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We launched an app with $500k annual revenue, and then Apple copied it
- AlphaWeaver 7y agoEach time I see one of these stories pop up, I'm hoping that the lawyer for the Apple Antitrust case is making a note to include these testimonials as evidence of a problem.
- scarface74 7y agoI can see the plaintiffs argument. Apple wouldn’t allow an app that spied on users and sold analytics. This is about how anti virus makers threaten to sue MS because they wouldn’t allow the right hooks into the OS that destabilized it.
- totaldude87 7y agoThis is the story of almost every other indie App developer with a good app idea/implementation , either you will be bought or destroyed. (or rake in millions when you can to sustain for few more months)
- threeseed 7y agoYou can also become Instagram, WhatsApp or one of the many other multi billion dollar companies. Or does that not fit your narrative ?
- m4tthumphrey 7y ago> bought or destroyed Fits the narrative precisely.
- threeseed 7y agoPinterest, Snapchat, Uber, Spotify, Pandora, Candy Crush etc. We can do this all day. Many of the top tech companies we have today exist because of mobile apps.
- moftz 7y agoInstagram and Whatsapp were bought by Facebook.
- cheeze 7y agoOn the flipside, this app looks like it was kind of a hack to get working. "Tunnel all of your traffic through our VPN to get tracking of social media use." It doesn't surprise me that Apple would want to offer first-party support.
- nrmitchi 7y agoAgreed, I came to say something similar. I'm typically rather sympathetic to stories like this, but this implementation seems very much like a sledgehammer approach that Apple correcting was very much in the best interest of their users.
- hestefisk 7y agoAgree with the sentiment here. Whilst I have all the deepest sympathies for the guy, it does seem like a hack to tunnel it through a VPN to get it working. One could argue, the right approach would be if Apple opened up the hooks to measuring app usage for any 3rd party app, but I don’t think that will happen any time soon.
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- scarface74 7y agoYou would actually trust a third party app to track your usage? Apple actually had to lock out Twitter and other apps from logging what other apps were on your phone for analytics.
- lostmsu 7y agoNot only I've done it for years, it was also social, e.g. my friends could see it. The app doing that used to be called Wakoopa, now defunct. IMHO, it was great!
- scarface74 7y agoIf this is the same company, you couldn’t possibly be okay with this? https://wakoopa.com/ https://wakoopa.com/
- jrvxo 7y agoAs an end user, am I happy that Apple took your idea and built it in the OS, stripped of ads, premium features, tracking and analytics, etc? Yes, yes I am.
- EGreg 7y agoSocialism! Just kidding. But it seems that it’s the same mindset that likes the government replacing, say, private insurers, ISPs and other private enterprise. As for me, I do not consider giant publicly traded corporations “private” any more than cities or states.
- babyslothzoo 7y agoYou sound like a pleasant person.
- Bakary 7y agoIs his argument wrong, though? It's unclear why we should automatically feel sympathy for the author.
- babyslothzoo 7y agoI'm specifically referencing the clear schadenfreude.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't do personal attacks on HN, even if you sense schadenfreude. It doesn't help, and only makes this place worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nerdjon 7y agoHonestly so am I, this sounds like a privacy nightmare. Sending all traffic through their servers specifically for the purpose of tracking what you're doing. Isn't this one of the things Apple was upset at Facebook over (including the fact that they went around the App Store) since they don't allow this sort of tracking? So maybe them building the feature is not the only reason they removed your app?
- matwood 7y agoThis story has been repeated time and again. There is even a term, 'getting Sherlocked'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)#Sherlocked_as_a_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)#Sherlocked...
- shkkmo 7y agoThe damning part to me is not so much that Apple copied it, but that they copied it, then removed their competitor from the app store.
- woadwarrior01 7y agoIt was removed as a part of a general thrust towards removing shady VPN apps. Onavo the VPN app that’s mentioned in the post was also removed from the App Store around the same time. The article is trying to spin the narrative of a causal connection between Apple removing their app from the App Store and then introducing the same feature in iOS, but that doesn’t seem to be the true.
- rhinoceraptor 7y agoPut a different way, they temporarily allowed this horrifically implemented app until they had a first party solution which wasn't a privacy dumpster-fire.
- busymom0 7y agoThey were breaking the app store guidelines too of not using MDM profiles for consumer apps. Same reason Facebook got their MDM profiles revoked too.
