Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

david.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 441 posts

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#111

Post by thomascgalvin »

saagarjha wrote: post #97
thomascgalvin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's being too charitable to Apple. Their review process is automated, and nobody really knows what will trigger the Ban Bot into deleting your account. There is also no apparent way to scan your own app to make sure that you are not in violation of this issue. So you're in a position where the only way to see if you are in compliance is to submit to Apple, but that may result in your account being banned.

> Their review process is automated, and nobody really knows what will trigger the Ban Bot into deleting your account. While review is automated, I would like to believe that account deletion isn't. > There is also no apparent way to scan your own app to make sure that you are not in violation of this issue. So you're in a position where the only way to see if you are in compliance is to submit to Apple, but that may…

> While review is automated, I would like to believe that account deletion isn't.

I would like to believe that, too, but I don't.

> They literally tell you the symbols that you're not supposed to use: it's easy to check if your dependencies are using them.

Sure, if you have a better-than-average understanding of C (or Objective C), and know how to use the command line to grep strings out of a binary, and know all of the binaries you need to be searching.

This is a rejection for an Electron app, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the majority of Electron developers do not have the requisite skills. Hell, I've been programming for a couple of decades now, and I couldn't 100% guarantee that an app I wrote didn't call one of the forbidden APIs, even indirectly.

The rejection email doesn't bother to say where in the code the problem is, so it's apparently not so easy as to be part of an automated process. "Learn what these esoteric commands do, use them correctly on every upstream dependency your app has, make sure you don't call any of these symbols, and if you fuck up you're banned for life" is utter dogshit customer service.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#112

Post by saagarjha »

creatornator wrote: post #110
saagarjha wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do you miss a dependency?! If it's not your code, then it's a dependency that you need to look at.

Dependencies of your dependencies! Imagine installing a library that depends on a couple dozen libraries in its own right. You may not have time to inspect every single node in the dependency graph.

It's going to sound uncharitable, but if you're clearly being rejected for something that your dependencies is doing wrong you should make time to figure out which one it is.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#113

Post by fattire »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #22

The basic concept isn't too disturbing; Apple packages private APIs that have no guaranteed behavior or expectation of support. If you depend on those APIs, it's very possible that your app will break in a future OS update. This is conceptually no different than calling something in the sun.* packages in Java. For years it was ok, and then ... it wasn't. This, however, is draconian: > Continuing to use or conceal non…

> Apple has no love nor concern for their developers anymore. It used to be the premier development platform in the world.

Wait a second. When was this exactly? Are you talking about the Apple II era?

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#114

Post by paxswill »

haecceity wrote: post #55

Why doesn't Apple change their SDK to make their API non linkable?

Because of how Obj-C works, it’s not really possible to have completely hidden classes or methods. You can instantiate classes by name at runtime, and can similarly create a message (aka call a method) at runtime. This is basically the “concealed” option mentioned elsewhere. Because of this dynamism, it’s possible to recreate a header file from the compiled frameworks, and then just compile like normal.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#115

Post by friedman23 »

archie2 wrote: post #76
friedman23 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and avoid shortcut solutions and then the app is never written

the overwhelming amount of apps that are native beg to differ

> the overwhelming amount of apps that are native beg to differ

the overwhelming number of indie apps that are cross platform? Let me just go ahead and try to use inkscape and gimp on my mac.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#116

Post by bdcravens »

throwGuardian wrote: post #86
saagarjha wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling private API is not nonsensical Apple policy, and you're reducing the instances in which rejection is nonsensical Apple policy.

The post shot to #1 on HN in no time, because the developer community thinks this rejection, and it's backing policy to be nonsensical.

The post shot to #1 because there are a lot of Javascript developers that see Electron as a gateway into apps they would otherwise be unable to develop. There's a lot of interest in whether or not that door closes.

Apple's policy towards private APIs has been known for years.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#117

Post by saagarjha »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #111
saagarjha wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their review process is automated, and nobody really knows what will trigger the Ban Bot into deleting your account. While review is automated, I would like to believe that account deletion isn't. > There is also no apparent way to scan your own app to make sure that you are not in violation of this issue. So you're in a position where the only way to see if you are in compliance is to submit to Apple, but that may…

> While review is automated, I would like to believe that account deletion isn't. I would like to believe that, too, but I don't. > They literally tell you the symbols that you're not supposed to use: it's easy to check if your dependencies are using them. Sure, if you have a better-than-average understanding of C (or Objective C), and know how to use the command line to grep strings out of a binary, and know all of…

> I would like to believe that, too, but I don't.

I'll believe it up until the point that "Apple automatically deleted my account because of repeated app submissions" makes the front page of Hacker News. Until then, I have no reason to doubt it as I have never heard of this happening except in clearly malicious cases.

> The rejection email doesn't bother to say where in the code the problem is

I'd argue that any answer to this question would require the skills that you say Electron developers lack. I don't know what your solution to this is, because getting your app past review by claiming ignorance into what your dependencies is doing ("oh no, I totally didn't know this framework was literally malware, can you please let me be on the App Store anyways?") isn't going to work either.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#118

Post by mcherm »

plorkyeran wrote: post #99
MauranKilom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then tries to hide their use of private APIs rather than stop using them [...] Resubmitting the same thing and hoping that it doesn't get caught the next time isn't an honest mistake. This is missing the point of the post you are replying to. Say you identify five closed API dependencies and remove them. Do you resubmit? If you missed any others, you and all your apps might be banned.

They do not ban you for removing some uses of private APIs, but missing others and resubmitting. In the last decade of this being the policy on the iOS app store they've been quite consistent about only banning people who very clearly are deliberately trying to sneak things in.

> They do not ban you for removing some uses of private APIs, but missing others and resubmitting.

Maybe not -- maybe you know something about how Apple operates. But clearly they ARE sending responses threatening to do exactly that.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#119

Post by kitsunesoba »

saagarjha wrote: post #59
groovebits wrote: post #13

Wonder why they couldn't do the same for the iOS appstore. Like js apps based in phonegap

They do, but those apps use WebKit and hence don't rely on private API.

And similarly, web tech wrapper apps for macOS that use WebKit instead of Chromium are not facing private API usage rejections.

WebKit on macOS doesn’t have the limitations that its iOS cousin does… cutting edge API support is a bit spotty but if one looks at how old the versions of Electron being shipped are, that clearly isn’t a problem. More web wrappers should opt for the locally available engine instead of bringing their own.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#120

Post by throwGuardian »

saagarjha wrote: post #95
throwGuardian wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post shot to #1 on HN in no time, because the developer community thinks this rejection, and it's backing policy to be nonsensical.

> because the developer community Which is not a homogenous group, both in ideals and for why they'd upvote a submission like this. > this rejection, and it's backing policy to be nonsensical They're different things. I personally think the rejection is perfectly sensical in the context of the backing policy, with which I don't fully agree.

You must be chugging the koolaid to believe developers LOVE Apple's policies, or enjoy getting their hard-work rejected by a bot, or getting shamed by an overzealous Apple employee on HN. Developers are homogeneously unappreciative of Apple's treatment of them. They just don't have any leverage, or opportunity to negotiate
Post reply on HN