5 ms·

Interestingly there's a Web Assembly port of DeSmuME (https://github.com/44670/desmume-wasm https://github.com/44670/desmume-wasm), so it works (to a certain ex

Interestingly there's a Web Assembly port of DeSmuME (https://github.com/44670/desmume-wasm https://github.com/44670/desmume-wasm), so it works (to a certain extent) entirely in a web browser. You can ban from the stores, but as long as browsers are allowed, it'll never be banned completely. The greatest scam of Google and Apple is convincing millions of developers to learn Swift and Kotlin to make apps on their stores that can be swiftly (pun intended) removed from their stores. Though the average developer is unlikely to ever be banned, why even risk it? Think about the performance hit of apps that don't need to be native apps being ported to Web Apps. Let's be extreme and say it's equivalent to a Native App for a device 10 years older. Alright, so a modern Web App is equivalent in performance to a 2012 Native App running on a flagship. That's iPhone 5 and Galaxy Note 2. Make this conversion once and optimize your app and you'll never need to worry about your app being pulled ever again. Not to mention you can write your app once and it'll work on all platforms. At least in the case of this particular app it can be sideloaded, so it'll be fine in the end, probably.

bogwog 5y ago
The solution isn’t for everyone to make web apps, it’s to regulate the app markets. Web apps are still at the mercy of Apple and Google. Plus, they’re always lagging in features. Wordle for example wouldn’t have been able to implement the sharing feature before ~2019 because the web share API wasn’t supported by major browsers (even though it’s a thing native apps could do since forever)
- endisneigh 5y ago
  > The solution isn’t for everyone to make web apps, it’s to regulate the app markets. I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps arbitrarily? > Web apps are still at the mercy of Apple and Google. Not really. Apple and Google don't control the entire internet. Though they do have some level of control of the APIs available, ultimately they themselves use the same APIs as well, so... In any case I disagree with you - web apps are the solution because every app that becomes a Web App instead of native app results in a loosening in the grip that is the Apple/Google duopoly. Once at a critical mass, sites will pop up to curate all of these new found web apps, APIs will be developed to facilitate payments for these apps, and so forth. Ironically Google initially was not able to compete with Apple with respect to app store curation and promoted PWAs aggressively, but no one really bit. If people just went with that to begin with we wouldn't be in this situation now. So instead of going with PWAs, Google just ended up copying Apple and now both of them just rent seek instead of one. Prior to PWAs, there were "responsive pages" and Steve Jobs in 2007 actually thought that it would make more sense of all iPhone apps were just responsive apps instead of native apps, and locked down the API to strictly first party apps. Hackers jail broke the iPhone to unlock all of the functionality, forcing Apple to launch the App Store, resulting in the situation now before us. We're being given a second chance here with WebAssembly. Let's not screw it up this time around, ya?
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    > I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps arbitrarily? Regulate the markets by letting other stores compete, not by regulating the current monopolistic stores. Force OS developers to make it easy and practical to use alternative app stores, and able to compete fairly with the first-party ones. On iOS, you can't do so at all without jailbreaking, and on Android, there's tons of scary warnings, and there's some stuff like automatic background updates that are impossible for anything but the Play Store unless you root.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      Why would regulation result in more permissiveness? From my reading most implemented regulation has resulted in more restrictiveness, and things like DRM. If that happened I'd love it though, as the precedent would presumably allow for all stores, like game consoles, appliances, etc. to open up their operating systems to allow any arbitrary software to be installed. Even if there were more app stores I bet it would result in all apps having to be signed by Google, in the same way anyone can purchase their own domain but are still limited in that DNS is centralized.
      - rodgerd 5y ago
        > Why would regulation result in more permissiveness? Why assume that people who have bought into devices with closed ecosystems want more permissiveness? Who does this benefit? Most of this seems like question begging for ad-tech and similarly scummy business models.
      - josephcsible 5y ago
