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Cabel Sasser: Untitled Goose Game rejected from the Mac App Store twice

149 points by valleyer 4y ago

greesil 4y ago
I guess peace was never an option.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  ... I see what you did there.
smoldesu 4y ago
Apparently their Steam page ships a Mac version: https://store.steampowered.com/app/837470/Untitled_Goose_Game/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/837470/Untitled_Goose_Gam... It would be interesting to hear Panic's input here. They're a long-time Mac studio, surely they've got some suggestions for regulators.
- jojobas 4y ago
  It's mind-boggling that the free market is not enough to regulate a gatekeeping monopoly into irrelevance. I guess even when Apple close all the loopholes to running "unauthorized" software there will be people silly enough to buy their computers.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > It's mind-boggling that the free market is not enough to regulate a gatekeeping monopoly into irrelevance. The Mac App Store is not a monopoly. Mac developers can independently distribute their apps.
    - jojobas 4y ago
      In other words, "can't you just right-click?" https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html
      - lapcat 4y ago
        It's not clear why you're citing my own blog post back to me. As I mentioned, Mac developers can independently distribute their own apps, signed with a Developer ID certificate. It's annoying to be sure, but not a major hurdle for professional Mac developers, such as Panic.
        jojobas 4y ago
        Didn't realize it's you. It's fascinating you made a 180 on the issue while it got worse since you wrote it. I could bet that in under 5 years Apple will refuse to "notarize" at least some software and prevent unsigned software from running altogether.
        lapcat 4y ago
        > It's fascinating you made a 180 on the issue How so?
        jojobas 4y ago
        Your old text reads as if you consider this whole approach wrong and warn people against saying there's still a way to distribute software without consent from Apple. Now you're saying it's all good. Go figure.
        lapcat 4y ago
        The question of the blog post was whether it's viable for Mac developers to distribute apps without signing and notarizing them, and I argued that it wasn't: "This is why every Mac developer I know signs up for Developer ID and ships only signed, notarized apps. It would be financial suicide to do otherwise." I've been philosophically opposed to Gatekeeper since its introduction more than 10 years ago, and that hasn't changed. The mostly good news is that Apple mostly doesn't prevent non-malware developers from distributing their apps on the Mac. I'm aware of only 2 cases where Apple has intentionally abused its authority there: (1) Apple canceled the developer account of Epic Games after the famous trial. (2) Apple canceled the developer account of Kapeli after an allegation of App Store review fraud. However, the account was later restored, and Dash for Mac is currently signed and notarized. https://kapeli.com/dash https://kapeli.com/dash
    - devwastaken 4y ago
      Apple requires $100 year to have the base ability to sign applications. As of Ventura you cannot bypass gatekeeper without a signature for a number of popular solutions. Electron being one of them. Apple developer license is apart of the app store. This in effect means that apple and the app store are a monopoly. A monopoly is not defined by 100% control. It is defined by whom has the overwhelming control.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > Apple requires $100 year to have the base ability to sign applications. Government regulators aren't going to get involved over $100. > As of Ventura you cannot bypass gatekeeper without a signature for a number of popular solutions. Electron being one of them. I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not sure you technically understand what you mean.
        devwastaken 4y ago
        <https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/ https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/> <https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491> Mac Ventura only allows for "App store and identified developers". Meaning the application must be signed with an apple developer cert to go through gatekeeper.
        lapcat 4y ago
        > Mac Ventura only allows for "App store and identified developers". This has nothing to do with Ventura. It's been true for many years. Keep in mind that I am personally a professional Mac developer. You're out of your depth here.
      - mike_hearn 4y ago
        > As of Ventura you cannot bypass gatekeeper without a signature for a number of popular solutions. Electron being one of them. You can do so the same way you always could. Perhaps you're mixing it up with ARM Macs requiring code to be signed by something? (it doesn't have to be by an Apple certificate). You can still run self-signed code on macOS even with Apple Silicon and the latest OS versions and there's no sign they'll ever change that. Our distribution tool Conveyor will self-sign apps for you out of the box and create a web page that tells users what to do [1], albeit we should make it less wordy. > Apple developer license is apart of the app store A Developer ID is separate from the app store, they're different certificate types. I distribute Mac software outside the store with one, no problem. [1] example: https://downloads.hydraulic.dev/eton-sample/selfsigned/download.html https://downloads.hydraulic.dev/eton-sample/selfsigned/downl...
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    The market cannot solve all problems.
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    Apple's not really a monopoly here, is it? In the operating system market, it's small. In the laptop market, it's small. In the Mac OS market, it's small. EDIT: Guys, you can literally just install using Steam or Epic. It's really not a problem.
    - jojobas 4y ago
      It might be small-ish in terms of units shipped, but nowhere near small in revenue and profit. I guess it's not exactly a laptop monopoly, but a walled laptop monopoly alright.
      - frumper 4y ago
