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Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

david.dev

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Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#151

Post by jmeyer2k »

Razengan wrote: post #18

As a user I am glad. As is custom for all Electron discussions, someone must point out its flaws. Why the dislike, you ask? A picture is worth a thousand 64-bit words: https://imgur.com/a/XnCOHUD And mind you, GitHub Desktop is taking that much just for showing a mostly empty window! while Fork and Tower are displaying a lot more UI, more controls, trees, custom drawing, more text, and have overall more features (bes…

What a ridiculous question... why would you not want the option to download Electron apps through the app store?

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#152

Post by catalogia »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #146
Razengan wrote: post #18

As a user I am glad. As is custom for all Electron discussions, someone must point out its flaws. Why the dislike, you ask? A picture is worth a thousand 64-bit words: https://imgur.com/a/XnCOHUD And mind you, GitHub Desktop is taking that much just for showing a mostly empty window! while Fork and Tower are displaying a lot more UI, more controls, trees, custom drawing, more text, and have overall more features (bes…

I uh...Sorry are you mad that an electron application is using ~80mb more than other native applications? I cannot fathom the indignity required to care about that difference.

> "I cannot fathom the indignity required to care about that difference."

Your failure to empathize seems like an odd thing to brag about. Even if you have plenty of memory available, you should be capable of empathizing with people who are short on it.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#153

Post by arvinsim »

throwGuardian wrote: post #120
saagarjha wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Doesn't help that developers still buy their machines.

Apple will only listen if it hits their bottom line.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#154

Post by biggestdecision »

mcherm wrote: post #118
plorkyeran wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because in the past, developers have obfuscated their use of private APIs rather than removing them. They are threatening to ban people who abuse the platform. They aren't going to ban anyone making an honest effort to eliminate their use of private APIs.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#155

Post by zamadatix »

chii wrote: post #90
kjksf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How short are memories. I remember how Microsoft was vilified for supposedly having secret Windows APIs that allowed Microsoft apps to get better performance. That was mostly made up and even if such APIs existed, any program could have used it. Even at the height of corporate arrogance Microsoft didn't dream of banning developers for using undocumented APIs. Apple seems intent on becoming more evil than Microsoft ev…

Microsoft didn't ban anyone for using undocumented private APIs because they couldn't, not because they chose not to. Apple, or Microsoft for that matter, would do the same thing here, because the locked down platform is more valuable/profitable then an open platform. Developed for Android - at least you can have your app sideloaded if the platform owner decided to remote you. Or better, make your app a progressive w…

> Microsoft didn't ban anyone for using undocumented private APIs because they couldn't, not because they chose not to.

Sure they could have, they had a code signing platform since the mid 90s and could have locked API access only to apps signed by them.

They didn't because it would have been pointless not because they couldn't figure out how.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#156

Post by rdevnull »

mrb wrote: post #64

Off topic: this is the first time I see Latin Modern Roman used on a web page. Doesn't look that great on low-DPI screens (13" at 2560x1440) but looks good on high-DPI (530 DPI Pixel 4 XL).

wow glad you noticed :) is latex CSS and I thought it would make the text look different (it looks like everyone is using Open Sans nowadays :) https://github.com/gurugeek/latexcss/blob/master/latex.css

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#157

Post by biggestdecision »

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 rejection is legitimate, but it's still a big issue for developers of Electron apps. The fix should happen in Electron if at all possible.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#158

Post by asveikau »

plorkyeran wrote: post #32
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…

What's bullshit about banning someone who has been notified that they are in violation of the rules and then tries to hide their use of private APIs rather than stop using them? That's exactly what I would do in Apple's position. Resubmitting the same thing and hoping that it doesn't get caught the next time isn't an honest mistake.

You assume it isn't an honest mistake. Most people submitting electron apps won't have knowledge of the browser engine layer and its calls to Apple APIs and probably will have some difficulty assessing whether or not they have resolved the issue. That doesn't make them bad people. They are not malicious or trying to hide things. Apple's scripts should give them more chances until they get it right.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#159

Post by heavyset_go »

kjksf wrote: post #42
plorkyeran wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's bullshit about banning someone who has been notified that they are in violation of the rules and then tries to hide their use of private APIs rather than stop using them? That's exactly what I would do in Apple's position. Resubmitting the same thing and hoping that it doesn't get caught the next time isn't an honest mistake.

"use or conceal" "use" If this was "don't conceal or we'll ban you for life", it would be somewhat understandable. But it's "use or we'll ban you for life" which is just insane. Apple is at the height of their arrogance towards developers.

> Apple is at the height of their arrogance towards developers.

Yep. I've migrated away from macOS after using it for a decade over to Linux, and the developer experience is first class.

Re: Electron apps cannot be submitted to the Apple store

#160

Post by scarface74 »

kjksf wrote: post #61
outworlder wrote: post #11

> I did write back to Apple trying to explain that I am using Electron and I can't really change any of these public-framework usage Yeah. So? By linking a framework that's using private APIs, this becomes your problem now. And Electron's problem, by extension. Go bug them, not Apple.

How short are memories. I remember how Microsoft was vilified for supposedly having secret Windows APIs that allowed Microsoft apps to get better performance. That was mostly made up and even if such APIs existed, any program could have used it. Even at the height of corporate arrogance Microsoft didn't dream of banning developers for using undocumented APIs. Apple seems intent on becoming more evil than Microsoft ev…

There are no such things as “secret APIs”. By definition an Application Programmers Interface is the vendors promise to other developers that when you call it, it will have well defined results no matter if the implementation changes. Every modern programming environment has the concept of public and private methods either enforced by the language (with hacks to get around it) or by convention (prepending a function with an underscore)

The fact is that all of MS’s Office competitors early on wrote horrible GUI apps whether it be fir Windows or the Mac.

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