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Apple removes then restores DoNotPay app in the App Store
- notsureaboutpg 6y agoLinux used to have this rule of "don't break user space". Apple seems to have a rule of "piss off users constantly"
- t413 6y agoAs of now it appears to still be up: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/donotpay/id1427999657 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/donotpay/id1427999657
- cute_boi 6y agothey restored it after getting ashamed by public. Apple really sucks.
- oh_sigh 6y agoImagine how many small time developers with just a couple hundred downloads have had their apps destroyed by apple, who couldn't call upon the twitter ion cannon to have someone important at apple see if the removal was actually warranted.
- eganist 6y agohttps://twitter.com/jbrowder1/status/1323842195560964098?s=20 https://twitter.com/jbrowder1/status/1323842195560964098?s=2... Decision reversed. Link and title should be updated to reflect.
- grecy 6y agoI love the reply "9 minute review time after being held up for weeks..." https://twitter.com/jbrowder1/status/1323842487815843842 https://twitter.com/jbrowder1/status/1323842487815843842
- pwinnski 6y agoUpdate: It was indefensible, and Apple has already reversed course. It's a shame it sometimes takes twitter outcry for the right thing to happen, but at least the right thing happened. This seem indefensible at first blush. The app has been available as-is for years, so if the explanation given him is correct, it's a really bad look for Apple.
- floatingatoll 6y agoMaking an error, and then correcting that error 4 hours later, is certainly many things. "Unfathomably rapid" comes to mind as my first response.
- gnicholas 6y agoThat is rapid, but if (as Josh claims) they said they were going to pull the app 5 minutes later, it seems appropriate that they would have a quick response in their reversal.
- jimnotgym 6y agoIf he hadn't got a large following on Twitter would it have been rapid?
- KingOfCoders 6y agoOr at all?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- floatingatoll 6y agoPerhaps! Unfortunately, given the available evidence, there’s no way to determine whether it’s a true causative or a false correlation.
- machello13 6y agoHard to know, since if he didn't have a large following, we wouldn't have heard about it either way.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoThis demonstrates the amazing power of social media. It only took 2-3 hours for one of the largest, most powerful corporations, to reverse their decision.
- brailsafe 6y agoI agree, but would emphasize that the main thing at stake is negative publicity. If there's one thing social media has proven to be good for, perhaps exclusively, it's rapidly spreading shame.
- larkeith 6y agoThis demonstrates the amazing savings of crowdsourcing appeals. It only took 2-3 hours for Apple to assess the PR cost of banning the app and decide it's not worth the income increase.
- chii 6y agoThis demonstrates that unless you're big enough to garner large social media outcry, you don't matter and can be trampled over by a corporation easily. we have the law and court for a reason, and i think the public should have more access to it to demand justice and fair treatment. So that all entities of all sizes have equal access to it.
- dzhiurgis 6y ago> Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!
- ksec 6y agoI am afraid not. Prior to the current Anti-Trust issues on App Store policy, Apple doesn't even bother responding to people out rage on twitter. Even if they did it takes days and sometimes weeks to get something resolved. The only reason they are having such turn around time now is only because they are under scrutiny.
- meowster 6y agoI've heard about the app when it started just for parking tickets. I didn't know it expanded to other legal issues including small claims court filings, asylum, visas, green cards, and housing for homeless. Amazing.
- admax88q 6y agoI'm starting to suspect were hitting peak Apple. It feels like they might be pushing in app purchase through apple pay as their means for continued revenue growth rather than product innovation.
- grishka 6y agoUnless they reverse their course themselves, it's only a matter of time before they're deservedly hit with antitrust.
- hyperbovine 6y agoAntitrust with 13% market share. Good luck explaining that one to the judge.
- grishka 6y agoAround 50% in the US. The real issue is that Apple has control over its devices after sale. That it decides what they can and cannot run based on its own arbitrary rules that no one can challenge. That it can literally put other companies out of business by denying them the privilege of having an iOS app.
- cma 6y agoAnd something like 60-75% app store dollar-share in the US.
- onion2k 6y ago"Apple controls 100% of the iOS software market. This antitrust case is not about phones, instead it's about iOS software, and we shall demonstrate very clearly how Apple are abusing their total monopoly on that particular product." That was really easy, and I'm not even a lawyer.
- rimliu 6y agoIt shows, that you are not a lawyer.
- gnicholas 6y agoI had an interesting and somewhat similar experience, where a long-standing app feature triggered an unexpected rejection. We gnashed our teeth for a couple weeks and finally submitted an appeal. I expected it to be rejected, since the original reviewer was steadfast in rejecting the app and our arguments. But it was immediately approved on appeal, to our great surprise. I wonder if Apple is aware that they're treading on thin(ner) ice with regard to the App Store.
