9 ms·

After Apple rejections, FlickType gives up on popular iPhone keyboard for blind

162 points by gamblor956 5y ago

LucidLynx 5y ago
Manual reviews are useful if and only if reviewers are well trained, understand what is good and what is wrong, and do care about what they are doing. There is a ton of anecdotes from iOS/iPadOS devs in the tweet thread that prove that some reviewers don't care at all about what they are doing: apps have been rejected for bad reasons, apps have been rejected except that the rejection screenshots were for... another apps(!!), and sometimes rejected for absolutely no reason. It is a shame to see Apple that see devs as evil people, until they prove they may be angels... however, devs money smells like the other for Apple.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  The solution to half the rejections I have had from app stores has been to resubmit it.
  - Humdeee 5y ago
    This has worked numerous times in the past for me as well, spanning years now. Superficial rejection? Upload a new version of the same binary and resubmit. This is simply akin to calling up some place again, perhaps for a discount on a bill, hoping you get a new representative that will give you what you want. And it works...
- threeseed 5y ago
  The app review process is never going to be perfect. There are 2+ million apps which assuming average 10 updates over their lifetime = 20+ million reviews. Of course there are going to be mistakes, differences in interpetation between reviewers and edge cases. But situations like this show exactly why a review process is useful. A keyboard app with network access is something that deserves a lot of scrutiny.
  - tremon 5y ago
    It doesn't need to be perfect, it needs to be accountable. That means the rules must be clearly stated and unambiguous, the reviews should strive to give consistent results, a rejection should be comprehensive and actionable, and there must be an independent appeals process. From what I gather, both Apple and Google are failing at consistency, comprehensiveness, transparency, and the appeal process.
    - 8note 5y ago
      Does it actually need to be accountable to the app developers? Both Google and apple seem to do fine without that accountability
- user-the-name 5y ago
  No human is going to be able to review every app correctly every single time. Misunderstandings will always happen. It sucks and it is annoying, but what you do when it happens is reply with more explanations, and eventually the app will be re-reviewed and approved. I have had to do it quite a few times. Losing your temper over it helps not at all.
- g_p 5y ago
  The value of manual reviews seems to be undermined by the inconsistency from the perspective of the developer. It seems like Apple's intent here is to create an ecosystem with a general rule of "don't be a prat", but is struggling to quantify the precise definition of "prat", and where the line sits, and what sits closest to the line, on each side of it. That Apple doesn't allow anyone else to provide payment services or app distribution is a separate question of antitrust, but increasingly it looks like (putting aside the cash cow nature of extracting revenue from developers) this is starting to become a problem that doesn't have an Apple-esque problem to it. Content moderation is inherently quite subjective, as the hyper scale social platforms are discovering. Apple is effectively trying to do highly technical content moderation, through (as I understand it) a web of outsourced contractors with varying levels of understanding of the content matter. It's starting to get to the point where this will surely impact on consumer confidence and reputation? Apple's annual SEC filings acknowledge the potential material revenue impact if they can't continue to hold a monopoly on payment processing and distribution on the store. It seems like any antitrust/competition action taken there may implicitly force the issue of app review to be fixed or disrupted (allowing competing stores would let them do their own review, or choose not to do manual review as they wish). Perhaps that's the long-term likely outcome, even if not one Apple would wish today. They could then use their walled garden as a competitive differentiator and see if they can compete with others to win customers on that basis. That could give a very significant incentive to improve the developer experience, lest developers shift to a store with a better experience.
- jclardy 5y ago
  I'm an iOS dev. We've had multiple rejections of our apps because we added a "promo code" button to the paywall, which literally displayed the Apple sanctioned code redemption sheet from StoreKit. Rejected because we "offered a purchase method outside of the App Store." App review is an absolute joke. We get through it via escalation, but we always expect a week or two of update downtime with every bug fix release for something stupid like this.
- sdflhasjd 5y ago
  One of my colleagues has just been through this rigmarole with the review process. Apple kept rejecting it as it would crash when logging in. We didn't get any crash reports and could not replicate any issue ourselves. Several submissions later, the decision was made to put in a whole bunch of analytics and tracing, we get the logs back and... The "crash" was a pretty clear error message because they weren't following the simple 2 step login instructions provided to the reviewer.
  - entropy_ 5y ago
    We kept getting rejected by a reviewer who couldn't log in (we'd attached credentials to our submission). When they finally sent a screenshot with the rejection, it turns out they were using 'login with Google' and then entering the credentials we gave them there. Needless to say, they needed to use 'login with username/password'.
ChicagoBoy11 5y ago
