I've built apps with millions of users using flutter. Quicker, faster and easier for building cross-platform apps if you know what you are doing.
This is coming from a native framework evangelist for many years, and then just tried flutter early days (which was far more difficult than how easy it is today). Now I write almost all my projects in flutter/dart where I can, especially with AI the speed from idea to production is insane.
This is such an hilarious answer. For most of the non-Western world, we don't distrust China because they have created benefits for the developing world. Whereas the USA has been outright imperialist for the past 60-70 years, undermining and overthrowing developing democracies, putting in dictators, using international organisations as debt traps, waging and funding wars that put our lives and economies at risk.
It is so pathetic how American's see themselves, and are so deeply afraid of China. I am far more fearful of the predatory nature of the USA and its agencies than I could ever be of China who would never have any interest in me.
Thank god. I'd been hearing we screwed up catastrophically by electing an admin that took a chainsaw to our foreign aid programs, killing millions in the developing world. Such a relief to learn we were never doing that stuff in the first place.
Ending USAID is the exact reason hundreds of thousands suffer more today than they did a few years ago. It is the reason mass migration takes place from developing to developed. The total ignorance and outright stupidity of comments like this is why Yanks should really take a seat when it comes to talking about geopolitics.
Your life doesn't end. Your perception of your life along this current trajectory and within this current system could end, but it could start you on another much more powerful path. I don't just mean this in relation to flock camera's but rather direct action.
That's what everyone thinks when they get caught. What are you gonna do about the ubiquitous surveillance? The very same cameras would track you from your house all the way to the one you cut down, even if you changed clothes.
Does the world really need to be reduced to binary state, people being black or white and nothing else? I know its supremely convenient mentally, this is how populists ride their huge waves and its each of us in the crowd that allow that.
I find it much more compelling to fully see some negative aspect(s) of someone's past existence while accepting that if I grew up in that era, I would have vastly different morals and probably be fine with that.
Judge others not too harshly if you may, since you will also be judged further down the line and most surely will be judged as inadequately moral or good by their standards, didn't do enough to help preventing some proper shit happening/will happen and so on, rather looked away while milking some comfy job for those sweet dollars (we all have kids and families and mortgages and dreams I know, so does everybody else).
Most people here work for FAANGs of this era for example, hardly moral corporations by any metric and some literally sowing evil ie in cancers called social networks and their gamifications or pushing unwanted ads / outright lies into every eyeball they can reach. And those companies are hardly the only black spots on current society, I'd even say purely moral work is rather rare.
I judge people exactly how my moral's and principles determine they should be judged. People love to use "of the time" type quotes to excuse slavery for example, when in actual fact it was well known at the time to be despicable.
Or perhaps a better example is "of the time" quotes to justify apartheid South Africa, a place my parents grew up in. Many friends parent's were blindly ignorant or supportive, but that doesn't mean they didn't know the facts. They just go, "that's how it was". When I know from my parent's it wasn't like that, and White and Black people knew exactly what was going on. Same could be said for Nazi Germany.
And certainly same can be said for everyone on here that works at FAANG, or Palantir or any US defense contractor. They are knowingly and willingly aiding genocide or mass surveillance. They cannot claim ignorance.
We live in a day and age where people far too easily give up their freedoms, give up moral stand points because it is difficult or divisive. Yes, that's exactly what it is meant to be.
Maybe if we judged people more harshly we wouldn't be seeing a rise in fascism today, because views are just accepted as they are. Hell no. I hope I am judged down the line. Don't be too blase about accepting shitty viewpoints because people are morally ignorant, or lack principles and in doing so divide humanity along spurious lines.
You might want to read Hamilton’s defence of Elgin to understand how they saw the difference between legitimate and illegitimate acquisition of antiquities.
Who say's I haven't read it? Yet, Elgin still stole the marbles. Justified it by claiming the barbarism of the Ottoman's was to blame and he was only doing good, despite this being disputed. And hilarious as his removal caused permanent and untold damage to the marbles. And the British refuse to return them even though they would be safe today.