        I can't remember using the Mac App Store for anything that wasn't made by Apple. I've had Macs for 14 years. I install plenty of software. The Mac App Store is pretty much the last place I go for software. It's nothing like the iOS App Store.
      - wilg 4y ago
        It's not a monopoly because you can buy phones and computers from plenty of other people. A large player is not a monopoly, and the choice exists if you don't like their offerings. I don't see how this is some kind of societal issue.
    - blululu 4y ago
      Depends on how you think about monopolies and bundling. For the most part Apple's devices and products face a pretty competitive landscape. But there are some areas where they have a very strong market position. The revenue for paid apps in America skews very heavily to the Apple App Store (people make apps for iOS only in the US but never Android only). The alternatives to going through the App Store are really not viable. The switching costs to consumers are very high and people buy phones because of core features (battery, camera, speakers, connectivity, display, touch screen). The availability and pricing of paid apps is such an afterthought for consumers as to be irrelevant. In this one small market Apple exerts its market dominance influence to take a lot of money from 3rd party developers. Of course this is small potatoes compared to all the other markets that they compete in and even as a fraction of their revenue. But this is Hacker News. A lot of developers hang out here. Some of whom have certainly had some bad experiences with the policies, restrictions and fees imposed by the App Store.
  - vintermann 4y ago
    It's a bit of karmic justice for the Untitled Goose Game developers though, since they took Epic's money to make it an Epic games store exclusive. You help build one walled garden, you get kicked out of another.
    - jojobas 4y ago
      Choosing your publisher/distributor is not the same as choosing what runs on your hardware.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > surely they've got some suggestions for regulators. Regulators?
  - pornel 4y ago
    They were still able to release the game for Mac via Steam (a competitor) instead, because macOS isn't fully iOSified yet. On iOS, if Apple's store rejected them, there's no recourse. Apple blocks other stores from existing, and there's no competition in distribution, review, and of course payments and the cut.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > They were still able to release the game for Mac Which is why I was asking about regulators. > On iOS if Apple's store rejects you, that's game over. Everyone knows this, it doesn't need to be said. But fewer people are familiar with the Mac situation.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1412850761231392773 https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1412850761231392773 Cabel Sasser emailed Phil Schiller ideas on the app review process in 2016. A good chunk of it wound up getting implemented. I'd love to see a sequel. Unrelatedly, I think the tone in his email is a perfect example of giving successful constructive criticism.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > A good chunk of it wound up getting implemented. It did? 1) "When we decided to pull Coda from the App Store (due to sandboxing)" Sandboxing is still required. 2) "we regained our ability to release software the moment we need to" Nope, nothing has changed there. 3) "we could fill a small book with frustrating and tragicomic App Review anecdotes" This was written before the Untitled Goose Game rejections. 4) "Reviews are often the dumping ground of the uninformed" Still painfully true! 5) Refunds: "And when this happens, we can do nothing." Still true. Developers can't issue their own refunds, and the App Store doesn't even have an official refund policy. I've been seeing more and more people get their App Store refund requests rejected by Apple, for no apparent reason. 6) Low app prices Still a problem of course!
    - lelandfe 4y ago
      Mhm, review responses were added[0], Apple moved away from the "no refunds" policy[1], and completely stopped holding up bug fixes over guideline infractions[2]. That's a solid portion of his list! (I also think most of what you listed were not asks in that email) [0] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/ratings-and-reviews/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/ratings-and-reviews/ [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084 [2] https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=84w3e5bm https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=84w3e5bm
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > review responses were added This was just about the least Apple could do. You can't have a conversation, you can only post one reply. And in my experience, App Store reviewers almost never correct their bad reviews, even if you reply with info that will fix their problem. > Apple moved away from the "no refunds" policy Apple still has no official refund policy. You can request a refund, which Apple may or may not grant, as I mentioned, at Apple's own discretion, for any reason or no reason. So I don't see how anything has changed from Cabel's email. > completely stopped holding up bug fixes over guideline infractions Completely wrong. What happens is that App Review still rejects your bug fix updates. But then you can request that App Review let your update go through, and fix the problem in the next update. The problem is that this can still take an indefinite amount of time, because App Review can reject you at any time, even when you're asleep, then you have to contact them, then they have to see your message and respond, all of which can take half a day or more. It's a joke. We're still delayed.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  What needs to be regulated in this context? The game is available via Steam and not the Mac App Store. One distributor decided hosting it was worth the reputation, the other did not. Win-win for consumers in that there is more choice than otherwise.
  - devwastaken 4y ago
