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Looks nice but it doesn't solve my fundamental problem: 1. I invest loads of time and effort developing an app 2. Apple rejects it -or- 2. Apple approves it

Looks nice but it doesn't solve my fundamental problem: 1. I invest loads of time and effort developing an app 2. Apple rejects it -or- 2. Apple approves it 3. I ship a new update 4. Apple rejects the update and now decides my app should have been rejected retroactively. I'm especially concerned about what happened to Hey and others but my customers are demanding smartphone apps and there are still limits to what can be done with a mobile web browser.

user-the-name 6y ago
This really isn't a problem in practice, unless you are going out of your way to try to bend the rules set in place, especially about sales.
- jamil7 6y ago
  It can be a problem in practise since the rules aren't fairly or consistently enforced. Look to recent issues with iSH being approved and rejected. Edit: as others have pointed out iSH isn't the best example of this.
  - spijdar 6y ago
    While I agree the rules are often inconsistently enforced, and I'm a fan of iSH, I think the real surprise is it was ever approved in the first place, as it seems to clearly be violating the "spirit of the law" regarding Apple being pretty clear they don't want apps that allow arbitrary binary execution. iSH tried to circumvent this with a technicality, and it seems to have initially "worked", but I think it's a poor example of an app unfairly/inconsistently targeted.
    - jamil7 6y ago
      OK fair enough perhaps it wasn't the most cut and dry example. But it was the most recent I could think of.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        I think the fact that the guidelines are written as such to make people think it wasn't a cut and dry example is really what makes it better example than you might have even though it was at the beginning. The rule Apple would like to enforce is very clear, and we know what it was and the review team didn't, because the guidelines didn't reflect the rule that Apple wanted to enforce (and thus ended up enforcing it inconsistently). A situation where developers have to tell the review team how the guidelines work because they're not written down explicitly is a very untenable position and one that needs to change.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      I worked on the iSH appeal, and have of course watched this space for years, so I've gotten very familiar with the "spirit of the law" to the point that the conversation with Apple ended up really being a confirmation that our interpretation of the law was correct and that iSH was fine under the rules that Apple enforces. Your characterization isn't quite right. Apple doesn't want to not have apps that allow users to execute code, in fact they themselves write apps that let the user execute code they write and demo them at WWDC (Swift Playgrounds? Shortcuts?). Some of the best apps on the App Store let you write code and run it. Saying iSH is in violation of those rules would require pulling down those apps too. What Apple is really trying to do is prevent apps from changing their behavior after they review them in a silent way to bypass the usual process. The real issue here is that their guidelines don't reflect this and this confuses the reviewers (and evidently commenters here on Hacker News). What needs to happen here is Apple clarifies their guidelines so that we don't have rules that can be inconsistently enforced. (If you need more to convince you, I'll point you at the stuff I wrote when that was going on: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2020/11/08/fixing-section-2-5-2/ https://saagarjha.com/blog/2020/11/08/fixing-section-2-5-2/).
      - spijdar 6y ago
        Hmm, that's fair. I don't use iOS much myself, so I'm not very familiar with what's available on the App Store. It does appear that at least Swift Playgrounds allows for projects (including code, which is interpreted) to be downloaded off the Internet, extending the runtime beyond what is available "at time of review". That said, briefly looking over some scripting/IDE environments not from Apple, it looks like most of them ship "batteries included" and don't allow for content to be pulled from online. It seems to me the equivalent of iSH shouldn't be, say, a Python interpreter/IDE, but a Python runtime including pip and the ability to pull modules from pypi.org. OTOH, Python itself is so reflective, I imagine there's probably some way to self-inject modules within a script, if you have any sort of web access. And since you can tunnel TCP over DNS, even a hostname lookup is enough. So I'll conceded the point, since most scripting runtimes probably have some kind of EVAL routine to invoke the interpreter, or a porthole into the interpreter's bytecode. That said, my own original point was about developers/businesses feeling uncertainty about Apple's rules, and worrying if an app would even be accepted. I feel like almost any developer would instinctively thing iSH's premise of being a program interpreter for the Linux ABI would be rejected by Apple. Whether or not the underlying rule is fairly applied aside, it's clearly something Apple wants to prohibit. Albeit, I'm kind of baffled myself at why, especially in iSH's case where the emulated runtime is completely separate from the "real program text", with no escape hatches out IIRC. Seems utterly ridiculous to me, especially when you can accomplish something similar in WebKit/JSC I'm sure, just not offline. :-/
  - Closi 6y ago
    iSH is definitely in the “pushing the boundaries of the rules” area of apps (x86 emulation) and probably shouldn’t have been allowed if you took a strict interpretation of the rules. OP is just saying 99% of apps being developed are clearly within the rules, rather than really pushing against the boundaries of what is allowed.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Well, that is the crux of the matter: the rules are not written correctly because they allow iSH to be inconsistently judged if you take "a strict interpretation"; there should not be a strict interpretation; it should just be "this app is reasonable" and "this app is not" and not "hey this looks like it's running code…does that make it a security risk?" which reviewers are not equipped to answer. When we made the appeal for iSH we correctly surmised that the point of the rule that was cited was to prevent apps from bypassing App Store review, which iSH does not do in the slightest. Taken from the real perspective from which the app should have been judged, iSH is not at the boundary at all; instead it's the apps that do things like undisclosed A/B testing and feature flags to hide things from review. So what happens is developers like us who are actually clearly within the rules as they are meant to be applied get caught in limbo at the whim of reviewers who misunderstand the guidelines because they aren't written as they are supposed to be enforced.
