Location: England (based in Lincolnshire but happy to travel Manchester/Liverpool/London etc)
Remote: Yes (or hybrid 1-2 days in office).
Technologies: Swift, SwiftUI, TypeScript, Node, Figma, Sketch
Strong sense of design, with a focus on user experience and the Little Big Details (the little details, that make a big difference).
If you care about the implementation details, me too, I unit test when applicable, and create maintainable code. Building a solid foundation for your app and business.
If you don't care about the details, cool, neither do your users. They just want a slick design and user experience, which is my specialty; from a minimalist design, to the Little Big Details.
I've used torrents to download software so that the provider didn't need to pay bandwidth to share their software.
There are completely legal and reasonable reasons torrenting exists. They're excellent at making huge downloads possible with the more efficient bandwidth. Instead of that, we have an ecosystem of "installers" that exist purely to download massive files to install.
There are many things with technically legal purposes that people often choose not to associate with because they find the cons outweigh the pros. This is that.
Untrue. As long as it meets the technical requirements (ie, not using private APIs, doesn't excessively drain battery etc), and the licensing issues aren't a problem (some OSS licenses are an issue, as well as using the Quake assets may be an issue), there is no reason why Apple wouldn't approve a game for the Apple Watch on the App Store.
Can you show an example? I’ve been an iOS developer for 10 years, and I’ve only ever seen/been rejected for things that fall foul of the guidelines, never arbitrarily.
And yet, you aren't rejected, and are in the store. While their interpretation of their guidelines can be ropey, as is anything handled by a human, my point still stands. Quake 1 would be allowed on the App Store.
What you’re probably missing is the two weeks of concerted effort we put in to design an appeal and then a PR campaign to get Apple to actually listen to us. iSH would not be on the store otherwise.
I'm not missing anything. iSH is very much an edge case. My entire point was that Quake would be allowed on the Apple Watch via the App Store.
EDIT: To clarify 'very much an edge case', I mean, you can see how a non-technical reviewer at Apple may view iSH as a program that executes remote code. While you or I may know better, and it is unfortunate that you had to go through that process in the first instance, you can see why it happened compared to a standard todo list, or a typical web-client based app.
I don't actually feel too bad about iSH being flagged by a non-technical reviewer. It's a specialized app that has characteristics similar to apps that are genuinely against the App Store Review Guidelines. That it gets scrutiny is a sign that the process is working as it says it should, rather than just receiving rubber-stamp approval as is also all too common.
The specific issue is that iSH did end up getting reviewed by non-technical reviewers. We went through at least four levels of appeals, and about half a dozen interactions with people doing review. Several of these people gave the obvious impression that they understood what our app did, and might even be personal familiar with Linux/the command line. The core issue was not a technical one, but a policy one: our app does execute remote code. The reviewers read this as being "any remote code". Our (correct) interpretation was that this rule was designed to prevent remote updates by the developer. A user downloading code in our app and executing it is fully within the guidelines, which we ended up confirming with the highest levels of the review team once the app had been re-approved.
The core problem is that the actual guidelines (which includes both the written guidelines, and a bunch of "case law" that supplements it) is only really known within Apple to a handful of very senior reviewers, and getting to them is very difficult and requires an exceptional appeals process. For iSH, you can see how the written guidelines were misinterpreted by technical people; for apps like these it is very possible that they get flagged by some sort of "game includes IP that's not yours" or "app is unplayable on Apple Watch" and the person who would review this Quake game could get flagged even while complying with the guidelines.
Yes, they publish their guidelines which states as such… but how is Quake 1 too simple? Downvote all you want, but within the context of Quake 1 being approved on the Apple Watch, “too simple” isn’t relevant.
I've never heard, or seen that before. Everything I've ever seen rejected by Apple (either personally from my own apps, clients, or from press reports) has always been a guideline issue.
So, "Subjective reasons" such as? Example?
Here is an example of a 3D game running on the Apple Watch, that was approved by Apple, on the App Store, which looks rather "Quake like".
Mindkeeper: The lurking fear (Apple Watch)[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mindkeeper-the-lurking-fear/id...]
Don't they reject apps that are "out of scope" for the device they run on? The Watch isn't made to run 3D games, even if that is possible. It's a "bad experience", even if it is a cool technical demo.
