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Apple mightn't be your friend, it's true, but it's not as though they're blocking the web app version of this which has been available to any device from day 1.

Apple mightn't be your friend, it's true, but it's not as though they're blocking the web app version of this which has been available to any device from day 1. I'm not stating this to defend Apple, whose decision I also find questionable (although relatively consistent with some other rejected/pulled apps, like the one for locating and avoiding alcohol-testing checkpoints), but rather to give us all a bit of perspective — the same information remains available and usable via a web app, probably the better place for it anyway as then no store front can limit it.

dannyr 7y ago
Apple intentionally held back mobile web that companies cannot build mobile web apps that are as capable as native apps. So this is partly why we're all at the mercy of walled garden App Stores.
- soraminazuki 7y ago
  > Apple intentionally held back mobile web that companies cannot build mobile web apps that are as capable as native apps. Are you suggesting that random websites should have the same level of access to your device as native apps?
  - dannyr 7y ago
    Web apps! See original comment. Web apps that can ask permission to access features of your phone like a native app. There are Progressive Web Apps now that are decent like Twitter's but it's still not as good as a native app.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Well... it's kind of a catch-22 though. If we all agree that it's good for web apps to be less capable than native apps, then we shouldn't be using the open availability of web apps as an excuse for censoring native apps. There's a lot of stuff this app can't do as a web-app that it can do as a native app. There's a faction of HN that wants to the web to be for read-only documents, and there's a faction of HN that wants the web to be an open, device-agnostic distribution platform for politically risky apps that Apple would otherwise lock off of its devices. But it can't be both. Those two factions often end up talking past each other. It's a very difficult balance.
  - sjs382 7y ago
    Random websites? No. Websites that are given consent? Sure.

dannyr 7y ago

Apple intentionally held back mobile web that companies cannot build mobile web apps that are as capable as native apps. So this is partly why we're all at the mercy of walled garden App Stores.

soraminazuki 7y ago
> Apple intentionally held back mobile web that companies cannot build mobile web apps that are as capable as native apps. Are you suggesting that random websites should have the same level of access to your device as native apps?
- dannyr 7y ago
  Web apps! See original comment. Web apps that can ask permission to access features of your phone like a native app. There are Progressive Web Apps now that are decent like Twitter's but it's still not as good as a native app.
- danShumway 7y ago
  Well... it's kind of a catch-22 though. If we all agree that it's good for web apps to be less capable than native apps, then we shouldn't be using the open availability of web apps as an excuse for censoring native apps. There's a lot of stuff this app can't do as a web-app that it can do as a native app. There's a faction of HN that wants to the web to be for read-only documents, and there's a faction of HN that wants the web to be an open, device-agnostic distribution platform for politically risky apps that Apple would otherwise lock off of its devices. But it can't be both. Those two factions often end up talking past each other. It's a very difficult balance.
- sjs382 7y ago
  Random websites? No. Websites that are given consent? Sure.