- nguyenkien 6y ago
  Apple can change it rules. eg: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519888/apple-screen-time-app-tracking-parental-controls-report https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519888/apple-screen-tim...
- gtsteve 6y ago
  Unless you're competing with something Apple is planning to bring out (parental control apps before screen time stats, etc). I don't think I'm competing with Apple at all today, but who knows what they're planning for their next features?
  - varispeed 6y ago
    Exactly, nothing stops them to pull "Amazon", that is once they see your app is successful, they could request all data they need and either buy it off the company that developed it for you or commission their own app based on the documentation you had to provide and then block you. There is currently nothing you could do about it.
  - the_other 6y ago
    Surely this is true for all developers, at any size? And also just about any product, or service, in any industry? As counterexamples: Apple sell Logic, yet it has numerous competitors, also all fairly successful: ProTools, Live, Cubase, Reaper, Ardour, FruityLoops. Apple give their customers Notes, Reminders and Mail for free, on all their devices (i.e. you don't even need to get hold of apps for these functions), and yet we also have Evernote, Notion, Airmail, Spark etc etc. Does the App Store monopoly significantly change the nature of app competition? I'm not convinced, but I'm open to learning about it.
    - afandian 6y ago
      Surely the fundamental difference here is whether "the market" decides, giving you a fighting chance, or whether the Deity decides, with no recourse but supplication?
    - dannyw 6y ago
      When Apple added Screen Time, they banned other competing apps.
      - the_other 6y ago
        I see how that does affect the competition. Fair point.
- richardARPANET 6y ago
  Except it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Apple#App_Store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Apple#App_Store
- adanto6840 6y ago
  I recently was in contact with someone who has written a menu-bar app to monitor Tesla Powerwall status. It's in the Mac App Store already -- but NOT the latest version, because Apple suddenly decided that they wanted written proof that accessing the Powerwall APIs was allowed (from whom?! It's MY hardware!). Apple will not allow the dev to update his Mac App in the MAS; yet they approved & continue to leave the original older version [with known bugs] up, available for purchase. So now the developer is stuck -- he can't update his app on the Mac App Store, and what recourse does he have as a 1-man-shop vs Apple?! =| As a developer I find it absurd, as a consumer [who bought the app on MAS and wondered why I had the non-latest version], I find it absolutely baffling & anti-consumer.
  - sunshinerag 6y ago
    he cannot withdraw the older version of the software from the app store? that is weird.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- gnicholas 6y ago
  Absolutely untrue. Many well-meaning devs who paint entirely within the lines end up in review purgatory due to capricious interpretations of Apple's broad/vague rules.
varispeed 6y ago
There is another problem - you cannot create your own app store or use alternative one if Apple for some reason does not accept your app. There is essentially no competition and at least the EU should step in and force Apple to open it to other app stores.
- beagle3 6y ago
  There’s altstore.io and others, and e.g. f-droid for Android. What you want is for those stores to be on equal footing - which I would like as well, but is harder to argue for because alternatives do exist.
andysinclair 6y ago
This is not aimed at solving your problem, this is aimed at helping us small developers build a more sustainable business on the App Store. We will ultimately build more apps and invest more time in supporting and improving our current apps.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  > this is aimed at helping us small developers I doubt this was the aim. It suspect its aim was to fend off all this scrutiny on their App Store business. Who knows whether it'll work in avoiding attention from law makers and regulators, but this will do nothing to address the developer's concerns and problem with the App Store.
  - bactisme 6y ago
    This
  - hajile 6y ago
    It seems to hurt their argument. They don't need that big of a cut for expenses, they just want it and can do whatever they like. It still doesn't solve the fundamental issue. Let users have the option of using third-party stores, but losing Apple's safety net. They claim users want that net. If so, the third party stores will go bust. If not, they're simply being anti-consumer.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      It's a percentage cut and they cut it in half for a segment that brings in the smallest amount of revenue. I don't really think this affects their argument at all except that they now make enough from large players to pay for everyone else and the good PR is more valuable than the cash
  - bottled_poe 6y ago
    The cynic in me agrees. Perhaps Apple sees the writing on the wall and they can either make the change with good press or bad.
sheeshkebab 6y ago
Agree. As a small developer, apples 30% tax never bothered me - seemed excessive but worth it. The arbitrary and weird approval rules is what turned me off their platform. Although I could see how they are trying to appease antitrust regulators with this move - although they should have gone with 0 - 2% range for that. 15% is a substantial markup to price consumers would pay for using apples monopolized mobile software distribution store.
- eecc 6y ago
  Imagine the outrage if people learned the markup that distributors make on vegetables and dairy as well as the monopsony power they wield against small farmers!
