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App stores are broken package managers. The auto-updating systems and absence of viruses that you attribute to Apple have long existed in the Free Softrware wor
by yarrel 14y ago
App stores are broken package managers. The auto-updating systems and absence of viruses that you attribute to Apple have long existed in the Free Softrware world.
There are no competing marketplaces for iOS apps.
And the DRM-encumbered marketplace of iTunes wasn't a good thing for consumers or for producers. So an ideologue like Jobs producing it wasn't a good thing.
- brnstz 14y agoRunning "update all" on my iPhone has been way more stable than "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" on my Linux servers over the years. It is a good model, but it is far from perfect. Could you just fire your sysadmin and put in a cron to auto update? I really don't think so. Going through the phase of the DRM marketplace was necessary to get to the non-DRM marketplace that exists now. Politics, however unsightly, do exist. It is now more convenient to buy DRM-free music than to pirate it. That was honestly inconceivable in the Napster days.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bhaak 14y agoRunning "update all" on your iPhone is something almost completely different than running "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" on a Linux machine. On the Linux machine this might even include kernel upgrades. iPhones didn't do OTA upgrades for the system until quite recently and then is obviously a different process than just a simple app upgrade. iPhone apps don't have dependencies because Apple doesn't allow them to. So every app update is just a small box update without affecting any other applications.
- comex 14y ago> iPhone apps don't have dependencies because Apple doesn't allow them to. So every app update is just a small box update without affecting any other applications. Which is exactly the point.
- bhaak 14y agoYeah and now compare how limited an iPhone is compared to a general computing device where programs are allowed to talk to each other and rely on each other. You only get the functionality a single app gives you. For many things this is sufficient or at least you can live with. For games it almost doesn't matter. This only works because 99% of the people don't use iPhones for creating stuff but for consuming content.
- brnstz 14y agoMaybe not having dependencies is a good idea. The iPhone runs Unix, too.
- kabdib 14y agoI don't have a good feel for the amount of malware on the various platforms. How do you think a well-curated app store differs from "a place" where you can get executables?