5 ms·

Would looove to distribute an app without it having to be in the App Store, and not paying the App Store fee (direct download of signed binary). Happy to pay a

by ENGNR 1y ago

Would looove to distribute an app without it having to be in the App Store, and not paying the App Store fee (direct download of signed binary). Happy to pay a yearly fee or fee per update to cover code review if it’s crucial. But 30% of revenue for doing bugger all… cmon, they’re squeezing the lemon a bit too hard.

intrasight 1y ago
From what I hear, users are tired of installing apps. You can make a website and not face any gatekeepers or restrictions.
- popol12 1y ago
  What if your app needs to send notifications and/or use bluetooth, for instance ?
  - intrasight 1y ago
    From what I hear, most users disable notifications. You can do like Airbnb and send text messages. You can do Bluetooth in JavaScript through the Web Bluetooth API.
    - Sayrus 1y ago
      A little caveat of Web Bluetooth API is that it's like WebUSB and mostly available on Chrome. I don't think Chrome for iOS is using blink yet so you'll probably not have access to this API on iOS.
      - madeofpalk 1y ago
        Both WebUSB and WebBluetooth is still a draft spec, and is doubtful to progress any further with both Mozilla and Webkit objecting to it https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-bluetooth https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-bluetooth https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/#anti-fingerprinting https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/#anti-fingerprinting Essentially, these are proprietary that are a part of an embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy by Google Chrome.
    - thoroughburro 1y ago
      > From what I hear, most users disable notifications. Where’d you hear that? Surely most users don’t change defaults.
      - acdha 1y ago
        There isn’t a default on iOS, you’re prompted for each new app when it requests notification permissions. People have found that users hit no a lot more when the app prompts with no explanation than when it clearly explains what benefit it has to the user.
      - rini17 1y ago
        Then the flood of notifications gets ignored, with practically the same result.
  - darekkay 1y ago
    There are web APIs for both.
    - echoangle 1y ago
      Not on iOS. There’s no Bluetooth support in safari.
    - JimDabell 1y ago
      “Web Bluetooth” is a Blink-only API that both Mozilla and Apple rejected on security grounds.
      - mdhb 1y ago
        What a weird thing to put in scare quotes.
  - acdha 1y ago
    All modern browsers support notifications: https://caniuse.com/notifications https://caniuse.com/notifications Bluetooth is limited to Chrome because Apple and Mozilla were concerned about privacy and security: https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth
  - merek 1y ago
    PWAs offer support for push notifications [1], but apparently they are not as seamless as in native apps, especially on iOS. If you've never heard of PWAs [2], they allow you to add native mobile app functionality to a mobile website, including the ability to install your website as though it were an app, and ability to cache resources for offline use. I haven't worked on app development for a while, but when I did several years ago, all that was required to turn a mobile website in to a PWA was a service worker file (a JS file to define resource caching rules), and a manifest.json file (essentially metadata used by the home screen icon, including title and icon image). Apparently PWAs still aren't on par with native apps in terms of capability and UX. Nonetheless I hope PWAs become popular for their simplicity, and for being decoupled from platforms. It's a bit insane to me that native app development usually requires heavy platform specific IDEs (Android Studio, Xcode), both of which have steep learning curves, and after all that development effort, you only have an app that works on 1 platform. Building a basic mobile app shouldn't require anything more than HTML, JS and CSS, and it shouldn't be tied to any specific platform. 1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps/Tutorials/js13kGames/Re-engageable_Notifications_Push https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web... 2. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...
    - Arkanum 1y ago
      AIUI Apple has deliberately kneecapped PWAs on iOS to stop them competing with their App Store.
  - arrowsmith 1y ago
    Most apps that "need" to send notifications don't, in fact, need to.
    - popol12 1y ago
      Yeah but, what about apps that actually do ?
- layer8 1y ago
  Web apps offer a subpar experience.
- immibis 1y ago
  Meanwhile on Hacker News: "Web apps suck. Native apps are so much better. Why can't everything be a native app?"
Hamuko 1y ago
The barrier of entry for me is having to pay $99/year just to notarize and sign my macOS applications that me and maybe three other people use. Just a lot easier to link to instructions on how to bypass Gatekeeper or make them compile it themselves from source. Although I think my go-to instructions at https://disable-gatekeeper.github.io/ https://disable-gatekeeper.github.io/ are not being kept up to date?
- eastbound 1y ago
  No, the barrier is to pay above 1m downloads. $99/yr is a o(everything your have to do to publish a safe app online and maintain it safe).
irusensei 1y ago
Personally I wouldn’t install software unless it were from a really trusted person doing something extremely unique and useful that doesn’t have an alternative on the Apple Store (think UTM with JIT for iPad). Please don’t take that as a negative comment but I suspect most people source their software from conveniently centralized repos whether it be App Store, Steam or even the main package manager on a Linux distribution.
- nottorp 1y ago
  Most and mostly. But I'd still like to be able to install whatever the fuck I want on my iPhone, should I decide to based on my own criteria, without going through Apple or even a fucking "alternative app store" that is still Apple censored.
- Silhouette 1y ago
  The point is that it becomes your choice. For example some people might choose to use a different web browser instead of Safari on their Apple device so they can use some web apps fully and not have to install similar local apps at all.
- mpweiher 1y ago
  Great, and you are free to do so and will continue to be free to do so. The point is that the OP is not free to do so.
  - tonyedgecombe 1y ago
    >Great, and you are free to do so and will continue to be free to do so. Not necessarily, once other channels are available developers could choose to force their clients down that road.
    - slavik81 1y ago
      If they have sufficient market power to force consumers to do anything, they should also be subject to antitrust.
- 1y ago
blitzar 1y ago
> cmon, they’re squeezing the lemon a bit too hard They got hooked on the lemon juice. Nobody at Apple making millions a year to write emails and sit in meetings wants to be out on the street for putting up their hand and saying "hey lets just take 10% and have a healthy ecosystem long term, which will let us continue to sell phones to people every year with a profit margin of $500".
- Hamuko 1y ago
  Phil Schiller has actually made some comments about being less greedy, like possibly ratcheting down the 30% cut once the App Store started making serious revenue or not shaking down developers if they use external payment methods. Not that Schiller has actually made any changes at Apple to do any of the less greedy things. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/4/22418828/apple-app-store-commission-30-percent-phil-schiller-2011-epic-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/4/22418828/apple-app-store-c... https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/25/apples-phil-schiller-concerns-app-store-fee/ https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/25/apples-phil-schiller-co...
  - madeofpalk 1y ago
    That was a long time ago. Now, > “You download the app and it doesn’t work, that’s not what we want on the store,” says Schiller. This, he says, is why Apple requires in-app purchases to offer the same purchasing functionality as they would have elsewhere. https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/interview-apples-schiller-says-position-on-hey-app-is-unchanged-and-no-rules-changes-are-imminent/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/interview-apples-schiller-...

