It started really exciting. Writing code that you can see, touch, and interact with on a device is magical. You are a creator, and you believe you are put on this earth to build awesome things.
The prototyping phase is done, but now is the time to publish it, and you step into hell. Developer certificates, entitlements, device registrations, the pain is endless. Yes, I am looking at iOS development. You go through the rigamarole, taking screenshots at various resolutions, and God forbid, many languages if you are into that sort of thing. Upload the binary and hit submit. It used to be a painfully long process (but a relatively simple set compared to those of today) with arbitrary guidelines that you had to navigate.
They called them “guidelines”, but it was never really one.
guideline | ˈɡʌɪdlʌɪn |
noun: general rule, principle, or piece of advice: the organisation has issued guidelines for people working with prisoners.
And then came the new iOS versions. To compile against them, you need new Xcode versions, which more often than required new macOS versions. That has been so painful, and it continues to be. If that wasn’t enough, newer device and SDK versions often came with new layout engines and additional configuration options - all of which you had to adopt as soon as possible, otherwise your app, which had worked for years, would look garbage. There is no in-between. Android ecosystem has been just as chaotic if not worse with fragmented OS and API versions making the prospect of supporting older devices (which I always strived to) implausible.
You can never rely on an api, SDK, os, or a way of doing something. Oh, this doesn’t even consider the fiasco that Swift has been with unstable ABI and no backwards compatibility, which often requires rewriting small or large chunks of code every single time.
How long do they expect developers to keep up?
No wonder react native and other tools are gaining popularity. If I thought the JavaScript ecosystem was insane, it is clear that it is a sweet summer child in contrast with iOS (and Android).
It’s a shame that so many great ideas and apps, which brought a lot of joy to millions, have just vanished. I hope there is a reckoning, but I am not going to hold my breath. The more people migrate to the web first, the revenues, if they ever fall, will only serve to tighten control.
The next product I build, I don’t expect to have a mobile version. A Responsive? Yes, React-Native or Flutter? Maybe; But a pure native one? That time has passed.