15 ms·

Discontinuing FlickType Keyboard for iPhone

503 points by keleftheriou 5y ago

MBCook 5y ago
As Miguel de Icaza said on Twitter today, this is exactly the kind of behavior that makes Apple look terrible to regulators. Big popular app that has been promoted in the past and Apple just seems to want to keep screwing with them.
- finneganscat 5y ago
  Big popular app, with only a 3.3 rating and many one stars. Big popular app that charges $10 to access settings menu and adjust autocorrect. Yeah right. Flicktype are losers.
itslennysfault 5y ago
This is such a standard apple developer experience. I've been rejected so many times without making changes related to the rejection reason. I've re-submitted the same app 3 or 4 times and eventually it just gets "approved" all of a sudden. Their review process is complete BS. It's all just luck of which off-shore vendor you got reviewing your app.
- fatnoah 5y ago
  It really is. A past company made an application that was in the app store for a couple years. Three different customers paid us to white-label the app for them, so we ended up with three additional versions that were new app packages and differed from the original only in fonts, colors, and logos. Two were approved after a short back and forth with different questions for each, and we eventually gave up on the third after 9 months of fruitless back and forth.
  - weimerica 5y ago
    Worked for a company with a similar approach (circa 2010) and we got rejected and had to just use the one. Can’t say I feel Apple is wrong for fighting app spam, however.
    - mission_failed 5y ago
      But Apple created the problem. No company that offers white label applications wants to have to upload a completely separate app for every client, but there is no other option.
- mdoms 5y ago
  And has any of this caused you to re-evaluate building software for Apple devices or purchasing Apple devices for either home or work? If so, what was the outcome of this re-evaluation?
  - banana_giraffe 5y ago
    It has for me. I've mentioned it before, but I had an app to help with D&D stuff rejected for describing how to harm someone in one of the descriptions of a spell somewhere. Some variation of this happened three times. Eventually the level of stupid was too much for me to handle, and on the third time, I just pulled the app rather than resubmit things.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    It has for me. I had been working on a Mac app but decided it wasn't worth the hassle. I prefer the platform but there is no way I'm going to sign up for an abusive relationship with Apple.
- tacker2000 5y ago
  I also had random rejections, and a couple years ago, the review process took some days to a week, making oneself pretty anxious while waiting it out. These days I doubt I would create anything for iOS anymore, since the risk of getting banned over some nonsense without any recourse whatsoever is just too big and I just dont want to deal with losing my precious time and money. There are better alternatives, like the web, etc. Unfortunately macOS will be going down that path soon, once they remove the ability to install from any source (and they will do it, no doubt). It’s a real shame.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >Unfortunately macOS will be going down that path soon, once they remove the ability to install from any source (and they will do it, no doubt) People have been saying that for ten years now and it hasn't happened yet.
    - kouteiheika 5y ago
      They're just slowly boiling the frog. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
      - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        I suspect we will be having the same discussion in ten years and nothing significant will have changed.
jareds 5y ago
As a Voiceover user this is disappointing. If the law changes to allow third party app stores or side loading this is the app that would convince me to go down that road.
yarcob 5y ago
People who critizise Apple in public often seem to have trouble updating their apps. I'm sure Apple has their reasons for blocking this app, but I'd prefer a world where customer choices what apps they can use don't depend on the whims of a very secretive company.
- wsc981 5y ago
  > I'm sure Apple has their reasons for blocking this app ... Perhaps, but I found this Tweet interesting: > App Review problems & broken APIs isn't even all. The broader relationship Apple has with keyboard developers is hostile, as my decade of relevant experience can confirm. And it's not just my own assessment: the former head of keyboards at Apple has admitted to this hostility. I'd like to know more about Apple's hostility towards keyboard devs.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    He could be referring to this thread, though it's not specific to just keyboard devs. https://twitter.com/kocienda/status/1273732626331791360?lang=en https://twitter.com/kocienda/status/1273732626331791360?lang...
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    To be fair I could see why they might want to be extra careful about 3rd party keyboard software. The potential for malware is huge.
AnonC 5y ago
The submitter of this story here on HN is the developer of FlickType. He had also filed a lawsuit against Apple for allowing apps that have been outright cheating people with incredibly high in-app purchases and has pointed out several instances of scammy apps. I thought larger companies keep tabs on the "noisy and popular" ones in media (and social media) and would take more care not to annoy them further. But this story makes it seem like Apple has decided to just keep pushing his buttons as some sort of punishment. I don't believe there's anyone capable in Apple top leadership who's spending any time in leading the App Store team appropriately. The scammy apps and the contrasting meaningless rejections of praiseworthy apps only tell one thing – the App Store is an abandoned space run by "bots" with almost no oversight. As an Apple iDevice user for long, this story (from the beginning) as well as others have made me wish for alternate app stores on iDevices enforced through regulation. The wait has been too long already, and Apple isn't being the steward it imagines itself to be or portrays itself in media to be.
