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Including the apps you paid for on iOS?



There are precisely zero computing platforms in which one may expect to transfer application code to a device running a different operating system. None.


Funny. I use Steam every day. I can buy a game and play it on three different operating systems.

If Apple (and Google) didn't prevent competing stores, Steam would probably do the same -- and this is exactly what Epic wants to do.


I own lots of Steam games including BG3 and can play exactly none of them on the Mac because several years into Apple Silicon, even for universal and Apple Silicon native games, Steam won't release Steam that doesn't require rosetta (which I won't install).

Also, Steam charged those games' developers 30%. Which seems to really upset people when Apple charges that.


> and can play exactly none of them on the Mac because several years into Apple Silicon

You think that's some kind of low blow? This is a problem on the Mac App Store, too; if you buy software Apple depreciates, your Apple hardware won't run it. Don't get mad at Adobe or Steam, get mad at the person depreciating things with wild abandon and expecting everyone to cater their whims. Get mad at yourself for accidentally trusting Apple and updating to their new OS without reading the conditional changes they're introducing to your computer's software. Steam and it's publishing partners have no intrinsic obligation to support software that didn't exist when they wrote their programs.

> Which seems to really upset people when Apple charges that.

The App Store could take a 99% cut, for all most developers care. The point-of-contention is Apple's lack of an alternative, which makes any percentage unsubstantiated because there's no way to deliver software at-cost. Apple isn't charging for convenience, they're commoditizing privlidge.

Nobody cares when Steam takes their 30% because people deliberately install it on their PC. The App Store on MacOS is a great example of what happens when you let an arbitrary payment surcharge meet the free market. It becomes a fucking ghost town.


> The App Store could take a 99% cut, for all most developers care. The point-of-contention is Apple's lack of an alternative, which makes any percentage unsubstantiated because there's no way to deliver software at-cost.

There's a fine alternative I use, called SetApp.

Great deal too.


It's an even better deal if you live in Europe, now: https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/29/24086792/setapp-subscript...


Multi-platform licenses from a single purchase exist, yes.

On Apple platforms as well. For instance, you can buy one license for all Affinity programs and use them on macOS, Windows, and iPadOS. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/affinity-pricing/

Steam could do the same thing if they wanted.


Windows, Linux, Android. Literally every major computing platform has portable apps except iOS and macOS.


Windows apps work fine on Linux with Wine most of the time.


Huh? There’s no shortage of compatibility layers and cross-platform applications. Outside of mobile devices it’s more like the norm.

Operating system compatibility layers: WINE, Windows Subsystem for Linux, Linuxulator.

Cross-platform runtimes: JVM, Mono, Electron.

Cross-platform applications: Firefox, Chrome, Oracle DB, Postgres, MySQL, Apache, nginx, etc.

Multi-OS software repositories: Homebrew, Steam, Epic, etc.

Clouds even host FOSS-as-a-service.




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