shreyansh_k

I think this is a short sighted and unfair view of native apps.

It is significantly difficult to provide fluent and fast “native” like experience with WebApps because of browser related overheads.

Another advantage of native apps, at least on iOS, is that they magically “receive” updates in the form of updates to the OS, I.e. when Apple updates the underlying iOS APIs, the apps can directly take advantage of the updates without any developer updates.

Apps also automatically adopt the new OS UI updates if they use native APIs. For example, many apps were dark-mode ready with little to no developer updates when Apple rolled out dark mode.

These are just the few advantages of native apps.

Reading this article left me more and more annoyed with every paragraph.

To quote from the article:

> Because the boiling point of water depends on altitude, you could take it to a very, very high place and the same calorific value might well boil the water.

I agree that approaching it like this is possible. But, “possible” doesn’t mean that it is sensible. Philosophically speaking, if such things like above are allowed, then it should also be allowed to simply heat this water to very high temperature (like 99 C) with another apparatus such as a stove and then finally boil it with the candles. That is, use a stove instead of a rocket. It is also possible to conceive of an apparatus with heating elements and photodiodes. This apparatus will run the heaters and heat the water when its photodiode detect the light from the candle. So, in effect, the candle is responsible for heating the water.

Here’s what I’m trying to say: we need to accept some constraints and reject some possibilities in order to answer anything. If there are no constraints, then anything is possible. But, we know that this is not how the universe works.

Finally, I hope to never read anything from this author again. Ironically for this person, maybe they should consider the possibility that their ”science” is BS, aka bullshit.

I am just going to flip this argument. Hope this gets my message across eloquently.

------

How should Apple make a return on its investment? Through apps such as Spotify, who don't want to pay a dime? Through Governments, who are actively trying to sabotage it? Your arguments make it seem like Apple has a choice when trying to monetise a large part of the market. They don't.

------

I think you are taking the efforts it takes to build an App store user base as granted. Microsoft is spending billions to build one with nothing to show for it. Google managed to build something half decent and it continues to be envious of Apple.

App Store and iOS existed independently of Spotify. Spotify decided to invest into Apple's ecosystem, by their own conviction. Apple didn't force them. Spotify, as a behemoth, and a large part of their market, probably only exists due to Apple. Therefore, any arguments to the effect of "it is unfair to Spotify" are difficult to consider.

I am just going to flip this argument to put things in perspective and add a bit of contrast.

-----

What is the value again? Playing music?

Spotify could just charge for services rendered, ie number of hours played, rather than a flat fee.

I find these kind of arguments to be ridiculous.

Apple risked their resources and created the whole ecosystem before Spotify even existed. It's not like Apple put a gun to the heads of Spotify executives and forced them to use the App Store. It's the executives who reviewed Apple's terms and then decided that investing in Apple's ecosystem would be useful for Spotify.

Apps wouldn't exist without the immense value delivered by all the Apple tooling on the iPhone.

This is just showing poor understandings of personal boundaries.

Yes, Apple is piggybacking on various ISPs infrastructure. That is a deal the ISPs explicitly allowed everyone to do and marketed as a selling point for others to use in their services.

Apple is simply trying to enforce its own boundaries which it established before it Spotify came into the picture.

I find this argument kind of ridiculous - yes, app developers (such as Spotify) bring value proposition to Apple's products by being available on the platform. But, apps (such as Spotify) probably wouldn't exist and wouldn't have access to the immense value of an App Store and its tooling if Apple didn't exist.

Luckily, by custom there is another solution - respect each other boundaries and stop acting like whiny little children.

Spotify does seem to be in an interesting position where it gets to piggyback on Apple's whole infrastructure and ecosystem without paying Apple anything. That should count for something...

> “Other companies have failed in the past so we shouldn’t assert anything about a public company’s finances”

Please don't put words in my mouth. My original statement was only to the effect of "people (who are not associated to a respective company) shouldn't take calls on how the respective company should spends their budgets" and not to discourage the discussion of the finances of a company.

I assure that it definitely is a personal view... and all of us are projecting our own personal view(s) in this discussion _because_ this discussion is largely about the many ways to interpret this.

Anyway, not to take anything away from your point, even in the eyes of American/European law, a corporation is sometimes actually treated as a person, depending on circumstances. So, I think it is useful to look from that perspective as well.

My main issue with the EU regulators dictating how companies should handle their products is due to the fact that there is plenty of evidence to show that their regulation activities have equal chance of not working and actually working. The best example I can recall at this moment is the whole GDPR saga. Far too many people are tired of the pop-ups than the number of people GDPR has served.

