Long-Time Apple Developer Switches to Linux and Android Over Gatekeeper, macOS 26, and Age Verification

Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts: A 25-Year Apple User Leaves

Andre Garzia, an Apple user since MacOS 8 and registered developer for 25 years, has announced he is leaving the Apple ecosystem. His frustration centers on three issues that culminated in losing access to his own device.

The Three Issues

1. Gatekeeper Friction

Even with a developer account and properly notarized software, Apple still shows users a scary confirmation dialog for apps downloaded outside the App Store. Garzia calls this "friction to punish developers outside their store."

2. macOS 26 and Liquid Glass

The new Liquid Glass design in macOS 26 is described as "completely broken" - interfaces built with AppKit and SwiftUI that rendered perfectly now have overlapping controls and clipping issues. Multiple updates have failed to fix the problems.

3. Age Verification via Credit Card (The Breaking Point)

A UK law-mandated age verification system on iPhone that only accepts credit cards failed to verify Garzia (age 45) despite having five cards in Apple Wallet. Because credit card verification failed, he was locked out of device features. He notes that many people do not have credit cards, and calls Apple "a stupid American company with American values in which you are just as human as your credit score."

The Switch

Garzia is moving to:

• MNT Pocket Reform for computing (already ordered)
• Fairphone Gen 6 for mobile (considering stock Android or Murena /e/OS)
• All his software already ships for Linux

Why This Matters

This post resonates with growing frustration in the developer community about Apple's increasingly restrictive ecosystem. At 42 points on HN and rising, it captures a sentiment that Apple's control over user experience is crossing a threshold for power users and developers.