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A comment on I built a progressive web app and published it in three app stores. Parent comment

Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by judah on Monday April 16, 2018 @12:48PM (#16850456)
Controls: It doesn't force me to use native controls. :-) My web app today is still using the free and opened web, and all the goodness that comes with that, for UI and code.

Requiring a Mac: Now you've met one. I built a halfway decent iOS app, and I don't want to spend $7000 on a Mac and its crappy dev tools and frameworks.

I've poured nearly 7 years of work into user experience. I don't need to redo all that for Apple's closed, proprietary platform.

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by rolha-capoeira on Monday April 16, 2018 @12:50PM (#16850485)
$7000? Your bias is showing. You can buy a Mac for <$1000 and it's perfectly capable of developing most apps.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by waddlesworth on Monday April 16, 2018 @10:57PM (#16855082)
While possible, it's far from ideal. I had this experience, using an old MacBook to build an iPhone app. It repeatedly crashed because I had Atom and XCode open at the same time.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by mgkimsal on Monday April 16, 2018 @12:58PM (#16850568)
<$1000 mac for even moderate development use cases? your bias is showing now.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by jclardy on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:09PM (#16850677)
The $500 Mac mini can handle Xcode just fine, and that is a many year old machine that hasn't been updated. Maybe not if you've been spoiled on better hardware, but it performs adequately.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by cache_miss on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:33PM (#16850925)
I used my personal $500 mac mini for full-time desktop and webapp development when employed at Citrix. This excludes the cost of peripherals, of course.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by rsynnott on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:14PM (#16850727)
MacBook Air and Mini should be fine for most stuff, certainly for glorified web apps.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by OtterCoder on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:38PM (#16850980)
Exactly. I write the main code on my Linux machine, then switch to the MacMini for testing and UI finalization.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by evilduck on Monday April 16, 2018 @02:08PM (#16851271)
We're talking about a Cordova-wrapped SPA. You can develop those on Raspberry Pis if you had to. A 9 year old $250 MBP off ebay will absolutely suffice.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by rolha-capoeira on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:03PM (#16850624)
Yes, even for moderate development use cases. I've never had any problems.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by zghst on Monday April 16, 2018 @02:37PM (#16851546)
I bought a 2013 Macbook Pro for $700. Retina Display. Where there's a will, there's a way.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by judah on Monday April 16, 2018 @12:57PM (#16850564)
Yes, I'm using hyperbole. :-) Even $1000 to build a free app is too much. (That said, going to Apple.com and clicking Mac shows me the base model for $4999.00 [0])

What happened to cross-platform apps? Why is it that Google and Microsoft are champions of the free and opened web, and even cross-platform dev tools for web development, while Apple is holding back progress?

I think the reason is their business is jeopardized by the free and open web, just as Microsoft was in the late 1990s.

[0}: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac-pro

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by eropple on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:06PM (#16850657)
"Clicking Macbook shows me an iMac Pro"

Yeah, no, it actually literally doesn't. There's no "Macbook" button on Apple's site. There's a Mac button. The Mac page then shows you a range of Macs, from the Macbook to the Mac mini, at the top of the screen. they are showing you the iMac Pro--their halo-effect product and newest release--on the Mac landing page; that's not the same thing and it is dishonest to assert that it is.

Open standards are good. (The open web, whatever. I use React Native, because I like writing applications that feel responsive.) Open standard thumping as a proxy for weird platform fandoms is really not. Stop.

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by judah on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:14PM (#16850737)
Mac button, not Macbook, but you already knew that.

Open standards are good. And we should want them to win, because it provides a safe haven from the abuses of big corporations. And I think right now, Apple is stepping into those waters: they are holding back web standards in order to keep promoting their business, which is reliant on native apps.

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by scarface74 on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:40PM (#16850996)
Open standards aren't "good" if they provide an inferior user experience.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by realusername on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @06:30AM (#16857046)
They only provide inferior user experience because Safari mobile is crap.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by scarface74 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @07:55AM (#16857466)
Right, because computing is full of cross platform frameworks that you can write once and run anywhere and have as great of an experience as native apps - look how great Java and Swing were.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by realusername on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @09:38AM (#16858127)
Java powers Android so it seems to work. Also web apps seem to work on Android as well, it's only on iOS that you have this kind of issues.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by scarface74 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @10:05AM (#16858384)
Android uses the Java language on top of Google's non cross platform framework. That's completely different than using Java with Swing. An Android app is not cross platform.

