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Apple is threatening to terminate my developer account with no clear reason

547 points by bpg_92 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
blickentwapft 6y ago
If DHH truly cared about Apple issues he’d write a twitter rant about this too.
- ecmascript 6y ago
  What?
traceroute66 6y ago
The problem with all these "Apple is being nasty to me" stories that have been appearing recently is that there appears to be a strong smell of "two sides to every story". I have not read the blog post above fully, but a speed-read suggests that the author was publicly distributing an app through TestFlight rather than App Store. I am not accusing anyone of anything here. But if my speed-read is accurate, then its not at all surprising Apple have taken issue with him. TestFlight is a dev tool. Its not for production deployment. Its meant for beta testing.
- hadrien01 6y ago
  It seems to be very clearly as a temporary beta: https://www.mignori.com/beta/ https://www.mignori.com/beta/
  - threeseed 6y ago
    10 months doesn't sound all that temporary.
    - bluesign 6y ago
      It is more like 3 years.
    - aboringusername 6y ago
      Games on early access can be there for years...Software can remain on beta for the same duration too depending on how the developer feels. We see terrible software all the time now because it's rushed to GM because that's what you need to do, apparently.
    - flurdy 6y ago
      GMail was in beta for 5 years.
- gman83 6y ago
  Yeah he's been distributing the app through TestFlight with the link on his website for three years.
  - tuwtuwtuwtuw 6y ago
    If that was the issue surely Apple would tell him? Why keep such information a secret?
- taurath 6y ago
  Having worked at large companies - Apple is not a nice company especially to their app platform users. They will hold your app hostage whenever they want something. They play hardball (read: act like immoral sociopaths) because service revenue is how they justify their 13 figure valuation to their shareholders.
- bluesign 6y ago
  Yeah probably this can be related considering "Mignori 3 was published on TestFlight in 2017 and Apple approved it."
- spzb 6y ago
  That sounds plausible. He claims to have 200 beta users without having been through app review. TestFlight only permits 25 internal testers [1] (you can have 10,000 external testers but the app has to go through review first). Something smells off. [1] https://developer.apple.com/testflight/ https://developer.apple.com/testflight/
  - p49k 6y ago
    The author states in the article that it did go through review.
    - spzb 6y ago
      Does he? This is the portion I was basing my comment on : "The app has been sitting on TestFlight for 3 years now, it has around 200 beta users, and if anything, the only reason I can think of, is that Apple thinks I decided to unofficially deploy the app with TestFlight without going through the formal review."
      - amatecha 6y ago
        I guess there's the implication it had some form of review when he says: "Mignori 3 was published on TestFlight in 2017 and Apple approved it."
    - jmuguy 6y ago
      In order to allow external testers, not on your company Apple account, you have a sort of mini review. It’s not the same as a full review although I don’t know the difference.
- bad_user 6y ago
  Author says that he develops app in his free time, did not have time to push it to app store properly and that he has 200 beta testers. Apps with a public invitation link for testing are common and if the delay is the problem here, then Apple should have said so. What's completely unacceptable here is that Apple does not specifically say what the author did wrong and this can't be defended by apologists. What is surprising or not coming from Apple is irrelevant, stop normalizing this abusive behavior from app store gate keepers.
  - rbrtl 6y ago
    But it's not just the app marketplace providers. It has become the tech-company norm to shut people out of their systems without rhyme or reason. It's outrageous, but people rag on Apple disproportionately, as though their model (curated App Store vs free-for-all) is the issue. We need sweeping technology reform from the top. Governments need to start understanding the technology that they oversee, not just dealing on a 'business level' with lobbyists and execs who will do anything to maintain their autonomy. When these companies are service providers to a majority of the population (in aggregate, or individually) they must be treated as infrastructure providers and held to basic standards of accountability, transparency, and governance.
  - JimDabell 6y ago
    > Author says that he develops app in his free time, did not have time to push it to app store properly and that he has 200 beta testers. Apps with a public invitation link for testing are common and if the delay is the problem here, then Apple should have said so. I agree that Apple’s lack of communication with developers is a massive problem, but I also think there are a couple of gaps in his story that need filling in. TestFlight betas expire after a short amount of time – one or two months, if I remember correctly. He says the application has been available through TestFlight for three years. This means that he will have had to publish a new build well over a dozen times to keep it active for this amount of time. And if it’s already on TestFlight with external testers, it’s really not much effort at all to push it live. The build is already in Apple’s system – you've got to fill out a couple more form fields and click submit. So looking at it that way… he gets hundreds of users, keeps pushing new builds to those users on a regular basis for three years, but never submits it to go through the public App Store review process. If I were Apple, I’d think he was probably trying to bypass the review process as well. Apps with a public invitation link are common, but this behaviour is not. But yes, they should talk to him about it and this is a failure on Apple’s part even if he is acting suspiciously. I’ve been saying for a while that Apple need a VP of Developer Relations to take ownership of this type of thing, because it seems clear nobody owns it at the moment.
- RubenvanE 6y ago
  But to what extent is it 'publicly distributing' when the app has only 200 users. It sounds more like an extended beta than a 'clever' way to circumvent the app review process. And, as the author extensively explains, the major sin of Apple is not that they removed the app from Testflight, but that threaten to suspend his developer account completely and give no explanation _why_, even after multiple attempts of the author to reach out to Apple to solve this situation.
- dan1234 6y ago
  > TestFlight is a dev tool. Its not for production deployment. Its meant for beta testing. If that's the case, surely the better action would be for Apple to just remove the app from Testflight (and maybe reset the list so testers have to sign up again)?
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 6y ago
  There's not two sides of every story as long as Apple acts the way they do. As for TestFlight lengths - if you are required to guess what the issue is you have already proven his point.
sunaurus 6y ago
I really hate this current reality of having to use social media channels for a chance of proper customer support. Are there any initiatives that are working against this? I would be happy to contribute to any kind of platform or movement or whatever that aims to mitigate/fix this.
bsaul 6y ago
This kind of post infuriates me. As an iOS developer for 10 years, i can guarantee you that there are probably hundreds (if not thousands) of stories like that, with people getting shut down for no good reason, and having their business killed. It's now so bad people are refraining from trying out innovative business model or apps just because they think there could be a chance someone at apple validation wouldn't like it and kill the product at any time. I wish the Hey story makes people realize it is not reasonable to have one actor control the only software distribution channel to hundred of millions of customers. I'm fine with apple wanting to provide a highly curated experience to their users by having them download apps from a store they control. But this shouldn't be the only option.
- 0-O-0 6y ago
  I wish the Hey story makes people realise that we can't depend on benevolence of two corporations and should be working on open platforms.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    Open platforms are great (and they are, I say this as a Fedora user who just finished an install via dnf'ing all the things) but they lack the money which translates to marketing that large corporations have, it's not a case of a level playing field, we are playing two different games on entirely different fields and ours is mostly uphill. When your opposition has an absolute chokehold on major markets it's a near unassailable position - throw in that the vast vast majority of users simply don't care whether an app store is open or not or know why they should care - attention is finite and the only way things will improve is if governments lead it and well see my earlier paragraph about who has the money...
    - 0-O-0 6y ago
      Apple and Google are not primordial forces. At some point they've started small and had to compete/coexist with IBM, Yahoo etc. There are still emerging markets and space for innovation. And next innovation might be based on something open, like Ubuntu Touch.
coder1001 6y ago
Startup idea for anyone who is interested: Paid customer service where the customer pays money (say $100-$1k depending on how serious the issue is) and each company can have a special channel to respond to these paid requests and be compensated (say 80% of the fee the customer pays). That way companies will have the will and ability to attend to serious issues and filter them out from the "useless" customer requests that flood any large size business.
- pjc50 6y ago
  This is how the Microsoft paid support channel works: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4341255/support-for-business https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4341255/support-for...
