7 ms·

Protest is an important form of participation in a democracy, it's not petty at all. Forcing developers to add Apple ID as a sign-in method is the petty thing.

by kraf 5y ago

Protest is an important form of participation in a democracy, it's not petty at all. Forcing developers to add Apple ID as a sign-in method is the petty thing. The developers have no power unless they unionize in some form which seems absolutely impossible. So it seems to me that it's all a developer can really do to make a statement and I think it's brave.

user-the-name 5y ago
It is not "petty", it is a way to ensure all users get access to a privacy-conscious method of logging in without giving up your privacy to Google or Facebook. Being this angry at having to give users the option of better privacy really isn't a great look.
- collaborative 5y ago
  No one is forcing users to use Google or FB. They can do traditional email signup
  - nyuszika7h 5y ago
    That is definitely not true for every app. There was never any clause in the App Store guidelines that you must provide traditional email signup. At least this way, the social-only apps will be forced to provide you a more privacy-preserving alternative, and for ones that don't use social logins anyway, nothing changes.
    - collaborative 5y ago
      Of course, my comment was related to the app of the post Groups specifically Which used to offer both social sign-up (FB and Google) and a traditional email sign-up option You probably don't know that in this case, Groups was also forced to include AppleID or risk being removed from the App Store Removing all social logins from this point to ensure compliance would have definitely affected all users who had originally signed in with FB/Google, way before AppleID ever existed
      - Twisell 5y ago
        >Removing all social logins from this point to ensure compliance would have definitely affected all users who had originally signed in with FB/Google, way before AppleID ever existed Yet it would have been more consistent! What is the point of going to war against Apple while embracing the private-data-broker model at the same time? Just send a warning e-mail requiring password change because you decided to remove all social login as a protest. And provide a password reset mechanism for formerly social-login users that haven't defined a password in time. That would have been a true act of resistance.
        collaborative 5y ago
        Amen
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    No one is forcing users to use Sign in with Apple either.
    - collaborative 5y ago
      But Apple is forcing devs to include Apple ID and that's what's wrong here. They could have made it optional. Given how Apple users can be it likely would have ended up being in demand and devs would have included it out of their free will
      - user-the-name 5y ago
        There is basically no benefit to app developer in including it. It is more work, and you may get only an anonymised address. However, there is massive benefit to actual users. Apple decided to prioritise users over developers here.
        collaborative 5y ago
        Trust me, I say this as a developer, if there is any indication that I am losing out on users because I don't have Apple ID, I will make sure to add it asap. That is pretty much the reason why I first included FB and Google. I first only had Google, then some people aksed for FB. The natural course would have been that then some other guys ask for Apple and I add it. But Apple decided to abuse its position and force it on us developers
        thiagocsf 5y ago
        Going by this rationale, are you going to add Apple ID to your website when users request it?
        user-the-name 5y ago
        Doesn't really matter what you would have done. It matters what the entire ecosystem would have. As a user, I am very satisfied that Apple made this a requirement. As a developer, I just implemented it without throwing a tantrum.
webmobdev 5y ago
Yes. It is important that more developers stand up to this kind of bullying. Apple needs to respect developers more and, if it wants them to integrate Apple services they should instead offer incentives rather than threats to them. As both a developer and an Apple user, I don't care about Apple ID and so why would I wish to waste my precious time adding features I am not interested in? (I use Apple products but I never use Apple ID anywhere because I believe it weakens my privacy - why would I want to share more personal data with Apple, a company that was part of PRISM and used to sell user data to the government?)
- sbuk 5y ago
  Equally, developers need to respect their users. I don't want to have to have a Facebook or Google account to use your product. Why should I be interested in your app if you force me you use either of those options? They were also involved in PRISM and both have far worse track records with privacy than Apple. More importantly, why should I trust you with PII?
  - collaborative 5y ago
    Having your email address boils down to password recovery. For instance, I only ever send 3 types of emails: 1 - Activation email with activation code to ensure the person actually owns the email address (non-OAUTH sign-up) 2 - Password recovery for when they have forgotten their password. Yes, a user doesn't need this with OAUTH but sometimes they will have forgotten that they used OAUTH to start with and need to sign in with email & pss 3 - When push is turned off and someone has messaged you I don't think this is beyond reasonable but I'm willing to take criticism
    - sbuk 5y ago
      There are other ways to do password recovery. Email is categorically not the only solution to this problem.
      - collaborative 5y ago
nyuszika7h 5y ago
Nobody is forced to add Apple ID login if they don't have any other social logins. Personally I stick to direct signup but if I were forced to do social login, Sign in with Apple would be my first preference as it's the most privacy-preserving compared to Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  >> but if I were forced to do social login I wonder what it would take to "force" me into doing a social login? It would have to be something drastic, like a website that provides me with needed oxygen.
  - dasyatidprime 5y ago
    Anything else that would ‘force’ you to Have an Account somewhere, combined with that somewhere happening to outsource their identity framework to “social” of any kind. Or: the same things that would ‘force’ you to have a social network account to start with, potentially. To get on my hobbyhorse some: what about a platform that your employer uses to distribute relevant documents and updates which you need for your job, which has become sufficiently well-known and implicitly available that hesitating about the dependency is perceived as bizarre? Note that the response of “don't deal with them then” runs into market information and churn amplification¹ issues when it is a social assumption that picking up a ‘tool’ (which is actually a relationship with a third party, but where this is close to invisible in the steady state) is essentially a free action which requires no consideration, because the information about “does this employer require me to use this tool” neither propagates efficiently nor stays stable. Past source: wound up changing the email address on one of my Google accounts recently for exactly that reason. They actually asked me up-front whether I had a GMail account they could use instead, which turned out to be because they use restricted Google Docs for critical material. Not naming them, but in a broad sense, this is one of the more ethical companies I've ever dealt with, by the way. Future source: I should probably be considering digging into LinkedIn soon despite their past abusive behaviors, because as it turns out, if I want to dig myself out of this hole… ¹ I assume there's a ‘real’ term for what I'm thinking of, but I don't know what it is, so I cobbled that one together out of the most relevant-seeming bits.
pier25 5y ago
Apple is extremely hostile to developers. After a couple of bad experiences with the app store I simply refused to do any development for iOS.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  As a consumer, I really don't care about it.
- willseth 5y ago
  What is hostility to you is customer service to me.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Apple is extremely restrictive to developers. As a developer, I hate it. As a consumer, I love it. Apple has never shown me hostility. On the contrary, I found Apple to offer reasons why they do things and how to work around them. Have they sometimes forced me to do things I don't want (and felt were worse)? Yes. But it was obvious what I needed to do to comply.
  - pier25 5y ago
    > Apple is extremely restrictive to developers Restrictive is not the appropriate word. For example, this whole forcing devs to use "sign in with Apple" is not about imposing restrictions as you can decide to not use a third party sign in (on a new app). Apple is saying "hey if your users can sign in with Facebook they should be able to sign in with Apple, we want a piece of the pie". Some iOS users are happy about the privacy aspect of this but fundamentally (IMO) this is not about privacy or restrictions, it's about making users and devs more dependent on the Apple ecosystem.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      What's the "pie"? FB makes money off their data. Apple seems to be providing me the service I paid for. If they made it optional, a large percentage of apps would force you to use Google/FB to login. That's not acceptable to me. One of the major reasons I give Apple money is to because they can stand up against the privacy invading FB/Google and I, as an individual, cannot. So they are very much doing what I want in this instance.

