2 ms·

I poured a year of my life into an app written in Swift for iOS before I ran into a brick wall trying to figure out how to use Apple's stuff to encode frames in

I poured a year of my life into an app written in Swift for iOS before I ran into a brick wall trying to figure out how to use Apple's stuff to encode frames into an mp4 video. It's a pretty slick thing that uses low-level APIs like Metal, Core Audio, CFRunLoop, etc. https://github.com/realtaraharris/arezzo https://github.com/realtaraharris/arezzo I accidentally spilled a latte into my M1 MacBook Pro, which cost me $2000 to buy. At that point I decided to just forget about Apple and their entire ecosystem because it is designed to abuse everyone. $99/year, no source code for any of the stuff I'm struggling with, no access to any of the people that can answer questions about the black boxes? No thanks. What am I doing now? I am rocking a ThinkPad T440p from 2012, which only cost me $285. I spend all my time writing apps in C++ for Haiku OS and I have never been happier. Instead of pouring more of your life and energy into a corporation that has labored tirelessly to destroy your freedom, please consider contributing to the commons instead.

sneak 4y ago
There is an argument that making and publishing free macOS apps is a lot more "contributing to the commons" than writing C++ for Haiku that will be used by 100 people maximum.
- taraharris 4y ago
  I put up all my code. I wonder why I'm getting downvoted? And how is Apple ever going to change if no one makes a credible competing open solution? I believe Haiku is going to get a lot more popular with creators. Unlike Linux, no corporations control it, and it's also more Mac-like than the thing the Mac has become. One of the biggest improvements coming to Haiku is hardware-accelerated Vulkan graphics. I am so excited for this! https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/vulkan-lavapipe-software-rendering-is-working-on-haiku/11363 https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/vulkan-lavapipe-software-rend...
kagakuninja 4y ago
You could have been building apps on a cheap Mac Mini; even cheaper if bought used. You (like me) choose to buy an expensive MacBook Pro. Back when I developed iOS apps, I experienced a lot of pain (especially when everything was covered by an NDA). But I find it pretty bizarre to abandon an ecosystem because you spilled coffee on your expensive device.
- taraharris 4y ago
  The coffee damage was the last straw. I was fighting the language (Swift), the lack of documentation (WWDC videos are not a substitute for documentation), and the general lack of any attention paid toward the needs of small app developers. I spent a lot of time building my own stuff to render pen strokes because Apple refused to supply an API that gives access to the underlying stroke data. SwiftUI was similarly crippled: developers have no access to internals, which made it impossible to write tests that would inspect the view hierarchy. I understand that Apple wants to retain flexibility with their APIs, but they took away far too much. I have no interest in an expensive platform that treats me like a child by locking me out of everything I actually need from it.

sneak 4y ago

There is an argument that making and publishing free macOS apps is a lot more "contributing to the commons" than writing C++ for Haiku that will be used by 100 people maximum.

taraharris 4y ago
I put up all my code. I wonder why I'm getting downvoted? And how is Apple ever going to change if no one makes a credible competing open solution? I believe Haiku is going to get a lot more popular with creators. Unlike Linux, no corporations control it, and it's also more Mac-like than the thing the Mac has become. One of the biggest improvements coming to Haiku is hardware-accelerated Vulkan graphics. I am so excited for this! https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/vulkan-lavapipe-software-rendering-is-working-on-haiku/11363 https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/vulkan-lavapipe-software-rend...

kagakuninja 4y ago

You could have been building apps on a cheap Mac Mini; even cheaper if bought used. You (like me) choose to buy an expensive MacBook Pro. Back when I developed iOS apps, I experienced a lot of pain (especially when everything was covered by an NDA). But I find it pretty bizarre to abandon an ecosystem because you spilled coffee on your expensive device.

taraharris 4y ago
The coffee damage was the last straw. I was fighting the language (Swift), the lack of documentation (WWDC videos are not a substitute for documentation), and the general lack of any attention paid toward the needs of small app developers. I spent a lot of time building my own stuff to render pen strokes because Apple refused to supply an API that gives access to the underlying stroke data. SwiftUI was similarly crippled: developers have no access to internals, which made it impossible to write tests that would inspect the view hierarchy. I understand that Apple wants to retain flexibility with their APIs, but they took away far too much. I have no interest in an expensive platform that treats me like a child by locking me out of everything I actually need from it.