Furthermore theft of antiquities isn't quite the same as slavery, genocide, apartheid... Although culturally relevant, it does form part of ethnic cleansing - which the British Empire excelled at.
Or move to Europe/China/insert lovely tax haven here. They don't have to base their operations in the USA, they CHOOSE to. I will cancel my subscription because of this, and happily use DeepSeek/mimo or whatever else comes for a fraction of the cost. China won't and mostly can't do anything with my data, the US government can and certainly will.
I'll pick my poison thanks and choose Chinese surveillance.
There is no way for Anthropic to move and remain competitive and useful. Their staff are (primarily) in the US. Thousands of people with mortgages, marriages, kids in school, recurring medical appointments with their trusted providers, people who speak only English. This idea that US companies could just hop jurisdictions because the state turned against them and their customers is an insane one.
Essentially been trying to make it modernised with updated events, skill sets, locations etc. Just to make it a bit more fun for me to play around with.
I also have no doubt there's bugs as this is very new and only put a few hours into it over the past few weeks.
Fascinating you say "a country that is in steady decline" when all the data of the past 29 years since the start of democracy seems to go against that statement. I hate the ANC for their corruption and other stances, but I don't let party political hate get in the way of the real basis of what is going on in the country. I'm guessing you haven't spent much time there? Whereas I have spent the past 25 years and travelled and lived extensively in South Africa.
What is your indication of decline? Some facts and figures:
- Less than 30% of the population having access to water has increased to near 100%.
- Electricity had less than 30% access and now sits around 90%
- Access to education (The matric pass rate more than doubled from 53.4 in 1995 to 82.9 in 2023) to taking that to near 100% in 29 years is pretty incredible.
- Taking 8 million people out of poverty and lower class into the middle class in that time is pretty great.
- Access to free healthcare for the entire country.
- The freedom of not being discriminated towards due to skin colour.
Yes the ANC has had an opportunity to do much greater good, but if you take in the bigger picture and understand that the white population still holds over 70% of the wealth while being 10% of the population - this is an enforced inequality that needs to be righted.
If you look at the freedoms of South Africa, it has possibly the best constitution in the world. Sure, the enforcement of the laws are not as good as the laws themselves - but the rate of improvement in my lifetime has been staggering. Even despite the setback of the Zuma years.
Even now, we have gone from an ANC dominated political landscape to a Government of National Unity, which forces different political factions to work together. Another huge milestone in the burgeoning democracy of a young country.
It is so far from perfect but if you really have spent any significant time in SA and still think it is a country in decline, then I am more inclined to think you're one of the types of expats who love to shit on something that you have no bond to, and not because your arguments are bound by facts. We must interrogate the long standing consequences of white monopoly capitals violent subjugation of South Africans in both the past and the present to paint a fair picture of the country.
Your quote " a country that is in steady decline." certainly does not paint a fair picture.
The country is in decline. I have spent a lot of time there, have family who live there and can easily counter this:
- Many communities still rely on water trucks instead of water pipe infrastructure. The government loots the funds for it, meanwhile the entire system is on the verge of collapse and there are regular water shortages.
- With the electric grid, the amount of load shedding in the past few years where people are regularly without electric to 6-8 hours a day is absolutely crazy. The country didn't used to experience that. Also, cable theft is common, which wasn't an issue 30 years ago.
- 1.6 million people out of 66 million pay 76% of all taxes.
- Public healthcare in ZA is bad and not recommended by anybody who values their life.
- South Africa has more race laws today than it did during apartheid.
- It has a violent crime rate that is one of the highest in the world.
- Unemployment is high.
- It has suffered from massive underinvestment in infrastructure over the past 30 years.
- Extremely high levels of government corruption.
One thing that really brought home how the situation is in South Africa is was when I was talking to someone I know who works for a furniture company there. They used to make all of their furniture in the country, but recently started importing it from China because that is cheaper than producing it locally. Keep in mind that is with an average daily wage of $30 for a factory worker. If a country with South Africa's nature resources and inexpensive labor cannot compete with China for manufacturing furniture for the local market, it is deep trouble.