    Even via steam you still need to buy an apple dev license and sign it. If apple could get away with it, they would stop any app sourcing outside of the app store. They've made pushes in Ventura to make any non-signed executable not work out of the box. Nothing about apples behavior is "win win". They're a corp that benefits from special protections against both civil and criminal liabilities as well as benefitting from masses of intellectual property. It's not some sort of balanced game, the scales were tipped completely into corpo land since early 2000s
interpol_p 4y ago
It is wild that even a company like Panic, as well-loved, and with one of the richest histories on Mac, gets the same treatment as anyone else from App Store Review. In a way it's kind of good to know that there is no special treatment, but this is poor behaviour towards the developers who made your platform.
- tantalor 4y ago
  That's overselling it a bit. They made a few apps back in the 2000s. Nothing very memorable. And why shouldn't they get the same treatment? Fair's fair.
  - aarpmcgee 4y ago
    Now I think you may be underselling it a bit. :)
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    Being on the developer spotlight (https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=t4n6e4wo https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=t4n6e4wo) kind of indicates they’re a bit more than “nothing very memorable”. At least, Apple certainly thought so. Not every developer gets a spotlight.
  - iseanstevens 4y ago
    Panic are multiple time Apple design award winners/nominees. (Mac & iOS) [1] 2003, 2004, 2005(x2), 2013, 2021 Perhaps Apple was overselling how good they are? /s [1] https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Panic https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Panic
  - _zzaw 4y ago
    Um...for those of us who were using Macs back when it wasn't clear how much longer Apple would be around—and especially for those of us involved with web stuff—Panic is nothing short of iconic. They're one of the few indie Mac devs who've managed to keep it going for decades, and their work has been consistently excellent. So if I were Tim Apple, I would be a little worried by someone like Sasser saying "we tried to launch our crazy popular game on your App Store and ultimately didn't because one of your idiot reviewers gave us the runaround." That's a little like, I don't know, some record label passing on Nirvana because a junior talent scout thought that "the guys looked kind of greasy and the name sounds stupid."
causality0 4y ago
Why would someone port a game and then give up after two rejections? Seems like a lot of wasted work.
- mixdup 4y ago
  They still sell the game on the Mac, and by all accounts don't really miss out on the revenue from not being in the Mac App Store (this isn't the only app they've chosen not to distribute there)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- TechRemarker 4y ago
  Since the already sell the game on the Mac, and as a well known company, are not as reliant on Mac App Store discovery, I imagine they didn't see it worth the effort of listing on the Mac App Store. It's slightly more convenient for users, but at the benefit of Apple getting a cut, and the developers loosing money. While Apple should be removing as many road blocks as possible to entice great developers on the MAS, it doesn't seem to be the case considering how many of the most popular Mac apps are not on the store, even though the developers ideally would like to be.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Don't really see this as an issue. The mac store is a curated platform, you still have the ability to install binaries you downloaded or got through other platforms like Steam. If anything, they should make iOS more like this with the App Store only being the best content.
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      That's a good way for the app store to have only the most irrelevant content. If I have the choice of delivering my product for free versus paying Apple a 30% cut, I'm going free every time. The only people who would willingly pay the vig are those who are desperate for publicity.
ummonk 4y ago
“It was then rejected for something else and at that point we just gave up and never bothered to resubmit.” This would be an interesting post if we had even the slightest bit more detail.
- dmix 4y ago
  Must be nice to not have to deal with this shit, at least until you feel like it, because you're doing so well otherwise. Successful indie game devs are living the life.
  - armadsen 4y ago
    Panic, the company this is about, is (still) a Mac software company. They definitely still have to deal with the App Store.
    - dmix 4y ago
      Yes... Surprisingly that would still matter for their other (Mac only) software. Yet they still could choose to kick the can for this video game. Which is what I was talking about.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  > This would be an interesting post if we had even the slightest bit more detail. The bigger piece of background is that Untitled Goose Game is (previously unbeknownst to me) a wildly successful game. I think the point he's getting across is that first the game was rejected for something trivially stupid (not being able to skip credits, which you could actually do), and then again for something probably equally trivially stupid (point being Cabel couldn't even remember it, and they apparently took a "this is BS, why bother?" approach). It's like if some NFL team had the ability to pick a star quarterback in the NFL draft but decided against it because they didn't like his shoelaces or something. Point of the post is that the Mac Store review process is so arbitrary that successful developers just take the approach of "Why bother?"
  - 4y ago
capitainenemo 4y ago
Familiar. Hedgewars was for about half a year on the top page of free apps before Apple demanded that the GUI be rewritten in something other than Qt, something no one had the time to do, so it was pulled.
- wizee 4y ago
  What Apple policy bans Qt-based apps from the App Store?
  - atonse 4y ago
    Sorry, you were looking for any kind of consistency or actually well written rules or consistent, rational, or timely enforcement of said rules? I haven’t seen it. Only the US DoJ or FTC could make a dent in this joke of a review process.
  - capitainenemo 4y ago
