19 ms·

Apple apologizes to WordPress, won’t force the free app to add purchases

518 points by pier25 6y ago

edoceo 6y ago
I was worried about this. I'm small potatoes but we make an open source app that can connect to self-hosted or paid-hosted services. So if they could have forced WP, they could have easily forced me too, now there is a baseline set. To even get approved we had to make sure the App doesn't offer any sign-up or even billing info at all. And still went round and round for approval explaining how paid services, if any, are completely outside Apple realm.
- g_p 6y ago
  Your post here exemplifies why apple's behaviour is so problematic - you're left trying to adhere to a set of rules that even Apple can't manage to enforce consistently and correctly, facing the risk of having to pay an unexpected 30% tax on sales (and effectively have to raise prices accordingly). Hopefully this logic is enough to get Apple in bother during their antitrust suits and Investigations - it seems quite ironic they are getting into scuffles 2 days before the first hearing in the epic case is scheduled (iirc - for the restraining motion). It would be nice if small businesses and innovators could get on with innovating, rather than ensuring they comply with arcane rent seeking behaviour by a giant that won't let you distribute your app without offering them their cut. Google is little better though here - their old Android market terms even titled a clause "non-competition". Unsurprisingly this has disappeared - I assume this doesn't comply with their "avoiding antitrust" dictionary of banned phrases.
  - threeseed 6y ago
    It is not a tax on sales. It is the cost of using their channel to market. If you host the app yourself on your website then how are people going to discover it. For most developers they would buy ads or invest in content or influencer marketing. Those marketing costs are your channel to market and obviously aren't a tax. It's hilarious watching so many people on HN discuss this topic who are completely naive and ignorant to the realities of customer acquisition. Apple and Google hand you customers on a silver platter for the bargain, consistent price of 30%. Whereas as a startup I have to pay much higher to Facebook and Google for PPC ads.
    - mchusma 6y ago
      It's a tax if you bring the customer and do all the work. Which most app developers do. It they charged 3% for customers you bring and 30% for customers they bring, your point would be more valid.
      - renaicirc 6y ago
        His point also misses the fact that Apple obviously denies you the ability to self-distribute.
      - threeseed 6y ago
        Please provide evidence of this. There are millions of app developers and you are saying that most of them are doing customer acquisition external to the App Store ? Because I just did various searches for note taking and productivity apps on my phone and no one is buying ads. From my experience only the larger app developers invest in their own customer acquisition whilst the rest all rely on app discovery.
        stale2002 6y ago
        > There are millions of app developers and you are saying that most of them are doing customer acquisition external to the App Store ? They can't do customer aquisition external to the App store because Apple prevents them from doing so. Thats the very problem. Apple won't allow other app stores to compete, and you can't just download an app from someone's website, and install it. Apple prevents you from doing so. They don't even offer some hidden setting which says "Allow 3rd party apps, warning, warning, warning, this could make your device less secure".
    - devit 6y ago
      How so? The only "help" that an app store can give you is that your app can show up in search result in the app store. But that's only a problem because customers are used to searching in that app store (and that's because it's the only one on the platform). If there was no app store, customers would search on the web, and it turns out that Google Web Search and Bing don't refuse to link to sites that don't give them 30% commission on sales. Of course PPC ads cost money, but obviously app stores don't let you be a top result on arbitrary searches for free (since obviously that's a limited resource, so it's impossible to do that), so that seems a spurious comparison.
- xenospn 6y ago
  This is so weird. I've removed and added in-app subscriptions to my app multiple times and never had any problems getting it approved. Even now my app is redirecting users to my website to purchase subscriptions, and never had an issue getting past the review process.
  - 7tsfmCAusrQ 6y ago
    Watch out, you are sitting on a ticking time bomb. It's just a matter of time.
    - xenospn 6y ago
      I'm selling physical products so I'm not too worried.
bostonvaulter2 6y ago
I'm glad that Apple backed down this time. > What’s more, Mullenwag told us that he had previously offered to strip other mentions of the paid plans out of the app (even workarounds like when a user views a preview of their own WordPress webpage and then navigates to WordPress.com), only to have those suggestions rejected by Apple. Having to remove those kinds of work-arounds is part of what bugs me about apples control over the app store.
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  Consider that they backed down only when it became a popular news story at exactly the worst time for them to have it (because of Epic).
  - threeseed 6y ago
    No evidence that it's tied to publicity. We've seen dozens of situations like this over the years and often we find out that Apple and the developers were discussing behind the scenes way before it was public.
    - edgyquant 6y ago
      There's little point the anti-apple hive mind is too strong on HN
  - bostonvaulter2 6y ago
    Yeah, that is why included the "this time"
  - kergonath 6y ago
    Well, we’ll never know if it would have turned out differently at another time. They can be stubborn, but they can also recognise mistakes and correct them. That said, there is no comparison: forcing a developer to add features to an app is nothing like enforcing the TOS the developer agreed with and is trying to subvert.
    - 6y ago
social_quotient 6y ago
Makes me think that at some point showing a restaurant menu with prices is soon going to get the ire of Apple for suggesting an offline monetization that they aren’t a part of.
- dsparkman 6y ago
  They will require you to only accept Apple Pay in your restaurant, or you will have to remove your app from the app store. :)
  - madeofpalk 6y ago
    Well, at least Apple doesn't take a cut from restaurants for Apple Pay.
    - commoner 6y ago
      Apple collects 0.15% of all credit card transactions made through Apple Pay for US-based cards. The percentage is higher for the Apple Card, of course. https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-loses-key-mobile-payment-feesgoogle-misses-out-on-apples-slice-of-mobile-transactions-1433546638 https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-loses-key-mobile-payment... https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/10/apple-pay-credit-card-is-coming-backed-by-goldman-sachs/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/10/apple-pay-credit-card-is-...