- t00 5y ago
  Just vote with your money and do not buy Apple products instead of wishing - this is the way.
  - fouc 5y ago
    Right, if enough people buy the non-apple, non-android phones, perhaps we'll get a viable competitor.
    - llukas 5y ago
      Isn't that the case for Librem 5 and Pinephone? I switched to iPhone recently but still thinking about getting one of above.
    - daveidol 5y ago
      That’s a hell of a sacrifice to make, however, given how much of duopoly it is for mobile “apps”
post_break 5y ago
The Appstore is just so broken. No support, no communication. Just like the bug bounty program. It feels like throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean. They aren't alone, Google can do it too, but damn, this is an embarrassment. I always love the topics about how the iPhone would be a dumpster fire with sideloading, meanwhile Apple promotes apps that charge $10 a week known scams.
- qzw 5y ago
  My theory of why the App Store sucks so much is that every manager at Apple is aware of the risk that antitrust action could kill its profitability at some point, therefore nobody good wants to be at the wheel when this particular titanic goes down. So it gets no real love or investment, even though it’s still a major profit center right now.
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    It’s useful to look at Mac AppStore. You can use it to estimate how many apps will prefer alternative ways to reach users.
    - Razengan 5y ago
      But how many users would prefer to get all their apps from the MAS instead of elsewhere?
      - GekkePrutser 5y ago
        Very good question. I wonder if some dual publishing app developers could answer that question.
  - bsder 5y ago
    The anti-trust is just one more nail in the coffin. The primary issue is that any solution to App Store "problems" means reduced profitability. So, quite simply, nobody is going to pass that up the management chain. Sure, Apple gets a PR bruise, but they know that everybody is locked into their iOS ecosystem, so who cares? "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." https://vimeo.com/355556831 https://vimeo.com/355556831
mortenjorck 5y ago
I've been bearish on the Open App Markets bill because I just can't see a hyper-efficient, trillion-dollar company being defeated by our dysfunctional, infighting-plagued congress, but the more stories like this that reach senators and representatives, the less of a moonshot such legislation becomes.
- qzw 5y ago
  There are some players with fairly deep pockets on the other side as well. Nobody on the scale of Apple or Google, perhaps, but not mom-n-pop shops either. Plus if I were Microsoft or Amazon, I would be salivating at the chance to run an alternate store on iOS and Android, so there could be some dark money flowing through K Street lobbyists for all we know.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Of course Amazon kinda already does that on Android with Fire OS. It surprised me they never teamed up with phone manufacturers. Not that Fire OS or its store is very good but they have the infrastructure.
    - qzw 5y ago
      Imagine if they could operate an Amazon (or MS) app store on an equal footing with Apple and Google themselves. And then they can pitch to app makers a 5-10% commission instead of 30%. I bet they'd get a lot of takers and maybe some popular apps would even be "Exclusively from the Amazon (or MS) Store." That would cause Apple and Google some serious discomfort.
      - GekkePrutser 5y ago
        That's exactly what epic is doing on the game side. But will they keep those conditions once they get big? I really doubt it.
- wsc981 5y ago
  I think a Steam managed AppStore on iOS would be great. I don't particularly like the Steam app with it's web based interface, but it's much more responsive than Apple's native app and features like wish lists, content discovery queues and such are really great and help apps and games reach a larger audience.
klyrs 5y ago
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1427292830523744257.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1427292830523744257.html
makecheck 5y ago
It’s such a “perfect” circle of non-communication that benefits only the fruit company, isn’t it? - Can I update my app inside your store? Fruit company: No. - Can I find out why? Fruit company: No. - Can I find out who or what makes this decision? Fruit company: No. - Can I update my app outside your store? Fruit company: No. - Can I contact my customers? Fruit company: No. - Can I even identify my customers in order to help them? Fruit company: No. - Can I directly give my own customers a refund? Fruit company: No. - Can I be removed from your list of featured apps? Fruit company: No. - Can customers prevent this one app from being auto-updated into brokenness? Fruit company: No. - Can you tell customers that this new brokenness is your fault and not the developer’s? Fruit company: No. And on, and on, and on, and on. This is a completely absurd system that has never, ever, ever benefited customers or developers nearly as much as fruit companies. Congress can’t act soon enough.
- cageface 5y ago
  Don’t forget - can I use common PWA features to build my app on the web instead? No because Apple doesn’t allow that either.
- IlliOnato 5y ago
  https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5675 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5675 seems to be relevant
- donmcronald 5y ago
  It's such a nasty side effect of demand aggregation platforms which is what everyone has been trying to build for the last decade+. It's a real prisoner's dilemma too. Earlier adopting developers get to be "fart app millionaires", but there's a definite tipping point where the supply side becomes commoditized. I think Ballmer got unfairly criticized for laughing at the iPhone. I always thought he looked at it and thought it was such a ridiculously bad deal for both developers and users that no one would adopt it. His biggest mistake was underestimating the ability for people to act in their own long term self interest.
  - cglace 5y ago
mdoms 5y ago