        > Even if there were more app stores I bet it would result in all apps having to be signed by Google That's the kind of thing I'd want the regulation to ban.
        endisneigh 5y ago
- lucaaa 5y ago
  Wordle could have used copy to clipboard or link to share eg. Twitter https://twitter.com/home?status=blabla https://twitter.com/home?status=blabla
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Wordle does use copy-to-clipboard.
    - bogwog 5y ago
      No it doesn’t. The share button opens a native share dialog, which is only possible with the web share API.
      - frosted-flakes 5y ago
        For me, tapping Share pops up a toast message saying "Copied results to clipboard", and then I go to my family group messaging thread and paste the results. I know that it's possible to invoke the native share dialogue because Reddit does it, but for me, Wordle does not. Firefox on Android.
        mdoms 5y ago
        Sounds like Firefox hasn't implemented the API. No surprise, Firefox is always miles behind on stuff users actually want. It works with the native share box on Edge Android.
        frosted-flakes 5y ago
        You misunderstand. Firefox has implemented the API, because it works on Reddit and other websites.
        kingcharles 5y ago
        Same for me, Chrome on Windows 11.
- dmix 5y ago
  You really think those regulations won’t be heavily lobbied by Nintendo and DRM loving lawyers, and somehow end up even worse for consumers or more importantly small developers? Maybe I’m cynical but I highly doubt it’s going to be “make your app stores completely replaceable without DRM/billing/taxation/etc schemes and allow unrestricted sideloading”.
  - bogwog 5y ago
    It can’t possibly get worse for consumers
    - dmix 5y ago
      I can think of plenty of ways where mega-companies and governments could make power-grabs and increase control/administration over app stores ("get your app approved by EU/US/Japanese agency to get a geo license to distribute your app"). As opposed to simply forcing tech companies to take a more hands-off approach. I can think of 100x examples of the former in other industries and almost no modern examples of the latter happening (besides maybe right-to-repair, which hasn't meaningfully happened anywhere yet).
    - fourthark 5y ago
      It can always get worse
rp3 5y ago
kevinslashslash 5y ago
> The greatest scam of Google and Apple is convincing millions of developers to learn Swift and Kotlin to make apps on their stores that can be swiftly (pun intended) removed from their stores I certainly won't defend Apple and Google's app store monopolies and control. However, Kotlin was actually a case of Google listening to the developer community. Google could have, and wanted to, push Dart (see Flutter) on Android. But the Android development community was already adopting JetBrain's Kotlin. Google listened and embraced Kotlin instead of pushing their own thing. It was not a hostile act.
- CSMastermind 5y ago
  Is Dart dead yet? I narrowly won an argument with an evangelical principal engineer who wanted our whole company to switch to Dart around 7 years ago.
  - ranguna 5y ago
    Not if you like flutter.
- Larrikin 5y ago
  Dare I say Google embracing and pushing Kotlin on the Android ecosystem was the last good thing I can remember Google doing. The language is such a joy to to work in without the pitfalls that come with Scala
  - tadfisher 5y ago
    I don't know, Compose is fantastic as well. The way the runtime, foundation, and UI libraries are layered make it a breeze to extend, and the layout system is the only sane one I've used. Overall Compose is a paradigm shift that is too-often compared to React, Flutter or SwiftUI by those who haven't written code using it.
    - Larrikin 5y ago
      Our dev team is looking to switch as soon as we have time to learn it. I assumed it was going to be like React from the one tutorial I've done of it so far, which already excited us. Is this the best resource for learning it well enough to come out with your opinion that its even better? https://developer.android.com/courses/pathways/compose https://developer.android.com/courses/pathways/compose I'm also a little worried about missing components currently available in XML, although I know you can mix and match, but not sure how that actually is in practice.
pinephoneguy 5y ago
I remember the DS being my most capable portable computer. Seeing an emulator for it in the browser feels weird. (also, more on topic for your comment): Going the browser route now (counter intuitively) gives you more flexibility with language/tooling. I think as far as cooperate/closed source apps go the browser is absolutely the way to go. It's a very battle hardened sandbox and the W3c does a pretty good job accumulating portable standards for things. It even has push notifications and file I/O now (although Apple has been stingy with that.)