      - Google234 6y ago
        They can’t take 0, the service isn’t freee to develop
        Marsymars 6y ago
        They can take 0, that's Google's cut on Google Pay.
        yungstevejobs 6y ago
rubber_duck 6y ago
Really at this point Apple control over app store is anti-competitive (and Google over play store), having to rely on community outrage to get stuff like this turned is ridiculous. They should create legislation to control access to all app stores to prevent this rent seeking - force app stores to treat all apps equally according to store defined guidelines (including store owners apps) - any submissions have to be reviewed in a reasonable amount of time and if declined must receive specific violations of the guidelines on which the denial is based. Also make the "no outside payment inside of apps" illegal. Suddenly the value add of the store streamlined experience has to be justified vs. other payment options - and you'll see the fees drop significantly closer to market level (and it will still be profitable for store owners and they will still invest money in developing/maintaining it).
- g_p 6y ago
  One of the biggest issues with Google play store review is they won't actually tell developers which rule they're breaking, as you point out. This is so incredibly developer-hostile that the fact developers keep using the play store pretty much helps make the case they're acting in an anticompetitive manner. It certainly is interesting to note Google removed the title "Non-competition" from clause 4.5 of their developer agreement some time ago. It's still in the archived version on archive.org though, from back when it was called the Android market... Removing the title but leaving the clause intact doesn't mask the anti-competitive behaviour!
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    This is really shoddy behaviour. Is it just laziness on their part or is there a benefit to them to keep developers guessing?
    - save_ferris 6y ago
      Just a WAG but I think it allows them to maintain total control over the playing field. They get to choose which apps best suit their interests in their market and apply the rules inconsistently to apps that somehow don't align with their interests.
traveler01 6y ago
Apple is being too ridiculous at this point. Devs need App Store but Apple also need devs. Being so hostile is going to hurt them pretty bad, both for Apple and for Google.
- chromedev 6y ago
  Google already allows apps outside the Play Store, and third party app stores as well
  - scarface74 6y ago
    How did that work out for a Fortnite?
    - donmcronald 6y ago
      Badly. Google needs to be regulated too.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        Because Google had scary warnings that downloading Fortnite from outside the App Store my lead to security vulnerabilities. Where did they ever get that idea from? https://www.cnet.com/news/just-as-critics-feared-fortnite-for-android-came-with-an-epic-security-risk/ https://www.cnet.com/news/just-as-critics-feared-fortnite-fo...
    - chromedev 6y ago
      I use F-Droid everyday to install and manage apps outside the Play Store and it works out fine for me. Android is also open source. If I don't like the way something is done then I'm free to change it, and there are multiple ROMs that I can choose from as well.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        Good luck with the “open source” version of Android and running apps that depend on Google Play Services.
slow_donkey 6y ago
An issue I haven't seen previously discussed is Apple's enforcement of their "Business" guideline (3.2) which effectively prevents certain b2b apps from making it onto the App Store because the app is supposedly not available to a wide enough consumer audience. This is a very subjective policy because popular b2b apps such as Slack, Zendesk, etc which have a wide reach are allowed, but more industry specific b2b apps are rejected even if our theoretical user base spans 10s of thousands of people simply because only clients of the business are able to use the app. And btw this policy is not actually encoded in their rules[1] but 3.2 is the code they cite when rejecting your app. The rejection wording is as follows [2]: "During our review, we found that this app was designed for a specific business or organization and not for general distribution on the App Store. Business apps available on the App Store are meant for use by a wide variety of external customers around the world. As this app is not intended for general distribution, it cannot be made available on the App Store. We encourage you to review the other ways to distribute your business app and choose one that better meets your business needs." [1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ [2] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/122473 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/122473 (not actually my thread but same rejection copy)
- easton 6y ago
  Then there’s things like this: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hondamobile/id1455573927 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hondamobile/id1455573927 Which is an app specifically for Honda internal employees and it still passed review.
  - slow_donkey 6y ago
    Wow that's mind boggling. It's possible that's a whitelabeled app developed by a different company which has greater overall reach. But yes, this is exactly why Apple's subjective enforcement of invisible policies is so enraging - it's like you need to negotiate some secret backdoor deal just to get your app into the store.
- donmcronald 6y ago
  > We encourage you to review the other ways to distribute your business app and choose one that better meets your business needs." At least that won't take long. Lol.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
protomyth 6y ago
Calling that an apology is a bit rich. It wasn't "confusion" that was the problem, it was forcing monetization that was the problem. They basically say it was all WordPress's fault.
- userbinator 6y ago
  Apple tends to use that sort of language (corporate doublespeak?) a lot.
7tsfmCAusrQ 6y ago