by kraf 5y ago

user-the-name 5y ago

It is not "petty", it is a way to ensure all users get access to a privacy-conscious method of logging in without giving up your privacy to Google or Facebook. Being this angry at having to give users the option of better privacy really isn't a great look.

collaborative 5y ago
No one is forcing users to use Google or FB. They can do traditional email signup
- nyuszika7h 5y ago
  That is definitely not true for every app. There was never any clause in the App Store guidelines that you must provide traditional email signup. At least this way, the social-only apps will be forced to provide you a more privacy-preserving alternative, and for ones that don't use social logins anyway, nothing changes.
  - collaborative 5y ago
    Of course, my comment was related to the app of the post Groups specifically Which used to offer both social sign-up (FB and Google) and a traditional email sign-up option You probably don't know that in this case, Groups was also forced to include AppleID or risk being removed from the App Store Removing all social logins from this point to ensure compliance would have definitely affected all users who had originally signed in with FB/Google, way before AppleID ever existed
    - Twisell 5y ago
      >Removing all social logins from this point to ensure compliance would have definitely affected all users who had originally signed in with FB/Google, way before AppleID ever existed Yet it would have been more consistent! What is the point of going to war against Apple while embracing the private-data-broker model at the same time? Just send a warning e-mail requiring password change because you decided to remove all social login as a protest. And provide a password reset mechanism for formerly social-login users that haven't defined a password in time. That would have been a true act of resistance.
      - collaborative 5y ago
        Amen
- user-the-name 5y ago
  No one is forcing users to use Sign in with Apple either.
  - collaborative 5y ago
    But Apple is forcing devs to include Apple ID and that's what's wrong here. They could have made it optional. Given how Apple users can be it likely would have ended up being in demand and devs would have included it out of their free will
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      There is basically no benefit to app developer in including it. It is more work, and you may get only an anonymised address. However, there is massive benefit to actual users. Apple decided to prioritise users over developers here.
      - collaborative 5y ago
        Trust me, I say this as a developer, if there is any indication that I am losing out on users because I don't have Apple ID, I will make sure to add it asap. That is pretty much the reason why I first included FB and Google. I first only had Google, then some people aksed for FB. The natural course would have been that then some other guys ask for Apple and I add it. But Apple decided to abuse its position and force it on us developers
        thiagocsf 5y ago
        Going by this rationale, are you going to add Apple ID to your website when users request it?
        user-the-name 5y ago
        Doesn't really matter what you would have done. It matters what the entire ecosystem would have. As a user, I am very satisfied that Apple made this a requirement. As a developer, I just implemented it without throwing a tantrum.