by ENGNR 1y ago

intrasight 1y ago

From what I hear, users are tired of installing apps. You can make a website and not face any gatekeepers or restrictions.

popol12 1y ago
What if your app needs to send notifications and/or use bluetooth, for instance ?
- intrasight 1y ago
  From what I hear, most users disable notifications. You can do like Airbnb and send text messages. You can do Bluetooth in JavaScript through the Web Bluetooth API.
  - Sayrus 1y ago
    A little caveat of Web Bluetooth API is that it's like WebUSB and mostly available on Chrome. I don't think Chrome for iOS is using blink yet so you'll probably not have access to this API on iOS.
    - madeofpalk 1y ago
      Both WebUSB and WebBluetooth is still a draft spec, and is doubtful to progress any further with both Mozilla and Webkit objecting to it https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-bluetooth https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-bluetooth https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/#anti-fingerprinting https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/#anti-fingerprinting Essentially, these are proprietary that are a part of an embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy by Google Chrome.
  - thoroughburro 1y ago
    > From what I hear, most users disable notifications. Where’d you hear that? Surely most users don’t change defaults.
    - acdha 1y ago
      There isn’t a default on iOS, you’re prompted for each new app when it requests notification permissions. People have found that users hit no a lot more when the app prompts with no explanation than when it clearly explains what benefit it has to the user.
    - rini17 1y ago
      Then the flood of notifications gets ignored, with practically the same result.
- darekkay 1y ago
  There are web APIs for both.
  - echoangle 1y ago
    Not on iOS. There’s no Bluetooth support in safari.
  - JimDabell 1y ago
    “Web Bluetooth” is a Blink-only API that both Mozilla and Apple rejected on security grounds.
    - mdhb 1y ago
      What a weird thing to put in scare quotes.
- acdha 1y ago
  All modern browsers support notifications: https://caniuse.com/notifications https://caniuse.com/notifications Bluetooth is limited to Chrome because Apple and Mozilla were concerned about privacy and security: https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth
- merek 1y ago
  PWAs offer support for push notifications [1], but apparently they are not as seamless as in native apps, especially on iOS. If you've never heard of PWAs [2], they allow you to add native mobile app functionality to a mobile website, including the ability to install your website as though it were an app, and ability to cache resources for offline use. I haven't worked on app development for a while, but when I did several years ago, all that was required to turn a mobile website in to a PWA was a service worker file (a JS file to define resource caching rules), and a manifest.json file (essentially metadata used by the home screen icon, including title and icon image). Apparently PWAs still aren't on par with native apps in terms of capability and UX. Nonetheless I hope PWAs become popular for their simplicity, and for being decoupled from platforms. It's a bit insane to me that native app development usually requires heavy platform specific IDEs (Android Studio, Xcode), both of which have steep learning curves, and after all that development effort, you only have an app that works on 1 platform. Building a basic mobile app shouldn't require anything more than HTML, JS and CSS, and it shouldn't be tied to any specific platform. 1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps/Tutorials/js13kGames/Re-engageable_Notifications_Push https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web... 2. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...
  - Arkanum 1y ago
    AIUI Apple has deliberately kneecapped PWAs on iOS to stop them competing with their App Store.
- arrowsmith 1y ago
  Most apps that "need" to send notifications don't, in fact, need to.
  - popol12 1y ago
    Yeah but, what about apps that actually do ?
layer8 1y ago
Web apps offer a subpar experience.
immibis 1y ago
Meanwhile on Hacker News: "Web apps suck. Native apps are so much better. Why can't everything be a native app?"

