Getting out of iOS development and back into web dev was the best career decision I ever made. I feel like I escaped an abusive relationship. So much of what's wrong with computing and tech right now stems directly or indirectly from the culture at Apple.
It's funny how the general consensus on here is against Microsoft's abuse of private APIs in Windows to help Word and DOS against WordPerfect and DrDOS, 20+ years ago. But Apple doing it right now in a much worse way is considered acceptable and defendable.
I don't think anyone here considers Apple's abuse of private APIs vs developers an ok thing. I will never subject myself to their app store if I can help it.
I think it's more a case of people just being unaware. They might have an idea that this is going on, but because they've never run into it it's not something that's a priority. I'd even wager that the vast majority of non-Americans here don't use Apple hardware.
This is a straw man argument. Who is making that point?
In general, I find the opinions on these things to be pretty consistent: the “free market” types tend to support Apple/MS - usually with some form of “its their platform” as an argument - and the FOSS types holding the opposite position.
I got the first warning sign that I was entering into an abusive relationship early on in 2007 when I tried to sign up for the Apple Developer Program from Europe, and Apple INSISTED that I FAX my developer program application in to them.
I work in public digitisation and while we don’t build the apps, we’re now required to publish them if we want our name as the publisher. So I’ve had the pleasure of setting up our development account and it’s easily the works service I’ve ever had to go through, and we operate 300 different IT systems, some are old terminal systems that run on mainframe.
I’m not sure why the process was so complicated either. A couple of steps involved Apple calling me, and my superior, to verify that we were real. Except they didn’t actually verify that, because it was a simple conversation and I could have just lied with a buddy of mine... Even adding developers from our suppliers was a tedious process, and of course Apple has no way of integrating with our IDM or local security setups.
They sure are lucky to have a monopoly on iOS devices.
Sure, but that’s not actually what happened. I didn’t go into detail with that part, because it’s fine. We’re fine with someone else being the publisher and listed as such though, but you’re not allowed to do that on behalf of others anymore.
The result is 98 muniplacities having to pay Apple developer fees, but it gets better because the app can’t be called the same thing anymore. So now there are 98 apps instead of one. :p
I mean, I guess our central digitisation agency should really just pick it up, but the bureaucracy doesn’t work like that.
Forgive me if I'm not understanding correctly, but in your description here it sounds like the problem is in how your organization functions around this, not in Apple's policies.
It's not really fair to expect Apple to resolve or work around your own organizational problems.
Why not? Microsoft does it all the time. So does Google, to an extend.
Apples inability to work with us is the primary reason we replaced thousands of iPads for school children with Chrome books. Eventually Apple caved to our needs, but it was way too late. Google were “what can we do to make this deal work for both of us?” from day one.
What I'm saying is that it's unfair to expect it. As in, if a company is not willing to bend over backwards for you, it's not fair to condemn them for that. It's totally fair to praise their competitors who will, though.
I wouldn’t mind I had options, but I don’t. Instead we’re the ones to bend over backwards, as you put it, because Apple has a monopoly that we’re required to use.
