[HN Gopher] Apple's infamously strict on App Store rules but giv...
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Apple's infamously strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a
free pass (2020)
Author : spenvo
Score : 128 points
Date : 2023-07-26 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reclaimthenet.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (reclaimthenet.org)
| gaoshan wrote:
| If WeChat was not permitted on iPhones, iPhones would not sell in
| China.
| CharlesW wrote:
| And would not be purchased by many people around the world.
| lencastre wrote:
| Because Jina
| sn_master wrote:
| Interesting how they'll react to X. WeChat seems to be the
| closest thing to an "Everything App" that Elon wants to create.
| stefan_ wrote:
| WeChat is the "everything app" because it has a government
| monopoly. I'm sure there was and is some organic competition
| but it's also obvious they picked a winner and ran with it.
| rat9988 wrote:
| Can you tell us more about how the government picked the
| winner?
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| Under COVID, when being able to board public transport,
| enter venues, etc. required showing one's health status
| from one's phone, the Chinese state facilitated that
| through two apps in particular: WeChat and Alipay.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| That sounds like a duopoly, but it's still surprising
| that there was no third option at all. Are you sure they
| couldn't even bring printed out forms?
| em-bee wrote:
| others were not successful. someone made the argument
| that every app that you can use to pay for services, such
| as uber/didi, the various shared bike apps etc, were
| potentially usable as general payment apps because really
| it doesn't make a difference if you pay an uber driver or
| order food or pay for something else. you log in, you
| connect your bank account, you have a wallet, and you pay
| for stuff. so if there is only two that everyone uses
| then it's because the others could not yet capture enough
| market share to expand in that space.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| > Are you sure they couldn't even bring printed out
| forms?
|
| In China your health status was automatically calculated
| by where you had been, who you walked by in the street or
| metro, etc. So it could change in an instant, and that is
| why it was shown from mobile apps that constantly
| updated. It wasn't a fixed thing like vaccination status.
| em-bee wrote:
| it doesn't have a government monopoly any more than facebook
| has a monopoly elsewhere. it just happens to be the most
| popular app. others do exist but they don't market themselves
| to the average consumer.
| justapassenger wrote:
| X is vaporware. And even if they add those features, adoption
| is a slightly more complex story.
|
| Also look at Facebook. You can talk with friends. Send money.
| Interact with businesses. Play games. Date. Sell and buy stuff.
| And many more.
|
| But they don't have state supported monopoly position, so it's
| not an everything app.
| sdfghswe wrote:
| It's still twitter.
|
| I love that your previous comment was that "people use twitter
| because of free speech", and now I can't even look at it
| without logging in. Proof that on the internet anyone can sound
| confident.
| sourcecodeplz wrote:
| What does logging-in have to do with free speech?
| game_the0ry wrote:
| When the west opened trade to China, policy experts assumed China
| would become more liberal like the west. Instead, the west is
| becoming more like China. [1, 2, 3]
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-
| integrit...
|
| [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/ready-for-
| your-e...
|
| [3] (countless more examples, especially recently...)
| goodbyesf wrote:
| > When the west opened trade to China
|
| It's amazing how dumb propaganda like this keeps getting
| rehashed over and over again. It wasn't 'the west' that opened
| trade to china, it was the opposite. It was china that opened
| trade with the west. Historically, it was the west that wanted
| to trade with china because china had the goods and the market
| and eventually cheap labor.
|
| > policy experts assumed China would become more liberal like
| the west.
|
| Liberal? 'The west' wasn't 'liberal' in the 1950s or 60s when
| 'the west' was trying to force china to open trade with it. So
| why would 'the west' care about whether china is 'liberal or
| not'. 'The west' opened trade with saudi arabia. Did 'the west'
| expect saudi arabia to become 'liberal'. Of course not.
|
| > Instead, the west is becoming more like China. [1, 2]
|
| That's wishful thinking. If 'the west' was like china, we
| wouldn't be wasting trillion fighting wars everywhere and we'd
| be building our infrastructure.
|
| Every dumb talking head on tv, social media, etc spews the same
| nonsense about china. It's been going on for 20 years at least.
| When the US was negotiating opening trade with china in the 50s
| and 60s, we had laws banning asians, southern europeans, middle
| easterners, etc from immigrating to the US because they were
| deemed too racially inferior.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
|
| China is the good guy. The west is the bad guy. Even today. Do
| you really want china to behave like 'the west'? Invading and
| destabilizing countries around the world and trying to force
| every country around the world to adopt their 'values'.
| dvt wrote:
| > and trying to force every country around the world to adopt
| their 'values'.
|
| Hot take: Yes. Because classical liberalism, the free market,
| and bottom-up government has done more for the advancement of
| humankind than sharia law, tyrants, oligarchies, theocracies,
| or dictatorships have ever done.