  - toyg 6y ago
    You’re kidding, right? I don’t know how it is in the Land of the Free, but in Europe most margins on food are in the single digits all the way down. It’s true that small producers are squeezed at both ends, but at least there are market dynamics in place - if one supermarket chain takes too much, you go and sell to the other one, and the consumer can get it anyway. Double-digit and triple-digit margins are the reason the software world is now dominating the economy. Most other sectors can only dream of that.
    - eecc 6y ago
      No, I’m not. In Italy it’s common to see markups of 600% on veggies at the supermarket. There are few intermediaries and they get to dictate prices, mandatory discounts, and run double-discounted auctions (which the legislature is trying to make illegal.) If you get to outsmart them selling to another distributor (as if they’re not conniving already) good luck selling your next load of perishable goods before it rots. Also brick & mortar shops make hideous markups to cover for their poor selection, inventory and commercial space rent (so sure, it doesn’t line only their pockets but for the final consumer it doesn’t make much difference.)
      - 6y ago
cwhiz 6y ago
This isn’t a problem exclusive to Apple anymore. Google has implemented some draconian nonsense this year to the point where I ended up distributing my Android app as a PWA. I had no problems with Apple. Apple gets all the headlines, and certainly gets more chatter on HN, but they aren’t alone in this bullshit. As an example... Fortnite was also banned by Google.
- pier25 6y ago
  Fortnite was banned from the Play store, not Android.
- Deukhoofd 6y ago
  For Android there are at the very least alternatives for app distribution.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    Alternatives technically exist, but they suck. We tried some alternatives but PWA was by far the only one that got any traction.
  - sercand 6y ago
    For a B2C app, if we are not on the default distribution platform of the system, our user acquisition costs would be skyrocketed.
- andybak 6y ago
  > Fortnite was also banned by Google. I think the main reason this wasn't as newsworthy is that sideloading it was trivial for Android users. Untick a warning and install it yourself.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    Trivial for you, a reader on HN. Not trivial, and potentially unsafe, for my grandmother.
    - 6y ago
estreeper 6y ago
> there are still limits to what can be done with a mobile web browser This is true, but perhaps not as many as some may think! Progressive Web Applications can now do quite a lot on mobile and tablets, with a notable exception of push notifications on iOS. They are an increasingly interesting option for those whose use case allows it. https://simplabs.com/blog/2020/06/10/the-state-of-pwa-support-on-mobile-and-desktop-in-2020/ https://simplabs.com/blog/2020/06/10/the-state-of-pwa-suppor...
- coder543 6y ago
  That "notable exception" is fatal to PWAs for most businesses who might otherwise develop one. Apple needs to implement that. As an iPhone owner, the inability for PWAs to have notifications is probably my single biggest gripe at the moment. I wrote more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24643185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24643185 and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24731713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24731713
- gtsteve 6y ago
  My key issue is working offline, if I could make that work in a convincing way with good usability that'd be ideal. You can still only store 5mb in local storage, so you can't sync a load of data to the device and allow the user to use it in the field. Also, there is now a 7-day age limit for data in local storage - I understand why this was done (for user privacy) but it just makes things more hostile for developers attempting to use it in a legitimate way.
- ChickeNES 6y ago
  I for one would flat out refuse to use any service that requires PWAs
sercand 6y ago
At least review process is better than Google's because when we rejected on Play Store we can't get any feedback from Google. They send a template email which says the "problem maybe A or B, check what you have changed". Apple provides screenshots and human written explanation on rejection. I have even talked on the phone with review team several times to discuss the problem. Yes, it sucks that the update may be rejected by some reviewer and another one may approve the same update.
- risyachka 6y ago
  It was better indeed, now it is worse. Now Google sends you screenshots and explains what is wrong and Apple just quotes like a dumb bot their policy (which is not even acceptable in many cases)
- Dahoon 6y ago
  Feels a bit like whataboutism. Especially since Apple is worse than Google now.
  - donkeyd 6y ago
    > Especially since Apple is worse than Google now. Care to elaborate on that statement?
    - Dahoon 6y ago
      Look at the other comments at the same level. No need to add what has already been said.
- grishka 6y ago
  Google does have its problems, but at least you still have the option of publishing an apk on your website.
- mrtksn 6y ago
  Apple's human touch is underrated and I feel like those who complain about Apple's review process have no real world experience and talking from ideological standpoint. I was more than glad to receive a f..g phone call from the reviewer telling me why he will reject my update, why is it this way and what I can do to make it pass and give me his phone number to call if I need further assistance. I become die hard Apple AppStore review process fanboy by getting a rejection! You know what happens when you get a rejection from some other place? You get a template e-mail with no specifics, good luck figure it out. Tough luck if your livelihood depends on it.
risyachka 6y ago
Same story. As long as they treat big companies like royalty and small devs like trash (like they do now) I couldn't care less about their fee.
deepstack 6y ago
More reason to make PWA and keep everything in HTML5 if possible.
root_axis 6y ago
Step 5. Apple copies your app and integrates it as an iOS feature
fooey 6y ago
I call it review roulette Something around 1 out of 10 updates to our app gets rejected for some random old core feature. So far it's always been resolved, but it's nerve wracking every single time.

