7 ms·

A while ago, I developed an Apple Watch app that detected when you raised your hand and touched your face and notified you so that you could build a habit avoid

A while ago, I developed an Apple Watch app that detected when you raised your hand and touched your face and notified you so that you could build a habit avoiding doing so (https://www.facealert.app https://www.facealert.app). Apple stretched out the review process before rejecting the app, and after I escalated to tcook's email address, I received a call from their team telling me my app took "measurements the Apple Watch was not designed to support". This, of course, is complete BS since the whole point of generalizable sensors and Apple's ML tools is to build apps to add new capabilities to the device, otherwise all we'd have are map and messaging apps. And it's slightly comical that they added the feature to detect hand washing in the newest WatchOS, something the Apple Watch "was not originally designed to support". I'm fairly certain they didn't want to have any part or apparent liability for the app if it "didn't work correctly", nevermind the app did not mention COVID, disease, or anything else controversial. There was always a way to "escalate" or "appeal" a review, so any new processes are smoke and mirrors. Apple will always reject whatever they want to reject until they're forced otherwise by a regulatory body.

digi59404 6y ago
I too was confused by this. What they’re talking about in terms of escalate or appeal - Is to escalate or appeal the rule directly. I.e. Say “hey I’m blocked because I violate this rule. The rule needs to be changed.” Previously it was “hey, I’m blocked because you said I violate this rule. But I don’t really because X” One is saying a reviewer messed up, another is saying the guidelines are wrong.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ur-whale 6y ago
To paraphrase a famous line: We don't care, we don't have to, we're Apple.
- js4ever 6y ago
  This one also works pretty well if you replace Apple by Google
sheeshkebab 6y ago
The whole iOS app ecosystem seems to be drifting lately to random social, shopping and games peddling IAPs rather than being anything actually useful. All the rest brings no value to Apple and just liabilities. And so their review "guidelines" (how smart of the apple to rename terms of use that apple can change for any company to nonsense) are all slanted to that. All their marketing lingo about fairness is all just plain bull shit.
- Jonovono 6y ago
  Whoa whoa whoa, what about this tipping app[1] I made that tells you what to tip so that your bill total ends in .69 (or some other childish ending) that got rejected by apple at least 10 times before I finally got it approved. [1] https://apps.apple.com/app/id1460610078 https://apps.apple.com/app/id1460610078
  - Chlorus 6y ago
    "You missed a trick by not naming it 'Just the Tip' or something to really convey the true spirit of the app" --> Rejected
    - Jonovono 6y ago
      So, it's actually supposed to be called tip.69. But, after rejecting my app 7 times for other random things, apple finally pulled this one out and was like, ya, you have to rename your app and change the app icon :p But note, I kept my freedoms on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tip69&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tip69&hl=e...
  - simonklitj 6y ago
    Just bought you a coffee. I love this app!
    - Jonovono 6y ago
      haha amazing, I think you might actually be the first! Thanks :)
Spivak 6y ago
I mean is it really that weird that after Apple reviewed the app they came to the conclusion that "while neat we don't think the sensors handle this use-case well enough and we don't want to support/guarantee that all/future models will even be able to take measurements like this." I'm really not surprised that Apple is wary of an app that with the current sensors can at absolute best guess when you're touching your face. Because if/when it doesn't really work it just makes the watch look bad.
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  > "while neat we don't think the sensors handle this use-case well enough and we don't want to support/guarantee that all/future models will even be able to take measurements like this." Is that what they said?
  - Spivak 6y ago
    I don’t really know how else to read “measurements the watch wasn’t designed to support” as “we can’t guarantee the measurements you’re taking are or will be accurate enough for what you’re trying to do.” I mean this whole story is heresay. How do you know that the OPs interaction even happened?
- andrewmunsell 6y ago
  Is it any different than the apps that don't detect 100% of the jumping jacks you do? What about the native Watch OS feature that doesn't, based on my personal observations, track the correct amount of time you're washing your hands for? Or the fact that the step counter isn't 100% spot on? The sensors will never be 100% accurate for anything, and my app was never portrayed as a way to prevent you from touching your face. If it worked 50% of the time and helped you notice when you touched your face and helped build that awareness, then it fulfilled it's goal.
j45 6y ago
There's a possibility Apple is implementing this functionality themselves.
- andrewmunsell 6y ago
  That crossed my mind, but seems like a bad (and anti-competitive) reason to reject the app by itself
  - perryizgr8 6y ago
    Don't they have this policy to not allow competitors to their own functionality?
  - j45 6y ago