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  The companies that want to sell dedicated support and the people who want to buy it are already selling and buying it. And since, outside of FOSS that the customer controls hosting of, and some other special cases, only the original vendor, with whom the user will have interacted to get the software, will be able to provide support, so there's not a lot of matchmaking/discovery to be done to justify a middleman taking a cut.
- mmkos 6y ago
  In the UK and least there exists a service like that - resolver.co.uk. I have used it once and got a response from the company that I complained about. I thought that was rather neat.
planb 6y ago
An interesting spin of the story would be if Apple announced an intel to arm migration kit called "Mignori" next week at WWDC...
0-O-0 6y ago
This title could really benefit from some punctuation.
aasasd 6y ago
> I know of developers who were instantly terminated and all their apps removed. Luckily this has not happened to me. Well there you have it. The rest of devs will be happy they're still under Apple's wing, and nothing will change.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
I can only speak for myself, but I have had a number of interactions with the review team, and I have always ended up communicating with a human; although they would often paste “talking points” into their replies. Because of the nature of a couple of my apps, I’ve had them bounced for “providing commonly available services” (i.e. competing with OS tools). In each instance, I have appealed, citing some unique features, and have prevailed. I think that reviewers have a number of “1-button” responses, provided by some kind of dashboard, in order to ensure a narrative is maintained. This is actually common for many customer interaction scenarios. I don’t like it, but understand why it happens. I’ll bet that the more heated an exchange gets, the more “canned” these responses become, because...lawyers. He may, in fact, be communicating with a human, who keeps hitting canned response buttons (not much different from ‘bots). I’ve wondered whether or not folks might use TestFlight for “shadow release.” I have seen app makers use Enterprise in that fashion. I have no idea (or opinion) on whether or not that was the case, here. I’m not sure I would want to pursue my case in the court of public opinion. It’s a risky gambit, but this chap may feel he has nothing to lose. EDIT: One thing that I should mention, is that I never have a release in TestFlight for more than a few days. It has a "time bomb"; I think, maybe 60 or 90 days. That means, in order to maintain an app in TF for three years, he'd need to keep re-releasing every couple of months. That speaks to some kind of intent.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  Yeah app review have been surprisingly reasonable to deal with, from the "they seem like humans" point of view. It sounds like OP is dealing with the account fraud department instead
- mrtksn 6y ago
  Yep, I had rejections too and I have always managed come to an understanding with the review team. I even had the reviewer call me to explain why he would reject the app and give me an idea to fix the issue. He even gave me his phone number and working hours so I can call him if I had further questions. It wasn’t a fun process but I like having a human contact on the other side of the things. Sometimes I think, people having issues must be omitting some part of the story because I am not a big-time publisher, I have no privilege but at the same time, I don’t have these problems of ”evil Apple destroying the little guy” sort. "Apple threatens to close my developer account" is a very different situation from Hey's disagreement with the business practices of Apple.
sabujp 6y ago
govt's need to catch up and start setting some rules. App stores have gotten so large that they essentially become like real estate or store space. You can't just have a few stores control all the means of distribution.
- withinboredom 6y ago
  I imagine some cities already have laws around this for farmer markets, flea markets, etc. It would be interesting (and hilarious) if cities started trying to enforce those laws on Apple, like they did for taxes.
odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
`While the first version of this app was on the App Store from 2014 to 2016, I removed it in that last year because the app stopped working properly with most Boorus, and it was broken for most users. Since then, I started developing a new version called “Mignori 3”, which has never hit the App Store. It has been on TestFlight for a while.` So basically he was calling something a 'beta' and distributing it through Testflight for 3 years. Yep, no clear reason here. Big Apple bad! Apple has a lot of problems, and I agree, but most of these 'developer stories about mean Apple' always have two sides of the story. I remember the same outrage about Kapeli's Dash situation, and then came out an account in his name was doing fraudulent activities ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12680131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12680131 )
- chris_wot 6y ago
  So it was in beta for three years. What of it? That's hardly fraudulent. If something is in beta, then it's... in beta. He wasn't selling it.
  - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
    He was using Testflight to distribute it on his website. This has been a nono to do for a long time. You may not agree with it, but them are the rules.
    - chris_wot 6y ago
      You are speculating though. Do you know for sure that is the fraudulent activity that Apple are referring to?
      - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
        No, I can't say for sure, but it is A reason to terminate the account, and since this post is called 'Apple is threatening to terminate my developer account with no clear reason' I believe it is the case. We will never know the real reason as Apple probably won't provide it, but there is a violation of their rules, even if the termination was because something else, they are still entitled to close it based on the violation.
CannisterFlux 6y ago
Have I misunderstood something, or is this app's main goal to view Japanese comics infringing copyright in some way? That's probably the reason it was pulled. Sure it has other uses, plausible deniability, but what did the guy expect?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
lcnmrn 6y ago
We need third party app stores and there should be a section on the Apple App Store dedicated for installing these.
- vaxman 6y ago
  This.
wprapido 6y ago
Had a horror experience with PayPal. Lost tons of cash. Getting paid became incredibly difficult.
nromiun 6y ago
> The big problem is that when Apple tells you that the reasons “are not limited” the ones they listed, it could be anything. They could call my face ugly and remove me from the Developer Program under that reason and tell me it was because of “fraud”. <rant> Seriously, just how hard is it for these companies to communicate properly? Would it kill them to send something like "We saw X on your account so we are closing your account temporarily. Contact us.". Instead it is just "We closed your account. Get screwed.". This is why so many developers are going the web app way these days. Dealing with a closed platform who won't even talk to you is just infuriating. Sorry for the rant.
- qhwudbebd 6y ago
  Apple's strategy against the web app workaround appears to be two-pronged: abandon any pretence at maintaining webkit whilst continuing locking out more competent browser engines. Even Microsoft in the IE era didn't actively ban Netscape from running on their platform...
  - leadingthenet 6y ago
    WebKit is clearly being actively maintained, though. And, might I add, Safari performs way better for me than Chrome, on macOS.
    - realusername 6y ago
      > WebKit is clearly being actively maintained, though. Depends what you call "actively maintained", I would call it on life support personally, it's lacking very far behind the other engines.
      - leadingthenet 6y ago
        How can that possibly be the case if it's becoming more, not less, standards compliant and performant?! Additionally, it even manages to outperform Blink in certain use cases / benchmarks, especially after the last major update or so. It might not be Apple's bread and butter like Blink is for Google, but I see no obvious signs of WebKit dying, though I'm open to proof to the contrary.
seemslegit 6y ago
Impudent code serf thinks he's owed reasoning by his corporate lord.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  Nice framing. :)
monokh 6y ago
The consequence of playing in a walled garden. Is there still no way to release an iPhone app out with the iOS app store?
- sabujp 6y ago
  yes, you can i heard instacart for example uses their enterprise cert signed app for their drivers/deliverers. Drivers are instructed to go into settings and change things to allow loading that app
  - lukeramsden 6y ago
    I wouldn't call that an alternative to the App Store, as that's exactly what the enterprise certs are for - internal distribution to employees (or more likely in this case to be contractors but whatever). Getting regular users to go in to settings and change things just to install your app is not feasible.
- hellofunk 6y ago
  Not unless you make it open source and require your users to download and compile it to their device with Xcode on their own. Not going to work for most, and without a developer account, they'd have to redeploy to their device every week, since that's how long the license lasts.
franze 6y ago
> Mignori is a client for Image Board websites (we informally call “Boorus”). These image boards are popular in the anime community, although there can be image boards for anything you can think of. I just googled this, found some references to the anime image boards. Most were Hentai / Porn. If the main purpose of an app is viewing adult content, its main purpose is viewing adult content - even if you have to add the ressources yourself. (I might be wrong, I don't have a clue about the Boorus community). So prop. Apples "Freedom from Porn"approach?
