Posts by RyokuMas 1913 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Oct 2009
So what you're saying is that for your convenience, you're happy paying a 30% mark-up? And that if an alternative store were available selling exactly the same stuff at a significantly lower price, you wouldn't switch?
Yes, I agree that Android users are largely freeloaders - in fact, I've had comments on here where some openly admitted it. But I'm not talking about different ecosystems here - I'm talking about different payment options on a single ecosystem. It's like shopping around for electricity suppliers or car insurance - by forcing all payments to go through the app store, Apple have prevented this and put themselves in a position where they can potentially set their cut at whatever they like. The only reason they have got away with this is because they argue cross-ecosystem.
Now, if I was an iOS developer and had the choice between the App Store's 30% cut or a hypothetical alternative payment provider who only took a 5% cut, if I charged $2 for my IAP, my share of the revenue (before tax) would be $1.40 with the former, but $1.90 with the latter. Apply that across the whole revene base and suddenly your developers would have made just over $18B - that's over 35% more revenue in the hands of the developers who are the ones actually putting in the effort to create the apps! Or - and this is why Apple don't want to relinquish control, I could sell my IAP at $2 on the App Store, but $1.75 on my alternative provider... I only get a $1.66 this time, but it's still neary 19% more revenue than the App Store and my customers are getting a better deal.
Some reality check...
As for Windows Phone - firstly, that went down the toilet because of bodged marketing, continual chopping and changing over what would work and what wouldn't, and eventually SatNad taking over, and his decision to focus on cloud. When I first started developing for mobile, its store was actually the best of the three to work with - curated (as my first few failed submissions proved), but nothing like the hoops you need to jump through with iOS... and definitely not the "pay $25 and upload whatever you like" crapfest that Google Play was at the time. Secondly, I rolled my own IAP system, not payment system... or do you believe that PayPal is not secure?
Back in 2011, I took the plunge and started developing for mobile: Windows Phone had just landed and I was (ok, naively in retrospect) hoping that Microsoft would do the same thing as they had with Xbox and throw money at it until it stuck. So there was the whole "little fish in a tiny pond" thing and the ability to transfer my C# knowledge across that made my buy in... that plus Apple were too "walled garden", and Android was already becoming tightly coupled to Google. Anyway...
Windows Phone at that point had no in-app purchase system. So I rolled my own - a web browser control that opened onto a PayPal page on my website that handled the transaction, and the app then picked up the change from the database via a web call. Crude, but it worked. I got called a con artist by some users - with no IAP system, my apps were listed as "free" - but Microsoft never came banging on my door demanding a cut.
Similarly in my work as a web-dev - I've implemented PayPal, SagePay, WorldPay, RealEx... a whole number of different payment gateways.
So why should mobile apps not have this level of flexibility? Apple might argue that having this control allows them to ensure the "quality" of IAPs in the same way as the apps themselves - well, I call BS on that because a) there are "games" out there selling in-game currency for £99 a pop and charging different amounts for the same in-game item based on which server you happen to be on and b) it should be very easy to separate the actual item/content from the payment.
This is entirely Apple trying to keep control of how things are paid for, either so they can always take their cut, or just to prove a point about who is in charge. Either way, it's monopolistic and anti-competitive, and personally I wish Epic all the best in setting a precedent that can then open the gates to proper competition and choice.
What I find difficult to get my head round is why Facebook and Google - it's like comparing apples and oranges.
Google I can understand wanting to levy the charges against, since they basically scrape sites and stick what they find up on their search results page. Facebook on the other had is reliant on other people posting and sharing links.
Okay, so both have some kind of algorithm that prioritises what gets shown at the head of the page (although my FB is in a nice chronological order - thanks FB Purity!), so once a link is present in either system, it's subject to some kind of assessment. But Facebook - as far as I'm aware, correct me if I'm wrong - are not abitrarily going out and hoovering up everything they can get their mucky little paws on in the way Google is.
So to me, this feels more like a power-play by the Aussie government - albeit a well-played move to highlight just how dangerously dominant these big tech giants are - as opposed to anything really about money...
"Google doesn't get your info. But Apple sure does."
But - unless they are about to make some radical direction and policy changes - Apple's business model is all about selling the Apple brand. They don't care if you spend half your time looking at lingerie (unless they're planning to release the "iBra" sometime soon) - they just care that you stay within their ecosystem where possible.
Google, on the other hand...
Lesser of two evils, I'm afraid. Although I'm still going to continue using Brave on my iPhone.