    The reason given was that it needed to use a native GUI toolkit. I don't know why this was the case. Maintaining separate GUIs for Linux, Windows and OSX was definitely not practical though.
    - wizee 4y ago
      When was this rejection? They don’t have any rule like this currently, and the App Store is full of apps not using Cocoa/Carbon/SwiftUI.
      - capitainenemo 4y ago
        Shortly after launch of the app store. It was posted within a month or two of launch, and pulled about six months later. I feel like enforcement is rather random though. It seems like submitting updates draws their attention. But you could be right. It may be it's a rule they abandoned. In any case I don't think there's anyone around with the heart to try again.
lapcat 4y ago
An interesting thing about the Mac App Store: When you're on an Apple Silicon Mac, the Discover page doesn't show Intel-only apps (even if you have Rosetta installed, which I do). This is why the Top Free Games and Top Paid Games lists are half empty on the page. Many Mac App Store games have not been ported to Apple Silicon yet (or ever, likely).
- natch 4y ago
  Sounds like a great opportunity for some upstarts to come in with new takes on categories that were previously dominated by someone who is resting easy not updating their app.
  - erik 4y ago
    My impression is that the mac app store is pretty low traffic. The opportunity may be pretty small.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      Correct.
    - natch 4y ago
      Good to know, thanks for pointing that out!
- jakear 4y ago
  This looks... not true? M1 Air, App Store, Discover: "Top Free Games" has 15 entries, same as every other category. "Top Paid Games" does as well. Clicking "See All" on either opens to a free/paid side by side scroll view with ~200 entries for each.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Hmm, this appears to happen on one of my Macs but not the other for some strange reason. In any case, try downloading Steam Link, currently the #2 free game, and you should be able to see that it's Intel-only. % file "/Applications/Steam Link.app/Contents/MacOS/Steam Link" /Applications/Steam Link.app/Contents/MacOS/Steam Link: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
shadowgovt 4y ago
Apple's loss. It's a great game. ... But also, Apple's space to lose in.
- calciphus 4y ago
  Only because Mac is the only place in the Apple ecosystem you still own your device. Everywhere else it would be "our loss".
  - bitwize 4y ago
    Sigh. To quote from another of today's Hackernewsstories, people don't want a dishwasher, they want clean dishes. People don't want a computer or smartphone, they want the things those devices afford them. From a security perspective, the much vaunted "general purpose computing" reduces to "arbitrary code execution". It's very dangerous, and without some sort of allowlist-based restriction on what may be run on the average consumer's hardware, it becomes a playground for hackers, thieves, and malicious state actors. The era of general purpose computing with consumer hardware is dead. Millions of customers are delighted with their restricted devices. Stop whining and move on with your lives, people.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      > People don't want a computer or smartphone, they want the things those devices afford them. They're entitled to it, I say. Hell, I even think other companies are entitled to make it for them. What they cannot do is turn this layer of abstraction into an excuse for infinite profitability. People don't want coffee makers, they want coffee! That doesn't mean Keurig is necessarily allowed to stop other people from selling pods, though. Especially if they become the primary way that people get their coffee. We have a democratically controlled legal system that holds these people in check - particularly when the market doesn't behave. You can still be right here, but if Apple is taking advantage of this situation to fleece people beyond what can be considered reasonable, then we have to litigate them regardless. Hopefully in the future, Apple finds a way to prioritize things like security while also respecting the user's choice and agency. It's time for armchair analysts and AAPL investors to take a hike. Some of us want Apple to succeed regardless of their monopolistic intent, and helping them requires us to prune their ugliest branches. We staved off half a decade of change with this "free market will fix things" mantra, and nothing improved. If Apple won't do what's right, then we'll be forced to.
pupppet 4y ago
Yikes. If any company on the Mac App Store deserves the benefit of the doubt it’s Panic. Pretty embarrassing, Apple.
- sneak 4y ago
  It's pretty embarrassing that people blame Apple for their own acceptance of censorship. Delete your Apple ID. Opt out.
  - devwastaken 4y ago
    I have a better one: regulate. Corps get special protections precisely so they can be regulated. Either we strip corps of intellectual property rights, or they get regulated. That's how it's meant to be. But money has bought everyone into thinking the 90's didn't exist.
    - sneak 4y ago
      You can't regulate. You can delete your Apple ID. Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Why do I have to choose between "censorship" and "installing apps on my iPhone"?
    - sneak 4y ago
      You don't. You have the option of selling your iPhone and buying a phone that runs Grapheme, which will run anything you wish.
      - wilg 4y ago
        That's still a choice between "censorship" and "installing apps on my iPhone".
rasz 4y ago
In 1989 Brøderbund rejected publishing SimCity because "it wasnt a game, there is no score, no victory conditions".
jackmott42 4y ago
More of us developers should quit dealing with Apple until they have a more open policy. People are jumping through hoops and having careers ruined at the whim of Apple so they can maintain their monopoly store. If we don't make stuff for that store, they will have to change. As long as we jump through the hoops they make their money and will not care at all that one of the most beloved games isn't on IOS because the developer had some self respect.
wilg 4y ago
A big part of the story here is just how little the Mac App Store matters.

