now). The point is a) about Apple's hostility b) what to expect from your average macOS user as a developer (most will have no idea what SIP even is, and then telling them to disable SIP is borderline irresponsible).
      - 7y ago

teraflop 7y ago

A lot of people here are fixating on the $100/year fee -- and don't get me wrong, that's a problem -- but ignoring another significant part of the blog post: the fact that Apple is demanding what amounts to a non-trivial amount of creative control over the visual appearance of games that can be distributed on macOS/iOS. Just like the other restrictions on user freedom, this is a ratchet that will only get tighter as time goes on. What would happen to indie filmmaking if every TV and movie projector threw up a scary warning screen, requiring a cumbersome manual override, before playing anything that wasn't certified by the MPAA? If you develop webapps, would you be OK with not being able to get a trusted SSL certificate unless an anonymous reviewer at Mozilla was satisfied with your UI?

Razengan 7y ago
> A lot of people here are fixating on the $100/year fee -- and don't get me wrong, that's a problem How much should you have to pay for unlimited bandwidth, hosting, downloads, user ratings, reviews, feedback, crash logs, showing up in searches, the chance to get featured, and other features like CloudKit etc.? > Apple is demanding what amounts to a non-trivial amount of creative control over the visual appearance of games Where did you get that from? How is that different from Steam, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony not allowing certain types of content on their platforms? For example, you can't show explicit pornography in your game and expect it to be approved anywhere. As for not allowing "blue screens of death, simulated error, glitch art, brokeness" that TFA complains about: Have you seen those "YOUR PC IS INFECTED BY 42 VIRUSES!! CLICK HERE TO CLEAN SYSTEM32! PERMANENT HARD DISK DELETION IN 2 SECONDS!!!" ads? What if apps start doing that for fun then charge in-app purchases to clean the in-game viruses? Would you want the job of being an arbiter over whether something like that is malicious deception which preys upon user naïveté, or just a cute quirky joke?
- q3k 7y ago
  This is not about the macOS store, but about notarizing off-store apps.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago

buboard 7y ago

Developers have been worshiping mobile OSs for more than a decade. This is the endgame, and don't say we haven't been warned about it. We 've been burned by walled gardens way too many times to have an excuse. Phones are much less free platforms than desktops. If developers desert phones, people will follow.

Razengan 7y ago

Let me just place this signpost in the bandwagon's way: →» Users CAN run un-notarized apps if they WANT TO. «← You just have to make us trust you as a developer.

stefano 7y ago
Should the user click on "Cancel" or "Move to trash" to tell Apple that they trust a developer?
- Razengan 7y ago
  I have to menu-click » "Open" Telling your users to do that (+ any other steps if needed) might take less effort than shaking pitchforks at Apple (though they're certainly deserving of ire in other areas.)
  - stefano 7y ago
    Good luck with that if you have a non-technical user base. Gaining trust when the first thing they see is a big warning telling them this software shouldn't be trusted will also be really tough.
    - Razengan 7y ago
      You could do it all passive-aggressive like Krita: https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-krita/ https://krita.org/en/item/first-notarized-macos-build-of-kri... A developer who doesn't want to put any effort into gaining trust doesn't sound like someone I should allow to run non-sandboxed code on my machine anyway.
      - simple_phrases 7y ago
        A developer who doesn't want to pay $100/year and spend countless hours going through Apple's arbitrary approval and notarization process, you mean.

msie 7y ago

“I was looking into the requirements and I cannot afford $100 a year.“ I don’t understand how someone can’t afford a $100/year expense on something related to their occupation.

Rebelgecko 7y ago
If they pay the expense, will their income increase by more than $100 per year? (not even counting the value of the hours it will take to notarize and renotarize apps)
- dkonofalski 7y ago
  There are no guarantees but, statistically, Mac and iOS users are far more likely to make purchases than all their other counterparts combined.

kd3 7y ago

Yeah, I'm never going to own any Apple crap with these kinds of policies. Pay a crapload of money for a locked down product that you don't really seem to own. No thanks.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

I agree with the sentiment expressed in this article, but notarization is not the hill I'd want to die on. Want to play experimental itch.io games? Open a Terminal and type: sudo spctl --master-disable It takes all of five seconds, and it's permanent. It might take less technical users a bit longer, but entering text into a Terminal window really isn't difficult, and technophobes aren't using itch.io. Some people will say this is a bad solution because it makes your computer less secure, but, like, you can't have it both ways. Either you allow experimental software and accept the risks involved, or you don't. Maybe don't play experimental games on the same machine you use for important work.

