4 ms·

They respect it on Mac and don't let you have a non WebKit browser on iOS

by jemmyw 3y ago

dijit 3y ago
The hard and fast rule is: you're not permitted to have a source code interpreter. That's the "rules of engagement", same way you can't run Flash or Linux binaries; the same way you can't touch windows kernel space without a code-signing certificate from a eye-gouging authority. Exceptions to apples rule are rarely given, even for educational purposes; such as pythonista. When taken though that lens; if we hadn't turned everything into a fucking web-app: alternative interpreters of HTML/CSS could exist. Unrelated, but: Ironically the original vision for the iPhone was web-apps not native ones (as there was only an app store created after community backlash over Apple pushing people to the web).
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > if we hadn't turned everything into a fucking web-app It's rich to hear this used as a defense of any corporation. Everything is a web app now because nobody got their act together to ship a true "write once, ship anywhere" platform. Microsoft smugly profited off this in the short term with Windows, and Apple used it as an excuse to double-down on their proprietary SDKs. It's obvious why everything is a webapp; what's the realistic alternative? Developing native apps for every platform on one device isn't even feasible nowadays. Then you'd need the developer subscriptions, a cross-platform app architecture and the willingness to write n number of UI mockups, where n is the number of target platforms you intend to hit. It's a veritable waste of time to do anything else.
  - dijit 3y ago
    Situation is not better on the desktop, it's just ironically not as annoying because of the insane dominance of Windows.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      It's not better anywhere. That's the problem, everything is a game of compromise and when you try to fix things for yourself a big company gives you the stink-eye. The web is the last place left where developers feel they have freedom, which should make us all feel very sad considering they run a whole-ass computer that they effectively ignore because of arbitrary restrictions.
      - dijit 3y ago
        > The web is the last place left where developers feel they have freedom Come on, we have excellent open computing platforms; it's just not where the money is right now. Nobody can see passed their nose for profits though so we end up with lowest common denominator everything: which forces you to run a whole code interpreter on everything. Apple said "no, you can't" and that's where the money is, so you had (and continue to have) a choice and your business chooses to use it. So, you have to play by those rules. I mean, I'm not taking a stand here; despite people believing that I'm defending apple. You don't get the sit around though and reap the benefits of the system they built (and developers helped build) while simultaneously trying to tear it down. They set the rules, you all agreed to play by them; so why are we complaining? If you actually care you would make programs on one of the many open standards platforms which in turn would turn them into more attractive platforms as the ecosystem improved. But nobody does, everyone just wants the money now.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        Largely, I don't disagree with you. Apple's stance is entirely business-oriented. My original point isn't taking a stand here either; this is just why native apps suck and why people disregard them to make Electron apps. We both seem to agree that business is the core concern. Apple is at least complicit in the status-quo as a vendor of native app SDKs, and it's something they could probably fix with the right initiative. At the business layer, they have no motivation to fix this issue. On an individual level, it's a black hole of annoyance, confusion and hand-wavey abstraction as to why certain things are off-limits or why certain apps aren't on iPhone. Treating your userbase as a hostage situation is an obvious ploy, and one I can't encourage even to fix another problem. If we rely on the altruism of businesses to fix our market problems, then we are subject to their whims when they want to change things for themselves. If we can both agree that Apple can and does make decisions that harm their users, then we're basically on the same page. I want to scrutinize that harm, and hopefully spread enough awareness to codify a change. You're free to feel however you want on the topic, but I would object to this behavior from any company. > They set the rules, you all agreed to play by them The internet did not agree to "Apple's rules". That's like saying Sony made their "rules" with the Playstation 3 browser, and now everyone has to play by that. They released a client, and their customers agreed to their Terms of Service. The internet will do whatever it wants, including whittle itself down to the lowest common denominator of 'document rendering' to hit Apple's platforms. If that's an undesired outcome for them or their users, maybe they should change their approach.
- teddyh 3y ago
  > the original vision for the iPhone was web-apps not native ones As I heard, that was just the cover story to hide the fact that the original iPhone was too slow to properly run Flash (or native apps).
  - dijit 3y ago
    too slow for native apps. Read that again to yourself, slowly.
    - xnickb 3y ago
      A concept of thin clients is of course completely unthinkable in this context.
      - dijit 3y ago
        Thin clients with 2007-era javascript interpreters as the only code execution framework (vs local MACH-O binaries) does seem to be a bit of a weird choice if "slow" was the problem and you intended to have thin clients.
        sznio 3y ago
        There's also a backend. Back in 2007 a web app was mostly backend code that would send you HTML to display, and at worst it would have some AJAX for a chatbox/autoreload.
  - kergonath 3y ago
    Not really. I mean, iPhones were slower than laptops back then but that’s not saying much as all phones were in the same ballpark at best. The actual reasons are well documented: it was a ressource hog (on all platforms, not only phones; there were still netbooks around), sucked batteries dry (including on both Windows and Mac laptops with much better batteries than phones), and was unstable (being the leading cause of crashes on Macs at the time). Jobs even wrote an open letter about it. It was not practical on Android either, mostly a stunt, and faded quietly into obscurity over the course of a couple of years.
- DANmode 3y ago
  > When taken though that lens No thanks, I'll take properly managed freedom within my OS. > if we hadn't turned everything into a fucking web-app Could you elaborate?
  - dijit 3y ago
    >> if we hadn't turned everything into a fucking web-app > Could you elaborate? I run a web browser with JS turned off and the web is mostly unusable for me, even things that should be plain documents like news reports try to choke down a dozen or so megabytes of obfuscated garbage that it insists must run on my CPU doing goodness knows what to render a document in common markdown. So, despite being "free" you just run any old garbage you happen to come across on the internet and hope the "Fantastically optimised awesomely sandboxed" runtime that is definitely not too complicated to have issues (despite being one of the most complicated interpreters in history), definitely has no security bugs and will protect you. I'm not pro apple here. I'm anti the enshittification of everything because some arsehat decided it was necessary for me to run whatever arbitrary shite they managed to vomit onto a web-server. That Apple makes it hard for you? Fine. Enemy of my enemy. Also: fuck Chromes monopoly.
    - xg15 3y ago
      What makes you think Apple wouldn't consider HTML or CSS to be "source code" as well, if they see browser dominance as an advantage?
      - dijit 3y ago
        Apple had a pretty clear definition of interpreted code which boiled down to: "Does your interpreted download allow the user to write infinite loops or recursion?"
        tremon 3y ago
        So, HTML: no but CSS: yes?
    - 3y ago
tengbretson 3y ago
When I highlight text in `Terminal.app`, right-click, and then click "Search with Google" it opens Safari in spite of my preferences.