user-the-name 6y ago

This really isn't a problem in practice, unless you are going out of your way to try to bend the rules set in place, especially about sales.

jamil7 6y ago
It can be a problem in practise since the rules aren't fairly or consistently enforced. Look to recent issues with iSH being approved and rejected. Edit: as others have pointed out iSH isn't the best example of this.
- spijdar 6y ago
  While I agree the rules are often inconsistently enforced, and I'm a fan of iSH, I think the real surprise is it was ever approved in the first place, as it seems to clearly be violating the "spirit of the law" regarding Apple being pretty clear they don't want apps that allow arbitrary binary execution. iSH tried to circumvent this with a technicality, and it seems to have initially "worked", but I think it's a poor example of an app unfairly/inconsistently targeted.
  - jamil7 6y ago
    OK fair enough perhaps it wasn't the most cut and dry example. But it was the most recent I could think of.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      I think the fact that the guidelines are written as such to make people think it wasn't a cut and dry example is really what makes it better example than you might have even though it was at the beginning. The rule Apple would like to enforce is very clear, and we know what it was and the review team didn't, because the guidelines didn't reflect the rule that Apple wanted to enforce (and thus ended up enforcing it inconsistently). A situation where developers have to tell the review team how the guidelines work because they're not written down explicitly is a very untenable position and one that needs to change.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I worked on the iSH appeal, and have of course watched this space for years, so I've gotten very familiar with the "spirit of the law" to the point that the conversation with Apple ended up really being a confirmation that our interpretation of the law was correct and that iSH was fine under the rules that Apple enforces. Your characterization isn't quite right. Apple doesn't want to not have apps that allow users to execute code, in fact they themselves write apps that let the user execute code they write and demo them at WWDC (Swift Playgrounds? Shortcuts?). Some of the best apps on the App Store let you write code and run it. Saying iSH is in violation of those rules would require pulling down those apps too. What Apple is really trying to do is prevent apps from changing their behavior after they review them in a silent way to bypass the usual process. The real issue here is that their guidelines don't reflect this and this confuses the reviewers (and evidently commenters here on Hacker News). What needs to happen here is Apple clarifies their guidelines so that we don't have rules that can be inconsistently enforced. (If you need more to convince you, I'll point you at the stuff I wrote when that was going on: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2020/11/08/fixing-section-2-5-2/ https://saagarjha.com/blog/2020/11/08/fixing-section-2-5-2/).
    - spijdar 6y ago
      Hmm, that's fair. I don't use iOS much myself, so I'm not very familiar with what's available on the App Store. It does appear that at least Swift Playgrounds allows for projects (including code, which is interpreted) to be downloaded off the Internet, extending the runtime beyond what is available "at time of review". That said, briefly looking over some scripting/IDE environments not from Apple, it looks like most of them ship "batteries included" and don't allow for content to be pulled from online. It seems to me the equivalent of iSH shouldn't be, say, a Python interpreter/IDE, but a Python runtime including pip and the ability to pull modules from pypi.org. OTOH, Python itself is so reflective, I imagine there's probably some way to self-inject modules within a script, if you have any sort of web access. And since you can tunnel TCP over DNS, even a hostname lookup is enough. So I'll conceded the point, since most scripting runtimes probably have some kind of EVAL routine to invoke the interpreter, or a porthole into the interpreter's bytecode. That said, my own original point was about developers/businesses feeling uncertainty about Apple's rules, and worrying if an app would even be accepted. I feel like almost any developer would instinctively thing iSH's premise of being a program interpreter for the Linux ABI would be rejected by Apple. Whether or not the underlying rule is fairly applied aside, it's clearly something Apple wants to prohibit. Albeit, I'm kind of baffled myself at why, especially in iSH's case where the emulated runtime is completely separate from the "real program text", with no escape hatches out IIRC. Seems utterly ridiculous to me, especially when you can accomplish something similar in WebKit/JSC I'm sure, just not offline. :-/