As an app developer myself, with apps on both the Google Play Store and the App Store with over 250K monthly active users, I have become so frustrated with Apple's arbitrary and capricious enforcement of its App Store regulations, its bullying and coercion of developers, its extortionate fees, and its monopolistic anti-competitive practices, that I have stopped updating my apps on the App Store. I wonder how many other developers are in a similar position. As a consumer, I now know that if I want the latest, up to date apps, I'm better off turning to the Play Store or one of the many other app stores that can be used on Android devices. I've also given up on the MacBook line, tired of the touch bar, the slate-like keyboards, and (now) the transition to ARM. My next laptop will be a Thinkpad or Dell. Most of my development these days is done under Windows using WSL2, and my primary focus is on Android. It used to be that my apps made more money on Apple devices, but now I actually make more on Android. The Google Play review process is a breeze compared to Apple's laborious and stifling rules (although it is not perfect either by any means), and at some point, it's just not worth the hassle. It's sad, I was an enthusiastic endorser of Apple products just 7 years ago, but can no longer recommend them. This is the first year I won't be buying a new iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, too - I'm looking to switch to the Pixel or Samsung Galaxy line and Wear OS. I'd like to see regulation that forces Apple and Google to allow any and all app stores on their devices, and the process of installing apps through those stores must be, by law, equally easy and straightforward as through their own stores (i.e., no security warnings or other jank). The law should make illegal restricting developers to any specific payment processor(s), too.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  I became a millionaire through both app stores and I have no complaints whatsoever about them. You’re a whiny cunt and you have zero clout. Your opinion is worthless. You are no one.
- userbinator 6y ago
  I'd like to see regulation that forces Apple and Google to allow any and all app stores on their devices, and the process of installing apps through those stores must be, by law, equally easy and straightforward as through their own stores (i.e., no security warnings or other jank). I'm pretty sure that will have massive opposition, because they are deathly scared of opening their devices back to the general-purpose computers they actually are. However, I remain hopeful that people may finally wake up to the "security" excuse and stop sacrificing their freedom.
baby-yoda 6y ago
"The App Store guidelines ensure a high-quality, reliable, and secure user experience. They are transparent and applied equally to developers of all sizes and in all categories." - tim cook i can envision a scenario where apple legal, in preparation for their battle with epic, gave that statement a critical look. after realizing the myriad of exceptions and omissions they have in app store enforcement, they decided they need to run a clean up campaign immediately and the WP app simply ended up a casualty of this process.
metalgearsolid3 6y ago
This should be an unpopular opinion but I kind of respected Apple's previous stance, and I'm in a way a bit disappointed they've backed down, but I think they've needed to because they are moving too quickly. 5 years from now we'll likely see Apple Silicon powering Apple's entire new product lineup, and Swift developers will be deploying software across the entire product lineup with minimal effort. Swift is both quick and safe, so we can hope these new softwares will be both fast, secure and free of critical bugs. This to me is a really interesting and appealing alternative to the frustrating world of slow web apps that invade your privacy and fill your computer with bloat. I don't see Apple's previous stance as being greedy about obtaining a 30% cut, rather it is about trying to bring to fruition a vision of the future where users can perform their computing needs with fast and secure native apps. I hope we don't legislate away such a reasonable opportunity for people to be freed from Google and Facebook invasion.
- chromedev 6y ago
  Google allows you to install apps outside the app store and Android is open source
  - Google234 6y ago
    People can use google then. The vast majority of people around the world use android
    - chromedev 6y ago
      So people don't need to be freed from Google then, they need to be freed from Apple.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        They can be, they can buy an Android.
- rangoon626 6y ago
  The native Facebook app is 250 MB.
makecheck 6y ago
What ultimately made me pull out of the Mac App Store was the fact that publishing with Apple meant “app with customizations to accommodate stupid rules”, and $EVERYWHERE_ELSE meant “upload and be done with it”. If you haven’t checked lately, the Mac App Store is a pathetic ghost town for the most part. On iOS I guarantee that if the App Store had even one alternative, many apps would do the same and bail on Apple, and you’d see a similar ghost store. Also, since Apple loves to compare its grand scheme to how physical stores used to behave, let’s examine that: there isn’t a single physical store that demands to have complete control over everything in the boxes on their shelves. If you open a product box and it contains a card with information, such as a link to the company web site or other stuff, then that’s what you get. If apps followed this sane model, Apple would just let apps put whatever they want “in the box”, including sensible things like INFORMATION about account sign-ups and other products, and links.
- Google234 6y ago
  Um, I would imagine most stores would actually control what’s on and in the box. Every item in Walmart does have to be approved by Walmart first
  - texasbigdata 6y ago
    In popular culture they “suggest” things in the component list to get price down to what they want. The iOS comparable would be Apple suggesting refactoring for performance.....Walmart is much more aggressive
  - imustbeevil 6y ago
    Your bank doesn't force you to buy all of your furniture at Ikea. No one is asking for Apple to give up control of their store. We just want to use a different store, or none at all.
- 7tsfmCAusrQ 6y ago
  > On iOS I guarantee that if the App Store had even one alternative, many apps would do the same and bail on Apple, and you’d see a similar ghost store. Yes, I certainly would, and the only reason I haven't already is I have no other way to get my app into the hands of users who own only Apple phones and tablets.
drummer 6y ago
The only effective way to deal with apple is to vote with your wallet and your development machine. Nothing else will help. They can do with their platform what they want. Start developing for other platforms and take your users with you.
parasubvert 6y ago
I find the group think here to be incredible, and you all will likely be very disappointed when the legal system winds up supporting Apple. Regulating retailers because you don’t like their cut is price controls, which is completely contrary to a free market, and ultimately undermines the end user experience of having a trusted, secure store. Perhaps Google or Apple’s power is so strong as to warrant regulation - but It must be applied fairly, or else it’s just politically corrupt wielding of power against a successful corporation because a part of the supply chain wants a bigger share of the pie. Apple’s behavior is not anti-competitive by any historical measure, as the courts will show when Epic loses both their Google and Apple cases. Antitrust law is always political. Do you really think the Trump or even Biden administrations will punish their most successful company, given the other problems in the economy? Convince them this will lead to more growth and you’ll get your wish. Right now it just seems like grousing. Edit: I could see Europe doing something more intrusive, as is their tendency. However I still think it would have to be legislative and not legal, the arguments are too weak.