Apple will keep being Apple and you'll all keep buying shovelling money into their pocketbooks. There's nothing new under the sun.
- p2t2p 5y ago
  > and you'll all keep buying shovelling money into their pocketbooks Because for me as a user everything else is even worse. Generally nowadays _everything_ is pile of crap in some way or another, Apple's is just a pile that stinks for me a little less. Mobile alternative my recent Android phone from Motorola (Moto 5G Plus): - I haven't seen ROM update in a while and - Unremovable hidden Facebook services binaries in the very core of the OS (de-bloater from F-Droid dealt with it) - Facebook pre-installed - No mail client (no, Gmail doesn't count) - No caldav client (purchase for 15 AUD in Google Play, comes stock on every Apple device) - No cardav client (purchase for 15 AUD in Google Play, comes stock on every Apple device) - No way to stop apps running in background - Absolute barrage of notifications about features I don't care about that won't go away until I click them. - Absolutely idiotic approach to photos where every app lists _every_ image on the device in photos. My 100gb music collection with folder images simply crashes most gallery apps. - The amount of ads is just staggering compared to iOS - No ad-blocking in the browser (Safari on iOS provides a framework, you install an app and you don't see ads anymore, I was unpleasantly surprised when I tried surfing the web in Chrome on that Moto phone) - Google Photos simply blocks the screen with suggestion to back up everything to the cloud on each launch and I have to dismiss every time. OS Alternative: - Linux - good luck making 4k scree snappy and god forbid you have your laptop monitor with different scaling settings - Linux - general hardware support is meh, had huge troubles with my wifi printer - Linux - convenience apps - like photo gallery and stuff, almost none - there are either too simple apps or monstrous combine harvesters. - Linux - public wifis is still a trouble, getting to those login portals is flakey, sometimes you get there automatically, sometimes you have to figure out yourself how to get there. - Linux - good luck finding a decent email client. Best I could do is neomutt + notmuch but Apple's Mail achieves the same setup I had there in 5 minutes of clicking instead of couple days of tweaking configs. - Linux - still comes to a halt when I'm trying to copy a 10GB file somewhere. - Windows: spyware-as-a-service - Windows: no native unix tools, only through a layer of virtualisation - Windows: terminal emulator still sucks and slow af, see "refterm" by Casey Muratori. - Windows: convenience apps nearly impossible to find (on Apple platform you get full office suite, video editor, photo library solutions, music making thingy, etc, etc for free). - Widows: usability choices suck, like hibernating my surface sometime after I lock the screen so I have to wait good 10 - 20 seconds for it to wake up when I need it. Had to hack something in registry to get "old" power controls back to remove that crap. - Windows: email clients _all_suck_, the last half-decent client was Outlook 2010. (Well, Thunderbird is ok-ish) - Windows: still no caldav, no cardav (you can hack shit together by going iCloud road and replacing URLs in buil-in clients) EDIT(s): %s/worth/worse %s/have seen ROM/haven't seen ROM
NelsonMinar 5y ago
The ability to sideload APKs is the single thing I appreciate most about Android vs iPhone. I don't use it often; the main app I sideload is Mendhak's GPS Logger. (He finally gave up trying to comply with the Google Play Store's changing restrictions on location trackers.) But it's nice to be able to install the software I choose to on my phone without having to have Apple or Google's approval. Unlike iOS there's no complicated jailbreak required, I can't remember if you even have to enable developer mode (an easy supported thing). And there's a reasonable ecosystem of safe alternative app stores. F-Droid mostly, APKMirror also comes in handy for things that have disappeared. I understand the value of a curated app store. I get the benefit of that too on Android! But it's nice to have an override in the cases it's needed.
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  As someone who is beginning to really dislike both Google and Apple, is it possible to buy/use an Android phone without the Google store where you only sideload software?
  - NathanielK 5y ago
    Yes, but it may require you update things manually. You can disable the Play store and any other apps and only use F-Droid.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    With one or two exceptions, I only install Google software on my Android phone. Since I'm already on their platform, I don't guess that makes me any more open to their data gathering. And I don't trust any of the other apps.
  - ttctciyf 5y ago
    There's a few different approaches to this. Here's one page about it, I'm sure there are plenty more. https://fsfe.org/activities/android/liberate.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/android/liberate.en.html
  - rchaud 5y ago
znpy 5y ago
I'm always happy to read this kind of stories. And I know that such things happen on Android too. The things is, apple/Google is a duopoly and the app market needs to be regulated. To people going through this kind of issue, I say: you chose to be in that position, bring Apple to court or just close your business.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Perhaps it might bring about change, but until that happens a lot of good developers are suffering…also, FWIW, the developer of this app has filed a court case against Apple for exactly this.
  - znpy 5y ago
    > FWIW, the developer of this app has filed a court case against Apple for exactly this. I'm really glad they did and I'm rooting for them. Regarding people suffering... It takes suffering to realize that the current situation is not right.
- yunohn 5y ago
  > you chose to be in that position I’m always confused by these statements. Would you rather nobody develop apps for iOS/Android, because they had the same amazing foresight as you, and decided to not beholden to Apple/Google?
mthoms 5y ago