- paganel 6y ago
  In that case they should ban browsers, too (which in a way they do, there's a de-facto WebKit monopoly on iOS).
  - maweki 6y ago
    But in a browser you'd had to enter the url yourse... oh, yeah, nevermind
  - franze 6y ago
    Honeslty if the browser would be invented in 2020 they prop. would.
    - wayneftw 6y ago
      prop? What does that mean?
      - catalogia 6y ago
        Probably 'probably.'
- sabujp 6y ago
  yea i had a feeling it was going towards this...
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
BiteCode_dev 6y ago
And Apple is not even an isolated case. Google will close gmail accounts, take away adsense revenues, or remove youtube videos on a whim. Visa blocked users from giving their money to political causes they decided didn't aligned with their view of the world. For years Microsoft made it super hard to buy hardware without paying the Windows licence. They killed xbox remotely. They have invasive telemetry in Win 10. Paypal may refuse to pay the money you have on their account at any moment. Your money, no appeal. Twitter and facebook censorship rules are on a case by case basis. If your famous, you may be able to use hate speech. I you are an anonymous political activist, China may ask for your shut down. Big companies exist to make money. If they get too much power, they will abuse it. Not because they are evil, but because it's the logical thing to do for them. This is why I was advocating in another comment that we should not use WhatsApp new payment system: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553455 Thinking about the power we give to big entities is a central mechanism to build the society we live on. That's why we should think about what we buy, the media we consumme, etc. They are votes, just as much as during an election.
- BruceEel 6y ago
  > Thinking about the power we give to big entities is a central mechanism to build the society we live on. That's why we should think about what we buy, the media we consumme, etc. Elsewhere on HN today we have 'On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B (1975) [pdf] (web.mit.edu)' https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23549203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23549203 in a way, you could say it applies to this whole situation quite well.
- philliphaydon 6y ago
  I had about 12 domains once and decided to park them as I was busy, set them all up on adsense, went to all the domains to make sure they all worked, a couple I refreshed a few times as it wasn't working properly. The next day I got an email saying my adsense was closed for 'fake views / clicks', no way to challenge it or anything. That was like 10 years ago. I still can't use adsense to this day.
  - 6y ago
sabujp 6y ago
where is this ? https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/tech/apple-app-store-supreme-court/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/tech/apple-app-store-supreme-...
LatteLazy 6y ago
You get the same thing with YouTube creators (plus they get bogus or spurious copyright flags with the same result). If we're going to have these big platforms (and I'd include Steam, Amazon, YouTube etc) then we need to have legislation giving their clients basic, non-waivable rights to a quick and independent review and reasonable treatment. Sadly the law seems to be headed in the opposite direction (requiring platforms to do more "moderation").
jpalomaki 6y ago
Might be that they just don’t like the idea of image board browser. Apple is somewhat strict on what kind of content the apps are providing to user (See ”Objectionable Content” [1]) Techically this is of course just like web browser, but Apple could see it differently. [1] Objectionable Content
- kalleboo 6y ago
  Then you reject the app in App Review, not terminate the account for "Fraud"
donedanadone 6y ago
Walled garden behaves exactly as intended. Everyone is surprised. -- Alternate Title
ezoe 6y ago
If you need an online SaaS account, that can be remotely disabled, to develop and distribute your software, you have been already lost anyway. Forget that useless malicious platform already. It's not worth it.
mhee 6y ago
TestFlight has its limitations, unfortunately. It is not a distribution platform, it is not intended to be active for longer than 90 days without updates and should not be monetized https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#beta-testing https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#bet... I encourage you to read through the entire AppStore guidelines, there might be more sections that apply to Apple's decision to terminate the account I didn't read through all of your privacy policy on the app's website, but definitely worthwhile to cross check it with the AppStore guidelines as well.
- princekolt 6y ago
  You can’t monetize an app in test flight. All purchases are fake and collect no money. This argument is bullshit. I know a bunch of apps that have been in TestFlight for ages, and they’re all up and well.
  - mhee 6y ago
    No need for your unconstructive argument "Note, however, that apps using TestFlight cannot be distributed to testers in exchange for compensation of any kind, including as a reward for crowd-sourced funding." If you have taken the time to read the information posted you would see that the information is relevant on monetization outside of the app. I am just giving possible considerations for the author that they haven't consider in the article, we don't know how the app link has been distributed throughout the last 3 years, maybe they posted a donation link somewhere before and Apple considered this as compensation for the beta distribution of the app.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  I don't see the 90 days rule in those guidelines. As others have said, GMail was 5 years in beta, it's normal for products to be in beta for years as long as they are not monatized. Maybe he didn't get the updates reviewed according to the guidelines though.
  - mhee 6y ago
    Yeah maybe this was it. Any significant changes must be reviewed again. But from the way it sounds the author was not actively developing the application, so I am not sure how many changes went into each 90 day revision, perhaps Apple does not look kindly on resubmitting a build just for the sake of resetting the TestFlight 90 day activity counter. This might be seen as a way to try and avoid deployment and the final app review process. The 90 day counter is mentioned here https://testflight.apple.com/ https://testflight.apple.com/ Look for it under "Testing" From the way I have understood the 90 day counter before is that the app should be updated with new functionality/patches to be more beta tested, otherwise your app is obviously not being developed so no need for beta testing anymore
goblin89 6y ago
For someone who’s considering getting into Apple Developer program: should Apple Developer account be separate from primary Apple ID used across devices? And if not, and a single Apple ID is also used for development, (1) can it remain intentionally unassociated with any payment method in any specific country, and (2) is there a threat of losing it if Developer account is terminated for some unfathomable reason?
- TheKarateKid 6y ago
  If your personal Apple ID is on most of your devices, absolutely. If it’s a business ID then I’d still say you have little to lose by using a separate one for the Dev account. You can even switch IDs on iOS for using the App Store if you need to login using the dev account.
tsp 6y ago
Apple’s decisions in the last 5 years are causing more and more of my developer friends to move away. Bringing back the escape key on the MacBook Pro won’t change that. If Apple were not years behind PWA integration, switching to a PWA instead of native app might be an option. But this is sadly not in Apple’s interest. I wonder how many people will choose Android over Apple in the future because of PWAs. I can imagine there will be a flood of useful PWAs, freely to use and only fully working on Android, not Apple.
ratel 6y ago
I keep reading these comments on HN of people trying to guess on what the reason is Apple, Google or who else is terminating accounts, apps, videos or monetizing opportunities. Usually accompanied by a tone of voice telling people they should have known better. The point is: Your guess is as good as mine. The fact is that those companies are not telling people what they did wrong and even more persuasive these days not explaining why their apparent transgression is leading to a particular punishment. Or how that transgression fits the punishment. I for one will not subject myself to such a form of tyranny. In this case even if having your app in TestFlight too long, why is now (3 years in) the time to revoke the app? Having 200 test users is too much. Why not tell people beforehand they exceeded a limit if that is your rule? Lets say you are invited into a country as a citizen, but the conditions are: You can be punished arbitrarily, even banished, without recourse, harassed, given arbitrary commands by minions. You pay a 30% tax on all your proceeds, but your proceeds are your sole responsibility. There is no right to have your grievances addressed by the tyrant, not even by one of the lower minions. Would you go? I will not. Now say you already find yourself in such a country. I'm sorry for you. I think I would organize and try to collectively have those rights improved.
g_p 6y ago
At this point I am hopeful (but not optimistic) that the EU competition/antitrust investigation [1] might go somewhere and get an outcome. The trouble with investigations like these, as we all know from previous cases, is they tend to drag on rather than yield rapid outcomes. In this case, it seems we've sleepwalked into a situation where there are conflicts of interest like never really seen before - companies with global scale, able to arbitrarily decide which competition they wish to allow to be present on "their" marketplace, and make them either raise their price by 30%, or be 30% less profitable. Resolving these conflicts, and recognising these aren't simple "creation of a moat", but rather some actual, tangible, anti-competitive practices would be a good starting point. But what is the outcome? Apple's view is "we're protecting users from bad things on the internet", but perhaps this kind of arbitrary decision-making is not one to be getting made arbitrarily? [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1073 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...
