Have you tried to be wealthy and/or an important app developer?
Quite right, basically if you're an established company, the app store works with you to establish the guidelines
My App Is Dead in the Water
81–90 of 206 posts
Re: My App Is Dead in the Water
#82I think it's important to look at the broader issue: "App stores" are walled gardens, policed by corporations and are the opposite of freedom. The web is open and free. We made a deal with the devil when we collectively decided to write and use apps and not the web. This is just one symptom.
You can of course still write software outside app stores and provide best of both. Not every computer in this world is a walled garden.
You are right, and not just technically. But the problem with walled gardens is that they're safe and easy for people unable to navigate the world outside of them. Most people are unable or unwilling to sideload apps onto their devices, and that is not their fault. So when the walled garden becomes too unfree and tyrannical, the companies maintaining those gardens are to blame.
Re: My App Is Dead in the Water
#83I'm sure this is an error, and a moronic one at that. Otherwise even safari infringes on Apple's rules. The real maddening thing is that there is no appeal process and no (mainstream) way to distribute your app if Apple has a vague problem with it. I hope for a day we will have mobile devices that are free and usable.
No, Safari doesn't have this problem. One remedy the OP was offered was to require the user to choose the third-party content to display. That's just what Safari does.
(BTW, I don't think it's an appropriate remedy in this situation. I'm just saying this isn't inconsistent with Safari.)
Re: My App Is Dead in the Water
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Especially with the swipe gestures on the new phones since the X, my pet peeve are apps that use web views inside their app inside of just opening Safari. The worst offender is the Gmail app since half the links I click on there interact with cookies in the Safari app (account activation, notifications, etc). And Gmail will even keep nagging me to install Chrome which I will never do. Ugh, I really need to switch awa…
And it keeps on ignoring the "don't ask me about Chrome / Safari again" toggle...
They're doing the same in the YouTube app, and even if you choose "Safari" they're not opening Safari, but showing an in-app webview to siphon every last bit of your browsing activity. Truly disgusting.
Re: My App Is Dead in the Water
#85It's sad that most of the comments seem to suggest that while it is not ideal, this is indeed the rule and either the links should be opened in safari or this is nothing new. That such a common functionality isn't allowed on ios while showing arbitrary enforcement is a real travesty. I'm surprised how tepid most of the comments are.
Sure it's sad. Well, here we are.
Re: My App Is Dead in the Water
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be the same from a legal standpoint. You app would just get shittier UX, nothing else.
This is not a situation where legality is in play, it's an Apple policy rejection. Apple can say it's "for legal reasons" but Apple is enforcing it, not the government. Nobody is suing OP.
I think what your parent comment is saying is that the Apple policy rejection would be exactly the same whether the app is native or HTML5.
Re: My App Is Dead in the Water
#87Why is this an app? seems to be a terrible candidate in the first place. Why don't you make a website?
Re: My App Is Dead in the Water
#88One has to wonder if what Apple actually objects to is the display of logos (from the favicons) in the list of links. They’re an incredibly brand conscious company and almost certain have people scouting for things that could get them sued by the owners of other brands.
It would seem to be odd for a mark owner to sue after specifically putting out a favicon, which is intended to be used to visually ID that site in a sea of tabs/links.
While I wholeheartedly agree I mean to focus on the perception of a problem and not the presence of any actual problem.
Regardless of where the logo is acquired from what is more important is where it is shown and what it is shown next to. This is what I mean by brand sensitivity. The article makes it seem (to me) like the reviewer has a problem with a specific aspect of the app but is using a somewhat broadly interpretable part of the guidelines as the reason for rejection. This is why I suspect that a visual change regarding the logos might help the app pass review.
Re: My App Is Dead in the Water
#89I just wrote up a long response to this rather than in comment form:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18442147
The main issue is - don't be a sharecropper. The problem is that many people can't avoid it and get sucked in regardless.
Re: My App Is Dead in the Water
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's using the official Hacker News API ( https://github.com/HackerNews/API ), not scraping web sites.
I think dewey is asking about the articles linked from HN, not HN itself. The post implies that when you click on an article from NYT/NPR/etc, it shows the content inside the app (since there's a separate button to open it in Safari), doesn't it?
It might not be a desirable behavior for some users but it shouldn't be forbidden… The client I'm using also leaves the choice of opening within the app or going through the native browser.