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This developer is an idiot. It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.) Twitt

This developer is an idiot. It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.) Twitter, facebook, evernote, all have account features so they were approved. Apple was crystal clear explaining this. The poster's muddled logic and inflamatory reaction shows me why Instapaper by Marco is a vastly superior product. My guess is the author is using a fake controversy to drum up attention for his product. Astroturfing, methinks.

joshbuddy 16y ago
I'm not sure this is Astroturfing; Astroturfing is making something carefully planned look spontaneous and bottom-up. We need a new term for this. I suggest misinterpretunity.
pvg 16y ago
As far as I can tell, RiL has account features. I don't know the guy but I have exchanged emails with him regarding pinboard.in integration and he didn't seem like an idiot nor is it really all that likely that he's posting this just to promote his app. 'Astroturfing' seems an odd choice of words, too, for someone who seems to have just created an account to call someone else an idiot. A P.S.-ish edit - I know he recently wrote an opensource iOS library to simplify integration with various sharing services and seems to have added it to the latest version of his iPhone app. Pure speculation but I wonder if the reviewers saw that the app can potentially ask you for authentication information for a bunch of different services and some 'password harvester' alarm went off.
bruceboughton 16y ago
Is the ad hominem necessary? The app offers account-based features, namely cross-platform syncing. Applying "never ascribe to malace what can be more simply ascribed to incompetence", I expect this is just a bad, baseless rejection. Apple is clearly not going to stop in-app login and registration, so this post is mainly FUD. I can see how App Store rejection can drive a developer to these thoughts though.
mikeknoop 16y ago
How would you expect a service like this to exist without tieing an account to the items which you marked to read later?
- allwein 16y ago
  So it depends on what you view as the primary functionality of this app. If the primary functionality is the syncing between multiple devices, then this rejection is invalid and I understand the developer's dismay since an account would absolutely be necessary. If the primary functionality is "save this article to read later", then I can understand the reviewer's rejection. In theory, you could implement this software locally for single device, which wouldn't require any registration. And then you would only need an account if you wished to enable the "secondary" syncing functionality. I think this was the reviewer's frame of mind. So I think this is simply a case of miscommunication and misunderstanding that will be corrected shortly.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
d2viant 16y ago
I use Read It Later quite often. The account specific functionality is synchronization for saved URL's between Read It Later on various platforms: iPhone, Firefox, etc.
credo 16y ago
>>This developer is an idiot. >>It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.) >>My guess is the author is using a fake controversy to drum up attention for his product. Astroturfing, methinks. I think you're being unduly harsh on this developer. "Read it later" is an instapaper-like app and it makes perfect sense for the app to need an account. My understanding is that read-it-later collects no personal information other than their read-it-later username and password. The app has been around for more than a year. The free version of read-it-later is ranked 22nd in productivity. I think that the developer is genuinely concerned about the rejection and don't see this as astroturfing. Why do you suspect the developer of harvesting user information and astroturfing ? [edit: The parent post was at 10 points around 40 minutes ago. Now it is at -4. That is really interesting :) ]
- barrkel 16y ago
  It was at 6 when it was 3 minutes old, IIRC. (Or it might have been 3 at 6 minutes. What I do know is that I was struck by how oddly popular it was for a flamebaity comment from a new account.)
  - fhars 16y ago
    And now it is at -12, as you can see by looking at the total karma of -13 for this one-comment throwaway account. (Ha, I found an information disclosure vulnerability in the HN codebase ;-))
gtufano 16y ago
I feel that the key is "they require customers to register with personal information without providing account-based features". Instapaper, for example, requires a login, but not requires personal informations, only a login (that could be anything). I could be wrong, of course. I use Instapaper and not this app.

joshbuddy 16y ago

I'm not sure this is Astroturfing; Astroturfing is making something carefully planned look spontaneous and bottom-up. We need a new term for this. I suggest misinterpretunity.

pvg 16y ago

As far as I can tell, RiL has account features. I don't know the guy but I have exchanged emails with him regarding pinboard.in integration and he didn't seem like an idiot nor is it really all that likely that he's posting this just to promote his app. 'Astroturfing' seems an odd choice of words, too, for someone who seems to have just created an account to call someone else an idiot. A P.S.-ish edit - I know he recently wrote an opensource iOS library to simplify integration with various sharing services and seems to have added it to the latest version of his iPhone app. Pure speculation but I wonder if the reviewers saw that the app can potentially ask you for authentication information for a bunch of different services and some 'password harvester' alarm went off.

bruceboughton 16y ago

Is the ad hominem necessary? The app offers account-based features, namely cross-platform syncing. Applying "never ascribe to malace what can be more simply ascribed to incompetence", I expect this is just a bad, baseless rejection. Apple is clearly not going to stop in-app login and registration, so this post is mainly FUD. I can see how App Store rejection can drive a developer to these thoughts though.

mikeknoop 16y ago

How would you expect a service like this to exist without tieing an account to the items which you marked to read later?

allwein 16y ago
So it depends on what you view as the primary functionality of this app. If the primary functionality is the syncing between multiple devices, then this rejection is invalid and I understand the developer's dismay since an account would absolutely be necessary. If the primary functionality is "save this article to read later", then I can understand the reviewer's rejection. In theory, you could implement this software locally for single device, which wouldn't require any registration. And then you would only need an account if you wished to enable the "secondary" syncing functionality. I think this was the reviewer's frame of mind. So I think this is simply a case of miscommunication and misunderstanding that will be corrected shortly.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

d2viant 16y ago

I use Read It Later quite often. The account specific functionality is synchronization for saved URL's between Read It Later on various platforms: iPhone, Firefox, etc.

credo 16y ago

>>This developer is an idiot. >>It's very simple. You can't make people register for no reason just to use an app. (e.g. just to harvest their information.) >>My guess is the author is using a fake controversy to drum up attention for his product. Astroturfing, methinks. I think you're being unduly harsh on this developer. "Read it later" is an instapaper-like app and it makes perfect sense for the app to need an account. My understanding is that read-it-later collects no personal information other than their read-it-later username and password. The app has been around for more than a year. The free version of read-it-later is ranked 22nd in productivity. I think that the developer is genuinely concerned about the rejection and don't see this as astroturfing. Why do you suspect the developer of harvesting user information and astroturfing ? [edit: The parent post was at 10 points around 40 minutes ago. Now it is at -4. That is really interesting :) ]

barrkel 16y ago
It was at 6 when it was 3 minutes old, IIRC. (Or it might have been 3 at 6 minutes. What I do know is that I was struck by how oddly popular it was for a flamebaity comment from a new account.)
- fhars 16y ago
  And now it is at -12, as you can see by looking at the total karma of -13 for this one-comment throwaway account. (Ha, I found an information disclosure vulnerability in the HN codebase ;-))

gtufano 16y ago

I feel that the key is "they require customers to register with personal information without providing account-based features". Instapaper, for example, requires a login, but not requires personal informations, only a login (that could be anything). I could be wrong, of course. I use Instapaper and not this app.