mike eggleston

Mike Wuerthele said:

j2fusion said:

Is anyone surprised by this… anyone?

I wasn't, but it's good to have proof.

Epic hasn't responded to our emails and questions about it, and I'm not expecting them to.

To be fair, this honestly doesn't surprise me at all. I thought that the Coalition for App Fairness was a sham to begin with. Seeing that it is definitely a sham associated with the other sham known as Sweeney; can we finally start blasting that company publicly about this very plainly obvious affront to contractional agreements?

Cannot get at the VSCode extensions either.

docno42 said:

Seriously?  Rouge Amoeba, who has been a Mac developer for decades, can't be trusted with private API access?  

Apple are a bunch of cowards hiding behind policy - that they created!  Why does everyone have to be treated the same?  Answer: they don't.  But it's far easier to treat everyone the same.  No critical thought required - just numbly point to the policy, claim your hands are tied and then conveniently ignore the fact that you made the policy that is tying your hands in the first place. 

I only picked this part of your tirade of a comment, because it seems like it is the core of it. That said, I am not sure where to start with this. So, I will begin with where my strengths are, and that is backend programming.

I develop APIs and backend processes for a living, and I can tell you with unequivocal certainty that having a set core of rules that all of your users of APIs have to abide by is CRITICAL to making sure that people who develop for your platform do so in the way that you intended. Those policies are the very foundation that make a secure platform that works not just for the developers but also for the users who use it. That is why they have those policies. Yes, some people want side-loading apps. That doesn't make it the correct solution. The moment a bad actor comes in and does something, who do you think the public (the same public demanding for side-loading apps) will blame? That's right, the people who made the APIs in the first place (that would be Apple).

So while it is fun to complain about how Apple doesn't trust "respected developers" or they are "limiting my choice" or whatever nonsense you want to spew out next; the fact of the matter is that they created an environment that is secure, user-centric, and accessible as long as you are willing to play by the rules. Yes, those rules are malleable and can change; but as they are written right now, those are the rules.

Microsoft has some really good devs over there. Just look at VSCode (yes, I know is open source, but is actively maintained by Microsoft). That being said, their biggest problem that they face is that they are trying to make their OS for every possible computer out there, with no real direction. As several have stated, they are still supporting 32bit machines. As several have stated, they are still using the Registry. A couple have said that they should use the Linux kernel and essentially make a Windowing Manager for it. After all, this is exactly what Apple has done with Mac OS ever sense it became Mac OS X (Darwin core, Aqua Windowing Manager).

That said, even if Microsoft were to take that brave of a step, their management would probably screw it up epically. Instead of a Linux core, they'd probably choose something like SCO Unix...

gatorguy said:

No, I don't think that's what he was saying at all. He simply didn't understand (or take the time to) and jumped to the conclusion this was something nefarious and sneaky that no one knew about until Mozilla told us, which is not true in any way.

Be that as it may even Apple with all their brilliant engineers and scientists also develops software requiring changes as it goes along, even ones involving privacy issues. Recent example might be AirTag software. Other examples would include iOS betas and advertising and location features.

 I thought you also developed software at some point? If so has it been your experience that it's perfect out of the gate?

Actually, I think the biggest problem here is that this has been in draft for multiple years. To me, it seems obvious that Google has no desire to harden this proposal at all. And this is not some sort of Google-hate thing. This has to do with more of "Follow the money". Google's main bread-and-butter is their Ad revenue, so of course they want to keep that going. As a software developer, I can tell you with absolute certainty, if they really wanted to harden this proposal, they could have at this point.