[HN Gopher] Developer account removed by Apple
___________________________________________________________________
Developer account removed by Apple
Author : vilfredoparet0
Score : 630 points
Date : 2023-11-23 16:16 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (seraleev.notion.site)
(TXT) w3m dump (seraleev.notion.site)
| EwanG wrote:
| Honestly, after looking through the "apps" they created and what
| little I could find about reviews for them, I am having a hard
| time not feeling that Apple was in the right here.
|
| On the other hand, I certainly understand that having your
| business shut down with little or no notice and right of appeal
| lies with the "prosecution" can feel crummy.
| dado3212 wrote:
| What makes you say that? The article is light on details about
| what the apps actually do, and why they might be violating.
| EwanG wrote:
| Looking at "Fontly Color Fonts", and some of their other
| apps, they are mainly repackaging websites as an app. For
| example check out the actual website at - https://fontly.org/
|
| I don't think that's necessarily a "bad" thing but I hardly
| find it reasonable to believe they are charging for the
| privilege.
| steezeburger wrote:
| That app does not seem like a wrapper around that website
| you linked at all. Can you give me a specific example? I
| may just not be seeing it. One is a blog and free font
| repository, kinda. One is a collage maker.
| adriand wrote:
| Seems like an unfair comment. I've had their Boomerang app on
| my phone for a long time. Made some fun stuff with it in the
| past, haven't used it in a while, but there wasn't anything
| particularly wrong with it. Just another niche app.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I don't think the Boomerang app is theirs. It doesn't show up
| in the link of their Google Play apps.
|
| If it is, that's Instagram's trademark.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Apple allows "for X" and "powered by X" type app names per
| official policy cited by App Store reviewers
|
| There are other patterns they allow that I'm unfamiliar
| with. Perhaps "X Maker" is one of them because it appears
| there are many other developer accounts using this pattern
| from a quick search.
|
| The point is that using another trademark isn't itself a
| violation necessarily
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Yes, but the app depicted doesn't do that.
|
| https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/introducin
| g-b...
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/boomerang-video-
| maker/id145467...
| SushiHippie wrote:
| The second link you provided isn't the boomerang app from
| instagram, it looks like the official one does not exist
| anymore.
| threeseed wrote:
| There are a dozen Boomerang rip-off apps on the App Store.
|
| Would be surprised if you're even using theirs.
| freedomben wrote:
| If you're going to say that, I think you need to explain _why_
| you feel like Apple was in the right. This sort of vagueness
| and ambiguity is extremely unfair to the accused, and this is
| notoriously what big tech does (and I think it 's wrong).
|
| What is it about the apps that you feel either does or should
| violate policy?
| Terretta wrote:
| > _What is it about the apps that you feel either does or
| should violate policy?_
|
| OK, using the article's words, let's count the ways:
|
| _Within 10 days, we updated each of the six applications:
| removed all rating requests, revised all payment screens in
| line with Apple 's recommendations, added Intercom for swift
| user assistance, established a help center with articles on
| canceling trials, requesting refunds, and implemented
| subscription management directly within the applications._
|
| 6 apps * ~5 fixes = 30 problems ... they knew what they were
| doing
| megous wrote:
| I'm just glad the state doesn't work as you suggest, lol.
|
| "Dear citizen, we have detected wrongful behavior on your
| part. Stop doing the wrongful behavior. You should know
| what we mean. As long as the behavior continues, the state
| will appropriate 20% of your salary. Here is a list of
| behaviors that you might or might not have been engaging
| in: [link to the penal code]"
| callalex wrote:
| Then why is Apple keeping the money instead of refunding it?
| mortallywounded wrote:
| Something feels off... those apps don't seem like 33K/MRR worthy.
| I suspect some kind of manipulation was being done to... help?
| deaddodo wrote:
| For sure, this seems super suspect. Unless they mean Chilean
| Pesos, but that would seem far too low.
| namanyayg wrote:
| One way apps get high MRR is by offering free trial for a small
| period, then charging for subscriptions later
|
| The user forgets about the subscriptions and ends up paying for
| a while before cancelling
|
| This is probably what apple means by "bait and switch"
|
| Of course I can't say if these app did this or not, I am just
| saying this is a common practice
| ssijak wrote:
| that is done by literally 80% of the paid apps. so I suspect
| that is not the banned behavior. it's the same on the web,
| you sign up for a free trial but leave the CC
| natch wrote:
| "Everyone (80%) does it so it's ok"
|
| That may be true but it may just be that Apple hates this
| but has trouble writing the right set of rules that don't
| throw the baby out with the bath water.
|
| And then when they get the slightest excuse (the fake fake
| reviews yes double fake) then they take the opportunity to
| close the unpleasant account.
|
| Actually if 20% of the apps don't do these scummy dark
| patterns, I'd just as soon see only those better apps in
| the store.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I appreciate that you can cancel the subscription right away
| at the start of the trial and Apple and the vendor isn't
| notified.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Curious that this doesn't work for Apple services. If you
| cancel the free trial, you lose access immediately.
|
| I was a bit disappointed that they don't live up to the
| standards they expect of 3rd party devs.
| olliej wrote:
| but remember the App Store review protects people from bait
| and switch! /s
| RajT88 wrote:
| > I am just saying this is a common practice
|
| This is how AppleTV works. I assume Apple does this with
| other services too.
| SpaceManNabs wrote:
| The developer might be scummy (very arguable tbh), but Apple
| being the arbitrator of what scummy bait and switch behavior
| is allowed is not acceptable.
|
| I don't see apple going after gambling like behavior in
| freemium games as long as they get a 30% cut for example.
|
| If apple can't enforce an ethical stance as a standard
| uniformly, then they aren't being ethical.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I've never seen these apps before. I have no idea who this
| company is. But these icons, names, and type of apps I
| typically associate with trash behaviour I wish was removed
| from the app store. Like a Video Joiner Pro that lets you
| concat two videos, has a 1 week free trial and then $20/month
| subscription.
|
| Edit: Ahh yup, that's exactly what this is
|
| > _A simple and convenient collage maker will help you make
| cool videos for TikTok and Instagram, Facebook._
|
| > _Subscription price $ 3.99 / week, $ 19.99 / year and $ 39.99
| / forever_
|
| $3.99/week subscription is deliberately predatory. It tries to
| bait people in thinking "oh it's just $3.99", and then
| forgetting and now paying $17/month for a photo collage app.
|
| I'm not sad this developer's had their account cancelled.
|
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xJlbYZ...
| seanvelasco wrote:
| this is exactly what i feel about most of the apps on the app
| store over the years, but i was never able to actually
| articulate it. very eloquently put!
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I think the most charitable thing you can say is this
| developer played with fire - engaging in scummy subscription
| pricing tactics - and got burnt. Neither App Store nor this
| developer played honourably.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Got burnt, but only after pulling the average annual
| Chilean income every month for an unspecified amount of
| time.
| cfpg wrote:
| I agree, even the author aludes to this when refering to
| trials and how to cancel them. (text in parenthesis added by
| me)
|
| > One day before removal, we had 1209 active trials. (money
| in our pockets)
|
| > [...] established a help center with articles on canceling
| trials (cause we have a UI team dedicated on making it
| complicated)
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| I find that a little harsh. The prices are clear, and you can
| either pass or remember to cancel.
| mike_d wrote:
| I would bet that they got cancelled because of end user
| complaints directly to Apple and/or chargebacks from credit
| card companies.
| slezyr wrote:
| Russian guy saying that he is in Chile in the first sentence?
| Absolutely nothing suspicious.
|
| https://companies.rbc.ru/id/1215600010141-obschestvo-s-ogran...
|
| It is even a Russian company. It was registered a bit before
| the war started and liquidated not so long ago.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Russian guy saying that he is in Chile in the first
| sentence? Absolutely nothing suspicious.
|
| Chile has been a popular destination for Russians to escape
| the war because it's easy to get a visa and a permanent
| residency via business immigration.
| the_af wrote:
| > _Russian guy saying that he is in Chile in the first
| sentence? Absolutely nothing suspicious._
|
| Being Russian doesn't make you suspicious of anything.
|
| There are lots of young Russian people coming to Latin
| America recently, presumably (if I had to guess) to escape
| the war. Source: seen this with my own eyes.
| slezyr wrote:
| It is strange to mention that he is in Chile and not
| mention that he is a Russian citizen, and the apps come
| from a Russian company that was recently re-registered(???
| or not) somewhere else.
|
| It could be sanctions, and it is not related to reviews at
| all.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I'm not sure - is it strange? I moved countries 7 years
| ago and I probably wouldnt mention my complete
| immigration history...
| Aromasin wrote:
| To be honest, provided none of the tax/profit makes its way
| back to Russia through illegal channels to circumvent
| sanctions, I don't see the problem. I know plenty of my
| colleagues migrated out of Russia to Germany, Israel, Turkey,
| and Greece following the war and started businesses there or
| continued already existing ones in a new locale. They wanted
| a new life for themselves, not under the rule of a crazed
| dictator.
| nmilo wrote:
| This is literally just racism.
| gorbachev wrote:
| No. Russian is not a race.
|
| It's bigotry, however.
| nmilo wrote:
| I'm so glad you got to be technically correct today.
| gorbachev wrote:
| I'm glad I could be of service. You're welcome.
| 15155 wrote:
| Which race is being implicated?
| ipaddr wrote:
| East Slavic
| Zetobal wrote:
| I would call it xenophobia.
| mlyle wrote:
| No, attempting to prevent money from flowing into a country
| which is actively waging war against neighbors is not
| racism.
| mm263 wrote:
| He is in Chile. The company linked was liquidated in 2021
| (including other companies called Sarafan that he created
| in the past). How did you deduce that money goes to
| Russia?
| practice9 wrote:
| Highly doubt that the developer doesn't send money back
| to his Russian relatives. Yeah, that would be not much -
| yet it will still support the war through taxes
| mm263 wrote:
| I'd argue that we should deport all Russian citizens back
| to Russia from all of the countries then! Why stop at
| Chile?