That is probably why the CEO of a local Tile Manufacturer recently said that South Africa is one of the worlds least manufacturing-friendly economies due to onerous regulation, infrastructure deterioration, energy uncertainty and rising costs.
- Please share which communities rely on water trucks?
- Loadshedding is no more.
- The tax issue is precisely the problem that needs redressing and is primarily because of past injustices. You're almost there.
- I have been treated in public hospitals and while not perfect the access to healthcare is impressive.
- I agree with the race laws. Your basis that SA has more race laws is gaslighting due to the fact of the homeland act. But let's not let facts get in the way.
- Violent crime rate is because why? Apartheid spatial planning. Read up and learn all about why this has re-enforced violent crime.
- Unemployment is high, yes. Doesn't mean the country is in decline.
- Corruption has hit its peak and on the way down post-Zuma years.
I have a close friend who owns a huge furniture company, and builds everything in house and grows year on year very well. So your anecdote is countered by mine.
- Googling for water outages gives a lot of results in just the last few days. In the NorthWest for example there are a lot of failing municipalities which are relying on government assistance to just make it month to month. Water trucks are a common occurrence all over. The official numbers on connection to water, electricity etc. are pretty much a joke.
- Loadshedding is indeed no more: Up to about 10-15% of households are now living off-grid, while in the industrial sector I can link you any number of metal processing plants that have closed down, the same for mines, car manufacturing etc. In the last few years our electricity bills have about doubled, rates and taxes aren't far behind either. That's not a win in the least.
- Healthcare: A few of the more well funded public hospitals are ok, but just from Tembisa approximately 2 billion Rands have been siphoned as of recently. Impressive isn't the word to use. Google for images to see the conditions of the hospitals and what the people who go there are experiencing, while on the other hand you can see videos of tenderpreneurs riding their Lamborghini's with police escorts via dirt roads in the outlying areas.
- Violent crime has nothing to do with apartheid (apart from the occasional incitement by political parties etc). We have crime because somewhere between 33-43% of the population is now unemployed, along with having only a barely functional police force. The people stuck on the bottom have no hope of changing their circumstances, which in turn is fueling crime (and violence).
- What makes you think there's less corruption now? The fact that more and more of it is coming to light? As long as the governing party allows it to happen its going to cascade down into all facets of life/business etc. They've begun to realize that they are losing the vote (and with it the power), but we're still a long way off from having any change on the horizon.
- Single anecdotes are pointless, some businesses will naturally grow while other decline, a lot of it is just random luck based on the type, area, time etc. Foreign investment is down something like 29% in just the last two years while we've taken on more than R25 billion in loans just recently.
You say I'm not even close to the facts when I can substantiate everything I have said based off released data. Let's go through your points
- You make the claim that "official numbers on connection to water, electricity etc. are pretty much a joke" yet provide nothing to back that up? Why? I would say giving access to water and electricity to over 90% of the population in under 30 years is a win. And a case against the term "steady decline". No doubt drought ravaged regions like the North West, which if you'd been to, is understandable that consistent water cannot be provided. So does they fall into the 10% of non-connected water residents? I would assume so.
- You state that 10-15% of households are off-grid. I would make a claim that that show's progress in society and not decline. Despite the reasons, it means that there will actually end up in the long run being more electricity for the population overall. Let's also look at overall manufacturing and I will provide sources: PWC you may have heard of them forecast 5.7% growth in manufacturing over the next decade (despite short term decline of -0.4%) due to reforms in regulation and fixing of electricity supply. Here's the link: https://www.pwc.co.za/en/publications/manufacturing-analysis...
- Healthcare is impressive if you take in the fact of providing healthcare free of charge to 60 million people within less than 25 years, is not only a feat but something that is literally the definition of impressive. It's far far off where it should be, no one doubts that but you seem to have a blinkered view that everything must be of a first world standard within the shortest timeframe. We could have gotten closer if it weren't for years of corruption but the aim and the goal and ability to provide healthcare to the people is still impressive.
