7 ms·

> Real shame Apple more or less got away with it with its ransom bekng to stay inside the walled garden. Given with how much Apple got away for years, I am not

> Real shame Apple more or less got away with it with its ransom bekng to stay inside the walled garden. Given with how much Apple got away for years, I am not surprised. Either many people don’t have particularly much insight or a severe case of Stockholm syndrome. What bothers me the most is apples double dipping. You as the consumer basically pay a fee for apples technology. And then they expect the developers to pay the same fee, which will ultimately be paid by the consumer as well. Also ignoring the fact that Apples platform would be completely worthless if it weren’t for the developers building the apps the users want

troupo 2y ago
That's what infuriates me about this discourse. "Do you want Apple to continue to develop stuff and just provide it to developers for free?". iPhone sales alone are 3x Apple's entire R&D spend. And developers pay more than fair share of that because they need at least two devices (an iPhone and a Mac) if they want to develop anything, and a yearly fee. Apple doesn't just double dip. It triple dips, and wants to quadruple and quantuple dip.
- cafed00d 2y ago
  Why can’t a business be built solely without giving Apple a dime? The web is free — as in freedom and as in gratis. It has a developer tools system funded by hundreds of companies, developers and community members. There’s hardly any order of dipping, if any. Why doesn’t the web compete away Apple’s “dips”?
  - troupo 2y ago
    > Why doesn’t the web compete away Apple’s “dips”? Because the web sucks at building apps? Because the web can barely render a few lines of text and several images without lag and jank? Because the web lacks useful and powerful primitives and controls to build anything but the most primitive UIs? Because...
  - immibis 2y ago
    Because Apple limits the viability of non-native apps on its mobile devices? Same reason it refused to allow Flash. It wants you to stay in the walled garden with the expensive fees.
    - troupo 2y ago
      Android has been the dominant mobile OS for over a decade. Additionally, desktop browsers have been a thing since forever. Where is the multitude of amazing native-like web apps that we keep hearing about?
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        > Android has been the dominant mobile OS for over a decade. worldwide, and not by a large margin. I believe it's 60/40 last I checked. Among US and a few other first world countries, it's nearly 50/50, with a very small advantadge to Apple. Slashing your consumer base in the biggest markets isn't an attractive proposition. >Where is the multitude of amazing native-like web apps that we keep hearing about? well Apple made PWA's harder to do in the EU, so ask them... They're doing what they did to Flash long ago, with much less justification this time around.
        troupo 2y ago
        > well Apple made PWA's harde So. Let me get this straight. Android is dominant in the world. In first world countries it's 50/50 (though it's 69% in the EU). There are also desktops where Chrome is dominant. And yet, somehow, there are still no amazing PWAs[1] that are the future as everyone claims, because somehow Apple prevents you from building them for those dominant platforms. [1] Don't mention Figma or VSCode before you also mention how much effort went into implementing them.
        0xRake 2y ago
        trolll
        talldayo 2y ago
  - rambambram 2y ago
    The web is more than good enough. There's just a lot of people drinking the kool-aid and believing big tech's subtle and not so subtle messages about the web being shite. Of course the web is shite on devices from companies that compete with the web. They actively undermine it.
    - troupo 2y ago
      In my experience, the only people drinking kool-aid are those claiming that the web is good enough, and failing to deliver web apps that can do anything beyond the absolutely primitive stuff. With very few notable exceptions which are notable precisely because they are so few.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > web is more than good enough For content delivery, yes. For deeply-interactive apps, not in my experience: every vendor that went web-only that wasn’t just serving up text, in the end, forced me to a competitor.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      the web isn't shit per se. But it's horrible in the one way it matters to business; it is very hard to monetize web content compared to apps. That's a small part of why flash games quickly gave way to mobile. But it's hard to deny there are quite a few technical shortcomings. Shortcomings only just now starting to dimish as WebASM/WebGPU gain traction.
    - throwitaway1123 2y ago
      The web is absolutely more than good enough for the vast majority of apps. I was playing Quake Live in the browser on a thermally throttled dual core laptop 15 years ago, but the hive mind here at HN will have you believe that the generic social media apps that dominate the charts all need to be "close to the metal": https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36 https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36
      - troupo 2y ago
  - cafed00d 2y ago
    Reading the comments is convincing enough to believe there is no viable business to be built on the mobile web. It's great technology, sure; but not a great business. Mobile web apps won't pay the bills for people who build them. It seems worth everyone's time to have those mobile web devs instead build native apps. Ergo, Apple's "dips" are justified costs of doing business.
    - dzonga 2y ago
      on the web - people forget there's google tax. i.e ads or search engine placement. countless of public companies have it in their reports that mobile app users generate more revenue compared to web whether desktop or mobile. and i'm not talking about game companies.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  Agreed. There is no free! I bought your freakin phone, that's your payment!

