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IMO the last decade has mostly been a stagnation in software quality at Apple, both in design and code quality. Apple used to have to focus on users and qualit

IMO the last decade has mostly been a stagnation in software quality at Apple, both in design and code quality. Apple used to have to focus on users and quality because they were both an underdog and premium priced. Now it feels like they're slowly turning into Disney in the sense that most decisions are how to extract as much money as possible from you. * WebGL is half-assed in safari because of "security" risks, but reeks that they don't want to risk mobile gaming bypassing the app store. * They've let mobile gaming be ruined by abusive micro-transaction games. * Apple ignores user bugs unless they get a lot of press ( my current frustration: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255473542 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255473542 ) * iTunes Genius was SO GOOD at recommending new music, but now that they can just grab a monthly fee music discovery on Apple music is very meh. It doesn't surprise me in the least that that their top-down product driven development cycle can't handle a sudden, new technology (that is arguably overhyped). The tragedy is that the only mobile alternative is an operating system run by an adtech company and windows is...regressing again after some promise. At least there's always linux? :-/

AlexandrB 2y ago
> They've let mobile gaming be ruined by abusive micro-transaction games. As much as I'd love to blame Apple here, I'm not sure what they could have done differently. Once the race to the bottom in terms of up-front pricing started ad-supported and microtransaction-supported games were inevitable. Meanwhile, games with cash shops were already popular in South Korea[1] and "free" games allowed the same model to gain a foothold here. I would love if Apple labelled all gacha games as 18+ because they're gambling simulators, but it's really up to consumers to avoid non-gambling MTX if they don't like this business model. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory
- xbar 2y ago
  So many things Apple permits were not, nor do they remain, inevitable.
achierius 2y ago
> WebGL is half-assed in safari because of "security" risks, ... Not commenting on anything in the latter clause of your sentence, but I can tell you the security risks are very, very real. Having worked on GPU architecture as well as a browser engine -- so, so many features/guardrails/guarantees that we take for granted on desktop PCs are basically in their infancy when you look over at the GPU world. Address-space isolation, virtualization of hardware resources, separation of virtual machines, privilege isolation -- when you go to the GPU, all of that is kinda-there if you're on newer hardware, but even then without anywhere near the level of coverage or battle-testing that modern CPUs & kernels have. For example, Pascal (i.e. that old 1060 your friend is still using in their kid's desktop) doesn't even have per-process memory isolation -- a buffer overflow in your browser engine could attack any GPU process on your machine! Even the vendors themselves won't claim to support "proper" secure multi-tenancy until the Hopper era, and again -- even that's much less well-tested than the CPU-level isolation that browsers normally rely on. Consider how much of a security impact PPO/site-isolation has had: so many attacks that used to be possible (e.g. your password being stolen off of your banking site by a malicious ad in the sidebar) are now essentially impossible. That only works because of the deep strength and reliability of address-space separation in modern hardware platforms. So to take code written by random people on the internet, in a dynamic language, JIT compile it, and then give it access to your GPU -- well, I hope you can understand why that might put the security people on edge. Again, I don't mean to dismiss the rest of your comment, but I want to clarify that when it comes to punching holes in the browser sandbox, the security concerns are really very real.
jredwards 2y ago
Agree, but they're still building great hardware.

AlexandrB 2y ago

> They've let mobile gaming be ruined by abusive micro-transaction games. As much as I'd love to blame Apple here, I'm not sure what they could have done differently. Once the race to the bottom in terms of up-front pricing started ad-supported and microtransaction-supported games were inevitable. Meanwhile, games with cash shops were already popular in South Korea[1] and "free" games allowed the same model to gain a foothold here. I would love if Apple labelled all gacha games as 18+ because they're gambling simulators, but it's really up to consumers to avoid non-gambling MTX if they don't like this business model. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory

xbar 2y ago
So many things Apple permits were not, nor do they remain, inevitable.

achierius 2y ago

> WebGL is half-assed in safari because of "security" risks, ... Not commenting on anything in the latter clause of your sentence, but I can tell you the security risks are very, very real. Having worked on GPU architecture as well as a browser engine -- so, so many features/guardrails/guarantees that we take for granted on desktop PCs are basically in their infancy when you look over at the GPU world. Address-space isolation, virtualization of hardware resources, separation of virtual machines, privilege isolation -- when you go to the GPU, all of that is kinda-there if you're on newer hardware, but even then without anywhere near the level of coverage or battle-testing that modern CPUs & kernels have. For example, Pascal (i.e. that old 1060 your friend is still using in their kid's desktop) doesn't even have per-process memory isolation -- a buffer overflow in your browser engine could attack any GPU process on your machine! Even the vendors themselves won't claim to support "proper" secure multi-tenancy until the Hopper era, and again -- even that's much less well-tested than the CPU-level isolation that browsers normally rely on. Consider how much of a security impact PPO/site-isolation has had: so many attacks that used to be possible (e.g. your password being stolen off of your banking site by a malicious ad in the sidebar) are now essentially impossible. That only works because of the deep strength and reliability of address-space separation in modern hardware platforms. So to take code written by random people on the internet, in a dynamic language, JIT compile it, and then give it access to your GPU -- well, I hope you can understand why that might put the security people on edge. Again, I don't mean to dismiss the rest of your comment, but I want to clarify that when it comes to punching holes in the browser sandbox, the security concerns are really very real.

jredwards 2y ago

Agree, but they're still building great hardware.