The point he mentions about the possible issue arising out of the reviewer not utilizing the app through the VoiceOver features is well-taken, but I don't understand why that could not be resolved with a more verbose explanation for a sighted reviewer of what the issue was. Giving Apple THE MOST (and in this case, I think, excessive) benefit of the doubt here, one could say that their perspective is that the app should "work" for all users, so an experience that essentially breaks down with no real feedback for a "sighted" user could be taken as being broken, even if they are actually not the target user.
mywittyname 5y ago
This is why Apple users should have the right to install any software they want, regardless of what Apple "approves" of.
threeseed 5y ago
There clearly is more to this story as there are a number of keyboard apps. > Apple says the keyboard needs to work even if a user doesn’t give it “full access” to network access and other iOS features Having a keyboard app with any sort of network access is a red flag as it would make it the easiest way to secretly build a keystroke logger.
- jjcon 5y ago
  FlickType doesn't require full access though?
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    But it does ask for it. Which, again, is a red flag and I as a user definitely want Apple to be erring on the side of caution before approving an app like that.
    - jjcon 5y ago
      There is no rule against asking for network access - tons of keyboards do to serve things like gifs from gify etc (including gboard and the apple keyboard)
  - Gualdrapo 5y ago
    The screenshot Apple sent them says it asks the user for full access, though dev says the app would work only if they don't - just giving voiceover permissions. Which makes me think the internet access can be used for some internet search gateway or something
- detaro 5y ago
  Literally the next sentence: > But Eleftheriou says that if Apple actually tried to use the app, or consulted their earlier discussions, they’d see that the keyboard works.
  - threeseed 5y ago
breakfastduck 5y ago
Why on earth does a keyboard app need network access?
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  Gonna go out on a limb and say predictions. Or it could be something as basic as fetching Gifs. Or maybe translations. Or fetching different languages for the keyboard. Etc... All things that say, the basic Google keyboard does which probably require network access.
  - tclancy 5y ago
    >Or it could be something as basic as fetching Gifs. Given it's a keyboard for the blind, that seems like a long limb.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - cronix 5y ago
      > Why on earth does a keyboard app need network access? "a keyboard app" is different than "this keyboard app."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- yoz-y 5y ago
  I don’t know about FlickType but beware that the Full Access does not necessarily mean network access. It merely means that it can communicate with the host app which _in turn_ can do network access. However it can be used for offline autocorrection or accessing in app purchase status and so on. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/145696/what-does-the-option-to-allow-full-access-for-my-ios-keyboard-do https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/145696/what-does-t...
- cronix 5y ago
  Your keyboard doesn't have an option to post gifs and other images from a service that needs network access to retrieve and show the thumbnails and retrieve the full sized gifs?
swiley 5y ago
iOS is dead. Any innovative app is prohibitively expensive to develop and publish, the App Store is for push notification subscriptions and in app purchases.
codetrotter 5y ago
> They’d have to try it as a VoiceOver user, something that they don’t seem to bother doing. I’ve had several rejections in the past because the reviewer didn’t know anything about VoiceOver It doesn’t really matter that it’s not requiring network access to work, when clearly the app makes it appear to need network access. What they ought to do, the developers of the app, is to remove the text about network access, and probably the whole network access feature, and make it clear how to use it with voiceover. I mean I get their frustration as a fellow developer, and I’ve not tried the app because I’m don’t want a keyboard that even asks for network access, but I think they need to try and look at what it looks like from the outside you know.
- Someone 5y ago
  Also, what technical reason could there be for a keyboard to work fine without network access when used with VoiceOver on, but not when it’s off? What do they use the network access for?
RandallBrown 5y ago
The keyboard asks for full access which is okay BUT... Apple says keyboards have to work if the user denies full access. That's reasonable BUT... FlickType claims it does work without full access as long as you have VoiceOver turned on. I don't think it's unreasonable for Apple to require the keyboard works without VoiceOver turned on but it sounds like they've allowed this in the past. It sounds like they've gone back and forth with Apple on this multiple times. I'm not sure why they don't just "make it work" without VoiceOver turned on so they can avoid this landmine every time they submit an update. Maybe that would be a huge amount of work, but it seems like implementing a crappy basic keyboard shouldn't be too bad.
- echelon 5y ago