- rimliu 6y ago
  We already have the cookie law. Do you need another gift from EU?
  - g_p 6y ago
    GDPR itself is a lot more than the "cookie law", and in my view most people are mis-interpreting and mis-applying it. Any site that won't let you in without accepting their tracking cookies is actually breaking GDPR. If we enforced the law as written, I think the "cookie law" would be a net positive for everyone. In terms of who deals with the anti competitive situation, I don't think that matters. But this is textbook market distortion that traditional antitrust laws were made for, and I think it's high time we saw them used to break up anti-competitive market practices.
nablaone 6y ago
Irony. You can publish a book without a publisher right now. But you have to rely on publisher will if you want to publish an app.
fareesh 6y ago
From what I understand, in the free market system we consider things to be anti-competitive, anti-consumer, etc. when a corporation has some kind of market dominance acquired through earning the trust of consumers, and once they have obtained that trust, they abuse it by imposing a set of self-serving conditions on the market which serves their own interest in some way at the cost of some other player in the market - either consumer or competitor or someone else. To enable this countries and regions have drafted laws to govern what business and trade practices are permissible. Some non-rhetorical questions out of curiosity because I genuinely don't know: Is it illegal for supermarkets to only partner with certain brands and carry their products over those of their competitors? If there is only 1 Walmart within driving distance of 50,000 people, and that Wal-Mart chooses to throw out all toilet paper brands and sell their store brand, is this allowed under current law? What if they allow the brand to stay if they pay an additional whimsical commission to Wal-Mart? Is that legal? Is there something that makes the App store different from the physical store equivalent? Putting aside the letter of the law, does it violate the aforementioned "spirit" of the law? i.e. ought there be laws against this kind of behaviour? I am sure there are good arguments for both sides.
- jedieaston 6y ago
  The App Store is different than in your example. In your example, I could put up a store myself called Toilet Paper Warehouse, and probably be successful in that town given that nobody else sells the toilet paper consumers desire. Whereas if the App Store is Walmart, then the iPhone is the town, but the town has a law on the books that says "No stores except Walmart can be in this town!". Consumers don't get the toilet paper they value, and Walmart can control the supply. In exchange, Walmart makes sure that nobody sells toilet paper with poison ivy on it, and guarantees that residents will have to go to the bathroom less than if they sold non-Walmart toilet paper. The problem is that the iPhone itself isn't a monopoly. You can buy an Android phone that can access any store and install any app you want, so monopoly law doesn't apply (in the strictest sense). Now, one could say that you shouldn't have to move towns just because your favorite toilet paper isn't sold. But as it stands today, you have to, as I understand it. (With that being said, Apple, start acting right.)
read_if_gay_ 6y ago
Where are the people arguing that it’s fine because private companies can do whatever they want?
dhsysusbsjsi 6y ago
I once had Apple reject an iOS app update citing IP violations because we had an in-app settings page using a stock UITableViewController with default UITableViewCells with UISwitch in the accessory view (on the right) and vanilla text. Literally no styling. Apparently it looked too much like the iPad Settings app. Insane.
RNCTX 6y ago
The article doesn't pass the smell test to me. By his own description of what it does, I'd say the app is highly likely to be selling access to content that the author hasn't licensed, and is on sketchy copyright grounds. Also, the fact that a vote manipulation app... https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21122737/iowa-democractic-caucus-voting-app-android-testfairy-screenshots-app-store https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21122737/iowa-democractic-... ...was distributed via a test platform with the financial backing of former Clinton and Obama / recent Pete Buttigieg staffers... https://apnews.com/5232ce5601996c1de440806ad30fa4fb https://apnews.com/5232ce5601996c1de440806ad30fa4fb ...has likely put Apple in the position of being compelled to more actively police what goes on in test apps. I get the knee-jerk tendency to blame corporate oppression of indie developers since that is usually what we see from the Googles and Microsofts of the world, but Apple has little monetary interest in kicking a successful app developer off of their ecosystem, unless that app developer is blatantly flaunting civil / criminal statutes or trying to scam Apple out of their cut of the profit. If I had a to guess I'd say this guy is doing both.
- thomaslord 6y ago
  If you read the article, you'll find that the app itself doesn't even link to any content by default and you have to explicitly enter a data source yourself. Also, I'd say referring to that app (however problematic it was, and I agree they did a terrible job building and deploying it) as a "vote manipulation app" is unnecessarily inflammatory. > distributed via a test platform with the financial backing of former Clinton and Obama / recent Pete Buttigieg staffers This implies that TestFlight has financial backing from those groups. Maybe that's just unclear wording, but interpreted as written the claim is unsupported by the provided source. Assuming you meant to say the Iowa caucus app was supported by those former staffers, it should be clarified that the company who made the app also provided services to those campaigns. I wouldn't consider Shadow Inc. to be competent as a technology company, but it doesn't surprise me that Democrats would buy political tech from a company founded by people who worked on digital outreach for the most recent Democratic presidential campaign.
  - RNCTX 6y ago
Razengan 6y ago
I specifically opened HN just now to see if there were any negative posts about Apple, given that WWDC is in a few days, and like clockwork, there it is.
- skoskie 6y ago
  What are you implying?
zepto 6y ago
We do need legislation here. I would suggest requiring cause to be stated for account termination or threatened termination, and a formal right of appeal to request evidence. Of course this would be onerous for the smallest businesses, so we’d need some threshold for when it kicks in. E.g. 2 years, or $1,000 of transactions. This wouldn’t make any particular kind of termination illegal. It would simply force transparency, so that then if there really are abuses or patterns of abuse taking place, we can expose them. It would also apply to all businesses - Google, Banks, Gyms, whatever.
cryptica 6y ago
That's why I often don't bother with Apple. If it doesn't work on OSX or iOS, too bad. People have to learn that Apple is not good for them or for society and I'm happy to make my products unavailable to Apple users to help them to learn that valuable life lesson. Just find an alternative business strategy that doesn't rely on Apple. You can't rely on them. They don't give a crap about developers and never have. Why do all developers keep enabling them? Seriously, just sacrifice a small % of your income by ignoring Apple and you will help make the world a better place. Developers have to stand up for themselves.
buboard 6y ago
What is the revenue potential of app store apps? Any studies or surveys on the matter?
lawrenceong 6y ago
here's my thought on the "raging" debate -- what if, just what if, we are free to set up "stores" where our computing devices can connect to without liability and with the same level of complexity as with the default one being offered up? walled gardens create opportunities for abuse, which, unfortunately for us hapless developers, impose yet another level of bureaucracy.
mobiledev2014 6y ago
"In the last few days, Next Anime Episode has started to receive an unusual number of 1-Star reviews and all in a quick sucession, so I am starting to think that someone is targetting me for god knows what reason" Speculation but my money would be on some unethical competitor or even just a jerk who doesn't like Andy is spamming negative reviews and reported him to Apple for fraud. Since I've never heard of this happening, I don't know if Apple's fraud department takes a guilty-until-innocent approach or if they agreed fraud occurred. Either way the lack of transparency and communication is not right. I'll echo sentiments that I've spoken to humans about app issues but never about fraud.
Aeolun 6y ago
Oh FFS, well, up to the top you go. Maybe someone at Apple will see this and poke their friends in App Store Review or something. We really shouldn’t have to do that kind of shit.
taylus 6y ago
> All the skills I have built over the course of almost a decade are obsolete now, because I do not imagine myself working for other people as an iOS dev without having my own hobby iOS apps on the App Store. It feels like all the blogging I have been doing has been a waste because I cannot participate in the knowledge I myself write, and it’s pointless to engage in the knowledge of others if I cannot try what they write. The fact that a faceless entity can lock you out of developing like this is just wrong. I fear for the future of such closed off ecosystems.
ta17711771 6y ago
Please build progressive web apps. There's not much they can't do, now.
- vaxman 6y ago
  They can malfunction due to changes in the device runtime anytime the OEM chooses, so no.