- If you don't think violent crime has anything to do with Apartheid's spatial planning, has nothing to do with the Apartheid government arming and supplying gangs with drugs, has nothing to do with purposefully underfunding education within townships, ensuring little public transport to working hubs, and the entire multi-faceted list of socio-economic destruction that took place. Then, my friend, you literally do not know what you are talking about, nor the socio-economic reasons for crime to occur. If you think Apartheid has nothing to do with the unemployment rate due to generational injustices, maybe you should take grade 10 history again.
- What makes me think there is less corruption now? Well yes the fact that more comes to light, the fact that we even had the Zondo commission and have the recommendations taken on board in part by parliament and the implementation of the Public Procurement Act of 2024 will have a positive long-standing affect.
- Let's talk foreign investment. I'll just paste links because foreign investment is up over 80% since 2013. "Down something like 29%" without providing any links, or facts is nebulous at best. Mostly due to the fact of the vast increase post-covid caused a huge spike in FDI which if you look at without that context you'd think it is down, which is statistically a misnomer due to the societal causes of a sudden huge increase in investment when economies opened up.
So yeah I fucking hate the ANC. I hate the corruption. But I can see the bigger picture of the 30 year positive change, you can take a microscopic view as you have done - but this conversation is around "steady decline" and you have proven nothing to indicate that it is.
Most places went off grid because of how unreliable the national grid is. The cost of that electricity is also significantly higher than it would have been with well run central grid using fossil fuel.
The lloyds numbers you shared show a steep decline in investment over the past three years.
The IDC is an arm of the South African government, so having it call itself a top investment destination is like having a marketer trying to sell you on their own product.
The UN report only shows the inflow by region, not country.
The PWC report shows everything being down with the exception of net operating cash flow which does not tell you a lot about the sector as a whole. Their predictions do not point to anything to substantiate their prediction of 5.7% per annum manufacturing GDP growth. Of course then again, if these numbers are not inflation adjusted and inflation is at or above 5.7% then that may be where that is coming from.
Given that the average GDP per person is 8k US a year, without a significant increase of the GDP it's not possible to increase the standard of living for the population has a whole. You can't get blood from a stone.
I largely agree with you otherwise (viz. South Africa is on the whole improving) but on this specific point I think you’re optimistic. When summer comes round I’m pretty confident Eskom will start loadshedding again, and their public statements more or less align with this.
Regardless: not a sign of decline! Loadshedding is evidence that demand > supply, but that doesn’t imply supply is decreasing or the system as a whole is failing. On the other hand, there’s plenty of evidence that supply has steadily increased since the 90s, new facilities opening and what not. Widespread solar will only improve the situation as the tech improves.
....and that's before we get into things like Transnet and SA Air. I'd love to see the country succeed, but putting your head in the sand and denying that there is a problem will not fix things.
Literally no one said there isn't a problem. No one said that. But disagreeing about a 'state of decline' when the facts of the quality of improvement of the lives of the entire population has increased over a 30 year period disputes the rhetoric of 'state of decline'. Decline from what? When Apartheid made the lives of 10% good and the lives of 90% shit?
GDP is down ~12% since 2010, even though the population has grown by 20% over the same period. Per capita is down ~40% since 2010. Why are you pretending that this isn't an issue?
It sounds like you prefer communism over capitalism. Sadly, South Africa is heading towards communism. The only consolation is that then at least everybody will be poor.
The government is privatising electricity generation and increasing private sector access to the rail network.
The business friendly Democratic Alliance party is in coalition with the ANC, rather than the far left of the EFF which is currently not in government.
You can believe South Africa will end up being communist. But the evidence falls against the statement that South Africa is heading to communism.
What is also hilarious is ad hominem trying to call me a communist (which I am not), and shouldn't matter either way. But what is funny is how you decry the state of things currently, which is happening under capitalism, yet the extent of your criticism of the society can't reach to the system within which it exists. However you create a nebulous hypothetical in trying to plaster me with an insult that another system would be so much worse, when according to you the state of how things is bad as it is.