  How about Apple stop telling people what they can and can't do with the hardware they purchase? Their reach shouldn't extend this far. This company is a money-grubbing dragon and is shitting on innovation left and right so it can maintain control over its money pile. After the initial purchase, Apple should no longer have decision power beyond patching their software. If they do a good job, you buy a new one. Apple got lucky enough to ride two of the biggest growth engines in modern history, but that does not entitle them to behave like mobile computing is their own totalitarian state. Just because you own some land doesn't mean you can tax air and tell people when and how they can breathe. Support congress in their attempt to break up the App Stores and prevent this sort of strong-arming. Call and email your reps. Tell them you want the "Open App Markets Act" to be a strong system of protections for individual small businesses and device owners. People deserve choice, a fair playing field, and the right to repair and use their devices as they see fit. https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati... https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm The future of open computing and right to repair depends on it.
  - zepto 5y ago
    How is that approach working out for accessibility on other platforms?
TrainedMonkey 5y ago
Is there a legitimate way for Apple to fix their review system to both block less legitimate apps and more scammy apps? AFAIK following is true about app store: 1. Number of apps/updates is huge. 2. The process of app review is based on a lot of policies (not talking about developer guidelines from documentation). Some of the policies, let's be charitable and say supermajority, are pro consumer. Some exist to protect business interests. Some are probably outdated or based on miscommunications, misunderstandings, or just plain misguided. Apple is a big company, and it is likely there is a lot of politics that goes into crafting app review policies. 3. App policies change as Apple tries minimize false positives/negatives and keep control of the ecosystem. 4. Because of 1, number of people working on this has to be substantial. 5. Because of 4, it's fair to assume some of those people will be bad at their jobs or at least have more protectionist interpretation of app policies which will result in more false positives. 6. Because of 2, 3, and 5 some of the cases will be misjudged. We mostly hear about good apps being blocked and terrible apps being let through, so it's hard to estimate the error rate in review process. 7. Big enough companies have Apple people embedded to smooth the process over. This is interesting, because it inherently gives big companies an advantage. 8. It is fair to assume that Apple has internal app review false positive/negative metrics that they optimize for. Given the size of the company and amount of investment here, those metrics are probably somewhat high. Looking at the above, two most obvious to me ways Apple could try to improve the process: 1. Make process review more transparent - this will definitely help false positives, but also likely will increase amount of false negatives. 2. Put someone in charge who could cut through the politics of app review policies and instill a better culture. Problem here is that situation could turn out worse as well.
- swiley 5y ago
  F-droid does it, here are their rules: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/ https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/ So do most Linux distros, which have very similar rules.
smoldesu 5y ago
>His fight became personal long before today: he sued Apple in March for some seemingly shady behavior, alleging that Apple erected roadblocks to his FlickType keyboard in order to convince him to sell the technology to Apple for a discount, all while scammy mobile keyboard apps flourished on the App Store. To me, this is the biggest takeaway. All it took was 2 decades for Apple to start their own campaign of embrace, extend and acquire.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Clearly this lawsuit worked out so well he now throws a hissy fit and cancels his app.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Hissy fit? He can no longer update his app, he has no options. None of this strikes me as being particularly ungrateful, especially since Apple is known for these aggressive and anti-developer business tactics.
dang 5y ago
Recent and related: Discontinuing FlickType Keyboard for iPhone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28200288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28200288 - Aug 2021 (159 comments)
g_p 5y ago
I wonder from a technical perspective how many of the bad developer experiences like this are arising almost entirely from a lack of continuity between app reviews. A number of commenters have pointed out their experiences in resubmitting the same (unchanged) app and getting s different outcome. Similarly, in this case, it sounds like an issue came up in the recent review which had previously been addressed 3 years prior. I wonder if improved continuity would let Apple offer higher quality reviewing and a better developer experience? It seems like many of the complaints of arbitrary decisions could be coming about from a lack of continuity in one app's review. Clearly at Apple scale, they aren't likely to have the same human reviewing the app repeatedly for years on end, but I wonder if there's a low-difficulty patch to this process to get better communication and continuity between reviewers, and more context in the communication with developers. I don't have experience with this review process in particular, but often these processes favour "ticket" style ways of working - developer caries out an event which results in an item entering a queue, and items from the queue get served by the first available server (aka reviewer). Given the review process takes time, I wonder if it would be more productive for the review to appear as more of a conversation? Perhaps even semi-synchronous or asynchronish? At the reviewing side there must be a fairly significant amount of mental context switching taking place between apps, re-submissions etc. Maybe Apple is simply expecting too many high quality context switches per individual per shift, resulting in mistakes in reviews, but isn't doing enough oversight to spot mistakes and optimise to reduce them? Is there any incentive to drive them to improve their mistake rate?