webmobdev 5y ago

Yes. It is important that more developers stand up to this kind of bullying. Apple needs to respect developers more and, if it wants them to integrate Apple services they should instead offer incentives rather than threats to them. As both a developer and an Apple user, I don't care about Apple ID and so why would I wish to waste my precious time adding features I am not interested in? (I use Apple products but I never use Apple ID anywhere because I believe it weakens my privacy - why would I want to share more personal data with Apple, a company that was part of PRISM and used to sell user data to the government?)

sbuk 5y ago
Equally, developers need to respect their users. I don't want to have to have a Facebook or Google account to use your product. Why should I be interested in your app if you force me you use either of those options? They were also involved in PRISM and both have far worse track records with privacy than Apple. More importantly, why should I trust you with PII?
- collaborative 5y ago
  Having your email address boils down to password recovery. For instance, I only ever send 3 types of emails: 1 - Activation email with activation code to ensure the person actually owns the email address (non-OAUTH sign-up) 2 - Password recovery for when they have forgotten their password. Yes, a user doesn't need this with OAUTH but sometimes they will have forgotten that they used OAUTH to start with and need to sign in with email & pss 3 - When push is turned off and someone has messaged you I don't think this is beyond reasonable but I'm willing to take criticism
  - sbuk 5y ago
    There are other ways to do password recovery. Email is categorically not the only solution to this problem.
    - collaborative 5y ago

nyuszika7h 5y ago

Nobody is forced to add Apple ID login if they don't have any other social logins. Personally I stick to direct signup but if I were forced to do social login, Sign in with Apple would be my first preference as it's the most privacy-preserving compared to Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

sandworm101 5y ago
>> but if I were forced to do social login I wonder what it would take to "force" me into doing a social login? It would have to be something drastic, like a website that provides me with needed oxygen.
- dasyatidprime 5y ago
  Anything else that would ‘force’ you to Have an Account somewhere, combined with that somewhere happening to outsource their identity framework to “social” of any kind. Or: the same things that would ‘force’ you to have a social network account to start with, potentially. To get on my hobbyhorse some: what about a platform that your employer uses to distribute relevant documents and updates which you need for your job, which has become sufficiently well-known and implicitly available that hesitating about the dependency is perceived as bizarre? Note that the response of “don't deal with them then” runs into market information and churn amplification¹ issues when it is a social assumption that picking up a ‘tool’ (which is actually a relationship with a third party, but where this is close to invisible in the steady state) is essentially a free action which requires no consideration, because the information about “does this employer require me to use this tool” neither propagates efficiently nor stays stable. Past source: wound up changing the email address on one of my Google accounts recently for exactly that reason. They actually asked me up-front whether I had a GMail account they could use instead, which turned out to be because they use restricted Google Docs for critical material. Not naming them, but in a broad sense, this is one of the more ethical companies I've ever dealt with, by the way. Future source: I should probably be considering digging into LinkedIn soon despite their past abusive behaviors, because as it turns out, if I want to dig myself out of this hole… ¹ I assume there's a ‘real’ term for what I'm thinking of, but I don't know what it is, so I cobbled that one together out of the most relevant-seeming bits.

pier25 5y ago

Apple is extremely hostile to developers. After a couple of bad experiences with the app store I simply refused to do any development for iOS.

elzbardico 5y ago
As a consumer, I really don't care about it.
willseth 5y ago
What is hostility to you is customer service to me.
HWR_14 5y ago
Apple is extremely restrictive to developers. As a developer, I hate it. As a consumer, I love it. Apple has never shown me hostility. On the contrary, I found Apple to offer reasons why they do things and how to work around them. Have they sometimes forced me to do things I don't want (and felt were worse)? Yes. But it was obvious what I needed to do to comply.
- pier25 5y ago
  > Apple is extremely restrictive to developers Restrictive is not the appropriate word. For example, this whole forcing devs to use "sign in with Apple" is not about imposing restrictions as you can decide to not use a third party sign in (on a new app). Apple is saying "hey if your users can sign in with Facebook they should be able to sign in with Apple, we want a piece of the pie". Some iOS users are happy about the privacy aspect of this but fundamentally (IMO) this is not about privacy or restrictions, it's about making users and devs more dependent on the Apple ecosystem.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    What's the "pie"? FB makes money off their data. Apple seems to be providing me the service I paid for. If they made it optional, a large percentage of apps would force you to use Google/FB to login. That's not acceptable to me. One of the major reasons I give Apple money is to because they can stand up against the privacy invading FB/Google and I, as an individual, cannot. So they are very much doing what I want in this instance.