547 points by bpg_92 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

blickentwapft 6y ago

If DHH truly cared about Apple issues he’d write a twitter rant about this too.

ecmascript 6y ago
What?

traceroute66 6y ago

The problem with all these "Apple is being nasty to me" stories that have been appearing recently is that there appears to be a strong smell of "two sides to every story". I have not read the blog post above fully, but a speed-read suggests that the author was publicly distributing an app through TestFlight rather than App Store. I am not accusing anyone of anything here. But if my speed-read is accurate, then its not at all surprising Apple have taken issue with him. TestFlight is a dev tool. Its not for production deployment. Its meant for beta testing.

hadrien01 6y ago
It seems to be very clearly as a temporary beta: https://www.mignori.com/beta/ https://www.mignori.com/beta/
- threeseed 6y ago
  10 months doesn't sound all that temporary.
  - bluesign 6y ago
    It is more like 3 years.
  - aboringusername 6y ago
    Games on early access can be there for years...Software can remain on beta for the same duration too depending on how the developer feels. We see terrible software all the time now because it's rushed to GM because that's what you need to do, apparently.
  - flurdy 6y ago
    GMail was in beta for 5 years.
gman83 6y ago
Yeah he's been distributing the app through TestFlight with the link on his website for three years.
- tuwtuwtuwtuw 6y ago
  If that was the issue surely Apple would tell him? Why keep such information a secret?
taurath 6y ago
Having worked at large companies - Apple is not a nice company especially to their app platform users. They will hold your app hostage whenever they want something. They play hardball (read: act like immoral sociopaths) because service revenue is how they justify their 13 figure valuation to their shareholders.
bluesign 6y ago
Yeah probably this can be related considering "Mignori 3 was published on TestFlight in 2017 and Apple approved it."
spzb 6y ago
That sounds plausible. He claims to have 200 beta users without having been through app review. TestFlight only permits 25 internal testers [1] (you can have 10,000 external testers but the app has to go through review first). Something smells off. [1] https://developer.apple.com/testflight/ https://developer.apple.com/testflight/
- p49k 6y ago
  The author states in the article that it did go through review.
  - spzb 6y ago
    Does he? This is the portion I was basing my comment on : "The app has been sitting on TestFlight for 3 years now, it has around 200 beta users, and if anything, the only reason I can think of, is that Apple thinks I decided to unofficially deploy the app with TestFlight without going through the formal review."
    - amatecha 6y ago
      I guess there's the implication it had some form of review when he says: "Mignori 3 was published on TestFlight in 2017 and Apple approved it."
  - jmuguy 6y ago
    In order to allow external testers, not on your company Apple account, you have a sort of mini review. It’s not the same as a full review although I don’t know the difference.
bad_user 6y ago
Author says that he develops app in his free time, did not have time to push it to app store properly and that he has 200 beta testers. Apps with a public invitation link for testing are common and if the delay is the problem here, then Apple should have said so. What's completely unacceptable here is that Apple does not specifically say what the author did wrong and this can't be defended by apologists. What is surprising or not coming from Apple is irrelevant, stop normalizing this abusive behavior from app store gate keepers.
- rbrtl 6y ago
  But it's not just the app marketplace providers. It has become the tech-company norm to shut people out of their systems without rhyme or reason. It's outrageous, but people rag on Apple disproportionately, as though their model (curated App Store vs free-for-all) is the issue. We need sweeping technology reform from the top. Governments need to start understanding the technology that they oversee, not just dealing on a 'business level' with lobbyists and execs who will do anything to maintain their autonomy. When these companies are service providers to a majority of the population (in aggregate, or individually) they must be treated as infrastructure providers and held to basic standards of accountability, transparency, and governance.
- JimDabell 6y ago
  > Author says that he develops app in his free time, did not have time to push it to app store properly and that he has 200 beta testers. Apps with a public invitation link for testing are common and if the delay is the problem here, then Apple should have said so. I agree that Apple’s lack of communication with developers is a massive problem, but I also think there are a couple of gaps in his story that need filling in. TestFlight betas expire after a short amount of time – one or two months, if I remember correctly. He says the application has been available through TestFlight for three years. This means that he will have had to publish a new build well over a dozen times to keep it active for this amount of time. And if it’s already on TestFlight with external testers, it’s really not much effort at all to push it live. The build is already in Apple’s system – you've got to fill out a couple more form fields and click submit. So looking at it that way… he gets hundreds of users, keeps pushing new builds to those users on a regular basis for three years, but never submits it to go through the public App Store review process. If I were Apple, I’d think he was probably trying to bypass the review process as well. Apps with a public invitation link are common, but this behaviour is not. But yes, they should talk to him about it and this is a failure on Apple’s part even if he is acting suspiciously. I’ve been saying for a while that Apple need a VP of Developer Relations to take ownership of this type of thing, because it seems clear nobody owns it at the moment.
RubenvanE 6y ago
But to what extent is it 'publicly distributing' when the app has only 200 users. It sounds more like an extended beta than a 'clever' way to circumvent the app review process. And, as the author extensively explains, the major sin of Apple is not that they removed the app from Testflight, but that threaten to suspend his developer account completely and give no explanation _why_, even after multiple attempts of the author to reach out to Apple to solve this situation.
dan1234 6y ago
> TestFlight is a dev tool. Its not for production deployment. Its meant for beta testing. If that's the case, surely the better action would be for Apple to just remove the app from Testflight (and maybe reset the list so testers have to sign up again)?
tuwtuwtuwtuw 6y ago
There's not two sides of every story as long as Apple acts the way they do. As for TestFlight lengths - if you are required to guess what the issue is you have already proven his point.

sunaurus 6y ago

I really hate this current reality of having to use social media channels for a chance of proper customer support. Are there any initiatives that are working against this? I would be happy to contribute to any kind of platform or movement or whatever that aims to mitigate/fix this.

bsaul 6y ago

This kind of post infuriates me. As an iOS developer for 10 years, i can guarantee you that there are probably hundreds (if not thousands) of stories like that, with people getting shut down for no good reason, and having their business killed. It's now so bad people are refraining from trying out innovative business model or apps just because they think there could be a chance someone at apple validation wouldn't like it and kill the product at any time. I wish the Hey story makes people realize it is not reasonable to have one actor control the only software distribution channel to hundred of millions of customers. I'm fine with apple wanting to provide a highly curated experience to their users by having them download apps from a store they control. But this shouldn't be the only option.

0-O-0 6y ago
I wish the Hey story makes people realise that we can't depend on benevolence of two corporations and should be working on open platforms.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Open platforms are great (and they are, I say this as a Fedora user who just finished an install via dnf'ing all the things) but they lack the money which translates to marketing that large corporations have, it's not a case of a level playing field, we are playing two different games on entirely different fields and ours is mostly uphill. When your opposition has an absolute chokehold on major markets it's a near unassailable position - throw in that the vast vast majority of users simply don't care whether an app store is open or not or know why they should care - attention is finite and the only way things will improve is if governments lead it and well see my earlier paragraph about who has the money...
  - 0-O-0 6y ago
    Apple and Google are not primordial forces. At some point they've started small and had to compete/coexist with IBM, Yahoo etc. There are still emerging markets and space for innovation. And next innovation might be based on something open, like Ubuntu Touch.

coder1001 6y ago

Startup idea for anyone who is interested: Paid customer service where the customer pays money (say $100-$1k depending on how serious the issue is) and each company can have a special channel to respond to these paid requests and be compensated (say 80% of the fee the customer pays). That way companies will have the will and ability to attend to serious issues and filter them out from the "useless" customer requests that flood any large size business.

pjc50 6y ago
This is how the Microsoft paid support channel works: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4341255/support-for-business https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4341255/support-for...
dragonwriter 6y ago
The companies that want to sell dedicated support and the people who want to buy it are already selling and buying it. And since, outside of FOSS that the customer controls hosting of, and some other special cases, only the original vendor, with whom the user will have interacted to get the software, will be able to provide support, so there's not a lot of matchmaking/discovery to be done to justify a middleman taking a cut.
mmkos 6y ago
In the UK and least there exists a service like that - resolver.co.uk. I have used it once and got a response from the company that I complained about. I thought that was rather neat.

planb 6y ago

An interesting spin of the story would be if Apple announced an intel to arm migration kit called "Mignori" next week at WWDC...

