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On the previous HN posts I got this impression: The developer's astrology app containing tarot reading features was rejected from Apple's App Store that prohib
by user43928 2mo ago
On the previous HN posts I got this impression:
The developer's astrology app containing tarot reading features was rejected from Apple's App Store that prohibits astrology apps.
He then replaced the app's content with a clone of, if not the identical open source astronomy app "Dark Hours", copying even the name. The original is here: https://darkhours.app https://darkhours.app
The developer was then in contact with John Gruber, who wrote an article claiming Apple's reviewers confuse a nice, scientific astronomy app with astrology. The developer reviewed the article before publication.
It then turned out that the developer forgot to mention that originally he did upload an astrology app for review. Gruber felt duped, and noted that it's unclear whether an updated build containing the new astronomy app was ever submitted to Apple for review: https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/retraction_app_store_rejection_of_the_week https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/retraction_app_store_reje...
Now the developer seems to claim that he merely accidentally cloned that open source app when working with Claude.
I am not buying it.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2mo agoThat's interesting. I had originally posted a "this dude is classy" comment, and may repost, but I'd like to find out more, beforehand. Are there any links to this stuff that you can share? [UPDATED] Ah. I see this post has it[0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49231394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49231394
- user43928 2mo agoI did not look into the details myself, but here are the links to the previous post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49228166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49228166
- ChrisMarshallNY 2mo agoI know that not everyone is thrilled with Gruber, but I think this is classy (from his article): > To the best of my recollection, this is the first post I’ve retracted in the 24 years I’ve been writing Daring Fireball. I hope it’s the last. I was misled, both overtly and through omissions, in several ways, but what I publish is my responsibility, and I apologize for the error.
- sersi 2mo agoGruner is a true fan and tends to be overly positive about Apple but I don't doubt his integrity for a second. In cases when his reporting is overly favorable to Apple in my eyes, I do believe that he truly believes what he says.
- whstl 2mo agoIt was interesting that his first retraction was due to a post being critical of Apple. Not that there hasn't been other critical posts, but he's very positive about the brand.
- maratc 2mo agoGruber himself has written a number of posts critical of Apple, some of them scathingly so.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2mo agoAnyone that has been in the Apple ecosystem, for any length of time, has been insanely pissed off at them -usually, multiple times. They are a pretty arrogant megacorp, and tend to make decisions that primarily benefit themselves. But I generally have a positive relationship with them.
- simonw 2mo agoYeah, any time I see someone accuse Gruber of being universally positive about Apple I think they can't have been reading his work very often. Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino: https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_the_state_of_cupertino https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_th... Apple subsequently stopped providing Apple execs for his annual live podcast recording at WWDC. They don't confirm it was because of that piece (unsurprisingly) but it seems very likely it was.
- toasterlovin 2mo ago
- arjie 2mo agoOh I recall this story now https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49214863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49214863 I, too, feel entirely duped. What the heck dude. Uploading an astrology app that later pivoted to astronomy and having that be rejected for astrology is a way different problem from just having the latter rejected for astrology. Thanks for drawing the chain. Infuriating.
- the_af 2mo agoIf I understand the story correctly, it's even worse than "pivoted to astronomy". He used Claude to "accidentally" (doubtful) copy an existing astronomy app, bugs and all. It's like a pile of dishonesty upon dishonesty.
- quietsegfault 2mo agoWe are personally responsible for what our agents do. I don’t know why someone thinks “oops Claude did it” is a valid excuse.
- whstl 2mo ago> I am not buying it. Coincidentally: Just in the last few weeks, D'addario, one of largest guitar string manufacturers, posted on Instagram what is clearly an AI-song to advertise its new line of guitar strings. After being called out on it being AI, they posted a mobile-recording of the song recreated in a DAW, but it didn't even match the timing or the notes played. After being called on it AGAIN, they blamed it on LANDR and Apple Mastering "changing the notes", but those only do "AI knob tweaking", they're not generative-ai audio synthesis. LANDR itself replied. After being called on it AGAIN, they finally caved and said one of their workers used Suno without their knowledge. After someone contacted the worker, he said he was pretty clear in his communication with D'addario that he had used Suno. EDIT: The worker claimed it was "his first time using AI" and "he didn't know", but after someone did some digging in his Instagram profile, there's a few Suno songs and a lot of AI posters and avatars. This sort of ass-covering is getting crazy with AI...
- scotty79 2mo agoPeople online post timelapses for their AI generated artwork, that are also AI generated.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- the_af 2mo agoI've been thinking about this. Almost every way we have to tell human from AI apart can be adopted and automated by AI. It's sort of a corollary of "every metric can be gamed". It's disheartening for those of us who intrinsically value human authorship.