Fun fact: when the Gupta brothers were starting to run into trouble for stealing South African public funds, they paid British PR firm Bell Pottinger £100,000 a month to distract the public.
That's when Bell Pottinger came up with a campaign to stoke racial tension by popularizing the phrase "white monopoly capital" to distract from the Guptas:
The stats you posted paint a good picture of improving lives in real ways but they're only part of the picture - and not the deciding ones.
We all saw it with electricity - handing out more access isn't the hard part. Backing that with funding and capacity to deliver is.
Inequality, unemployment and debt/gdp are all on very alarming trajectories. Without a very sharp course adjustment (and soon) there are dark clouds ahead that could undo all the victories you list. Not sure if that makes it a decline, but if it were a car ride I'd say it's time to buy crash insurance
I'm sure you know this, but the "steady decline" narrative tends to come from people who are comparing it to the apartheid-era standard of living for white people there, effectively supported by slave labor. (In hindsight, no wonder Reagan and the US Republicans were so supportive of it!)
I am white. I am surrounded by white people. The standard of living of just about every white person I know has increased in the past 25 years.
It's really simple, we as white people have been given - historically and now - just about every advantage a minority can have. If a white person or their parents couldn't make the most of that well then that's ok, because equality and equity are the goals. And just because a PoC are succeeding more now, does not mean white people are suffering in the least.
Looking at our roads these days the latest Chinese SUV's and I saw a BYD Shark pickup truck the other day - why on earth would they open dealerships if there is no money to be made ?.
The trick here, for the uninitiated, is that “race-based law” or “race law” means the law refers in some way to race. That is legally and logically distinct from “laws that discriminate on the basis of race,” which is how most foreigners read the term.
I am a South African. Not a tourist. I am white. I have created a very successful financial existence here, never having an issue with any of the laws. Your assumptions are hilarious.
The laws do not discriminate against me in the least. The laws as I stated in my original post have created some of the most incredible increases in equality and equity ever seen in history. Name me a country that has managed more. Name the laws which you say actively discriminate against me. Show me how the white population who owns the vast majority of the wealth are suffering from these laws.
Your whining is cute, but unless you can back it up with facts and figures, of which I have plenty of my own - then it is just conjecture and sounds like you're one of the whites that loves to complain that life has sucked for you just because you have been given every opportunity that just about any race in history has had, and yet you have still not managed to make a success of yourself.
You broke the site guidelines badly in this thread. Can you please not do that? We're trying for a different sort of internet forum here, not the kind where people bash each other for being wrong and/or bad.
If you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make your substantive points thoughtfully, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are, we'd appreciate it.
What does "historically disadvantaged communities and persons" mean in ZA? Any racial bias present in this phrase, which is apparently in multiple laws?
I just started looking and, for example, when issuing licences to extract water, the authorities must, in accordance with the law, "consider [...] the need to redress the results of past racial and gender discrimination". Why would a water licence need such a consideration, and is it discriminatory in ZA's context?
In your example, because many businesses (majority white owned) have riparian rights and those who live on the land need equal access despite being historically disadvantaged from gaining access to said water rights.
I understand the concept of "riparian rights", but I fail to see how gov't entities who issue water licences (or any government service, for that matter) would need to "consider [...] the need to redress the results of past racial and gender discrimination".
I'm trying to apply that logic to any of my gov't services, and it would be outrageous to have any random thing responsible with redressing past racial discrimination, water rights, maternity rights, access to public information, literally any government service. It couldn't possibly be in their purview to take such a thing into consideration.
Couldn't agree more! Not only is the studio kept so well, but the entire museum is a testament to the magnificence of art and architecture. The Miró Foundation in Barcelona is even bigger, equally exquisite and the sheer size is a monument to the brilliance of one of the greatest artists to ever live.
I'm not sure I see the point, other than this being aimed at first world (see US/EU) businesses who solely have iOS application's and want to convert those to Android. So if you only have Swift developers and didn't have the forethought to want an Android version of the app going forward then this is a product for you. I would recommend, going pure native android or starting again with Flutter.
