To give a gaming comparison, apple signing is basically the modern equivalent of this:
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Sorry macOS users, but Apple has gone too far for some of us gamedevs
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To give a gaming comparison, apple signing is basically the modern equivalent of this:
I think people just overlook what macOS is still around, and why people still make apps: because per customer, apple users still spend a ton more money (at least, the last time I saw this metric is was significantly more than any other platform). I think its even higher for iOS.
But I agree that Apple has been horrible for game dev, and missed many huge opportunities, at least on desktop.
Apple has gone through full os architecture change (os9 -> os10), full hardware architecture change (powerPC -> Intel), and so on - this is nothing new to the platform, as disruptive as it is.
And honestly the transition to allowing iOS games on mac will bring everything full circle, and then you only have to release for "one" platform.
What's hilarious is this kind of sentiment has happened an ungodly # of times in Apple's history, yet somehow they still exist.
This is pretty disinengous because it ignores a lot of the nuance of their transitions. The first major transition Apple did was from M68000 to Power PC, and that nearly destroyed the company. Their marketshare eroded to the point where it was lowest in company history, and an enormous factor was that they had adopted an unpopular architecture which made them the odd man out, while cutting off support for one of the most widely used CPUs at the time with tons and tons of support. People were rightfully upset that they suddenly lost access to lots of previously cross-platform applications.
The switch from OS9 to OSX was softened with "Classic OS" support, and more importantly it largely coincided with the switch from PowerPC to x86/x64. The "old" stuff they were leaving support for, was their least successful stuff in company history, and the "new" stuff they were adopting were the most in-line with industry standards that they'd been since a decade prior. They rebounded, precisely because supporting OSX, especially after they switched to x86, became much, much easier.
This isn't like a change from OS9 to OSX. This is more like a change from 68000 to PPC. They're becoming more insular, and the last time in company history they tried that, it really backfired. I personally don't think the switch to x64 exclusively has that big of an impact on software going forward, but everything else they've done recently (as in, the last several years) has made supporting OSX much more work than even supporting linux these days.
I don't have one: rebooting is inconvenient, shortage of storage.
Windows has had a massive enterprise presence for decades which has caused MS to maintain compatibility layers through their OSes in order to support massive clients and slowly transition them to new updates. Apple doesn't have that anchor holding them back.
(I didnt want to derail the thread too much so I didnt go into details on the things they survived) The switch to PPC by itself wasn't the sole factor though. Remember they also somewhere in there licensed out to other hardware makers, and I think that was the realization that their OS was basically worthless (I mean, its worth a LOT as something people like to use on their hardware, but you can see clearly now that they no longer even bother charging for upgrades), and they were always a hardware company and needed to not lose the money from that.
I agree to a limited degree about the current changes overall, but I also dont have any projects that arent manageable by myself to deal with (and the one I have kept up to date since ios4 has gotten re-written from obj-c to swift, and tons of updates every time apple releases a new os version of swift)
Honestly, Apple's moves are the same ones MS wants to make - lower the cost to support the OS to themselves and people who use it. If that equals a pita for devs, they just have to weigh if they want the money the platform offers.
I agree with this, and also their realization that Classic MacOS really had become "worthless" way, way before they switched to OSX. As big of an improvement as OS7 and 8 (and how "complete" OS9 was) they were monolithic dinosaurs in a multitasking world. I think that, more than anything else, is why the OS9 to OSX transition was so smooth. Not only that, but OSX made apple much more unix-like, which was more familiar (if only slightly) and more modern kernel. They were changes that devs were basically begging for.
Apple doesn't and has never given a shit about developers. They "invent" something, devs gold-rush, they take 30% for doing nothing but monopolizing the platform. They don't care about software, gaming, music, or video, it's all a revenue stream they can tax with minimal input.
Eh, I think thats a little harsh. Without devs, and apps, they have no platform.
There is now the reality that "web" is a platform by itself, but if that was enough, chromebooks would be a way more successful product.
And really, they cant monopolize something when theres not any competition, let me elaborate:
Apple makes the hardware, and they make the OS and tools to make software for that platform. They aren't an open platform hardware or software.
MS and Linux are just software. Theres still a desire to make a platform for apps so people buy/use their software. But at the core, MS could stop making windows hardware and be 100% fine. Apple would die overnight.
mac user. Have to concur. My Mac is for web browsing and that kind of stuff.I have a gaming pc and consoles for my gaming needs. I don't even like to game in the room my mac is in (my bedroom) and if I do my handhelds are better cause I can play in bed.
Just imagine if they would have kept the Halo ip......things might have been a little different.
Apple never owned the Halo IP. Their relationship to Bungie was akin to Nintendo's relationship to Square during the SNES days.