- Closi 6y ago
  iSH is definitely in the “pushing the boundaries of the rules” area of apps (x86 emulation) and probably shouldn’t have been allowed if you took a strict interpretation of the rules. OP is just saying 99% of apps being developed are clearly within the rules, rather than really pushing against the boundaries of what is allowed.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Well, that is the crux of the matter: the rules are not written correctly because they allow iSH to be inconsistently judged if you take "a strict interpretation"; there should not be a strict interpretation; it should just be "this app is reasonable" and "this app is not" and not "hey this looks like it's running code…does that make it a security risk?" which reviewers are not equipped to answer. When we made the appeal for iSH we correctly surmised that the point of the rule that was cited was to prevent apps from bypassing App Store review, which iSH does not do in the slightest. Taken from the real perspective from which the app should have been judged, iSH is not at the boundary at all; instead it's the apps that do things like undisclosed A/B testing and feature flags to hide things from review. So what happens is developers like us who are actually clearly within the rules as they are meant to be applied get caught in limbo at the whim of reviewers who misunderstand the guidelines because they aren't written as they are supposed to be enforced.
nguyenkien 6y ago
Apple can change it rules. eg: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519888/apple-screen-time-app-tracking-parental-controls-report https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519888/apple-screen-tim...
gtsteve 6y ago
Unless you're competing with something Apple is planning to bring out (parental control apps before screen time stats, etc). I don't think I'm competing with Apple at all today, but who knows what they're planning for their next features?
- varispeed 6y ago
  Exactly, nothing stops them to pull "Amazon", that is once they see your app is successful, they could request all data they need and either buy it off the company that developed it for you or commission their own app based on the documentation you had to provide and then block you. There is currently nothing you could do about it.
- the_other 6y ago
  Surely this is true for all developers, at any size? And also just about any product, or service, in any industry? As counterexamples: Apple sell Logic, yet it has numerous competitors, also all fairly successful: ProTools, Live, Cubase, Reaper, Ardour, FruityLoops. Apple give their customers Notes, Reminders and Mail for free, on all their devices (i.e. you don't even need to get hold of apps for these functions), and yet we also have Evernote, Notion, Airmail, Spark etc etc. Does the App Store monopoly significantly change the nature of app competition? I'm not convinced, but I'm open to learning about it.
  - afandian 6y ago
    Surely the fundamental difference here is whether "the market" decides, giving you a fighting chance, or whether the Deity decides, with no recourse but supplication?
  - dannyw 6y ago
    When Apple added Screen Time, they banned other competing apps.
    - the_other 6y ago
      I see how that does affect the competition. Fair point.
richardARPANET 6y ago
Except it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Apple#App_Store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Apple#App_Store
adanto6840 6y ago
I recently was in contact with someone who has written a menu-bar app to monitor Tesla Powerwall status. It's in the Mac App Store already -- but NOT the latest version, because Apple suddenly decided that they wanted written proof that accessing the Powerwall APIs was allowed (from whom?! It's MY hardware!). Apple will not allow the dev to update his Mac App in the MAS; yet they approved & continue to leave the original older version [with known bugs] up, available for purchase. So now the developer is stuck -- he can't update his app on the Mac App Store, and what recourse does he have as a 1-man-shop vs Apple?! =| As a developer I find it absurd, as a consumer [who bought the app on MAS and wondered why I had the non-latest version], I find it absolutely baffling & anti-consumer.
- sunshinerag 6y ago
  he cannot withdraw the older version of the software from the app store? that is weird.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
gnicholas 6y ago
Absolutely untrue. Many well-meaning devs who paint entirely within the lines end up in review purgatory due to capricious interpretations of Apple's broad/vague rules.