162 points by gamblor956 5y ago

Manual reviews are useful if and only if reviewers are well trained, understand what is good and what is wrong, and do care about what they are doing. There is a ton of anecdotes from iOS/iPadOS devs in the tweet thread that prove that some reviewers don't care at all about what they are doing: apps have been rejected for bad reasons, apps have been rejected except that the rejection screenshots were for... another apps(!!), and sometimes rejected for absolutely no reason. It is a shame to see Apple that see devs as evil people, until they prove they may be angels... however, devs money smells like the other for Apple.

MattGaiser 5y ago
The solution to half the rejections I have had from app stores has been to resubmit it.
- Humdeee 5y ago
  This has worked numerous times in the past for me as well, spanning years now. Superficial rejection? Upload a new version of the same binary and resubmit. This is simply akin to calling up some place again, perhaps for a discount on a bill, hoping you get a new representative that will give you what you want. And it works...
threeseed 5y ago
The app review process is never going to be perfect. There are 2+ million apps which assuming average 10 updates over their lifetime = 20+ million reviews. Of course there are going to be mistakes, differences in interpetation between reviewers and edge cases. But situations like this show exactly why a review process is useful. A keyboard app with network access is something that deserves a lot of scrutiny.
- tremon 5y ago
  It doesn't need to be perfect, it needs to be accountable. That means the rules must be clearly stated and unambiguous, the reviews should strive to give consistent results, a rejection should be comprehensive and actionable, and there must be an independent appeals process. From what I gather, both Apple and Google are failing at consistency, comprehensiveness, transparency, and the appeal process.
  - 8note 5y ago
    Does it actually need to be accountable to the app developers? Both Google and apple seem to do fine without that accountability
user-the-name 5y ago
No human is going to be able to review every app correctly every single time. Misunderstandings will always happen. It sucks and it is annoying, but what you do when it happens is reply with more explanations, and eventually the app will be re-reviewed and approved. I have had to do it quite a few times. Losing your temper over it helps not at all.
g_p 5y ago
The value of manual reviews seems to be undermined by the inconsistency from the perspective of the developer. It seems like Apple's intent here is to create an ecosystem with a general rule of "don't be a prat", but is struggling to quantify the precise definition of "prat", and where the line sits, and what sits closest to the line, on each side of it. That Apple doesn't allow anyone else to provide payment services or app distribution is a separate question of antitrust, but increasingly it looks like (putting aside the cash cow nature of extracting revenue from developers) this is starting to become a problem that doesn't have an Apple-esque problem to it. Content moderation is inherently quite subjective, as the hyper scale social platforms are discovering. Apple is effectively trying to do highly technical content moderation, through (as I understand it) a web of outsourced contractors with varying levels of understanding of the content matter. It's starting to get to the point where this will surely impact on consumer confidence and reputation? Apple's annual SEC filings acknowledge the potential material revenue impact if they can't continue to hold a monopoly on payment processing and distribution on the store. It seems like any antitrust/competition action taken there may implicitly force the issue of app review to be fixed or disrupted (allowing competing stores would let them do their own review, or choose not to do manual review as they wish). Perhaps that's the long-term likely outcome, even if not one Apple would wish today. They could then use their walled garden as a competitive differentiator and see if they can compete with others to win customers on that basis. That could give a very significant incentive to improve the developer experience, lest developers shift to a store with a better experience.