I completely accept the history associated with Microsoft and Bell. But I also do not discount the possibilities that, sometimes, the regulators are wrong. There is plenty of criticisms of those verdicts in the pages of history already which don't need to paraphrased here again.

If Apple's limitations are uncompetitive, then Apple will simply die. No harm no foul. It is actually great for people because it opens opportunity to disrupt the market. Therefore, I think that ultimately, letting Apple do its own thing is actually the best thing to do. Let them decide how they want to handle their company.

Statements such as "Stating the simple fact that Apple has the ability to increase their resources is not somehow offensive." is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Plenty of people (and their companies) die trying to "increase their resources". Apple is no different or special from any of the other companies participating in the economy. I'm not an Apple fanboy but even I do see the point that statements such as "enough spare money" generally do not get anywhere simply because they patronise their targets and imply that somehow someone being rich makes it morally correct to grift them or break them.

It is agreeable that Apple doesn't care about any of us here. It's simply due to the fact that our relationship with any company is purely transactional. No one shouldn't be burdened with the responsibility of something they can't control, thus, no one should hold other in responsibility of something they have don't have authority over.

I simply think that you have poor understandings of boundaries.

Setting aside the remarks about Apple vs EU regulators, which, by the way I think are in bad taste, but I won't get into it here because then we might get distracted, I think that the people who are angry because "it's more like a child ... a normal battery" are wrong because Apple has been transparent from the start about how their ecosystem works and before people invest in this ecosystem.

It's not like Apple mislead a bunch of people to the effect of "one can use standard AAA batteries in this toy" to close a sale and then told them something to the effect of "sorry, it only accepts proprietary batteries".

Therefore, I think that you have poor understandings of the boundaries of these relationships.

It is difficult to take you seriously. No offence, but, I mean, you do not have the authority to decide how another company/person gets to spend their focus, money and efforts or what is best for them, when you don't have that kind of relationship with them.

Personally, I can only take you seriously if I was working at Apple in such a capacity and then you reached out to me with a good case on why investing in such a effort would be good in context of my relationship with Apple and the world. Arguments to the effect of "you have a lot of money" don't count.

If people dislike the above take, they are free to disrupt this ecosystem by making their own companies to compete with Apple... otherwise they can (and should) pound sand.

People seem to have lost all understandings of boundaries.

Bunch of people suing Apple because they don't like how their iPhones back up to iCloud is an equivalent of a child throwing tantrums because their favourite toy won't accept other batteries it wasn't designed for.

It's not like Apple put a gun to anyone's head to force them to buy iPhones and Apple has been clear about how their devices work from the get-go. If people are salty about how iPhones work, they should choose to buy other devices or pound sand. Because, some people actually like how their iDevices work with the closed-loop integrations it offers.

IIRC, Nigerian Government depegged their currency with respect to the dollar, which caused their currency to market correct, thus, devaluing itself.

Keep me honest, if the above is correct, this seems like a dishonest attempt by the Nigerian Government to extort Binance into paying for their poor policies and finances.

It's like claiming a food delivery company is personally responsible for increased fuel prices, when all they do is pay their drivers market rates to deliver food.

Bullshit. Completely unrelated.

I hope Binance retorts Nigerian Government to pound sand.

In other news:

* Children are throwing tantrums over the fact that the adults are maintains their boundaries and don't allow pushing them.

* Competitors are annoyed that their competitor is trying to maintain its competitive edge.

* Crowd is angry because the gatekeeper disallows free passage.

Water is wet.

> Okaaaay, but I don't see how that view which you hold can be reconciled with this view which you also espoused:

We don't share perspective. Therefore, we can't see what the other is seeing. One thing I am taking away from this conversation is that at least one of us need to study better.

> I'm feeling a lot like Walter right now.

The thing about feelings is that our feelings are arbitrary. One can feel intense hatred for a waiter who served the food a little too late, and intense love for a political leader who promotes honor-killing to maintain status quo. To some, it sounds bad and to others it sounds good.

I'm fully aware of nihilism. I think it's childish.

I think we don't know if there a meaning to life and we might never have an answer. If such a meaning exists, I think that humans simply are not equipped to reason about the meaning of their own existence.

I assure you, it's not.

It's one of those things, that is, if you know, you know. If you don't, then you don't. Unfortunately for us, I don't feel good about revealing too much about it (or myself). Sorry.

No. Not nihilism. Neither do I participate in nor promote nihilism.

Please don't put words into my mouth.