149 points by valleyer 4y ago

greesil 4y ago

I guess peace was never an option.

shadowgovt 4y ago
... I see what you did there.

smoldesu 4y ago

Apparently their Steam page ships a Mac version: https://store.steampowered.com/app/837470/Untitled_Goose_Game/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/837470/Untitled_Goose_Gam... It would be interesting to hear Panic's input here. They're a long-time Mac studio, surely they've got some suggestions for regulators.

jojobas 4y ago
It's mind-boggling that the free market is not enough to regulate a gatekeeping monopoly into irrelevance. I guess even when Apple close all the loopholes to running "unauthorized" software there will be people silly enough to buy their computers.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > It's mind-boggling that the free market is not enough to regulate a gatekeeping monopoly into irrelevance. The Mac App Store is not a monopoly. Mac developers can independently distribute their apps.
  - jojobas 4y ago
    In other words, "can't you just right-click?" https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html
    - lapcat 4y ago
      It's not clear why you're citing my own blog post back to me. As I mentioned, Mac developers can independently distribute their own apps, signed with a Developer ID certificate. It's annoying to be sure, but not a major hurdle for professional Mac developers, such as Panic.
      - jojobas 4y ago
        Didn't realize it's you. It's fascinating you made a 180 on the issue while it got worse since you wrote it. I could bet that in under 5 years Apple will refuse to "notarize" at least some software and prevent unsigned software from running altogether.
        lapcat 4y ago
        > It's fascinating you made a 180 on the issue How so?
        jojobas 4y ago
        Your old text reads as if you consider this whole approach wrong and warn people against saying there's still a way to distribute software without consent from Apple. Now you're saying it's all good. Go figure.
        lapcat 4y ago
        The question of the blog post was whether it's viable for Mac developers to distribute apps without signing and notarizing them, and I argued that it wasn't: "This is why every Mac developer I know signs up for Developer ID and ships only signed, notarized apps. It would be financial suicide to do otherwise." I've been philosophically opposed to Gatekeeper since its introduction more than 10 years ago, and that hasn't changed. The mostly good news is that Apple mostly doesn't prevent non-malware developers from distributing their apps on the Mac. I'm aware of only 2 cases where Apple has intentionally abused its authority there: (1) Apple canceled the developer account of Epic Games after the famous trial. (2) Apple canceled the developer account of Kapeli after an allegation of App Store review fraud. However, the account was later restored, and Dash for Mac is currently signed and notarized. https://kapeli.com/dash https://kapeli.com/dash
  - devwastaken 4y ago
    Apple requires $100 year to have the base ability to sign applications. As of Ventura you cannot bypass gatekeeper without a signature for a number of popular solutions. Electron being one of them. Apple developer license is apart of the app store. This in effect means that apple and the app store are a monopoly. A monopoly is not defined by 100% control. It is defined by whom has the overwhelming control.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > Apple requires $100 year to have the base ability to sign applications. Government regulators aren't going to get involved over $100. > As of Ventura you cannot bypass gatekeeper without a signature for a number of popular solutions. Electron being one of them. I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not sure you technically understand what you mean.
      - devwastaken 4y ago
        <https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/ https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/> <https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491> Mac Ventura only allows for "App store and identified developers". Meaning the application must be signed with an apple developer cert to go through gatekeeper.
        lapcat 4y ago
        > Mac Ventura only allows for "App store and identified developers". This has nothing to do with Ventura. It's been true for many years. Keep in mind that I am personally a professional Mac developer. You're out of your depth here.
    - mike_hearn 4y ago
      > As of Ventura you cannot bypass gatekeeper without a signature for a number of popular solutions. Electron being one of them. You can do so the same way you always could. Perhaps you're mixing it up with ARM Macs requiring code to be signed by something? (it doesn't have to be by an Apple certificate). You can still run self-signed code on macOS even with Apple Silicon and the latest OS versions and there's no sign they'll ever change that. Our distribution tool Conveyor will self-sign apps for you out of the box and create a web page that tells users what to do [1], albeit we should make it less wordy. > Apple developer license is apart of the app store A Developer ID is separate from the app store, they're different certificate types. I distribute Mac software outside the store with one, no problem. [1] example: https://downloads.hydraulic.dev/eton-sample/selfsigned/download.html https://downloads.hydraulic.dev/eton-sample/selfsigned/downl...
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  The market cannot solve all problems.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Apple's not really a monopoly here, is it? In the operating system market, it's small. In the laptop market, it's small. In the Mac OS market, it's small. EDIT: Guys, you can literally just install using Steam or Epic. It's really not a problem.
  - jojobas 4y ago
    It might be small-ish in terms of units shipped, but nowhere near small in revenue and profit. I guess it's not exactly a laptop monopoly, but a walled laptop monopoly alright.
    - frumper 4y ago
      I can't remember using the Mac App Store for anything that wasn't made by Apple. I've had Macs for 14 years. I install plenty of software. The Mac App Store is pretty much the last place I go for software. It's nothing like the iOS App Store.
    - wilg 4y ago
      It's not a monopoly because you can buy phones and computers from plenty of other people. A large player is not a monopoly, and the choice exists if you don't like their offerings. I don't see how this is some kind of societal issue.