There's another angle to the App Store scam: Family Sharing. Most people don't know this but the "Parent" (read:credit card holder) of a family sharing account can't see, let alone cancel, any subscriptions a minor on the account has purchased. Let that sink in for a second. Apple will happily charge the parents' credit card a weekly recurring fee but there is nowhere in their interface (on device nor on the web) where the parent can even see that subscription.[0] Apple expects the child to go into their interface and cancel the recurring subscription. Something many (most?) adults find confusing. In my case, the child just deleted the App when the trial was over. Which is of course perfectly logical thinking. No bueno. So if the child is away at school (as in my case), or the phone gets left at a friend's house, or worse... stolen. The only way to get it cancelled is to call them. There's more to this story, including details on how the built in parental controls are intentionally crippled (IMHO) but I've got to run. In summary: The entire "Family Sharing" system is built to rip off people while still maintaining plausible deniability. [0] A senior Apple rep told me this is for privacy reasons. But two things: the minor should have no expectation of privacy when spending their parents money (how is that a good thing?). And secondly, Apple does email a receipt for the subscription to the card holder... so the privacy excuse was pure bullshit. In my case I missed the email because I have more than 6 or 7 recurring Apple subscriptions. I do take partial blame because of that. But I've still not been given a good reason why a parent can't easily cancel a childs subscription.
- donmcronald 5y ago
  The whole scheme is such an obvious dark pattern. You have 2 options: 1. About 5 prompts every time a child wants to "buy" something including free stuff. 2. An absolute free for all where a child can have unlimited spend. Competing app stores would have a MUCH better family sharing setup with proper budgets and controls. Microsoft gets the money end of it right, but sucks at the actual app sharing. Google can't even make their gift cards work properly. We need app store competition.
  - GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
    Then you get to learn 5 different systems with dark patterns
hexis 5y ago
Conquest's third law - "The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies."
40four 5y ago
Thread reader version: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1427292830523744257.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1427292830523744257.html
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
passivate 5y ago
What makes this insidious is that Apple became successful on the backs of App developers, and now they're kicking down the ladder after reaching the top.
black_puppydog 5y ago
I'll drop this reminder here: donate to your local linux phone OS projects! Donate money, code, bugs, triage, design... Donate PR time. They're all running on shoestring or non-budgets. We've all let these projects die of starvation, and now we keep having these threads but frankly none of the big two platforms have to be afraid people might flock away. Maybe to the other big platform, until they flock back during the next brouhaha...
- weikju 5y ago
  This. We need to put our money where our mouths is, and accept the discomfort NOW (both to our wallets and to how convenient it is to use a device), so that things can be better LATER, for us and for users who can't tell a Terminal command from gibberish and just want to get on with their lives.
  - altantiprocrast 5y ago
    tbh not even using but just donating could help
everyone 5y ago
Don't support walled gardens people.
HomeDeLaPot 5y ago
I'm so excited to see things like the Librem 5, Pinephone, and Fairphone popping up along with non-iOS and non-Android operating systems. I hope they get enough support to become a viable alternative to the walled gardens of today. Apple and Google have extracted enough rent; it's time to open things up and build things for the users, not the shareholders.
Marsymars 5y ago
> And this is entirely separate from the technical side, where Apple's 3rd-party keyboard APIs are - quite frankly - terrible. Since 2014 keyboard APIs have been buggy, inconsistent, ever-changing, and broken - particularly when it comes to accessibility features like Direct Touch. This actually ties into the foremost reason I don't use an iPhone. I'm a Dvorak user for 20+ years and have no ability to use QWERTY, or any interest in learning. iOS doesn't have a Dvorak option for the first-party keyboard, and every third-party keyboard I've tried with a Dvorak option is glitchy in ways that make them effectively unusable. (e.g. the system QWERTY keyboard will sometimes come up for OS-level events.) So, I use an Android phone.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  Whoa! WTF? I always just assumed that would be there in Settings as an option, like it is on the Mac—but nope! I'd have expected that to be added in iOS 3 at the latest. (I'd say at launch, but then it did take until iOS 3 to get copy and paste.)
  - Marsymars 5y ago
    It kinda is there in iOS like it is on the Mac - you can set hardware keyboards to Dvorak - it's just the software keyboard that can't be changed.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      But Macs come with a hardware keyboard, and iOS comes with a software keyboard, so the right equivalent should be the software keyboard. :) I don't know, it's just broadly weird to me that it isn't there. They have tons of keyboard layouts for different languages built in, why not Dvorak?
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  Kinda funny because my Apple IIc has a built-in switch just for Dvorak!
p2t2p 5y ago
It almost like the want Congress to get down on them. A little more of crap like from all of the involved - Google, Facebook, Apple, doesn't matter, they are digging their own graves here.
loehnsberg 5y ago
Once iOS and MacOS are merged, will Apple open up its app store to the wild west or will every little OS hack have to depend on their approval? I would certainly be put off by the latter. I was willing to accept the walled garden for my little iOS consumer toy but for my PC I want to have the freedom of messing with it as I see fit.

