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And yet unique apps with curated content get rejected three times in a row for being "too simple": https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Dealing%20with%20App%20Store%2

by alin23 3y ago

And yet unique apps with curated content get rejected three times in a row for being "too simple": https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Dealing%20with%20App%20Store%20rejections https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Dealing%20with%20App%20Store%... The App Store review process is in need of a change. It probable made sense when iOS and macOS were in their infancy and apps were few and easy to review.

lapcat 3y ago
> It probable made sense when iOS and macOS were in their infancy and apps were few and easy to review. Mac didn't get an App Store until it was 27 years old. ;-)
- alin23 3y ago
  Right, my mistake. I think I wanted to say "when the Mac App Store was in its infancy" but lost the meaning mid sentence. Even iOS was launched without an App Store in the first year.
  - tough 3y ago
    Steve initial plans seemed to revolve about everyone getting web apps with powerful html and what not. I guess they backtracked when they saw they could get a 30% take by keeping you on their walled garden GG, steve
    - lagrange77 3y ago
      > Steve initial plans seemed to revolve about everyone getting web apps Got a source on this?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - kgwgk 3y ago
        "The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on Google Maps. "And guess what? There's no SDK that you need! You've got everything you need if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today. So developers, we think we've got a very sweet story for you. You can begin building your iPhone apps today." https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-...
        lagrange77 3y ago
        Interesting, thanks!
        tough 3y ago
        Yes this is what I had in mind. The vision was fine. Reality went somewhere else I do think native iOS apps feel superior to web ones. Somewhat it feels it's due to Apple not implementing new features like safari only supports push notifications since a few months ago
        klabb3 3y ago
        The web wasn’t ready, but native was arguably even less ready due to lack of sandboxing. High fidelity would have been possible with a web based SDK. But that would have invited plebs to convert existing shitty pages to be “apps”, and in those days iOS apps was a noise-free exclusive experience. Web or not, gatekeeping software distribution was and remains a power grab, unrelated to security. It’s even less of an issue on mobile which has proper sandboxing anyway.
Gareth321 3y ago
It is in need of competition. That's coming very soon to the EU.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  Could one of the sideloaded apps be a separate app store?
  - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
    What userspace API exists (for non-App Store iOS apps) for one app to install another and integrate with iOS’ App Management features? or basically, to break-out of the iOS App Silo/Sandbox? The only alternative is basically a VM-like app silo that hosts other apps inside of it… I can see this working for something like a Java JVM “Jar-runner” or MAME but I’m not sure how it would work for native code that assumes it has its own process and void main() method. I’m hoping that we’ll see something like how Cydia was around 2013ish (with managed system extensions, kernel-mode things, enhancements to Springboard, etc) but that’s the last thing Apple would want (case-in-point, where have all the cool system-modifying kexts for desktop MacOS gone?) - so I suspect Apple’s EU-only sideloading will still protect system integrity, maybe even with a way to completely block non-AppStore apps’ processes from using non-public (but still usermode) APIs and services? Considering how unprofessionally petulant and churlish Apple acted in the aftermath of the Dutch dating-app spat last year I’m expecting them to do the same with this. See https://daringfireball.net/2022/02/going_dutch https://daringfireball.net/2022/02/going_dutch
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      > What userspace API exists (for non-App Store iOS apps) for one app to install another and integrate with iOS’ App Management features? or basically, to break-out of the iOS App Silo/Sandbox? I don't know anything about the iOS API, but I imagine the EU market regulators will come up with a pretty huge fine if these APIs aren't made available. The whole point of the DMA app restrictions is to take out such digital gatekeeping. There would need to be a competitor for any real antitrust efforts, but I imagine Epic might want to open up their own store to distribute games like Fortnite without paying the Apple tax.
norman784 3y ago
I think that there are far more spam/scam apps rejected than real apps, but we don’t read about their stories.
- lapcat 3y ago
  The problem is that the scammers don't care, and they don't give up. They just keep throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. As the article explained, these scam developers have multiple Apple developer accounts. Even if Apple bans one account, they'll just open another. And they're often in countries where the US legal system can't touch them, so there's nothing to be lost from getting caught. Legitimate developers won't go to such (unethical, possible illegal) lengths. Rejection is a much bigger deal to those who spent a lot of time and care on an app, and hope to make a good name for themselves as developers.
  - moneywoes 3y ago
    Isn’t it like $500 a year for an account?
    - Aeolun 3y ago
      $100. Presumably they make more off of their scams befor the account is caught and banned.
      - simondotau 3y ago
        Apple's argument is, which I'm somewhat sympathetic to, the $100 fee acts as an effective rate limiter. The payment is low enough that it's not a significant barrier to anyone, except perhaps the most threadbare of hobbyists. But it's enough to make it utterly impractical for a scam developer to submit a thousand apps through a thousand developer accounts paid for with a thousand different credit cards.
        lapcat 3y ago
        > Apple's argument is Says who? Not Apple itself. > The payment is low enough that it's not a significant barrier to anyone It's a barrier to many open source projects. > But it's enough to make it utterly impractical for a scam developer to submit a thousand apps through a thousand developer accounts paid for with a thousand different credit cards. You can submit many apps under one account. You don't need 1000 accounts for 1000 apps. It's strange to argue that it acts as an effective rate limiter when one of the points of the linked article is that these scam developers have multiple Apple Developer accounts.

