7 ms·

"But I like Apple's walled garden because they verify and quality check everything on there"

hmottestad 6y ago
Hits extra close to home when Apple enforces some arbitrary rule for one app (like Amphetamine) and then doesn't even bother to test other apps.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  It's just bike-shedding. Enforcing names or the fact that you mention subscribing to the app on a website is easy whereas testing every app that comes in is hard.
  - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
    For 30% of all revenues, why should anyone give a flying damn about poor Apple having to do its homework?
    - coldtea 6y ago
      Well, they can always take their business elsewhere, where the grass is greener. But they came to the App Store because it's a dozens of billions of dollars a year market...
      - majewsky 6y ago
        Which "elsewhere" is there for someone developing an Apple Watch keyboard?
        valuearb 6y ago
        Apparently developers can develop more than one kind of app.
        WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
        This sounds almost like the developers should be permanent, pardon my French, bitches to both Apple who can boot them for any petty reason, and to scammers who copycat them and make money with straightaway fraud, then to Apple again, who won't do anything about the scammers (I wonder what percentage of App Store revenue comes from those, once you look past the biggest players like Microsoft/Adobe/whoever else is in the top 20), and then to Apple again, who will incorporate your app's functionality into the core of their OS offering and then boast how they were the first to come up with the idea. And not only should be the developers bitches, they should, according to you, accept and enjoy this dubious "honor". Right?
        valuearb 6y ago
        You can build an app that only serves an extremely narrow market niche to improve functionality that is incredibly important to the platform owner, but then you shouldn’t complain about being sherlocked or how tough competition is.
    - zepto 6y ago
      Agreed, but the issue here seems to be a legal one. There is very little IP protection for software in general. If the app conforms to the rules, Apple may not be able to determine that it’s a violation of any rule. Then what?
      - molszanski 6y ago
        The very least, there should a well-known, published and discussed precedents. Apple should inform developers about edge cases of the app store and developers should know about it before they enter the contract.
        zepto 6y ago
        Maybe so, but how is that related to this case?
      - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
        Excuses, excuses. Apple advertises the benefit of its App Store that thanks to the diligent manual review, such fraud simply has no place there. They also maintain that the fees are high because the review process is top notch and thus expensive. Now they have to admit that either the walls in their garden are worse than Swiss cheese by letting bad actors in, or that they are complicit in that fraud, because someone had to approve that shit. Now if I’m just as likely to be screwed over by an Apple-approved app from their walled garden as I am by sideloading random crap, what’s the point in it for me, as a user? If I have to exercise just as much caution, I can just as well sideload what I want.
        zepto 6y ago
        “Excuses, excuses.“ This is legal liability. That matters. > Now if I’m just as likely to be screwed over by an Apple-approved app from their walled garden as I am by sideloading random crap, what’s the point in it for me, as a user? If I have to exercise just as much caution, I can just as well sideload what I want. If this were true, then sure. But it obviously isn’t. Even the Google Play store is way worse in terms of risks than the App Store.
  - TomSwirly 6y ago
    Apple takes 30% off the top. 30%! The other 70% goes to programming the app, doing design, QA, advertising, customer support. That's a lot to do. For its 30% Apple only has to validate that the App is as advertised, and isn't trying to cheat you. If they can't even do that, why do they exist except as a way to steal 30% from everyone off the top?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- valuearb 6y ago
  It tests every app, including this one. Think about what really happened here. Edit: Apparently my downvoters can’t think about what really happened here so I’ll explain it. In App Review this app worked fine. Oh, the keyboard was likely lame and not useful, but the scam screens were no where to be seen. Then the app is approved and placed on the store. Now the scam screens appear. It’s trivial to do, is done all the time even by legitimate developers, and incredibly hard for Apple review to detect.
  - bredren 6y ago