- MatthewElvey 6y agoOf the last 25 reviews, 24 are one star. Is there a tool for charting iOS App Store reviews over time to look for weird patterns?
- dan1234 6y agoI’ve not heard if this app before today but, going by the reviews, it seems pretty shady to have this available in the UK App Store when it can only help with US legal issues (which you don’t find out about until you’ve scanned your credit card and started a subscription).
- megablast 6y agoThis is true, but you don’t want to limit your app by country store. Plenty of Uk people moved to the us, and they still use the Uk App Store.
- newbie578 6y agoOkay, let's hear from the Apple fanatics on HN why this is a good move by Apple? After all, Apple can do no wrong :)
- cblconfederate 6y agoIt was a good move because it was reversed.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoEvery app needs to have a built-in messaging channel that allows you to display rich-text (including clickable links) "news and updates" to your existing users. That way, when you do get kicked out from an app store, at least you can direct users to your web site (which is probably a violation of app store guidelines, but if it's your only/main revenue generating app, and already kicked out, having this option can be a lifesaver).
- cblconfederate 6y agoThat app is called "email"
- aembleton 6y agoOnly if you capture their email address which isn't necessary for most apps.
- nmfisher 6y agoAnd which Apple anyway can now prevent you from doing (by explicitly requiring Sign In with Apple and letting users turn off email forwarding).
- cblconfederate 6y agoI m surprised by the resilience of email as a communication channel. We need to extend it to carry notifications and ephemeral messages as well. There's no need to lock up tech behind the gates of google and apple
- olyjohn 6y agoIt's resilient because it's the only service that isn't centrally managed by one company, and anybody can federate and set up an e-mail system that communicates with all the other e-mail systems. It's the same reason SMS is still around, because it's the only communications tool that can send a message to any cell phone.
- cblconfederate 6y ago> fortunately, 90%+ of new subscribers now come through web, and this segment is growing rapidly All i need to know. Why even have an app in the EvilStores?
- sushid 6y agoAs an aside, their website uses a serious dark pattern to trick users into paying. Their app is purportedly for helping you reclaim your fees so it seems like adding a bank account makes sense after you input your email address. Off to the right you see the text > "...you agree to charge a $36 a year subscription to this payment method." There's no mention of a $36 / annual anywhere else. It's on the margin to clearly trick the user when simply adding a payment info.
- gotem 6y agoI believe they used to not even mention it in their checkout and instead hid the $3 a month subscription in TOS.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoThis is probably the best thing that has ever happened to that app considering the amount of publicity it gets by spinning the issue.
- jaimex2 6y agoI really don't like Apple and would never develop something in their store but I have to admit - at least a human called him and he had some dialog. If this was Google it would have been shut down without any recourse and probably taken the devs entire Google account with it.
- ksec 6y agoAfter the reversal, Developers are chanting "Awesome", "This is great", "Running to Twitter helped", etc etc. Not a single developer asked why and how did it happen in the first place. The original purpose of the App Store guidelines were to protect the users / customers. And it did!. It worked great. And Apple charge you 30% for Digital Goods. And nothing for physical goods. It was Fair. 30% for the likes of Gaming, Productivity Apps such as Office, Camera, Calendar, Photo Editing etc etc. That was fine. And true to its words, Steve's Apple had all the rationale in nearly all rejection cases. These days App Store policy is much more about rent seeking, their sole purpose is no longer serving its users and customer's best interest. But used in every opportunity to extract more revenues from these Apps and Services. Not to mention how many of these letters from Apple suggest Developers of Free ( as in beer ) Apps contributed nothing to the App Store and act as a "Free Rider" on Apple's platform. Compounded by Tim Cook's comment on App Store and being user first. Normally I give some benefits of doubt to CEO as they may not be on top of all the things happening in a company. But judging from the Apple vs IMG and Apple vs Qualcomm cases I think he knows exactly what he is doing. This whole things stinks and reeks of hypocrisy to me.
- Spivak 6y ago> Not a single developer asked why and how did it happen in the first place. A human reviewer applied the app store policies as best she understood them but in the end was mistaken and the decision was reversed. Review systems like this are better when they optimize for false positives rather than false negatives because of the fence leaning problem. If you give publishers the the benefit of the doubt then the result is people cozying right up to the fence of allowable behavior or leaning juuuust over it but not enough to trigger a ban. However, if you throw down the banhammer on everyone near the fence regardless of what side they're on people will actually say clear of it.