503 points by keleftheriou 5y ago

As Miguel de Icaza said on Twitter today, this is exactly the kind of behavior that makes Apple look terrible to regulators. Big popular app that has been promoted in the past and Apple just seems to want to keep screwing with them.

finneganscat 5y ago
Big popular app, with only a 3.3 rating and many one stars. Big popular app that charges $10 to access settings menu and adjust autocorrect. Yeah right. Flicktype are losers.

itslennysfault 5y ago

This is such a standard apple developer experience. I've been rejected so many times without making changes related to the rejection reason. I've re-submitted the same app 3 or 4 times and eventually it just gets "approved" all of a sudden. Their review process is complete BS. It's all just luck of which off-shore vendor you got reviewing your app.

fatnoah 5y ago
It really is. A past company made an application that was in the app store for a couple years. Three different customers paid us to white-label the app for them, so we ended up with three additional versions that were new app packages and differed from the original only in fonts, colors, and logos. Two were approved after a short back and forth with different questions for each, and we eventually gave up on the third after 9 months of fruitless back and forth.
- weimerica 5y ago
  Worked for a company with a similar approach (circa 2010) and we got rejected and had to just use the one. Can’t say I feel Apple is wrong for fighting app spam, however.
  - mission_failed 5y ago
    But Apple created the problem. No company that offers white label applications wants to have to upload a completely separate app for every client, but there is no other option.
mdoms 5y ago
And has any of this caused you to re-evaluate building software for Apple devices or purchasing Apple devices for either home or work? If so, what was the outcome of this re-evaluation?
- banana_giraffe 5y ago
  It has for me. I've mentioned it before, but I had an app to help with D&D stuff rejected for describing how to harm someone in one of the descriptions of a spell somewhere. Some variation of this happened three times. Eventually the level of stupid was too much for me to handle, and on the third time, I just pulled the app rather than resubmit things.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  It has for me. I had been working on a Mac app but decided it wasn't worth the hassle. I prefer the platform but there is no way I'm going to sign up for an abusive relationship with Apple.
tacker2000 5y ago
I also had random rejections, and a couple years ago, the review process took some days to a week, making oneself pretty anxious while waiting it out. These days I doubt I would create anything for iOS anymore, since the risk of getting banned over some nonsense without any recourse whatsoever is just too big and I just dont want to deal with losing my precious time and money. There are better alternatives, like the web, etc. Unfortunately macOS will be going down that path soon, once they remove the ability to install from any source (and they will do it, no doubt). It’s a real shame.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >Unfortunately macOS will be going down that path soon, once they remove the ability to install from any source (and they will do it, no doubt) People have been saying that for ten years now and it hasn't happened yet.
  - kouteiheika 5y ago
    They're just slowly boiling the frog. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      I suspect we will be having the same discussion in ten years and nothing significant will have changed.

jareds 5y ago

As a Voiceover user this is disappointing. If the law changes to allow third party app stores or side loading this is the app that would convince me to go down that road.

yarcob 5y ago

People who critizise Apple in public often seem to have trouble updating their apps. I'm sure Apple has their reasons for blocking this app, but I'd prefer a world where customer choices what apps they can use don't depend on the whims of a very secretive company.

wsc981 5y ago
> I'm sure Apple has their reasons for blocking this app ... Perhaps, but I found this Tweet interesting: > App Review problems & broken APIs isn't even all. The broader relationship Apple has with keyboard developers is hostile, as my decade of relevant experience can confirm. And it's not just my own assessment: the former head of keyboards at Apple has admitted to this hostility. I'd like to know more about Apple's hostility towards keyboard devs.
- tyingq 5y ago
  He could be referring to this thread, though it's not specific to just keyboard devs. https://twitter.com/kocienda/status/1273732626331791360?lang=en https://twitter.com/kocienda/status/1273732626331791360?lang...
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  To be fair I could see why they might want to be extra careful about 3rd party keyboard software. The potential for malware is huge.

AnonC 5y ago

The submitter of this story here on HN is the developer of FlickType. He had also filed a lawsuit against Apple for allowing apps that have been outright cheating people with incredibly high in-app purchases and has pointed out several instances of scammy apps. I thought larger companies keep tabs on the "noisy and popular" ones in media (and social media) and would take more care not to annoy them further. But this story makes it seem like Apple has decided to just keep pushing his buttons as some sort of punishment. I don't believe there's anyone capable in Apple top leadership who's spending any time in leading the App Store team appropriately. The scammy apps and the contrasting meaningless rejections of praiseworthy apps only tell one thing – the App Store is an abandoned space run by "bots" with almost no oversight. As an Apple iDevice user for long, this story (from the beginning) as well as others have made me wish for alternate app stores on iDevices enforced through regulation. The wait has been too long already, and Apple isn't being the steward it imagines itself to be or portrays itself in media to be.