They respect it on Mac and don't let you have a non WebKit browser on iOS

by jemmyw 3y ago

They respect it on Mac and don't let you have a non WebKit browser on iOS

The hard and fast rule is: you're not permitted to have a source code interpreter. That's the "rules of engagement", same way you can't run Flash or Linux binaries; the same way you can't touch windows kernel space without a code-signing certificate from a eye-gouging authority. Exceptions to apples rule are rarely given, even for educational purposes; such as pythonista. When taken though that lens; if we hadn't turned everything into a fucking web-app: alternative interpreters of HTML/CSS could exist. Unrelated, but: Ironically the original vision for the iPhone was web-apps not native ones (as there was only an app store created after community backlash over Apple pushing people to the web).

smoldesu 3y ago
> if we hadn't turned everything into a fucking web-app It's rich to hear this used as a defense of any corporation. Everything is a web app now because nobody got their act together to ship a true "write once, ship anywhere" platform. Microsoft smugly profited off this in the short term with Windows, and Apple used it as an excuse to double-down on their proprietary SDKs. It's obvious why everything is a webapp; what's the realistic alternative? Developing native apps for every platform on one device isn't even feasible nowadays. Then you'd need the developer subscriptions, a cross-platform app architecture and the willingness to write n number of UI mockups, where n is the number of target platforms you intend to hit. It's a veritable waste of time to do anything else.
- dijit 3y ago
  Situation is not better on the desktop, it's just ironically not as annoying because of the insane dominance of Windows.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    It's not better anywhere. That's the problem, everything is a game of compromise and when you try to fix things for yourself a big company gives you the stink-eye. The web is the last place left where developers feel they have freedom, which should make us all feel very sad considering they run a whole-ass computer that they effectively ignore because of arbitrary restrictions.
    - dijit 3y ago
      > The web is the last place left where developers feel they have freedom Come on, we have excellent open computing platforms; it's just not where the money is right now. Nobody can see passed their nose for profits though so we end up with lowest common denominator everything: which forces you to run a whole code interpreter on everything. Apple said "no, you can't" and that's where the money is, so you had (and continue to have) a choice and your business chooses to use it. So, you have to play by those rules. I mean, I'm not taking a stand here; despite people believing that I'm defending apple. You don't get the sit around though and reap the benefits of the system they built (and developers helped build) while simultaneously trying to tear it down. They set the rules, you all agreed to play by them; so why are we complaining? If you actually care you would make programs on one of the many open standards platforms which in turn would turn them into more attractive platforms as the ecosystem improved. But nobody does, everyone just wants the money now.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        Largely, I don't disagree with you. Apple's stance is entirely business-oriented. My original point isn't taking a stand here either; this is just why native apps suck and why people disregard them to make Electron apps. We both seem to agree that business is the core concern. Apple is at least complicit in the status-quo as a vendor of native app SDKs, and it's something they could probably fix with the right initiative. At the business layer, they have no motivation to fix this issue. On an individual level, it's a black hole of annoyance, confusion and hand-wavey abstraction as to why certain things are off-limits or why certain apps aren't on iPhone. Treating your userbase as a hostage situation is an obvious ploy, and one I can't encourage even to fix another problem. If we rely on the altruism of businesses