Antitrust law does exactly this. If Amazon owning EA overly concentrates market power/forms a monopoly, it'll be rejected and the deal with fail.
Why would you want to put an upper cap on the size of companies? It feels like stifling innovation and productivity, which will be overly negative for everyone.
I think I agree with your point that antitrust laws should focus on preventing monopolies rather than on limiting size per se. Ideally, a company should be able to grow to any size so long as it doesn't prevent competition.
In practice, large companies have been able to use their leverage to influence political outcomes and antitrust laws have not been enforced. It's good that we have laws to ensure a free market, but they're not much use if they're ignored.
In this case, I'm not sure that Amazon acquiring a video game company does much to hinder competition. There are lots of indie video games and I don't see that Electronic Arts has any particular technology that locks in customers or excludes other vendors.
As a society we absolutely should be vigilant against concentrations of power, foremost of which are the big tech companies. But when it comes to monopolies, there are more significant things to worry about than this particular acquisition.
> It feels like stifling innovation and productivity, which will be overly negative for everyone.
From a business perspective that might be partly true. But anti-trust / anti-competition policies are not just to provide a level playing ground for businesses but also consumers. A giant conglomerate might have a higher productivity, but that doesn't mean that benefit will be passed to the consumer unless they have rival businesses to compete with. Competition promotes more innovation and is more socially beneficial to both businesses and consumers than giant conglomerates that just become obese and unhealthy after a point.
Why will Amazon stifle innovation? All EA do is release the same games every year with slightly different content (FIFA, Battlefield, Madden, Sims, etc).
A whole bunch of innovative games? Skate 4, It Takes Two, Star Wars Squadrons, Jedi Fallen Order, Apex Legends, A Way Out, Fe, and arguably battlefield 5.
Yes, plenty of annual sports games, though even those evolve over time with different career modes and gameplay. But EA is still making moves in the space.
True, and I agree, but an 'upper cap' wouldn't be used against just the companies that we don't think provide innovation (such as Amazon in this scenario). The caps would also be used against Tesla and Apple, two very big drivers of innovation, and probably many others. The world would be a worse place without Tesla, and without Apple.
Arguably the world could be a better place without Amazon, but that is surely down to consumer voting with their wallet, the executive team, and shareholders encouraging Amazon, rather than the government not restricting Amazon. Amazon aren't buying EA, only because they can.
Once again, how can someone define an 'upper cap', is it market size? Is it revenue, or employee count? Market share? The unintended consequences of an upper limit doesn't seem to me something we should be encouraging.
I could be wrong, it just feels like we shouldn't be restricting everyone because of one bad actor.
From my perspective for every large innovator like Apple there are several like Comcast. While Apple would not exist in the hypothetical world where max size exists for companies who knows what other innovations would exist or would not have been quashed by large companies. There are unintended consequences with the status quo. It’s easy to overlook those because we are used to the system in place. Are those unintended consequences worth keeping? I don’t know but it’s worth exploring other options.
I think it depends. Bell labs famously invented many of the foundations of modern computing while Bell was a monopoly. It's also hard to do capital intensive research (e.g. semiconductor manufacturing) as an upstart. You need the resources of an Intel.
Meanwhile, companies that leverage existing technologies in new ways can be innovative with much fewer resources - e.g. your typical web startup.
One can find examples in support of either position. What is the overall benefit of one side vs. the other? I don’t know the answer and it isn’t clear to me which is the better option. There are pro and cons to both positions.
Europe is a big place, maybe that beach was that way but its definitely not the norm. Naturist beaches are usually separate or there is a section that that is for naturists. In Sweden (where I live), even topless sunbathing is unusual nowadays.
That's weird because in Spain - where nowadays topless sunbathing for women is absolutely normal in every beach - was "imported" by the first northern-European (legend usually say Swedish) tourists during late-Franco dictatorship.
Been to Gran Canaria recently (technically Spain), and every beach had topless women sunbathing (even the big city beach). Don't recall seeing fully nude adults though, as those beaches will be segregated IME.
I don't fully trust my Model 3 with the 'walk away' bluetooth lock.