jclardy 5y ago
I'm an iOS dev. We've had multiple rejections of our apps because we added a "promo code" button to the paywall, which literally displayed the Apple sanctioned code redemption sheet from StoreKit. Rejected because we "offered a purchase method outside of the App Store." App review is an absolute joke. We get through it via escalation, but we always expect a week or two of update downtime with every bug fix release for something stupid like this.
sdflhasjd 5y ago
One of my colleagues has just been through this rigmarole with the review process. Apple kept rejecting it as it would crash when logging in. We didn't get any crash reports and could not replicate any issue ourselves. Several submissions later, the decision was made to put in a whole bunch of analytics and tracing, we get the logs back and... The "crash" was a pretty clear error message because they weren't following the simple 2 step login instructions provided to the reviewer.
- entropy_ 5y ago
  We kept getting rejected by a reviewer who couldn't log in (we'd attached credentials to our submission). When they finally sent a screenshot with the rejection, it turns out they were using 'login with Google' and then entering the credentials we gave them there. Needless to say, they needed to use 'login with username/password'.

ChicagoBoy11 5y ago

The point he mentions about the possible issue arising out of the reviewer not utilizing the app through the VoiceOver features is well-taken, but I don't understand why that could not be resolved with a more verbose explanation for a sighted reviewer of what the issue was. Giving Apple THE MOST (and in this case, I think, excessive) benefit of the doubt here, one could say that their perspective is that the app should "work" for all users, so an experience that essentially breaks down with no real feedback for a "sighted" user could be taken as being broken, even if they are actually not the target user.

mywittyname 5y ago

This is why Apple users should have the right to install any software they want, regardless of what Apple "approves" of.

threeseed 5y ago

There clearly is more to this story as there are a number of keyboard apps. > Apple says the keyboard needs to work even if a user doesn’t give it “full access” to network access and other iOS features Having a keyboard app with any sort of network access is a red flag as it would make it the easiest way to secretly build a keystroke logger.

jjcon 5y ago
FlickType doesn't require full access though?
- user-the-name 5y ago
  But it does ask for it. Which, again, is a red flag and I as a user definitely want Apple to be erring on the side of caution before approving an app like that.
  - jjcon 5y ago
    There is no rule against asking for network access - tons of keyboards do to serve things like gifs from gify etc (including gboard and the apple keyboard)
- Gualdrapo 5y ago
  The screenshot Apple sent them says it asks the user for full access, though dev says the app would work only if they don't - just giving voiceover permissions. Which makes me think the internet access can be used for some internet search gateway or something
detaro 5y ago
Literally the next sentence: > But Eleftheriou says that if Apple actually tried to use the app, or consulted their earlier discussions, they’d see that the keyboard works.
- threeseed 5y ago

breakfastduck 5y ago

Why on earth does a keyboard app need network access?