by alin23 3y ago

lapcat 3y ago

> It probable made sense when iOS and macOS were in their infancy and apps were few and easy to review. Mac didn't get an App Store until it was 27 years old. ;-)

alin23 3y ago
Right, my mistake. I think I wanted to say "when the Mac App Store was in its infancy" but lost the meaning mid sentence. Even iOS was launched without an App Store in the first year.
- tough 3y ago
  Steve initial plans seemed to revolve about everyone getting web apps with powerful html and what not. I guess they backtracked when they saw they could get a 30% take by keeping you on their walled garden GG, steve
  - lagrange77 3y ago
    > Steve initial plans seemed to revolve about everyone getting web apps Got a source on this?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - kgwgk 3y ago
      "The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on Google Maps. "And guess what? There's no SDK that you need! You've got everything you need if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today. So developers, we think we've got a very sweet story for you. You can begin building your iPhone apps today." https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-iphone-no-third-party-native-apps/ https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-...
      - lagrange77 3y ago
        Interesting, thanks!
      - tough 3y ago
        Yes this is what I had in mind. The vision was fine. Reality went somewhere else I do think native iOS apps feel superior to web ones. Somewhat it feels it's due to Apple not implementing new features like safari only supports push notifications since a few months ago
        klabb3 3y ago
        The web wasn’t ready, but native was arguably even less ready due to lack of sandboxing. High fidelity would have been possible with a web based SDK. But that would have invited plebs to convert existing shitty pages to be “apps”, and in those days iOS apps was a noise-free exclusive experience. Web or not, gatekeeping software distribution was and remains a power grab, unrelated to security. It’s even less of an issue on mobile which has proper sandboxing anyway.

Gareth321 3y ago

It is in need of competition. That's coming very soon to the EU.

Aeolun 3y ago
Could one of the sideloaded apps be a separate app store?
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  What userspace API exists (for non-App Store iOS apps) for one app to install another and integrate with iOS’ App Management features? or basically, to break-out of the iOS App Silo/Sandbox? The only alternative is basically a VM-like app silo that hosts other apps inside of it… I can see this working for something like a Java JVM “Jar-runner” or MAME but I’m not sure how it would work for native code that assumes it has its own process and void main() method. I’m hoping that we’ll see something like how Cydia was around 2013ish (with managed system extensions, kernel-mode things, enhancements to Springboard, etc) but that’s the last thing Apple would want (case-in-point, where have all the cool system-modifying kexts for desktop MacOS gone?) - so I suspect Apple’s EU-only sideloading will still protect system integrity, maybe even with a way to completely block non-AppStore apps’ processes from using non-public (but still usermode) APIs and services? Considering how unprofessionally petulant and churlish Apple acted in the aftermath of the Dutch dating-app spat last year I’m expecting them to do the same with this. See https://daringfireball.net/2022/02/going_dutch https://daringfireball.net/2022/02/going_dutch
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    > What userspace API exists (for non-App Store iOS apps) for one app to install another and integrate with iOS’ App Management features? or basically, to break-out of the iOS App Silo/Sandbox? I don't know anything about the iOS API, but I imagine the EU market regulators will come up with a pretty huge fine if these APIs aren't made available. The whole point of the DMA app restrictions is to take out such digital gatekeeping. There would need to be a competitor for any real antitrust efforts, but I imagine Epic might want to open up their own store to distribute games like Fortnite without paying the Apple tax.

norman784 3y ago

I think that there are far more spam/scam apps rejected than real apps, but we don’t read about their stories.

lapcat 3y ago
The problem is that the scammers don't care, and they don't give up. They just keep throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. As the article explained, these scam developers have multiple Apple developer accounts. Even if Apple bans one account, they'll just open another. And they're often in countries where the US legal system can't touch them, so there's nothing to be lost from getting caught. Legitimate developers won't go to such (unethical, possible illegal) lengths. Rejection is a much bigger deal to those who spent a lot of time and care on an app, and hope to make a good name for themselves as developers.
- moneywoes 3y ago
  Isn’t it like $500 a year for an account?
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    $100. Presumably they make more off of their scams befor the account is caught and banned.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      Apple's argument is, which I'm somewhat sympathetic to, the $100 fee acts as an effective rate limiter. The payment is low enough that it's not a significant barrier to anyone, except perhaps the most threadbare of hobbyists. But it's enough to make it utterly impractical for a scam developer to submit a thousand apps through a thousand developer accounts paid for with a thousand different credit cards.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        > Apple's argument is Says who? Not Apple itself. > The payment is low enough that it's not a significant barrier to anyone It's a barrier to many open source projects. > But it's enough to make it utterly impractical for a scam developer to submit a thousand apps through a thousand developer accounts paid for with a thousand different credit cards. You can submit many apps under one account. You don't need 1000 accounts for 1000 apps. It's strange to argue that it acts as an effective rate limiter when one of the points of the linked article is that these scam developers have multiple Apple Developer accounts.