  - blululu 4y ago
    Depends on how you think about monopolies and bundling. For the most part Apple's devices and products face a pretty competitive landscape. But there are some areas where they have a very strong market position. The revenue for paid apps in America skews very heavily to the Apple App Store (people make apps for iOS only in the US but never Android only). The alternatives to going through the App Store are really not viable. The switching costs to consumers are very high and people buy phones because of core features (battery, camera, speakers, connectivity, display, touch screen). The availability and pricing of paid apps is such an afterthought for consumers as to be irrelevant. In this one small market Apple exerts its market dominance influence to take a lot of money from 3rd party developers. Of course this is small potatoes compared to all the other markets that they compete in and even as a fraction of their revenue. But this is Hacker News. A lot of developers hang out here. Some of whom have certainly had some bad experiences with the policies, restrictions and fees imposed by the App Store.
- vintermann 4y ago
  It's a bit of karmic justice for the Untitled Goose Game developers though, since they took Epic's money to make it an Epic games store exclusive. You help build one walled garden, you get kicked out of another.
  - jojobas 4y ago
    Choosing your publisher/distributor is not the same as choosing what runs on your hardware.
lapcat 4y ago
> surely they've got some suggestions for regulators. Regulators?
- pornel 4y ago
  They were still able to release the game for Mac via Steam (a competitor) instead, because macOS isn't fully iOSified yet. On iOS, if Apple's store rejected them, there's no recourse. Apple blocks other stores from existing, and there's no competition in distribution, review, and of course payments and the cut.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > They were still able to release the game for Mac Which is why I was asking about regulators. > On iOS if Apple's store rejects you, that's game over. Everyone knows this, it doesn't need to be said. But fewer people are familiar with the Mac situation.
lelandfe 4y ago
https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1412850761231392773 https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1412850761231392773 Cabel Sasser emailed Phil Schiller ideas on the app review process in 2016. A good chunk of it wound up getting implemented. I'd love to see a sequel. Unrelatedly, I think the tone in his email is a perfect example of giving successful constructive criticism.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > A good chunk of it wound up getting implemented. It did? 1) "When we decided to pull Coda from the App Store (due to sandboxing)" Sandboxing is still required. 2) "we regained our ability to release software the moment we need to" Nope, nothing has changed there. 3) "we could fill a small book with frustrating and tragicomic App Review anecdotes" This was written before the Untitled Goose Game rejections. 4) "Reviews are often the dumping ground of the uninformed" Still painfully true! 5) Refunds: "And when this happens, we can do nothing." Still true. Developers can't issue their own refunds, and the App Store doesn't even have an official refund policy. I've been seeing more and more people get their App Store refund requests rejected by Apple, for no apparent reason. 6) Low app prices Still a problem of course!
  - lelandfe 4y ago
    Mhm, review responses were added[0], Apple moved away from the "no refunds" policy[1], and completely stopped holding up bug fixes over guideline infractions[2]. That's a solid portion of his list! (I also think most of what you listed were not asks in that email) [0] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/ratings-and-reviews/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/ratings-and-reviews/ [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084 [2] https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=84w3e5bm https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=84w3e5bm
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > review responses were added This was just about the least Apple could do. You can't have a conversation, you can only post one reply. And in my experience, App Store reviewers almost never correct their bad reviews, even if you reply with info that will fix their problem. > Apple moved away from the "no refunds" policy Apple still has no official refund policy. You can request a refund, which Apple may or may not grant, as I mentioned, at Apple's own discretion, for any reason or no reason. So I don't see how anything has changed from Cabel's email. > completely stopped holding up bug fixes over guideline infractions Completely wrong. What happens is that App Review still rejects your bug fix updates. But then you can request that App Review let your update go through, and fix the problem in the next update. The problem is that this can still take an indefinite amount of time, because App Review can reject you at any time, even when you're asleep, then you have to contact them, then they have to see your message and respond, all of which can take half a day or more. It's a joke. We're still delayed.
shadowgovt 4y ago
What needs to be regulated in this context? The game is available via Steam and not the Mac App Store. One distributor decided hosting it was worth the reputation, the other did not. Win-win for consumers in that there is more choice than otherwise.
- devwastaken 4y ago
  Even via steam you still need to buy an apple dev license and sign it. If apple could get away with it, they would stop any app sourcing outside of the app store. They've made pushes in Ventura to make any non-signed executable not work out of the box. Nothing about apples behavior is "win win". They're a corp that benefits from special protections against both civil and criminal liabilities as well as benefitting from masses of intellectual property. It's not some sort of balanced game, the scales were tipped completely into corpo land since early 2000s

interpol_p 4y ago

It is wild that even a company like Panic, as well-loved, and with one of the richest histories on Mac, gets the same treatment as anyone else from App Store Review. In a way it's kind of good to know that there is no special treatment, but this is poor behaviour towards the developers who made your platform.