troupo 2y ago

That's what infuriates me about this discourse. "Do you want Apple to continue to develop stuff and just provide it to developers for free?". iPhone sales alone are 3x Apple's entire R&D spend. And developers pay more than fair share of that because they need at least two devices (an iPhone and a Mac) if they want to develop anything, and a yearly fee. Apple doesn't just double dip. It triple dips, and wants to quadruple and quantuple dip.

cafed00d 2y ago
Why can’t a business be built solely without giving Apple a dime? The web is free — as in freedom and as in gratis. It has a developer tools system funded by hundreds of companies, developers and community members. There’s hardly any order of dipping, if any. Why doesn’t the web compete away Apple’s “dips”?
- troupo 2y ago
  > Why doesn’t the web compete away Apple’s “dips”? Because the web sucks at building apps? Because the web can barely render a few lines of text and several images without lag and jank? Because the web lacks useful and powerful primitives and controls to build anything but the most primitive UIs? Because...
- immibis 2y ago
  Because Apple limits the viability of non-native apps on its mobile devices? Same reason it refused to allow Flash. It wants you to stay in the walled garden with the expensive fees.
  - troupo 2y ago
    Android has been the dominant mobile OS for over a decade. Additionally, desktop browsers have been a thing since forever. Where is the multitude of amazing native-like web apps that we keep hearing about?
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      > Android has been the dominant mobile OS for over a decade. worldwide, and not by a large margin. I believe it's 60/40 last I checked. Among US and a few other first world countries, it's nearly 50/50, with a very small advantadge to Apple. Slashing your consumer base in the biggest markets isn't an attractive proposition. >Where is the multitude of amazing native-like web apps that we keep hearing about? well Apple made PWA's harder to do in the EU, so ask them... They're doing what they did to Flash long ago, with much less justification this time around.
      - troupo 2y ago
        > well Apple made PWA's harde So. Let me get this straight. Android is dominant in the world. In first world countries it's 50/50 (though it's 69% in the EU). There are also desktops where Chrome is dominant. And yet, somehow, there are still no amazing PWAs[1] that are the future as everyone claims, because somehow Apple prevents you from building them for those dominant platforms. [1] Don't mention Figma or VSCode before you also mention how much effort went into implementing them.
        0xRake 2y ago
        trolll
        talldayo 2y ago
- rambambram 2y ago
  The web is more than good enough. There's just a lot of people drinking the kool-aid and believing big tech's subtle and not so subtle messages about the web being shite. Of course the web is shite on devices from companies that compete with the web. They actively undermine it.
  - troupo 2y ago
    In my experience, the only people drinking kool-aid are those claiming that the web is good enough, and failing to deliver web apps that can do anything beyond the absolutely primitive stuff. With very few notable exceptions which are notable precisely because they are so few.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > web is more than good enough For content delivery, yes. For deeply-interactive apps, not in my experience: every vendor that went web-only that wasn’t just serving up text, in the end, forced me to a competitor.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    the web isn't shit per se. But it's horrible in the one way it matters to business; it is very hard to monetize web content compared to apps. That's a small part of why flash games quickly gave way to mobile. But it's hard to deny there are quite a few technical shortcomings. Shortcomings only just now starting to dimish as WebASM/WebGPU gain traction.
  - throwitaway1123 2y ago
    The web is absolutely more than good enough for the vast majority of apps. I was playing Quake Live in the browser on a thermally throttled dual core laptop 15 years ago, but the hive mind here at HN will have you believe that the generic social media apps that dominate the charts all need to be "close to the metal": https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36 https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36
    - troupo 2y ago
- cafed00d 2y ago
  Reading the comments is convincing enough to believe there is no viable business to be built on the mobile web. It's great technology, sure; but not a great business. Mobile web apps won't pay the bills for people who build them. It seems worth everyone's time to have those mobile web devs instead build native apps. Ergo, Apple's "dips" are justified costs of doing business.
  - dzonga 2y ago
    on the web - people forget there's google tax. i.e ads or search engine placement. countless of public companies have it in their reports that mobile app users generate more revenue compared to web whether desktop or mobile. and i'm not talking about game companies.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Agreed. There is no free! I bought your freakin phone, that's your payment!