    I hope so too. Still I'm reminded of: Apple has copied the features of the best apps to compete with them [1] Apple is accused of ranking their identical apps higher than the competition [2] Apple appears to have no shortage of healthtech related patents [3][4][5] Given the propensity to compete with existing apps and features, it might not be a stretch to prevent them too. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/05/how-apple-uses-its-app-store-copy-best-ideas/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/05/how-app... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/23/20707323/apple-app-store-apps-favor-own-competitors-search-results-deny https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/23/20707323/apple-app-store-... [3] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/04/apple-won-56-patents-today-covering-the-apple-watchiphone-ecg-app-watch-fall-detection-magnetized-apple-pencil.html https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/04/apple-w... [4] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/biometrics/ https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/biometrics/ [5] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2019/12/apple-won-35-patents-today-covering-health-inventions-that-include-apple-watch-and-smart-bedding.html https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2019/12/apple-w...
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    If you don’t want them to do that you should patent the technology.
valuearb 6y ago
How accurate was your app?
- andrewmunsell 6y ago
  Anecdotally, it caught a good 80-90%+ of instances where users touched their face. No, it's absolutely not perfect, but it was an app I built over a weekend and I never billed it as a medical app. On their request, I even removed all references to health. It was always meant to help nudge people towards awareness of touching their face and didn't need to be 100% accurate. By the end (and the website doesn't show the latest screenshots since I gave up updating it after getting the run around for weeks), it was even so neutral it didn't make a claim that touching your face was even good or bad. You could have interpreted it as a trainer to touch your face more if you wanted.
  - askafriend 6y ago
    > No, it's absolutely not perfect, but it was an app I built over a weekend and I never billed it as a medical app. As a consumer, I'm glad Apple rejected your app. I don't want these kinds of amateur operations in the App Store when it has anything to do with health. I'd much rather Apple have an iron grip when it comes to this even if it pisses off developers.
    - andrewmunsell 6y ago
      So rather than let consumers make educated choices, you'd rather Apple apply arbitrary guidelines to each app differently? Because that's what they've been doing. The app itself never was designed as a medical app, and is no different than any other "health" app that counted your jumping jacks. It doesn't make any health claims, and increases your awareness of a hand motion you make. It does nothing more.
      - askafriend 6y ago
        > So rather than let consumers make educated choices I'm a consumer. I've decided I want Apple to arbitrate relationships for me - so yes. I pay a premium to enter their ecosystem because they make decisions that I've been happy with for decades. They've also made decisions that I'm not happy about but on balance, over the multi-decade relationship - I cede control to them and am happy to. I explicitly want them to. This is the same reason I stuck with HomeKit - I trusted Apple despite HomeKit having far fewer compatible devices than other smart home ecosystem due to more stringent and more expensive certification required of 3rd parties. A couple years later, HomeKit still isn't perfect but now people are dealing with the explosion of insecure, shoddy 3rd party smart home / IOT devices. Turns out HomeKit is more secure against those kind of vulnerabilities and Apple does things like force 3rd parties to adopt secure streaming APIs before allowing any streaming video products onto the platform (like video doorbells, as an example). It's a very different approach and I explicitly appreciate it at the cost of 3rd parties. The choice I've made as a consumer is that I want a platform that is closed off and top down. If I didn't like it, I would have gone to Android to enjoy the benefits of a platform with a different perspective.
pier25 6y ago
What is so messed up about all this system is that you don't have any certainty your app will pass the reviewing process. If you hit a wall with the reviewing process all your iOS/WatchOS code now becomes worthless. It doesn't matter how much dev time you're invested into the project.
- tobylane 6y ago
  It wouldn’t be a good reviewing process from the users side if you can’t have certainty that the apps in the store have passed the process successfully. The users should have this certainty, not the devs.
  - pier25 6y ago
    You're assuming the review process is infalible which I know for a fact is not always the case. There's also a lot of interpretation involved. An app might pass the review and another very similar one might not. See this comment for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24333426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24333426
  - rowanG077 6y ago
    What passes review is negatively correlated with quality I'd wager. The app store is literally filled with malware and it apparently easily passed review. While I hear horror stories from almost all devs that actually try to make something legitimate.
  - strbean 6y ago
    Gotta have that good reviewing process: https://fnd.io/#/us/ios-universal-app/1528248331-fall-guys-knockout-ultimate-by-jpseph-ra https://fnd.io/#/us/ios-universal-app/1528248331-fall-guys-k... Obviously Jpseph Rader is a subsidiary of Mediatonic, not some random guy flagrantly stealing Mediatonic's IP!
    - donmcronald 6y ago
      Wow. #7 in trivia (#8 when I looked on my iPad). 4.3k stars with an average rating of 4/5 with the first release 13 days ago. My very rough estimate (by scrolling) is about 60 reviews, mostly 1 star. Some of the reviews are... something. > #WorstGameEverBigRipoff, T E R R I B L E GAME, 5 stars Haha. That game sums up my impression of the app store perfectly. It's a bunch of bad actors buying ratings and lying and cheating to get to the top of the charts where they can exploit addictive behavior to extract money from vulnerable people and children. I see tons of garbage like that on the app store. It's easy to see too. Play some kids games and click the ads for other games. It trash, trash, trash, and more trash.
the_gipsy 6y ago
Never build a product on top of a platform. The owners can and will pull the rug under you, and sell a "better" version. Build on open protocols.