    I wonder if it is trivially hard to detect or not. For example, if the app reviewer’s touch interaction with an app were recorded and the resulting screens diffed with the same pattern after publishing, there should be no changes. This is a method used as part of some UI testing with selenium. There could be apps this does not work for, such as when content changes or conversion type UI is shown. But I imagine there is some amount of low hanging fruit here. And even that once a “scam” app like this one is reported, Apple should want to review past diffs to look for the example of the violation. I also agree that for the price, this is what apple should be preventing on behalf honest developers It is also worth noting that DMCA is embraced ITT whereas with Github’s response to DMCA recently it did not get the same treatment.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      I think there is a solution and Apple should implement it. But even code we know how to write doesn’t appear overnight, doesn’t work perfectly, and doesn’t suffer from high levels of false positives.
    - Jenda_ 6y ago
      > For example, if the app reviewer’s touch interaction with an app were recorded and the resulting screens diffed with the same pattern after publishing, there should be no changes. There are lots of valid reasons for apps to change based on outside events (location, time, online content). For example apps displaying weather forecast or current news.
  - 6y ago
raverbashing 6y ago
Now I wonder how come an "unlock app" paywall with that amount of money goes through the Apple review process unquestioned Or for some reason if it's a Chinese app Apple will just not bother?
- valuearb 6y ago
  Or perhaps the app worked entirely differently during review?
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Apple takes extra steps for that not to happen, and even then in this case it should suspend the app
    - valuearb 6y ago
      It’s extremely difficult for Apple to stop apps from behaving differently during review than they do when downloaded from the App Store. A large number of developers implement schemes like this, and most aren’t scammers. Even if Apple has reviewers download the approved app from the store to double check it hadn’t changed behavior, they can be gamed. Remember the Uber App Review geofencing that went on for years?
valuearb 6y ago
And this is just an example of how hard it is to do well, when determined scammers even scam the review process. If this happens on iOS, what do you think happens on Google play?
- m45t3r 6y ago
  At least I don't need to pay 99 USD a year for some "review" that clearly only works in favor of Apple (they mostly seems to approve anything from smaller developers like shown in this post, while using draconian and arbitrary rules for competitor apps like Spotify).
  - valuearb 6y ago
    This app clearly scammed the App Reviewers. How would you prevent that?
    - TomSwirly 6y ago
      Responding to the hundreds of complaints? Periodically testing apps to see they haven't become a scam. Apple takes 30% - one dollar in three goes to them, and the remaining 2 has to go to writing and testing software, design, customer support, advertising. It's ridiculous that so many people think Apple can just take this huge cut and then allow people to be literally robbed by scam apps and just shrug.
      - valuearb 6y ago
        It’s ridiculous that you don’t think a good portion if that 30% doesn’t go to writing and testing software, design, customer support, advertising, not to forget hosting, developer services, localization, etc. Apple should figure out a better automated solution for this specific problem, but it’s ignorant to not acknowledge they already do far more than other app stores.
        fakedang 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
JKCalhoun 6y ago
Sounds like the review-system (that is, user reviews) that needs vetting. It's not unique to Apple of course — Amazon customers could benefit from honest reviews as well.
LockAndLol 6y ago
Apple users will defend its behavior to the bitter. No matter what you post about Apple, it will either be excused or praised. Does anybody know of a firefox addon or monkeyscript to filter articles on Hackernews? At this point I just want to hide any article with "M1" or "Apple" in it.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  There's a guy who made a script that downvotes any comment that starts with "I mean" or ends with "so..." I wonder if he's worked something up like this.
zepto 6y ago
So the alternative is a free for all?
- ulrikrasmussen 6y ago
  Or multiple markets with actual human curation that can compete for quality.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Most markets compete on price, not quality. You’ll see most people flock to where they can get stuff for free or very little, exactly as it is on the web. We already see a race to the bottom and massive duplication of apps. It will only get worse if there are more stores, and then nobody will be in a position to fix it. Apple should be being pressured to do something about this, but forcing the store open will have the exact opposite effect of what is desired.
    - bsder 6y ago
      > Most markets compete on price, not quality. But some won't. And if people get used to it, they will go elsewhere for a specific app and leave the scams behind. At which point Apple will have to do something or their marketplace will devolve into a cesspool and everybody will leave.
      - zepto 6y ago
        But some won't. And if people get used to it, they will go elsewhere for a specific app and leave the scams behind. People be forced will go to really shitty stores that are way worse than Apple’s one for specific apps, and the overall app market will become much less safe. Why? Because people establishing new stores will just pay for exclusives.