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Can we guarantee that he has no family or friends in
| russia that he sends money to? Or that he hires russian
| contractors etc?
| nmilo wrote:
| You're right actually, I forgot all Russians share a bank
| account with Putin.
| ponector wrote:
| Every person who use russian currency is sharing accounts
| with putin. Every transaction is taxed with VAT, which
| goes to support government and war.
| nlitened wrote:
| Right, not the billions paid for Russian oil and gas by
| western countries.
| ponector wrote:
| Do you think that your fact will negate mine?
|
| And yes, sanctions are half baked and poorly enforced.
| "West" continues trading with Russia.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Thanks, I'll be sure to make a huge deal everytime I see
| software from Israel
| ponector wrote:
| Governments everywhere along the globe are enforcing
| discriminatory rules based on passport and/or birthplace.
|
| And everyone is ok with such "racism".
| nmilo wrote:
| If a border agent called me suspicious based only on my
| passport then yeah that is racism
| ponector wrote:
| Then US government is one of the most racist government
| on the planet. And people support it or don't care.
|
| By applying tons of restrictions to the people based on
| their passport or place of birth.
|
| For example getting a green card for Indian people.
|
| Or visiting US. What is frictionless for people with
| Swiss passport is almost impossible for people with
| "hostile" passport. Getting a US travel visa is not
| trivial.
| mike_d wrote:
| > Then US government is one of the most racist government
| on the planet. ... For example getting a green card for
| Indian people.
|
| As an American it is basically impossible for me to
| immigrate to India and establish citizenship without my
| parents being Indian and knowing an official language
| fluently or by "investing" approximately $2 million USD
| and hiring at least 20 people to work for me.
| ponector wrote:
| That is the world we live in. And people are fine with
| such rules.
|
| There are countries where it is much harder to get
| residence (not citizenship) than your case with India.
| irusensei wrote:
| > "Its okay to be racist when the target is from a sanctioned
| country".
| mm263 wrote:
| The company is liquidated, which means he doesn't do business
| in Russia. Also, I love living in the world where doing
| business is suspicious because of my nationality.
| oleg_antonyan wrote:
| 404 Such World Not Found The war only made this much worse,
| but essentially "wrong nationality" has always been a
| factor for banks' KYC, for example
| treprinum wrote:
| A former colleague was denied studying at Berkeley due to
| being Russian (they told him that).
| rchaud wrote:
| The US consulate in Russia is closed since the war began
| -- getting a visa wouldnt be easy, and universities have
| to get DHS approval to issue an I-20 status document to a
| non-American. And that's before any issues around
| eligibility for scholarships, bursaries or loans.
|
| As a foreign student myself, I would not risk trying to
| navigate the US visa process knowing my status could be
| jeopardized at any time. Berkeley isn't the only
| university in the world worth attending.
| practice9 wrote:
| Choose a better government, then. Preferably, a one without
| Soviet/death cult/imperialistic tendencies.
|
| The nation will be judged by its government's actions,
| because the gov is supposed to be kept in check by the
| people.
| callalex wrote:
| Isn't moving to Chile choosing a better government? It
| seems like this developer did exactly what you are asking
| for, but racism is clouding your judgment.
| oleg_antonyan wrote:
| Will try being born in another place in the next life,
| thx for the advice (:
| joshmanders wrote:
| > Choose a better government, then.
|
| Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now?
| therein wrote:
| People really enjoy pointing you towards the suggestion
| box, as if it is above all coercion, corruption and
| malfeasance.
| ponector wrote:
| How? Is Russian government sent by God or elected by
| people?
|
| Looks like Russian majority has been supporting
| occupation of Georgia, occupation of Crimea and probably
| now doesn't care about current occupation of Ukraine.
|
| Ruling party was reelected before, during and after that.
| volkk wrote:
| wow i saw a really stupid take just earlier today on an
| unrelated thread, but this one actually wins. great job!!
| oleg_antonyan wrote:
| Registered 14.10.2021 Liquidated 28.04.2023 So the guy opened
| a company, 5 months later it got destroyed by crazy dictator
| and santions. He moves to a new country, starts a new life,
| and opens a new company there. Now tell me he is sponsoring
| the war or something like that based on these facts
| darrenf wrote:
| April 2023 is 18 months after October 2021, and over a year
| after the invasion.
| oleg_antonyan wrote:
| Liquidating a company takes a lot of time, up to a year
| in some countries. In Russia last time it took me 3
| months. What's your point? That he didn't shut it down
| the next day invasion began or what?
| oleg_antonyan wrote:
| > Russian guy saying that he is in Chile in the first
| sentence? Absolutely nothing suspicious.
|
| This would be a bit weird in previous life (before the war),
| but today it's normal b/c wrong nationality means you'll be
| assumed as evil orc who worship pu*in and support tha war
| bla-bla-bla. So mentioning that you at least don't live there
| and you business in not there helps a bit. Source: I'm in the
| same situation.
|
| And those who actually support the crazy dictator (by making
| fake companies across the world to bypass sanctions, for
| example) don't mention their names on the internet, don't ask
| public for help fighting Apple's decision, and probably don't
| sell mobile apps at all.
| csomar wrote:
| Chile has banned people of Russian names/ethnicity?
| emmelaich wrote:
| I wondered whether the fake reviews are being made by well-
| meaning but misguided friends or family. That the reviewers
| names are Russian is interesting.
|
| OR maybe they're by acquaintances of the author that have
| some beef with him and have decided to sabotage him?
|
| Is it possible that Apple is discovering some connection
| between these reviewers and the author that the author is not
| aware of?
| mariopt wrote:
| I have used "free" apps that require you to enable a trial but
| then I forgot to cancel it and ended up paying 3 weeks or so.
| Isn't this the way most mobile apps bring their revenue today?
| paulcole wrote:
| Yes, subscription apps earn revenue as a result of people who
| chose not to cancel their subscriptions.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >those apps don't seem like 33K/MRR worthy
|
| It's 6 of them, so more like ~5K USD/month revenue.
|
| I'm sorry that you've never built something meaningful, but
| that revenue bracket is actually _low_ for a decent app with
| some marketing going on.
| rndmwlk wrote:
| I can only hope to one day build something as meaningful as
| "Fontly Color Fonts." Alas, there can only be so many
| geniuses capable of sculpting meaning out of the chaos that
| is the aether.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Well, let's see what you've built so far. :^)
| Terretta wrote:
| > _some kind of manipulation_
|
| They tell you what kind of manipulation, in what they hastily
| tried to unwind when caught... a whole TODO list for scammy
| apps:
|
| _" Within 10 days, we updated each of the six applications:
| removed all rating requests, revised all payment screens in
| line with Apple's recommendations, added Intercom for swift
| user assistance, established a help center with articles on
| canceling trials, requesting refunds, and implemented
| subscription management directly within the applications."_
| Namari wrote:
| In this case, where does this money goes? Is it refunded to the
| people who bought the apps or is it litterally stolen by Apple?
| _just7_ wrote:
| Held in deposit forever, ie until someone sues someone else or
| the money are forgotten
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Apple holds it
| brookst wrote:
| False. Google "escheatment"
| djbusby wrote:
| https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answersescheat
| fbdab103 wrote:
| I am not sure that applies if Apple is deliberately
| withholding the money. Presumably they are making some
| claims as to breaking of laws or violating a policy.
| Enscheatment is more about forgotten money. The developer
| is very aware of their lack of access.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| Amusingly/sadly(?), I believe even if the money is eventually
| returned or enscheated, Apple can collect interest/invest the
| money the entire time.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| If the fake reviews are indeed the reason why the apps were taken
| off the store, that does strike me as an inappropriate action.
| Take down the reviews, yes. But closing the developer account
| creates a big opportunity to eliminate competition by buying fake
| reviews for your competitors. There's also nothing developers can
| do to prevent this since they can't curate or reject reviews from
| what I know.
|
| That said, other commenters are pointing out a very large revenue
| figure relative to the popularity of these apps. That smells more
| like money laundering or fraud. In that scenario, Apple should
| have been more specific in their communications.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| It's apple punishing you for their own failure to moderate the
| reviews posted to their store, which they're charging you
| $100+30% to access.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Considering how much data Apple also has on their users, it's
| insane that they haven't yet solved this problem.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Why would they if they can keep aka escrow $100k?
| selectodude wrote:
| $100k is literally meaningless to Apple.
| nottheengineer wrote:
| If any amount of money was meaningless to apple, they
| wouldn't be where they are today.
| coldtea wrote:
| That's not how money or business works. Opportunity costs
| means that many "amounts of money" can be meaningless to
| the business depending on the activity to get to them,
| the negatives (from processing hasles like lawsuits to PR
| and brand image), their overall strategy and focus, and
| other such concerns.
|
| A company at Apple's level absolutely doesn't see
| "frozing $100K" from random devs (or the amount that
| would result in aggregate from all those freezings) as a
| profit center.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The irrationality is the problem. $100k is nothing. The
| loss of developer good will is worth far more than that.
|
| But Apple doesn't care, because it _relies_ on shady apps
| for a significant part of App Store income.
|
| So the decision is "Do we make significant money from
| addictive games and scams and tolerate the occasional
| false positive that nukes a legitimate developer? Or do
| we spend significant resources curating an App Store full
| of quality apps and no noise, with high quality support
| for devs with problems?"
|
| Guess which one of those is going to bring in
| significantly more money.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| My experience is that for ever one event we hear about or
| makes the news there are 10-100x that suffer in silence
| and never get heard.
| brookst wrote:
| The accounting hassles of escrow and eventual escheatment
| of the $100k will probably cost Apple more than $100k.
| This is not a profit center.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I see it more like coupons, you escrow $1M and b/c
| companies go bankrupt, management change etc. in the end
| you keep some of the money.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Apple's revenue is $12,000 _per second_.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| What are you on about? Apple collects substantially less
| data about their users than anyone else.
| stickfigure wrote:
| You can moderate reviews of your app in the App Store?? How
| does that work?
| sp332 wrote:
| Devs can't, only Apple can. But they're punishing
| developers for fraudulent reviews anyways.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| you cant, "It's apple punishing _you_ for _their_ own
| failure... "
| irrational wrote:
| That sounds like the modus operandi of so many companies.
|
| Google can't figure out how to make money without ads, so
| they punish people (blocking ad blockers on chrome and
| not allowing access to YouTube if using an ad blocker)
| because of their own failure.
| rafram wrote:
| > Google can't figure out how to make money without ads
|
| They can and they have. YouTube Premium exists! You can
| pay for it!
|
| The two business models that are feasible for YouTube are
| (1) free and you have to see ads and (2) paid and you
| don't have to see ads. They offer both. I don't think
| it's reasonable to expect to be allowed to pick (1) but
| opt out of the ad side of the bargain. Their ad-blocking
| shenanigans are obnoxious, but it's disingenuous to claim
| that they "can't figure out" how to monetize YouTube
| without ads when they actually do provide that option.
| chongli wrote:
| I subscribe to YouTube premium because I think it's worth
| it.
|
| Lots of people have called me a "sucker" or worse, a
| Google shill, for paying money for a "free service."
| These same people then turned around and threw a temper
| tantrum when YouTube started detecting and punishing ad
| blockers.
|
| I think after years of enjoying a free service people
| have become extremely entitled about it.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I pay for pemium and youtube still sucks. I still see ads
| in the form of embedded and in the form of other shit on
| the page, and now my home screen is blank, and I only get
| to use my account about 1/2 the time anyway because in
| the real world I'm often watching on someone else's
| device, and I have no option to disable shorts, and I'm
| subject to their capricious copyright and censoring bs
| which both directly removes content and indirectly cows
| all the creators into self censoring.
|
| The problems with youtube are not the victims fault. It's
| fucking garbage.
| rchaud wrote:
| > They can and they have. YouTube Premium exists! You can
| pay for it!
|
| No they haven't. YT Premium price goes up by a
| significant amount each year, without a corresponding
| increase in value. That's not a business model, it's an
| experiment to see what the profitability price point is.
|
| If they knew what it was, they could go Netflix and make
| it paid-only. But then they'd lose out on all the sweet
| sweet ad revenue which apparently still doesn't cover the
| bills.
|
| Since they haven't reached it, and since 95% of their
| audience still accesses it with ads,
| geoffpado wrote:
| Not even Netflix is paid-only any more...
| rafram wrote:
| Netflix's ad-supported tier still costs money! As does
| Hulu's.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| If you've ever been in the App Store for any length of time
| you'll see how lazily retributive Apple is.
|
| It's not a company I'd ever do business with.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Is it even fair to call it "doing business with a company"
| when you're basically just probing an opaque automated
| system? Sure, if you're a supplier or say large advertiser,
| perhaps you are "doing business" but this sounds more like
| fighting for scraps together with a mix of honest and
| dishonest players hoping that the anti-fraud gods show you
| mercy and bless you with rev-share.
| api wrote:
| Is Play Store or Steam any better?