Whereas the rest of the world is Android dominant, and there is no real reason to do this when there's multiple better frameworks for cross platform development. Flutter, React Native and Kotlin MP are and always will be miles ahead. Let alone those framework's being free whereas here there is a cost for professional development.
As someone that has written various projects in Kotlin (including multiplatform), Swift, Dart/Flutter for over a decade I don't see the point. And I would be exactly the target market for this kind of product. The transpiling is the big issue for me, you will have to tap into every single Android API, write code to transpile those and then maintain across every Android version going forward.
Let alone the denigrating of cross platform frameworks and promotion of yours due to "animations, accessibility, and future-proof evolution alongside OS updates" doesn't sound like much of a win, when the quality of these in cross platform is already at a very high level. Secondly "And there's a GitHub ecosystem of open-source modules supporting popular frameworks, including SQLite, Firebase, Lottie, and many other common building blocks of modern apps." all of which exist in cross platform and kotlin multi platform.
I'm sorry to the developers and team to knock it, but just my 2 cents coming from a more third world perspective.
I thoroughly disagree with your positions about foresight, multiple specialists, a lack of need in this space, etc.
There is space in the market for something like this, and it would suit small teams who may be lean, single devs who are starting out, and those who would like to use native code with few if any dependencies.
You may not see the point because you are deeply experienced with the existing tools. I see the point as someone who has struggled to get deep with the existing tools.
> it would suit small teams who may be lean, single devs who are starting out, and those who would like to use native code with few if any dependencies
I think that's already covered by Kotlin Multiplatform, Flutter, React Native and others. It's extremely easy to get started and they all have a vibrant and thriving ecosystem.
I'm not blind to your use of "native" here, but again that's a descriptor typical for the iOS/macOS dev bubble to imply "build with Apple tooling" vs. "build with a 3rdparty/cross-platform framework". It was mentioned in another reply - the years when that was noticeable in any meaningful way are long gone.
In terms of forethought, I can't imagine anyone outside of the US/EU developing an app solely for an iOS user base other than creating an MVP. And then even still, once you have proof it can work why build something that intentionally shuts off the majority of your userbase, or provides a lower quality product to the user base? If you are lean and starting out, don't put all your eggs in a Swift/iOS basket and then hope for a tool like this to sort out your problems. It may be an easy quickfix for a basic app, but once you go even a little bit deeper than surface level you're going to run into problems, have to backtrack and start over with either native Android code, or a cross platform framework.
That said the cost is also something that is odd, when you have free alternatives that provide far more mature ecosystem.
In terms of getting deep with existing tools, what is the difference here when using XCode as to Android Studio or VSCode? The tools aren't difficult to use, at least any more so than XCode. If you're not a developer then sure, but if you are then AS or VSCode should be a breeze. We're far removed from the days of Eclipse and Notepad++ where you didn't have the tooling, online resources or automatic fixes that these tools come with today.
So yeah maybe my experience doesn't see the need for this, which is exactly the issue here. Who is making the majority of the apps we use today? Who is paying to use tools that speed up development? Engineers like myself.
> In terms of forethought, I can't imagine anyone outside of the US/EU developing an app solely for an iOS user base other than creating an MVP. And then even still, once you have proof it can work why build something that intentionally shuts off the majority of your userbase, or provides a lower quality product to the user base?
I can see a simple reason for solely targeting the iOS user base, wherever one comes from: on average they earn more and spend more, making them better targets for both advertising and in-app purchases business models.
Apple’s AppStore represents 65% of global app stores consumer spend, and ~7% of iOS users spend some amount of money on apps, while on Android it’s ~4.5%.
On top of that, the hardware is much less diverse, making it easier have a consistent experience across devices. I still remember a client building an internal bar-code scanning app for their warehouse, then complain it didn’t work well enough, only to realise they had equipped their staff with the cheapest crap they could find, which had a terrible camera.
Back on topic, perhaps yhis kind of tool can be useful for teams who didn’t intend to or couldn’t afford to invest any effort into making an Android app.