|
| Let's stop pretending like all values have the same ethical
| valence.
| goodbyesf wrote:
| > Hot take: Yes. Because classical liberalism, the free
| market, and bottom-up government has done more for the
| advancement of humankind than sharia law, tyrants,
| oligarchies, theocracies, or dictatorships have ever done.
|
| That's not 'the west' and has never been. The US was born
| protectionist and pretty much stayed protectionist til
| today.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_S
| t...
|
| Of course today we wrap our protectionism with 'national
| security'. If a free market exists, then let me know
| because I've never come across one. All markets are
| protected and certainly not free. And if there is a bottom-
| up government, I've never heard of one in history. Can you
| show me an example of a bottom-up government? I'd love a
| good laugh.
|
| > Let's stop pretending like all values have the same
| ethical valence.
|
| And lets stop making up values to suit ones agenda.
|
| Edit: Also, you might want to brush up on your history.
| 'sharia law, tyrants, oligarchies, theocracies, or
| dictatorships have ever done' have given us civilization
| and nearly all human progress since the dawn of time.
| Everything from agriculture, to writing, to the laws of
| physics were produced outside of 'classical liberalism'.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| Many people (both poor and rich) are leaving china,
| places with sharia law, and moving to the west. Why are
| they leaving to the west? The west isn't perfect, but
| people seem to see it as an improvement to their
| homelands.
| goodbyesf wrote:
| > Many people (both poor and rich) are leaving china,
| places with sharia law, and moving to the west.
|
| The countries with the highest per capita immigration are
| in the middle east, not in 'the west'.
|
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-immigration-
| by-co...
|
| Do you think they are moving to the middle east because
| of their love of sharia law? Or do you think they are
| moving they for economic opportunities?
|
| People move to 'the west' for the same reason tens of
| millions of europeans moved to america in the 19th and
| 20th century. For money. We were the land of milk and
| honey or that's what they were told. Do you think
| millions of italians, germans, irish, etc came to america
| for the nonexistent classic liberalism?
|
| People come here for the economic opportunity that
| doesn't exist in their countries - much of the time
| because 'the west' invaded, destroyed or destabilized it.
| China being one of the many countries 'the west' invaded,
| destroyed and destabilized.
| dvt wrote:
| Your point is straight-up bonkers and the data you
| yourself cite disproves it. Comparing the UAE (one
| country, an outlier at that, due to their subsidized
| incentives) to the collective immigration to Australia +
| USA + Western Europe + Japan + South Korea is beyond
| disingenuous. But hey, you do you.
|
| > much of the time because 'the west' invaded, destroyed
| or destabilized it
|
| You know who destabilized my country? The USSR. I've
| heard nightmare stories from my grandparents and parents
| (who lived 35+ years under communism). Boy am I glad to
| be an American and I wouldn't give up my citizenship for
| anything. I'll gladly pay taxes even if end up living
| elsewhere.
| adra wrote:
| Their definition includes "Foreign workers", aka kafala.
| These people live in the country to work and accrue money
| for their families back home while they live in compounds
| and rarely directly interact with the host population.
|
| The host countries are largely empty husks which have
| very unproductive labour. They offset the productivity
| gap with oil revenues to bring in cheap labour keeping
| their quality of life higher.
|
| And yes, big IMHO to everything I said. I don't carry
| source in my back pocket.
| TillE wrote:
| > policy experts assumed China would become more liberal
|
| No one actually thinks that, it's just the line they use to
| justify themselves to the public. Like how Saudi Arabia has
| been promising amazing "reforms" for the better part of a
| decade.
| browningstreet wrote:
| It certainly was the (ahem) party line...
| woooooo wrote:
| Back in the 90s, we really were that arrogant. Policy makers
| believed history was over and we had won.
|
| We had just done it to Russia successfully (short-term). Why
| not China?
| derefr wrote:
| China _is_ becoming more liberal in the classical sense (more
| money accruing to regular "new money" entrepreneurs instead of
| to oligarchs); they just haven't hit the "borgeoisie-funded
| revolt against the aristocracy" phase of liberalization yet.
| Give them 50 years.
| woooooo wrote:
| They boiled the frog with the bourgeoisie. For a long time,
| there were workarounds if you're smart and educated. Nowadays
| its a hacker level operation to get on a VPN.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| They hit it in the 90s, except it failed hard: https://en.wik
| ipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...
| dvt wrote:
| Worldcoin is a terrible example imo, it's beyond DOA. Much like
| the rest of crypto, no one will seriously use it, unless we're
| talking speculation. I think that the riots in HK, the united
| front against Russia, etc. clearly show that the rest of the
| world believes free markets are the way to do things and it's
| just a matter of time (probably when Putin + Jinping bite the
| dust) until China/Russia also adopt more (classical) liberal
| stances.