However I do trust the 'pin to drive' (which randomly changes location on screen to foil fingerprints). And sentry mode is a new bonus, not that it has any real utility beyond a small scare for anyone getting too close.
There is only so far I'm willing to go for security before securing the item becomes worse than the joy of owning the item. Wheel locks, physical keys, barbed wire perimeter? No thanks.
If someone wants to load the car up on a flat bed truck inside of a faraday cage, they've put in the effort, enjoy the car.
How has Neurolink failed? They've successfully implanted within a chimp, allowing the animal to control a game (pong) via its brain.
They're now moving onto human trials before the end of the year.
How has Boring Company failed? They've successfully opened the Vegas loop, have a pitch to open a similar project in (I believe) Miami? And now they're looking at building a Hyperloop 'in the coming years'.
Was The Washington Post the tipping point where Amazon started to collapse?
I think we're approaching a point in the lifespan of Tesla where is can stand on its own merit and no longer requires Musk to continue making a ridiculous amount of money. However, Musk is integral to the continued innovation and success, the same as Steve Jobs was to Apple. Under Tim Cook, Apple continued to thrive, albeit in a different way.
Regardless, no way will Musk run Twitter on a day-to-day basis, he'll remove the board, replace the CEO with someone he trusts, likely get Jack involved again, and a lot of developers will leave, leaving the company in a better position financially. Musk will likely just guide functionality and policy decisions from afar.
Kind of, yeah? A few years later I deleted my Amazon account because Amazon became the new AliExpress and I could usually find everything for cheaper on eBay.
Which is not an answer to the question “Was The Washington Post the tipping point where Amazon started to collapse?”, which you were responding to.
I don’t eat at McDonalds, but that doesn’t make me think they’re going to collapse. In fact they’re likely successful for precisely for the reasons I don’t eat there.
First Sphere (https://www.sphere.me), now Quill.
Twitter is obviously planning something in this space, but to me, Twitter's magic is in the ability to really consume a lot, from experts, in a short space of time (240 character brevity!).
In depth conversation, spaces, voice, don't really belong on Twitter in my opinion, but I'm sure Twitter knows better than me... I have no skin in that game!
Idk maybe I'm still sour after they killed "We are hunted" 10y ago, but I feel Twitter acquired a number of companies and yet remained virtually unchanged for years.
They acquired WAH to merge it into Twitter Music that they later killed. They bought Vine and wasted its potential, idk if Periscope is still alive or not (also acquired).
Maybe this time it'll be different - their recent acquisitions of Revue and Chroma Labs (which I guess became Twitter Spaces) seems to be kind of working so far
A lot of people use Twitter DMs and complain about that experience having room to improve (e.g. being able to search DMs). Maybe some of these acqui-hires (and that's what they seem to be) will be toward improving DMs?
Twitter doesn't really understand what made it so successful. What did it start as but a blogging service limited to 140 characters? That's why they are so resistant to change. So they're looking for a company that has a user experience that the trust, not just spinning up a crew to spit out a feature.
I'm a customer of a company where I recently requested a relatively basic feature. They said they were putting together a team to implement it. That was bad.
Twitter, on the other hand, seems to need to buy a company in order to improve a basic feature. That's horrible!
What's up with management culture in tech companies!?
Buying a company is often a very efficient way of getting something built. The price may be lower than you think and they get a team that's already worked together and isn't bogged down by internal Twitter politics. If the executive running the acquisition can protect the team from those politics they can get something built faster than they would otherwise, and at $10m Twitter revenue per day, getting something out the door faster has a lot of value.
Location: England (based in Lincolnshire but happy to travel Manchester/Liverpool/London etc) Remote: Yes (or hybrid 1-2 days in office). Technologies: Swift, SwiftUI, TypeScript, Node, Figma, Sketch
Add me on LinkedIn to see recommendations from past clients. http://linkedin.com/in/danlove
dan [@] daniellove.net
Strong sense of design, with a focus on user experience and the Little Big Details (the little details, that make a big difference).
If you care about the implementation details, me too, I unit test when applicable, and create maintainable code. Building a solid foundation for your app and business.
If you don't care about the details, cool, neither do your users. They just want a slick design and user experience, which is my specialty; from a minimalist design, to the Little Big Details.
Let's work together.