<story><title>How Popular Is “Sign in with Apple”?</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/01/28/sign-in-with-apple-popularity</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ehsankia</author><text>Apple continues to not give any care whatsoever to anything outside their walled garden. For the longest time you couldn&amp;#x27;t even preview songs on iTunes store without having iTunes. Want to watch their biggest WWDC live? Had to use Safari until last year. Obviously iMessage and FaceTime are complete no-gos outside their walled garden too.&lt;p&gt;This is how they keep people in. They have to close down their walls as tightly as possible, to force people in. And once you&amp;#x27;re in, they make it as hard as possible to leave.</text></item><item><author>habosa</author><text>I tried to do a Sign in with Apple integration on Android (wanted the app to have the same options across platforms).&lt;p&gt;Testing on Android was next to impossible. To test I needed an Apple ID with 2FA.  But SMS 2FA was not good enough, you need the hardware-based 2FA.  To get that you need a recent macOS or iOS device.  As an Android developer I have no reason to own either of those.&lt;p&gt;Eventually I just had a friend who owns an iPhone try my app a few times.&lt;p&gt;Besides that, the Apple interface guidelines are nearly impossible to follow on Android because Apple doesn&amp;#x27;t provide the logo or font assets you need to comply.  There is no SDK whatsoever, just a spec.&lt;p&gt;Seems like a nice sign-in option for iPhone owners but it&amp;#x27;s a portability disaster.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>coldtea</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;This is how they keep people in. They have to close down their walls as tightly as possible, to force people in. And once you&amp;#x27;re in, they make it as hard as possible to leave.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I call old wives tales. I&amp;#x27;m a close-to-20-years Apple user. The walled garden has never been a problem, more of a strength (integration, cohesion, etc).&lt;p&gt;Especially today where everything is a subscription, there has never been LESS of a walled garden in that regard. I can move anytime (and I do use also Windows and Linux) and I wont have any issue with OS X&amp;#x2F;iOS.&lt;p&gt;I just wont have my apps -- which has been the case for every OS ever.&lt;p&gt;My music is in Spotify and Apple Music, my video is Netflix and Amazon Prime and Apple+, my email is Gmail, my eBooks in Kindle for Mac and iOS, I talk with friends with Skype, Facetime, Messenger and Whatsup. Even my iCloud apps (Calendar, email, etc) are available from any browser.&lt;p&gt;Some &amp;quot;walled garden&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The reason I don&amp;#x27;t want to move from OS X&amp;#x2F;iOS is cohesion and usability. Despite BS like the 3+ years MBP keyboard fiasco or the not-really-useful BS touch strip, it&amp;#x27;s still the best HW&amp;#x2F;SW combo for my kind of computing (programming, lots of UNIXy stuff, lots of video and music as well).</text></comment>
<story><title>How Popular Is “Sign in with Apple”?</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/01/28/sign-in-with-apple-popularity</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ehsankia</author><text>Apple continues to not give any care whatsoever to anything outside their walled garden. For the longest time you couldn&amp;#x27;t even preview songs on iTunes store without having iTunes. Want to watch their biggest WWDC live? Had to use Safari until last year. Obviously iMessage and FaceTime are complete no-gos outside their walled garden too.&lt;p&gt;This is how they keep people in. They have to close down their walls as tightly as possible, to force people in. And once you&amp;#x27;re in, they make it as hard as possible to leave.</text></item><item><author>habosa</author><text>I tried to do a Sign in with Apple integration on Android (wanted the app to have the same options across platforms).&lt;p&gt;Testing on Android was next to impossible. To test I needed an Apple ID with 2FA.  But SMS 2FA was not good enough, you need the hardware-based 2FA.  To get that you need a recent macOS or iOS device.  As an Android developer I have no reason to own either of those.&lt;p&gt;Eventually I just had a friend who owns an iPhone try my app a few times.&lt;p&gt;Besides that, the Apple interface guidelines are nearly impossible to follow on Android because Apple doesn&amp;#x27;t provide the logo or font assets you need to comply.  There is no SDK whatsoever, just a spec.&lt;p&gt;Seems like a nice sign-in option for iPhone owners but it&amp;#x27;s a portability disaster.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dcolkitt</author><text>Isn&amp;#x27;t this kind of in the DNA of the company? Even going back to its first decade, what distinguished Apple from other early PC companies was that its O&amp;#x2F;S was only meant to run on its hardware, and its hardware was only meant to run its O&amp;#x2F;S.&lt;p&gt;This obviously didn&amp;#x27;t work out for it in the late 80&amp;#x27;s and 90&amp;#x27;s. But its fortunes changed by the mobile device era. One challenge of this model is that you have to maintain execution excellence in not one, but two separate areas. Both your hardware and design execution, as well as your software engineering, have to be industry leading. If either one falls short, it brings down the other.</text></comment>