"MS -whether actually good or bad - people associate it with (a) Work and (b) Crap."
Been saying this all along - if Microsoft had branded Windows Phone 7/8 as something else that was not immediately connected to them and then thrown sufficient cash at it, there's every chance we could have had a three healthy mobile ecosystems now, rather that being forced to choose between IOS and SpyOS. After all, it worked for the Xbox...
But no. And, predictably, we had the usual howls of disparagement from a lot of people on here, many of whom had probably never even bothered to pick one up and tried it out... "because it's Microsoft".
"Some games are more like "Advert Apps" then an actual game..."
Blame the developers for that one. Between 2010 and 2015 I made a bunch of mobile games: during the time I dabbled with ads, I made sure that they did not disrupt the flow of the gameplay. So the frequency of ads is pure designer/developer greed.
Worse still are the mobile "games" that will not start if they cannot connect to the internet: instant uninstall...
Whenever I've been looking for a new role in the past and therefore actually answering the numerous emails I receive from scalpers, "what is the on-call expectation for this role?" is one of the first questions in my reply.
Assuming that the scalper comes back with "none/minimal" and I then go to interview, when we get to the "do you have any questions?" bit, I always follow up with something like "the scalper said you have minimal on-call requirements - can you tell me how often someone in my role is expected to be on call and how often issues have come up?"
So far, the three times I have been asked to work outside of office hours in my 20+ year career have all been paid back by extra holiday...
Sure, working from home is convenient, and has probably saved a few lives in the short term, but personally I agree with the guy: we need to get the majority of the workforce back in the office as soon as possible - and here's why.
Firstly, humans are social creatures: we have naturally existed in social groups since pre-hominid times, and in this day and age, a lot of that is underlying requirement is fulfilled by the workplace. As a software developer with over twenty year's experience, I've lost count of the number of problems I have solved thanks to a simple spur-of-the-moment discussion with a colleague while waiting for the coffee machine, to say nothing of how much more knowledge can be imparted when trainee and mentor are working shoulder to shoulder on the same screen. This enforced isolation is unnatural: the increase in cases of depression, anxiety and other mental health issues are all symptomatic of this.
Secondly, humans work best with structure: in times gone by, the rising and setting of the sun used to drive this, but these days just like extended family/community has been superseded by the workplace for sociability, so too has the natural rhythm of daylight been largely replaced by the requirements of "the working day". Pre-COVID, how many of us used to schedule essentials like exercise around work: cycling too and from the office? going to the gym at lunchtime? or maybe attending fitness classes before or after work hours? How many of us are now sloping around from bed to home-office chair to couch to bed again and not much else? How many have put on weight during this time? The longer these restrictions go on for, the greater the post-COVID obesity crisis is going to be.
Separating the workplace from the home increases mental discipline and compartmentalisation: we work at work, and work problems can be "left at work", and the same with the home - we don't have to think about helping the other half with chores or cleaning up after the kids while in the office. Yes, it's nice to be around family more, but I'm willing to bet that after the best part of a year, a significant number of people are now feeling the stress of conflating the concerns of both work and home into a single location.
Finally, being together with a team instills a sense of purpose and belonging: when in the same place as our teams, we can talk openly, banter and vent. We can respond to each other if we see someone is struggling, propose solutions and offer assistance - not possible when your contact with your team is a series of scheduled meetings. Without this sponteneity, it is very easy to become detatched from the others, impacting both knowledge and productivity of the team as a whole. Pre-COVID, it was not unusual for someone who did not participate in team discussions to raise concerns, and the approriate action taken.
So yes, locking down like this has probably saved quite a lot of lives. The question that's my mind - as it has been since lockdown v2.0 was announced last November is: "at what long-term cost?" How much productivity has been lost? How much knowledge not shared? How many more cases of obesity-related chronic illness - diabetes and the like, all of which can cause a premature death - will be putting the NHS under yet more strain for years to come? How many more with depression, anxiety, stress and other mental health issues, for which there are no vaccines or cures? And, tragically, how many more people will take their own lives due to these issues - either directly from this unnatural behaviour that is being forced upon us at the moment, or because the inevitable loss in income due to tax rises required to pay off the massive debt the country has run up has pushed them into abject poverty?
"Want the main reason the platform died though? The app store was dead."