> On top of that, the hardware is much less diverse, making it easier have a consistent experience across device
Which is why iOS is usually not the platform you need to worry about when doing cross platform projects. So it doesn't feel like a benefit to start on the least diverse platform and then move on from there.
> Back on topic, perhaps yhis kind of tool can be useful for teams who didn’t intend to or couldn’t afford to invest any effort into making an Android app.
But they were however able to invest in both iOS developers, the required hardware and this tool?
> So it doesn't feel like a benefit to start on the least diverse platform and then move on from there.
On the contrary. What are you trying to validate? That enough people are interested in your product. Anything that gets in the way of that is just another distraction, and there already will be more than enough of those.
> But they were however able to invest in both iOS developers, the required hardware and this tool?
Developer cost is the same. The difference in hardware costs, if there is any, is negligible.
The tool? It starts quite literally at 0$, and the first paid tier is 29$ / month.
There are two cases where I can see how it would make sense to focus on Android.
First, the WhatsApp example: you are making an app that, by its very nature, entirely relies on massive network effects, and somehow can afford to focus on growth without monetising.
Second, a product that targets people with average to low incomes.
Other than that, if you have to pick between the two, I don’t see the point in starting with Android.
This is such an ignorant First World perspective - for reasons I've stated in other comments. It's mind-boggling there are people like yourself who see's the world in such a narrow vision. As if the Third World doesn't exist and people who develop apps are only in the First World.
Really funny, that you probably consider yourself highly educated, and yet have zero ability to see why iOS is actually not the primary choice for engineers in the global south. Your two cases are beyond laughable.
I'm really sorry I'm being rude, but I highly doubt you have ever built a mobile app yourself if these are your hot takes.
It’s not where most in-app purchases income can be found.
Don’t believe me? Have a look at Meta’s ARPU on a per country basis. Over $50 in the US, around 15$ in Europe, $5 in Asia-Pacific, less than $5 in the rest of the world.
Don’t like those numbers? Look at Genshin Impact’s.
Don’t like those numbers? Look at how much people spend on the AppStore vs the Play Store. The AppStore represents 66% of global app stores revenue, and 76% of global app stores subscriptions revenue.
Sure, since Meta and Google don’t operate there, those numbers aren’t accounting for a big factor: China.
Now, if you’re building Grab in Indonesia, sure, Android makes perfect sense as a first choice.
Making a utility or marketplace app for a specific country or region? Sure, adapt to your target. You’d have to be a fool not to.
We come back to "targeting people with average to low income". Because wether we like it or not, that’s most of the world compared to Switzerland, the US, Japan, Australia, and the like [0].
You can be rude all you like, it won’t change the numbers.
And while Android has the largest market share in Europe, it still doesn’t change the fact that the iOS app store captures most of the global app store revenue.
The problem with this perspective is that iOS is where the money is. Almost ALL the money.
So if western B2C companies have to pick just one platform to start with, it will almost always be iOS. This lets them then port that initial app to Android once they are established with western audiences, so they can also serve the (much larger, much less profitable) rest of the world.
My problem with this is that it show's almost no forethought by those creating the app. If your goal is first an iOS app that you will develop into an Android app. Then why go this route? It doesn't solve any of the bigger cross platform problems, is a far less mature ecosystem, and will seemingly only paper over the basic needs - but in-depth development will become an issue. But if you're only porting an "initial app" and expecting the next iteration to be either native or cross platform, then start like that rather than waste 6-12 months on transposing the code to a different language.
To me this presents as something a business person with very little knowledge of app development will be drawn to. But the long term drawbacks of this approach far outweigh the short term gains from trying to quickly port an existing iOS app to Android.
Sure there's more money in the Western app ecosystem for iOS apps, but that doesn't mean your app should inherently cater for iOS first. In fact that's a very first world and reductive approach, when there's billion's of people that don't interact in the same way.