bogwog 5y ago

The solution isn’t for everyone to make web apps, it’s to regulate the app markets. Web apps are still at the mercy of Apple and Google. Plus, they’re always lagging in features. Wordle for example wouldn’t have been able to implement the sharing feature before ~2019 because the web share API wasn’t supported by major browsers (even though it’s a thing native apps could do since forever)

endisneigh 5y ago
> The solution isn’t for everyone to make web apps, it’s to regulate the app markets. I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps arbitrarily? > Web apps are still at the mercy of Apple and Google. Not really. Apple and Google don't control the entire internet. Though they do have some level of control of the APIs available, ultimately they themselves use the same APIs as well, so... In any case I disagree with you - web apps are the solution because every app that becomes a Web App instead of native app results in a loosening in the grip that is the Apple/Google duopoly. Once at a critical mass, sites will pop up to curate all of these new found web apps, APIs will be developed to facilitate payments for these apps, and so forth. Ironically Google initially was not able to compete with Apple with respect to app store curation and promoted PWAs aggressively, but no one really bit. If people just went with that to begin with we wouldn't be in this situation now. So instead of going with PWAs, Google just ended up copying Apple and now both of them just rent seek instead of one. Prior to PWAs, there were "responsive pages" and Steve Jobs in 2007 actually thought that it would make more sense of all iPhone apps were just responsive apps instead of native apps, and locked down the API to strictly first party apps. Hackers jail broke the iPhone to unlock all of the functionality, forcing Apple to launch the App Store, resulting in the situation now before us. We're being given a second chance here with WebAssembly. Let's not screw it up this time around, ya?
- josephcsible 5y ago
  > I'm not really seeing how regulation would really fix the scenario in the OP. What regulations that are likely to pass would prevent Apple and Google from removing apps arbitrarily? Regulate the markets by letting other stores compete, not by regulating the current monopolistic stores. Force OS developers to make it easy and practical to use alternative app stores, and able to compete fairly with the first-party ones. On iOS, you can't do so at all without jailbreaking, and on Android, there's tons of scary warnings, and there's some stuff like automatic background updates that are impossible for anything but the Play Store unless you root.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    Why would regulation result in more permissiveness? From my reading most implemented regulation has resulted in more restrictiveness, and things like DRM. If that happened I'd love it though, as the precedent would presumably allow for all stores, like game consoles, appliances, etc. to open up their operating systems to allow any arbitrary software to be installed. Even if there were more app stores I bet it would result in all apps having to be signed by Google, in the same way anyone can purchase their own domain but are still limited in that DNS is centralized.
    - rodgerd 5y ago
      > Why would regulation result in more permissiveness? Why assume that people who have bought into devices with closed ecosystems want more permissiveness? Who does this benefit? Most of this seems like question begging for ad-tech and similarly scummy business models.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      > Even if there were more app stores I bet it would result in all apps having to be signed by Google That's the kind of thing I'd want the regulation to ban.
      - endisneigh 5y ago
lucaaa 5y ago
Wordle could have used copy to clipboard or link to share eg. Twitter https://twitter.com/home?status=blabla https://twitter.com/home?status=blabla
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Wordle does use copy-to-clipboard.
  - bogwog 5y ago
    No it doesn’t. The share button opens a native share dialog, which is only possible with the web share API.
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago
      For me, tapping Share pops up a toast message saying "Copied results to clipboard", and then I go to my family group messaging thread and paste the results. I know that it's possible to invoke the native share dialogue because Reddit does it, but for me, Wordle does not. Firefox on Android.
      - mdoms 5y ago
        Sounds like Firefox hasn't implemented the API. No surprise, Firefox is always miles behind on stuff users actually want. It works with the native share box on Edge Android.
        frosted-flakes 5y ago
        You misunderstand. Firefox has implemented the API, because it works on Reddit and other websites.
      - kingcharles 5y ago
        Same for me, Chrome on Windows 11.
dmix 5y ago
You really think those regulations won’t be heavily lobbied by Nintendo and DRM loving lawyers, and somehow end up even worse for consumers or more importantly small developers? Maybe I’m cynical but I highly doubt it’s going to be “make your app stores completely replaceable without DRM/billing/taxation/etc schemes and allow unrestricted sideloading”.
- bogwog 5y ago
  It can’t possibly get worse for consumers
  - dmix 5y ago
    I can think of plenty of ways where mega-companies and governments could make power-grabs and increase control/administration over app stores ("get your app approved by EU/US/Japanese agency to get a geo license to distribute your app"). As opposed to simply forcing tech companies to take a more hands-off approach. I can think of 100x examples of the former in other industries and almost no modern examples of the latter happening (besides maybe right-to-repair, which hasn't meaningfully happened anywhere yet).
  - fourthark 5y ago
    It can always get worse

rp3 5y ago

kevinslashslash 5y ago

> The greatest scam of Google and Apple is convincing millions of developers to learn Swift and Kotlin to make apps on their stores that can be swiftly (pun intended) removed from their stores I certainly won't defend Apple and Google's app store monopolies and control. However, Kotlin was actually a case of Google listening to the developer community. Google could have, and wanted to, push Dart (see Flutter) on Android. But the Android development community was already adopting JetBrain's Kotlin. Google listened and embraced Kotlin instead of pushing their own thing. It was not a hostile act.

CSMastermind 5y ago
Is Dart dead yet? I narrowly won an argument with an evangelical principal engineer who wanted our whole company to switch to Dart around 7 years ago.
- ranguna 5y ago
  Not if you like flutter.
Larrikin 5y ago
Dare I say Google embracing and pushing Kotlin on the Android ecosystem was the last good thing I can remember Google doing. The language is such a joy to to work in without the pitfalls that come with Scala
- tadfisher 5y ago
  I don't know, Compose is fantastic as well. The way the runtime, foundation, and UI libraries are layered make it a breeze to extend, and the layout system is the only sane one I've used. Overall Compose is a paradigm shift that is too-often compared to React, Flutter or SwiftUI by those who haven't written code using it.
  - Larrikin 5y ago
    Our dev team is looking to switch as soon as we have time to learn it. I assumed it was going to be like React from the one tutorial I've done of it so far, which already excited us. Is this the best resource for learning it well enough to come out with your opinion that its even better? https://developer.android.com/courses/pathways/compose https://developer.android.com/courses/pathways/compose I'm also a little worried about missing components currently available in XML, although I know you can mix and match, but not sure how that actually is in practice.

pinephoneguy 5y ago

I remember the DS being my most capable portable computer. Seeing an emulator for it in the browser feels weird. (also, more on topic for your comment): Going the browser route now (counter intuitively) gives you more flexibility with language/tooling. I think as far as cooperate/closed source apps go the browser is absolutely the way to go. It's a very battle hardened sandbox and the W3c does a pretty good job accumulating portable standards for things. It even has push notifications and file I/O now (although Apple has been stingy with that.)