lapcatsoftware

lapcatsoftware, 4 months ago to random

The only difference between Apple locking down iPhones and John Deere locking down tractors is that farmers don’t look for ways to convince themselves that the lockdown is for their own good.

lapcatsoftware, 3 months ago to random

"Nitter is dead"

https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/1155#issuecomment-1913361757

lapcatsoftware, 5 months ago to random

I think I understand now why Hollywood produces endless sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, spinoffs:

The same reason YouTube recommends 100 videos of the same thing you just watched.

The same reason Amazon recommends buying the same thing you just bought, despite the fact that you no longer need it.

This is what you get from analytics and algorithms, from being “data driven”: mindless repetition.

lapcatsoftware, 11 days ago to random

Good news, everyone!

I just received a phone call from an Apple representative. They confirmed that there was indeed a software bug in the bundle pricing calculation, which was fixed yesterday. They also said that affected developers, such as myself, would be compensated for our lost revenue.

That’s all I know for now. I was told that I would also be receiving a follow-up email later.

The conversation was pleasant, and the Apple representative was very nice about it.

lapcatsoftware, 3 months ago to random

iOS lockdown was based on two lies, both told by Steve Jobs:

1. “You don’t want your phone to be an open platform. You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

2. “We don’t intend to make any money off the App Store. We’re basically giving all the money to the developers and the 30 percent that pays for running the store, that’ll be great.”

Any other justification is revisionist history.

lapcatsoftware, 3 months ago to random

At what point do we say that market competition doesn’t work?

The consumer computer operating system market is a duopoly on both desktop and mobile, controlled by only 3 companies: Apple, Google, Microsoft. Apple and Microsoft both were founded in the mid-1970s, while Google is the “youngest” at 25 years old, forcing its way into a mobile OS duopoly with Apple by exploiting a web search monopoly.

Consumers have almost no choice, and where are the additional OS choices ever going to come from?

lapcatsoftware, 4 months ago to random

Dear developers,

Please do not give away your apps for free on a new $3500 platform.

Anyone with that much disposable cash should pay good money for software!

lapcatsoftware, 7 months ago to random

StopTheMadness skips YouTube video ads

If YouTube recently broke your ad blocker, use StopTheMadness instead!

https://underpassapp.com/news/2023-10-19.html

lapcatsoftware, 3 months ago to random

What bothers me most about the unsolicited “defense” of “ordinary people” is the promulgation of learned helplessness.

Despite the ever growing importance of computers in our lives, ordinary people are supposed to remain eternally ignorant, their devices and operating systems locked down by the vendor, preventing them from becoming “power users” and taking control of their own computing experience, no matter how much time they spent using and relying on their computers.

lapcatsoftware, 17 days ago to random

New blog post “Apple started cheating me out of App Store bundle purchases”

TL;DR I've discovered that starting in February, Apple mistakenly subtracts the price of the previously purchased app twice from the proceeds of a "Complete My Bundle" purchase, thereby causing me to take a loss on each such bundle purchase. This accounting change has cost me thousands of dollars over the past few months.

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2024/5/2.html

lapcatsoftware, 6 months ago to random

When people say “Apple doesn’t care about X”, and you are or were a low-level Apple employee, not an Apple Senior Vice President, you really shouldn’t take it personally.

It doesn’t matter whether you personally care, because you’re not running Apple. Please let me know when you become a SVP, and then we’ll talk. Though I suspect that caring about X will actually prevent you from becoming an Apple SVP.

lapcatsoftware, 7 months ago to random

If the giant monopolistic tech corporations are not in your threat model, then you need to remodel.

lapcatsoftware, 6 months ago to random

If you want to find all the bugs in your software, write the user documentation for it.

lapcatsoftware, 6 months ago to random

One thing we can say for certain about A.I. is that it doesn’t stand for Accurate Information.

lapcatsoftware, 17 days ago to random

App Store developers:

If you have an app bundle, check your financial reports from the February period and later. It appears there was an accounting change, and you may be losing money on Complete My Bundle purchases!

With a Complete My Bundle purchase, the original app price is listed as a refund. The problem is that now, starting in Feburary, the bundle price is no longer listed at the full price but rather at the discounted price. So the original app price is getting subtracted twice!!!!!!!

lapcatsoftware, 3 months ago to random

Where’s the “Fuck Off” button?

lapcatsoftware, 2 months ago to random

Apple cannot get preapproval from the EU for its DMA plans, and there’s a simple reason: the DMA focuses on 3rd parties. Apple was supposed to talk with 3rd parties, get preapproval for its plans from them—the EU has publicly encouraged such discussions—but Apple in its hubris refuses to treat 3rd parties as equal partners who matter. Thus the current ridiculous situation.

The EU will take input from 3rd parties before accepting or rejecting Apple’s plans. That’s an essential aspect of the DMA.

lapcatsoftware, 6 months ago to random

A bitter irony is that small companies with few resources can profitably work on products and features that cater to an audience of less than a billion people, but large companies with almost limitless resources somehow find that such products and features are suddenly “not worth it”, even products and features that the very same company used to work on when it was smaller.

It’s a lie. Large companies become corrupted by unmitigated profit maximization, willfully discarding all previous values.

lapcatsoftware, 1 month ago to random

The engineering levels:

junior engineer

senior engineer

moving back in with parents engineer

lapcatsoftware, 29 days ago to random

StopTheMadness Pro 6.0 released in the App Store

• Font replacements autofill the font name of selected text
• Copy link title and show password on iOS
• Bug fixes
• And more

https://underpassapp.com/news/2024/4/5.html

lapcatsoftware, 17 days ago to random

Holy shit, I think Apple has fucked up the payments on the upgrade bundles?!? I’m actually LOSING MONEY on them now, because Apple is subtracting the full price of StopTheMadness but only adding the difference with the bundle price.

Apple wasn’t doing that on my statements from 2 months ago.

This discrepancy is costing me thousands of dollars per month! It’s insane.

https://mastodon.social/@lapcatsoftware/112414247200497613

lapcatsoftware, 1 month ago to random

Safari web extensions are now open source in WebKit. That’s pretty huge.

https://webkit.org/blog/15260/release-notes-for-safari-technology-preview-192/

lapcatsoftware, 2 months ago to random

I'm looking for a freelance web designer with CSS expertise and Safari experience on both mobile and desktop to help me improve the design of my business website.

https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/

lapcatsoftware, 1 day ago to random

New blog post:

macOS Sonoma silently enabled iCloud Keychain despite my precautions

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2024/5/4.html

lapcatsoftware, 2 months ago to random

iPhone may be the most financially successful hardware product of all time, yet Apple lockdown defenders still claim that the platform needs to be monetized from the revenue of third-party software developers, most of whom make approximately infinitely less money than Apple.

It’s a ridiculous argument in principle, and empirically disproven by the Mac, but somehow it’s taken seriously in the media.