Be interested in folks thoughts on the footnote.<p>I’m assuming he’s wrong about the motive/conspiracy but right that DF links underperform on HN. Why would that be?<p>> It sounds a bit conspirational, but for many years now it’s seemed clear to me that Hacker News has Daring Fireball in some sort of graylist. It’s not blacklisted, obviously, given the aforementioned two threads about yesterday’s piece, but nothing I write here ever gains any significant traction there. Ever. And the reason there are two threads for yesterday’s piece is that the first one disappeared from the home page soon after it was posted. I think? In this list of recent Hacker News threads for articles from DF, going back four months, only three have more than 10 comments — and two of those are the threads from yesterday. I don’t know who I pissed off there or why, but I’ve never seen an explanation for this.
A lot of people see software as a list of features, hardware as a list of specs. But when you think about how much time we spend with these things, maybe they just aren’t that utilitarian. We think of buildings not just as volumes of conditioned air — but also as something architected, as something that can have a profound effect on how you feel, something that can have value in itself (historical buildings and such).
My experience as someone who used Android, then iPhone for a few years, and am now back to Android, is that the quality of many apps is identical or better on Android, at least for apps that I use every day. There is also F-Droid, where many apps are low quality but I'll have the opportunity to look at the source code, which is usually not the case on the iPhone.<p>The iPhone apps are all geared toward monetization now. If you want a decent podcast player, you're expected to pay for it, either with dollars or ad eyeballs.
Nobody really wants to collaborate on an iOS app. Android has a few options for community-supported players that are quite good.<p>A lot of iPhone apps want a monthly subscription even if they don't really improve. The ones that ask for one-time payments tend to hide their features in multiple one-time payments. Many smaller apps don't have the residuals that keep their developer interested. They never end in an open source state where someone who cares could take them over, so eventually your investment goes to zero. In this, it's a lot like Windows, except on Windows you can usually rely on backwards compatibility.<p>Sometimes, using something that has been pushed out the door by a developer who needed to scratch an itch and doesn't care about the aesthetics is preferable to a gorgeous app that lost compatibility at iOS 7, forcing you to buy a different app after an upgrade.<p>I think, also, the reason why you see this explicit example of the mastodon app being superior, is because the people who care include designers who are willing to donate their time. They themselves use iPhones and don't care about making the Android version because it's not their itch to scratch. That's fine, but it is a contrived example.<p>Finally, show me the syncthing client that works well on iOS.
I’ve noticed that DF articles rarely appear on HN as well. In addition to the title issue mentioned by others, I wonder if this is because the linked-list posts with his comments (ie most posts) aren’t favored on HN (recommendation is to link to the original article right?).
I do like John, and his podcasts - but every now and then after an extra sappy dose of one eyed Apple BS I need to take a break for a little while. HN audience may have a similar reaction.