6 ms·

Apple pulls iTether from App Store

45 points by raganwald 15y ago

raganwald 15y ago
OT, but I saw this on John Gruber’s site... Showing once again that he is capable of criticizing Apple, especially as pertains to his pet peeves of design inconsistencies and app store approval insanity...
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Can you link to the criticism? I only found a two sentence statement of fact that the app was pulled. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/29/itether http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/29/itether
  - raganwald 15y ago
    He wasn’t firing up a rant, but he mentioned that the app was only in the store for a few hours. But you’re right, it’s not nearly as pointed as quips like this: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/29/app-store-ninja-turtles http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/29/app-store-ninja-... Or this skewering: http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_reviewer http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_revi...
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- tvon 15y ago
  Gruber criticizes Apple often enough, it just doesn't make Hacker News. (Though I don't see any criticism in this story, except that he is reporting it, but then I'm not sure what there is to criticize, I don't know how the app got into the App Store in the first place).
  - pyre 15y ago
    Well, you could criticize that the App made its way onto the AppStore in the first place as an example of how arbitrary (and possibly ineffective) the approval process is.
- interlagos 15y ago
  I suppose it is reasonable to judge such an innocuous observation as "critical" on the Gruber scale of Apple commentary.
- interlagos 15y ago
  Herein lies the problem with Hacker News -- raganwald may be a regular, but such a completely irrelevant, bizarre reference to John Gruber has zero place in this story. I intentionally left a counterpoint that got the expected downvotes, but how about there be some consistency. This coddling of the regular names diminishes this site. http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
  - raganwald 15y ago
    OT -> ‘Off Topic'
    - interlagos 15y ago
      Yes, no kidding. Gruber is a polarizing figure on HN (largely because he is an unabashed hyper-cheerleader for Apple the corporation -- seriously, his infatuation with AAPL profit levels, margins, and P/E ratios is hilarious), and you just had to drag him into a conversation having nothing whatsoever to do with him. If the populace of HN didn't recognize your name as a guy who lives on HN, you would be living in negative double digit land.
      - raganwald 15y ago
        We should test your conjecture that there's a "pro-raganwald bias." Ping me the next time there's a contentious topic like Gruber on the front page, and we could try three vaguely similar comments: one from you, one from me, and one from a throwaway. The results may shock me and ought to make for an interesting blog post at the very least.
danso 15y ago
I only vaguely knew the details of how iTether worked, but with the app pulled, does this impact users who've already installed it and the computer client software? That is, was there any need to touch base with iTether's servers?
- raganwald 15y ago
  This article: http://tidbits.com/article/12651 http://tidbits.com/article/12651 Claims that existing users will be fine.
- davidblair 15y ago
  The app still works as of 8:00 PM ET on my AT&T iPhone. Based on what I've read about others tethering apps, Apple will not remotely disable Tether. The only major downside is that I will never see any updates. It's only a matter of time before an OS upgrade breaks the app permanently.
tptacek 15y ago
Awfully hard to feel much sympathy for a team that builds and submits to the app store an application which overtly contravenes one of the very first terms of the AT&T wireless terms of service. Intuitively, I believe AT&T's tether pricing to be a travesty, but rationally I also know that it's their network and their terms are going to be their terms, even if I find them odious. Both intuitively and rationally, an application that exists solely to bypass their most basic terms of service seems more like an elaborate troll than a real offering.
- ajross 15y ago
  How is tethered data access a "most basic" term of service, though? I mean, it's more or less by definition undetectable by the carrier. They can't (in the general case) tell what you're doing with those bytes. But they sell them anyway. The issue with tethering is practical. "Usually" desktop software uses "more" data than "mobile" software. Sometimes. So they outlaw it and try to sell it as an upgrade, but it's a fragile hack. It will always be a fragile hack. That they write it into their contact verbiage doesn't make it inviolable. They have lots of other crap in there that people ignore routinely, I'm sure. Why is this one special?
  - tptacek 15y ago
    It's "most basic" in the sense that it's among the very first things spelled out in the terms of service you agree to when you sign up for data service with AT&T. How easy or hard tethering is to detect has zero to do with the validity of that contract.