|
| All these stores are basically little monopolies with zero
| incentive to not suck. They also suck from a user point of
| view. Search is terrible, they're full of shovelware, etc.
| djbusby wrote:
| Play Store is the same level of crap as Apple App store
| (experience across multiple projects for like 10+ years).
|
| No experience on Steam but a few indie-game devs I know
| think it's OK. I've not heard them complain like App-devs
| on those phone-stores.
| nullindividual wrote:
| Steam will moderate or at least put a notice when a game
| is being review bombed for things unrelated to the game
| itself, such as a controversy with the developer.
|
| https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-takes-steps-against-steam-
| revi...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Though sometimes they do that when the reviews _are_
| about the game itself.
| singingboyo wrote:
| Sometimes the reviews are about the game, but they're
| being left because that's the thing to do according to
| the internet that day. So a legitimate grievance but
| blown of proportion due to factors outside the game.
|
| I don't think it's unreasonable to flag that.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Steam has been, and for now continues to be, much better.
|
| IMO this is directly due to Gabe Newell's leadership.
| Taking an attitude of "piracy is a service problem", and
| proceeding to offer such a good service that it's
| preferable to pirating, results in a great service for
| everyone involved.
|
| Whether this will outlast GabeN's tenure as CEO remains
| to be seen, but for now my understanding is that both
| users and developers are overwhelmingly happy with Steam.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| > Taking an attitude of "piracy is a service problem",
| and proceeding to offer such a good service that it's
| preferable to pirating
|
| My favourite way to phrase this is that "steam is the
| most anti-piracy store available. With piracy, you play
| games you didn't buy. On steam, you buy games you never
| play."
| Sleaker wrote:
| Steam isn't a monopoly, it provides ease of catalog and
| access. smaller companies can still sell on their own
| website or any other number of storefronts. The
| gatekeeper here now is generating MS signed apps.
| cesarb wrote:
| > The gatekeeper here now is generating MS signed apps.
|
| And Valve saw that coming some time ago, and invested in
| making both Steam and the games sold through it run on
| Linux.
| sealeck wrote:
| > In that scenario, Apple should have been more specific in
| their communications.
|
| Often AML policy prohibits this because it could be constituted
| as tipping off the offender.
| LocalH wrote:
| This is garbage. Imagine if other law worked this way. "We're
| going to arrest you and put you in jail, but we won't tell
| you what you're accused of, nor give you a proper appeal."
| During an investigation, I get it. After charges have been
| leveled? Most certainly _not_.
| lolinder wrote:
| Charges haven't been leveled yet. In theory, if Apple
| suspects money laundering they should both freeze the
| account and tell the authorities. The authorities want time
| to piece together their case before the money launderers
| disappear, so they ask for Apple to keep quiet until they
| have a chance to review everything.
| prosody wrote:
| In addition to what the sibling comment said, the developer
| does in fact have a recourse to the legal system, which
| they wrote that they are preparing to make use of. Attempts
| to analogize the TOS dispute mechanisms of companies to the
| legal system frequently fail to note that, at least where
| money is involved, they exist within the legal system, not
| in a bubble.
| stouset wrote:
| As someone with a long time in fintech, if your account is
| closed without explanation and nobody will talk to you, this
| is with almost 100% certainty the answer.
|
| It sucks because people who have been _clearly committing
| fraud_ then plaster you with negative reviews and sob stories
| but casually fail to mention it was their own egregiously
| fraudulent activity that caused their account to be shut
| down.
|
| And it also sucks because people who may not have actually
| done anything wrong get caught up by these controls sometimes
| and have effectively zero recourse.
| mariopt wrote:
| You can consider, virtually, all reviews fake in any mobile
| store. Sometimes I read the reviews and wonder: Who on earth
| wrote this?
|
| Honestly, it's up to Apple to moderate the reviews and detect
| review farms. If posting fake reviews is all it takes to take
| down my competitors out of the store, it's game on.
| lencastre wrote:
| I believe you need to own the app to review it, so there is a
| cost to consider. Maybe it's freemium or just a dollar but
| regardless you need to create an account, buy it, review
| it,...
| tempest_ wrote:
| if your app is just a dollar or two like most are a couple
| grand to pump the reviews seems like a no brainier
| hbn wrote:
| Barely any apps get you to pay upfront any more, in my
| experience most are free to download and it's either a
| trial, or so ad-ridden that it's unusable without an in-app
| purchase. Either way, any account could leave a review
| without paying.
| judge2020 wrote:
| This was talked about by Phillip Shoemaker (head of App Store
| Review 2009-2016) in this talk[0], where some developers
| figured out that if they hired marketing firms to commit review
| fraud on a competitor's app, their competitor would get
| terminated because there's no clear way to actually attribute
| the fraud to the developer.
|
| I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn't necessarily
| found a good solution yet.
|
| 0: https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=22m57s&si=CVfkqSqEULyFTx-8
| echelon wrote:
| > I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn't
| necessarily found a good solution yet.
|
| The most essential device of the century is owned by two
| companies. The ability for them to completely control
| software and business activities on top of something that is
| almost as essential as public transportation is appalling.
|
| The DOJ needs to remove the "app store" racket for essential
| computing devices. Software needs to be freely installable,
| sans vendor control, unfair competition, scare tactics,
| mandatory taxation, and adversarial ad placement by the
| cellphone duopoly.
|
| Not only is cell phone compute freedom essential, but we
| desperately need more than just two vendors.
| judge2020 wrote:
| One of the main draws of iOS is its resistance to malware,
| adware, and outright scam apps. Requiring third party app
| stores disproportionately harms those that purchased the
| device specifically for these purposes (such as people at
| higher risks of being targeted by nation state actors). And
| this isn't something that can be addressed with a new uber-
| secure product just for these people, because the EU will
| deem it a gatekeeper if enough people buy it - so I guess
| you have to create a hard cutoff for how many can purchase
| the product ever, or means test "do you actually deserve
| security?".
| echelon wrote:
| > Requiring third party app stores
|
| No stores. Web install. Web first class. No "only
| Safari/webkit engine" limitation.
|
| If Apple is so genius, they can solve malware with all of
| those engineering minds and dollars they have. They don't
| need to hind behind a store to do that. The tools and
| techniques are readily available and accessible for a
| company of their size and stature.
|
| Permission layer, app runtime heuristics, and
| fingerprints are a start. They can do this. They just
| don't want to / have to, because they're currently Gods
| of the Phone Universe with unfettered and completely
| unfair control over "their domain".
| judge2020 wrote:
| Stores is synonymous with side loading. Pedantically your
| website could be considered a "store" for the single app
| you distribute for it.
|
| And the threat surface of the iOS sandbox is so large
| that it's impossible to secure everything everywhere the
| first time. Every iOS jailbreak since at least iOS 10
| starts with a sandbox escape exploit and executed via a
| sideloaded app (besides the single hardware exploit found
| in recent years, checkm8)
| xienze wrote:
| > If Apple is so genius, they can solve malware with all
| of those engineering minds and dollars they have. They
| don't need to hind behind a store to do that. The tools
| and techniques are readily available and accessible for a
| company of their size and stature.
|
| An App Store with a human review process is one tool in
| the toolbox.
|
| > Permission layer, app runtime heuristics, and
| fingerprints are a start. They can do this.
|
| I think this is Google's approach. How's that been going?
| chongli wrote:
| _No stores. Web install. Web first class... Permission
| layer, app runtime heuristics, and fingerprints are a
| start._
|
| How does that work? If it's open web download and install
| with no notarization (because that's also gatekeeping)
| then we're back to the good ol' days of the 90's and
| early 00's. In other words, anything goes and it's up to
| the user to keep themselves secure, which in practice
| means rampant security failures and users getting scammed
| and hit with ransomware at every turn.
|
| I don't like Apple having so much control over
| everything. I really preferred the old days of the web
| and the anything goes, full control over my computers I
| had back then. But the web is absolutely way nastier
| today. It's jam packed with scammers and ransomware gangs
| and botnets. It's really quite sad and frustrating for
| anyone who grew up with the full potential of computing.
| lamontcg wrote:
| I still use MacOS and Linux, which is still the "old
| days" and its been 20+ years since the last time I had
| issues with getting hacked.
|
| A lot of the solution is just not to install random shit
| out of app stores, and to install software that has a
| good reputation (and use adblockers on search engines
| like google so you don't click on trojan ads).
|
| If you scroll down to the 10th page of the listings for
| 2048-clone games and install something at random you're
| probably going to get hacked.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I had a friend that just got pretty severely pwned on his
| Mac.
|
| They installed some kind of DNS redirector, so, when he
| thought he was contacting Apple, he was actually talking
| to a scammer.
|
| Their customer service was great, which I told him,
| should have been a red flag.
|
| In any case, he was able to extricate himself from the
| scammers, but not before they had grabbed a bunch of PiD,
| so he's still dealing with the whole identity theft
| issue.
|
| Not sure how he got owned. Likely, some drive-by malware
| on a Web site. He basically uses Safari as his operating
| system.
| jkestner wrote:
| Apple has in fact already solved these problems
| satisfactorily, on a platform called macOS. That's what a
| smart company does when it knows it can't put the third-
| party apps back in the box, and still feels motivated to
| uphold its reputation for security. iOS is the
| aberration.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Just don't use the third party app store if you're
| worried about scams. Requiring that apple permit 3rd
| party app stores does not force users to use said 3rd
| part stores.
| quitit wrote:
| This sounds like a fair point until remembering that
| things like Boss-ware exist.
|
| An insurer/ health insurer, employer, government, etc
| will require it, and just like that the "just don't use
| them" crowd will hold up their hands and pretend that no
| one could have imagined this disaster.
|
| If the problem is truly Apple exhibiting favouritism or
| limiting competition through their app approval process:
| then the EU should have just forced them to spin it out
| into an independent entity for the EU stores, or even
| take control of it themselves - but they didn't and
| 2024/25 is going to be a shitshow for it.
|
| Legislating for side loading and multiple app stores is
| the least imaginative and most obviously flawed approach
| to the competition problem and the sole reason why
| Android's share of malware is staggering in comparison to
| iOS.
| waprin wrote:
| If you're required to install software on your phone for
| work then your employer should be legally required to pay
| for your phone. And then if you want your own phone you
| pay for it yourself. And if your employers IT team lets
| corporate devices get malware that's on them. This is a
| weird edge case to get hung up on.
|
| You're making a very simple issue way more complicated
| than it needs to be. Having Apple spin out EU specific
| new corporate entities with unclear relationships to its
| parent company sounds extremely complex.
|
| Requiring Apple to allow people to install apps they want
| on their own device is pretty simple and should be a
| fundamental expectation of a free society.
|
| If normal user wants the walled garden Apple experience,
| that's fine. Make it unintuitive to install third party
| apps. Require checking a big red disclaimer that you
| might brick your phone. But just have some sort of path
| where if party A made an app and party B wants it on the
| device they paid a lot of money for, they can do that
| without some unqualified drone in Cupertino blocking it .
|
| Countless examples of the App Store review being broken ,
| and just on principle, Apple has what's effectively a
| monopoly on mobile phones in that you can't make a mobile
| app and ignore iPhone and for them to unilaterally decide
| all software that's allowed is way too much power.
|
| Somehow Microsoft went to the Supreme Court for putting
| IE on the desktop but Apple is off the hook for a
| complete lockdown. At least you could download Netscape
| on Windows 95! What Apple is doing is like if AOL and AOL
| keywords became the only entry point to the web. Then you
| go on Hacker News and people say that's s good thing
| because AOL only allows quality websites and otherwise
| people make malware and scam websites. It doesn't matter,
| it's too much power for one company and mobile phones are
| more critical to society in 2023 than the web was in the
| 90s. Mobile phones are not appliances.