Web apps on Android May "work" but still aren't as responsive as native Android apps.

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by kbutler on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @12:45AM (#16855533)
To be fair, judah said "going to Apple.com and clicking Mac shows me the base model for $4999.00"

Doing what he said takes me to:

  https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac-pro
On which the only computer I see without scrolling is the Mac Pro. My UI design friends constantly tell me anything "below the fold" may as well be invisible.

Clicking the "Buy >" button takes me to

  27-inch Retina 5K 5120-by-2880 P3 display
$4,999.00

I know there are other options, but that's the default path for a naive user wanting to buy a mac from apple.com.

I hope casual users don't end up following that path often!

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by rolha-capoeira on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:06PM (#16850651)
First you said "$7000 on a Mac", then I said "You can buy a Mac for <$1000", then you said "Macbook shows me the base model for $4999.00" and you linked to an iMac Pro.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by waterside81 on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:03PM (#16850627)
You linked to an iMac Pro, a high-end desktop, not a MacBook. Entry level MacBook is 1299
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by eropple on Monday April 16, 2018 @12:57PM (#16850561)
You can buy a completely dev-usable Mac for under $1000. (My CI machine is a Mac mini I bought used for $350 and dropped an SSD and an extra stick of RAM into.) Its "crappy dev tools" are free.

This is some silly stuff right here.

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by avtar on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:40PM (#16850995)
How reliable is your CI machine? I don't have the log entries anymore but in the past I've seen Mac Minis that were set up as Jenkins nodes throttle hard, leading to variable job results. The Minis were running VirtualBox VMs which would arbitrarily report long running test failures. I remember thinking perhaps it was VirtualBox specific behaviour until I search for "mac mini cpu throttle" and found similar results.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by eropple on Monday April 16, 2018 @02:09PM (#16851282)
For my purposes? Very reliably. But my use cases are very sporadic; I'm just exposing a webhook for my VCS and running when one of a small set of my personal projects are updated.

(It also runs a couple other small things for the house.)

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by limeblack on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:06PM (#16850648)
> My CI machine is a Mac mini I bought used for $350 and dropped an SSD and an extra stick of RAM into

All but the vintage 2012 desktop Mac minis have been nuetered in the sense they are not upgradable.

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by eropple on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:14PM (#16850739)
"Neutered" is a weird term. The line is due for a refresh, I think it's got an i7-4578U Haswell in its top-end machine, but that's not "neutered". Yeah, they want you to pay for upgrades themselves and that sucks, but, whatever--my 2012 one has an Ivy Bridge i7 in it and it is still plenty fast for build tasks in my (fairly price-conscious) environment.

If I needed a beefier machine, I would be making much more money and justifying its purchase.

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by orangecat on Monday April 16, 2018 @05:38PM (#16853045)
my 2012 one has an Ivy Bridge i7 in it and it is still plenty fast for build tasks in my (fairly price-conscious) environment.

That's the point: the current mini is worse than what you could get in 2012, due to removing the quad core option and upgradeable memory.

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by eropple on Monday April 16, 2018 @10:25PM (#16854934)
OK, so buy one used. It's just not a big deal for a home developer.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by abrowne on Monday April 16, 2018 @02:20PM (#16851389)
I'm guessing they mean the lack of memory slots in the current model.
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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by valuearb on Monday April 16, 2018 @06:00PM (#16853230)
You've poured nearly 7 years of work into user experience, and you don't appreciate the benefits of native UX, especially on iOS?

My company builds our app in React, with the performance and UI critical functions in Java (Android) and Swift (iOS). I've spent my career learning and applying one key rule about UX, little things can make huge differences in how enjoyable and productive the user experience is.

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Re:I built a progressive web app and published it in three a... by briandear on Monday April 16, 2018 @01:25PM (#16850835)
> I've poured nearly 7 years of work into user experience. I don't need to redo all that for Apple's closed, proprietary platform.

So don’t. I also don’t have to use your app.

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