- ardit33 6y ago
  are you serious? Historically you are on the wrong side of the argument. MSFT lost their case in the 90s, of 'other' but not that much different reasons... to their core they are anti-competitive. Also we have the break up of the original Bell system and several companies were formed out of it. GOOG and APL most likely will lose this one.
  - parasubvert 6y ago
    Microsoft’s case was about parlaying their monopoly in Windows to the browser space by making Internet Explorer an intrinsic part of Windows. This is completely different from the #1 and #2 smart phone marketshare players charging a 30% cut as the exclusive software reseller to their own platform. The original At&T was allowed to be a monopoly for 80+ years because it was in the public interest. The 1982 breakup was 8 years in the making due to poor management decisions in the 1960s and eroded that trust. Unfortunately the breakup was a failure. The Baby Bells maintained their regional monopolies, grew massively, and got their restrictions removed in the 1996 communications act, and now we have Verizon (2 of the 7 baby bells), AT&T (which is the original monopoly plus 4 of the 7 baby bells) and CenturyLink (the remnants of US West and other independents). The only real competition has come from foreign entrants like T-Mobile. I think you need to take a closer look at the history of antitrust cases. It hasn’t been particularly successful.
rreichman 6y ago
The only way forward is to avoid Apple products. Some are truly great but if you care about freedom and the open web we must avoid Apple.
dang 6y ago
All: could you please not post to threads like this if you're hot under the collar and have passionate feelings for or against $BigCo? It leads to tedious flamewars with people snarking at each other, flaming each other, making generalizations about the other side, and making up accusations of astroturfing (for or against). All of that is against the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. "Boo $BigCo", "yay $BigCo" fan-v.-antifan cage matches are not curious conversation. We want curious conversation.
sn41 6y ago
We should have a GNU like alternative for the mobile. Mobiles are the primary computing devices now, and we should give liberty to the developers to distribute their products as they wish.
- colordrops 6y ago
  Not exactly GNU like, but you could use LineageOS without the Google apps installed. There are other open app stores like FDroid, and you can sideload as well.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Will they use GNU HURD as a Kernel? And have an Emacs based interface?
fastball 6y ago
I think given the nature of modern multi-nationals with vertical integration and hugely diversified product spaces, we need to rethink anti-trust in general. My test is fairly simple: are you generating value and capturing some portion of it at the point of generation, or are you doing something else? Anything that is "something else" should at the very least be questioned. Questions 10x if the party doing "something else" is trying to encourage information asymmetry as part of this. e.g. Apple telling app developers that not only can they not integrate another payment option in their apps, they can't even inform users that such an option exists elsewhere. Arguably the main issue in this case is that Apple is not just requiring themselves to be the payment gateway in transactions where they are involved (getting an app onto your device), they also want to insert themselves into transactions where they provide no value (e.g. subscriptions). In the case of my Spotify subscription, Apple is not paying for bandwidth, payment processing costs, or anything else, but they still get a cut. If you're capturing value from a transaction you're not directly involved in, I think that's a problem. Apple's argument is that they are enabling such things by building the device/operating system, and historically that has been a valid argument, but I think we've come to the point where that just isn't enough anymore. You need to either directly be providing value in that particular transaction, otherwise it's problematic. You just end up with too many cases like this. Is running the App Store expensive? Then charge for actual costs. But this sort of bait and switch of "we're providing distribution but are inserting ourselves in subscriptions we have no hand in" is only possible due to their market position.
serdox 6y ago
google killed my first app on which i worked for a year for copyright claims by rockstar games take two! it was in fair use with no commercial usage. free. it was an interactive map. all i used were the map and added my own icons and locations. since it was completely free it was under the fair usage right. i referred to the dozen other apps that had ads in them and all they said was just that one app is allowed doesn't mean another is too. i was buffed at that statement. its a disgrace. my app had 120 k downloads in a year and people were loving it because no ads and useful. this is the state of app development. how long will we tolerate this!
serdox 6y ago
what BS is this @dang talking about on the pinned comment?
carolosf 6y ago
I would really love to see more open source applications on the app store like: scummvm Dosbox iSh I imagine that app store issues prevent these publishers from publishing to this platform. That's pretty sad especially since there are working builds for iOS for these applications. It would be nice if Apple supported open source a bit more than it has on these platforms. iPads and iPhones are fairly powerful devices. My iPad would replace my laptop for many usecases if I could download a CSV file and edit it in a text editor without safari blocking the download and if I had a bash terminal and the ability to download and build source code without jumping through hoops.
nojvek 6y ago
In a way every App Store is somewhat a walled garden. I like that there aren’t a 1000 anti-virus scam apps on the App Store. Just want the process to be sane. Like being able to install other apps on the Mac. They make it very hard to install non Apple signed apps. But it’s possible. In iOS, it’s not possible. It’s my device, let me do what I want with it. Let me create things with it, not be just a content consumer.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Apple proclaims to be on the side of consumers. This behavior looks like anti-developer in many cases. On one hand, Apple will lose some ability to say they are protecting consumer privacy if they open their phones to any software, android is proof of that. Someone else’s freedom is always someone else’s constraint. I know many consumers benefit from being able to hand their grandparents a phone that will work smoothly and be updated for 5 years.
ficklepickle 6y ago
This is what we would have if AOL won in the 90's. That round of walled gardens failed, but this round is much better funded. We need protocols not platforms. The longer this goes on, the more they will ratchet up the pressure. The open internet has always won out in the past, but this round of walled gardens has a strangle hold. More people conflate Facebook with the internet than ever did AOL or CompuServe.