Mikeb85 5y ago
Gonna go out on a limb and say predictions. Or it could be something as basic as fetching Gifs. Or maybe translations. Or fetching different languages for the keyboard. Etc... All things that say, the basic Google keyboard does which probably require network access.
- tclancy 5y ago
  >Or it could be something as basic as fetching Gifs. Given it's a keyboard for the blind, that seems like a long limb.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - cronix 5y ago
    > Why on earth does a keyboard app need network access? "a keyboard app" is different than "this keyboard app."
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
yoz-y 5y ago
I don’t know about FlickType but beware that the Full Access does not necessarily mean network access. It merely means that it can communicate with the host app which _in turn_ can do network access. However it can be used for offline autocorrection or accessing in app purchase status and so on. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/145696/what-does-the-option-to-allow-full-access-for-my-ios-keyboard-do https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/145696/what-does-t...
cronix 5y ago
Your keyboard doesn't have an option to post gifs and other images from a service that needs network access to retrieve and show the thumbnails and retrieve the full sized gifs?

swiley 5y ago

iOS is dead. Any innovative app is prohibitively expensive to develop and publish, the App Store is for push notification subscriptions and in app purchases.

codetrotter 5y ago

> They’d have to try it as a VoiceOver user, something that they don’t seem to bother doing. I’ve had several rejections in the past because the reviewer didn’t know anything about VoiceOver It doesn’t really matter that it’s not requiring network access to work, when clearly the app makes it appear to need network access. What they ought to do, the developers of the app, is to remove the text about network access, and probably the whole network access feature, and make it clear how to use it with voiceover. I mean I get their frustration as a fellow developer, and I’ve not tried the app because I’m don’t want a keyboard that even asks for network access, but I think they need to try and look at what it looks like from the outside you know.

Someone 5y ago
Also, what technical reason could there be for a keyboard to work fine without network access when used with VoiceOver on, but not when it’s off? What do they use the network access for?

RandallBrown 5y ago

The keyboard asks for full access which is okay BUT... Apple says keyboards have to work if the user denies full access. That's reasonable BUT... FlickType claims it does work without full access as long as you have VoiceOver turned on. I don't think it's unreasonable for Apple to require the keyboard works without VoiceOver turned on but it sounds like they've allowed this in the past. It sounds like they've gone back and forth with Apple on this multiple times. I'm not sure why they don't just "make it work" without VoiceOver turned on so they can avoid this landmine every time they submit an update. Maybe that would be a huge amount of work, but it seems like implementing a crappy basic keyboard shouldn't be too bad.

echelon 5y ago
How about Apple stop telling people what they can and can't do with the hardware they purchase? Their reach shouldn't extend this far. This company is a money-grubbing dragon and is shitting on innovation left and right so it can maintain control over its money pile. After the initial purchase, Apple should no longer have decision power beyond patching their software. If they do a good job, you buy a new one. Apple got lucky enough to ride two of the biggest growth engines in modern history, but that does not entitle them to behave like mobile computing is their own totalitarian state. Just because you own some land doesn't mean you can tax air and tell people when and how they can breathe. Support congress in their attempt to break up the App Stores and prevent this sort of strong-arming. Call and email your reps. Tell them you want the "Open App Markets Act" to be a strong system of protections for individual small businesses and device owners. People deserve choice, a fair playing field, and the right to repair and use their devices as they see fit. https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati... https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm The future of open computing and right to repair depends on it.
- zepto 5y ago
  How is that approach working out for accessibility on other platforms?