asdkhadsj 7y ago

Dumb question - as a dev on OSX (not yet migrated to Catalina), I compile and run my own code all the time. I also install a ton of binaries, like the Rust installation manager. Would I see any issue here? I suspect everything I write or "install" via curl/bash/etc will be fine. Eg, if it's a downloaded binary in my $PATH, I expect it to continue to work. So if that's the case.. why is Apple being so harsh about all of this? I feel like malware will just move to curl scripts and all Apple succeeded at was making normal Apps more difficult to develop. I imagine some might argue that users will be somewhat informed, and will know not to run stuff in a Terminal. Cool.... but, how many times have we seen non-technical folks run stuff in the Windows command prompt? They can be walked through a malware installation process a thousand times over. So is Apple going to lock the entire platform down? Are they going to limit my ability to run binaries? My own and others? Because if they don't, this all feels pointless. And if they do, i'l _be forced_ to switch to Linux. I don't like you these days Apple. What is wrong with you.

dwaite 7y ago
When you download an app through a browser, it will set a quarantine file system attribute. By default, clearing this bit requires the app to be notarized. The user can also right-click open to allow an app to run, add a third-party certificate as trusted, or disable Gatekeeper altogether from the command-line. I believe Catalina also will be periodic checks to make sure the binary hasn't been modified. If you don't distribute software off of your own machine, you do not have to think about signing at all. The rust installation manager and cargo do not set the quarantine attribute, so there is nothing for quarantine to check when binaries are run.
dwaite 7y ago
> So if that's the case.. why is Apple being so harsh about all of this? I feel like malware will just move to curl scripts and all Apple succeeded at was making normal Apps more difficult to develop. The goal is to prevent users from running untrusted applications or mistrusted applications like trojans. If you can convince the user to click through a security warning or run commands from the terminal, then the user themselves have taken responsibility for evaluating trust. The current system does depend on the user having appropriate 'spidey sense' to what the developer is asking them to do - the yardstick is a certain level of informed consent. If malware driving the user through terminal prompts becomes a significant user problem, that may unfortunately lead to the system being locked down further. FWIW, other more serious changes (such as disabling SIP) go beyond a terminal command or requiring a password, to requiring you to reboot onto the rescue partition. Here, they are requiring a much higher degree of informed user consent.

draw_down 7y ago

Fine to disagree with notarization and the $100 fee, but it's silly to paint it as a cash grab. That $100 from developers isn't even a drop in the bucket for Apple's revenue.

Svoka 7y ago

So, I make game engine, Corona SDK. It is indie game engine. No issues with notarizing occurred. I really don't understand what all the fuss is about: * once notarized, always notarized. You don't have to continue to pay for old apps to work * You can notarize old apps, same as new apps * It is very easy. One command line command. That's that. There is also GUI wrapper for it, our user like. But in the end, it is very easy to do.

GrayShade 7y ago
Sure, the article even links to a page describing the process: https://www.molleindustria.org/blog/notarizing-your-flashair-applications-for-macos/ https://www.molleindustria.org/blog/notarizing-your-flashair....

droithomme 7y ago

Apple's goal is obviously not security, nor is it to force things to work with the latest version. The purpose is to break backwards compatibility of the apps themselves. Make apps stop working on older versions of the OS. And the OS isn't supported on hardware more than a few years old. So your software you depend on breaks and requires an OS update and an OS update requires a hardware update and a hardware update costs $2,000 if you're lucky and 12,000-$20,000 if you have a lot of peripherals like color laser printers and scanners and audio converters that no longer have working drivers and the only option is to buy a new one of each.

Terretta 7y ago

This is both the most compelling and poetic argument in the article, and the most wrong: > ”Apple’s vision involves us constantly updating work, constantly adding to our games, constantly paying to exist here, even when some of this stuff is done. Often when a game is done, it’s done. Games aren’t a service. It’s like asking for a director to keep updating a movie, or for a musician to keep changing their song so it can keep running. Decisions like this erase our history.” On the contrary, you chose an ephemeral medium for your art. That choice, like making sandcastles, has consequences.

asperous 7y ago

One thing I don't see people talking about on here is.. html5. Probably the greatest number of individual indie games are games made to be played in the web browser. It strikes me that as a developer if you can't afford $100 and just want to make games, why not make them in the safety of the browser sandbox?

knolax 7y ago
What if it's a graphically/resource intensive game that would necessitate running it natively? Imagine trying to run an Unreal Engine equivalent in webgl for example.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jakobegger 7y ago

This article mixes up a lot of issues and is not very coherent. Here are some important clarifications: 1. You can run any unsigned or unnotarized software from any developer by right-clicking the app, selecting "Open", and then click the "open" button in the scary warning. It's really simple. I wish people would stop pretending like it was really hard to run unsigned software. 2. Apple does not "curate" or "review" software distributed outside the Mac app store. The notarisation process runs some automated malware checks, and that's it. The goal is to block malware, not to limit the content you put on your computer. 3. Notarisation takes less than ten minutes. It's easy to automate it, and you can also do it manually if you want. You can staple the notarisation ticket to the app, but you don't have to. MacOS will look up the ticket via a webservice if you don't staple it. The documentation sucks, but that's the only bad thing you can say about it. 4. Apple does review stuff you submit to the Mac app store, but fortunately it's entirely optional to submit stuff to the Mac app store, there's nothing stopping you from releasing software outside the app store without any review. 5. Apple did end support for 32bit apps, which sucks, and I don't have anything good to say about that.

