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You can't publish your own competing app. The desired behaviour requires running a background service (not allowed) that watches arbitrary folders (not allowed)

You can't publish your own competing app. The desired behaviour requires running a background service (not allowed) that watches arbitrary folders (not allowed).

willis936 5y ago
I guess I'll just have to pay $49.99 a year for iCloud! Why isn't this a lawsuit yet?
- chmsky00 5y ago
  Be the change you want to see in the world.
- marcellus23 5y ago
  Because you can buy an android device?
- spicybright 5y ago
  Lawsuit for what? Not providing an API for a feature you want? It's not like Apple specifically advertised background services, then lied about it. The device is specifically built like that, and you can buy a different phone if it's that big of an issue. It feels like complaining your toaster doesn't have a dark enough toast setting that you want. Is there a lawsuit in that?
  - willis936 5y ago
    For engaging in anti-competitive behavior. Forcing a single App Store on an os is much less draconian than offering a broken interface to basic OS functionality in order to prop your own product above others. Imagine if Windows downclocked whenever you wanted to use an office alternative. This is not much different.
  - vagrantJin 5y ago
    > you can buy a different phone if it's that big of an issue. - I can't change my car's satnav. You can buy another car if it's that big a deal. I think we can agree, the above statement reads silly. Sometimes, no matter the deal size - buying a new thing isn't always a reasonable option.
    - marcellus23 5y ago
      There are cars where you can change the built-in sat nav?
      - Normal_gaussian 5y ago
        Nearly all of them. Changing the media center is a well sypported third party customisation for most vehicles.
        spicybright 5y ago
        Yup, almost every single car has this ability, sat nav or not.
    - spicybright 5y ago
      Full agreement the above sounds silly. So really it comes down to line between the responsibility of the consumer, and the duty of the product creator to say what the product can or can not do. If you really care about replacing parts in your car like the satnav, should you need to do research before buying instead of assuming it works that way? Or should we have rules that all sat navs need to be replaceable so consumers don't need to do that? I honestly can't draw the line myself, I just try my best to identify what I want in a product before purchasing. Especially huge purchases like a car.
- squinta 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_neutrality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_neutrality
marcellus23 5y ago
I think you lost the plot - you can publish a competing app that uses the Files app for sync, just like NextCloud does.
- Normal_gaussian 5y ago
  That is a somewhat combative thing to say. We see a NextCloud dev explaining that background uploads don't work herehttps://github.com/nextcloud/ios/issues/215 https://github.com/nextcloud/ios/issues/215 And we can see syncthing devs lamenting the many issues with an iOS client here https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102 It may be the case that file eventing now works, but a quick check with an iOS dev friend suggests that the filesystem sandboxing is too restrictive to be meaningful anyway. Further on this issue, consider that a functioning syncthing client is a node in a p2p network, so must be able to advertise and listen to requests in the background as well as the background jobs that NextCloud requires (as NextCloud is centralised it doesn't need node level co-ordination) - so a partially working NextCloud client is good enough, but a partially working Syncthing client is woefully broken.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
Third party iOS apps do in fact have access to background tasks. There’s even a variant dedicated to longer-running tasks, like lengthy file syncs. The difference is that instead of having an ever-running daemon, the developer schedules tasks with the system, and system decides when to run them based on network availability, battery charge, etc as well as the app’s behavior (badly written/inefficient background tasks and frequent high intensity task requests are penalized).

You can't publish your own competing app. The desired behaviour requires running a background service (not allowed) that watches arbitrary folders (not allowed).

willis936 5y ago

I guess I'll just have to pay $49.99 a year for iCloud! Why isn't this a lawsuit yet?

chmsky00 5y ago
Be the change you want to see in the world.
marcellus23 5y ago
Because you can buy an android device?
spicybright 5y ago
Lawsuit for what? Not providing an API for a feature you want? It's not like Apple specifically advertised background services, then lied about it. The device is specifically built like that, and you can buy a different phone if it's that big of an issue. It feels like complaining your toaster doesn't have a dark enough toast setting that you want. Is there a lawsuit in that?
- willis936 5y ago
  For engaging in anti-competitive behavior. Forcing a single App Store on an os is much less draconian than offering a broken interface to basic OS functionality in order to prop your own product above others. Imagine if Windows downclocked whenever you wanted to use an office alternative. This is not much different.
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  > you can buy a different phone if it's that big of an issue. - I can't change my car's satnav. You can buy another car if it's that big a deal. I think we can agree, the above statement reads silly. Sometimes, no matter the deal size - buying a new thing isn't always a reasonable option.
  - marcellus23 5y ago
    There are cars where you can change the built-in sat nav?
    - Normal_gaussian 5y ago
      Nearly all of them. Changing the media center is a well sypported third party customisation for most vehicles.
      - spicybright 5y ago
        Yup, almost every single car has this ability, sat nav or not.
  - spicybright 5y ago
    Full agreement the above sounds silly. So really it comes down to line between the responsibility of the consumer, and the duty of the product creator to say what the product can or can not do. If you really care about replacing parts in your car like the satnav, should you need to do research before buying instead of assuming it works that way? Or should we have rules that all sat navs need to be replaceable so consumers don't need to do that? I honestly can't draw the line myself, I just try my best to identify what I want in a product before purchasing. Especially huge purchases like a car.
squinta 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_neutrality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_neutrality

marcellus23 5y ago

I think you lost the plot - you can publish a competing app that uses the Files app for sync, just like NextCloud does.

Normal_gaussian 5y ago
That is a somewhat combative thing to say. We see a NextCloud dev explaining that background uploads don't work herehttps://github.com/nextcloud/ios/issues/215 https://github.com/nextcloud/ios/issues/215 And we can see syncthing devs lamenting the many issues with an iOS client here https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102 It may be the case that file eventing now works, but a quick check with an iOS dev friend suggests that the filesystem sandboxing is too restrictive to be meaningful anyway. Further on this issue, consider that a functioning syncthing client is a node in a p2p network, so must be able to advertise and listen to requests in the background as well as the background jobs that NextCloud requires (as NextCloud is centralised it doesn't need node level co-ordination) - so a partially working NextCloud client is good enough, but a partially working Syncthing client is woefully broken.

kitsunesoba 5y ago

Third party iOS apps do in fact have access to background tasks. There’s even a variant dedicated to longer-running tasks, like lengthy file syncs. The difference is that instead of having an ever-running daemon, the developer schedules tasks with the system, and system decides when to run them based on network availability, battery charge, etc as well as the app’s behavior (badly written/inefficient background tasks and frequent high intensity task requests are penalized).