why is there need for an emotional reaction? It's just a tool. Philosophically, it's no different than using photoshop to touch up old photos. It's just a more "high-tech" version.
These companies charge money for their services and have competitors. AWS’ entire business models is providing developer services, and if I don’t like their offerings I can go elsewhere.
Discord, Twitter, Reddit, etc. that have become hostile to third parties have free APIs to reel in developers to make their platform more attractive to users, and once they’ve reached critical mass, they turn around and fuck over those developers. This is because their primary business model is serving their users, and developers eventually “get in the way”.
So the person you’re replying to should add an addendum: never build your app/business on top of third parties IF their primary business models aren’t providing services to developers.
Same here: the default option is not to put your website on the App Store, I’m sorry but it isn’t. It’s 2024 and there have been so many advancements in web technology, I’m tired of people arguing that the web isn’t even an option for the vast majority of websites out there.
I get that some apps need the computing power and unique APIs that you can only get via building a native app, but Patreon should not be an app. And the crazy thing is they already have a great website that works really well on mobile. What do you need the App Store for?! Just leave Apple to their practices that you disagree with and focus on yourself, making the best possible product for your users that is distributed via the open web.
> because Patreon.com is not just a website, it is a complex web app
I don’t agree with this as someone who uses Patreon relatively frequently. It’s actually quite a simple website, and the main thing I care about is the ability to manage my subscriptions, which I can do on the mobile website today.
Maybe there’s an argument for the creator posts being a bit more complex, but nothing a non PWA shouldn’t be able to handle well.
Also with Patreon specifically, the creators tend to tell users how to support them, so it’s trivial to include “make sure to visit the website, it works on mobile too!” When they call out.
No, you just don’t have an argument. Patreon has a perfectly working mobile application called Patreon.com that doesn’t have any gatekeepers. It’s fully mobile, responsive, and allows me to do everything I want to do right now.
If the article they wrote had said “We’re leaving the App Store because we don’t agree with Apple’s fees” then people who want to support creators will continue to use their excellent mobile site.
Apple’s App Store is NOT the only distribution platform that exists for iPhones, so please stop pretending that it is. The web is a thing.
Again: you can literally go on Patreon.com on your iPhone right now and subscribe to any creator you want without paying Apple’s fees. The mobile web is literally a suitable alternative and competitor right now, but for some reason people on HN have given up on this concept and think every website needs an app. Patreon should just leave the App Store and invest in their already great multi platform website with no gatekeeping of distribution.
But they’re not stopping me from supporting creators. I can go to Patreon.com on my iPhone right now and subscribe to any creator without Apple’s fees. If they took their app off the App Store tomorrow I will continue to be able to have all of the functionality because they have a functioning mobile website that allows me to do everything I want to do. The web is a perfectly suitable alternative here and it’s working, so why exactly do they need to be on a store with rules they don’t agree with?
If Patreon doesn’t like Apple’s rules, they should just take their app off the App Store.
All these companies moaning about Apple yet aren’t doing the one thing they have the power to do which is just leave.
If they refuse to leave, then they’re admitting that Apple’s platform is providing value to them and they should pay what Apple wants. I support creators on Patreon, what exactly is wrong with just doing everything via their website? The mobile web is a thing, what more do they need for their glorified payments processing platform?
> There are also users who want to take the responsibility on themselves. They want the ability to host their own apps for free (or lower costs), faster update cycles, and just overall freedom. Those people don't want a highly curated app store (or rather, they want a co-existing alternative to the highly curated app store).
Why force Apple to make that App Store? This is what every argument like this boils down to. Apple are free to have their own opinion of what they want their product to be, and a tightly integrated experience is that opinion.
If users want something else, they can go elsewhere. If there is enough market demand for this, a company will exist and provide a product for it because that’s what companies do. But there isn’t, so they don’t.