I released my first game on WinPhone7 about eight months after the platform launched; even at the point SatNad declared that WinPhone was no longer going to be supported in order to move forward with Azure, that game still ran just fine on any variant of WinPhone. And from what I could see in the five-plus years I was developing games for mobile, the store had pretty much all the big-name apps that most people used from day-to-day - except where it was simply not possible, such as when Google pulled the rug out from under Youtube.
The reason why the platform dies was because Microsoft did a piss-poor job of marketing it. A lot of devs were actively developing for it, based on the theory that while it was a much smaller market than iOS on Android, there was a lot less competition, and therefor potentially bigger bite of the cherry. Had Microsoft done the same with it as with the Xbox - ie: branded it something other than "Microsoft" or "Windows" and thrown money at it until it stuck, I firmly believe that we would have had a third major ecosystem in play by now.
WinPhone was by far my favourite mobile platform to develop for: I didn't need to spend over a grand on a Mac or fight with the app store, and I didn't need to worry about the thousands of different flavours and quirks of handsets or the 90% piracy rate. The biggest irk I had was the lack of in-app purchase system back in the WinPhone7 days - which I managed to develop my way round with a bit of creativity, a web page and a paypal account! It's a shame WinPhone was yet another victim of Microsoft's lack of insight - but then I jumped out of the mobile game market a few years back now... too saturated with shovelware/re-skins, and it has been utterly poisoned by the race-to-the-bottom free-to-play, pay-to-win "milk the whales" style business model.
I cannot help but wonder... has anyone thought about "following the science" of the long-term perspective?
There are reports that 50% of students are suffering from mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Say what you like about students, but the fact remains that they are the doctors, scientists and teachers of the future.
Also, say what you like about mental health, but again, the fact here is that these issues lead to physical symptoms, which in turn can lead to serious physical health complications. I myself have anxiety issues and suffer from insomnia as a result - yes, these pre-date COVID, but have been exacerbated by the current situation, especially in recent times with lockdown 2 and what has happened since. Ongoing sleep deprevation increases the chances of stroke and heart attack (among other things). COVID has a mortality rate of less than 1% - how many people who could have got ill with COVID and then recovered have now had their lives shortened because of the ongoing conditions we are being forced to live under?
And then we have the current situation with the new variant which, thanks to tardy action by the UK government (no surprise) and a stampede out of London following the resultant knee-jerk response, is probably going to land the entire country in tier 4 in the next few weeks. There are a number of reports in which that ministers have said (albeit not as a pulbic statement) that once an area is in tier 4, it stays there until half the UK population has been vaccinated.
So far, we have vaccinated 500,000 people in two weeks. The UK population is upward of 68 million. Do the maths, and that works out at roughly two and a half years before we hit that magic 50% where tier 4 restrictions can be lifted. Two and a half years - some of us spend less time in a permanent job role. GCSE, college and A-level teaching spans are shorter. And - of course - that's if the vaccines still work effectively against the new varient.
In hindsight, we should have locked down hard at the start - it would have been tough, but I believe that we would have weathered four to six months of full lockdown better than this continual stop-start-react-pivot that's going on now. But it's too late for that - one survey I read has stated that over 50% of people are willing to defy the current regulations for Christmas, so I'm pretty confident in saying that attempting a six-month full lockdown now will only lead to defiance and rebellion.
Instead, I believe we need to lift all restrictions apart from social distancing and wearing masks when out and about, shielding the vulnerable (ie: if you want to go see granny, you need to isolate for two weeks in advance), and self-isolation if you have been in contact with someone who has tested positive. Otherwise, we should be free to mix. Because if we go for the alternative, the long-term view only holds a generation with mental health issues and sub-standard education.
Got to agree; the current, ongoing work-from home situation and the resulting lack of work/life separation and general atmosphere of being around like-minded professionals has caused my insomnia to flare to the point where I'm not averaging 4-5 hours sleep per night. Needless to say, this is wrecking havock on my ability to develop software!
I was all for lockdown at the start - we needed something to allow us to get a handle on the situation and figure out exactly what we are dealing with. But now we need to look at the long-term effects: mental health issues - up. Domestic abuse - up. Suicide - up. It's time to relax the regulations. Sure, we should still be careful: masks, track-and-trace, self isolation after contact, etc., but it's now time to start weighing up the damage this ongoing grind is causing... how much of the NHS's funding over the next decade is going to be used dealing with people who have developed anxiety or depression due to the COVID response?
I for one am now at the point where I'd be happy to pay the fine in order to meet up with my best mate.