518 points by pier25 6y ago

I was worried about this. I'm small potatoes but we make an open source app that can connect to self-hosted or paid-hosted services. So if they could have forced WP, they could have easily forced me too, now there is a baseline set. To even get approved we had to make sure the App doesn't offer any sign-up or even billing info at all. And still went round and round for approval explaining how paid services, if any, are completely outside Apple realm.

g_p 6y ago
Your post here exemplifies why apple's behaviour is so problematic - you're left trying to adhere to a set of rules that even Apple can't manage to enforce consistently and correctly, facing the risk of having to pay an unexpected 30% tax on sales (and effectively have to raise prices accordingly). Hopefully this logic is enough to get Apple in bother during their antitrust suits and Investigations - it seems quite ironic they are getting into scuffles 2 days before the first hearing in the epic case is scheduled (iirc - for the restraining motion). It would be nice if small businesses and innovators could get on with innovating, rather than ensuring they comply with arcane rent seeking behaviour by a giant that won't let you distribute your app without offering them their cut. Google is little better though here - their old Android market terms even titled a clause "non-competition". Unsurprisingly this has disappeared - I assume this doesn't comply with their "avoiding antitrust" dictionary of banned phrases.
- threeseed 6y ago
  It is not a tax on sales. It is the cost of using their channel to market. If you host the app yourself on your website then how are people going to discover it. For most developers they would buy ads or invest in content or influencer marketing. Those marketing costs are your channel to market and obviously aren't a tax. It's hilarious watching so many people on HN discuss this topic who are completely naive and ignorant to the realities of customer acquisition. Apple and Google hand you customers on a silver platter for the bargain, consistent price of 30%. Whereas as a startup I have to pay much higher to Facebook and Google for PPC ads.
  - mchusma 6y ago
    It's a tax if you bring the customer and do all the work. Which most app developers do. It they charged 3% for customers you bring and 30% for customers they bring, your point would be more valid.
    - renaicirc 6y ago
      His point also misses the fact that Apple obviously denies you the ability to self-distribute.
    - threeseed 6y ago
      Please provide evidence of this. There are millions of app developers and you are saying that most of them are doing customer acquisition external to the App Store ? Because I just did various searches for note taking and productivity apps on my phone and no one is buying ads. From my experience only the larger app developers invest in their own customer acquisition whilst the rest all rely on app discovery.
      - stale2002 6y ago
        > There are millions of app developers and you are saying that most of them are doing customer acquisition external to the App Store ? They can't do customer aquisition external to the App store because Apple prevents them from doing so. Thats the very problem. Apple won't allow other app stores to compete, and you can't just download an app from someone's website, and install it. Apple prevents you from doing so. They don't even offer some hidden setting which says "Allow 3rd party apps, warning, warning, warning, this could make your device less secure".
  - devit 6y ago
    How so? The only "help" that an app store can give you is that your app can show up in search result in the app store. But that's only a problem because customers are used to searching in that app store (and that's because it's the only one on the platform). If there was no app store, customers would search on the web, and it turns out that Google Web Search and Bing don't refuse to link to sites that don't give them 30% commission on sales. Of course PPC ads cost money, but obviously app stores don't let you be a top result on arbitrary searches for free (since obviously that's a limited resource, so it's impossible to do that), so that seems a spurious comparison.
xenospn 6y ago
This is so weird. I've removed and added in-app subscriptions to my app multiple times and never had any problems getting it approved. Even now my app is redirecting users to my website to purchase subscriptions, and never had an issue getting past the review process.
- 7tsfmCAusrQ 6y ago
  Watch out, you are sitting on a ticking time bomb. It's just a matter of time.
  - xenospn 6y ago
    I'm selling physical products so I'm not too worried.

bostonvaulter2 6y ago

I'm glad that Apple backed down this time. > What’s more, Mullenwag told us that he had previously offered to strip other mentions of the paid plans out of the app (even workarounds like when a user views a preview of their own WordPress webpage and then navigates to WordPress.com), only to have those suggestions rejected by Apple. Having to remove those kinds of work-arounds is part of what bugs me about apples control over the app store.

seba_dos1 6y ago
Consider that they backed down only when it became a popular news story at exactly the worst time for them to have it (because of Epic).
- threeseed 6y ago
  No evidence that it's tied to publicity. We've seen dozens of situations like this over the years and often we find out that Apple and the developers were discussing behind the scenes way before it was public.
  - edgyquant 6y ago
    There's little point the anti-apple hive mind is too strong on HN
- bostonvaulter2 6y ago
  Yeah, that is why included the "this time"
- kergonath 6y ago
  Well, we’ll never know if it would have turned out differently at another time. They can be stubborn, but they can also recognise mistakes and correct them. That said, there is no comparison: forcing a developer to add features to an app is nothing like enforcing the TOS the developer agreed with and is trying to subvert.
  - 6y ago

social_quotient 6y ago

Makes me think that at some point showing a restaurant menu with prices is soon going to get the ire of Apple for suggesting an offline monetization that they aren’t a part of.