- TeMPOraL 2mo agoWell, we don't have Star Trek holograms yet, so you can trust what you can see performed in person. (Good luck getting close enough to actually tell if the live performance is real or faked, though, for anything other than small, local or super niche bands...)
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- mortenjorck 2mo agoOP or dang should change the link to the DF retraction. While the app’s author has apparently produced some quality products, this puts a big asterisk next to that reputation.
- satvikpendem 2mo agoThat was already submitted and discussed [0], there's a reason I submitted this response by the author. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49228166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49228166
- frenchtoast8 2mo agoI’m struggling to see how this wasn’t intentional by Godier, but I can’t understand what he was hoping to get out of it. Surely the truth would have come out eventually. Was one day of fame worth it?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- Aurornis 2mo ago> It then turned out that the developer forgot to mention that originally he did upload an astrology app for review. Gruber felt duped, and noted that it's unclear whether an updated build containing the new astronomy app was ever submitted to Apple for review I think it’s shaping up like he didn’t “forget” to mention it. This looks like an intentional play for attention. It worked very well. Too well, in fact, which drew enough eyes on to the situation to start noticing the cracks in his story. A key part of the Gruber retraction article is that Apple rejected a different app named Asterly. He then copied the Dark Hours app, including the name, from someone else and tried to imply that was the app at the center of the controversy. If he had actually written his own astronomy app and swapped it into the story he may have gotten away with it. Doing the wholesale copying of someone else’s work, including the name of the project and stripping the license in the process, is what got him caught. App Store rejection stories are always popular. I see at least one post a month on Hacker News from an app developer trying to get attention because their app was rejected and it usually receives moderate social media attention. I think this person saw an opportunity to ride that anger for some personal publicity and went for it. He flew too close to the sun and got too much attention, though, so his mistruths were revealed. Now he’s trying some CYA techniques because the original ruse backfired.
- qarl2 2mo ago[flagged]
- lern_too_spel 2mo agoAnd Gruber, being Gruber, says that this guy's RSS reader is so good that it would prevent people from switching to Android. Sure.
- dewey 2mo ago> David Pierce, at The Verge, put it on a very short list of iOS-exclusive indie apps that keep him from switching to Android. You are misattributing a quote.
- lern_too_spel 2mo agoThat quote that you posted is from Gruber. Gruber chose to include that in his blog post to say that this app is so good that it keeps people, including Pierce, from switching to Android. I was obviously fully aware that he paraphrased somebody else to include as evidence to support his claim. Pierce, on the other hand, was speaking only for himself.
- dewey 2mo agoChoosing to include a properly attributed quote in a blog post is very different to saying something yourself.
- lern_too_spel 2mo agoOnce more, Gruber is the one who claimed that the app kept people from switching to Android by paraphrasing (not quoting) Pierce. Pierce spoke only for himself. You are trying to pick a nit that doesn't exist.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- yzydserd 2mo agoGrubby.
- tremon 2mo ago> Apple's App Store that prohibits astrology apps That's curious. What legitimate-sounding reason could Apple have to reject astrology on their platform? Isn't this exactly the kind of discrimination against fields of endeavour that would make a slam-dunk case for any antitrust enforcement?
- throwaway219450 2mo agoOnly new submissions seem to be banned because Apple says there are too many. Clearly there are loads if you search the App Store. Gruber quotes and I re-quote: > Certain kinds of apps, such as dating, flashlight, sound effects, wallpaper, simple timers, and fortune telling, are well established on the App Store and we will not accept new submissions unless they offer a meaningfully different or improved experience. We may remove these apps from the App Store going forward if they are not updated, improved, or do not attract customers. Other kinds of apps, such as drinking games, Kama Sutra, fart, and burp apps, are mediocre, low-quality, or low-effort and do not add value to the App Store.
- sillyfluke 2mo agoI'm gonna go out on a limb here, but something tells me they don't defer to a panel of astrology app power users when deciding whether an app is a novel astrology app or not. Also I'm not sure if I should be insulted when they insist that The Kama Sutra is "low effort".
- dd8601fn 2mo agoThey don’t prohibit them. There are categories of app that already have 100 trillion low effort copy-paste slop apps. In those categories, Apple applies a more stringent “must demonstrate some real differentiation” criteria. They also prune those categories of existing apps more aggressively. It’s fair to wonder what counts, and how uniformly they apply it, but the motivation is not, “no astrology apps.” This guy pumped out slop for a high-slop category. It got rejected. That’s where it started. All the bullshit and lies from everyone snowballed from that.
- zymhan 2mo ago
- VladVladikoff 2mo ago>The original is here: https://darkhours.app https://darkhours.app Ooof that is a terrible dark mode theme.