This is such a weird post to read when I work in a Fortune 500 company in IT and see more Macs around the office than ever before. Developers across the organization have been switching to Macs in droves.
Can someone detail the app signing requirement to me? Is it still going to be possible to distribute unsigned binaries? Are they making it more inconvenient to run unsigned apps?
Interesting time to post, given that there's going to be more revenue going to indie devs through Apple Arcade on macOS in the next year than there has been in the entire macOS gaming ecosystem in the last half-decade combined.
Sucks for really small time devs who just want to tinker around a little bit or make quick and dirty ports, I suppose.
Notarization is required by default, but it can be overridden by the end-user on an app-by-app basis (or at least that was the case in earlier betas).
Sucks for really small time devs who just want to tinker around a little bit or make quick and dirty ports, I suppose.
Notarization is required by default, but it can be overridden by the end-user on an app-by-app basis (or at least that was the case in earlier betas).
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hell, i've had windows only clients buy all macbook pros to run windows on, never to touch macos
I read that and feel that it says a whole bunch of nothing.
Original Poster: "Im really dissatisfied with how things are on this platform right now"
Your post: "Yeah well, you were warned!"
Uhh okay? That fixes, or even addresses what exactly? The first paragraph tells the OP they shouldn't care about something they do care about (32 bit support) and the second sentence tells them to suck it up and deal with Notorizing . Like... literally just tells dude to "dealwithit.jpeg".
How the hell is any of that helpful at all. It's barely even an actual opinion. It's a big ass post that basically tells the person: "So...."
THANK YOU! Glad someone else noticed. Its like they didn't even try to read what they were responding to before writing that. LOL @ people claiming its a better post than the actual OP. Ridiculous.
This implies that every developer is even around to get their butt kicked. They could be bankrupt. They could be dead. There are a myriad perfectly valid reasons for someone to still be running 32 bit programs. Imagine if Microsoft did something like this, the backlash would be incredible.
god I wish Microsoft would finally cut off all the legacy garbage they still support to get rid of some of the bloat. like 32bit programs.
Microsoft for some time was making a push to a UWP program only kernel that would emulate Win32 API for enterprise use, but it died along with the Microsoft store push of UWP from unknown factors. Angry users of all types thinking such an idea is bad or would make them switch OS? The increasing power of Valve's Linux funding building a platform that could gut punch Windows if they dared to tread on them? Exec changes resulting in mothballing the project? Poor sales numbers on the Microsoft Store?
Yes. I don't want to run Windows ever again. Most of what I play on a desktop system are indie games and games from medium-sized studios like Amplitude. There's no shortage of those games on the Mac. For the last few years the upper range of game ports saw a decline because Macs were shipping with shit 3D cards. But now that eGPUs are supported, I'm hopeful that will change. But really, most of what I play on the Mac doesn't require high-end graphics cards.
Killing 32 bits sucks in terms of losing old software but shouldn't be an issue for everything new.
Regarding the notorization, it sucks. It will kill small and experimental games in the platform. Everyone making hobbyist games in Unity and exporting them to every platform will now have to pay 100 bucks to Apple to do it. Why would they? It really sucks.
edit: unless being a unity game saves them since unity itself is notorized. But I doubt that's the case.
Regarding the notorization, it sucks. It will kill small and experimental games in the platform. Everyone making hobbyist games in Unity and exporting them to every platform will now have to pay 100 bucks to Apple to do it. Why would they? It really sucks.
edit: unless being a unity game saves them since unity itself is notorized. But I doubt that's the case.
I've been trying to make my own games recently too and it's been hard because of the way they do it. So I'm basically only going to release on Google play store.
The switch from 68k to PowerPC was necessary, as 68k was at a dead end. The 050 had been scrapped, and the 060 was released after the PPC debuted. Apple was involved with PPC, so they could have some influence on its direction. Unfortunately for Apple, IBM was the brains of the operation and couldn't get the G5 small and cool enough for Apple's needs, and they had to switch architectures again. But the switch to x86 worked out very well in the long run.
That's an understatement. "Copland" (intended to be OS 8, and never released) was one of the biggest software development disasters of all time. On par with Microsoft's "Longhorn". What was eventually released as OS 8 and OS 9 were basically crutches for "Classic" Mac OS.
If there was a way to filter out all posts that start with "but" and end with an exclamation point on Era absolutely nothing of value would be lost.
Most of these complaints sound like things that would apply to releasing on any platform that isn't your main one? Its like complaining you need a PS4 dev kit to make PS4 games when your main platform is Xbox.
Also is this specifically referring to getting stuff on the Mac App Store? Because I'm pretty sure you could just sell your app however you want without getting it 'notarised'. Or put it on itch or steam. If it isn't worth a $100 a year license to release it on the Mac App Store, why even bother?