t00 5y ago
Just vote with your money and do not buy Apple products instead of wishing - this is the way.
- fouc 5y ago
  Right, if enough people buy the non-apple, non-android phones, perhaps we'll get a viable competitor.
  - llukas 5y ago
    Isn't that the case for Librem 5 and Pinephone? I switched to iPhone recently but still thinking about getting one of above.
  - daveidol 5y ago
    That’s a hell of a sacrifice to make, however, given how much of duopoly it is for mobile “apps”

post_break 5y ago

The Appstore is just so broken. No support, no communication. Just like the bug bounty program. It feels like throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean. They aren't alone, Google can do it too, but damn, this is an embarrassment. I always love the topics about how the iPhone would be a dumpster fire with sideloading, meanwhile Apple promotes apps that charge $10 a week known scams.

qzw 5y ago
My theory of why the App Store sucks so much is that every manager at Apple is aware of the risk that antitrust action could kill its profitability at some point, therefore nobody good wants to be at the wheel when this particular titanic goes down. So it gets no real love or investment, even though it’s still a major profit center right now.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  It’s useful to look at Mac AppStore. You can use it to estimate how many apps will prefer alternative ways to reach users.
  - Razengan 5y ago
    But how many users would prefer to get all their apps from the MAS instead of elsewhere?
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      Very good question. I wonder if some dual publishing app developers could answer that question.
- bsder 5y ago
  The anti-trust is just one more nail in the coffin. The primary issue is that any solution to App Store "problems" means reduced profitability. So, quite simply, nobody is going to pass that up the management chain. Sure, Apple gets a PR bruise, but they know that everybody is locked into their iOS ecosystem, so who cares? "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." https://vimeo.com/355556831 https://vimeo.com/355556831

mortenjorck 5y ago

I've been bearish on the Open App Markets bill because I just can't see a hyper-efficient, trillion-dollar company being defeated by our dysfunctional, infighting-plagued congress, but the more stories like this that reach senators and representatives, the less of a moonshot such legislation becomes.

qzw 5y ago
There are some players with fairly deep pockets on the other side as well. Nobody on the scale of Apple or Google, perhaps, but not mom-n-pop shops either. Plus if I were Microsoft or Amazon, I would be salivating at the chance to run an alternate store on iOS and Android, so there could be some dark money flowing through K Street lobbyists for all we know.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Of course Amazon kinda already does that on Android with Fire OS. It surprised me they never teamed up with phone manufacturers. Not that Fire OS or its store is very good but they have the infrastructure.
  - qzw 5y ago
    Imagine if they could operate an Amazon (or MS) app store on an equal footing with Apple and Google themselves. And then they can pitch to app makers a 5-10% commission instead of 30%. I bet they'd get a lot of takers and maybe some popular apps would even be "Exclusively from the Amazon (or MS) Store." That would cause Apple and Google some serious discomfort.
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      That's exactly what epic is doing on the game side. But will they keep those conditions once they get big? I really doubt it.
wsc981 5y ago
I think a Steam managed AppStore on iOS would be great. I don't particularly like the Steam app with it's web based interface, but it's much more responsive than Apple's native app and features like wish lists, content discovery queues and such are really great and help apps and games reach a larger audience.

klyrs 5y ago

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1427292830523744257.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1427292830523744257.html

makecheck 5y ago

It’s such a “perfect” circle of non-communication that benefits only the fruit company, isn’t it? - Can I update my app inside your store? Fruit company: No. - Can I find out why? Fruit company: No. - Can I find out who or what makes this decision? Fruit company: No. - Can I update my app outside your store? Fruit company: No. - Can I contact my customers? Fruit company: No. - Can I even identify my customers in order to help them? Fruit company: No. - Can I directly give my own customers a refund? Fruit company: No. - Can I be removed from your list of featured apps? Fruit company: No. - Can customers prevent this one app from being auto-updated into brokenness? Fruit company: No. - Can you tell customers that this new brokenness is your fault and not the developer’s? Fruit company: No. And on, and on, and on, and on. This is a completely absurd system that has never, ever, ever benefited customers or developers nearly as much as fruit companies. Congress can’t act soon enough.

cageface 5y ago
Don’t forget - can I use common PWA features to build my app on the web instead? No because Apple doesn’t allow that either.
IlliOnato 5y ago
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5675 https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5675 seems to be relevant
donmcronald 5y ago
It's such a nasty side effect of demand aggregation platforms which is what everyone has been trying to build for the last decade+. It's a real prisoner's dilemma too. Earlier adopting developers get to be "fart app millionaires", but there's a definite tipping point where the supply side becomes commoditized. I think Ballmer got unfairly criticized for laughing at the iPhone. I always thought he looked at it and thought it was such a ridiculously bad deal for both developers and users that no one would adopt it. His biggest mistake was underestimating the ability for people to act in their own long term self interest.
- cglace 5y ago

mdoms 5y ago

Apple will keep being Apple and you'll all keep buying shovelling money into their pocketbooks. There's nothing new under the sun.

