this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Why are there so few open source weather apps for iOS, compared to the very many that are on Android? (lemmy-u6723.vm.elestio.app)
submitted 10 months ago by spiritedpause@lemmy-u6723.vm.elestio.app to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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[–] xilophor@lemmy.world 80 points 10 months ago (2 children)

iirc, it costs $99 a year to be able to upload apps on the apple app store rather than a one-time $25 on android. Also, apple test flight or whatever has a limited amount of people who can use it, rather than just installing an apk on android. Apple's ecosystem makes it much harder for open source or small apps to exist for iOS devices.

[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 46 points 10 months ago

Also android has FDroid, which is free, and libre.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I believe the tools for iOS development are only available on Mac.

[–] Jumper775@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Not completely true. The best by far is xcode, but swift is open source so if you develop your own toolkit instead of SwiftUI and replace all other proprietary *Kit then any old computer can do it. You can also use (usually cross platform) frameworks which have already done all of this like react native which makes it really easy to do in other OSes, however you will still only get the best experience using native libraries which can only be built from Xcode on a Mac. Maybe darling will open the doors to running that on Linux one day though!

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Are you sure about this? Even if you build in Flutter or RA, you still need a Mac or a cloud service Mac to build for devices.

[–] Jumper775@lemmy.world -3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I’ve done some limited research, and it should be possible to build from anything if you don’t use any apple specific cpu features or frameworks etc. that being said, that will be a pretty bad experience so I assume these services require a Mac for that reason. I could be wrong about react native though, only found one questionable source that said you could.

[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You cannot. Both flutter and react native still requires code to build an iOS app afaik. Source: I have to do this sht sometimes at work.

[–] angrymouse@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Technically you can, but no at least mediocre framework supports it, for the thread context it seems just bike shading

[–] pexavc@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

The Vapor project is a good example for what you are alluding to.

Server side swift doesn’t require a Mac, just Unix.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How much harder would that be? Is react common on most open source projects? It feels like everyone in atleast the linux community hates it .

[–] Jumper775@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago

I don’t know, never used it. Just know that it exists and can do that.

[–] rarely@sh.itjust.works 65 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes when people put their hard work into building an app for free, they don’t also want to pay $99 a year so that some bullshit company can profit off of the app developers hard work.

iOS developers are REQUIRED to own a mac and are REQUIRED to pay apple $99 a year. That means it is more costly to develop open source for iOS or any apple product. That’s why apple is terrible.

[–] pexavc@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

I generally like Android from the perspective of more availability to the ecosystem. I think there’s even an environment to run android apps easily on desktop too or any environment for that matter.

In general open source solutions can simply reach more people, which is why there’s more projects that are Android based.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 48 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

People say it's the price (to develop), but it's not IMO. It's the community. Lots of developers use iOS (in the US), but in my experience, power users who develop FOSS in their free time have a high propensity to be Android users. There's just so much more freedom in the platform.

Add this to the fact that outside of the US Android is more popular as the device costs are lower and there is less blind brand loyalty due to that, so developers in those countries focus on the platforms they use.

I believe the latter was the case with the current FOSS weather app I use (Breezy Weather).

Update: This is personal experience, but I've never met a free-time FOSS app creator (or contributer) that didn't develop for the device they use. And I've met a lot of them.

Final edit: Weather apps may be biased with age. With React Native and Flutter taking over new apps, platforn agnostic apps may slowly go away over time. But which FOSS dev wants to build a new weather app when there are so many (for Android) already?

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

iOS is kind of annoying to develop for. You kind of need to be entrenched in the Apple ecosystem to do it.

I also think there’s the niche part of it. Weather apps are kind of niche, if I’m going out I only care about the temps and whether or not it might rain, and iOS already has a great built in app for that. I love FOSS, but I’m not sure I care enough about my weather app to seek out a FOSS alternative to the default one.

Also I’m not sure Android has a weather app by default? I have a Pixel 6 as a work phone but don’t think I’ve ever checked for a weather app on it.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de -5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

IOS has a preinstalled weather app and people just use that. For whatever reason. Everything is so integrated, I guess 3rd party weather apps wouldnt even display correctly. On Android, simply use a Notification and thats it.

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

What? There are plenty of third party weather apps on iOS. I’m not sure if iOS has those sticky Daemon notifications that Android has though, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them.

There are widgets though, both for the Home Screen and the Lock Screen, as well as little widgets for the watch if you have one of those.

Modern iOS is quite polished. Android could use a touch up with their widgets honestly.

[–] willya@lemmyf.uk -2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Apple bought darksky and has been integrating all of the technology into their app so it is becoming the best one without having to bother looking for another. You have to be a super weather nerd to even want to bother looking for something else. I happen to be that much of a weather nerd and use a third party app. There’s tons of them in the App Store.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 10 months ago

I saw they use some british Weather stuff? I just always assume these models are way worse than something like DWD in Germany. Thats why I currently use a KleineWettervorschau, an app for the DWD but not by them, as they had stupid legal problems as they, as a state institution, have an app without Ads, wow crazy.

[–] delirium@lemmy.world 43 points 10 months ago (1 children)

From the perspective of FOSS developer:

I simply don't want to pay €100 every single year to Tim Apple to make a free hobby app.

Android has more ways to distribute, and the "official" way is one time €25 fee and that's it.

[–] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

One time €25 fee

Is it really a one time fee for the Play Store? I remember hearing it's a subscription, and while I don't do mobile app development (or any development currently), it was one of the things that turned me off from even considering mobile development. That might change if you're right, but I still have no app ideas, so it's unlikely I'll build any apps.

[–] erwan@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago

Yes, it is really a one time fee.

However if you sell apps (or in-app purchases) they'll take a 30% cut, just like Apple.

[–] delirium@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago

Yes its one time for android, if you're earning money with ads or purchases, google will take 1/3 of that amount, then you will have to figure out taxes on your own and there's also some special policies for selling online goods in India, but if you're just making apps - its one time fee to be able to upload them to google play store, or you can just distribute with froid/github for free, which is a great route as well

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 25 points 10 months ago

~~weather~~

Because Apple damn sucks. Its useless to have FOSS apps on this platform if you ask me. Plus they go fully "license business" and dont allow many FOSS licenses that have "this software comes with no guarantees" in it, e.g. the GPL

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 23 points 10 months ago

Foss and Apple don't really go hand in hand. The foss apps that are currently on iOS though, I fully support and encourage more development of.

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

You make an Android app, you leave the binary on Github or wherever, or even just get people to compile it themselves.

On Apple, you need to go though the whole appstore bullshit.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.de 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Don't you have to pay a monthly fee to be listed ln the App Store?

[–] Skimmer@lemmy.zip 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I think this goes for open source in general. I guess its just because of Apple and how locked down and restricted they make things. AOSP is open source and as a whole is pretty open with allowing things like sideloading and more freedom and control to developers and users in general, so I guess that encourages more FOSS developers to support it and the platform, over something like iOS for instance with its locked down ecosystem.

[–] sharkfucker420@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago

Apple does not like FOSS

[–] beyond@linkage.ds8.zone 7 points 10 months ago

Apple is actively hostile to software freedom. Even if a particular iOS app is free, actually exercising the four freedoms is difficult given the barriers Apple puts up against developers.

This is not considering the culture of Apple users which is generally indifferent to software freedom, of course.

[–] cesium@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

This issue isn't limited to weather apps. iOS apps in general tend to be closed source.

[–] Mio@feddit.nu 3 points 10 months ago

Apple users use to pay a lot for their device. So they just continue on with theme.

[–] nomadjoanne@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Because it cosys money to offer an app on iOS.