Hits extra close to home when Apple enforces some arbitrary rule for one app (like Amphetamine) and then doesn't even bother to test other apps.

Hamuko 6y ago
It's just bike-shedding. Enforcing names or the fact that you mention subscribing to the app on a website is easy whereas testing every app that comes in is hard.
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  For 30% of all revenues, why should anyone give a flying damn about poor Apple having to do its homework?
  - coldtea 6y ago
    Well, they can always take their business elsewhere, where the grass is greener. But they came to the App Store because it's a dozens of billions of dollars a year market...
    - majewsky 6y ago
      Which "elsewhere" is there for someone developing an Apple Watch keyboard?
      - valuearb 6y ago
        Apparently developers can develop more than one kind of app.
        WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
        This sounds almost like the developers should be permanent, pardon my French, bitches to both Apple who can boot them for any petty reason, and to scammers who copycat them and make money with straightaway fraud, then to Apple again, who won't do anything about the scammers (I wonder what percentage of App Store revenue comes from those, once you look past the biggest players like Microsoft/Adobe/whoever else is in the top 20), and then to Apple again, who will incorporate your app's functionality into the core of their OS offering and then boast how they were the first to come up with the idea. And not only should be the developers bitches, they should, according to you, accept and enjoy this dubious "honor". Right?
        valuearb 6y ago
        You can build an app that only serves an extremely narrow market niche to improve functionality that is incredibly important to the platform owner, but then you shouldn’t complain about being sherlocked or how tough competition is.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Agreed, but the issue here seems to be a legal one. There is very little IP protection for software in general. If the app conforms to the rules, Apple may not be able to determine that it’s a violation of any rule. Then what?
    - molszanski 6y ago
      The very least, there should a well-known, published and discussed precedents. Apple should inform developers about edge cases of the app store and developers should know about it before they enter the contract.
      - zepto 6y ago
        Maybe so, but how is that related to this case?
    - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
      Excuses, excuses. Apple advertises the benefit of its App Store that thanks to the diligent manual review, such fraud simply has no place there. They also maintain that the fees are high because the review process is top notch and thus expensive. Now they have to admit that either the walls in their garden are worse than Swiss cheese by letting bad actors in, or that they are complicit in that fraud, because someone had to approve that shit. Now if I’m just as likely to be screwed over by an Apple-approved app from their walled garden as I am by sideloading random crap, what’s the point in it for me, as a user? If I have to exercise just as much caution, I can just as well sideload what I want.
      - zepto 6y ago
        “Excuses, excuses.“ This is legal liability. That matters. > Now if I’m just as likely to be screwed over by an Apple-approved app from their walled garden as I am by sideloading random crap, what’s the point in it for me, as a user? If I have to exercise just as much caution, I can just as well sideload what I want. If this were true, then sure. But it obviously isn’t. Even the Google Play store is way worse in terms of risks than the App Store.
- TomSwirly 6y ago
  Apple takes 30% off the top. 30%! The other 70% goes to programming the app, doing design, QA, advertising, customer support. That's a lot to do. For its 30% Apple only has to validate that the App is as advertised, and isn't trying to cheat you. If they can't even do that, why do they exist except as a way to steal 30% from everyone off the top?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
valuearb 6y ago
It tests every app, including this one. Think about what really happened here. Edit: Apparently my downvoters can’t think about what really happened here so I’ll explain it. In App Review this app worked fine. Oh, the keyboard was likely lame and not useful, but the scam screens were no where to be seen. Then the app is approved and placed on the store. Now the scam screens appear. It’s trivial to do, is done all the time even by legitimate developers, and incredibly hard for Apple review to detect.
- bredren 6y ago
  I wonder if it is trivially hard to detect or not. For example, if the app reviewer’s touch interaction with an app were recorded and the resulting screens diffed with the same pattern after publishing, there should be no changes. This is a method used as part of some UI testing with selenium. There could be apps this does not work for, such as when content changes or conversion type UI is shown. But I imagine there is some amount of low hanging fruit here. And even that once a “scam” app like this one is reported, Apple should want to review past diffs to look for the example of the violation. I also agree that for the price, this is what apple should be preventing on behalf honest developers It is also worth noting that DMCA is embraced ITT whereas with Github’s response to DMCA recently it did not get the same treatment.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    I think there is a solution and Apple should implement it. But even code we know how to write doesn’t appear overnight, doesn’t work perfectly, and doesn’t suffer from high levels of false positives.
  - Jenda_ 6y ago
    > For example, if the app reviewer’s touch interaction with an app were recorded and the resulting screens diffed with the same pattern after publishing, there should be no changes. There are lots of valid reasons for apps to change based on outside events (location, time, online content). For example apps displaying weather forecast or current news.
- 6y ago