p2t2p 5y ago
> and you'll all keep buying shovelling money into their pocketbooks Because for me as a user everything else is even worse. Generally nowadays _everything_ is pile of crap in some way or another, Apple's is just a pile that stinks for me a little less. Mobile alternative my recent Android phone from Motorola (Moto 5G Plus): - I haven't seen ROM update in a while and - Unremovable hidden Facebook services binaries in the very core of the OS (de-bloater from F-Droid dealt with it) - Facebook pre-installed - No mail client (no, Gmail doesn't count) - No caldav client (purchase for 15 AUD in Google Play, comes stock on every Apple device) - No cardav client (purchase for 15 AUD in Google Play, comes stock on every Apple device) - No way to stop apps running in background - Absolute barrage of notifications about features I don't care about that won't go away until I click them. - Absolutely idiotic approach to photos where every app lists _every_ image on the device in photos. My 100gb music collection with folder images simply crashes most gallery apps. - The amount of ads is just staggering compared to iOS - No ad-blocking in the browser (Safari on iOS provides a framework, you install an app and you don't see ads anymore, I was unpleasantly surprised when I tried surfing the web in Chrome on that Moto phone) - Google Photos simply blocks the screen with suggestion to back up everything to the cloud on each launch and I have to dismiss every time. OS Alternative: - Linux - good luck making 4k scree snappy and god forbid you have your laptop monitor with different scaling settings - Linux - general hardware support is meh, had huge troubles with my wifi printer - Linux - convenience apps - like photo gallery and stuff, almost none - there are either too simple apps or monstrous combine harvesters. - Linux - public wifis is still a trouble, getting to those login portals is flakey, sometimes you get there automatically, sometimes you have to figure out yourself how to get there. - Linux - good luck finding a decent email client. Best I could do is neomutt + notmuch but Apple's Mail achieves the same setup I had there in 5 minutes of clicking instead of couple days of tweaking configs. - Linux - still comes to a halt when I'm trying to copy a 10GB file somewhere. - Windows: spyware-as-a-service - Windows: no native unix tools, only through a layer of virtualisation - Windows: terminal emulator still sucks and slow af, see "refterm" by Casey Muratori. - Windows: convenience apps nearly impossible to find (on Apple platform you get full office suite, video editor, photo library solutions, music making thingy, etc, etc for free). - Widows: usability choices suck, like hibernating my surface sometime after I lock the screen so I have to wait good 10 - 20 seconds for it to wake up when I need it. Had to hack something in registry to get "old" power controls back to remove that crap. - Windows: email clients _all_suck_, the last half-decent client was Outlook 2010. (Well, Thunderbird is ok-ish) - Windows: still no caldav, no cardav (you can hack shit together by going iCloud road and replacing URLs in buil-in clients) EDIT(s): %s/worth/worse %s/have seen ROM/haven't seen ROM

NelsonMinar 5y ago

The ability to sideload APKs is the single thing I appreciate most about Android vs iPhone. I don't use it often; the main app I sideload is Mendhak's GPS Logger. (He finally gave up trying to comply with the Google Play Store's changing restrictions on location trackers.) But it's nice to be able to install the software I choose to on my phone without having to have Apple or Google's approval. Unlike iOS there's no complicated jailbreak required, I can't remember if you even have to enable developer mode (an easy supported thing). And there's a reasonable ecosystem of safe alternative app stores. F-Droid mostly, APKMirror also comes in handy for things that have disappeared. I understand the value of a curated app store. I get the benefit of that too on Android! But it's nice to have an override in the cases it's needed.

LeoPanthera 5y ago
As someone who is beginning to really dislike both Google and Apple, is it possible to buy/use an Android phone without the Google store where you only sideload software?
- NathanielK 5y ago
  Yes, but it may require you update things manually. You can disable the Play store and any other apps and only use F-Droid.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  With one or two exceptions, I only install Google software on my Android phone. Since I'm already on their platform, I don't guess that makes me any more open to their data gathering. And I don't trust any of the other apps.
- ttctciyf 5y ago
  There's a few different approaches to this. Here's one page about it, I'm sure there are plenty more. https://fsfe.org/activities/android/liberate.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/android/liberate.en.html
- rchaud 5y ago

znpy 5y ago

I'm always happy to read this kind of stories. And I know that such things happen on Android too. The things is, apple/Google is a duopoly and the app market needs to be regulated. To people going through this kind of issue, I say: you chose to be in that position, bring Apple to court or just close your business.

saagarjha 5y ago
Perhaps it might bring about change, but until that happens a lot of good developers are suffering…also, FWIW, the developer of this app has filed a court case against Apple for exactly this.
- znpy 5y ago
  > FWIW, the developer of this app has filed a court case against Apple for exactly this. I'm really glad they did and I'm rooting for them. Regarding people suffering... It takes suffering to realize that the current situation is not right.
yunohn 5y ago
> you chose to be in that position I’m always confused by these statements. Would you rather nobody develop apps for iOS/Android, because they had the same amazing foresight as you, and decided to not beholden to Apple/Google?

