> AI art is shit, kind of by definition anti-art, embarrassing to look at and cringe-inducing to be associated with
It is one thing to have compassion for artists as their livelihoods become threatened, but this sort of rhetoric makes me think the writer is too blinded by their emotions to have an accurate opinion of the current state of image gen. Much of what can be produced by eg. the openai's image 2.5 model is more-or-less indistinguishable from a person's work.
The main cost of two engineering teams shipping identical products in my opinion isn't the cost of those extra engineers, it is in the product and organizational challenges of keeping those two products that need to be identical in sync. I am very bullish on coding agents but would be wary of this turning into a mess.
But here's the thing, across operating systems the products should not be identical.
When you get to the point that your have a significant enough number of users across multiple platforms, generalizing everything into a shared UX doesn't make sense; giving those classes of users the best experience requires embracing their platform.
A simple example: Android has a system-wide convention for a `back` button. iOS has no such standard. Users on each platform have different expectations for how to navigate an app fundamentally, and holding tightly onto the concept of identical gives both camps a compromised experience.
I took "identical" as in feature wise. The user should be able to accomplish the same things, no matter what platform they're using.
I do think that the way the features are implemented should be platform dependent, i.e. use common UX pattern on each platform, fit in with the UI, and be good platform citizens.
The solution is to make the common features a part of a statically-linked library that you can pull into your apps. A web app is, IMO, never the answer when you want to address multiple audiences. It is bad for accessibility (because 99.999 percent of web app developers never consider accessibility) and it doesn't solve the problem that web apps are trying to solve (having 8 code bases all that have to remain in sync) because you will inevitably need your code to handle platform-specific differences, standards/conventions and whatnot.
I don't know iOS so I can't say, but a good UX does depend in part on platform expectations and every system historically been different. The compromises mean the each have good reason for what they do (sometimes anyway), but switching is hard.
It shows the sad state of user experience that applications completely ignore how different platforms function. For websites, I would expect them to follow the web conventions of UX. However, as soon as you're in a "native" application, you need to function like the device you're running on wants to function. Otherwise, it's going to be a jarring user experience for everyone in there. The whole system becomes harder to use.
There is an implication here that the back button is a microcosm that represents the differences holistically but it's not. It's a small one-off exception that doesn't even affect the design choices made for the various apps. As I open up app over app on my Android (Audible, Spotify, ChatGPT, etc.), they all have clear in-app "back" functionality where needed. No apps I have installed rely on the Android back button exclusively. Also, none of these apps have any design elements that follow Android's design language.
The back button works at its best when it closes an app and it restores the one that opened the previous one. There could be no in app back button to do that. However the back button used to be an always available hardware button or a touch one on the bottom bezel. It's optionally visible now (I'm on an old Android phone so I'm not up to date with the latest OS) or a gesture, right? So app designers must design as if it does not exist.
It's literally still a back button, doesn't matter if it's a gesture, physical button or button on a bottom of the screen. The result is always the same action in the same place no matter the app used.
> keeping those two products that need to be identical in sync
I agree that most companies do that, but in my opinion that's not really all that important. Some drift between the iOS and Android apps should be expected and accepted.
> it is in the product and organizational challenges of keeping those two products that need to be identical in sync.
They're two different platforms where the capabilities and UI patterns differs, so I don't see why they should be in sync. The web platform is not in sync with them. And using native features can give you a nice boost in maintenance and speed, unlike React Native where you always needs to align library semantics.
The capabilities of Android and iOS don't meaningfully differ for the purposes of Shopify; Shopify doesn't need LIDAR. Most large brands throw the UI design patterns of the platforms out the window in favor of their own UI guidelines.
Saying the web platform is not in sync with mobile is not a relevant metaphor to justify why Android and iOS should be considered separately.
They vary in terms of architectural patterns and ui widgets. RN tries to prevent a single interface, but you quickly reach the point where it becomes a pain. You can use Expo to help, but their libraries are unstable.
So if Shopify had to do major refactors of all their React Native apps, maybe they could look at what it would take to go back to native Platform APIs.
For the Shop App, this coincided with our next major React Native investment: adopting the New Architecture. That work would have required us to revisit native module integrations, rendering, and the boundaries between shared and platform-specific code. Before committing to this investment, we tested whether coding agents could help us build directly in SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose while keeping product behavior aligned across platforms.
The result of that native platform APIs side project involving six devs converting the app's major user workflows?
- startup time reduced: iOS by 23%, Android by 50%
- crashes - 10x reduction
- app size - iOS increased by 1MB (67MB -> 68MB), Android reduced by 109MB (37.2%)
- build time - Android release build time fell ~75%.
- runtime perf - Android builds could draw at 120fps while scrolling feed and switching screens
It always seemed a missed opportunity that Microsoft Flight Simulator doesn't have a UFO mode or something where you don't need to worry about the physics of keeping the plane in the air and could just stop and look at things.
Maybe you don't need real-ish physics for the glider here. Does the user really need to fall?
This just seems like "well ackshually" pedantry that is ironically incorrect. The supply and demand curve as a specific mathematical model describes commodity markets which housing isn't.
Supply and demand are still useful concepts to understand prices in other markets, but the main insight is simple: that higher supply generally leads to lower prices given fixed demand and higher demand generally leads to higher prices given fixed supply.
i read this before the article and thought “alright it can’t be that bad”… honestly, you are letting them off easy. it’s like pedantry, but the dunning-kreuger kind.
tbh it read mostly like gibberish to me, but seemed possible there might be some poorly-articulated but otherwise coherent point about the difference between the technical difference of a supply or demand curve "shifting" vs the turbulence of a market finding equilibrium when the curves are steady.
Either way it doesn't matter bc housing isn't a commodity, and what Noah Smith said wasn't incorrect.
If someone goes to the playstation store to buy a playstation game, you don't think it's clear that they can only play the game on playstation? I think consumers understand what they are buying even if they don't think in terms like revocable licenses and drm. They aren't ignorant just because they don't care about these abstract issues that don't affect their lives at all, practically speaking.
Yes, but first sale doctrine on physical goods means that I can take my Playstation game, which only works on Playstations, and sell it to.a friend after I'm done playing it, or pick up a copy 5-10 years after the game was originally published for cheap from a second hand store like Goodwill. People do understand that, and are understandably pissed off that those same rights don't transfer to the digital realm. If I paid $60 for a copy of GTA IV when it was new but now I can buy a copy for $5 from the used bin, why shouldn't that be true for GTA VI in 15 years after it comes out?
I am understandably pissed that Apple no longer makes small 5-inch iphones because I like them. But other consumers like the bigger phones, so Apple discontinued the mini line.
Is Apple doing me an injustice by not selling me the good that I want?
Is this a question of rights or consumer preferences?
Geez man. I've seen your replies in this thread multiple times. At this point, I have to wonder: why are you so against legislating the actual sale of ownership of video games? How could enacting this theoretical legislation, that you believe is a consumer "preference" (hard disagree, but I'll allow for argument) be in any way detrimental to you? What compels you to lick the boot to a polished shine?
It is one thing to have compassion for artists as their livelihoods become threatened, but this sort of rhetoric makes me think the writer is too blinded by their emotions to have an accurate opinion of the current state of image gen. Much of what can be produced by eg. the openai's image 2.5 model is more-or-less indistinguishable from a person's work.
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