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- throw20102010 7y agoI know lots of people on HN aren’t a fan of patents- either because of patent trolls or because they believe that patents harm FOSS. So knowing that, I expect a few people to disagree with what I say. This is exactly what patents are supposed to protect you from. If you have a good idea, then file a patent and protect yourself. If it’s worth $500k per year then it’s worth having a patent lawyer help you do it right. Get the core stuff patented, not just the fluff. This way Apple can’t just pull your livelihood from you. If you tried to patent your idea and it wasn’t patentable, then it’s probably not really your idea, and you can’t feel bad when Apple steals something that isn’t yours. But you have to do this sooner rather than later. If you wait until your app has become a feature in iOS then it’s too late. Want proof that patents are necessary? Just look at how many patents that Apple, Samsung, SpaceX, etc. have.
- busymom0 7y agoIdeas aren't patentable. Execution/implementation of the tech is patentable and in this case, they would have to patent the use of VPN to track usage. That's easily by-passable as Apple doesn't need to do this via a VPN. They have built the tech in the iOS itself. Same reason snapchat couldn't patent their stories or disappearing messages ideas and got copied by FB and Instagram.
- Bakary 7y agoHaving a patent would solve the insult to injury of the feature being copied, but not the injury itself of the app being yanked off the store.
- geegoo 7y agoUnfortunately you touched on what makes this specific case a problem: Their solution is non-patentable. They failed to do a appropriate post-mortem of their business and instead resorted to blaming Apple for their failure.
- tetrep 7y agoBut patents wouldn't protect them in this instance. Patents are explicitly for implementations, not abstractions/ideas. I highly doubt they could get a patent on an implementation sufficiently abstract that would block any statistical tracking/monitoring of app usage, or at least one that wouldn't run into prior art issues. Apple isn't tunneling everything through a VPN to track it.
- slg 7y agoCached version since the HN traffic seems to have killed the original: https://web.archive.org/web/20190617200100/gopractice.io/blog/sense-story/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190617200100/gopractice.io/blo...
- HeavenFox 7y agoMay I say the title should be taken with a grain of salt. From the article: > A month before being removed from the App Store, the app raked in ~$45,000 in revenue. This means the product was operating at a $500,000 annual run rate. It's an extrapolation, from the first month.
- busymom0 7y agoThat plus they are talking about extrapolated "revenue". They didn't mention what the server costs were for having to handle the traffic of that many users. Server costs for such would be pretty high. Also other operating costs, development costs etc. Revenue doesn't matter, profit does.
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- rat9988 7y agoI guess you aren't native english speaker. As a french speaker, I got bitten by it in the past. Revenu is the total income, you have probably profit in mind.
- lacampbell 7y agoThere are so many false friends with French and English. I really don't have the heart to tell my colleagues in France that 'Unicity' - which they named a whole big project after - isn't a word...
- krapht 7y agoHuh? Seems like a word, linked below. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/unicity https://www.thefreedictionary.com/unicity
- lacampbell 7y agoTIL! It's must be a fairly obscure one though. My English speaking colleagues and I had never heard of it, and it's not here https://www.dictionary.com/misspelling?term=unicity https://www.dictionary.com/misspelling?term=unicity
- toephu2 7y agoAmazon does this all the time. Think AmazonBasics. Pretty killer business model if you ask me. Sucks for the little guy though. Good for consumers however.
- AimForTheBushes 7y agoThis app pretty much goes against everything Apple is trying to achieve with 'Privacy First'. Personally, I would have never used it because routing all traffic through their vpn seems malicious in itself, but a non-tech savvy user may not understand the consequence of allowing that.
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- GuiA 7y ago> A month before being removed from the App Store, the app raked in ~$45,000 in revenue. This means the product was operating at a $500,000 annual run rate. No, this means you had a revenue of $45k over one month (congrats! It’s a number to be proud of in itself). This artificial extrapolation of sales data to get attention grabbing headlines is so frustrating.
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- IkmoIkmo 7y agoIt's not like they launched a game like flappy bird that was a one-month hype and died out after, where launch-month revenue is not indicative of annual revenue. They released it, then iterated on it for 1.5 years, at the end of which they were generating $45k a month. If anything, there's reason to believe it'd have topped the $500k. There's no guarantees but I don't think it was disingenuous to extrapolate in this case.
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- gist 7y agoIt's business. Not only that it's stated almost certainly when you get involved with the app store. Wouldn't make sense for Apple to do it any differently. Apple did this in the 90's with peripherals such as video boards which at the time (80's/90's) were products that you almost always had to buy from a third party. Then Apple built them right into the hardware themselves. There is zero wrong with any company 'business' doing this. If you think there is you are not a business person. (Even if the competitors products are removed from the 'store').
