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I wouldn't expect Apple to understand compliance for every possible use case. Apple doesn't have to bend their rules to comply with apps that want to comply wi

by giarc 10y ago

I wouldn't expect Apple to understand compliance for every possible use case. Apple doesn't have to bend their rules to comply with apps that want to comply with local/state/provincial/federal laws, they can just say "We don't support x feature, and therefore you can't distribute through our store."

jonlucc 10y ago
But that will mean that they can't be too upset when industries that require whatever compliance they won't allow into software moves to another ecosystem. It seems arbitrary to me to ask devs to remove functionality (except for in-app purchases that evade iOS or similar), but it's hard to judge without details.
- simonh 10y ago
  > But that will mean that they can't be too upset when industries that require whatever compliance they won't allow into software moves to another ecosystem That is quite right, and they don't get upset at all. Apple don't pretend to compete in every market for every niche and have no interest in doing so. If the Apple way doesn't suit you, they'll quite happily wave you goodbye as you move to Android or elsewhere. I often see people get upset because Apple doesn't address their particular use case or preference, but the fact is Android, Windows and Linux exist and are fine options for many people. The only case where this is really an issue IMHO is when someone buys in the Apple but didn't realize the limitations they would be under or when the limitations change to become more restrictive but that's not very common. Usually restrictions actually ease over time, such as the explosion in cross application functionality and opening of access to the JIT javascript engine in iOS made possible by secure cross process communication in recent iOS versions.
edoceo 10y ago
Yea, that's what they did say. I sent copies of our laws. No change.
izacus 10y ago
> I wouldn't expect Apple to understand compliance for every possible use case. Wait, you're actually saying that the richest business entity on the world can't be expected to employ people that use their brain and do a bit of fact checking on outlying cases?
- giarc 10y ago
  No I'm not saying that. Let's take an example. Let's say a local government wants to deploy iPhones to all their staff but as part of their local laws, all communication on government owned equipment can be monitored. So a developer writes up an app to record all typing on the iPhone (this is a hypothetical). They submit to Apple and Apple rejects this because it's against their policies (apps are sandboxed and wouldn't really be able to do this, but you get the point). Apple shouldn't be forced to comply with this local requirement, nor could they since every single government or private business would have different pieces of compliance. It would be impossible for them to develop an operating system that would allow for all these corner cases.
- viraptor 10y ago
  Were there any articles describing how they actually work? I wouldn't be surprised at all if they simply employed a number of clerk-level people following a set of rules for the app verification. Otherwise it would take a lot of very experienced QA engineers. Silly decisions like banning dictionaries for including swear words only seem to confirm it. The rules matter, not the judgement.
mavrc 10y ago
| "We don't support x feature, and therefore you can't distribute through our store." Of course, for iOS, this also means "you can't write apps for our platform."
- allending 10y ago
  This isn't accurate. You can certainly write iOS apps and distribute using the Enterprise distribution mechanism for a number of use cases.

by giarc 10y ago

jonlucc 10y ago

But that will mean that they can't be too upset when industries that require whatever compliance they won't allow into software moves to another ecosystem. It seems arbitrary to me to ask devs to remove functionality (except for in-app purchases that evade iOS or similar), but it's hard to judge without details.

simonh 10y ago
> But that will mean that they can't be too upset when industries that require whatever compliance they won't allow into software moves to another ecosystem That is quite right, and they don't get upset at all. Apple don't pretend to compete in every market for every niche and have no interest in doing so. If the Apple way doesn't suit you, they'll quite happily wave you goodbye as you move to Android or elsewhere. I often see people get upset because Apple doesn't address their particular use case or preference, but the fact is Android, Windows and Linux exist and are fine options for many people. The only case where this is really an issue IMHO is when someone buys in the Apple but didn't realize the limitations they would be under or when the limitations change to become more restrictive but that's not very common. Usually restrictions actually ease over time, such as the explosion in cross application functionality and opening of access to the JIT javascript engine in iOS made possible by secure cross process communication in recent iOS versions.

edoceo 10y ago

Yea, that's what they did say. I sent copies of our laws. No change.

izacus 10y ago

> I wouldn't expect Apple to understand compliance for every possible use case. Wait, you're actually saying that the richest business entity on the world can't be expected to employ people that use their brain and do a bit of fact checking on outlying cases?

giarc 10y ago
No I'm not saying that. Let's take an example. Let's say a local government wants to deploy iPhones to all their staff but as part of their local laws, all communication on government owned equipment can be monitored. So a developer writes up an app to record all typing on the iPhone (this is a hypothetical). They submit to Apple and Apple rejects this because it's against their policies (apps are sandboxed and wouldn't really be able to do this, but you get the point). Apple shouldn't be forced to comply with this local requirement, nor could they since every single government or private business would have different pieces of compliance. It would be impossible for them to develop an operating system that would allow for all these corner cases.
viraptor 10y ago
Were there any articles describing how they actually work? I wouldn't be surprised at all if they simply employed a number of clerk-level people following a set of rules for the app verification. Otherwise it would take a lot of very experienced QA engineers. Silly decisions like banning dictionaries for including swear words only seem to confirm it. The rules matter, not the judgement.

mavrc 10y ago

| "We don't support x feature, and therefore you can't distribute through our store." Of course, for iOS, this also means "you can't write apps for our platform."

allending 10y ago
This isn't accurate. You can certainly write iOS apps and distribute using the Enterprise distribution mechanism for a number of use cases.