Tim, don't kill my vibe
48 comments
·March 25, 2025rchaud
dlachausse
A lot of people take issue with the Apple Developer account fee, but it’s really not that bad. To put it in perspective, at $99/year it comes out to just over $0.27/day. That’s a pretty cheap hobby. I certainly spend way more than that on my woodworking hobby.
rchaud
$99/yr is infinitely more expensive than $0.
Again, the raw materials have been paid for (my time, my hardware). Windows, Android and Linux have managed to keep the lights on without charging a bullshit fee for the privilege of deigning to let me run a lowly app on their exalted platforms.
dlachausse
Windows and Linux are desktop OSes and should be compared to macOS, which does allow you to run your own software without paying the fee.
I will concede that Android does allow you to install apps for free and if that is a feature that is really important to you, you should switch to that platform. iOS has always been this way, there wasn’t a bait and switch, and many people (myself being one of them) consider the higher barrier to entry to be a feature of iOS, not a bug.
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yurishimo
The problem is the principle of the thing. I shouldn’t have to pay to develop an app to run on my own device. I can see an argument for locking features like test flight and distribution behind the paywall, but I should be able to run an app that I develop by myself onto a device that I own with no restrictions.
dlachausse
Why haven’t you switched to Android which provides the feature you want? It’s a problem you can easily resolve, without making any one else change.
pclowes
Amen, I am so sick of the appificiation of everything. Just use a web app. Really annoying that major sites make their sites buggy and brittle seemingly on purpose. Eg: reddit is terrible to use on mobile web and I suspect they make it so on purpose to drive app adoption but why would I ever want or need an app for Reddit?!
dlachausse
I use old.reddit.com for the handful of subreddits that I still follow that haven’t become excessively political. It’s a much better UX than new Reddit.
PaulHoule
In my experience, web applications make good iPad applications. And if you hit WCAG AAA standards they even make good XR applications for the Meta Quest 3. I don't have much interest in learning how to make iOS-only apps, not least because the app store puts the brakes on plain-ordinary software development, never mind vibe coding.
skybrian
A trend towards more web apps (versus native) doesn’t seem like a bad thing? If it gets any traction then you can think about native.
ericmay
Why would a trend toward more web apps be seen as a good thing?
PaulHoule
I remember what a revolution web apps were in the 1990s. Web applications "just work" without any installing or updating, for one thing.
Many software firms that made software for Windows had a full-time installer engineer. The story has gotten much better but enterprises still struggle to keep desktop software up to date. Talk about fighting with the app store.
jollyllama
Web apps run on everything. If it's good enough for your needs, just do that.
ericmay
> Web apps run on everything.
If you're building something like Facebook where you want your site on everything from a smart watch to a desktop PC to a car that makes sense to me.
But aside from that, why is making sure your application can run on "everything" a goal?
It kind of reminds me of when someone makes a new physical product, and wants to make sure it's carried at every retailer, and usually when that happens the quality of the product suffers in a race toward the bottom. The best producers of goods tend to not follow this model, however.
hombre_fatal
Web apps can be managed with browser extensions and you have browser dev tools like the JS console and network tab.
Meanwhile you have to mitm your native app just to see what it’s doing.
ericmay
Browser extensions kind of suck. I personally prefer native apps and apps built out of the browser (otherwise I'd just get a Chromebook). Whenever I think about web apps I think about my time at a large firm where the goal was to eliminate employee laptops to save money and instead roll out virtual desktops. It was always a worse experience, though certainly had clear areas where it could be improved. I think of web apps the same way, they seem like the nice and easy solution but for some reason they tend to just kind of suck.
stronglikedan
Less native apps. Native apps were great, but they have ruined any goodwill and trust that they could have had. Plus, less porting and by extension, less maintenance.
mamcx
This.
Making the web more powerful is also making the more powerful *more powerful*.
pclowes
Does somebody have an example of a good app made by vibe coding? I keep hearing this and while I am sure its great for prototyping and exploration I just don't have any examples I would be happy to use frequently.