If someone culture is to be honest and not steal, they don't. But having an ideology is not a invitation to force ones own values on to other people. I'd like to live in a honest world and that's the part of the world I limit myself to. I do not force my views onto others or claim to speak for other cultures.

Secondly, in response to your second paragraph, I'd like to quote another sibling comment of mine already in this thread.

Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39414190

You talk about wealth (and inequality) so much yet you fail to see that food and oxygen is also a form of wealth. We, the humans, in fact, had barter system, food and oxygen before we invented money.

It's difficult to take you seriously.

I'm going to tell you a story. A story, I'm afraid, that might leave you even more confused. But, I hope it serve us well.

Sometime in the 1960s (don't quote me on the year), there was plenty of scientific research coming out that cholesterol is bad for your heart's health. Doctors were recommending to completely avoid cholesterol. Governments were in the process of banning it.

It got so bad that for decades people were avoiding food with cholesterol like plague. Companies were actively seeking to substitute it with other things or artificially remove it from their products.

Then, I think in the 2000s (again, don't quote), to everyone's surprise, research started coming out that there seem to be even stronger links of those heart disease with trans fat.

So much so that trans fat actually got banned across countries in the world by many governments by 2010s. Even higher that cholesterol.

Anyway, upon reviewing the old research about cholesterol, researchers learnt that food with high trans fats also tends to be high in cholesterol. I mean, it makes sense, they are both fats... And most food have a complex combination of many fats (among other things). But really, the cause was not cholesterol, it was trans fat.

So, in the cross fire between reasoning (and heart disease) and evidence (caused by trans fat), cholesterol got shot, for no good reason.

I hear your comments and agree with your data about the 15% difference (personally, this number doesn't even matter, what matters is just the fact that there is some form of observable difference) even though I haven't verified it.

I'd like to give you a thought exercise, if you be so kind to me. I'd like for you to take that Dutch argument and replace Dutch with "human adult" and Asian with "human baby" (assume it's a booming population where babies outnumber adults) and see if your reasoning serve you well.

I hear your thoughts on equality before the law and everything. I think it is coming with a good motivation, cute even, but, dare I say, not everybody deserves to be treated equally, if we were even willing to tussle for the sake of equality (and by extension, fairness, see my previous comment).

There are capitalists in this world. There are communists in this world. There are Christians in this world. There are Muslims in this world.

I'm not taking any sides. I'm just saying that it is impossible for all of them to be right... Because they are mutually exclusive ideologies/religions. Someone is bound to be wrong. Therefore, someone deserves to be treated poorly by the law. Infact, dare I say, all these 4 groups are being a bit childish. Also, "totalitarian" is also another such group. Anyway, personally, for the current situation of the world, I think that the world needs at least one adult leader at the helm. In other words, dare I say, a single leader. No, definitely not someone who believes in totalitarianism.

Finally, personally, I think that if I fail to feed my children properly, then, it's either a failure on the part of society to educate me properly or to manage the resources. I am, afterall, a product my society.

It seems that we tend to treat wealth inequality as some sort of judgement of fairness and unfairness. That is: the lower wealth inequality, the more fair.

I think projecting the quality of fairness is a false hope.

The Dutch are the tallest people in the world and Asians tend to be the smallest. Remember that oxygen and food are also resources in the world. Consequently, the Dutch inherently use more food and oxygen to maintain their bigger bodies compared to the Asians.

As such, it is unfair to an Asian person that their Dutch friend use so much more, if we were to judge them based on fairness.

Now, just to mess with the reader's mind, I'll flip my own case by saying that since there are many more Asians than the Dutch, it's unfair to the Dutch that Asians consume so much of food and oxygen.

I hope that the reader gets my point that projection of any sort of fairness is an exercise in vain.

I think that if we want to grow up, we need to grow beyond fairness and unfairness. We need to looks for things beyond these realms of false projection.

Personally, I have accepted the idea that some people have more wealth than others and some less. I neither despise those people nor I love them. I feel content with whatever life has given me. Now, that is not to say that I don't desire to be richer. I do and I continue to act in my own favour. It's just that I do not feel sad that I have less than others or hate someone if they are richer.

This seems to be a standard "serial processing to parallel distributed processing" story, with job generator, broker, processor etc, every grandma used to share.

Great to see that someone is being sane.

The "monopoly" arguments never made sense to me. I think, for the people who purchase phones, it's not like Apple put a gun to their head and forced them buy iDevice(s). They had complete freedom to choose between investing into alternative platforms.

Ford