    - ajross 15y ago
      I honestly think you're flat wrong about that. Contract terms aren't like code. They have squishy validity that depends on interpretation. IANAL, obviously, but I think the ability of one side to even tell whether or not the contract condition was violated certainly does have an effect on whether that clause is enforceable. Companies put all kinds of crap into contracts. It's routine that this stuff turns out not to be enforceable when and if it goes to court. My quibble is that you're starting from a weird place in your argument: it's OK for Apple to pull an app because a different company decided to put something in their contract. And you wave that away by saying that it's "obviously" a violation. And I don't see the obviously part at all.
jpdoctor 15y ago
Waiting for 1. An open source iTether 2. An open source way to hide it in an otherwise innocuous application (iJpDoctorClock) as an easter egg 3. 10,000 submissions to the app store.
leoh 15y ago
Just wondering: if I paid the $99 bucks to become an Apple Developer, could I write and then self-sign a tethering app that would run on my phone (without jail breaking)?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- nkvoll 15y ago
  Yes, that would work.
  - sigjuice 15y ago
    Don't self-signed apps expire in three months? If yes, it would be really inconvenient.
- mcteapot 15y ago
  I am going to say yes, I am also sure there are sourced tethering ios apps out there.
- jonknee 15y ago
  Yes, or just grab one off github. https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy
- smashing 15y ago
  Yes, in fact here's one: https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy
- daxelrod 15y ago
  Others have answered that this is technically possible. I'm guessing, however, that it would violate your agreement with either Apple or your mobile carrier. Since there are lots of mobile carriers, does anyone know whether it would violate Apple's developer agreement?
robryan 15y ago
Interesting that tethering is part of the standard plan on Telstra in Australia. What's the reasoning behind the restriction on some carriers? As long as I stay within a data cap what does it matter whether it is done on the phone or tethered?
- technomancy 15y ago
  Reasoning? Surely you jest. "We can make more money this way" covers pretty much everything when it comes to telcos.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    When considering rates for services, you will often (as is the case here) be better off thinking about it in terms of who pays, not what is paid for. Every fee extracted from tethering users creates money that the carrier can use to improve their general data rate and thus attractiveness in the market. You can be irritated that this nickel-and-dimes you, but what you're dealing with is an allocation decision, not an evil effort to defraud you. AT&T is about as up front about the tethering issue as they reasonably can be; "tethering" is a product option every data customer is presented with when they sign up.
- bmunro 15y ago
  Because no carrier in Australia has unlimited data plans.
- Samuel_Michon 15y ago
  That's assuming you have a data cap. I have a data plan that's truly unlimited, with no throttling. There isn't even a fair use clause. So understandably, there's no way my telco will allow me to tether with that plan.
  - robryan 15y ago
    Yeah, I read it as there is still a data cap, just a surcharge for the ability to use it with tethering. I guess on unlimited they reason that you are unlikely to start using your phone to download gigs of stuff then transfer it to other devices.
bphogan 15y ago
I think my biggest problem with this is that these sorts of things should be rejected before they get on the store, before people pay money for things. I don't like the precedent that's set by "oops we decided we don't like your thing so it's going bye-bye". If Apple can't stop stuff like this at the onset, you have to start asking other questions, like how closely they are looking at the apps they let in. Is it really a safe walled garden? Or is it simply "Hey we don't like that app anymore. It competes with us somehow. So get out." Sadly I suspect both of those cases are true.
- Samuel_Michon 15y ago
  "my biggest problem with this is that these sorts of things should be rejected before they get on the store, before people pay money for things." If you bought it, you get to keep it. I actually have a half dozen apps that after I bought it have since been removed from the App Store.
  - bphogan 15y ago
    I do too. But I have to restore from my backups. I don't get to grab it from the store again. And bugs won't get fixed, OS incompatibilities (read: iOS 5 fixes) won't get in there either. If only there were a way around the Apple store.... some way to install any app I wanted....
- tptacek 15y ago
  Neither of those cases are germane here. There was no way Apple was going to allow this app into the store.
  - bphogan 15y ago
    I thought "pulled" meant it was pulled out of the store. Not rejected.
beej71 15y ago
Why was this approved in the first place? Of course it's going to burden the carrier network--it's the raison d'etre for the whole thing. Weird that it was ever there at all.