> Sure there's more money in the Western app ecosystem for iOS apps, but that doesn't mean your app should inherently cater for iOS first
That's exactly what it means. When I was at Twitter, the Android app generated 1/10th the revenue of iOS. If you care about building a business that generates revenue, you should definitely cater to iOS first.
> If you care about building a business that generates revenue
You missed the end of that sentence "... in the first world". The ignorance or arrogance to assume all businesses that are started are aiming for first world markets. You think entrepreneurs in Africa, South and Central America, Asia are all aiming to expand into Europe and the US? That Third World business problems don't exist and solely cater for Third World needs?
It never fails to amaze me at the absolute arrogance of these assumptions, as if the Global South isn't relevant in technology or entrepreneurship. Truly astounding.
This only applies to those applications whose role is to generate revenue directly (B2C), and in a specific market segment or region (high income and/or US/EU).
For other types of applications the need to service a wider audience can often trump this.
Think banking applications that are without any kinds of in-app purchasing or upfront cost of use.
Or state healthcare sponsored medical/health tech applications.
Or industrial applications that need to run on rugged devices.
> iOS is where the money is. Almost ALL* the money.
* All the money made through an app store.
For everyone and everything else, apps are utility helpers for physical goods and services paid for externally. You setup your router, the app for your door lock, the app to hold your Carrefour discount codes, the app setup your printer etc.
Nonsense. Google Play revenue 2023 34.30 billion. Additionally, Google Play isn't available in China, unlike the Apple App Store so if you're going to compare both stores keep that in mind because it isn't an apples-to-apples comparison.
Being able to share any parts of your business logic and UI that you want between iOS and Android versions is a huge win for companies of any size. Traditionally this has been a PITA, has added significant performance overhead and bloat (JS runtime, added garbage collector, etc depending on the framework), and on the UI side, has often given you non-native UIs. Skip solves all of these problems, and because it uses your code as-is on iOS and generates native code on Android, you can trivially and directly mix in platform-specific code wherever you need to, without any bridging.
Edit: I see you work for Skip, which I think you should state upfront. But I do understand your bias or blinders in assessing the tool.
I get the benefit of being able to share business logic. That's not the issue at stake here. If it was, this wouldn't be a company in the first place as there's multiple frameworks that enable this and do this better - at zero cost.
I don't believe performance issues is a relevant metric anymore, having dealt with them on RN, KMP, Flutter. Non-native UI, is also quite irrelevant these days. Perhaps if we were having this conversation 2-3 years ago I would agree with you. But with how RN/Flutter UI's are now, and the native aspect of KMP it's a non-issue.
> Skip solves all of these problems, and because it uses your code as-is on iOS and generates native code on Android, you can trivially and directly mix in platform-specific code wherever you need to, without any bridging.
I will believe it when I see it. You say "Skip solves all of these problems", when Kotlin multi-platform was essentially doing the same thing in reverse, but with far larger backing and it took years before it was production ready. It is not trivial to keep up with ever changing Android ecosystem, multiple API levels that need to be catered for, differing UX interactions, different native API's e.g databases, push notifications, permissions etc. Again you say trivial, not sure what is trivial about this.
I feel like you've either never tried cross platform work on a (large) production project? This is solving an aspect of mobile development that personally I don't see a need for. But if it's for you go for it, in my experience across languages and platforms, I would recommend against this option unless you solely only have iOS Engineers, no ability to cater for a native Android experience and hadn't thought of having an Android app before starting development. Then sure, use it. Any project I plan would be both platforms and wouldn't require this level of abstraction.
Your criticism is very interesting, but instead of just presenting some abstract ideas of potential problems it would give much more impact to your argument to present some hard evidence that your way of thinking is better.
Can you show an example of an app that will generate more problems for developers with this approach than with other platforms?
BTW do not forget to add some possibilities to pay you for your work with such a publication, I would certainly be willing to pay for a good in-depth analysis.
This is coming from a native framework evangelist for many years, and then just tried flutter early days (which was far more difficult than how easy it is today). Now I write almost all my projects in flutter/dart where I can, especially with AI the speed from idea to production is insane.