"B[u]g was fixed before public disclosure. Google bloke reports bug to Apple and receives bounty. Apple fix bug, roll out update."
In that case, the real shock is that Google bloke didn't go public while the fix was being tested with a seven day deadline to boot...
But... but.. but...
... Google are the internet police*! Surely they have a devine right to know if anyone is doing anything that might challenge this?!?
* by self appointment
"... Chrome zero-days are being exploited in the wild
So we can expect to see full details of these vulnerabilities made public in seven days time... because that's "responsible disclosure", right?
"You could say the same for MS..."
... and I have, when I believe they've deserved it. In fact, I made the same point about the race to the bottom some time ago, around the time Microsoft unveiled the telemetry in Win10, if memory serves.
The point here is - and I quote the article: "... a Microsoft spokesperson said the company is working on a fix... " So before Google blew the whistle on this, Microsoft were aware of the issue - and probably that it was being actively exploited - and were working on a patch in order limit the damage.
And then - like the Daily Mail and the leaked information on UK Lockdown V2.0 this weekend gone - Google decide to go public. And - here's the important thing - with only a seven day disclosure period. Why is this important? Because had they waited the standard 90-day period, the fix would have gone out on November 10th. So instead of playing by their own rules, Google chose to rank this issue on a par with the MD5 collision attack I brought up in my previous post - so either Google perceive that this issue is as important as a vulnerability in SSL certificates or, more likely I believe, they saw that the window of opportunity to attack was closing.
In many ways, this situation reflects your own post: as I have already mentioned, the article states that Microsoft were working on a fix for this before Google blew the whistle. Similarly, I have just re-read the article and I cannot find any mention of this blame you bring up, much less Microsoft blaming others. What I do see from your postscript though is your extolling of Linux at the expense of Microsoft; similarly, your second paragraph reads pretty much as if there was some conspiracy within Microsoft and their associates to hush up the existance of this bug. And - quite frankly - your implication of businesses being constantly under attack due to choosing Microsoft's tooling is nothing short of absurd: yes, Microsoft may have more vulnerabilities, but if someone truely wants to attack a particular business, they would. By the same token, as Microsoft's software is still dominant on the office desktop, it is the biggest target, just as Android is the biggest target for phones.
So, just like Google choosing to ignore their own responsible disclosure timings, you - as an obvious supporter of Linux - have taken this as an opportunity to attack Microsoft... unless, of course, you have can provide proof that Microsoft indeed have blamed someone else and/or were trying to cover this up.
Or would you rather they rushed out an untested fix (in the same manner as I linked in my post when Google made a similar disclosure previously)? As I myself would prefer they did not, as rushed fixes tend to cause more bugs than they correct... but then that would probably suit you down to the ground: more bugs to say that Microsoft were conspiring to cover up - right?
"The Google Zero team are not cowboy dicks: they follow a fair process and have thought about the issues more than most, and are trying to be responsible."
Oh, so this vulnerability is as critical as, say, the MD5 collision attack?
Lets take off the (junked) Google Glasses here - Google are known for sour grapes behaviour and releasing details of bugs in competitor products event when they know that a fix is being tested. Project Zero is just another part of Google's attempt to appoint themselves the police of the internet, using the key of "responsible disclosure" in the hope that this legitimises their posture and makes them look like the good guys.
Standard Google tactics: attack someone else from behind a wall of perceived altruism.
"The only people they are helping by publicly releasing this information are hackers who didn’t know about the exploit."
Not true - they're also helping themselves by trying to damage a potential competitor's reputation (not that Microsoft traditionally needed any help with that, but still...)
... in fact, I would go so far as to say that the fact that the author of this piece states that these apps are "essential" is proof of Google's monopoly over Android, and also of product tying.
"We are proud people choose Google Search not because they have to, but because it's convenient..."
No, people "choose" Google because Google pay the big bucks to shave it in front of them, and most people are too lazy/easily led to find out what the consequences of this so-called "convenience" are, and what alternatives are out there. Chrome's rise to #1 browser being a case in point: how many people (IT and non-IT) downloaded it because it was "better", and how many simply clicked the big orange button that appeared on every single Google search results page when it first launched?
The sad thing is, I do remember a time when it was true: people chose Google because - at the time - it was the best... and by a considerable distance.
Too bad the "revert site" option no longer works... but I honest-to-god can't see why anyone who has to use Facebook (I do for project promotion reasons) doesn't immediately install this extension.
Oh, if only it were just politicians...
