It’s been a few weeks now since the release of iOS 17.4, which

[…] provides new options for app marketplaces, web browsers and payments for residents of the European Union. […]

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a firm believer in the underlying regulation to it, and have been ever since the possibility of this becoming a reality was in the Brussels air. But so far, I haven’t really been able to come up with a truly practical use case.

Furthermore, I haven’t seen any marketing for an Epic Store, Meta Store, or similar “app marketplaces”, but this may be attributed to the still rather… wobbly legal situation surrounding, notably, still having to direct payments to Apple while not using their store for app distribution. I don’t think there has been any follow-up from Apple (or the EU) that retracts these conditions.

So: Have any fellow EU resident ~tech’ies done anything fun or interesting with this new freedom yet?

To those not affected by this regulation, what would you like to “sideload”, or are perhaps already sideloading on Android?

Do any of you think big companies will move their entire palette onto an alternative store anytime soon, e.g. Facebook and sister products? To be honest, I doubt this will happen, otherwise it would’ve long occurred on the Google Play Store as well.

My ideas were:

• I’ve thought about trying to install Minecraft (the full version, probably using Pojav), or a game of similar caliber, on my phone just for fun and to see how well the iPhone GPU really fares against a “real” game, but didn’t find the time yet for looking into it.
• Also personally, I’d love to see a real “root-capable” shell on iOS, but I don’t think that will ever be a thing irrespective of how much sideloading Apple is forced to allow into their OS.

I've seen a lot of posts about email providers, but what about email clients?

What email client have you been using? What makes it work better for you than the default client? Does it have any notable features that you didn't know you needed?

Ideally an all-in-one app with sync to a Windows or browser app. For paid apps, preferably a one-time purchase rather than subscription. I like organizing and customizing, so user freedom is pretty important too. Bonus points if you've found the app useful for ADHD.

Google Calendar worked pretty well, but now I'm looking to build habits for hobbies and studies, while also keeping up with occasional appointments. I think it'd be much simpler to just have everything under one app.

As a non-native English speaker, I use Grammarly's free tier daily. It is invaluable to help me catch common mistakes, as well as to get a better understanding of the language through the explanations it provides. I will need to write even more English in the next few months, so it seemed like a good idea to get the Premium subscription. Unfortunately, Grammarly's pricing ($144 for the year) is prohibitive when converted to Brazilian Reais. And even if I am capable of making that payment now, I would rather avoid becoming dependent on something that is so expensive for me. So, what are some affordable alternatives to Grammarly's Premium subscription?

Just to be clear, I am aware that it is not ideal to rely too much on that kind of tool. Rest assured that my domain of English is enough that I am entirely capable of taking the suggestions as extra help and not as a crutch.

I have looked at various editors, but those I came across all had their own build-in file navigator which they insisted you'd use. I always hate that; it's the one thing I dislike about Godot. So is there one where you can simply open your .md files directly from Windows?

Edit: What I'm after is WYSIWYG, not just synstax highlighting.

I wanted to be a SWE ever since I was a young kid, and now after a undergrad + masters degree I was one of the first people in my batch to get a job. I just moved to a new country for my first job and I love it here already, it just feels sad imagining if I do get laid off and I'd have to go back to where I was doing my Masters (and even that would be limited time visa before I have to go back to my very under-developed home country). I do want to just mentally let go of the anxiety and just focus on performing good at my job but with all the recent layoffs it feels hard, my own company laid off a lot of people last year and because of that their glassdoor rating is kindof bad. I've been spiralling a bit just reading the glassdoor reviews of people blaming the management of uprooting their lives. Other people who changed cities or countries and were left jobless and were trying to navigate in a extremely bureucratic environment.

I have a 6 month probation in which I can be laid off pretty quickly, I just need to learn to not worry about the stuff I can't control.

I got my friend a midi beatpad a while ago and he's about to start using it to experiment with music. Does anyone have any tips I can pass on? Any help with software/equipment would be greatly appreciated.

I just got into watching physics simulation videos on youtube, stuff like marble races, marble battles, Multiply Or Release, and various other simulation content. Absolutely enthralling stuff for someone like me who enjoys simply watching an environment do its thing.

I wanted to get into making my own sims/scenarios and was wondering if you all on tildes had some recommendations. I've been trying algodoo and it seems very nice but I've heard its mostly abandonware and theres some features I find lacking. So I wanted to look into options for my little tinkering. I understand that there may not be a perfect one but I'd love to have some options to try and tinker in, and my research has led me to lots of them that seem at first look to be purely for academic purposes.

To crystallize my desires into a definite paragraph:
I'm looking for physics sim software recommendations to make my own marble races and other simulated 'games'. I don't mind having to learn it from scratch(including scripting language). I dont care if its paid or free. Ease of use is great but Non-essential since it can likely be learned over time. Preferrably not abandonware, or at least feature-rich if development has been completed. and lastly, performance is definitely important since I'll likely be building some grand designs as I settle in.

Hey there! Back when the pandemic was in full swing, I stumbled upon a comment that shared a link to a website with a title quite like this post. I can't quite recall if I saw the comment on Reddit, the orange site, or even here. The site was quite basic, and claimed to have a list of jobs from companies that understood that its workers would like to have a life outside of work

The job market has changed a lot since the pandemic, but if any of you awesome folks happen to know where I can find a good part-time software development job, I'd be seriously grateful.