digi59404 6y ago

I too was confused by this. What they’re talking about in terms of escalate or appeal - Is to escalate or appeal the rule directly. I.e. Say “hey I’m blocked because I violate this rule. The rule needs to be changed.” Previously it was “hey, I’m blocked because you said I violate this rule. But I don’t really because X” One is saying a reviewer messed up, another is saying the guidelines are wrong.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ur-whale 6y ago

To paraphrase a famous line: We don't care, we don't have to, we're Apple.

js4ever 6y ago
This one also works pretty well if you replace Apple by Google

sheeshkebab 6y ago

The whole iOS app ecosystem seems to be drifting lately to random social, shopping and games peddling IAPs rather than being anything actually useful. All the rest brings no value to Apple and just liabilities. And so their review "guidelines" (how smart of the apple to rename terms of use that apple can change for any company to nonsense) are all slanted to that. All their marketing lingo about fairness is all just plain bull shit.

Jonovono 6y ago
Whoa whoa whoa, what about this tipping app[1] I made that tells you what to tip so that your bill total ends in .69 (or some other childish ending) that got rejected by apple at least 10 times before I finally got it approved. [1] https://apps.apple.com/app/id1460610078 https://apps.apple.com/app/id1460610078
- Chlorus 6y ago
  "You missed a trick by not naming it 'Just the Tip' or something to really convey the true spirit of the app" --> Rejected
  - Jonovono 6y ago
    So, it's actually supposed to be called tip.69. But, after rejecting my app 7 times for other random things, apple finally pulled this one out and was like, ya, you have to rename your app and change the app icon :p But note, I kept my freedoms on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tip69&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tip69&hl=e...
- simonklitj 6y ago
  Just bought you a coffee. I love this app!
  - Jonovono 6y ago
    haha amazing, I think you might actually be the first! Thanks :)

Spivak 6y ago

I mean is it really that weird that after Apple reviewed the app they came to the conclusion that "while neat we don't think the sensors handle this use-case well enough and we don't want to support/guarantee that all/future models will even be able to take measurements like this." I'm really not surprised that Apple is wary of an app that with the current sensors can at absolute best guess when you're touching your face. Because if/when it doesn't really work it just makes the watch look bad.

jonny_eh 6y ago
> "while neat we don't think the sensors handle this use-case well enough and we don't want to support/guarantee that all/future models will even be able to take measurements like this." Is that what they said?
- Spivak 6y ago
  I don’t really know how else to read “measurements the watch wasn’t designed to support” as “we can’t guarantee the measurements you’re taking are or will be accurate enough for what you’re trying to do.” I mean this whole story is heresay. How do you know that the OPs interaction even happened?
andrewmunsell 6y ago
Is it any different than the apps that don't detect 100% of the jumping jacks you do? What about the native Watch OS feature that doesn't, based on my personal observations, track the correct amount of time you're washing your hands for? Or the fact that the step counter isn't 100% spot on? The sensors will never be 100% accurate for anything, and my app was never portrayed as a way to prevent you from touching your face. If it worked 50% of the time and helped you notice when you touched your face and helped build that awareness, then it fulfilled it's goal.

j45 6y ago

There's a possibility Apple is implementing this functionality themselves.

andrewmunsell 6y ago
That crossed my mind, but seems like a bad (and anti-competitive) reason to reject the app by itself
- perryizgr8 6y ago
  Don't they have this policy to not allow competitors to their own functionality?
- j45 6y ago
  I hope so too. Still I'm reminded of: Apple has copied the features of the best apps to compete with them [1] Apple is accused of ranking their identical apps higher than the competition [2] Apple appears to have no shortage of healthtech related patents [3][4][5] Given the propensity to compete with existing apps and features, it might not be a stretch to prevent them too. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/05/how-apple-uses-its-app-store-copy-best-ideas/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/05/how-app... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/23/20707323/apple-app-store-apps-favor-own-competitors-search-results-deny https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/23/20707323/apple-app-store-... [3] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/04/apple-won-56-patents-today-covering-the-apple-watchiphone-ecg-app-watch-fall-detection-magnetized-apple-pencil.html https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2020/04/apple-w... [4] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/biometrics/ https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/biometrics/ [5] https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2019/12/apple-won-35-patents-today-covering-health-inventions-that-include-apple-watch-and-smart-bedding.html https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2019/12/apple-w...
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  If you don’t want them to do that you should patent the technology.