|
| It's still unfathomable to me this is even a conversation
| on this website. Apples complete lockdown of the most
| important computing devices is plainly bad for consumers
| and society.
| quitit wrote:
| I'm making a pretty valid point(note Android's outsized
| malware share) and we'll get to see it play out next year
| in the EU.
|
| It's interesting to me that your core argument is about
| making a choice whether or not to embrace side-loading
| and 3rd party app stores. However aren't users making
| this choice when they buy the phone to begin with. Side
| loading and 3rd party app stores aren't a secret, many
| Android manufacturers use this as a selling point and
| include their own stores baked-in.
|
| I'm somehow to believe that users are simultaneously
| clever and dumb - and I'm not buying it.
| Guvante wrote:
| I like how you call users dumb for choosing Apple and
| clever for wanting to sideload.
|
| Or how else do you claim there is two sides here?
|
| Pretending that Apple is protecting consumers is silly,
| they have repeatedly said internally the lock is for
| revenue alone. No claim of security protection has lasted
| past "wouldn't sideloaded apps be sandboxed the same as
| App Store apps and thus have the same security overall"?
| (Apple failed to counter that point)
| Manuel_D wrote:
| If your company mandates installation of malware, then
| that's not something an app store can fix. If your
| company mandates the installation of malware and it's not
| available on the Apple AppStore, do you think they'd just
| say, "well okie dokie I guess the policy doesn't apply to
| you"? No, they'd require you carry a compliant device.
|
| If my company is mandating the installation of software
| on my devices, I'll request a corporate device and assume
| the company has root access on said device.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| It is also already possible through MDM to force install
| of apps separate from the app store.
|
| Employer installed apps is a use case Apple officially
| support.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| People who have plenty of options for switching jobs are
| generally not the first target for oppressive technology
| Manuel_D wrote:
| I'm not sure how this is relevant to my point: "sorry
| your app isn't on the Apple app store" probably isn't
| enough to stop an oppressive employer from forcing
| employees to install spyware.
| Grayskull wrote:
| > An insurer/ health insurer, employer, government, etc
| will require it, and just like that the "just don't use
| them" crowd will hold up their hands and pretend that no
| one could have imagined this disaster.
|
| On Android where alternate storefronts are a possibility,
| I have yet to be made aware of a single instance of this
| happening. Not even Epic in their crusade against
| established mobile stores made its' own platform.
| quitit wrote:
| That's a naive point to take for two reasons:
|
| 1. You're not looking very hard, surveillance ware exists
| for employment, examinations and so on. It's not
| available on iOS, but is available on Android via side
| loading. Both Facebook and Google used iOS certificates
| to side load tracking apps onto iOS for regular
| consumers. Even rental cars brands have utilised
| surveillance software to track speed and apply fines. The
| more you dig here the more you find: it's not some
| outlandish concept.
|
| 2. The inability to run such types of software on iOS
| prevents these approaches from moving forward across the
| industry. Much the same way that QR codes weren't widely
| utilised until both Android and iOS supported it.
| erikerikson wrote:
| > Requiring third party app stores
|
| That's doing a lot of work. There's "... to be usable"
| but also "... to be automatically and unfilterably
| merged".
|
| They are very different situations. What specifically are
| you concerned about? I'd guess that latter but you seem
| to be defending the former as though it is the latter.
| Keyframe wrote:
| _One of the main draws of iOS is its resistance to
| malware, adware, and outright scam apps._
|
| Have we visited the same appstore? Just few days ago I
| tried to find a puzzle game for my kid and myself to play
| together. A whole bunch of them, from top results,
| resulted in games which had shady dark UI initial screens
| trying to get to $14.99 or similar monthly subscriptions.
| Eventually I caved in to arcade sub because I couldn't
| trust any of the results or find a normal paid one
| (once). Scammy at best.
| TylerE wrote:
| Looked at android recently? It's far far worse. Also "has
| ads" isn't a synonym for "malware".
| janc_ wrote:
| That's only true for some Android application stores.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Yes, I have and to be honest I haven't noticed a
| difference at all, apart google at least pretending it
| cares with play protect.
| lapcat wrote:
| > One of the main draws of iOS is its resistance to
| malware, adware, and outright scam apps.
|
| The crApp Store is full of scams. https://www.washingtonp
| ost.com/technology/2021/06/06/apple-a...
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-scams-apple-app-
| store-go...
|
| https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2023/02/pig-b...
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2021/05/15/apple
| -ip...
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2022/01/11/developer-exposes-another-
| mul...
|
| There's practically endless proof and documentation for
| this.
|
| The App Store is actually a honeypot for scammers. It's a
| single point of failure, because once you get past app
| review, which is easy, you're home free, and it's also
| relatively easy to manipulate App Store search, App Store
| ratings and reviews, and App Store Search Ads.
|
| As a non-scam App Store developer, my biggest problem is
| discovery, i.e., getting my app in front of the eyeballs
| of potential customers. It's vastly easier to do that in
| the App Store than it is via so-called sideloading,
| especially if you have no ethics. (Unfortunately, I do
| have ethics, which significantly limits my options for
| discovery.)
| quitit wrote:
| I hear your argument, but it's not convincing.
|
| Your logic states that because an app can occasionally
| slip through the review process, that we should remove
| -all- protections. That isn't better, that's worse.
|
| A scam is also a relatively low bar to set for such
| drastic change, since scams also frequently occur over
| chat apps and the kinds of access that side-loading and
| 3rd party stores can avail opens the door to
| significantly more sophisticated malware. If you truly
| think the situation right now is bad, just wait until
| there are no protections for users.
|
| You should also recognise that there is actual data for
| malware on these platforms. Every year Nokia drive home
| the same point for why Android has such an outsized share
| of malware: "...most smartphone malware is distributed as
| trojanized applications and since Android users can load
| application from just about anywhere, it's much easier to
| trick them into installing applications that are infected
| with malware."
|
| Since all experts point to the same sources of malware -
| perhaps that's not the change we should be legislating.
| How about we do something different.
| shopvaccer wrote:
| I've been using an antimalware system which has been
| highly successful at blocking all sorts of malware. It's
| where I don't run invasive closed source programs on my
| computers and give them access to all my shit, and I
| don't just give my credentials and money to anyone that
| asks. In other words, basic computer practices from
| decades ago.
|
| I know that this system may be unattainable for some,
| namely children, the elderly and the intellectually
| disabled. But maybe we shouldn't be designing general
| purpose computers around the lowest common denominators
| of society, for the same reason you wouldn't design a car
| for the legally blind or a book for the illiterate.
|
| The nature of smartphones and the internet has some
| pretty large consequences for the economy, politics, war,
| and global surveilance. I understand that some people
| don't know how to manage their own computer, but if you
| really think everyone's computers should be controlled by
| dictators and buerocrats maybe you should just go live in
| a third world country instead.
| quitit wrote:
| If the concept here is choice, then why not force apple
| to clearly advertise that side loading and 3rd party apps
| stores are not available. The same way that Samsung and
| Huawei promote theirs?
|
| Then the consumer can make that decision for themselves.
|
| Your position here seems to be that consumers are too
| dumb to make that decision, but clever enough to fend off
| sophisticated malware attacks. You are even so gracious
| to note that perhaps this might be out of reach for
| ordinary users (well done you! you nearly got there)
|
| If only there was a large and popular platform of devices
| with side-loading and 3rd party app stores available for
| us to already see the consequences of what this change
| does to malware rates. Let's call this hypothetical
| platform "Android", and then a well respected security
| report, say by Nokia, could include statistics about this
| "Android" malware.
|
| Well, you're in luck dear friend! Actual security experts
| state: "most smartphone malware is distributed as
| trojanized applications and since Android users can load
| application from just about anywhere, it's much easier to
| trick them into installing applications that are infected
| with malware". (worth stating twice because I don't think
| it sunk in the first time.)
|
| So real security experts are advising the opposite
| approach from you, funny that.
|
| As for a 3rd world country, maybe you should run one
| since you have the ego of a dictator.
| janc_ wrote:
| About 99.9% of apps in the Google Play Store contain
| spyware (and I doubt it's much better in Apple's store?).
| realusername wrote:
| > One of the main draws of iOS is its resistance to
| malware, adware, and outright scam apps.
|
| Well no, the appstore is as full of scams, malware and
| adware as everywhere else.
|
| They managed somehow to convince people it's a safe space
| though, not sure how but I consider it a bad thing since
| people are more likely to trust it blindly.
|
| > such as people at higher risks of being targeted by
| nation state actors
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/absher-%D8%A3%D8%A8%D8%B4%D
| 8%B...
|
| The Saudi Arabian app to track what your wife is doing is
| still on the appstore, no need for a thirdparty store.
| elashri wrote:
| > The Saudi Arabian app to track what your wife is doing
| is still on the appstore, no need for a thirdparty store.
|
| While I usually don't like the saudi system but this app
| in particular is about making it easy to manage official
| government paperwork online [1]. This applies for all
| residents (citizens or not) and people really like it. So
| it is not an app to track females movements. While you
| can disagree or agree on the male approval requirements
| for a female to travel (I disagree) but it is not like it
| tracks movements using GPS or any invasive data. It just
| make it easier to manage the permits and all other
| interactions with the government without having to drive
| long distances and wait in lines.
|
| Well as a complete outsider in another country who
| probably never went to Saudi Arabia like yourself, I
| would be more careful.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absher_(application)
| realusername wrote:
| The app is doing both purpose since they follow their
| local laws, you can also read the wikipedia entry on the
| impact on women.
|
| I'm open to some kind of argument like "apple has no
| choice in such dictatorship" but this argument is
| contradictory with the argument that its protecting from
| nation states.
|
| And since we mentioned Saudi arabia, we can also mention
| China where icloud is dodgy, it's not a unique case. I'm
| sure they are others I don't know about.
| elashri wrote:
| Well, I was just responding to your particular claim that
| this app is tracking "what your wife is doing". But
| unless the wife is exclusively moving by airplanes (so
| that the app will notify male guardian she entered
| airport) that's is not tracking what wife is doing. It
| doesn't give information about activities or locations
| like saying many other apps.
|
| This is one service among all other government
| interactions services that the app provide. If the app is
| not here. Women still need to get male guardian approval
| because this is local law. You can disagree on that
| matter (I am not defending or debating it). I was just
| clarifying.
|
| And yes, apple has to follow local laws. The app doesn't
| collect privacy invasive information used to track
| movements as your comment suggested. And it is not
| required to be on your phone.
| graemep wrote:
| No one has to use third party app stores.
|
| Android allows third party app stores and it is not a
| significant cause of problems. I am sure there must be
| some bad app stores out there, but the well known ones
| like F-Droid are probably better curated than Google's
| own.
|
| Linux has always allowed third party repositories. Again,
| rarely a source of problems - again, there must be some
| bad things out there but the percentage of users affected
| is tiny.
| janc_ wrote:
| In fact, F-Droid is infinitely better than Google's own
| app store, where almost all apps contain spyware...
| wavemode wrote:
| Apple doesn't want third-party stores because it would
| cut into their profits. That they were able to convince
| the public that it is about personal privacy is just
| great marketing on their part.
|
| If you bought an iPhone because you wanted protection
| from the purported dangers of third-party apps, then ...
| just don't install any...?
