3 ms·

> And yet, it seems majority of HN wants to rewind from the App Store which was created as to assist users and devs with that problem. App Store is fine, as lo

> And yet, it seems majority of HN wants to rewind from the App Store which was created as to assist users and devs with that problem. App Store is fine, as long as it's not the only way to the platform. If it's a curated catalog of apps + a hosting service + payment processing for those developers who want it, there's no problem with it existing. There is, however, a problem with how Apple keeps tightening its grip lately, and how current versions of macOS with default settings treat apps that haven't been vetted by Apple as if they're radioactive. That's still better than iOS, which outright refuses to run anything that isn't signed by Apple, but this overall direction is still troubling.

Terretta 6y ago
But then we’re immediately in the anti-consumer user anxiety inducing situation we were in before — where you don’t know where or how to keep these things up to date or secure or remember where that license key is or how to cancel the subscription or etc. I deal with this with several dozen other tools on the Mac each using random store and key schemes. Lately I throw in the towel and switch to inferior tools in the app store if I can’t dig up the secret codes to the legacy hoops their devs want me to jump through. Charge me 30% more, no problem, just stop making me waste my time for things that are now solved problems. This overall simplification and end-to-end trusted curation direction is a minority but well heeled part of the market (happy to spend money on apps if it doesn’t waste their time), and a sort of grand experiment in what users want. If users want a free for all, the majority of the market is still buying those handsets. If not, the option to have a handheld appliance should be available to those who want it. Seems a shame to appeal to regulation to stomp on user choice where customers speak with their wallets that “please don’t make me think”.
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  The problem is the operating system developers, instead of defining a standard component that could pull update lists from anywhere, just decided, "we shall make one store, and we shall be the gatekeepers" Imagine if windows (or MacOS) had a control panel where you could paste "Update subscription URLs", and uses crypto to verify licenses (optionally), and implemented binary diffs and what not, and provided a standard operating system component for navigating, purchasing, and installing/updating software? They were SO CLOSE with add/remove Programs, and it never went all the way. IIRC there is the Install-Package Powershell commandlet that might almost be that? But, I think it's still locked to Microsoft's store.
  - zepto 6y ago
    > Imagine if windows (or MacOS) had a control panel where you could paste "Update subscription URLs", and uses crypto to verify licenses (optionally), and implemented binary diffs and what not, and provided a standard operating system component for navigating, purchasing, and installing/updating software? I imagine that being completely unusable for a lot of people, and a total disaster of social engineering and malware exploitation.
    - jasonjayr 6y ago
      Don't get hung up on the "copy and paste an url" technique. It could easily be a digitally signed "RepoData.pkgsrc" file that is opened by some aspect of the built-in windows installer mechanism. It could include branding and all sorts of other ways to verify it's identity. The real win is empowering developers to reliably communicate these updates to users, and make it simple to update, w/o inundating the user's system tray with 5 different bespoke updaters that act out in different ways.
      - zepto 6y ago
        This has nothing to do with copy and paste. It’s trivial to suggest a mechanism for consolidating update notifications. That’s a solved problem. On its own, it does nothing to solve the trust problem.
  - grishka 6y ago
    Take it a step further maybe. Why have the user set up updating at all? Suppose they've downloaded an app form the developer's website and installed it. When the app first runs, it calls a special API in the OS to register its "update feed" URL that provides the update info in a predefined format. The rest is then managed by the OS itself. It refetches these URLs as needed, shows notifications, installs updates, and, most importantly, provides the user with a central place somewhere in the settings to control all this. I don't know much about the money/license part UX because I've never paid for software myself. But developers probably won't want to delegate licensing to the OS because this would make it all too easy to crack — it would only take one very simple patch to disable license checks altogether system-wide. edit: Sparkle already uses a standardized feed format (https://sparkle-project.org/documentation/publishing/ https://sparkle-project.org/documentation/publishing/). So basically the only thing that's left is to move the update checking and installation logic to the OS as opposed to every app containing a copy of it.
- eptcyka 6y ago
  Lmao, Linux package managers allow applications to _install_ custom repositories. The update mechanism is a solved issue.

Terretta 6y ago

But then we’re immediately in the anti-consumer user anxiety inducing situation we were in before — where you don’t know where or how to keep these things up to date or secure or remember where that license key is or how to cancel the subscription or etc. I deal with this with several dozen other tools on the Mac each using random store and key schemes. Lately I throw in the towel and switch to inferior tools in the app store if I can’t dig up the secret codes to the legacy hoops their devs want me to jump through. Charge me 30% more, no problem, just stop making me waste my time for things that are now solved problems. This overall simplification and end-to-end trusted curation direction is a minority but well heeled part of the market (happy to spend money on apps if it doesn’t waste their time), and a sort of grand experiment in what users want. If users want a free for all, the majority of the market is still buying those handsets. If not, the option to have a handheld appliance should be available to those who want it. Seems a shame to appeal to regulation to stomp on user choice where customers speak with their wallets that “please don’t make me think”.

jasonjayr 6y ago
The problem is the operating system developers, instead of defining a standard component that could pull update lists from anywhere, just decided, "we shall make one store, and we shall be the gatekeepers" Imagine if windows (or MacOS) had a control panel where you could paste "Update subscription URLs", and uses crypto to verify licenses (optionally), and implemented binary diffs and what not, and provided a standard operating system component for navigating, purchasing, and installing/updating software? They were SO CLOSE with add/remove Programs, and it never went all the way. IIRC there is the Install-Package Powershell commandlet that might almost be that? But, I think it's still locked to Microsoft's store.
- zepto 6y ago
  > Imagine if windows (or MacOS) had a control panel where you could paste "Update subscription URLs", and uses crypto to verify licenses (optionally), and implemented binary diffs and what not, and provided a standard operating system component for navigating, purchasing, and installing/updating software? I imagine that being completely unusable for a lot of people, and a total disaster of social engineering and malware exploitation.
  - jasonjayr 6y ago
    Don't get hung up on the "copy and paste an url" technique. It could easily be a digitally signed "RepoData.pkgsrc" file that is opened by some aspect of the built-in windows installer mechanism. It could include branding and all sorts of other ways to verify it's identity. The real win is empowering developers to reliably communicate these updates to users, and make it simple to update, w/o inundating the user's system tray with 5 different bespoke updaters that act out in different ways.
    - zepto 6y ago
      This has nothing to do with copy and paste. It’s trivial to suggest a mechanism for consolidating update notifications. That’s a solved problem. On its own, it does nothing to solve the trust problem.
- grishka 6y ago
  Take it a step further maybe. Why have the user set up updating at all? Suppose they've downloaded an app form the developer's website and installed it. When the app first runs, it calls a special API in the OS to register its "update feed" URL that provides the update info in a predefined format. The rest is then managed by the OS itself. It refetches these URLs as needed, shows notifications, installs updates, and, most importantly, provides the user with a central place somewhere in the settings to control all this. I don't know much about the money/license part UX because I've never paid for software myself. But developers probably won't want to delegate licensing to the OS because this would make it all too easy to crack — it would only take one very simple patch to disable license checks altogether system-wide. edit: Sparkle already uses a standardized feed format (https://sparkle-project.org/documentation/publishing/ https://sparkle-project.org/documentation/publishing/). So basically the only thing that's left is to move the update checking and installation logic to the OS as opposed to every app containing a copy of it.
eptcyka 6y ago
Lmao, Linux package managers allow applications to _install_ custom repositories. The update mechanism is a solved issue.