valuearb 6y ago

How accurate was your app?

andrewmunsell 6y ago
Anecdotally, it caught a good 80-90%+ of instances where users touched their face. No, it's absolutely not perfect, but it was an app I built over a weekend and I never billed it as a medical app. On their request, I even removed all references to health. It was always meant to help nudge people towards awareness of touching their face and didn't need to be 100% accurate. By the end (and the website doesn't show the latest screenshots since I gave up updating it after getting the run around for weeks), it was even so neutral it didn't make a claim that touching your face was even good or bad. You could have interpreted it as a trainer to touch your face more if you wanted.
- askafriend 6y ago
  > No, it's absolutely not perfect, but it was an app I built over a weekend and I never billed it as a medical app. As a consumer, I'm glad Apple rejected your app. I don't want these kinds of amateur operations in the App Store when it has anything to do with health. I'd much rather Apple have an iron grip when it comes to this even if it pisses off developers.
  - andrewmunsell 6y ago
    So rather than let consumers make educated choices, you'd rather Apple apply arbitrary guidelines to each app differently? Because that's what they've been doing. The app itself never was designed as a medical app, and is no different than any other "health" app that counted your jumping jacks. It doesn't make any health claims, and increases your awareness of a hand motion you make. It does nothing more.
    - askafriend 6y ago
      > So rather than let consumers make educated choices I'm a consumer. I've decided I want Apple to arbitrate relationships for me - so yes. I pay a premium to enter their ecosystem because they make decisions that I've been happy with for decades. They've also made decisions that I'm not happy about but on balance, over the multi-decade relationship - I cede control to them and am happy to. I explicitly want them to. This is the same reason I stuck with HomeKit - I trusted Apple despite HomeKit having far fewer compatible devices than other smart home ecosystem due to more stringent and more expensive certification required of 3rd parties. A couple years later, HomeKit still isn't perfect but now people are dealing with the explosion of insecure, shoddy 3rd party smart home / IOT devices. Turns out HomeKit is more secure against those kind of vulnerabilities and Apple does things like force 3rd parties to adopt secure streaming APIs before allowing any streaming video products onto the platform (like video doorbells, as an example). It's a very different approach and I explicitly appreciate it at the cost of 3rd parties. The choice I've made as a consumer is that I want a platform that is closed off and top down. If I didn't like it, I would have gone to Android to enjoy the benefits of a platform with a different perspective.

pier25 6y ago

What is so messed up about all this system is that you don't have any certainty your app will pass the reviewing process. If you hit a wall with the reviewing process all your iOS/WatchOS code now becomes worthless. It doesn't matter how much dev time you're invested into the project.

tobylane 6y ago
It wouldn’t be a good reviewing process from the users side if you can’t have certainty that the apps in the store have passed the process successfully. The users should have this certainty, not the devs.
- pier25 6y ago
  You're assuming the review process is infalible which I know for a fact is not always the case. There's also a lot of interpretation involved. An app might pass the review and another very similar one might not. See this comment for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24333426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24333426
- rowanG077 6y ago
  What passes review is negatively correlated with quality I'd wager. The app store is literally filled with malware and it apparently easily passed review. While I hear horror stories from almost all devs that actually try to make something legitimate.
- strbean 6y ago
  Gotta have that good reviewing process: https://fnd.io/#/us/ios-universal-app/1528248331-fall-guys-knockout-ultimate-by-jpseph-ra https://fnd.io/#/us/ios-universal-app/1528248331-fall-guys-k... Obviously Jpseph Rader is a subsidiary of Mediatonic, not some random guy flagrantly stealing Mediatonic's IP!
  - donmcronald 6y ago
    Wow. #7 in trivia (#8 when I looked on my iPad). 4.3k stars with an average rating of 4/5 with the first release 13 days ago. My very rough estimate (by scrolling) is about 60 reviews, mostly 1 star. Some of the reviews are... something. > #WorstGameEverBigRipoff, T E R R I B L E GAME, 5 stars Haha. That game sums up my impression of the app store perfectly. It's a bunch of bad actors buying ratings and lying and cheating to get to the top of the charts where they can exploit addictive behavior to extract money from vulnerable people and children. I see tons of garbage like that on the app store. It's easy to see too. Play some kids games and click the ads for other games. It trash, trash, trash, and more trash.

the_gipsy 6y ago

Never build a product on top of a platform. The owners can and will pull the rug under you, and sell a "better" version. Build on open protocols.