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My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

(terminalbytes.com)
447 points hemant6488 | 9 comments | 18 Jun 25 15:49 UTC | HN request time: 1.329s | source | bottom
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nancyminusone ◴[18 Jun 25 19:54 UTC] No.44312819[source]▶
>I’m saving approximately $84-120 CAD annually.

I suppose most of this is eaten up by the need to pay apple $99 per year just to run your own app on your own phone for longer than a week.

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behnamoh ◴[18 Jun 25 20:55 UTC] No.44313215[source]▶
This Apple fee is one of the most absurd things they do. Like, how is it even justified—does Apple really spend $99 on infra maintenance and server costs to host your app?

When I buy a device I want to know that I own it, but Apple keeps pushing the narrative that "we LET you use this device in ways we see fit". So basically the customer is just borrowing a device from Apple while paying the full price.

I'm a longtime Apple user but can't shake off this love-hate relationship with the company.

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aerostable_slug ◴[18 Jun 25 21:05 UTC] No.44313272[source]▶
I think it's fair to also cover the fairly rigorous testing that occurs for each app store submission. I'm not sure a hundred bucks is the right number, but it's not fair to say all they do is host the file.
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1. rahimnathwani ◴[18 Jun 25 21:41 UTC] No.44313514[source]▶
You have to pay $99/year even if you only want to use the app on your own device.

You can only sideload for free if you are willing to reinstall every X days.

They don't need to test an app if you're not asking them to distribute it through their store.

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2. ◴[18 Jun 25 22:11 UTC] No.44313715[source]▶
3. mitemte ◴[18 Jun 25 22:21 UTC] No.44313766[source]▶
What’s worse is it used to be 90 days. Apple changed it to 7 days years ago.
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4. demosthanos ◴[19 Jun 25 01:06 UTC] No.44314571[source]▶
90 days is still absurd. I have custom apps I install on my Android phones once per phone. I go years without bothering to rebuild them.
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5. akutlay ◴[19 Jun 25 03:11 UTC] No.44315109{3}[source]▶
I would guess they do it because they want to minimize the chance that someone will install an unapproved app to someone’s phone and cause harm. I know it’s already pretty hard but Apple seems to be very particular when it comes to this.
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6. fmbb ◴[19 Jun 25 05:49 UTC] No.44315825[source]▶
> You can only sideload for free if you are willing to reinstall every X days.

Does this mean you lose data, or is data retained when reinstalling?

7. prmoustache ◴[19 Jun 25 08:08 UTC] No.44316508{4}[source]▶
That is not their job.
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8. Someone ◴[19 Jun 25 09:57 UTC] No.44317058{5}[source]▶
That’s an opinion. Apple’s take is that they sell ”everything that runs on your phone has gone through our reviews, so you can trust it isn’t malware”

That, in their opinion, makes it their job to prevent people from permanently installing software on other people’s phones. I’m sure they would remove the “permanently” if they could, but developers have to test builds so frequently that they can’t review them all.

9. phanimahesh ◴[19 Jun 25 11:55 UTC] No.44317795{4}[source]▶
Popup on app open that warns app is sideloaded?

There are simpler and more usable options that are more defensible than what they do today.