- busymom0 7y agoThis is some super click bait and borderline deceitful blog. Apps on iOS are sandboxed so you can't access data about other app's launch and usage. These apps were using MDM profiles to get that usage data. This also meant that the user's internet data was going through these third parties which is a pretty big privacy issue. Plus having MDM profiles gave these third parties enormous access to the user's device settings. It would allow all your children's phone data as well as device settings to be accessible to these 3rd parties. That's bad, exploitative of underage kids, against the TOS as well as using MDM profiles for wrong intentions. Using MDM profiles are only intended to be used for controlling employee and VPN access for filtering apps within an organization/company. They are not to be used for this purpose and as per the guidelines not to be used for consumer products. Same reason why Facebook's certificates was blocked because they were abusing the MDM profile for different purposes. This was clearly against Apple's policies and against the terms of developer agreement. The author claiming it's because Apple is trying to eliminate competition forgot to mention any of the above very important reasons. They also forgot to mention that what they were doing was clearly against the app store guidelines which they had agreed to. Looks like Apple released this info in a press release. NYT's poor journalism got called out too: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/the-facts-about-parental-control-apps/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/the-facts-about-paren... One could argue that Apple should provide an API which lets developers access to this data. Apple might be working on that or maybe they won't because Apple has a strict "privacy" policy and providing such sensitive data can be prone to being used by bad actors.
- Causality1 7y agoBingo. There are several examples from years back where Apple copied an app and then removed it from the app store, but this isn't one of those times.
- scarface74 7y agoSo you care to give such an example?
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- didibus 7y agoI'm not sure Apple copied it. I think the idea to have a way to track and limit phone usage was pretty widespread, even 5 years back. I multiple time looked for an app like that. The problem is that of security, and any app of the sort needs too many permissions over other apps. The VPN solution poses a big security risk to users as well. This really only makes sense as a first party feature. Now, the part where Apple removed their app from their AppStore I find more strange. Was it breaking any of their rules?
- cardiffspaceman 7y ago> Was it breaking any of their rules? The rule against using VPNs to gather usage data, which apparently is new.
- didibus 7y agoDidn't know, but happy they have this in place now.
- threeseed 7y ago"Prior to its acquisition, Onavo had developed a mobile VPN app .. tracked app usage and sold this analytics to other developers." "We decided to take a similar approach." Pot. Kettle. Black.
- abc_lisper 7y agoThere were other companies with a similar idea and product before these guys came along. "Location Labs" and "Life 360" come to mind.
- tantalor 7y ago> I didn’t write this article. My wife, Lyuba Vyaznikova, did. Then put her name in the byline!
- miguelmota 7y agoStopped reading after the author mentions "$500,000 annual run rate" but the revenue chart shows nothing close to that. Nothing is more frustrating than clickbait titles.
- wp381640 7y agoThis app is spyware - it's no different to Facebook and Onavo in how it can be abused[0] [0] https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/facebook-removes-onavo/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/facebook-removes-onavo/
- em-bee 7y agoit's not spyware when tracking is the explicit intent of the app. that's a users choice. spyware is doing it covertly without telling the user.
- ilikerashers 7y ago"In mid-September 2016, we began the development process. In early December of 2016, the “Sense – Social Media Time Tracker” app made its debut in the App Store." That's an incredibly fast build time!
- threeseed 7y agoI used to work for a mobile agency and we used to complete a decent sized app from concept to in-store in about a month. Very easy if the tooling is good, the testing is easy (only a few device types) and it's only one target platform.
- TuringNYC 7y agoI know Apple is less known to do this, but was there any approach from Apple for an acqui-hire your group and help develop a more strategic product from within Apple?
- scarface74 7y agoApple’s implementation doesn’t intercept all of your communications.
- Someone1234 7y agoThis blog post is worth a read REGARDLESS of if you think the app itself is a good idea (i.e. VPNing all of a user's traffic to track/block social media usage). There's a lot more here than the app itself/complaining about Apple. For example they talk about getting their first users, techniques they tried for growth (ads, influencers, etc), and revenue streams. All matters of keen interest to anyone considering a startup/app. I happen to agree with Apple on squishing this app. But I still find the blog worth while.
- ubersoldat2k7 7y agoTwo things I see here: Apple didn't copy their app, they copied Android's. Second, the VPN thing is shaddy AF. I understand this is a workaround but shit, they could be doing some nasty stuff with MITM attacks. No wonder Apple took it down once it was clear how it worked.
- gentle_p 7y agoA lot of privacy paranoia in comments...probably super trendy now. Apple is fine with VPN based on their last update https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#vpn-apps https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#vpn...
- scarface74 7y agoApple has had built in support for standard VPN protocols since iOS 4 - no app required. I expect to connect to a VPN to access internal company resources.
- gentle_p 7y agoThere are a lot of parental control apps that use vpn in the same way and it's okay...https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/screen-time-parental-control/id1055315077 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/screen-time-parental-control/i...