- furyofantares 2mo agoI think "night vision" is different from dark mode. It's meant to prevent your eyes from adjusting to the light - so you can still see the stars - rather than just being easy to look at.
- furyofantares 2mo agoJust to add, photoreceptors in the eyes consist of rods and three types of cones. Rods are what do the majority of the work for night vision and are nearly blind to long wavelengths of light (red).
- nacnud 2mo agoIt's so that you don't lose your dark adaptation. See: https://www.nps.gov/articles/dark-adaptation-of-the-human-eye-and-the-value-of-red-flashlights.htm https://www.nps.gov/articles/dark-adaptation-of-the-human-ey...
- natch 2mo agoI’ve noticed that when a developer cries foul over an Apple App Store rejection, it often seems to be a red flag that there is something fishy about that developer. Gruber, not to his credit, often does not give Apple the benefit of the doubt on these matters. imho he bears some responsibility if he feels duped.
- sillyfluke 2mo ago...and I've noticed that's not always the case. What's the value of such a bland whitewashing comment?
- natch 2mo agoSure, glad to clarify. The value is to point out something that I’ve noticed a lot of people miss as conversations about App Store rejections tend to take a knee-jerk negative attitude toward Apple. Considering the opposite possibility would clear up a lot of false conceptions and raise the quality of discussions.
- sellmesoap 2mo agoMaybe our attention is being farmed? I have a friend who does astrology readings for a living and was curious why the app store doesn't allow astrology apps, a quick search revealed astrology apps exist on the app store so that's a red herring.
- arsan87 2mo agoThey simply do not allow new astrology apps. They consider the market segment saturated.
- sellmesoap 2mo agoOh but mine will be tron/blade runner themed, the market needs more diversity, the insensative clauds!
- Aurornis 2mo agoIn app categories that bring a lot of low-effort submissions and clones, Apple requires new submissions to bring something new to the table. Before these requirements the app store was filling up with thousands of flashlight apps, todo lists, and other simple apps that people would build (or clone) to get something into the app store.
- NetMageSCW 2mo agoMake me sad that my original flashlight app (pre App Store) might not be accepted if I tried to publish it. It is an artifact of history I guess, so maybe that could be an exception.
- runtime_terror 2mo agoIf you read the related articles you'd see the App Store has decided there are enough of these types of apps and they don't accept any more unless they're noticeably different
- SamBam 2mo agoAlso note that Goodier's post that kicked off Gruber's post now says it had a section about "an astronomy app I am working on that began as an astrology app," [1] but the older version of the article clearly implied that the author was baffled as to why Apple would ever think it related to Tarot cards. [2] 1. https://blog.terrygodier.com/2026/08/07/browsers-have-standards-the-app.html https://blog.terrygodier.com/2026/08/07/browsers-have-standa... 2. https://web.archive.org/web/20260807141155/https://blog.terrygodier.com/2026/08/07/browsers-have-standards-the-app.html https://web.archive.org/web/20260807141155/https://blog.terr...
- lostlogin 2mo agoAt this rate we will need Gruber to do a retraction retraction in order to be more aggressive about the bs he fell into.
- budsniffer952 2mo agoAnd blames it on "AI usage".
- bossyTeacher 2mo agoafaik apple store doesn't prohibit astrology apps. You just can't have cookie cutter astrology apps. I believe dating apps have the same rule.
- phil-martin 2mo agoMaybe it’s not a developer at all, and a couple of open claws doing random app things…
- bartread 2mo agoI think it’s entirely possible for someone to clone an app with Claude without realising they’ve done it, if they don’t do your due diligence on it. I.e., if they don’t make any effort to dig into and really understand what they’ve built. But I also think this is an extreme example of a much more general problem of provenance. There are a lot of people vibe-coding apps who lack the “basic” skills needed to do this due diligence at even the coarsest level that we arguably see here (not making any comment either way on this specific author). Does that get them off the hook? I don’t think so. They’ve created a thing and they are naturally responsible for whether or not that thing involves theft or appropriation of IP from other sources. It’s an “ignorance is not an excuse” kind of thing. This scales all the way up to agentic development in large organisations, but it also becomes much more granular and subtle, which is perhaps where it becomes more interesting - and certainly a lot more challenging. Where has that chunk of code come from? How do you know where it’s come from? Is there even a feasible way of finding out?
- thewakalix 2mo agoPhantom Obligation, the post that Gruber says brought Godier to his attention, seems pretty AI-generated: https://www.terrygodier.com/phantom-obligation https://www.terrygodier.com/phantom-obligation
- gracehenry45 2mo ago[dead]