tantalor 4y ago
That's overselling it a bit. They made a few apps back in the 2000s. Nothing very memorable. And why shouldn't they get the same treatment? Fair's fair.
- aarpmcgee 4y ago
  Now I think you may be underselling it a bit. :)
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  Being on the developer spotlight (https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=t4n6e4wo https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=t4n6e4wo) kind of indicates they’re a bit more than “nothing very memorable”. At least, Apple certainly thought so. Not every developer gets a spotlight.
- iseanstevens 4y ago
  Panic are multiple time Apple design award winners/nominees. (Mac & iOS) [1] 2003, 2004, 2005(x2), 2013, 2021 Perhaps Apple was overselling how good they are? /s [1] https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Panic https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Panic
- _zzaw 4y ago
  Um...for those of us who were using Macs back when it wasn't clear how much longer Apple would be around—and especially for those of us involved with web stuff—Panic is nothing short of iconic. They're one of the few indie Mac devs who've managed to keep it going for decades, and their work has been consistently excellent. So if I were Tim Apple, I would be a little worried by someone like Sasser saying "we tried to launch our crazy popular game on your App Store and ultimately didn't because one of your idiot reviewers gave us the runaround." That's a little like, I don't know, some record label passing on Nirvana because a junior talent scout thought that "the guys looked kind of greasy and the name sounds stupid."

causality0 4y ago

Why would someone port a game and then give up after two rejections? Seems like a lot of wasted work.

mixdup 4y ago
They still sell the game on the Mac, and by all accounts don't really miss out on the revenue from not being in the Mac App Store (this isn't the only app they've chosen not to distribute there)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
TechRemarker 4y ago
Since the already sell the game on the Mac, and as a well known company, are not as reliant on Mac App Store discovery, I imagine they didn't see it worth the effort of listing on the Mac App Store. It's slightly more convenient for users, but at the benefit of Apple getting a cut, and the developers loosing money. While Apple should be removing as many road blocks as possible to entice great developers on the MAS, it doesn't seem to be the case considering how many of the most popular Mac apps are not on the store, even though the developers ideally would like to be.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Don't really see this as an issue. The mac store is a curated platform, you still have the ability to install binaries you downloaded or got through other platforms like Steam. If anything, they should make iOS more like this with the App Store only being the best content.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    That's a good way for the app store to have only the most irrelevant content. If I have the choice of delivering my product for free versus paying Apple a 30% cut, I'm going free every time. The only people who would willingly pay the vig are those who are desperate for publicity.

ummonk 4y ago

“It was then rejected for something else and at that point we just gave up and never bothered to resubmit.” This would be an interesting post if we had even the slightest bit more detail.

dmix 4y ago
Must be nice to not have to deal with this shit, at least until you feel like it, because you're doing so well otherwise. Successful indie game devs are living the life.
- armadsen 4y ago
  Panic, the company this is about, is (still) a Mac software company. They definitely still have to deal with the App Store.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Yes... Surprisingly that would still matter for their other (Mac only) software. Yet they still could choose to kick the can for this video game. Which is what I was talking about.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> This would be an interesting post if we had even the slightest bit more detail. The bigger piece of background is that Untitled Goose Game is (previously unbeknownst to me) a wildly successful game. I think the point he's getting across is that first the game was rejected for something trivially stupid (not being able to skip credits, which you could actually do), and then again for something probably equally trivially stupid (point being Cabel couldn't even remember it, and they apparently took a "this is BS, why bother?" approach). It's like if some NFL team had the ability to pick a star quarterback in the NFL draft but decided against it because they didn't like his shoelaces or something. Point of the post is that the Mac Store review process is so arbitrary that successful developers just take the approach of "Why bother?"
- 4y ago

capitainenemo 4y ago

Familiar. Hedgewars was for about half a year on the top page of free apps before Apple demanded that the GUI be rewritten in something other than Qt, something no one had the time to do, so it was pulled.

wizee 4y ago
What Apple policy bans Qt-based apps from the App Store?
- atonse 4y ago
  Sorry, you were looking for any kind of consistency or actually well written rules or consistent, rational, or timely enforcement of said rules? I haven’t seen it. Only the US DoJ or FTC could make a dent in this joke of a review process.
- capitainenemo 4y ago
  The reason given was that it needed to use a native GUI toolkit. I don't know why this was the case. Maintaining separate GUIs for Linux, Windows and OSX was definitely not practical though.
  - wizee 4y ago
    When was this rejection? They don’t have any rule like this currently, and the App Store is full of apps not using Cocoa/Carbon/SwiftUI.
    - capitainenemo 4y ago
      Shortly after launch of the app store. It was posted within a month or two of launch, and pulled about six months later. I feel like enforcement is rather random though. It seems like submitting updates draws their attention. But you could be right. It may be it's a rule they abandoned. In any case I don't think there's anyone around with the heart to try again.