dsparkman 6y ago
They will require you to only accept Apple Pay in your restaurant, or you will have to remove your app from the app store. :)
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  Well, at least Apple doesn't take a cut from restaurants for Apple Pay.
  - commoner 6y ago
    Apple collects 0.15% of all credit card transactions made through Apple Pay for US-based cards. The percentage is higher for the Apple Card, of course. https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-loses-key-mobile-payment-feesgoogle-misses-out-on-apples-slice-of-mobile-transactions-1433546638 https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-loses-key-mobile-payment... https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/10/apple-pay-credit-card-is-coming-backed-by-goldman-sachs/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/10/apple-pay-credit-card-is-...
    - Google234 6y ago
      They can’t take 0, the service isn’t freee to develop
      - Marsymars 6y ago
        They can take 0, that's Google's cut on Google Pay.
        yungstevejobs 6y ago

rubber_duck 6y ago

Really at this point Apple control over app store is anti-competitive (and Google over play store), having to rely on community outrage to get stuff like this turned is ridiculous. They should create legislation to control access to all app stores to prevent this rent seeking - force app stores to treat all apps equally according to store defined guidelines (including store owners apps) - any submissions have to be reviewed in a reasonable amount of time and if declined must receive specific violations of the guidelines on which the denial is based. Also make the "no outside payment inside of apps" illegal. Suddenly the value add of the store streamlined experience has to be justified vs. other payment options - and you'll see the fees drop significantly closer to market level (and it will still be profitable for store owners and they will still invest money in developing/maintaining it).

g_p 6y ago
One of the biggest issues with Google play store review is they won't actually tell developers which rule they're breaking, as you point out. This is so incredibly developer-hostile that the fact developers keep using the play store pretty much helps make the case they're acting in an anticompetitive manner. It certainly is interesting to note Google removed the title "Non-competition" from clause 4.5 of their developer agreement some time ago. It's still in the archived version on archive.org though, from back when it was called the Android market... Removing the title but leaving the clause intact doesn't mask the anti-competitive behaviour!
- jonplackett 6y ago
  This is really shoddy behaviour. Is it just laziness on their part or is there a benefit to them to keep developers guessing?
  - save_ferris 6y ago
    Just a WAG but I think it allows them to maintain total control over the playing field. They get to choose which apps best suit their interests in their market and apply the rules inconsistently to apps that somehow don't align with their interests.

traveler01 6y ago

Apple is being too ridiculous at this point. Devs need App Store but Apple also need devs. Being so hostile is going to hurt them pretty bad, both for Apple and for Google.

chromedev 6y ago
Google already allows apps outside the Play Store, and third party app stores as well
- scarface74 6y ago
  How did that work out for a Fortnite?
  - donmcronald 6y ago
    Badly. Google needs to be regulated too.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Because Google had scary warnings that downloading Fortnite from outside the App Store my lead to security vulnerabilities. Where did they ever get that idea from? https://www.cnet.com/news/just-as-critics-feared-fortnite-for-android-came-with-an-epic-security-risk/ https://www.cnet.com/news/just-as-critics-feared-fortnite-fo...
  - chromedev 6y ago
    I use F-Droid everyday to install and manage apps outside the Play Store and it works out fine for me. Android is also open source. If I don't like the way something is done then I'm free to change it, and there are multiple ROMs that I can choose from as well.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Good luck with the “open source” version of Android and running apps that depend on Google Play Services.

slow_donkey 6y ago

An issue I haven't seen previously discussed is Apple's enforcement of their "Business" guideline (3.2) which effectively prevents certain b2b apps from making it onto the App Store because the app is supposedly not available to a wide enough consumer audience. This is a very subjective policy because popular b2b apps such as Slack, Zendesk, etc which have a wide reach are allowed, but more industry specific b2b apps are rejected even if our theoretical user base spans 10s of thousands of people simply because only clients of the business are able to use the app. And btw this policy is not actually encoded in their rules[1] but 3.2 is the code they cite when rejecting your app. The rejection wording is as follows [2]: "During our review, we found that this app was designed for a specific business or organization and not for general distribution on the App Store. Business apps available on the App Store are meant for use by a wide variety of external customers around the world. As this app is not intended for general distribution, it cannot be made available on the App Store. We encourage you to review the other ways to distribute your business app and choose one that better meets your business needs." [1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ [2] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/122473 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/122473 (not actually my thread but same rejection copy)

easton 6y ago
Then there’s things like this: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hondamobile/id1455573927 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hondamobile/id1455573927 Which is an app specifically for Honda internal employees and it still passed review.
- slow_donkey 6y ago
  Wow that's mind boggling. It's possible that's a whitelabeled app developed by a different company which has greater overall reach. But yes, this is exactly why Apple's subjective enforcement of invisible policies is so enraging - it's like you need to negotiate some secret backdoor deal just to get your app into the store.
donmcronald 6y ago
> We encourage you to review the other ways to distribute your business app and choose one that better meets your business needs." At least that won't take long. Lol.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

protomyth 6y ago

Calling that an apology is a bit rich. It wasn't "confusion" that was the problem, it was forcing monetization that was the problem. They basically say it was all WordPress's fault.

userbinator 6y ago
Apple tends to use that sort of language (corporate doublespeak?) a lot.