45 points by raganwald 15y ago

OT, but I saw this on John Gruber’s site... Showing once again that he is capable of criticizing Apple, especially as pertains to his pet peeves of design inconsistencies and app store approval insanity...

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Can you link to the criticism? I only found a two sentence statement of fact that the app was pulled. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/29/itether http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/29/itether
- raganwald 15y ago
  He wasn’t firing up a rant, but he mentioned that the app was only in the store for a few hours. But you’re right, it’s not nearly as pointed as quips like this: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/29/app-store-ninja-turtles http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/29/app-store-ninja-... Or this skewering: http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_reviewer http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_revi...
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
tvon 15y ago
Gruber criticizes Apple often enough, it just doesn't make Hacker News. (Though I don't see any criticism in this story, except that he is reporting it, but then I'm not sure what there is to criticize, I don't know how the app got into the App Store in the first place).
- pyre 15y ago
  Well, you could criticize that the App made its way onto the AppStore in the first place as an example of how arbitrary (and possibly ineffective) the approval process is.
interlagos 15y ago
I suppose it is reasonable to judge such an innocuous observation as "critical" on the Gruber scale of Apple commentary.
interlagos 15y ago
Herein lies the problem with Hacker News -- raganwald may be a regular, but such a completely irrelevant, bizarre reference to John Gruber has zero place in this story. I intentionally left a counterpoint that got the expected downvotes, but how about there be some consistency. This coddling of the regular names diminishes this site. http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
- raganwald 15y ago
  OT -> ‘Off Topic'
  - interlagos 15y ago
    Yes, no kidding. Gruber is a polarizing figure on HN (largely because he is an unabashed hyper-cheerleader for Apple the corporation -- seriously, his infatuation with AAPL profit levels, margins, and P/E ratios is hilarious), and you just had to drag him into a conversation having nothing whatsoever to do with him. If the populace of HN didn't recognize your name as a guy who lives on HN, you would be living in negative double digit land.
    - raganwald 15y ago
      We should test your conjecture that there's a "pro-raganwald bias." Ping me the next time there's a contentious topic like Gruber on the front page, and we could try three vaguely similar comments: one from you, one from me, and one from a throwaway. The results may shock me and ought to make for an interesting blog post at the very least.

danso 15y ago

I only vaguely knew the details of how iTether worked, but with the app pulled, does this impact users who've already installed it and the computer client software? That is, was there any need to touch base with iTether's servers?

raganwald 15y ago
This article: http://tidbits.com/article/12651 http://tidbits.com/article/12651 Claims that existing users will be fine.
davidblair 15y ago
The app still works as of 8:00 PM ET on my AT&T iPhone. Based on what I've read about others tethering apps, Apple will not remotely disable Tether. The only major downside is that I will never see any updates. It's only a matter of time before an OS upgrade breaks the app permanently.

tptacek 15y ago

Awfully hard to feel much sympathy for a team that builds and submits to the app store an application which overtly contravenes one of the very first terms of the AT&T wireless terms of service. Intuitively, I believe AT&T's tether pricing to be a travesty, but rationally I also know that it's their network and their terms are going to be their terms, even if I find them odious. Both intuitively and rationally, an application that exists solely to bypass their most basic terms of service seems more like an elaborate troll than a real offering.

ajross 15y ago
How is tethered data access a "most basic" term of service, though? I mean, it's more or less by definition undetectable by the carrier. They can't (in the general case) tell what you're doing with those bytes. But they sell them anyway. The issue with tethering is practical. "Usually" desktop software uses "more" data than "mobile" software. Sometimes. So they outlaw it and try to sell it as an upgrade, but it's a fragile hack. It will always be a fragile hack. That they write it into their contact verbiage doesn't make it inviolable. They have lots of other crap in there that people ignore routinely, I'm sure. Why is this one special?
- tptacek 15y ago
  It's "most basic" in the sense that it's among the very first things spelled out in the terms of service you agree to when you sign up for data service with AT&T. How easy or hard tethering is to detect has zero to do with the validity of that contract.
  - ajross 15y ago
    I honestly think you're flat wrong about that. Contract terms aren't like code. They have squishy validity that depends on interpretation. IANAL, obviously, but I think the ability of one side to even tell whether or not the contract condition was violated certainly does have an effect on whether that clause is enforceable. Companies put all kinds of crap into contracts. It's routine that this stuff turns out not to be enforceable when and if it goes to court. My quibble is that you're starting from a weird place in your argument: it's OK for Apple to pull an app because a different company decided to put something in their contract. And you wave that away by saying that it's "obviously" a violation. And I don't see the obviously part at all.