| judge2020 wrote:
| Third party app stores don't play into the legal
| liability of developing for iOS without a license.
| Chances are Apple still has every right to charge a
| percentage of revenue as the licensing fee for usage of
| iOS APIs.
| wavemode wrote:
| Any regulation that requires allowing third-party stores,
| would be an anti-monopolistic move. So it would almost
| certainly include a requirement that those third-party
| stores be allowed to process payments themselves without
| paying royalties.
| 6510 wrote:
| The EU requires reviews from real customers and you have
| to describe how you are accomplishing this.
|
| These alternative app stores will be infinitely more
| trust worthy than apple, amazon, google etc
|
| If there is no payment or the trial is canceled one could
| use the digital id.
|
| Apple could even gather some simple statistics. Opening
| the app and using it for 1 minute would be a special kind
| of review. You wouldn't count 1 star reviews like that
| until manual review-review confirms the app is really
| that bad.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| If you want to resist malware, Just don't sideload apps
| and don't install apps from third party app stores.
|
| Refusing other users the freedom to run the apps they
| want without Apple's permission just because you might
| get mildly inconvenienced by it seems very immoral to me.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Couldn't the app store support a singular store interface
| that draws from a singular default source and user added
| sources?
|
| People could pay Apple to vette sources to indicate that
| software therein isn't malware even if it doesn't follow
| other Apple standards.
|
| Anyone maximally concerned would just only use Apple
| sources. If Apple was less onerous about trying to get a
| cut most major software would be in the official store.
| Say a 5% cut.
|
| Remember at one time the manufacturer trying to get a cut
| of the action on a device was rightfully absurd.
|
| Your oven doesn't refuse to bake a pie unless Betty
| Crocker cut in GE nor did Magnavox require a cut from
| blockbuster.
|
| Both could be implimented for your protection and both
| would have been protection rackets. Apple's arrangement
| is as well it's just that the mob actually oversees
| permits too and charges on the way in.
|
| If you could trivially use only official apps and most
| apps would be available as such how would you be harmed?
| waihtis wrote:
| It's not in the interest of the DOJ to do so - 95% of
| people are technologically completely inept and it would
| expose them to fraud, malware and such at unprecedented
| scale
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| I don't see how this follows.
|
| Android phones can have alternate appstores, and yet we
| don't see widespread malware, fraud etc from that.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Have you heard of a little company called Epic?
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanwhitwam/2018/08/25/epic-
| gam...
|
| And then
|
| https://www.komando.com/security-privacy/ratmilad-
| android-ma...
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| Technically illiterate people don't use open OS's so
| there's no reason for attackers to target those
| platforms. Also, the number of users is so small that
| it's not worth an attacker's time.
| sidlls wrote:
| We don't?
| biohacker85 wrote:
| I don't disagree with the problem and lack of options. But
| forcing a company to add features feels like overstepping.
| I'm not sure how that can be legal or even be with the
| spirit of the law.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| > The most essential device of the century is owned by two
| companies.
|
| As long as people play along, yes it is indeed.
|
| If more people were installing a free mobile OS, and thus
| take back ownership of their hardware and digital lives,
| the story would be much different.
|
| It's the same story with PCs. If you actually want to
| control the hardware you own, install Linux. It's not as if
| the alternatives to corporate control didn't exist.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| This. And it's not like there's no choice. The only pain
| point, if you want to completely get rid of A/G, is push
| notifications and some banking apps.
| callalex wrote:
| Those are the two primary things I use my phone for.
| shopvaccer wrote:
| I don't think it's a fair comparison because in the PC
| market the bootloaders are (usually) unlocked and the
| firmware (usually) operates via an open standard like
| UEFI or BIOS... whereas in the smartphone market open
| bootloaders and firmware are the exception.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| As someone who's wanted to run their own mobile OS, I can
| tell you that doing so it a hell of a lot more
| challenging than installing Linux in a laptop.
|
| The fact is most of the stuff that makes phones what they
| are, is hidden behind closed hardware and firmware. Even
| Android, which as you know is Linux, has closed binary
| blobs in its kernel tree.
|
| You can get away with that somewhat for devices like the
| SoC on the Raspberry Pi. But things get a lot more
| complex when half the stuff that makes your phone usable
| is closed hardware and firmware blobs. What you
| ultimately end up with is still a device you don't fully
| control but with the added inconvenience of a less mature
| software ecosystem too.
|
| I don't see this problem being solved any time soon. In
| fact quite the opposite, I think it's getting
| increasingly difficult with each passing year.
| coredog64 wrote:
| The regulatory requirements around communications
| equipment (especially cellular modems) pretty much
| requires closed binary blobs. Eventually folks are able
| to reverse it, but not in a timely fashion.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I don't think regulation is the problem (though I
| wouldn't be at all surprised if some many used that as an
| excuse). For example the EU makes it mandatory that
| patents on standards are licensable to other parties.
| Granted that's not exactly the same thing but it does
| illustrate how governments want competition. Or at least
| in the EU they do.
|
| The problem with binary blobs is entirely a corporate
| one. And frankly I don't blame them for wanting to keep
| their products closed. I makes complete sense for them to
| do so. Really this is no different to nvidia keeping
| their GPU drivers closed. Except you can still have a
| functional laptop without Cuda, whereas you cannot have a
| functional phone without the ability to connect to cell
| networks and make phone calls.
| kudokatz wrote:
| > If you actually want to control the hardware you own,
| install Linux. It's not as if the alternatives to
| corporate control didn't exist.
|
| They exist, but break my touchpad upgrading to kernel
| 5.19 from 5.15. I'd rather pay for something locked down
| than something that breaks.
|
| https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/2002
| 356
| robocat wrote:
| > If more people were installing a free mobile OS
|
| I think people would if there were a viable free option.
|
| Also it isn't easy to find good mid-range hardware. I
| bought HMD(Nokia) for years but then I spent 250 on one
| of their new models and the phone was absolutely unusable
| (laggy UI).
|
| Having to research models and software versions of
| CyanogenMod every few years just wastes my time. And then
| run into issues.
|
| Plus security matters to me.
|
| Microsoft failed to enter the market with billions spent
| - it isn't an easy problem.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Android removed the big technical measures that gave
| Google's Play Store a competitive advantage over
| alternatives, in no small part because of EU pressure. And
| while the Play Store is by far the biggest player in town,
| Amazon's Appstore, Huawei's AppGallery and F-Droid are all
| notable alternatives.
|
| Meanwhile on iOS the best we seem to get is the EU Digital
| Markets Act setting some rules for fairness on the big
| marketplaces.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Google pressures device OEMS into joining the OHA, after
| which they can't create AOSP devices. Allegedly, Amazon
| is giving up on Android for their own hardware.
| smegger001 wrote:
| As you mention two companies I can only assume the other is
| Google and android. Which I find odd as I have multiple
| other appstores and repositories on my phone and every
| other android device I have owned. My phones and tablets
| usually come with not just the Google Play Store, but also
| the manufacturers app store, and I install fdroid on all my
| android devices, and have in the past installed the Amazon
| app store on my phones back when Amazon and Google were
| having a spat over audible book sales and you breifly
| couldn't buy books on the Google hosted version of audible.
| So I don't see the problem. There are many third party app
| stores on the android half of the marker if you as a
| developer dont like the terms for using Google Play, then
| list you app on another storefront with more agreeable
| terms or your own webpage.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| It would be more competitive if it worked like software
| sources under Linux whereby you can use a singular
| interface to manage software from different sources.
| janc_ wrote:
| That's possible with F-Droid (& Aurora Store, I think).
| jfengel wrote:
| But there are two, which is very different from one.
|
| I'm not sure that adding more would make all that much
| difference. One player would have absolute pricing power.
| Two keep one another at least a little in check.
|
| That assumes no collusion, and that's not entirely true, by
| not completely false either. Many cases of similar behavior
| are just them responding to the same market in similar
| ways.
|
| I think that completely free and open player you want isn't
| going to be much of a competitive advantage. It has a small
| niche but not enough to break into the insane levels of
| overhead in creating a complete ecosystem. Especially since
| most users just want the device to work with a minimum of
| grief. And especially since the use of public airwaves
| means a ton of regulation.
| silenced_trope wrote:
| pretty clever, it reminds me of the early days of the app
| store when apps would be taken down for copyright strikes but
| if you provided proof you'd be given "immunity" from further
| strikes taking down your app while Apple investigates
|
| it became a strategy to copyright strike your own app, have
| proof ready so that no downtime was necessary, then you have
| the temporary immunity so that competitors couldn't submit a
| copyright strike, which costed them nothing to do and had no
| consequences if they were wrong about it
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| I don't get how this sort of short-term thinking to the
| extremth degree is ever worth it or sustainable...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Blame Apple for forcing developers (and encouraging bad
| guys) to spend more time thinking about the App Store
| rules than they do themselves.
| lmm wrote:
| It probably isn't now, but in the early days the iphone
| app store was a giant pinata full of money for anyone who
| wanted to knock up a flashlight app or whatever.
| araes wrote:
| This is actually what I started thinking when I got to the
| end of the article. Maybe just immediate human snatch and
| grab cynicism.
|
| That the author hired somebody to dump review, does
| something fishy with money like those above noted, and then
| sues for more money.
|
| Levine over at Bloomberg had an interesting article where
| ransomware gangs are now filing SEC reports, as a way to
| pressure companies to pay, or minimize ROI.
| san_dimitri wrote:
| Hmm interesting. I wonder what happen if there were a lot of
| fake reviews on Apple's own apps. I am sure this policy would
| not apply to themselves.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| It's apparently common on Twitch for scammers to try and
| blackmail streamers by threatening to followbot them.
|
| Not every streamer knows that they can forward such threats
| to Twitch's support staff, and if they don't, their stream is
| at risk from automated bot detection penalizing them.
| munk-a wrote:
| If Apple isn't able to police this then maybe it's unhealthy
| for the market to be completely controlled by them. They make
| billions off the AppStore and their refusal to reinvest in
| proper moderation (especially for an app worth hundreds of
| thousands in revenue) is quite telling.
| terminous wrote:
| This isn't an Apple problem, it's a problem with every
| business review platform. If a shady marketing firm takes a
| contract to give an app fake 5 star reviews, there's no way
| for the review platform to know if that shady marketing
| firm was hired by the app's developer or their competitor.
| Only the marketing firm knows.
| DelightOne wrote:
| Except that Apple ist the gatekeeper here.
| munk-a wrote:
| There is a way for the platform to handle that
| scenario... Manual review. Apple chooses not to rely on
| manual review and we shouldn't discount this decision of
| theirs.
| _pigpen__ wrote:
| If the App Store is the only vehicle for selling mobile
| apps on Apple devices, then by virtue of their monopoly,
| they have a duty to be entirely transparent and fair.
| It's entirely an Apple problem.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| What monopoly are you speaking of? Most phones aren't
| Apple.
| neoberg wrote:
| Not OC but exactly. They have a "monopoly" on the
| comments by their HN handle so they're responsible for
| what's written from that handle.
|
| The same way Apple holds a monopoly on an ecosystem they
| created so they are responsible for what's happening
| there.
| stefs wrote:
| the app store is the monopoly. afaik there's no other way
| to get apps on your apple device.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| You are free to buy a non-Apple phone... because Apple
| does _not_ have a monopoly.
| wernercd wrote:
| So how do you get an app onto the iphone if they don't
| have a monopoly on apps on their phones? What other store
| can I use to get apps on a iPhone?