|
| If you're hinting at authoritarianism, Trump has been
| repudiated by most, and the Republican party is in shambles
| right now (which is how such a weak Democrat was able to win).
| I don't really see the doomer point of view.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Privacy. That's iPhone.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Much like Adobe did to Macs in the 1990s, WeChat has become so
| powerful they control the platform.
|
| Apple can't remove WeChat because most consumers would rather
| change device hardware than lose access to WeChat.
| lessname wrote:
| Is it really the power of WeChat or the chinese government
| though?
| em-bee wrote:
| it's wechat. you really need it in china. it's practically
| impossible to stay in touch with most people if you don't
| have it. a phone that can't run wechat is pretty useless.
| afavour wrote:
| In this scenario it doesn't really matter. They're
| interchangeable.
| yreg wrote:
| App Store was never a totally level playing field either.
| Amazon Prime Video got a discount on App Store fees[0].
| FaceBook[1] and Uber[2] did things for which they got a slap on
| the wrist. If a less-important developer did that, they would
| have been banned from the App Store forever.
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348108/apple-amazon-
| pri...
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-
| facebook-b...
|
| [2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/23/15399438/apple-uber-
| app-s...
| sdfghswe wrote:
| > Much like Adobe did to Macs in the 1990s, WeChat has become
| so powerful they control the platform.
|
| I'd enjoy listening to the story here, spacebanana.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Adobe almost killed Apple by developing Windows-first and
| sometimes Windows-only products in the 1990s. Many
| professionals cared about Adobe software more than their
| hardware device, so moved platforms.
|
| Adobe's motivation was largely revenge against Apple for
| opening up printing standards. Previously Adobe had a de
| facto monopoly license on these.
|
| Steve Jobs was extremely pissed off by seeing Apple get hurt
| for making a pro consumer decision that was good for the
| wider industry, and held the grudge for a long time. Even
| though he wasn't CEO for much of this period.
|
| This article has more detail if you're interested [1]
|
| [1] https://www.alphr.com/blogs/2010/05/05/apple-adobe-
| history/
| yreg wrote:
| Steve eventually got his revenge: https://web.archive.org/w
| eb/20170615060422/https://www.apple...
| pavlov wrote:
| The story with Adobe on Mac in the 1990s is that their apps
| were so important to the platform that they practically had a
| veto on the API for Apple's next-gen OS.
|
| When Apple acquired NeXT, the original plan was for the NeXT
| API (now called Cocoa) to become the only way to build apps
| on the new Mac OS. But Adobe made it clear they were not
| going to port everything to Objective-C. In response Apple
| came up with Carbon, which was a port of essential plain-C
| APIs from Classic Mac OS to the new environment.
|
| Apple retaliated pretty hard in 2007-2010 by first knifing
| 64-bit Carbon when it had already shipped in Leopard betas,
| and later strangling Flash.
| srvmshr wrote:
| I use WeChat to talk to my in-laws in Mainland China. I am aware
| of the mini-apps that exist but they are severely lacking
| features & more of add on utilities to the WeChat interface.
|
| For e.g. a popular one is a mini-app for DiDi cabs. It'll allow
| you to book a nearby cab & place a call/text using the WeChat
| integration. It is more of utility to WeChat/Weixin rather than
| an appstore within their app. Agreed it is somewhat borderline in
| definition, but the way I see it - the utilities and apps are
| sandboxed within WeChat ecosystem.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2020)
|
| Anything new since?
| joshstrange wrote:
| I'm not sure this article has the slam dunk it thinks it does.
| Those aren't "apps" they are at best "web apps". They use a JS
| framework and some special markup from what I can tell. In this
| sense WeChat is more akin to a web browser than having multiple
| "apps" inside it.
|
| > Since these are "apps within an app", many of these mini-
| programs are flouting the App Store rules since they were not
| downloaded from the App Store.
|
| I mean Drafts has the ability to download actions (not sure if
| that is the right term) which are JS that run inside the app. I
| think this is fine and doesn't skirt any rules, I don't see why
| WeChat is all that different.
|
| All that said, of course Apple is going to make exceptions for
| WeChat the same way it makes various concessions to other
| countries.
| summerlight wrote:
| Regardless of its implementation, everything in the app is
| subject to the rule as long as it's distributed in the App
| Store. In fact, Apple tried to enforce the same rule on WeChat
| multiple times but gave up since it practically means giving up
| the entire China market.
| bunga-bunga wrote:
| > Regardless of its implementation
|
| Implementation is very much part of the rules. Apps cannot
| download and execute external code... unless it's JavaScript
| in a browser.
