My App Is Dead in the Water • Hacker News Board

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#101

Post by option_greek » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

Tomte wrote: post #94

everyone wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it is wholly irrelevant" Nonsense. It seems like the developer was willing to make any changes Apple wished in order to conform to their policies. His impediment was that he could not figure out what those changes were . If very similar app X is ok, and my app is not, then asking what the crucial difference is, is a very apt question which may lead directly to the specific issue. If we cant be sensible, ask sensible…

They told him whoch changes they want him to make. He dances around it a lot with "surely I can't get consent from the whole Internet", but he did understand that they want him to use Safari. I don't agree with Apple here, I think his app should be fine. But that's what they said, and just because they did not pull the other apps yet (for all we know), doesn't mean he has a point asking about those.

And why not ? How else will we question arbitrary enforcement without pointing out to the instances of arbitrary enforcement ? Surely, he is not asking that they take down those other apps. He just wants to be in the same bucket as the others.

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#102

Post by TAForObvReasons » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

sambeau wrote: post #97

pashabitz wrote: post #68

I 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.

Developers only have themselves to blame. We allowed our technology to be used to spam, cheat and steal from our non-tech family and friends. We made tools that helped the bad-guys and did very little when our non-tech family and friends threw their hands up in confusion and cried for help. We sighed. We called them idiots and rolled our eyes. We now have to live with a bunch mostly sensible though occasionally over-…

You were downvoted but this is spot-on, and you see this debate happening everywhere in tech. The entire GDPR was rooted in the (correct) observation that the tech sector could not self-regulate, that actual laws with nontrivial punishment were required to force tech companies to stop shady behaviors.

Even YC isn't clean in this regard. They funded a startup called InstallMonetizer that promulgated the drive-by installer problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 . There's a great quote from that post:

> You can make a lot of money doing all kinds of popular things -- pimping women, selling drugs, selling 'likes' on facebook, selling botnets that create fake clicks on advertisers, ponzi schemes, etc. Some are illegal, some are just barely legal, but they are all damaging to someone. This line of business is known as 'scummy' and InstallMonetizer is plain 'scummy'.

Yes we have to blame those who perpetrate the behavior, but we also have to blame ourselves for not being more aggressive in sounding the alarm. For many influential people who could have put a stop to this, the Upton Sinclair quote applies:

> It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#103

Post by avip » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

pashabitz wrote: post #68

I 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.

Alas, a walled garden is not the opposite of freedom. Indeed, in many places, living in a walled garden will make you factually freeer than your fellows outside.

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#104

Post by giarc » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

There are a lot of complaints about "X app does this, why can't mine." The app store isn't a democracy, they can and do make up their own rules and they can apply them how they want.

Think of the Simpsons episode and the "No Homer's Club". They can allow one Homer, and reject all other Homers if they want.

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#105

Post by Tomte » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

option_greek wrote: post #101

Tomte wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They told him whoch changes they want him to make. He dances around it a lot with "surely I can't get consent from the whole Internet", but he did understand that they want him to use Safari. I don't agree with Apple here, I think his app should be fine. But that's what they said, and just because they did not pull the other apps yet (for all we know), doesn't mean he has a point asking about those.

And why not ? How else will we question arbitrary enforcement without pointing out to the instances of arbitrary enforcement ? Surely, he is not asking that they take down those other apps. He just wants to be in the same bucket as the others.

You don't discuss arbitrary enforcement with Apple's reviewer.

Either they enforce arbitrarily, or they don't. In neither case do they care about your opinion on it.

If you want to have that discussion, have it. On your blog. On Hacker News. On Medium. But not in the "please reinstate my app" conversation with Apple.

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#106

Post by raydev » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

Globz wrote: post #47

dewey wrote: post #15

Is the app actually parsing the articles and displaying them the app or just like other HN clients that just have links and you open them in Safari? If it's the first then I guess the complaint makes sense if you are implementing some kind of "Reader" mode in the app itself by scraping the content.

I am currently using an HN client on iOS which parses the article links for you and renders them into a "reader" mode without leaving the app, you can also open the link via Safari or save it to pocket. This is exactly what his app is doing, I fail to see what are the differences between the two?

The app you're using:

- is older and predates this particular restriction

- OR the reviewers overlooked it

App Store reviews are really a gamble when you start linking to websites in your app. It's just a shitty experience for the developer in general.

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#107

Post by EpicEng » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #59

"But others do it too" is always a weak defence.

Precedent is important. So important in fact that it is a widely used mechanism in courts of law when an issue is not cut and dry. If you lay out a set of rules which are only randomly enforced then your 'rules' become useless.

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#108

Post by abalone » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

I’m confused. What’s the violation here? Apps are supposed to open links in Safari “outside of the app” unless they have permission?

What about in-app browsers???? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram... they all open links inside their app, in an in-app browser.

Can somebody please clarify Apple’s rules here? (No snark please.)

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#109

Post by zhobbs » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

rumori wrote: post #95

I've checked couple of popular apps on the App Store and here are my findings: - Twitter: uses SFSafariViewController - Reddit: uses custom in-app web view, shows page title and url on top, provides "open in Safari" option through share button - Instagram: uses custom in-app web view, shows page title and url on top, provides the built in share-sheet, interestingly disabling open in Safari, but enabling "Add to Readi…

Personally, I feel like the correct thing to do for the user is to use SFSafariViewController. Custom webviews are pretty annoying IMO.

Re: My App Is Dead in the Water

#110

Post by reaperducer » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #11

salvar wrote: post #2

This seems weird enough to be an error of some kind. Not that Apple is likely to fix it, but enforcing this rule would exclude: - All Reddit apps - All HN apps - Twitter - Facebook - Google News - Any link or news aggregator I guess even a browser wouldn't fly, since it "displays full articles from multiple news sources."

Unless they are cracking down on apps that do nothing but republish links and feeds. Most Reddit apps will let you post and engage; some HN apps will do that too (shout out to my beloved Minihack). This particular app didn't, so it's difficult to argue that it provided anything more than republishing links... something that surely should be done only by their News app now /s

It's been a while since I developed an iOS app, but I seem to remember there being a rule that you "app" can't just be a wrapper for a web site.