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| You don't seem to understand what a monopoly is. You
| can't arbitrarily put an app onto their hardware because
| they built it so you couldn't.
|
| However, not all hardware is created by them. You're free
| to purchase a different phone, and you can even make the
| number of app stores supported a primary buying decision.
| tristan957 wrote:
| It isn't Apple's hardware. It's your hardware. You bought
| it.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| This kind of reasoning is perfect if you want to halt all
| future innovation.
|
| Why would someone advance the state of the art in _any_
| device if the immediate result is attacks for the new
| device being a "monopoly" within the scope of the new
| device or improvements?
| janc_ wrote:
| The legal term is abuse of a dominant market position,
| which does not only apply to pure monopolies ...
| mattashii wrote:
| What? Aren't AMD, ARM, and Intel advancing the state of
| the art of CPUs _because_ they have open platforms, and
| have no monopoly or gatekeeper position on what software
| can run on their platform?
|
| I can't see why you would be unable to advance the state
| of the art if you don't block (thus allow) everyone from
| building on your platform.
| lwhi wrote:
| No.
|
| This is a disingenuous line of reasoning.
|
| Once you buy a phone you are locked into using a specific
| marketplace, where Apple has complete control.
|
| This doesn't need to occur. An open marketplace or
| multiple marketplaces could be possible.
|
| For all intents and purposes, Apple does have a monopoly.
| lwhi wrote:
| This is and has always been the fundamental problem with
| Apple owning the app ecosystem.
| euroderf wrote:
| Isn't this kind of the core of the problem with Yelp ?
| brookst wrote:
| I think you just said any company that cannot practice
| moderation with absolute perfection should not be in
| business?
| ano-ther wrote:
| That's a very thorny problem. How can you distinguish such a
| bot attack from a self-promotion?
| bostik wrote:
| The same way you detect a really good piece of satire from
| actual news.
| sshine wrote:
| A friend of mine upvoted all of my StackOverflow posts daily
| for a period of time until it got flagged and the points were
| removed. He did it again later, and it got flagged again with
| a warning. I had to ask him to stop upvoting all my posts,
| because it was indistinguishable from me giving myself points
| via a proxy account.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| web2isgoinggreat
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I've been told this is OK because there is plenty of real
| competition in this space so developers can vote with their
| feet and develop on other platforms.
| adastra22 wrote:
| > In that scenario, Apple should have been more specific in
| their communications.
|
| In that scenario Apple is highly constrained in what they can
| say.
| burnte wrote:
| By who? If it's by internal rules, they are not constrained,
| they choose not to share info.
| suoduandao3 wrote:
| probably whatever legal investigation is happening about
| the real source of the funds.
| adastra22 wrote:
| You're not allowed to tell users that an account has been
| flagged for criminal use, as this tips off the user and
| makes you an accomplice.
| SenAnder wrote:
| > That smells more like money laundering or fraud.
|
| Does Apple get to decide this, and just keep the money, without
| involving any court of law? Someone mentioned anti-money
| laundering laws and secrecy, but can that manifest as losing
| your money, without trial or even being informed that you're
| accused of anything? That would seem to violate a few
| constitutional rights.
| eastbound wrote:
| If Apple says it is laundering, wouldn't they claim it is not
| your money. And wait for every payer to complain. Evil but
| corporations often are.
| JanSt wrote:
| The money is not outstanding for an app
| viktorcode wrote:
| Most likely it is the reason. There were cases of accounts
| shutdown due to the developers writing reviews from other
| accounts for their apps on App Store.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| AFAIK, you can't be very specific when it's money laundering or
| something similar. Apple would have reported it and give a
| vague non-specific reason.
| tmaly wrote:
| You are burying the lead in your story. You should put that right
| at the top.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Lede. Yes, it's an unusual word.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > "Both "bury the lede" and "bury the lead" are acceptable
| spellings of this phrase... Whether to use "lede" or "lead"
| depends on your audience and context. If you're writing for a
| news publication or using the term in a journalistic context,
| "lede" is the preferred spelling. However, if you're writing
| for a general audience or not referring specifically to
| journalism, either spelling is acceptable."
|
| https://proofed.com/writing-tips/idiom-tips-bury-the-lede-
| or...
|
| See also:
|
| > "The spelling lede is an alteration of lead, a word which,
| on its own, makes sense; after all, isn't the main
| information in a story found in the lead (first) paragraph?
| And sure enough, for many years lead was the preferred
| spelling for the introductory section of a news story. So how
| did we come to spell it lede? Although evidence dates the
| spelling to the 1970s, we didn't enter lede in our
| dictionaries until 2008."
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/bury-the-lede-
| versu...
| SeanLuke wrote:
| etymologyonline says at least 1965. Other sources date to
| 1950.
|
| The term was invented to distinguish the head paragraph of
| a story specifically because it would cause confusion with
| "lead", which at the time was widely used in newspapers to
| refer to lead type and to actual strips used to add spacing
| between lines (indeed it's still called "leading" in
| typesetting). It is standard newspaper jargon. But more
| importantly, "bury the lede" is specifically a newspaper
| phrase. I think that saying it should be changed to "lead"
| for the uninformed is like saying that you should change
| "Smalltalk" to "Small Talk" when addressing the uniformed.
| No! It's Smalltalk.
|
| More importantly, HN is definitely not the uniformed when
| it comes to newspaper printing technology and journalism.
| crazygringo wrote:
| But "lead" ("what leads in") is what it derives from, and
| nobody uses lead type anymore. So any motivation for
| "lede" is gone, except tradition of a handful of decades.
|
| Every authoritative source says "bury the lead" is a
| perfectly acceptable variant, and nowadays there's no
| reason not to return to it. English spelling is already
| complicated enough that the last thing we need to be
| doing is to be introducing _extra_ spelling variations.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| "Lead" is fine in British English.
| woadwarrior01 wrote:
| This is very reminiscent of the Dash controversy from a few years
| ago. In that case Apple even responded with the details[0] of the
| developer's transgressions, after a huge outcry from the app dev
| community.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12680131
| lapcat wrote:
| That link is very very far from the end of the Dash story,
| which includes the developer recording a phone call with Apple.
| See extensive coverage by Michael Tsai:
|
| https://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/10/10/apple-and-kapeli-respond/
|
| https://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/05/30/dash-for-ios-returns-to-t...
|
| Dash for macOS continues to this day, though not in the App
| Store.
| woadwarrior01 wrote:
| That very much was the end of the developer's sales of the
| Dash app on the Mac App Store and the iOS App Store. Apple
| decided to respond publicly only after he published the
| recording of the phone call with the Apple rep. John Gruber
| had a well-balanced coverage[1] of the whole story.
|
| He continues to sell it directly[2] and on Setapp[3], and has
| lately pivoted to the subscription-ware revenue model.
|
| [1]:
| https://daringfireball.net/2016/10/apple_dash_controversy
| [2]: https://kapeli.com/dash [3]:
| https://setapp.com/apps/dash
| lapcat wrote:
| > That very much was the end of the developer's sales of
| the Dash app on the Mac App Store and the iOS App Store.
|
| Incorrect. I already gave a link showing that Dash returned
| to the iOS App Store:
| https://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/05/30/dash-for-ios-returns-
| to-t...
|
| Technically, it was the end of "sales" in the iOS App
| Store, because the developer had already open-sourced Dash
| for iOS and made it free:
|
| https://github.com/Kapeli/Dash-iOS
|
| Nonetheless, it's indisputable that Apple approved Dash to
| be in the iOS App Store in 2017.
|
| > Apple decided to respond publicly only after he published
| the recording of the phone call with the Apple rep.
|
| Also incorrect. Compare the timestamps of these tweets:
|
| https://twitter.com/theloop/status/785600832335073280 5:00
| PM * Oct 10, 2016
|
| https://twitter.com/kapeli/status/785621704081022976 6:23
| PM * Oct 10, 2016
|
| It's also worth noting that selling directly outside the
| Mac App Store still requires an Apple developer account in
| order to sign with a Developer ID certificate and notarize
| the app. It's not surprising, though, that the developer
| chooses to no longer use the Mac App Store.
|
| Again, Michael Tsai's blog post has extensive coverage,
| _including_ a link to the Daring Fireball post that you
| linked.
| woadwarrior01 wrote:
| > Incorrect. I already gave a link showing that Dash
| returned to the iOS App Store:
| https://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/05/30/dash-for-ios-returns-
| to-t...
|
| It never did. Please read links before posting them. The
| original developer open sourced it under a GPL license
| and a few people decided to re-package it and resell it,
| in violation of the source code's license.
|
| > Also incorrect. Compare the timestamps of these tweets:
|
| I stand corrected on that.
|
| > It's also worth noting that selling directly outside
| the Mac App Store still requires an Apple developer
| account in order to sign with a Developer ID certificate
| and notarize the app.
|
| Indeed.
| lapcat wrote:
| > It never did. Please read links before posting them.
| The original developer open sourced it under a GPL
| license and a few people decided to re-package it and
| resell it, in violation of the source code's license.
|
| Um, how about you take your own advice?
|
| https://twitter.com/kapeli/status/867424309274390529
| "Dash for iOS is back on the App Store and it's
| completely free"
|
| https://blog.kapeli.com/dash-for-ios-back-on-the-app-
| store "TL;DR: Dash for iOS is back on the App Store and
| it's completely free."
|
| "Quite a few "developers" have even added it to the App
| Store themselves, violating the GNU GPL license in the
| process. Apple has been very responsive in removing these
| apps, but the developers kept adding it back in different
| shapes and forms and I got tired to fill the same
| copyright claim forms over and over.
|
| I've made a personal developer account which Apple
| accepted and the review for Dash for iOS went through
| without any issues. I hope this will somewhat stave off
| the pirated copies of Dash from appearing on the App
| Store. We'll see.
|
| The macOS version of Dash will continue to be sold
| exclusively on kapeli.com."
| woadwarrior01 wrote:
| Why is it currently not on the App Store?
| lapcat wrote:
| That's a funny-looking apology for yet another
| overconfidently asserted falsehood, but:
|
| https://blog.kapeli.com/goodbye-dash-for-ios
|
| "I've decided to discontinue Dash for iOS, as maintaining
| it is no longer sustainable.
|
| Every year, Apple releases a new version of iOS, which
| requires updating Dash to support the new OS and work
| around any new bugs. Dash for iOS worked great on iOS 12,
| but is an unusable mess on iOS 13 and will only get
| worse.
|
| Dash for iOS also uses UIWebView extensively, which won't
| be accepted on the App Store starting with December 2020.
| Migrating to WKWebView would be more work than it's
| worth."
| mk89 wrote:
| From the reviews on play store it looks like the typical apps
| that spit ads like hell. Some complain about the fact they don't
| work, some are happy with them. Business as usual.
|
| Not sure why they got shutdown, probably the competition really
| burnt them with the fake reviews.
|
| That's really ugly.
| skratlo wrote:
| The whole business model of living off of App stores, controlled
| by tech giants, is flawed, and no sane person should ever make
| this their sole source of income. It's like being held hostage.
| r0ckarong wrote:
| It's like holding yourself hostage.
| blowski wrote:
| It's more like working in a world where there are rewards and
| risks.
|
| There is a good argument that the world as a whole would be
| better off without the current App Store model, but it makes
| sense for individuals to aim to profit from the existing model.
| tremon wrote:
| The real world also has rewards and risks. It also has a
| judicial system where the actions of both parties are
| weighted and judged by an independent party. In that world,
| one party cannot summarily forfeit an outstanding balance
| owed to the other party.
| realusername wrote:
| I also have the same (controversial maybe) opinion, the mobile
| stores are good enough for a hobby developer, they are not
| mature enough for real businesses.
|
| I'm going to launch another mobile app for some side income in
| the future but I'll never launch a real business based on that,
| that's for sure.
| SenAnder wrote:
| This is getting to be a lot like "no sane peasant should farm
| the feudal lords land"
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes instead you make apps for the game consoles controlled by
| one console or the web where no one will buy it?