lapcat 4y ago

An interesting thing about the Mac App Store: When you're on an Apple Silicon Mac, the Discover page doesn't show Intel-only apps (even if you have Rosetta installed, which I do). This is why the Top Free Games and Top Paid Games lists are half empty on the page. Many Mac App Store games have not been ported to Apple Silicon yet (or ever, likely).

natch 4y ago
Sounds like a great opportunity for some upstarts to come in with new takes on categories that were previously dominated by someone who is resting easy not updating their app.
- erik 4y ago
  My impression is that the mac app store is pretty low traffic. The opportunity may be pretty small.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Correct.
  - natch 4y ago
    Good to know, thanks for pointing that out!
jakear 4y ago
This looks... not true? M1 Air, App Store, Discover: "Top Free Games" has 15 entries, same as every other category. "Top Paid Games" does as well. Clicking "See All" on either opens to a free/paid side by side scroll view with ~200 entries for each.
- lapcat 4y ago
  Hmm, this appears to happen on one of my Macs but not the other for some strange reason. In any case, try downloading Steam Link, currently the #2 free game, and you should be able to see that it's Intel-only. % file "/Applications/Steam Link.app/Contents/MacOS/Steam Link" /Applications/Steam Link.app/Contents/MacOS/Steam Link: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

shadowgovt 4y ago

Apple's loss. It's a great game. ... But also, Apple's space to lose in.

calciphus 4y ago
Only because Mac is the only place in the Apple ecosystem you still own your device. Everywhere else it would be "our loss".
- bitwize 4y ago
  Sigh. To quote from another of today's Hackernewsstories, people don't want a dishwasher, they want clean dishes. People don't want a computer or smartphone, they want the things those devices afford them. From a security perspective, the much vaunted "general purpose computing" reduces to "arbitrary code execution". It's very dangerous, and without some sort of allowlist-based restriction on what may be run on the average consumer's hardware, it becomes a playground for hackers, thieves, and malicious state actors. The era of general purpose computing with consumer hardware is dead. Millions of customers are delighted with their restricted devices. Stop whining and move on with your lives, people.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    > People don't want a computer or smartphone, they want the things those devices afford them. They're entitled to it, I say. Hell, I even think other companies are entitled to make it for them. What they cannot do is turn this layer of abstraction into an excuse for infinite profitability. People don't want coffee makers, they want coffee! That doesn't mean Keurig is necessarily allowed to stop other people from selling pods, though. Especially if they become the primary way that people get their coffee. We have a democratically controlled legal system that holds these people in check - particularly when the market doesn't behave. You can still be right here, but if Apple is taking advantage of this situation to fleece people beyond what can be considered reasonable, then we have to litigate them regardless. Hopefully in the future, Apple finds a way to prioritize things like security while also respecting the user's choice and agency. It's time for armchair analysts and AAPL investors to take a hike. Some of us want Apple to succeed regardless of their monopolistic intent, and helping them requires us to prune their ugliest branches. We staved off half a decade of change with this "free market will fix things" mantra, and nothing improved. If Apple won't do what's right, then we'll be forced to.

pupppet 4y ago

Yikes. If any company on the Mac App Store deserves the benefit of the doubt it’s Panic. Pretty embarrassing, Apple.

sneak 4y ago
It's pretty embarrassing that people blame Apple for their own acceptance of censorship. Delete your Apple ID. Opt out.
- devwastaken 4y ago
  I have a better one: regulate. Corps get special protections precisely so they can be regulated. Either we strip corps of intellectual property rights, or they get regulated. That's how it's meant to be. But money has bought everyone into thinking the 90's didn't exist.
  - sneak 4y ago
    You can't regulate. You can delete your Apple ID. Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Why do I have to choose between "censorship" and "installing apps on my iPhone"?
  - sneak 4y ago
    You don't. You have the option of selling your iPhone and buying a phone that runs Grapheme, which will run anything you wish.
    - wilg 4y ago
      That's still a choice between "censorship" and "installing apps on my iPhone".

rasz 4y ago

In 1989 Brøderbund rejected publishing SimCity because "it wasnt a game, there is no score, no victory conditions".

jackmott42 4y ago

More of us developers should quit dealing with Apple until they have a more open policy. People are jumping through hoops and having careers ruined at the whim of Apple so they can maintain their monopoly store. If we don't make stuff for that store, they will have to change. As long as we jump through the hoops they make their money and will not care at all that one of the most beloved games isn't on IOS because the developer had some self respect.

wilg 4y ago

A big part of the story here is just how little the Mac App Store matters.