0-O-0 6y ago

This title could really benefit from some punctuation.

aasasd 6y ago

> I know of developers who were instantly terminated and all their apps removed. Luckily this has not happened to me. Well there you have it. The rest of devs will be happy they're still under Apple's wing, and nothing will change.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

I can only speak for myself, but I have had a number of interactions with the review team, and I have always ended up communicating with a human; although they would often paste “talking points” into their replies. Because of the nature of a couple of my apps, I’ve had them bounced for “providing commonly available services” (i.e. competing with OS tools). In each instance, I have appealed, citing some unique features, and have prevailed. I think that reviewers have a number of “1-button” responses, provided by some kind of dashboard, in order to ensure a narrative is maintained. This is actually common for many customer interaction scenarios. I don’t like it, but understand why it happens. I’ll bet that the more heated an exchange gets, the more “canned” these responses become, because...lawyers. He may, in fact, be communicating with a human, who keeps hitting canned response buttons (not much different from ‘bots). I’ve wondered whether or not folks might use TestFlight for “shadow release.” I have seen app makers use Enterprise in that fashion. I have no idea (or opinion) on whether or not that was the case, here. I’m not sure I would want to pursue my case in the court of public opinion. It’s a risky gambit, but this chap may feel he has nothing to lose. EDIT: One thing that I should mention, is that I never have a release in TestFlight for more than a few days. It has a "time bomb"; I think, maybe 60 or 90 days. That means, in order to maintain an app in TF for three years, he'd need to keep re-releasing every couple of months. That speaks to some kind of intent.

kalleboo 6y ago
Yeah app review have been surprisingly reasonable to deal with, from the "they seem like humans" point of view. It sounds like OP is dealing with the account fraud department instead
mrtksn 6y ago
Yep, I had rejections too and I have always managed come to an understanding with the review team. I even had the reviewer call me to explain why he would reject the app and give me an idea to fix the issue. He even gave me his phone number and working hours so I can call him if I had further questions. It wasn’t a fun process but I like having a human contact on the other side of the things. Sometimes I think, people having issues must be omitting some part of the story because I am not a big-time publisher, I have no privilege but at the same time, I don’t have these problems of ”evil Apple destroying the little guy” sort. "Apple threatens to close my developer account" is a very different situation from Hey's disagreement with the business practices of Apple.

sabujp 6y ago

govt's need to catch up and start setting some rules. App stores have gotten so large that they essentially become like real estate or store space. You can't just have a few stores control all the means of distribution.

withinboredom 6y ago
I imagine some cities already have laws around this for farmer markets, flea markets, etc. It would be interesting (and hilarious) if cities started trying to enforce those laws on Apple, like they did for taxes.

odshoifsdhfs 6y ago

`While the first version of this app was on the App Store from 2014 to 2016, I removed it in that last year because the app stopped working properly with most Boorus, and it was broken for most users. Since then, I started developing a new version called “Mignori 3”, which has never hit the App Store. It has been on TestFlight for a while.` So basically he was calling something a 'beta' and distributing it through Testflight for 3 years. Yep, no clear reason here. Big Apple bad! Apple has a lot of problems, and I agree, but most of these 'developer stories about mean Apple' always have two sides of the story. I remember the same outrage about Kapeli's Dash situation, and then came out an account in his name was doing fraudulent activities ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12680131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12680131 )

chris_wot 6y ago
So it was in beta for three years. What of it? That's hardly fraudulent. If something is in beta, then it's... in beta. He wasn't selling it.
- odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
  He was using Testflight to distribute it on his website. This has been a nono to do for a long time. You may not agree with it, but them are the rules.
  - chris_wot 6y ago
    You are speculating though. Do you know for sure that is the fraudulent activity that Apple are referring to?
    - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
      No, I can't say for sure, but it is A reason to terminate the account, and since this post is called 'Apple is threatening to terminate my developer account with no clear reason' I believe it is the case. We will never know the real reason as Apple probably won't provide it, but there is a violation of their rules, even if the termination was because something else, they are still entitled to close it based on the violation.

CannisterFlux 6y ago

Have I misunderstood something, or is this app's main goal to view Japanese comics infringing copyright in some way? That's probably the reason it was pulled. Sure it has other uses, plausible deniability, but what did the guy expect?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

lcnmrn 6y ago

We need third party app stores and there should be a section on the Apple App Store dedicated for installing these.

vaxman 6y ago
This.

wprapido 6y ago

Had a horror experience with PayPal. Lost tons of cash. Getting paid became incredibly difficult.

nromiun 6y ago

> The big problem is that when Apple tells you that the reasons “are not limited” the ones they listed, it could be anything. They could call my face ugly and remove me from the Developer Program under that reason and tell me it was because of “fraud”. <rant> Seriously, just how hard is it for these companies to communicate properly? Would it kill them to send something like "We saw X on your account so we are closing your account temporarily. Contact us.". Instead it is just "We closed your account. Get screwed.". This is why so many developers are going the web app way these days. Dealing with a closed platform who won't even talk to you is just infuriating. Sorry for the rant.

qhwudbebd 6y ago
Apple's strategy against the web app workaround appears to be two-pronged: abandon any pretence at maintaining webkit whilst continuing locking out more competent browser engines. Even Microsoft in the IE era didn't actively ban Netscape from running on their platform...
- leadingthenet 6y ago
  WebKit is clearly being actively maintained, though. And, might I add, Safari performs way better for me than Chrome, on macOS.
  - realusername 6y ago
    > WebKit is clearly being actively maintained, though. Depends what you call "actively maintained", I would call it on life support personally, it's lacking very far behind the other engines.
    - leadingthenet 6y ago
      How can that possibly be the case if it's becoming more, not less, standards compliant and performant?! Additionally, it even manages to outperform Blink in certain use cases / benchmarks, especially after the last major update or so. It might not be Apple's bread and butter like Blink is for Google, but I see no obvious signs of WebKit dying, though I'm open to proof to the contrary.

seemslegit 6y ago

Impudent code serf thinks he's owed reasoning by his corporate lord.

redis_mlc 6y ago
Nice framing. :)

monokh 6y ago

The consequence of playing in a walled garden. Is there still no way to release an iPhone app out with the iOS app store?

sabujp 6y ago
yes, you can i heard instacart for example uses their enterprise cert signed app for their drivers/deliverers. Drivers are instructed to go into settings and change things to allow loading that app
- lukeramsden 6y ago
  I wouldn't call that an alternative to the App Store, as that's exactly what the enterprise certs are for - internal distribution to employees (or more likely in this case to be contractors but whatever). Getting regular users to go in to settings and change things just to install your app is not feasible.
hellofunk 6y ago
Not unless you make it open source and require your users to download and compile it to their device with Xcode on their own. Not going to work for most, and without a developer account, they'd have to redeploy to their device every week, since that's how long the license lasts.

franze 6y ago

> Mignori is a client for Image Board websites (we informally call “Boorus”). These image boards are popular in the anime community, although there can be image boards for anything you can think of. I just googled this, found some references to the anime image boards. Most were Hentai / Porn. If the main purpose of an app is viewing adult content, its main purpose is viewing adult content - even if you have to add the ressources yourself. (I might be wrong, I don't have a clue about the Boorus community). So prop. Apples "Freedom from Porn"approach?

