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Smart take from @gruber on the removal of VPN apps from Apple Store in Russia, following on government demand. One conclusion highlighted, but read the whole thing: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/10/02/russia-app-store-vpns
iOS is a fabulous platform but I have refused, since the App Store launch in 2008, to work on any apps, because I decline to build software which a platform owner can prevent me from sharing with the world. I have regretted that decision exactly zero times these last 18 years.
@timbray What I don't understand about this is your thinking that distributing your app any other way e.g. on the web is more robust; domains and websites have been and are currently blocked and taken down by governments.
The internet simply is no longer anything-goes, that ship has sailed some 20+ years ago.
In contrast: the fact that anyone can build an app and expose hundreds of millions of folks to it in an instant is wild. No other domain is like that. Tech is the only unregulated domain.
@djh @timbray The alternative to distributing solely from the App Store isn't distributing solely through a different single website though.
As an example, it would be more robust if you could simultaneously distribute your app through Apple's App Store and your own website. An adversary would now need to cut off both distribution channels to make the app inaccessible.
I’m genuinely interested. Please convince me that the unimpeded is triumphing over the impeded, particularly for the the more restricted. Do you honestly think that Google, Linux or their various forks are freeing citizens from Xi et al and their censorship? What if/when the act of using say any form of VPN software itself is illegal????
Which are these open platforms that are ‘winning’ eventually? Did you see the recent Ai Writer story? Is Google Android on your list of winners?
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/09/27/ia-writer-android
Sorry, that’s not what I meant. In your terms no one suggested it was the end, I was just looking for the start.
You talked about always winning in the end. Which ‘open’ platform looks like it is making any meaningful start now on anything but the odd vertical market? Surely one should be showing a meaningful presence by now. Linux at less than 5% maybe? Hard to justify an argument for long term success on those numbers. The only winning bits of Unix I can witness are commercial forks.
Perhaps the other big hit would have to be Libre Office? Been around a long time now and making zero obvious impact.
https://itsfoss.com/linux-market-share/
https://6sense.com/tech/office-suites/libreoffice-market-share
I’d really like to be convinced differently.
@timbray weird take from a man who says "if you want properly functioning PWAs then iOS is not the platform for you".