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.
Mozzy is by far the best and most detailed channel out there for the AC, 10/10 recommend.
Has the systems understanding, ability (and confidence) to make predictions, while keeping the video's at a length that is still digestible.
Also has a nice speaking voice which brings a level of classiness to it.
No, these are all cruisers rather than racers. There's a mix of sailing and lifestyle, but then for a lot of them it's hard to just film the sailing because there's only so much sailing you can actually do when you live on your boat.
That's interesting, because I have had exactly the opposite experience testing GPT vs Bard with coding questions. Bard/Gemini far outperformed GPT on coding, especially with newer languages or libraries. Whereas GPT was better with more general questions.
I don't like to use the acronym LOL on this site, but here I am. As someone from the Third World, where gun violence is a problem. The USA is still mocked for its rampant gun violence, mass murders and police violence. Let alone for being on the precipice of democracy and tyranny - as seen by Jan 6 and the possibility of Trump being re-elected. That and the USA being responsible for much of the descent from democracy into tyranny in so much of the global South. So there you have it LOL.
I do believe you are living in a bubble, whereby your viewpoints are selectively backed up by "world events" that actually do not walk the line between democracy and tyranny.
We should not pillory other countries, especially not coming from a First World perspective. However the First World had a head start, through various factors being colonialism and the industrial revolution. Putting the traditional Third World in a lesser position when it comes to ability to compete with First World countries.
The issue is, we cannot deride those who use coal to try to catch up, when that was the fuel that got many First World countries to the position they are in. The First World likes to be high and mighty in these terms, however not very often is it introspective enough to realise that the Third World simply cannot operate in the same way. China and India are in a different spot, however both were distinctly at a disadvantage in progression as a country until late in the 20th century.
All of this ultimately leads to a greater question, how does the planet intend to reduce demand on coal while also allowing countries reliant on it to grow? In Africa, there's various steps that need to be taken. In my opinion international debt cancellation, as debt structures that were put in place by the First World org's were and are predatory, and rely on First World demands to be met. Secondly, the big R world, reparations for colonialism and imperialism should be looked at. While these are predominantly monetary steps, these are the great blockers to progress. It is ingrained suppression of Third World countries that ties in to the fractured history the First world has with the Third. And similar steps should be taken with South American countries as a lot of their issues mirror African issues for similar reasons.
Point being it does matter what the First World does on its own part. As the First World's per capita consumption of energy far outweigh's its Third World counterparts. The effort need's to be increased through financial mechanisms to aid countries that aren't able to wean themselves off of coal dependency. India and China are interesting examples, but neither at their rate of growth have the ability to get off coal. India even less so than China, and there quite clearly isn't a global effort to help countries that are struggling with coal dependency.
Not being a hypocrite is not really that important compared to solving the problem at hand.
You also get into absurd situations like how former colonial powers can’t say that up-and-coming colonial powers can’t develop in that particular way. Some things are just bad to do.
Of course, I believe the climate crisis is the most important problem in the world. However I don't think former colonial powers have any right to say or rather lecture former colonised countries on their obligations, when the colonial powers haven't properly addressed why the colonised countries are in the state they are in. It is also not just at the feet of former colonial powers, the US wasn't a coloniser but did have a tremendous imperial influence throughout the Third World that has stymied progress and thrown Third World countries into a debt trap that they cannot escape (unfortunately China is doing the same these days). This needs to be addressed too.
And until these issues are addressed, the Third World countries who rely so heavily on coal power cannot get off their reliance on it. It will need a global effort led and on the financial burden of the First World, to support the economies of the countries that are using coal to progress. I believe that is the only way we will turn this issue around, otherwise we are just putting a plaster on a stab wound.
Let's not forget Africa and India's growth over the next century is going to eclipse anything we've ever seen before, and without the correct structures in place we will have no chance of combatting this issue.
> Of course, I believe the climate crisis is the most important problem in the world. However I don't think former colonial powers have any right to say or rather lecture former colonised countries on their obligations, when the colonial powers haven't properly addressed why the colonised countries are in the state they are in.
Words and lectures are irrelevant. Only what the First World can do—including influencing the Third World—matters.
> It is also not just at the feet of former colonial powers, the US wasn't a coloniser but did have a tremendous imperial influence throughout the Third World that has stymied progress and thrown Third World countries into a debt trap that they cannot escape (unfortunately China is doing the same these days). This needs to be addressed too.
I guess “stymied progress” is a way of phrasing it.
Kind of a tangent to your main point but Africa doesn't have much coal, and what it has is mostly in South Africa. As a result their transition should be a bit easier.
If you consider the ideological philosophy of anarchy as 'leftism terror', then you only serve to out yourself as having no idea of the tenets of anarchism itself.
He is also not saying HN readers should lean that way, but having an intellectual and enlightened view on life, often means having read up on multiple ideologies, theories or philosophies. Which if the HN reader base would generally consider themselves well read, then it is quite possible many would know about one of the most famous political and philosophical minds in history, Petr Kropotkin.
> one of the most famous political and philosophical minds in history, Petr Kropotkin.
That's rather a stretch. What's your threshold for "most famous"? Top ten? Top one hundred? Top thousand? Top ten thousand? If it's top ten, no way. If it's top ten thousand, yes, he's definitely in. Top thousand? Probably in. Top hundred? Probably out.
But if your definition of "most famous" is "top thousand", I suspect that your threshold is in a different place than most peoples'...
I would ultimately say he is top one hundred (probably top 20 for me), but that's a personal opinion. If we look at the impact his ideas, beliefs and teachings had on the first half of the 20th century then he was a giant. Anarchism, and specifically how he taught it grabbed hold of much of the disparate political movements that occurred in that part of time. Anarchist movement's and mutual aid, take a grip in many parts of the third world even today.
Perhaps that's because I have taken note of these movements that I see him as one of the most famous, perhaps you see it differently which is fair. I see him as a contemporary to arguably the most famous political mind of all time, Karl Marx, and was regarded along similar lines for his impact.
Sure there are a range of people on the left and right of political ideological thought who could be considered famous, but not many who have produced what he has.
As a long time professional mobile engineer, that has worked on all three of Android, iOS and Flutter. This is plain wrong.
Flutter is a brilliant framework, despite what hardcore native devs of either platform might tell you. It has it's flaws, but the speed of its improvement and its usability as a cross-platform framework is probably the best on the market.
That combined with being able to just code native Android or iOS if you really have an issue you can't overcome make it quite powerful.
You're also plain wrong about Android. It is by far the largest platform in every country outside the first world, and is not going anywhere. You just have to look at Asia, Africa and South America to understand that around half the world use it.
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.