jpdoctor 15y ago

Waiting for 1. An open source iTether 2. An open source way to hide it in an otherwise innocuous application (iJpDoctorClock) as an easter egg 3. 10,000 submissions to the app store.

leoh 15y ago

Just wondering: if I paid the $99 bucks to become an Apple Developer, could I write and then self-sign a tethering app that would run on my phone (without jail breaking)?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
nkvoll 15y ago
Yes, that would work.
- sigjuice 15y ago
  Don't self-signed apps expire in three months? If yes, it would be really inconvenient.
mcteapot 15y ago
I am going to say yes, I am also sure there are sourced tethering ios apps out there.
jonknee 15y ago
Yes, or just grab one off github. https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy
smashing 15y ago
Yes, in fact here's one: https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy
daxelrod 15y ago
Others have answered that this is technically possible. I'm guessing, however, that it would violate your agreement with either Apple or your mobile carrier. Since there are lots of mobile carriers, does anyone know whether it would violate Apple's developer agreement?

robryan 15y ago

Interesting that tethering is part of the standard plan on Telstra in Australia. What's the reasoning behind the restriction on some carriers? As long as I stay within a data cap what does it matter whether it is done on the phone or tethered?

technomancy 15y ago
Reasoning? Surely you jest. "We can make more money this way" covers pretty much everything when it comes to telcos.
- tptacek 15y ago
  When considering rates for services, you will often (as is the case here) be better off thinking about it in terms of who pays, not what is paid for. Every fee extracted from tethering users creates money that the carrier can use to improve their general data rate and thus attractiveness in the market. You can be irritated that this nickel-and-dimes you, but what you're dealing with is an allocation decision, not an evil effort to defraud you. AT&T is about as up front about the tethering issue as they reasonably can be; "tethering" is a product option every data customer is presented with when they sign up.
bmunro 15y ago
Because no carrier in Australia has unlimited data plans.
Samuel_Michon 15y ago
That's assuming you have a data cap. I have a data plan that's truly unlimited, with no throttling. There isn't even a fair use clause. So understandably, there's no way my telco will allow me to tether with that plan.
- robryan 15y ago
  Yeah, I read it as there is still a data cap, just a surcharge for the ability to use it with tethering. I guess on unlimited they reason that you are unlikely to start using your phone to download gigs of stuff then transfer it to other devices.

bphogan 15y ago

I think my biggest problem with this is that these sorts of things should be rejected before they get on the store, before people pay money for things. I don't like the precedent that's set by "oops we decided we don't like your thing so it's going bye-bye". If Apple can't stop stuff like this at the onset, you have to start asking other questions, like how closely they are looking at the apps they let in. Is it really a safe walled garden? Or is it simply "Hey we don't like that app anymore. It competes with us somehow. So get out." Sadly I suspect both of those cases are true.

Samuel_Michon 15y ago
"my biggest problem with this is that these sorts of things should be rejected before they get on the store, before people pay money for things." If you bought it, you get to keep it. I actually have a half dozen apps that after I bought it have since been removed from the App Store.
- bphogan 15y ago
  I do too. But I have to restore from my backups. I don't get to grab it from the store again. And bugs won't get fixed, OS incompatibilities (read: iOS 5 fixes) won't get in there either. If only there were a way around the Apple store.... some way to install any app I wanted....
tptacek 15y ago
Neither of those cases are germane here. There was no way Apple was going to allow this app into the store.
- bphogan 15y ago
  I thought "pulled" meant it was pulled out of the store. Not rejected.

beej71 15y ago

Why was this approved in the first place? Of course it's going to burden the carrier network--it's the raison d'etre for the whole thing. Weird that it was ever there at all.