Unlike Reddit, Apollo was stopping users from seeing ads and Reddit gaining ad revenue from them, so they went to charge the Reddit app devs for this loss in revenue.
The YouTube embed API supports ads, and works perfectly with Premium so Google are not losing any potential revenue with this app existing.
Sounds like Christian learned his lesson with his experience with Reddit: "don't get in the way of the company's ad revenue".
Your statement still stands though, you are ultimately correct.
Everyone who makes this kind of comment must not play video games online.
The "money play" is a cut on digital sales, and balancing subscription fees with the cost of services rendered. I can't imagine how little they make on accessories/certification to be the reason behind this move. I think this is the start of set of changes that culminates in hardware verification for the (leaked) revision of the console.
> because XIM has an excellent history of spoofing a controllers input to the console
That it does now, but Microsoft can upload firmware to their devices and have full control of the software it runs on.
Call of Duty is one of their biggest games, and I think being a platform that nullfies Xim and Cronus will convince people to play those games on that platform, especially with Crossplay off and the games being free on Game Pass. This makes more sense as a "money maker" to me (i.e. fuelling Game Pass subs).
Look up Xim, it gives an unfair advantage to console players by allowing a mouse and keyboard input when the developer hasn’t intended so (official APIs exist if they do). Cronus is also especially bad.
It also allows you to effectively nullify recoil through custom scripts uploaded to it. It’s everywhere in multiplayer PvP games on console.
Xim users destroying the integrity of multiplayer FPS causes this, unfortunately.
The fact of the matter is if you’re allowed to plug in any peripheral into a game console, you can and will get prolific cheaters in a multiplayer environment.
Maybe only bring in this check if your console is not in offline mode? And please make it cheap to actually get certified.
Regular accessories that don’t alter gameplay can and should always be an option for a user. If a certification process has to happen to use the accessory online, so be it, but I hope this doesn’t hurt the market too much.
Edit: I’m aware that Xim currently uses controller authentication to work and therefore this specific change may not affect it. I wasn’t claiming that this would get rid of Xim, but arguing that a huge reason for this change is to begin the process of cracking down on rampant cheating in online multiplayer games (shooters in particular).
So you go to purchase a device from a company who has been doing this since their very existence, is known for doing this, and has never pretended or tricked consumers into thinking they don’t do this. A closed ecosystem is Apple’s M.O. - and I can’t think of any sane person who cares about repairability who goes to them. They all own open phones such as the Fairphone. I love mine.
And a business has freedom to restrict their products to prevent what they believe isn’t the use case they want. And users have the freedom to put their money where their mouth is by purchasing alternatives on the market.
She does replace it every couple of years (well, I do anyway) and she loves that fact.
What confuses me about all this is the fact that anyone who wants an easily repairable phone has access to them on the market, as I’ve been saying, I support companies who make this stuff because I like tinkering with hardware.
I think Apple should continue to be a company that biases towards design - trading off repairability if it comes to that. That’s ok because if I don’t like it I can buy a different phone.
My mum just wants a phone with the feature she cares about, and when it gets slow or bad, she rings me up to upgrade.
I think inventing a new screw would be a design thing? In a perfect world a screw that is easily replaced and allows them the design they want would be used.
However if that doesn’t exist, as an engineer, I am aware of the concept of tradeoffs and ever since that company has existed they’ve always biased towards design.
They would rather 1mm of thinness or an angle a specific shape and if that means that this normally standard screw won’t fit, then “oh well”. Like I said above, it’s an opinion. My FairPhone has the opposite opinion where everything in the design was made around repairability.
Both of them have different, diverse, opinions on what design is. Neither are right or wrong, per se. That’s why the market is so awesome, go to the stall that fits your need, don’t try to make all the stalls make the same thing.
The “security” feature is the serialisation of said screws, no? Even if they were standard and freely available, the serialisation would still cause this issue. Unless it’s somehow not possible to serialise a standard screw but I don’t know how that would differ from the process of doing it to custom screws.