varispeed 6y ago

There is another problem - you cannot create your own app store or use alternative one if Apple for some reason does not accept your app. There is essentially no competition and at least the EU should step in and force Apple to open it to other app stores.

beagle3 6y ago
There’s altstore.io and others, and e.g. f-droid for Android. What you want is for those stores to be on equal footing - which I would like as well, but is harder to argue for because alternatives do exist.

andysinclair 6y ago

This is not aimed at solving your problem, this is aimed at helping us small developers build a more sustainable business on the App Store. We will ultimately build more apps and invest more time in supporting and improving our current apps.

madeofpalk 6y ago
> this is aimed at helping us small developers I doubt this was the aim. It suspect its aim was to fend off all this scrutiny on their App Store business. Who knows whether it'll work in avoiding attention from law makers and regulators, but this will do nothing to address the developer's concerns and problem with the App Store.
- bactisme 6y ago
  This
- hajile 6y ago
  It seems to hurt their argument. They don't need that big of a cut for expenses, they just want it and can do whatever they like. It still doesn't solve the fundamental issue. Let users have the option of using third-party stores, but losing Apple's safety net. They claim users want that net. If so, the third party stores will go bust. If not, they're simply being anti-consumer.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    It's a percentage cut and they cut it in half for a segment that brings in the smallest amount of revenue. I don't really think this affects their argument at all except that they now make enough from large players to pay for everyone else and the good PR is more valuable than the cash
- bottled_poe 6y ago
  The cynic in me agrees. Perhaps Apple sees the writing on the wall and they can either make the change with good press or bad.

sheeshkebab 6y ago

Agree. As a small developer, apples 30% tax never bothered me - seemed excessive but worth it. The arbitrary and weird approval rules is what turned me off their platform. Although I could see how they are trying to appease antitrust regulators with this move - although they should have gone with 0 - 2% range for that. 15% is a substantial markup to price consumers would pay for using apples monopolized mobile software distribution store.

eecc 6y ago
Imagine the outrage if people learned the markup that distributors make on vegetables and dairy as well as the monopsony power they wield against small farmers!
- toyg 6y ago
  You’re kidding, right? I don’t know how it is in the Land of the Free, but in Europe most margins on food are in the single digits all the way down. It’s true that small producers are squeezed at both ends, but at least there are market dynamics in place - if one supermarket chain takes too much, you go and sell to the other one, and the consumer can get it anyway. Double-digit and triple-digit margins are the reason the software world is now dominating the economy. Most other sectors can only dream of that.
  - eecc 6y ago
    No, I’m not. In Italy it’s common to see markups of 600% on veggies at the supermarket. There are few intermediaries and they get to dictate prices, mandatory discounts, and run double-discounted auctions (which the legislature is trying to make illegal.) If you get to outsmart them selling to another distributor (as if they’re not conniving already) good luck selling your next load of perishable goods before it rots. Also brick & mortar shops make hideous markups to cover for their poor selection, inventory and commercial space rent (so sure, it doesn’t line only their pockets but for the final consumer it doesn’t make much difference.)
    - 6y ago

cwhiz 6y ago

This isn’t a problem exclusive to Apple anymore. Google has implemented some draconian nonsense this year to the point where I ended up distributing my Android app as a PWA. I had no problems with Apple. Apple gets all the headlines, and certainly gets more chatter on HN, but they aren’t alone in this bullshit. As an example... Fortnite was also banned by Google.

