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Apple has a habit of extracting any shared code between apps into an OS lib, and this is actually often easier to develop on internally than hosting shared deps elsewhere because all devs are constantly updating to the latest nightly OS release and therefore constantly getting the latest version of everyone else's libs.

The result is that it's basically impossible to write new code without it having hard dependencies on the newest OS! Kinda sucks for the outside world though.

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Yeah this caught my eye too. I can't imagine any technical reason why a Mac works but a windows/Linux computer wouldn't work. Tbh this is the side of Apple I dislike the most - restricting things without any good reason.

And especially if you look at small organizations without much funding that use old PCs (or just have crappy IT departments)... it's disappointing. This kind of restriction won't stop a billion dollar LiveNation, but it absolutely could affect the local library or cafe.

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> Yeah this caught my eye too. I can't imagine any technical reason why a Mac works but a windows/Linux computer wouldn't work.

Parent meant the macOS version restriction.

Why it's not for Windows/Linux is obvious. Unless it's to give Windows users access to some cross platform service or hardware (like the iPod used to be), it's not Apple's job to make software for other platforms. They're not a company making general business software like Adobe or MS.

This is to interface with macOS only Apple Wallet anyway.

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> Parent meant the macOS version restriction.

Ah thanks, I didn't realise Macos 27 is a new version.

Ironically though, I think it's kinda the same thing? Apple software is first class if you follow their rules - including having Apple hardware, being on the latest version, and so on. It's still a nice and pretty walled garden of Eden.

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Could've been a web app.
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You’re kidding right?

Apple would NEVER EVER do that.

Others already have. But Apple wouldn’t.

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Apple has several web apps, including tv.apple.com, podcasts.apple.com, maps.apple.com, icloud.com, music.apple.com, apps.apple.com, account.apple.com, card.apple.com, privacy.apple.com, reportaproblem.apple.com.... not to mention business oriented ones too.
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dear god no
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> restricting things without any good reason

A feature, not a bug!

You need to be super up to date to be involved! Have all the devices!

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I agree, it's just freaking ironic how it was Jobs who said that "if you don't cannibalize your own products, others will"... and then you have such restrictions for eg on iPadOS software that really push you to a Mac for any "proper" compute...
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There is no technical reason for the lack of a Linux version of Microsoft Office, which is a much bigger deal.

If you want to create a custom pass for your business, just rent access to a Mac online, if you don't want to buy one.

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Very likely they might use some common frameworks that are shared between macOS, iOS, and watchOS to design (e.g. SwiftUI) and writing the whole stack for non-Apple platforms simply wouldn't make sense.
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Understandable and quite possible, however that seems like a relatively lazy thing for Apple to do.

I'm not entirely sure what's the use case for most of these cards, but I'd hardly be surprised if this kind of decision didn't affect usability and accessibility for a lot of iPhone users, just because their venue guys don't have a mac.

And it's not like apple doesn't have the resources to make this software run across different types of computers. Iirc itunes and bonjour are (still?) very much developed by Apple for windows.

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They have the resources. They don’t care. Same reason it doesn’t work on older versions, they don’t care.

Honestly in this case I don’t blame them. This is a niche little app. It’s great it’s available but it’s not going to drive sales. Spending the time and money to make it work on Windows isn’t going to move enough needles to pay for the development time, QA, and support.

Not having to make it work on older versions of macOS also saves time and money. Everyone upgrades eventually. Just wait them out and the users will be ready one day.

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It's sooooooo obvious though.

They want you to buy a mac.

This is step one drug dealer tactic

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Mostly it's a QA issue. For new features it's just much easier to ignore older OSs
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I really doubt that. Unless Apple has completely hosed their QA budget.

Honestly, this "app" is at best an interactive picture template with text and metadata.

The real question is, why is something this simple not just part of Apple's website?

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Do you think that’s gonna be cheaper? Trying to make sure it works correctly in every single browser? Every time they update?
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Devs are expected to test on the latest OS, and this is a dev tool?
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Devs are also expected to test on any supported OS, which is a right old pain.
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Yes, but having to have iOS 27 means all those devs have iOS 27, which makes backwards compatibility for the dev tools something they can drop more aggressively than features for the general public.
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It’s nice to target the most recent version so you can use all the latest APIs. Most developers would prefer to do that, but it’s usually more important to support users who haven’t upgraded. In this case they may not care too much about people who haven’t upgraded.
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Knowing Apple it’s almost certainly to have verifiable (locally generated) crypto signatures for the QR/Bar codes so people can’t make their own forgeries from screenshots
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