I recall numerous times dating back over the last few years where I accumulated a good number of downvotes for suggesting Google was anything other than the saviour of IT.
... yup, that's not the one that got me the most downvotes. But the response post in retrospect always puts an ironic smile on my face...
We - that is, the IT community - are more responsible for this than even the politicians. We are the ones that our friends, families, employers and society in general turn to for advise. And despite the claims of so many of us to be on the cutting edge of technology, far too many of us were - and still are, in some cases - too wrapped up in a 20+ year-old grudge to prevent this.
Some how "told you so" really doesn't seem to cut it in this situation. But I do fully expect to rack up a few more downvotes off this... I just hope that they're for my being a smug bastard, as opposed to from those who are still somehow deluded by Google.
"We are aware of a bug in Chrome that is impacting how cookies are cleared on some first-party Google websites. We are investigating the issue, and plan to roll out a fix in the coming days."
Anyone here remember the early days of the BOFH excuse calendar? Because I'd be more inclined to believe "Solar flares!" or "Magnets!" right now...
Sounds like something straight out of soap-opera land: jilted party jumps into bed with their ex's business rival...
Now, I don't watch soaps myself (better things to do with my life like watching paint dry, updates install etc), but from my understanding, the usual follow-up to this plot line is that "ex's business rival turns out even worse".
Say what you like about Windows Phone, but at least it pretty much came to an end before Microsoft decided to try and steal the "tracking" chapter out of Google's playbook...
"Meet will receive audit logging and classification capabilities..."
So Google think that people's concerns around privacy and security are founded on what other people might attempt?
Okay, okay, maybe that' true of your average PHB. But really? Mention Google and my concerns around privacy and security is "what data will they be extracting from said logging and the rest of this suit?" - and I know I'm not alone on this one!
In fact, this reminds me of a nightclub near where I grew up - complete shit-pit, but every three or four years, it would change it's name and rebrand in the hope that people would forget its reputation and give it another look.
"And what of Microsoft? Why do they miss the cut?"
Because they already got slapped?
Seriously, go outside the IT sphere and into the general public these days and "who are Microsoft?"
... maybe the guys who make Xboxes. Perhaps the guys who make the software you use when you're at work.
Certainly not the guys who are make the tablets and phones that most people use casually in any location these days. Not the guys who let you browse the and search web, watch videos, post pictures of your cat or what you had for dinner, or look up the latest self-indulgent posts from those with a sense of entitlement who would-be famous.
AWS... okay, that's more subtle. But it would be interesting to see whether Joe average is more aware of Microsoft or Amazon these days.
Unless you're a developer working with their tech stack, Microsoft are very much an also-ran these days. Trying hard to get back into the thick of it, sometimes succeeding (Azure), often failing (Bing, Edge, Win10 telemetry). But Microsoft is very much "of the PC" - and while PCs are still the mainstay of the workplace, tablets and phones are now our 24/7.
"... and a Nest-branded cloud-connected mic-speaker combo..."
Didn't that launch over eighteen months ago?
"ElReg commentards tend to be a fairly realistic lot."
Really? Every time these days that I see a howl of derision about how our privacy has been eroded, I have to resist the urge to link back to one of several posts I made a few years back that got downvoted to hell and back, and say "told you so..." :D
And don't get me started on how many seem to still be stuck in the browser wars era of thinking!
... or maybe I'm just jaded because Eadon was just starting on his journey into madness when I joined...
"Sounds like Google has won"
The same thought crossed my mind when I was reading the article.
What I still find somewhere between amusing and bemusing is the number of comments I'm seeing along the lines "Oh NO it's Micros~1 how much DATA will they SLURP?!?!?!!111!", while little to no mention is made of the fact that this is based on Google's technology - and they certainly have the leading market share in the tracking/slurping department...
"Wyatt was contrite during his sentencing..."
Funny how these people who are all bertie-big-balls behind the anonymity of the internet so often end up being blubbering wrecks when dragged out into the spotlight of the real world - from Reddit trolls all he way up to this.
As a father though, he deserves everything he gets as far as I am concerned; both in terms of sentence and what my happen thereafter.
Tests breaking as a result of scope change is only to be expected - in fact, understanding why those tests broke and fixing/re-working/removing as required only goes to strengthen things.
Of course, if the spec change is to the point where a considerable number of your tests are hopelessly broken or no longer relevant then it's time to push back to the product owner and say that what's being asked for is not what you were originally tasked with building...
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