I wonder if vibe coding is a false economy? I am personally not excited to use tools and products thoughtlessly glopped together.
rchaud
"Vibe coding" exists on the same spiritual plane as "Robinhood options trader" and "Twitch entrepreneur". Attaching one's earning potential to the strength of a platform that's often profiled in the media.
MisterTea
Like everything else online, it's a social media trend/meme. Someone makes a social media post and it gets dopamine clicks and now others want in on the dopamine clicks so they too jump into social media circle jerk. I also feel thesea re the kinds of trends mediocre influence programmers like jumping on. So they live vibe code to show how hip and in the know they are by adopting new ideas and tech when in fact they are padding out their social channels with ad delivery schlock.
dleeftink
> it’s simply too hard to distribute software even to your own devices, let alone someone else’s
As the author said multiple times, again, this isn't new. That developer pushback hasn't resulted in any meaningful change to the developer experience over the years, speaks volumes of where the company's allegiances lie.
thefourthchime
So true. It took me five times longer to get my app on the App Store than it did to vibe code it.
jayd16
Just ask the AI to vibe-release it or something.
Avshalom
good
kermatt
Despite the varying opinions about Apple's App Store policies, I am not sure a super quick path from idea to install is a good approach. The result could be a tsunami of AI generates trash apps obscuring those that have actual utility.
whywhywhywhy
> The result could be a tsunami of AI generates trash apps obscuring those that have actual utility.
The iOS app store has already been a human made tsunami of trash obscuring actual utility for over a decade. We're well past that point, the idea that the review system was about setting a bar for quality dissipated about three years into the store.
myflash13
Apple has been really slow and dumb with AI, but I believe they are still in the best position to make the best use of it. They have the best hardware, the best vertical integration, and the best ecosystem across Mac/iPhone/iPad/Watch. Give it some more time, Apple has always been late, but I still trust they will deliver the best experience in the end. It may take some shake-ups and heads rolling, but they'll get there.
thefz
Like for everything else they will let others fail, cherry pick what they want when the technology is mature, then say they invented it and call it "magic".
thefz
Never read the "vibe coding" original tweet, holy sh the golden age for hackers is coming.
ramesh31
Keep up the good fight, Tim.
The App Store is our one saving grace from the festering nightmare that is literally every other app store in existence. It's one of the primary reasons I stick with iOS. Their curation process, for better or worse, is one of the last remaining good faith pro-consumer efforts I can even think of from a large corp.
poisonborz
> Apple app store review process "good faith pro-consumer effort"
Comedy gold here!
What if they would trust the users to install whatever they wish (from other sources) and THEN provide this marvellous service in addition?
Arkanum
Surely there is a middle ground where its at least possible to install apps that apple haven't approved[1]? I also like the idea of the _higher_ bar that the app store is supposed to have (not that this bar is always met), but the lack of any alternative is really crappy.
[1]: https://atp.fm/628 & https://mastodon.social/@rileytestut/114043540322770608
PaulHoule
Steam's "app" store seems pretty good to me. Not to mention other app stores for game consoles such as Xbox, PS, and Nintendo as well as the Meta Quest.
If the Play store is bad it's because Android is bad, not because the store is bad in and of itself.
I had decent experiences with the app store back in my Salesforce days, as much as that seems a different life.
pchristensen
Those stores are more locked down than the Apple App Store.
chasil
If you become the owner of a Pebble watch (I am not), then your perspective may shift.
Their curation is thorough, but somewhat biased. Nobody is perfect.
thefz
There are heaps of garbage in it as well as malware and other stuff.
null
> I recently built a small iOS app for myself. I can install it on my phone directly from Xcode but it expires after seven days because I’m using a free Apple Developer account. I’m not trying to avoid paying Apple, but there’s enough friction involved in switching to a paid account that I simply haven’t been bothered.
Nope, screw that. I am trying to avoid paying Apple, considering I already paid them once for the phone.
Web apps > all. It's the one thing that actually meets the "write once, run anywhere" condition.