Hamuko 1y ago

The barrier of entry for me is having to pay $99/year just to notarize and sign my macOS applications that me and maybe three other people use. Just a lot easier to link to instructions on how to bypass Gatekeeper or make them compile it themselves from source. Although I think my go-to instructions at https://disable-gatekeeper.github.io/ https://disable-gatekeeper.github.io/ are not being kept up to date?

eastbound 1y ago
No, the barrier is to pay above 1m downloads. $99/yr is a o(everything your have to do to publish a safe app online and maintain it safe).

irusensei 1y ago

Personally I wouldn’t install software unless it were from a really trusted person doing something extremely unique and useful that doesn’t have an alternative on the Apple Store (think UTM with JIT for iPad). Please don’t take that as a negative comment but I suspect most people source their software from conveniently centralized repos whether it be App Store, Steam or even the main package manager on a Linux distribution.

nottorp 1y ago
Most and mostly. But I'd still like to be able to install whatever the fuck I want on my iPhone, should I decide to based on my own criteria, without going through Apple or even a fucking "alternative app store" that is still Apple censored.
Silhouette 1y ago
The point is that it becomes your choice. For example some people might choose to use a different web browser instead of Safari on their Apple device so they can use some web apps fully and not have to install similar local apps at all.
mpweiher 1y ago
Great, and you are free to do so and will continue to be free to do so. The point is that the OP is not free to do so.
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
  >Great, and you are free to do so and will continue to be free to do so. Not necessarily, once other channels are available developers could choose to force their clients down that road.
  - slavik81 1y ago
    If they have sufficient market power to force consumers to do anything, they should also be subject to antitrust.
1y ago

blitzar 1y ago

> cmon, they’re squeezing the lemon a bit too hard They got hooked on the lemon juice. Nobody at Apple making millions a year to write emails and sit in meetings wants to be out on the street for putting up their hand and saying "hey lets just take 10% and have a healthy ecosystem long term, which will let us continue to sell phones to people every year with a profit margin of $500".

Hamuko 1y ago
Phil Schiller has actually made some comments about being less greedy, like possibly ratcheting down the 30% cut once the App Store started making serious revenue or not shaking down developers if they use external payment methods. Not that Schiller has actually made any changes at Apple to do any of the less greedy things. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/4/22418828/apple-app-store-commission-30-percent-phil-schiller-2011-epic-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/4/22418828/apple-app-store-c... https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/25/apples-phil-schiller-concerns-app-store-fee/ https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/25/apples-phil-schiller-co...
- madeofpalk 1y ago
  That was a long time ago. Now, > “You download the app and it doesn’t work, that’s not what we want on the store,” says Schiller. This, he says, is why Apple requires in-app purchases to offer the same purchasing functionality as they would have elsewhere. https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/interview-apples-schiller-says-position-on-hey-app-is-unchanged-and-no-rules-changes-are-imminent/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/interview-apples-schiller-...