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Working with Apple is horrific, I have a small Saas company
| publishing fitness apps.
|
| They don't give a f**. They treat you like a peasant, while
| constantly making review mistakes (like asking questions
| explained all caps in the review notes), unexplained white
| screens, bugs & unreachable appstore connects.
|
| I often had an app rejected because IAPurchase takes too long
| because of Apple's server being too slow. Then they take days to
| respond just because they claim it's your mistake. On second try
| it works and they find something else to complain.
|
| Honestly bad karma. It will come back at some point. But it will
| take a while, the App Store is not build on quality & care, but
| on pure power.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| There's nothing worse than arguing with a review tester that
| "this was fine before, why is it a problem now".
| js2 wrote:
| If it makes you feel any better, I work for a not small company
| and Apple and Google both treat our app submissions the same
| way. We have rejections so often we have a Slack channel
| dedicated to it, an internal FAQ, and automated checks we run
| before submitting. The "What's New" notes are a favorite for
| reviewers to nitpick. We recently had an app rejected because
| the "What's New" section included the phase "and other
| improvements." Nevermind that we'd been using that phrase for
| months.
| absqueued wrote:
| Reading a few reviews on the playstore of this apps - instantly
| tells me that something is off.
|
| Asking for review after 20 second of app installation? Also most
| 5 star reveiw looks fake.
| kalleboo wrote:
| We hired an "app revenue optimization" guy for an hour
| consultation just to see if we missed something obvious. One
| thing he suggested was to ask for a review instantly after the
| paywall. Apparently if you do that, most people will give a 5
| star review. We haven't done it since it seems... weird?
| scammy? but apparently it's a thing that works for maximizing
| ranking (since reviews are a big influence)
| absqueued wrote:
| Curious, do you think the mentality of buyers would be "I
| just paid, so it s 5"?
|
| And I am glad you didn't do it. I personally find it so
| annoying. I am do ask for reviews but lemme use it for a
| while first?
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| I would assume that people don't buy an App that they
| wouldn't give a positive review?
| rchaud wrote:
| > Apparently if you do that, most people will give a 5 star
| review. We haven't done it since it seems... weird? scammy?
|
| This is what Uber does. Not just a 'rate your trip' but also
| the 'add a tip' prompt. Only way to get rid of the screen is
| to select something or hit Back a bunch of times.
| max_ wrote:
| Too long, Don't Read;
|
| - OP develops apps
|
| - OP's apps get flagged and removed from iOS store for violating
| Appstore rules.
|
| - OP learns his app has been cloned down to the last pixel by one
| NIGII Technologies
|
| - OP learns that NIGII Technologies launched and attack on his
| "Rolly app" by paying fake accounts to make bogus reviews on OPs
| app account.
|
| - Attacker (NIGII Technologies) purchasing fake reviews to
| comment on OPs original app causes Apple to shut down OPs Apple
| Developer account.
|
| - OP wants you to help him sign a petition
| https://chng.it/5dpJHY6KGf
|
| - OP would also want you to write a letter to the App review team
| appreview@apple.com
| Terretta wrote:
| But, before you write the letter, understand OP knew what they
| were doing:
|
| _" Within 10 days, we updated each of the six applications:
| removed all rating requests, revised all payment screens in
| line with Apple's recommendations, added Intercom for swift
| user assistance, established a help center with articles on
| canceling trials, requesting refunds, and implemented
| subscription management directly within the applications."_
|
| All methods to juice and retain MRR at users' literal expense.
| chad1n wrote:
| It's pretty embarrassing for Apple because it's a pretty common
| thing for Apple to close random developer accounts with pretty
| respectable applications. At least, Google is a little bit more
| transparent from my experience, I could easily publish my
| application there, but on Apple, you have to go through tons of
| mental gymnastics and their cerficates are $100/year compared to
| one $20 certificate from Google.
| RainbowFriends wrote:
| Hitting the front page of Hacker News will lead to a much cheaper
| resolution of this issue than paying their law firm.
| silenced_trope wrote:
| Hopefully.
|
| Honestly it sucks but when this happens with Google and others
| there's sometimes a person in the comments here: "Send me your
| info and I'll escalate this internally". Which also sucks, but
| the PR at least has some impact.
|
| I think it's doubtful that this kind of PR impacts Apple as
| much.
| rchaud wrote:
| This isn't a Stripe issue.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Blow it up, peepz. First they come for him...
| kojeovo wrote:
| Not that I am arguing in favor for how things currently work re
| Apple's ecosystem, but from a quick look it seems like these apps
| bait you into paying and the developer is just completely
| ignoring that part. I think that's what Apple is not fond of.
| belltaco wrote:
| If that's the case, Apple should refund or pay out the $108K
| before closing the account with that explanation.
| constantly wrote:
| Apple should give this developer the benefit of their shady
| practices? That just encourages more apps like this.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| There are all sorts of crap apps with dark patterns. Apple
| can say, "We no longer condone this behavior," but that
| does not give them the right to steal the current money.
| Return it to the scammed or give it to the developer.
| Oras wrote:
| The question is, why did Apple approved the app in the first
| place?
|
| This was an update and the app was making money (according to
| the article).
| ilamont wrote:
| Many platforms have this issue. While some freezes are deserved,
| others are false positives or account problems that are difficult
| to resolve.
|
| Amazon sellers live in dread of this scenario, not only because
| of the frozen funds, but also the inability to get a clear answer
| of what policy was broken. Or, Amazon's automated shutdowns make
| accusations that are impossible to disprove such as review
| manipulation or running multiple seller accounts. You can see a
| sample here: https://twitter.com/AmazonASGTG
| olliej wrote:
| It remains absurd that corporations can do this shit (PayPal does
| this a lot, I recall various other articles over the years for
| other companies as well), and there are no consequences. Delayed
| payment should have mandatory penalties along the lines a normal
| person would get for failure to pay a bill.
|
| Seriously, if you think it's _fraud_ then there should be a
| police report, if it's a ToS violation close the account and ban
| the user, but if they haven't actually committed fraud it's their
| money.
| lolinder wrote:
| I get that everyone feels strongly about abuse of power by these
| app stores, but I wish stories like this would stop making it to
| the front page. Often, the company trying to build outrage knows
| very well what they've done and is lying to try to get a mob
| going to get what they want.
|
| The pattern is usually the same: the story gets a lot of upvotes
| from people who don't pause to think about the story, the first
| few comments are filled with outrage, and then the more
| thoughtful comments trickle in pointing out all the holes in
| their claims (in this case, weirdly large revenue numbers and
| many dark patterns described in reviews that line up with Apple's
| assertions). But by the time the commenters have done the
| research and figured out that the story is overblown, it's
| already too late: the company got the attention they wanted. "A
| lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is still
| putting on its shoes."
|
| I don't doubt that there are people who are actually damaged
| illegitimately by unilateral actions like this, but every time we
| swarm to upvote a fishy one like this, the effectiveness of HN as
| an escalation platform gets weaker.
| deadmutex wrote:
| Underrated comment
| pvg wrote:
| Flag them and/or email the mods. That actually works whereas
| the meta exhortations mostly don't and just beget more meta.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Submit a few iOS apps and you will understand why these stories
| rank so high.
|
| Apple makes you feel powerless
| paradite wrote:
| I've been collecting these deplatform actions over the years.
| Only 2 so far in 2023 that I recorded:
|
| https://github.com/paradite/awful-deplatform
| cptaj wrote:
| This keeps happening again and again in all online marketplaces.
| Be it amazon, ebay, app stores, etc.
|
| This NEEDS to be regulated. If thousands of companies make a
| living in your marketplace, you simply can't be allowed to take
| destructive unilateral action against their business without due
| process.
|
| One guy reviewing tickets in a random location worldwide, working
| for minimum wage, takes a 30 second look at your case and closes
| down your account. Your company loses millions and goes out of
| business before any dispute even gets processed (If they even
| have a dispute system)
|
| This is simply an insane way of doing business.
| Longhanks wrote:
| > This is simply an insane way of doing business.
|
| Then don't? Apple clearly lays out the rules beforehand?
|
| I don't see how "being able to sell software on the platform a
| company allows you to sell on yet not following the platform
| creator's rules" should be a human right?
|
| If you don't want to take the risk of Apple disapproving you
| selling your software on their platform, maybe don't start a
| business depending on Apple not doing so?
| adontz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law
| n6242 wrote:
| Having a warranty or a return policy is not a human right
| either, yet companies are obligated by law to do it (at least
| here in Europe) because otherwise companies would just say
| "you knew what you were getting when you bought it" and not
| give a damn as long as they profit from it, just like apple
| is doing here.
| Longhanks wrote:
| You can only claim the warranty if you follow rules, such
| as: You didn't willingly break the item. Violating this
| rule weaves the right to return the item (and getting your
| money back).
|
| So why should Apple be forced to keep you on their platform
| if you willingly break their rules?
| cptaj wrote:
| They're not forced, but you should have a chance to
| defend yourself before they unilaterally take away your
| livelihood.
|
| Mistakes DO happen, yknow?
|
| Also, why are they freezing funds when banks cant do
| that? Seems illogical.
| cptaj wrote:
| I get your point but I think you're being too simplistic and
| also focusing on this particular case when I was talking
| about broad industry practices.
|
| Some marketplaces are so big that not participating is simply
| not an option. Do you want to break them up instead?
|
| I think they should be treated as utilities after a certain
| size and have a suitable legal framework to solve these
| issues.
|
| Lots of things in commerce are not human rights but are
| regulated to prevent bad outcomes for society.
|
| Is due process really that much to ask for? Shouldn't you be
| allowed to defend yourself BEFORE they take away your
| livelihood? Why is apple allowed to unilaterally freeze your
| funds but banks are very notoriously not allowed to do that?
| Why does paypal also freeze your assets without any
| regulation? This happens all over the place and I think it
| shouldn't.
| Terretta wrote:
| Apple _is_ regulating, they are regulating a set of things the
| app developer was deliberately doing that were hostile to
| users:
|
| _" Within 10 days, we updated each of the six applications:
| removed all rating requests, revised all payment screens in
| line with Apple's recommendations, added Intercom for swift
| user assistance, established a help center with articles on
| canceling trials, requesting refunds, and implemented
| subscription management directly within the applications."_
| RagnarD wrote:
| I developed several iPhone apps. While I didn't run into
| something as serious as this, I have a hard time seeing how any
| company could invest serious money into developing an app that
| Apple - in its sole judgement - can capriciously reject. I am
| greatly in favor of competing app stores and the unequivocal
| ability to "sideload" any apps (at the user's risk of course.)
|
| I suspect Apple themselves don't realize that their own policies
| have inhibited the development of apps which would blow away what
| currently exist at the high end, given the unacceptable business
| risk of depending on such control-freak caprice. The laisse-faire
| world of PCs is bigger and better simply for that reason - an
| enormous swath of hardware and software that simply has to adhere
| to an objective technical standard.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >I have a hard time seeing how any company could invest serious
| money into developing an app that Apple - in its sole judgement
| - can capriciously reject.