to fix our market problems, then we are subject to their whims when they want to change things for themselves. If we can both agree that Apple can and does make decisions that harm their users, then we're basically on the same page. I want to scrutinize that harm, and hopefully spread enough awareness to codify a change. You're free to feel however you want on the topic, but I would object to this behavior from any company. > They set the rules, you all agreed to play by them The internet did not agree to "Apple's rules". That's like saying Sony made their "rules" with the Playstation 3 browser, and now everyone has to play by that. They released a client, and their customers agreed to their Terms of Service. The internet will do whatever it wants, including whittle itself down to the lowest common denominator of 'document rendering' to hit Apple's platforms. If that's an undesired outcome for them or their users, maybe they should change their approach.
teddyh 3y ago
> the original vision for the iPhone was web-apps not native ones As I heard, that was just the cover story to hide the fact that the original iPhone was too slow to properly run Flash (or native apps).
- dijit 3y ago
  too slow for native apps. Read that again to yourself, slowly.
  - xnickb 3y ago
    A concept of thin clients is of course completely unthinkable in this context.
    - dijit 3y ago
      Thin clients with 2007-era javascript interpreters as the only code execution framework (vs local MACH-O binaries) does seem to be a bit of a weird choice if "slow" was the problem and you intended to have thin clients.
      - sznio 3y ago
        There's also a backend. Back in 2007 a web app was mostly backend code that would send you HTML to display, and at worst it would have some AJAX for a chatbox/autoreload.
- kergonath 3y ago
  Not really. I mean, iPhones were slower than laptops back then but that’s not saying much as all phones were in the same ballpark at best. The actual reasons are well documented: it was a ressource hog (on all platforms, not only phones; there were still netbooks around), sucked batteries dry (including on both Windows and Mac laptops with much better batteries than phones), and was unstable (being the leading cause of crashes on Macs at the time). Jobs even wrote an open letter about it. It was not practical on Android either, mostly a stunt, and faded quietly into obscurity over the course of a couple of years.
DANmode 3y ago
> When taken though that lens No thanks, I'll take properly managed freedom within my OS. > if we hadn't turned everything into a fucking web-app Could you elaborate?
- dijit 3y ago
  >> if we hadn't turned everything into a fucking web-app > Could you elaborate? I run a web browser with JS turned off and the web is mostly unusable for me, even things that should be plain documents like news reports try to choke down a dozen or so megabytes of obfuscated garbage that it insists must run on my CPU doing goodness knows what to render a document in common markdown. So, despite being "free" you just run any old garbage you happen to come across on the internet and hope the "Fantastically optimised awesomely sandboxed" runtime that is definitely not too complicated to have issues (despite being one of the most complicated interpreters in history), definitely has no security bugs and will protect you. I'm not pro apple here. I'm anti the enshittification of everything because some arsehat decided it was necessary for me to run whatever arbitrary shite they managed to vomit onto a web-server. That Apple makes it hard for you? Fine. Enemy of my enemy. Also: fuck Chromes monopoly.
  - xg15 3y ago
    What makes you think Apple wouldn't consider HTML or CSS to be "source code" as well, if they see browser dominance as an advantage?
    - dijit 3y ago
      Apple had a pretty clear definition of interpreted code which boiled down to: "Does your interpreted download allow the user to write infinite loops or recursion?"
      - tremon 3y ago
        So, HTML: no but CSS: yes?
  - 3y ago

tengbretson 3y ago

When I highlight text in `Terminal.app`, right-click, and then click "Search with Google" it opens Safari in spite of my preferences.