pier25 6y ago
Fortnite was banned from the Play store, not Android.
Deukhoofd 6y ago
For Android there are at the very least alternatives for app distribution.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Alternatives technically exist, but they suck. We tried some alternatives but PWA was by far the only one that got any traction.
- sercand 6y ago
  For a B2C app, if we are not on the default distribution platform of the system, our user acquisition costs would be skyrocketed.
andybak 6y ago
> Fortnite was also banned by Google. I think the main reason this wasn't as newsworthy is that sideloading it was trivial for Android users. Untick a warning and install it yourself.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Trivial for you, a reader on HN. Not trivial, and potentially unsafe, for my grandmother.
  - 6y ago

estreeper 6y ago

> there are still limits to what can be done with a mobile web browser This is true, but perhaps not as many as some may think! Progressive Web Applications can now do quite a lot on mobile and tablets, with a notable exception of push notifications on iOS. They are an increasingly interesting option for those whose use case allows it. https://simplabs.com/blog/2020/06/10/the-state-of-pwa-support-on-mobile-and-desktop-in-2020/ https://simplabs.com/blog/2020/06/10/the-state-of-pwa-suppor...

coder543 6y ago
That "notable exception" is fatal to PWAs for most businesses who might otherwise develop one. Apple needs to implement that. As an iPhone owner, the inability for PWAs to have notifications is probably my single biggest gripe at the moment. I wrote more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24643185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24643185 and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24731713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24731713
gtsteve 6y ago
My key issue is working offline, if I could make that work in a convincing way with good usability that'd be ideal. You can still only store 5mb in local storage, so you can't sync a load of data to the device and allow the user to use it in the field. Also, there is now a 7-day age limit for data in local storage - I understand why this was done (for user privacy) but it just makes things more hostile for developers attempting to use it in a legitimate way.
ChickeNES 6y ago
I for one would flat out refuse to use any service that requires PWAs

sercand 6y ago

At least review process is better than Google's because when we rejected on Play Store we can't get any feedback from Google. They send a template email which says the "problem maybe A or B, check what you have changed". Apple provides screenshots and human written explanation on rejection. I have even talked on the phone with review team several times to discuss the problem. Yes, it sucks that the update may be rejected by some reviewer and another one may approve the same update.

risyachka 6y ago
It was better indeed, now it is worse. Now Google sends you screenshots and explains what is wrong and Apple just quotes like a dumb bot their policy (which is not even acceptable in many cases)
Dahoon 6y ago
Feels a bit like whataboutism. Especially since Apple is worse than Google now.
- donkeyd 6y ago
  > Especially since Apple is worse than Google now. Care to elaborate on that statement?
  - Dahoon 6y ago
    Look at the other comments at the same level. No need to add what has already been said.
grishka 6y ago
Google does have its problems, but at least you still have the option of publishing an apk on your website.
mrtksn 6y ago
Apple's human touch is underrated and I feel like those who complain about Apple's review process have no real world experience and talking from ideological standpoint. I was more than glad to receive a f..g phone call from the reviewer telling me why he will reject my update, why is it this way and what I can do to make it pass and give me his phone number to call if I need further assistance. I become die hard Apple AppStore review process fanboy by getting a rejection! You know what happens when you get a rejection from some other place? You get a template e-mail with no specifics, good luck figure it out. Tough luck if your livelihood depends on it.

risyachka 6y ago

Same story. As long as they treat big companies like royalty and small devs like trash (like they do now) I couldn't care less about their fee.

deepstack 6y ago

More reason to make PWA and keep everything in HTML5 if possible.

root_axis 6y ago

Step 5. Apple copies your app and integrates it as an iOS feature

fooey 6y ago

I call it review roulette Something around 1 out of 10 updates to our app gets rejected for some random old core feature. So far it's always been resolved, but it's nerve wracking every single time.