Phillip Winn @pwinn@social.cleverlibre.org

I’ve posted a number of screenshots from #GenshinImpact because it’s a beautiful game. But I’m going all-text in this post, because it’s not just a visually stunning game, but also features some excellent and moving stories.

Early this morning I completed a quest that started out as observation of a child who seemed to be playing with an invisible friend, and ended up focusing on a man wracked with overwhelming guilt and feelings of worthlessness, trapped by a lie he couldn’t let go.

I'm trying to avoid spoiling anything, but he did find some relief, and the story ended with a beautifully-animated reminiscence by a character who isn't what they seem to be.

My middle-school daughter has her favorite stories, one of which involves a character who survives childhood trauma but struggles to see herself as a person worth valuing many years later. That one closes with a Chinese opera, again beautifully animated.

Okay, maybe just *one* screenshot, from the closing poem of reminiscence.

It’s an old tune, but new verses are added regularly: cable monopolists behave badly, and cost us all money.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love

In this verse, @pluralistic (aka Cory @doctorow) spells out “how cable monopolists tricked conservatives into shooting themselves in the face.”

#blog #politics #broadband #government

This showed up on Hacker News today, and was soundly panned as well as flagged. Which shouldn’t surprise me, I guess.

12 Things to do Instead of Calling the Cops

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/may-day-collective-solidarity-defense-12-things-to-do-instead-of-calling-the-cops

Most of this seems like good advice, although the HN comments point out that 1500 women are killed by domestic partners every year, so the last point might seem too passive in light of that.

I once stood outside my apartment and asked an upstairs neighbor if she needed help, rather than call the cops, and it took me longer than I wish to admit to work up the nerve to even go outside. I didn’t want her to face her ex alone, but I didn’t want to bring armed police into the situation, either. Seeing me seemed to calm the guy down quickly, and he left immediately. Realizing there was a witness, I thought at the time, although now I wonder if he was thinking the same way I was: I could call the cops, and they might shoot him first and ask questions later.

#acab #blog

Apple may be allowing alternate app stores soon, at least in Europe, at the point of a metaphorical gun, but I assume they’ll do in their Apple way, meaning it won’t be easy, and it will likely still require every app to be signed by Apple at some point, like MacOS apps mostly are now.

I’m all in favor of more openness and flexibility on my devices, especially when there are guardrails and protections I have to explicitly choose to turn off. I hope that iOS allows alternative browser engines, app stores, and everything else, but that none of it is turned on by default.

That said, I'm already tired of a few arguments I see online.

It seems clear that some companies are going to push for their apps to only be available outside of the App Store. But no, people say, Android has allowed side-loading since the beginning, and that hasn't happened there! Two things: First, yes it has, Epic's Fortnite is the most notable example. Second, Google hasn't impacted Facebook's advertising to the tune of $12.8 Billion in 2022 alone. Facebook is highly motivated to get around the iOS prompt allowing people to block Facebook's highly-invasive tracking, and if side-loading will do that, it is probably worth it to them to insist on side-loading.

Of course, I don't think even side-loaded apps will be able to avoid the "do not track" prompt, so it is quite likely Epic will be alone in insisting that they should be installed in a back alley, but the argument that it won't happen because it hasn't happened is hogwash.

The other argument that has been bothering me is that "Safari doesn't support web apps," so allowing alternative browser engines will mean an explosion of web apps replacing mobile apps in the App Store anyway. I have a few issues with this one. First, Safari does support web apps, and web apps that work in Safari do exist. Some features and APIs aren't supported, though, which is really what they mean. Second, a number of companies have gone the web app route in the past and found that there was no way to get a web app to match the experience of a native app, so the've switched back. You might say that's because of Safari limitations, but thirdly, if web apps are set to supplant native apps, why aren't they doing so on Android, where browser engines presumably are not the limiting factor?

But Starbucks, you say! Yes, Starbucks has both a native app and a web app, and the web app seems to work fine in Safari. It requires iOS users to choose to "Add to Home Screen" rather than auto-installing, but I prefer that approach, personally.

But Flipboard, you say! Again, this seems to work fine on iOS after manual installation, although I note that it prompts at least once per session to install/open the native app instead.

The point remains: if web apps are where they should be--which I doubt--then why haven't they taken over the Android world yet? If we're still in the early days of web apps, then there's no rush for iOS to trip over the bumps in the road until things are more stable.

Technologists are incurable optimists, myself included. It's easy for us to see things as they could be, rather than as they are. That's how new things are created! But there's a fine line between envisioning a future we can make together, and denying reality. I look forward to a future in which open NFC, browser engines, and alternative app stores are options in iOS, but I don't think it's going to be the panacea some are expecting.

#nerdery #blog #apple #ios