7tsfmCAusrQ 6y ago

As an app developer myself, with apps on both the Google Play Store and the App Store with over 250K monthly active users, I have become so frustrated with Apple's arbitrary and capricious enforcement of its App Store regulations, its bullying and coercion of developers, its extortionate fees, and its monopolistic anti-competitive practices, that I have stopped updating my apps on the App Store. I wonder how many other developers are in a similar position. As a consumer, I now know that if I want the latest, up to date apps, I'm better off turning to the Play Store or one of the many other app stores that can be used on Android devices. I've also given up on the MacBook line, tired of the touch bar, the slate-like keyboards, and (now) the transition to ARM. My next laptop will be a Thinkpad or Dell. Most of my development these days is done under Windows using WSL2, and my primary focus is on Android. It used to be that my apps made more money on Apple devices, but now I actually make more on Android. The Google Play review process is a breeze compared to Apple's laborious and stifling rules (although it is not perfect either by any means), and at some point, it's just not worth the hassle. It's sad, I was an enthusiastic endorser of Apple products just 7 years ago, but can no longer recommend them. This is the first year I won't be buying a new iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, too - I'm looking to switch to the Pixel or Samsung Galaxy line and Wear OS. I'd like to see regulation that forces Apple and Google to allow any and all app stores on their devices, and the process of installing apps through those stores must be, by law, equally easy and straightforward as through their own stores (i.e., no security warnings or other jank). The law should make illegal restricting developers to any specific payment processor(s), too.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago
I became a millionaire through both app stores and I have no complaints whatsoever about them. You’re a whiny cunt and you have zero clout. Your opinion is worthless. You are no one.
userbinator 6y ago
I'd like to see regulation that forces Apple and Google to allow any and all app stores on their devices, and the process of installing apps through those stores must be, by law, equally easy and straightforward as through their own stores (i.e., no security warnings or other jank). I'm pretty sure that will have massive opposition, because they are deathly scared of opening their devices back to the general-purpose computers they actually are. However, I remain hopeful that people may finally wake up to the "security" excuse and stop sacrificing their freedom.

baby-yoda 6y ago

"The App Store guidelines ensure a high-quality, reliable, and secure user experience. They are transparent and applied equally to developers of all sizes and in all categories." - tim cook i can envision a scenario where apple legal, in preparation for their battle with epic, gave that statement a critical look. after realizing the myriad of exceptions and omissions they have in app store enforcement, they decided they need to run a clean up campaign immediately and the WP app simply ended up a casualty of this process.

metalgearsolid3 6y ago

This should be an unpopular opinion but I kind of respected Apple's previous stance, and I'm in a way a bit disappointed they've backed down, but I think they've needed to because they are moving too quickly. 5 years from now we'll likely see Apple Silicon powering Apple's entire new product lineup, and Swift developers will be deploying software across the entire product lineup with minimal effort. Swift is both quick and safe, so we can hope these new softwares will be both fast, secure and free of critical bugs. This to me is a really interesting and appealing alternative to the frustrating world of slow web apps that invade your privacy and fill your computer with bloat. I don't see Apple's previous stance as being greedy about obtaining a 30% cut, rather it is about trying to bring to fruition a vision of the future where users can perform their computing needs with fast and secure native apps. I hope we don't legislate away such a reasonable opportunity for people to be freed from Google and Facebook invasion.

chromedev 6y ago
Google allows you to install apps outside the app store and Android is open source
- Google234 6y ago
  People can use google then. The vast majority of people around the world use android
  - chromedev 6y ago
    So people don't need to be freed from Google then, they need to be freed from Apple.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      They can be, they can buy an Android.
rangoon626 6y ago
The native Facebook app is 250 MB.

makecheck 6y ago

What ultimately made me pull out of the Mac App Store was the fact that publishing with Apple meant “app with customizations to accommodate stupid rules”, and $EVERYWHERE_ELSE meant “upload and be done with it”. If you haven’t checked lately, the Mac App Store is a pathetic ghost town for the most part. On iOS I guarantee that if the App Store had even one alternative, many apps would do the same and bail on Apple, and you’d see a similar ghost store. Also, since Apple loves to compare its grand scheme to how physical stores used to behave, let’s examine that: there isn’t a single physical store that demands to have complete control over everything in the boxes on their shelves. If you open a product box and it contains a card with information, such as a link to the company web site or other stuff, then that’s what you get. If apps followed this sane model, Apple would just let apps put whatever they want “in the box”, including sensible things like INFORMATION about account sign-ups and other products, and links.

Google234 6y ago
Um, I would imagine most stores would actually control what’s on and in the box. Every item in Walmart does have to be approved by Walmart first
- texasbigdata 6y ago
  In popular culture they “suggest” things in the component list to get price down to what they want. The iOS comparable would be Apple suggesting refactoring for performance.....Walmart is much more aggressive
- imustbeevil 6y ago
  Your bank doesn't force you to buy all of your furniture at Ikea. No one is asking for Apple to give up control of their store. We just want to use a different store, or none at all.
7tsfmCAusrQ 6y ago
> On iOS I guarantee that if the App Store had even one alternative, many apps would do the same and bail on Apple, and you’d see a similar ghost store. Yes, I certainly would, and the only reason I haven't already is I have no other way to get my app into the hands of users who own only Apple phones and tablets.

drummer 6y ago

The only effective way to deal with apple is to vote with your wallet and your development machine. Nothing else will help. They can do with their platform what they want. Start developing for other platforms and take your users with you.

parasubvert 6y ago

I find the group think here to be incredible, and you all will likely be very disappointed when the legal system winds up supporting Apple. Regulating retailers because you don’t like their cut is price controls, which is completely contrary to a free market, and ultimately undermines the end user experience of having a trusted, secure store. Perhaps Google or Apple’s power is so strong as to warrant regulation - but It must be applied fairly, or else it’s just politically corrupt wielding of power against a successful corporation because a part of the supply chain wants a bigger share of the pie. Apple’s behavior is not anti-competitive by any historical measure, as the courts will show when Epic loses both their Google and Apple cases. Antitrust law is always political. Do you really think the Trump or even Biden administrations will punish their most successful company, given the other problems in the economy? Convince them this will lead to more growth and you’ll get your wish. Right now it just seems like grousing. Edit: I could see Europe doing something more intrusive, as is their tendency. However I still think it would have to be legislative and not legal, the arguments are too weak.

