121–130 of 206 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Your argument misrepresents the metaphor. It's the wall that's the barrier to freedom, not what goes on within.
This is a shame, I'm sorry to hear. I loved this app for a long time because it was the only one (that I found) that would cache comment threads on the device - this meant I could read comments on the subway and/or without access to the internet. A few months ago the app was rewritten in Swift and lost my most treasured feature, not that it matters anymore. Thanks for the years of connectivity-anxiety free comment re…
How much of the App Store review process is automated these days, anyways?
One of my largest laments for the last 8 years or so with the App Store is the lack of a phone number in the appeals process for applications. I feel speaking out loud with a real person would force answers to a lot of these questions, especially ‘why does ‘x’ get away with this and I can’t?’
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Your argument misrepresents the metaphor. It's the wall that's the barrier to freedom, not what goes on within.
A game is only a game if all the players have a shared set of rules and can trust each other to stay within them. As soon as someone breaks the rules the game is over, and the freedom provided is lost.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One key difference (from a legal perspective, rather than a developer perspective) is that all of the above apps first display user commentary and the user is then given the option to open the link to read the entire article. This is an important distinction under the fair use doctrine: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fair-use-the-four-fa...
How does it make a difference from a legal perspective? I am a former lawyer and can't see how any of this matters. I have thought about this deeply in the past (dealing with the same issue for another app), and talked with IP lawyer friends, and we cannot determine what basis Apple has for singling out apps that are essentially specialized web browsers. I'm happy to be enlightened on why this practice makes sense, b…
I suspect if the app is changed to operate more like Reddit (view the article title/source and view comments, if any, prior to opening the article) it would be approved by Apple. Alternatively, as suggested by Apple, the app could initially present only an excerpt of the article and fall within the exception but, as pointed out in the medium post, that probably isn't particularly valuable to HN users.
You also could have tried reading the link I included with my original comment.
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.
Why not launch Safari when the user clicks on an article? And make it clear that you have permission from HN to use their API? Having used your app for exactly one minute, that seems like it would address their concerns and preserve usability.
Or even just SFSafariViewController set to automatically enter reader mode. Then you're not downloading/displaying content from other sites, but you're still keeping users within your app.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have pointed them to the API documentation that I use, however they were uninterested in that. I also tried contacting the maintainers of the API, they didn't have anything for me.
I would obtain a full copy of the copyright laws, ask your lawyer to put them on legal paperhead in a PDF, then attach them in full to your email.
What nonsense. The links that HN has are all to publicly available websites, isn't the whole reason for their existence to be visited? How is this different from a web browser?
or a search engine
“It felt like I was arguing with a robot.” How much of the App Store review process is automated these days, anyways? One of my largest laments for the last 8 years or so with the App Store is the lack of a phone number in the appeals process for applications. I feel speaking out loud with a real person would force answers to a lot of these questions, especially ‘why does ‘x’ get away with this and I can’t?’
Oh, hey, we've arrived at the reason that phone number doesn't exist. The ambiguity gives Apple flexibility, and I doubt they have any plans to remove it in the near future (How I'd love to be wrong!)