paganel 6y ago
In that case they should ban browsers, too (which in a way they do, there's a de-facto WebKit monopoly on iOS).
- maweki 6y ago
  But in a browser you'd had to enter the url yourse... oh, yeah, nevermind
- franze 6y ago
  Honeslty if the browser would be invented in 2020 they prop. would.
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    prop? What does that mean?
    - catalogia 6y ago
      Probably 'probably.'
sabujp 6y ago
yea i had a feeling it was going towards this...
whywhywhywhy 6y ago

BiteCode_dev 6y ago

And Apple is not even an isolated case. Google will close gmail accounts, take away adsense revenues, or remove youtube videos on a whim. Visa blocked users from giving their money to political causes they decided didn't aligned with their view of the world. For years Microsoft made it super hard to buy hardware without paying the Windows licence. They killed xbox remotely. They have invasive telemetry in Win 10. Paypal may refuse to pay the money you have on their account at any moment. Your money, no appeal. Twitter and facebook censorship rules are on a case by case basis. If your famous, you may be able to use hate speech. I you are an anonymous political activist, China may ask for your shut down. Big companies exist to make money. If they get too much power, they will abuse it. Not because they are evil, but because it's the logical thing to do for them. This is why I was advocating in another comment that we should not use WhatsApp new payment system: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553455 Thinking about the power we give to big entities is a central mechanism to build the society we live on. That's why we should think about what we buy, the media we consumme, etc. They are votes, just as much as during an election.

BruceEel 6y ago
> Thinking about the power we give to big entities is a central mechanism to build the society we live on. That's why we should think about what we buy, the media we consumme, etc. Elsewhere on HN today we have 'On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B (1975) [pdf] (web.mit.edu)' https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23549203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23549203 in a way, you could say it applies to this whole situation quite well.
philliphaydon 6y ago
I had about 12 domains once and decided to park them as I was busy, set them all up on adsense, went to all the domains to make sure they all worked, a couple I refreshed a few times as it wasn't working properly. The next day I got an email saying my adsense was closed for 'fake views / clicks', no way to challenge it or anything. That was like 10 years ago. I still can't use adsense to this day.
- 6y ago

sabujp 6y ago

where is this ? https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/tech/apple-app-store-supreme-court/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/13/tech/apple-app-store-supreme-...

LatteLazy 6y ago

You get the same thing with YouTube creators (plus they get bogus or spurious copyright flags with the same result). If we're going to have these big platforms (and I'd include Steam, Amazon, YouTube etc) then we need to have legislation giving their clients basic, non-waivable rights to a quick and independent review and reasonable treatment. Sadly the law seems to be headed in the opposite direction (requiring platforms to do more "moderation").

jpalomaki 6y ago

Might be that they just don’t like the idea of image board browser. Apple is somewhat strict on what kind of content the apps are providing to user (See ”Objectionable Content” [1]) Techically this is of course just like web browser, but Apple could see it differently. [1] Objectionable Content

kalleboo 6y ago
Then you reject the app in App Review, not terminate the account for "Fraud"

donedanadone 6y ago

Walled garden behaves exactly as intended. Everyone is surprised. -- Alternate Title

ezoe 6y ago

If you need an online SaaS account, that can be remotely disabled, to develop and distribute your software, you have been already lost anyway. Forget that useless malicious platform already. It's not worth it.

mhee 6y ago

TestFlight has its limitations, unfortunately. It is not a distribution platform, it is not intended to be active for longer than 90 days without updates and should not be monetized https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#beta-testing https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#bet... I encourage you to read through the entire AppStore guidelines, there might be more sections that apply to Apple's decision to terminate the account I didn't read through all of your privacy policy on the app's website, but definitely worthwhile to cross check it with the AppStore guidelines as well.

princekolt 6y ago
You can’t monetize an app in test flight. All purchases are fake and collect no money. This argument is bullshit. I know a bunch of apps that have been in TestFlight for ages, and they’re all up and well.
- mhee 6y ago
  No need for your unconstructive argument "Note, however, that apps using TestFlight cannot be distributed to testers in exchange for compensation of any kind, including as a reward for crowd-sourced funding." If you have taken the time to read the information posted you would see that the information is relevant on monetization outside of the app. I am just giving possible considerations for the author that they haven't consider in the article, we don't know how the app link has been distributed throughout the last 3 years, maybe they posted a donation link somewhere before and Apple considered this as compensation for the beta distribution of the app.
xiphias2 6y ago
I don't see the 90 days rule in those guidelines. As others have said, GMail was 5 years in beta, it's normal for products to be in beta for years as long as they are not monatized. Maybe he didn't get the updates reviewed according to the guidelines though.
- mhee 6y ago
  Yeah maybe this was it. Any significant changes must be reviewed again. But from the way it sounds the author was not actively developing the application, so I am not sure how many changes went into each 90 day revision, perhaps Apple does not look kindly on resubmitting a build just for the sake of resetting the TestFlight 90 day activity counter. This might be seen as a way to try and avoid deployment and the final app review process. The 90 day counter is mentioned here https://testflight.apple.com/ https://testflight.apple.com/ Look for it under "Testing" From the way I have understood the 90 day counter before is that the app should be updated with new functionality/patches to be more beta tested, otherwise your app is obviously not being developed so no need for beta testing anymore

goblin89 6y ago

For someone who’s considering getting into Apple Developer program: should Apple Developer account be separate from primary Apple ID used across devices? And if not, and a single Apple ID is also used for development, (1) can it remain intentionally unassociated with any payment method in any specific country, and (2) is there a threat of losing it if Developer account is terminated for some unfathomable reason?

TheKarateKid 6y ago
If your personal Apple ID is on most of your devices, absolutely. If it’s a business ID then I’d still say you have little to lose by using a separate one for the Dev account. You can even switch IDs on iOS for using the App Store if you need to login using the dev account.

tsp 6y ago

Apple’s decisions in the last 5 years are causing more and more of my developer friends to move away. Bringing back the escape key on the MacBook Pro won’t change that. If Apple were not years behind PWA integration, switching to a PWA instead of native app might be an option. But this is sadly not in Apple’s interest. I wonder how many people will choose Android over Apple in the future because of PWAs. I can imagine there will be a flood of useful PWAs, freely to use and only fully working on Android, not Apple.

ratel 6y ago

I keep reading these comments on HN of people trying to guess on what the reason is Apple, Google or who else is terminating accounts, apps, videos or monetizing opportunities. Usually accompanied by a tone of voice telling people they should have known better. The point is: Your guess is as good as mine. The fact is that those companies are not telling people what they did wrong and even more persuasive these days not explaining why their apparent transgression is leading to a particular punishment. Or how that transgression fits the punishment. I for one will not subject myself to such a form of tyranny. In this case even if having your app in TestFlight too long, why is now (3 years in) the time to revoke the app? Having 200 test users is too much. Why not tell people beforehand they exceeded a limit if that is your rule? Lets say you are invited into a country as a citizen, but the conditions are: You can be punished arbitrarily, even banished, without recourse, harassed, given arbitrary commands by minions. You pay a 30% tax on all your proceeds, but your proceeds are your sole responsibility. There is no right to have your grievances addressed by the tyrant, not even by one of the lower minions. Would you go? I will not. Now say you already find yourself in such a country. I'm sorry for you. I think I would organize and try to collectively have those rights improved.

g_p 6y ago

At this point I am hopeful (but not optimistic) that the EU competition/antitrust investigation [1] might go somewhere and get an outcome. The trouble with investigations like these, as we all know from previous cases, is they tend to drag on rather than yield rapid outcomes. In this case, it seems we've sleepwalked into a situation where there are conflicts of interest like never really seen before - companies with global scale, able to arbitrarily decide which competition they wish to allow to be present on "their" marketplace, and make them either raise their price by 30%, or be 30% less profitable. Resolving these conflicts, and recognising these aren't simple "creation of a moat", but rather some actual, tangible, anti-competitive practices would be a good starting point. But what is the outcome? Apple's view is "we're protecting users from bad things on the internet", but perhaps this kind of arbitrary decision-making is not one to be getting made arbitrarily? [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1073 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...