TrainedMonkey 5y ago

Is there a legitimate way for Apple to fix their review system to both block less legitimate apps and more scammy apps? AFAIK following is true about app store: 1. Number of apps/updates is huge. 2. The process of app review is based on a lot of policies (not talking about developer guidelines from documentation). Some of the policies, let's be charitable and say supermajority, are pro consumer. Some exist to protect business interests. Some are probably outdated or based on miscommunications, misunderstandings, or just plain misguided. Apple is a big company, and it is likely there is a lot of politics that goes into crafting app review policies. 3. App policies change as Apple tries minimize false positives/negatives and keep control of the ecosystem. 4. Because of 1, number of people working on this has to be substantial. 5. Because of 4, it's fair to assume some of those people will be bad at their jobs or at least have more protectionist interpretation of app policies which will result in more false positives. 6. Because of 2, 3, and 5 some of the cases will be misjudged. We mostly hear about good apps being blocked and terrible apps being let through, so it's hard to estimate the error rate in review process. 7. Big enough companies have Apple people embedded to smooth the process over. This is interesting, because it inherently gives big companies an advantage. 8. It is fair to assume that Apple has internal app review false positive/negative metrics that they optimize for. Given the size of the company and amount of investment here, those metrics are probably somewhat high. Looking at the above, two most obvious to me ways Apple could try to improve the process: 1. Make process review more transparent - this will definitely help false positives, but also likely will increase amount of false negatives. 2. Put someone in charge who could cut through the politics of app review policies and instill a better culture. Problem here is that situation could turn out worse as well.

swiley 5y ago
F-droid does it, here are their rules: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/ https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/ So do most Linux distros, which have very similar rules.

smoldesu 5y ago

>His fight became personal long before today: he sued Apple in March for some seemingly shady behavior, alleging that Apple erected roadblocks to his FlickType keyboard in order to convince him to sell the technology to Apple for a discount, all while scammy mobile keyboard apps flourished on the App Store. To me, this is the biggest takeaway. All it took was 2 decades for Apple to start their own campaign of embrace, extend and acquire.

tinus_hn 5y ago
Clearly this lawsuit worked out so well he now throws a hissy fit and cancels his app.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Hissy fit? He can no longer update his app, he has no options. None of this strikes me as being particularly ungrateful, especially since Apple is known for these aggressive and anti-developer business tactics.

dang 5y ago

Recent and related: Discontinuing FlickType Keyboard for iPhone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28200288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28200288 - Aug 2021 (159 comments)

g_p 5y ago

I wonder from a technical perspective how many of the bad developer experiences like this are arising almost entirely from a lack of continuity between app reviews. A number of commenters have pointed out their experiences in resubmitting the same (unchanged) app and getting s different outcome. Similarly, in this case, it sounds like an issue came up in the recent review which had previously been addressed 3 years prior. I wonder if improved continuity would let Apple offer higher quality reviewing and a better developer experience? It seems like many of the complaints of arbitrary decisions could be coming about from a lack of continuity in one app's review. Clearly at Apple scale, they aren't likely to have the same human reviewing the app repeatedly for years on end, but I wonder if there's a low-difficulty patch to this process to get better communication and continuity between reviewers, and more context in the communication with developers. I don't have experience with this review process in particular, but often these processes favour "ticket" style ways of working - developer caries out an event which results in an item entering a queue, and items from the queue get served by the first available server (aka reviewer). Given the review process takes time, I wonder if it would be more productive for the review to appear as more of a conversation? Perhaps even semi-synchronous or asynchronish? At the reviewing side there must be a fairly significant amount of mental context switching taking place between apps, re-submissions etc. Maybe Apple is simply expecting too many high quality context switches per individual per shift, resulting in mistakes in reviews, but isn't doing enough oversight to spot mistakes and optimise to reduce them? Is there any incentive to drive them to improve their mistake rate?