https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-overv...

Let's say Apple changed the requirements to have an app "pass" the app store rules. Allowed developers a lower fee for "free" applications, including OSS ones. (It would be nice if this was $0 if the developer was intending to make $0 just to make your platform better, etc.) Charged a 10% fee to be hosted on the app store instead of 30% (ignore any other fee minutia here, I understand making sure taxes are paid in other countries, etc. I don't expect them to do it out of the goodness of their hearts) Allow businesses to make revenue without going through Apple. (yes, the year is past 1998, we can all do this now) I'm ignoring legality for the most part. I also understand there's a provision "for children safety", but that's never really been "for children safety", but some other form of control because children figure out how to bypass it before grownups do. (sorry I'm jaded. I have children that have figured it out).

Would an alternate store even be needed at this point? How much financial loss do they have due to the other app stores vs the 30% fee difference? Where I come from 10% is greater than 0%. What about folks making money outside of Apple platforms? Yes, it happens, strange to think otherwise. Downloading apps? The whole thing is sandboxed, with provisions... how is app store review different here? If I have to say "yes", allow shady apps to access my contacts, does it matter where the app came from?

I don't think third party app stores is the problem. Let people install what they want, and charge less to do so. Change the App Store to show "This hasn't been blessed by Apple", like the Firefox extension store does. Let me install an app I wrote/built without expiring in a week, etc. You could have something like Gatekeeper that says "hey, are you sure you want to run this?". Or, if it's the same self signed cert on my computer and my phone just let me do it. It still protects your user base (I can't imagine the support calls), without stopping folks that "know what I'm doing". You'd have a walled garden for those that want it, but a nice footpath for those that don't. It doesn't have to be on or off, it can be both.

I'm thinking Apple has much more to lose here. I'd bet in the billions. A perspective shift could have avoided this. Think different :)

Apple or Google blocks your app, that could have been a web app anyway...

Apple blocked Microsoft from putting Cloud Gaming, as an app, Microsoft released a web page you can add to your home screen.

There are ways around this. The web app might have been the cheaper option too.

Free with limited lessons. $3 a month for more, or $30 for lifetime.

It makes folks like me who have subscription-itus smile.

Thank you.

Developing for is was a fun challenge. I had a device that had 4MB of memory total. This was RAM, Data, and application space. I created an "app" that had plugins. When you ran the HotSync is asked which plugins you wanted to "install", then based on which ones were installed it copied over the data you needed.

I loved the documentation. It might be the only SDK documentation I read with joy. It just clicked with me.

Gremlins. I liked this program as well. I don't recall if it was a simulator only or if it ran across on device. You could tell it to just wreck havoc on your app. I would set it up to run over the evening or weekend and I would just fix any bugs that occurred during that time. It would click every button, add weird text to all input boxes, just smash everything. It found many issues for me. When I came back over the weekend and there were no issues, I shipped my app. I still had users running it up until 2010.

If your CRUD apps are Winforms I had success with Wine, but you might want to try something else. I've heard good things about avaloniaui.net but never liked XAML so I haven't tried it.

Good luck!

I really like stuff to work. My tinkering days are limited.

Personally, I loved it. I only looked and updating them when I was going to release a new version of my program. I could easily do a diff to see what changed. I might not have understood everything, but it wasn't too difficult to see 10-100 line code changes to get a general idea.

I thought it was better than the big black box we currently deal with. Oh, this package uses this package, and this package... what's different? No idea now, really.

Years ago I went to a concert with some friends. We took pictures standing in front of the stage while the staff was setting up. There were some additional pictures of the show. Nothing in any of the pictures had any information regarding the band names. This was taken with an iPhone 6s, so no "intelligence". In the past year or two I had a new "memories" album. The album title was the artist name that we went to see. At first I thought this was cool, then I was concerned, like, wait, how did they get this information?

My guess, the "intelligence" used the GPS info to pull up the venue and with the date figured out who the artist was. The album was the headliner, the group photo was of one of the opening bands.

I'm still on iOS 17, and I don't see any other way to turn this feature off. I have an option to reset suggested memories, but that's it.

It sounds more like a users are given a choice now, which would be a good thing. If it was enabled pre iOS 18 that kind of makes sense that it's enabled by default now.

Apple users never had this openness, so they might not know what they're missing.

Google users did have this openness, and I think it's the taking it away that's causing the uproar.

I don't think most folks like it when things are taken away. It's not a Google/Apple thing, it's a people thing.