mthoms 5y ago

There's another angle to the App Store scam: Family Sharing. Most people don't know this but the "Parent" (read:credit card holder) of a family sharing account can't see, let alone cancel, any subscriptions a minor on the account has purchased. Let that sink in for a second. Apple will happily charge the parents' credit card a weekly recurring fee but there is nowhere in their interface (on device nor on the web) where the parent can even see that subscription.[0] Apple expects the child to go into their interface and cancel the recurring subscription. Something many (most?) adults find confusing. In my case, the child just deleted the App when the trial was over. Which is of course perfectly logical thinking. No bueno. So if the child is away at school (as in my case), or the phone gets left at a friend's house, or worse... stolen. The only way to get it cancelled is to call them. There's more to this story, including details on how the built in parental controls are intentionally crippled (IMHO) but I've got to run. In summary: The entire "Family Sharing" system is built to rip off people while still maintaining plausible deniability. [0] A senior Apple rep told me this is for privacy reasons. But two things: the minor should have no expectation of privacy when spending their parents money (how is that a good thing?). And secondly, Apple does email a receipt for the subscription to the card holder... so the privacy excuse was pure bullshit. In my case I missed the email because I have more than 6 or 7 recurring Apple subscriptions. I do take partial blame because of that. But I've still not been given a good reason why a parent can't easily cancel a childs subscription.

donmcronald 5y ago
The whole scheme is such an obvious dark pattern. You have 2 options: 1. About 5 prompts every time a child wants to "buy" something including free stuff. 2. An absolute free for all where a child can have unlimited spend. Competing app stores would have a MUCH better family sharing setup with proper budgets and controls. Microsoft gets the money end of it right, but sucks at the actual app sharing. Google can't even make their gift cards work properly. We need app store competition.
- GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
  Then you get to learn 5 different systems with dark patterns

hexis 5y ago

Conquest's third law - "The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies."

40four 5y ago

Thread reader version: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1427292830523744257.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1427292830523744257.html

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

passivate 5y ago

What makes this insidious is that Apple became successful on the backs of App developers, and now they're kicking down the ladder after reaching the top.

black_puppydog 5y ago

I'll drop this reminder here: donate to your local linux phone OS projects! Donate money, code, bugs, triage, design... Donate PR time. They're all running on shoestring or non-budgets. We've all let these projects die of starvation, and now we keep having these threads but frankly none of the big two platforms have to be afraid people might flock away. Maybe to the other big platform, until they flock back during the next brouhaha...

weikju 5y ago
This. We need to put our money where our mouths is, and accept the discomfort NOW (both to our wallets and to how convenient it is to use a device), so that things can be better LATER, for us and for users who can't tell a Terminal command from gibberish and just want to get on with their lives.
- altantiprocrast 5y ago
  tbh not even using but just donating could help

everyone 5y ago

Don't support walled gardens people.

HomeDeLaPot 5y ago

I'm so excited to see things like the Librem 5, Pinephone, and Fairphone popping up along with non-iOS and non-Android operating systems. I hope they get enough support to become a viable alternative to the walled gardens of today. Apple and Google have extracted enough rent; it's time to open things up and build things for the users, not the shareholders.

Marsymars 5y ago

> And this is entirely separate from the technical side, where Apple's 3rd-party keyboard APIs are - quite frankly - terrible. Since 2014 keyboard APIs have been buggy, inconsistent, ever-changing, and broken - particularly when it comes to accessibility features like Direct Touch. This actually ties into the foremost reason I don't use an iPhone. I'm a Dvorak user for 20+ years and have no ability to use QWERTY, or any interest in learning. iOS doesn't have a Dvorak option for the first-party keyboard, and every third-party keyboard I've tried with a Dvorak option is glitchy in ways that make them effectively unusable. (e.g. the system QWERTY keyboard will sometimes come up for OS-level events.) So, I use an Android phone.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
Whoa! WTF? I always just assumed that would be there in Settings as an option, like it is on the Mac—but nope! I'd have expected that to be added in iOS 3 at the latest. (I'd say at launch, but then it did take until iOS 3 to get copy and paste.)
- Marsymars 5y ago
  It kinda is there in iOS like it is on the Mac - you can set hardware keyboards to Dvorak - it's just the software keyboard that can't be changed.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    But Macs come with a hardware keyboard, and iOS comes with a software keyboard, so the right equivalent should be the software keyboard. :) I don't know, it's just broadly weird to me that it isn't there. They have tons of keyboard layouts for different languages built in, why not Dvorak?
salamandersauce 5y ago
Kinda funny because my Apple IIc has a built-in switch just for Dvorak!

p2t2p 5y ago

It almost like the want Congress to get down on them. A little more of crap like from all of the involved - Google, Facebook, Apple, doesn't matter, they are digging their own graves here.

loehnsberg 5y ago

Once iOS and MacOS are merged, will Apple open up its app store to the wild west or will every little OS hack have to depend on their approval? I would certainly be put off by the latter. I was willing to accept the walled garden for my little iOS consumer toy but for my PC I want to have the freedom of messing with it as I see fit.