Developers as Suppliers

3 tosh 1 5/14/2025, 5:07:14 PM daringfireball.net ↗

Comments (1)

tracker1 · 6h ago
I can only really speak for myself... I've largely avoided Apple's ecosystem, even though I do use an M1 Air for my personal laptop, and have had assigned macbook pros in prior work. My work itself isn't specifically for Apple products or deployed on Apple hardware. It's mostly backend services and web based front ends. For better and worse, the web is the application framework to rule them all.

My personal feelings towards Apple are mixed. I don't like their locked down environments, even if the last phone I loaded a custom ROM on what my old Nexus 6p about a decade ago, I like having the option. I like being able to side load one-off applications from source if I choose to.

I've got similar, and even worse opinions of Google. In my personal use, I have relied on a "Manifest v2" based plugin that is yet to be updated to "Manifest v3" and Google actively disabled it, even loading in developer mode, so settings clear every single time. I'm not sure I have it in me to update, but I may make one for the small functionality I use myself. It kind of sucks really.

In the end, I don't like walled gardens to begin with, and I don't like excessive rent-seeking behavior. I'm not sure where I stand with Valve over Apple, but I feel that Valve has generated a lot of good will with what they do with their resources and give back into the developer community itself. They also aren't required.