Fun fact: Jeff Bezos won't let anyone at Amazon buy a color printer.
Have no idea what you are talking about, as we had multiple color printers in my team.
Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
61–70 of 178 posts
Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are assuming that the only purpose of certification is to catch actively malicious developers. I can think of many other perfectly good reasons to have one: to make sure server response times are fast enough, to make sure it fits the guidelines for types of content they want in their ecosystem, to make sure it doesn't blatantly violate any trademarks, etc. I don't think the concept of a certification process is t…
But that doesn't refute the parent's point: since the content at a URL is inherently mutable, they could judge that (at time of submission) some app is the type of content they want in their ecosystem, and then seconds after approval, it no longer is.
I would assume the terms of service prohibit that, which probably puts some liability on the developer.
Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
#63The Firefox Marketplace does the exact same thing. One simply submits a URL, it gets approved, then becomes available. Any changes made afterwards go unnoticed by moderators.
Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
#64In fairness, it seems this is true for Apple (broken review process) and Google (malware infestation). Oddly, I haven't heard one horror story about the Windows Phone app store.
Google Play does not have a "malware infestation". I have never once downloaded any malware, lookout has never detected any malware on my phone and I've never known anyone who has downloaded malware from Google Play. Anecdotal for sure, but given you said "infestation" you'd think I'd be crazy to download anything at all from Google Play. Absolute nonsense.
It doesn't have a "malware infestation" problem, but rather a "arbitrary suspend/ban" problem.
Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
"some .apk file" being the Amazon store. It's annoying but it's not nonsense. The store will then notify you about updates and perform them. It's half google's fault for not allowing the amazon store app to be listen in Play.
Why is that Google's fault? Amazon could use the Play Store to update the app, the same way that Netflix, Hulu, etc. does. Amazon doesn't want to because they want people to use their own Android platform. Except their Android platform is awful. They have no idea how to run a store (which is a hell of a liability for an ecommerce company, but their infrastructure and fulfillment processes are so top notch and their m…
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Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon has just as much reason as Apple (or any platform provider) to want to restrict the types of apps that get published. As for the effectiveness of that control, there's little practical difference between "simply registering an URL" and uploading a binary; both can load external content or be modified (in terms of what the user actually sees/experiences) almost entirely after the initial review. There will alwa…
There's a huge difference. An URL is an absolute black box, a binary that you have to give Apple for certification on each change and that has to call Apple APIs to do anything useful (like network) is not. Apple will scan your App to check for basic violations, that's all automated. For instance is there a specific flag that you can initialize a socket with to listen in background. This is only allowed if your app i…
This is kind of missing the whole point. Which is, as a developer, you can slip anything into the Apple appstore that you could have slipped into Alexa's, so the point the article is making about certification is silly. Of course there are more security implications in Apple's case, but the fact remains that numerous apps have done the bait and switch and were pulled after Apple discovered it much later.
Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
#67This is perhaps the key bit of silliness: "And this is where we run into the first bit of craziness. Amazon decided that they should model the Alexa app store after the iPhone app store. So there is a certification process to get your app into the store. But think about the difference: you are not uploading a binary file to the Alexa app store, you are simply registering an URL. So Amazon has no real control over you…
This is actually not an issue at all, because even with native apps you can still load content from the web which apple has no control over, which is similar to Alexa.
But the big deal that no one talks about is that Alexa is not compatible with EC2 backends, this is the most bizarre limitation I've ever seen, you can host An Alexa app on your own PC at home, but not on EC2.
Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
#68This is perhaps the key bit of silliness: "And this is where we run into the first bit of craziness. Amazon decided that they should model the Alexa app store after the iPhone app store. So there is a certification process to get your app into the store. But think about the difference: you are not uploading a binary file to the Alexa app store, you are simply registering an URL. So Amazon has no real control over you…
This is actually not an issue at all, because even with native apps you can still load content from the web which apple has no control over, which is similar to Alexa. But the big deal that no one talks about is that Alexa is not compatible with EC2 backends, this is the most bizarre limitation I've ever seen, you can host An Alexa app on your own PC at home, but not on EC2.
> Alexa is not compatible with EC2 backends
Source on this? I know last time I played with it, they weren't doing SNI (in 2015, what?) but I've never heard of it not being able to hit EC2 IPs.
Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
#69Apple's review process also sometimes felt arbitrary, especially early on, and there's been a long list of complaints over the years that sound just like these.
I used to work in games, and the approvals for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft were all super, ridiculously frustrating at times. We had experiences very much along the same lines of failing again for doing the very thing they asked of us in the previous rejection.
Anyway, usually it works out eventually. No problem with making some noise about it being bad, and hopefully they hear it, but it is not uncommon, nor unique to Amazon.
The point about registering a URL isn't entirely accurate, IMO; plenty of Apple App Store apps consist partially or entirely of webviews. Even for fully native apps, Apple doesn't really have "control" of the code in the sense described in the article. Registration and the approval process are primarily there to give the publishers control over what appears in their store, as well as identify the submitters in a way that attempts to keep a little bit of accountability should they do something bad. Those reasons for requiring registration and review are just as valid for a url as for a bundle of code.
Re: Amazon has no idea how to run an app store
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon has just as much reason as Apple (or any platform provider) to want to restrict the types of apps that get published. As for the effectiveness of that control, there's little practical difference between "simply registering an URL" and uploading a binary; both can load external content or be modified (in terms of what the user actually sees/experiences) almost entirely after the initial review. There will alwa…
There's a huge difference. An URL is an absolute black box, a binary that you have to give Apple for certification on each change and that has to call Apple APIs to do anything useful (like network) is not. Apple will scan your App to check for basic violations, that's all automated. For instance is there a specific flag that you can initialize a socket with to listen in background. This is only allowed if your app i…
There's a big exception to the automated checking. You can download new JavaScript code any time after your app is approved, as long as your app runs the code under the built-in WebKit. I don't think there is any automated checking of what your new code does - how could there be? It's just a violation of the terms of service if you change the app into something completely different:
> 3.3.2 An Application may not download or install executable code. Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple's built-in WebKit framework or JavascriptCore, provided that such scripts and code do not change the primary purpose of the Application by providing features or functionality that are inconsistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application as submitted to the App Store.