|
| Nothing in the article suggests that WeChat apps _are not_
| plain websites, so it seems that they don't know the rules
| nor the alleged rule breaker's technical side.
|
| I wouldn't exclude that WeChat really does get a pass from
| Apple, but the article does not clarify this important point.
| srcreigh wrote:
| Apple bans alternative web browsers too... so..
| thefounder wrote:
| >> I mean Drafts has the ability to download actions (not sure
| if that is the right term) which are JS that run inside the
| app. I think this is fine and doesn't skirt any rules,
|
| I'm not familiar with that particular app but if that happens
| it's not fine and it seems to get a pass from Apple. The apps
| are not allowed to download executable code. You have to bundle
| it all in the app.
| ecedeno wrote:
| That's not exclusive to that app. Being able to update the
| app without going through the App Store was one of the big
| selling points of React Native a few years back. Apps are not
| allowed to download native code, however.
| tl wrote:
| That's ...not a feature of React Native. It's possible to
| reload the app's content on code change, but this very
| clearly intended for development only.
| williamdclt wrote:
| You're describing fast refresh, the parent is talking
| about codepush. The whole point of CodePush is definitely
| to update the app without going through the store. It
| downloads a JS bundle (which is usually most of the app
| functionalities) and executes it.
| annexrichmond wrote:
| Just like how Apple killed Tumblr for porn problems but gave
| Twitter a pass
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| From what I understand is was more because Tumblr had a much
| younger user demographic with very ineffective content
| reporting tools. Allowed NSFW content without a desktop opt-in
| function. And also being bought by Yahoo who wanted to cash in
| on Tumblr advertising probably played a huge role in it too.
|
| Twitter skews older, requires desktop opt-in for NSFW content,
| and (before Musk) had decent content reporting functions.
| yding wrote:
| Here's a stat I heard a few years back: WeChat has over 50% time
| share in China. Meaning people in China are on WeChat more than
| all other apps on their phones combined.
| spenvo wrote:
| This rules inconsistency (alongside unpredictable (dis-)approvals
| and double standards for WeChat, Roblox, and (at times) Amazon
| and others) came up as one of a dozen reasons that, as a solo
| casual game developer, _launching_ in the App Store is not
| necessarily the no-brainer decision it seemed to be a decade ago
| (despite its enormous market power) I lay out in a separate post
| here https://keydiscussions.com/2023/07/26/as-a-web-game-dev-
| poin...
| threeseed wrote:
| There are about ~2m apps on the iOS App Store.
|
| And if we assume on average 10 updates to each app then we have
| ~20m approvals/rejections.
|
| Given that the process involves real people it is only normal
| for there to be many inconsistencies and double standards at
| this scale. Especially when the rules have evolved over the
| last 15 years and you have app developers who like to push the
| limits of what's allowed.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| the issue is that this double standard is conscious and
| intentional, rather than simply an artifact of probability
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| At the very beginning it likely conformed to all the rules
| as there likely wasn't much functionality in v1.0. By the
| time it attracted the attention of Apple decision makers,
| it was too sticky to ban as another user pointed out.
|
| i.e. Wechat users would rather switch to Android than lose
| the app.
|
| I guess the lesson is that exceptions will be made if you
| can grow an app literally a million fold in a few years and
| become a vital part of your user's day-to-day lives.
| dmonitor wrote:
| surely twitter also had the double standard, since i've never
| seen anything done to twitter despite the massive amount of
| nsfw on the app
| meowtimemania wrote:
| I don't totally understand the concept of having an everything
| app. Isn't the OS the "everything app"?
|
| Do people like the wechat experience because you have one login
| and don't have to go through an onboarding process in every mini-
| app?
| bunga-bunga wrote:
| > I don't totally understand the concept of having an
| everything app. Isn't the OS the "everything app"?
|
| Why are you downloading apps from the App Store instead of
| running separate OSes? This is the same concept, just one level
| down.
|
| Really, WeChat is just a browser with extra APIs and a website
| catalog.
|
| > Do people like the wechat experience because you have one
| login and don't have to go through an onboarding process in
| every mini-app?
|
| I'm not fully familiar with its history, but from what I
| understand Tencent added more and more "apps" to their chat app
| and eventually let third parties into it. This is exactly what
| Facebook did in 2010: we also had third party "apps" on
| Facebook. They were also just iframed websites with extra APIs.
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| > I don't totally understand the concept of having an
| everything app. Isn't the OS the "everything app"?
|
| The web browser is an everything app on your desktop.
|
| As Marc Andreessen said at the time:
|
| > Netscape will soon reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of
| device drivers.
| znpy wrote:
| I don't find that surprising at all. Apple and China are both
| regimes and it's not surprising at all they go hand in hand.
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