Also is this specifically referring to getting stuff on the Mac App Store? Because I'm pretty sure you could just sell your app however you want without getting it 'notarised'. Or put it on itch or steam. If it isn't worth a $100 a year license to release it on the Mac App Store, why even bother?
apple's stupid 100 dollar dev subscription is such an annoying, bullshit, hurdle
i recently started dinking around with mobile dev for the first time, using a cross platform framework, and i can't test push notifications on the ios builds of my app because apple doesn't let your app receive push notifications unless you pay them 100 dollars...
jerkoffmotion.gif
i recently started dinking around with mobile dev for the first time, using a cross platform framework, and i can't test push notifications on the ios builds of my app because apple doesn't let your app receive push notifications unless you pay them 100 dollars...
jerkoffmotion.gif
I've been long disappointed in apple since they killed the OpenCL future they promised. They never even released a usable OpenCL driver.
Yup, was in a meeting yesterday with about 12 people and everyone except 1 person was using a 15" MacBook Pro. Also not to mention they introduced the iMac Pro and are about to release the Mac Pro (and Pro Display) aimed at the very high end professional. Maybe they lost focus for awhile, but I feel like the newer Pro hardware is very pro focused. Still not for gaming though.
This is for a game that will likely only ever be released on PCs, and Linux does not have the same hurdles as MacOS, though a Linux release is unlikely since it wouldn't have enough of a market there to justify the cost, and it runs perfectly fine under Wine / Steam Proton.
Starting with Catalina, notarization will be required for all apps not distributed through the App Store. Notarization is not required for Mac App Store distribution, but there's little reason for him to release his game there.
to each their own. I just think most people who are familiar with these ecosystems have known for quite some time that MacOS ecosystem is not really a viable gaming platform (short of openemu, but even that is just a nicely packaged multiple emulator). I've always viewed Apple's continued inclusion of boot camp as a tacit admission of this.
also booting into windows on an internal SSD takes basically no time, for real. Then all games can go in an external drives. Obviously I'm talking more about a desktop setup
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PC laptops, especially gaming ones have made huge strides in the past 5 years. it's pretty damn easy/cheap to get a pc laptop that doesnt look like a space ship and plays most games on reasonable settings.
What constitutes a "viable" gaming platform? That it can run the latest AAA games? As I was saying, the Mac is perfectly viable to me as a platform for small-to-medium sized games.
I agree that notarization sucks though. It's only going to adversely affect indie devs, and indie devs are what have always made the Mac ecosystem great. Apple is really not seeing the forest for the trees on this.
What you consider "bloat" is what helps keep windows used as such a high level in the enterprise sector. Hell, I wish they still had 16-bit WoW support in the 64 bit version.
Oh no. Will apple really be bothered though?
I mean how many mac users care that much about gaming.
I mean how many mac users care that much about gaming.
Honestly it runs like it's native through Proton. No weirdness whatsoever.
Ah yes, Halo. The PC gaming champ that sells 10m+ every release on a Windows platform!
If you can't afford $99 a year are you even a serious developer? For my personal local business I spend $250+ a month on advertising and I doubt I bring home anywhere near as much as even indie developers.
They don't wanna pay the cost of doing business, then don't do it.
I'll keep loving my iPhone and iMac because they're great products that never let me down.
They don't wanna pay the cost of doing business, then don't do it.
I'll keep loving my iPhone and iMac because they're great products that never let me down.
As I said in my previous post, to each his/her own. MacOS meets your needs as a gaming platform. Great.
But it has nothing to do with the "latest" AAA games. Many, many, many games - from all eras - have no MacOS version made for them and an extremely small number of games are MacOS exclusive (Apple Arcade is opening this field up a bit, but it's miniscule). The situation is about equally bad for reasonable emulation. So I feel like it is a bit disingenuous to be suggesting that a majority of players would not feel it's very viable as a platform.
Depends on the industry and what software they need.
Devs often switch this MacOS in part because they have to to develop for Apple's platforms.
Macs are still PCs (for now). That comes with the expectation that you can do what you want with them. Naturally not everyone is gonna be happy when options are taken away.
Consoles have been locked down systems for a long time, so the expectation isn't there.
It's not so much about issues for new development as it is about stability. Especially with the non-zero chance that Apple just decides all Macs are ARM now any year now. Games tend to have pretty long development cycles and have a lot of trouble justifying indefinite development support after release for every time Apple decides to pull the rug out from under them (let's not forget that even OpenGL support is deprecated). When it becomes such a near certainty that you'll be put in the position where you need to either update your game to comply with one of Apple's mandates or remove it from sale at some point in the not too far off future, I can see why a lot of developers might just decide to not support the platform in the first place.