|
| I would bet that bigger companies with an influential base of
| customers are not capriciously rejected. A major airline or
| bank or some other business where Apple would catch PR flak is
| probably going to get personalized treatment.
| gcheong wrote:
| "I suspect Apple themselves don't realize that their own
| policies have inhibited the development of apps which would
| blow away what currently exist at the high end,..."
|
| I suspect they not only know this but are counting on it. Apple
| have become plain old monopolists and quality of product is not
| the first consideration because, by definition, there is no
| competition by which they would have to care in order to
| maintain their position in the marketplace.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _I developed several iPhone apps. ... capriciously reject_
|
| Did you do these user hostile things?
|
| _" Within 10 days, we updated each of the six applications:
| removed all rating requests, revised all payment screens in
| line with Apple's recommendations, added Intercom for swift
| user assistance, established a help center with articles on
| canceling trials, requesting refunds, and implemented
| subscription management directly within the applications."_
|
| You say "inhibited development of apps ... at the high end". On
| the contrary, these are all features of the lowest of the low
| end. Users _want_ those inhibited.
| worik wrote:
| This is a sad story
|
| It is repeated many times, this is not the first here
|
| Illustrates the problem with building businesses based on those
| "walled garden" services
|
| We have seen reports like this not just about the apple store,
| but about YouTube and Facebook too
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Did you actually see how the app is monetized by convincing
| people to pay $4.00/week for a subscription? He is one of the
| problems with the App Store
| dakial1 wrote:
| I don't know Chile, but this move by Apple is illegal in many
| countries and the developer might get a good money in damages.
|
| It doesn't matter what the platform T&Cs say, know your country's
| laws and you'll avoid unnecessary headaches.
|
| Now thinking about it, it might make sense for some developers to
| publish their apps in specific countries to mitigate this kind of
| risk...
| madeofpalk wrote:
| What's the illegal part? Which country would this be illegal
| in?
| spencerchubb wrote:
| The illegal part is money theft. As for which country it's
| illegal in: all of them.
| Cypher wrote:
| wtf apple, sort your crap out.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| From even the authors description, it doesn't seem like the
| review process was "automated". Someone at Apple actually found
| suspected fraudulent activity and the reasons weren't just a
| template.
|
| I don't have an opinion on whether they were targeted by a third
| party.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| It's heartwarming to see finally someone take Apple to court on
| this! So many small developers have no chance to do that.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes it's so heartwarming to see an app maker that charges 3.99
| a week hoping people will forget about the subscription suing
| to keep his money.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| Isn't it most trivial apps do these days? I wanted to install
| something recently and was appalled how omnipresent this
| pattern is. What Apple should do was to implement an
| obligatory attribute "needs subscription in order to operate"
| just like it has "Contains in-app purchases" currently. I
| could then avoid all this trash like a plague.
| jensenbox wrote:
| Every time I read one of these stories, the first thought I have
| is: "We should be pushing to have PWA be more robust and be
| positioned as a first class citizen".
|
| My thinking is that would remove the need for a singular approval
| process. Liberating all developers to build what they want.
|
| Of course security is always a concern. PWA in sandboxes of some
| sort sounds like the best path forward.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| The problem is Apple still control the only browser engine on
| iOS. So they're incentivised to not implement proper PWA
| features to prevent this and force everything to be apps
| through their store.
| rchaud wrote:
| That won't happen, because PWA support relies on Google and
| Apple doing the right thing with their browser engine. Chrome
| supports PWAs, but could deprecate it at any time. Firefox
| bizarrely does not support it without a config flag enabling
| "site-specific browser". It's effectively unsupported as the
| majority of users aren't going to be messing around in the
| settings.
| otterley wrote:
| If you truly believe you were treated unfairly against Apple, you
| think they are in breach of contract or violating the law, and
| they are threatening your livelihood, then sue them. Complaining
| on the Internet is unlikely to give you the relief you seek.
| megous wrote:
| If you really think you should comment on the article, at least
| read it first.
| azakai wrote:
| To add to that, here is the relevant part of the article:
|
| > We hired the law firm Buzko Krasnov to file a pre-trial
| claim against Apple.
| imdsm wrote:
| > Complaining on the Internet is unlikely to give you the
| relief you seek.
|
| Unlikely but not impossible. In this case, it's less about the
| apps or the developer and more about the lack of specificity.
| If Apple suspend accounts without due process, that affects
| everyone within that ecosystem, and people should be concerned
| and should ask questions.
| jiayo wrote:
| Another pumpkin that didn't RTFA.
| awinter-py wrote:
| yes apple needs some kind of independent board of review like
| facebook and openai
| bborud wrote:
| I can't understand how people can feel comfortable depending on
| companies that will never talk to them.
| joeframbach wrote:
| The change.org petition seems like a non sequitur in the article.
| What are you hoping to achieve by incrementing some counter in
| the void? Change.org is not the legal system nor is it Apple's
| customer service system. It is nothing.
| runwhileyoucan wrote:
| App store is filled with these kind of apps that all look the
| same. Nothing innovative and filled with ads. They all do the
| same task and ask for subscription right-away and for your 5-star
| review in 2 seconds. I feel like you did too much FAFO to me.
| jacquesm wrote:
| All of this is a direct consequence of allowing a gatekeeper in
| the first place. Every app developer is fractionally guilty of
| enabling Apple to position themselves as such. I've built a neat
| little bit of software and I'm sure I could monetize it by
| wrapping it up as an app. But there is no way that I'm going to
| give either Apple or Google more power than they already have so
| the development of the app is a bit slower than it otherwise
| would have been. But that's fine, releases still happen regularly
| and I'm having fun building it. If I needed the money to be able
| to work on it I would have possibly been forced out of this
| luxury position and I'd absolutely hate it.
| ajhurliman wrote:
| All of these self-proclaimed "platforms" need to be regulated:
| no participation in your own platform (Amazon Basics), or at
| least no self-preferential treatment, caps on platform usage
| fees closer to 3-5%, neutral and open source search algorithms,
| limits on advertising.
|
| I'm a capitalist at heart but this is anti-competitive, it's
| closer to feudalism than capitalism.
| jacquesm wrote:
| We're perilously close to an internet that is entirely
| siloed, so instead of AOL we end up with two or maybe three
| more or less incompatible versions of AOL, and with _far_
| more control over the lives of their customers than AOL ever
| had.
|
| There is some chance that it will end up with only two of
| these players depending on who reaches the point where they
| have enough free cash that they can further consolidate,
| assuming regulators don't step in.
|
| Google on the one side, Apple on the other, with AWS owning
| retail and Microsoft absorbed by either Apple or Google
| (unless their OpenAI bet pays off further). FB up for grabs
| and Twitter will die.
|
| It could easily happen. So, which side of the web do you want
| to be on? I want to be _on the open web_ , not in some walled
| garden, no matter who owns it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Unless those companies are stopping someone from visiting
| different domains, I would not describe that as the
| internet being siloed.
|
| The most popular destinations on the internet may be
| "siloed", or most business will occur in the silos, but the
| internet itself is as accessible as it ever was.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This makes no sense. These companies dictate what you
| see, when you see it and how you see it. They are just
| not throwing their weight around as much as they could
| yet. But if Google decides that your website no longer
| exists it effectively doesn't exist any more.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I recall visiting websites before Google was even made.
| In any case, the internet does not only exist within
| Google's search index.
|
| For example, I can post a URL in this comment, and you
| would be able to visit it, even if Google did not keep it
| in its search index.
|
| The only question is how much work do people want to do
| to spread knowledge of theirs or others' website, and how
| much work do people want to do to find them.
|
| And it is much easier these days than even pre Google,
| since there are very capable alternatives to Google (and
| ubiquitous broadband).
| jacquesm wrote:
| Good luck with that. If Chrome won't display it that's
| that for 45% of your possible visitors. If the domain-
| without-a-tld doesn't come up as the first link in your
| average browser that's another 40% or so, if your ISP
| doesn't like you or if your certificate is the wrong
| color (or your bits for that matter) then that's the
| remainder. To compare the web as it is today with what
| went before is a bit silly because we have moved on from
| there and the party that controls your browser, your
| search, your income, your document store, your email and
| your phone may well be one and the same.
| baxtr wrote:
| It's all about trade-offs. Sure, they can do that. But what's
| the likelihood of it happening really? Do we have good numbers?
|
| If you want to be creative and earn money apps are a decent
| way. Apple/Google take care of a lot of things and you get
| their reach.
|
| Is it without risks? No, nothing is in life. Is the risk high?
| Probably not for 99.99% of developers.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's not about the likelihood of it happening, it is about
| the principle of it being possible and it happening to
| anybody in the first place. On the plus side: those
| complaining were actually supporting the system until it bit
| them so that's about a powerful a wake-up call as there
| probably will be. Unfortunately it doesn't generalize well
| because everybody else thinks: 'oh, that fortunately wasn't
| me that got bitten'.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _It 's not about the likelihood of it happening, it is
| about the principle of it being possible_
|
| But honestly, that's just life. Every business takes risks.
| You take a risk every time you step out the door.
|
| It's silly to say every app developer is enabling the
| situation. I mean, you might as well say anybody who allows
| payment in USD is enabling American foreign policy. But
| it's not helpful.
|
| The risk/reward ratio for genuinely useful, non-scammy apps
| is quite excellent.
|
| In real life, nothing is about whether something is a
| binary possible yes/no, because mistakes _always_ happen in
| _everything_. We 're only human. Everything is just a
| question of probabilities -- risk and reward.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The internet was specifically designed to limit the
| number of such gatekeeping options and commercial
| entities were _never_ supposed to be able to maneuver
| themselves into a position like that.
| crazygringo wrote:
| The internet was designed specifically for IP traffic to
| be able to route around failed communication nodes. And
| for TCP to handle things like throttling and retries and
| packet order. That's pretty much all.
|
| App stores are an economic matter we can choose to
| regulate or not via existing mechanisms of representative
| democracy. For now, the US population hasn't shown much
| interest in it.
| tokamak wrote:
| Smells Russian half-truths from a kilometre. All Russian
| companies should be banned if you ask me.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Your physical location should mean nothing on the Internet.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Does this (write fake reviews on competitor apps to cancel them)
| happen a lot to other developers? Would be open season for all
| copy cats not?
| throwaway892238 wrote:
| I don't understand why anyone tries to build a livelihood on
| these stupid platforms. It's a virtual certainty that you will
| get screwed over and have no recourse.
|
| If the platforms continue to be a major source of income for many
| people, then those people need to petition their elected
| representatives to force the platforms open. The OS has to give
| you a choice of browser, so the smartphone should have to give
| you a choice of app store.
| ravenstine wrote:
| More and more people are doing their computing solely on
| smartphones, targeting one or two architectures is appealing to
| developers, and app stores are pretty much the only way in to
| that market.
|
| I do agree in that I personally wouldn't give mega corporations
| that much power over my livelihood.
| snowbyte wrote:
| This is peanuts VS the sums of money frozen in FTX.
| HeavyStorm wrote:
| When will the authorities realize that the app stores must be
| regulated?
|
| 30% cuts and you get removed with no warning, negotiation,
| nothing.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| It's hard to get a full picture, but reading the text reviews on
| Google Play [1] makes it seem like these app are the kind that
| require subscriptions for no reason and are really aggressive
| about asking for reviews.
|
| There's also a big disconnect between the average of the text
| reviews and the "score only" ones.
|
| [1]
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sarafan.re...
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