ardit33 6y ago
are you serious? Historically you are on the wrong side of the argument. MSFT lost their case in the 90s, of 'other' but not that much different reasons... to their core they are anti-competitive. Also we have the break up of the original Bell system and several companies were formed out of it. GOOG and APL most likely will lose this one.
- parasubvert 6y ago
  Microsoft’s case was about parlaying their monopoly in Windows to the browser space by making Internet Explorer an intrinsic part of Windows. This is completely different from the #1 and #2 smart phone marketshare players charging a 30% cut as the exclusive software reseller to their own platform. The original At&T was allowed to be a monopoly for 80+ years because it was in the public interest. The 1982 breakup was 8 years in the making due to poor management decisions in the 1960s and eroded that trust. Unfortunately the breakup was a failure. The Baby Bells maintained their regional monopolies, grew massively, and got their restrictions removed in the 1996 communications act, and now we have Verizon (2 of the 7 baby bells), AT&T (which is the original monopoly plus 4 of the 7 baby bells) and CenturyLink (the remnants of US West and other independents). The only real competition has come from foreign entrants like T-Mobile. I think you need to take a closer look at the history of antitrust cases. It hasn’t been particularly successful.

rreichman 6y ago

The only way forward is to avoid Apple products. Some are truly great but if you care about freedom and the open web we must avoid Apple.

dang 6y ago

All: could you please not post to threads like this if you're hot under the collar and have passionate feelings for or against $BigCo? It leads to tedious flamewars with people snarking at each other, flaming each other, making generalizations about the other side, and making up accusations of astroturfing (for or against). All of that is against the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. "Boo $BigCo", "yay $BigCo" fan-v.-antifan cage matches are not curious conversation. We want curious conversation.

sn41 6y ago

We should have a GNU like alternative for the mobile. Mobiles are the primary computing devices now, and we should give liberty to the developers to distribute their products as they wish.

colordrops 6y ago
Not exactly GNU like, but you could use LineageOS without the Google apps installed. There are other open app stores like FDroid, and you can sideload as well.
raverbashing 6y ago
Will they use GNU HURD as a Kernel? And have an Emacs based interface?

fastball 6y ago

I think given the nature of modern multi-nationals with vertical integration and hugely diversified product spaces, we need to rethink anti-trust in general. My test is fairly simple: are you generating value and capturing some portion of it at the point of generation, or are you doing something else? Anything that is "something else" should at the very least be questioned. Questions 10x if the party doing "something else" is trying to encourage information asymmetry as part of this. e.g. Apple telling app developers that not only can they not integrate another payment option in their apps, they can't even inform users that such an option exists elsewhere. Arguably the main issue in this case is that Apple is not just requiring themselves to be the payment gateway in transactions where they are involved (getting an app onto your device), they also want to insert themselves into transactions where they provide no value (e.g. subscriptions). In the case of my Spotify subscription, Apple is not paying for bandwidth, payment processing costs, or anything else, but they still get a cut. If you're capturing value from a transaction you're not directly involved in, I think that's a problem. Apple's argument is that they are enabling such things by building the device/operating system, and historically that has been a valid argument, but I think we've come to the point where that just isn't enough anymore. You need to either directly be providing value in that particular transaction, otherwise it's problematic. You just end up with too many cases like this. Is running the App Store expensive? Then charge for actual costs. But this sort of bait and switch of "we're providing distribution but are inserting ourselves in subscriptions we have no hand in" is only possible due to their market position.

serdox 6y ago

google killed my first app on which i worked for a year for copyright claims by rockstar games take two! it was in fair use with no commercial usage. free. it was an interactive map. all i used were the map and added my own icons and locations. since it was completely free it was under the fair usage right. i referred to the dozen other apps that had ads in them and all they said was just that one app is allowed doesn't mean another is too. i was buffed at that statement. its a disgrace. my app had 120 k downloads in a year and people were loving it because no ads and useful. this is the state of app development. how long will we tolerate this!

serdox 6y ago

what BS is this @dang talking about on the pinned comment?

carolosf 6y ago

I would really love to see more open source applications on the app store like: scummvm Dosbox iSh I imagine that app store issues prevent these publishers from publishing to this platform. That's pretty sad especially since there are working builds for iOS for these applications. It would be nice if Apple supported open source a bit more than it has on these platforms. iPads and iPhones are fairly powerful devices. My iPad would replace my laptop for many usecases if I could download a CSV file and edit it in a text editor without safari blocking the download and if I had a bash terminal and the ability to download and build source code without jumping through hoops.

nojvek 6y ago

In a way every App Store is somewhat a walled garden. I like that there aren’t a 1000 anti-virus scam apps on the App Store. Just want the process to be sane. Like being able to install other apps on the Mac. They make it very hard to install non Apple signed apps. But it’s possible. In iOS, it’s not possible. It’s my device, let me do what I want with it. Let me create things with it, not be just a content consumer.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Apple proclaims to be on the side of consumers. This behavior looks like anti-developer in many cases. On one hand, Apple will lose some ability to say they are protecting consumer privacy if they open their phones to any software, android is proof of that. Someone else’s freedom is always someone else’s constraint. I know many consumers benefit from being able to hand their grandparents a phone that will work smoothly and be updated for 5 years.

ficklepickle 6y ago

This is what we would have if AOL won in the 90's. That round of walled gardens failed, but this round is much better funded. We need protocols not platforms. The longer this goes on, the more they will ratchet up the pressure. The open internet has always won out in the past, but this round of walled gardens has a strangle hold. More people conflate Facebook with the internet than ever did AOL or CompuServe.