raverbashing 6y ago

Now I wonder how come an "unlock app" paywall with that amount of money goes through the Apple review process unquestioned Or for some reason if it's a Chinese app Apple will just not bother?

valuearb 6y ago
Or perhaps the app worked entirely differently during review?
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Apple takes extra steps for that not to happen, and even then in this case it should suspend the app
  - valuearb 6y ago
    It’s extremely difficult for Apple to stop apps from behaving differently during review than they do when downloaded from the App Store. A large number of developers implement schemes like this, and most aren’t scammers. Even if Apple has reviewers download the approved app from the store to double check it hadn’t changed behavior, they can be gamed. Remember the Uber App Review geofencing that went on for years?

valuearb 6y ago

And this is just an example of how hard it is to do well, when determined scammers even scam the review process. If this happens on iOS, what do you think happens on Google play?

m45t3r 6y ago
At least I don't need to pay 99 USD a year for some "review" that clearly only works in favor of Apple (they mostly seems to approve anything from smaller developers like shown in this post, while using draconian and arbitrary rules for competitor apps like Spotify).
- valuearb 6y ago
  This app clearly scammed the App Reviewers. How would you prevent that?
  - TomSwirly 6y ago
    Responding to the hundreds of complaints? Periodically testing apps to see they haven't become a scam. Apple takes 30% - one dollar in three goes to them, and the remaining 2 has to go to writing and testing software, design, customer support, advertising. It's ridiculous that so many people think Apple can just take this huge cut and then allow people to be literally robbed by scam apps and just shrug.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      It’s ridiculous that you don’t think a good portion if that 30% doesn’t go to writing and testing software, design, customer support, advertising, not to forget hosting, developer services, localization, etc. Apple should figure out a better automated solution for this specific problem, but it’s ignorant to not acknowledge they already do far more than other app stores.
      - fakedang 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

JKCalhoun 6y ago

Sounds like the review-system (that is, user reviews) that needs vetting. It's not unique to Apple of course — Amazon customers could benefit from honest reviews as well.

LockAndLol 6y ago

Apple users will defend its behavior to the bitter. No matter what you post about Apple, it will either be excused or praised. Does anybody know of a firefox addon or monkeyscript to filter articles on Hackernews? At this point I just want to hide any article with "M1" or "Apple" in it.

reaperducer 6y ago
There's a guy who made a script that downvotes any comment that starts with "I mean" or ends with "so..." I wonder if he's worked something up like this.

zepto 6y ago

So the alternative is a free for all?

ulrikrasmussen 6y ago
Or multiple markets with actual human curation that can compete for quality.
- zepto 6y ago
  Most markets compete on price, not quality. You’ll see most people flock to where they can get stuff for free or very little, exactly as it is on the web. We already see a race to the bottom and massive duplication of apps. It will only get worse if there are more stores, and then nobody will be in a position to fix it. Apple should be being pressured to do something about this, but forcing the store open will have the exact opposite effect of what is desired.
  - bsder 6y ago
    > Most markets compete on price, not quality. But some won't. And if people get used to it, they will go elsewhere for a specific app and leave the scams behind. At which point Apple will have to do something or their marketplace will devolve into a cesspool and everybody will leave.
    - zepto 6y ago
      But some won't. And if people get used to it, they will go elsewhere for a specific app and leave the scams behind. People be forced will go to really shitty stores that are way worse than Apple’s one for specific apps, and the overall app market will become much less safe. Why? Because people establishing new stores will just pay for exclusives.