pvg 7y ago
The article addresses your first item directly and doesn't actually say what what your second one claims it says. It's not clear to me how three and four are responsive to the article. You might be able to clarify your clarifications if you give it a closer re-read.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  While the article may technically address these points, it's not very effective, judging by what people post here. At the time I posted my comment, all the top comments here on HN were complaining how Apple is limiting artistic expression or how hardware makers decide which software we can run. That's why I wanted to post my clarifications. I don't think that the article is technically wrong, but it seems that people have not read it closely and just came to weird conclusions.
  - pvg 7y ago

mnm1 7y ago

This article reminded me of the other major reason I've left OS X, other than five years of shitty Mac hardware which has been covered to death: shitty Mac software. Apple's software has always been on the lowest levels of quality, however, this generally excluded OS X. It's clear to me that Apple intends to remedy that and has already started so with this system protection bullshit that prevents running programs and resets itself on upgrades and possibly at other times randomly (I assume it does so just to fuck with users and show them who's the real boss and owner of their computer). The author of this piece is 100% correct: none of these changes have anything to do with security. It's all about control. Apple, like most companies, just wants to control everything, whether relevant or not. The end goal is to control exactly what software is ran on their platforms, as clearly evidenced by the linked articles. I highly doubt that we'll be able to run any non-Apple approved tools in a year or two. They are turning OS X into iOS and have already renamed it macOS to let people know it's just going to be a walled garden of shit. The only reason to ever purchase an Apple computer was OS X. Now that OS X is turning into a shitty version of iOS, that last reason is gone. And that's before we get into the garbage hardware. I simply don't understand why anyone would want to support this platform going into the future. It's a platform that stands for censorship. Every component on the platform is designed around it. It's no longer a general purpose computing platform. In the future, it will be even less of one. All in the name of "security" and "privacy." Yup, save the children. But plenty of smart people fall for such stupidity.

pier25 7y ago

I've been in love with OSX/macOS since I switched during the Vista fiasco but I feel it's a sinking ship these days. I recently was looking to get a new machine for music production and ended up building an Ryzen PC with Windows 10. It cost me the same as an i7 Mini but it is many times more powerful, expandable, and silent. Thank god I moved away from Logic years ago. Windows is not as pleasant to use as macOS, but it's just as stable. A lot of software seems to run better there (eg: Firefox, Chrome). For dev work I will keep using my iMac and 2014 MBP with Mojave, at least for the foreseeable future. Unless something dramatic happens at Apple I will most likely end up moving to Windows or Linux in a couple of years when these machines die.

scandox 7y ago

Last time I used a MAC within 5 minutes it asked me for an F-ing credit card. Why would anyone expect a platform that can do that to be anything but a walled garden?

zackmorris 7y ago

Apple has lost its way.

noisem4ker 7y ago
Apple is exactly on its way, as it's always been. You've just been crushed under its wagon.

madrox 7y ago

I kind of blame UX for this. Most of these attempts at curating installation all started as well intended means of keeping malware out of the OS. If you think it’s bad today, you forgot what it was like 20 years ago. However, the evolution of platform protection slowed down as it became clear this was an amazing revenue generator. Incentives became blurred, and it’s why you have so much malware on the App Store masquerading as casual games.

madrox 7y ago

I kind of blame UX and bad incentives for this. Most of these attempts at curating installation all started as well intended means of keeping malware out of the OS. If you think it’s bad today, you forgot what it was like 20 years ago. However, the evolution of platform protection slowed down as it became clear this was an amazing revenue generator. Incentives became blurred. A new type of malware showed up aimed purely at collecting your data, and our protections haven’t kept up, because that’s no longer the goal.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

xylophoner 7y ago

Every Macbook/Mac Pro should come with a free developer account that remains active as long as the purchaser of the machine is using the laptop. Doing so would further distinguish “pro” from non-pro machines, would make notarization less like an annual tax, and would thus encourage rather than discourage such malware-free certifications. That said, I agree with the article’s author that devs should be free to distribute whatever they want without warnings and without having to update annually. Not every piece of software gets maintained but it can still be useful, especially for artistic works. Let the App Store be the place where Apple certifies safety and leave the rest to the user.

sukilot 7y ago
Much like charities know that the best source of donations is previous donors, Apple knows that the best source of revenue previous customers who've already shown a willingness to open their wallets to pay extra for the Apple experience.

Ericson2314 7y ago

Hehe, hopefully it's just more fodder for an anti-trust case 1-2 years from now.

dreamcompiler 7y ago

Windows: Spies on you and shows you ads. Apple: Censors and controls everything you do on your computer. Linux: Neither of the above. It's your computer. The choice seems clear to me.