rimliu 6y ago
We already have the cookie law. Do you need another gift from EU?
- g_p 6y ago
  GDPR itself is a lot more than the "cookie law", and in my view most people are mis-interpreting and mis-applying it. Any site that won't let you in without accepting their tracking cookies is actually breaking GDPR. If we enforced the law as written, I think the "cookie law" would be a net positive for everyone. In terms of who deals with the anti competitive situation, I don't think that matters. But this is textbook market distortion that traditional antitrust laws were made for, and I think it's high time we saw them used to break up anti-competitive market practices.

nablaone 6y ago

Irony. You can publish a book without a publisher right now. But you have to rely on publisher will if you want to publish an app.

fareesh 6y ago

From what I understand, in the free market system we consider things to be anti-competitive, anti-consumer, etc. when a corporation has some kind of market dominance acquired through earning the trust of consumers, and once they have obtained that trust, they abuse it by imposing a set of self-serving conditions on the market which serves their own interest in some way at the cost of some other player in the market - either consumer or competitor or someone else. To enable this countries and regions have drafted laws to govern what business and trade practices are permissible. Some non-rhetorical questions out of curiosity because I genuinely don't know: Is it illegal for supermarkets to only partner with certain brands and carry their products over those of their competitors? If there is only 1 Walmart within driving distance of 50,000 people, and that Wal-Mart chooses to throw out all toilet paper brands and sell their store brand, is this allowed under current law? What if they allow the brand to stay if they pay an additional whimsical commission to Wal-Mart? Is that legal? Is there something that makes the App store different from the physical store equivalent? Putting aside the letter of the law, does it violate the aforementioned "spirit" of the law? i.e. ought there be laws against this kind of behaviour? I am sure there are good arguments for both sides.

jedieaston 6y ago
The App Store is different than in your example. In your example, I could put up a store myself called Toilet Paper Warehouse, and probably be successful in that town given that nobody else sells the toilet paper consumers desire. Whereas if the App Store is Walmart, then the iPhone is the town, but the town has a law on the books that says "No stores except Walmart can be in this town!". Consumers don't get the toilet paper they value, and Walmart can control the supply. In exchange, Walmart makes sure that nobody sells toilet paper with poison ivy on it, and guarantees that residents will have to go to the bathroom less than if they sold non-Walmart toilet paper. The problem is that the iPhone itself isn't a monopoly. You can buy an Android phone that can access any store and install any app you want, so monopoly law doesn't apply (in the strictest sense). Now, one could say that you shouldn't have to move towns just because your favorite toilet paper isn't sold. But as it stands today, you have to, as I understand it. (With that being said, Apple, start acting right.)

read_if_gay_ 6y ago

Where are the people arguing that it’s fine because private companies can do whatever they want?

dhsysusbsjsi 6y ago

I once had Apple reject an iOS app update citing IP violations because we had an in-app settings page using a stock UITableViewController with default UITableViewCells with UISwitch in the accessory view (on the right) and vanilla text. Literally no styling. Apparently it looked too much like the iPad Settings app. Insane.

RNCTX 6y ago

The article doesn't pass the smell test to me. By his own description of what it does, I'd say the app is highly likely to be selling access to content that the author hasn't licensed, and is on sketchy copyright grounds. Also, the fact that a vote manipulation app... https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21122737/iowa-democractic-caucus-voting-app-android-testfairy-screenshots-app-store https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21122737/iowa-democractic-... ...was distributed via a test platform with the financial backing of former Clinton and Obama / recent Pete Buttigieg staffers... https://apnews.com/5232ce5601996c1de440806ad30fa4fb https://apnews.com/5232ce5601996c1de440806ad30fa4fb ...has likely put Apple in the position of being compelled to more actively police what goes on in test apps. I get the knee-jerk tendency to blame corporate oppression of indie developers since that is usually what we see from the Googles and Microsofts of the world, but Apple has little monetary interest in kicking a successful app developer off of their ecosystem, unless that app developer is blatantly flaunting civil / criminal statutes or trying to scam Apple out of their cut of the profit. If I had a to guess I'd say this guy is doing both.

thomaslord 6y ago
If you read the article, you'll find that the app itself doesn't even link to any content by default and you have to explicitly enter a data source yourself. Also, I'd say referring to that app (however problematic it was, and I agree they did a terrible job building and deploying it) as a "vote manipulation app" is unnecessarily inflammatory. > distributed via a test platform with the financial backing of former Clinton and Obama / recent Pete Buttigieg staffers This implies that TestFlight has financial backing from those groups. Maybe that's just unclear wording, but interpreted as written the claim is unsupported by the provided source. Assuming you meant to say the Iowa caucus app was supported by those former staffers, it should be clarified that the company who made the app also provided services to those campaigns. I wouldn't consider Shadow Inc. to be competent as a technology company, but it doesn't surprise me that Democrats would buy political tech from a company founded by people who worked on digital outreach for the most recent Democratic presidential campaign.
- RNCTX 6y ago

Razengan 6y ago

I specifically opened HN just now to see if there were any negative posts about Apple, given that WWDC is in a few days, and like clockwork, there it is.

skoskie 6y ago
What are you implying?

zepto 6y ago

We do need legislation here. I would suggest requiring cause to be stated for account termination or threatened termination, and a formal right of appeal to request evidence. Of course this would be onerous for the smallest businesses, so we’d need some threshold for when it kicks in. E.g. 2 years, or $1,000 of transactions. This wouldn’t make any particular kind of termination illegal. It would simply force transparency, so that then if there really are abuses or patterns of abuse taking place, we can expose them. It would also apply to all businesses - Google, Banks, Gyms, whatever.

cryptica 6y ago

That's why I often don't bother with Apple. If it doesn't work on OSX or iOS, too bad. People have to learn that Apple is not good for them or for society and I'm happy to make my products unavailable to Apple users to help them to learn that valuable life lesson. Just find an alternative business strategy that doesn't rely on Apple. You can't rely on them. They don't give a crap about developers and never have. Why do all developers keep enabling them? Seriously, just sacrifice a small % of your income by ignoring Apple and you will help make the world a better place. Developers have to stand up for themselves.

buboard 6y ago

What is the revenue potential of app store apps? Any studies or surveys on the matter?

lawrenceong 6y ago

here's my thought on the "raging" debate -- what if, just what if, we are free to set up "stores" where our computing devices can connect to without liability and with the same level of complexity as with the default one being offered up? walled gardens create opportunities for abuse, which, unfortunately for us hapless developers, impose yet another level of bureaucracy.

mobiledev2014 6y ago

"In the last few days, Next Anime Episode has started to receive an unusual number of 1-Star reviews and all in a quick sucession, so I am starting to think that someone is targetting me for god knows what reason" Speculation but my money would be on some unethical competitor or even just a jerk who doesn't like Andy is spamming negative reviews and reported him to Apple for fraud. Since I've never heard of this happening, I don't know if Apple's fraud department takes a guilty-until-innocent approach or if they agreed fraud occurred. Either way the lack of transparency and communication is not right. I'll echo sentiments that I've spoken to humans about app issues but never about fraud.

Aeolun 6y ago

Oh FFS, well, up to the top you go. Maybe someone at Apple will see this and poke their friends in App Store Review or something. We really shouldn’t have to do that kind of shit.

taylus 6y ago

> All the skills I have built over the course of almost a decade are obsolete now, because I do not imagine myself working for other people as an iOS dev without having my own hobby iOS apps on the App Store. It feels like all the blogging I have been doing has been a waste because I cannot participate in the knowledge I myself write, and it’s pointless to engage in the knowledge of others if I cannot try what they write. The fact that a faceless entity can lock you out of developing like this is just wrong. I fear for the future of such closed off ecosystems.

ta17711771 6y ago

Please build progressive web apps. There's not much they can't do, now.

vaxman 6y ago
They can malfunction due to changes in the device runtime anytime the OEM chooses, so no.