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WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

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Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion that I hold: The walled garden is exactly why I love Apple's iPhone. iPhone keeps the rifraff away, third-party sniffers at check, they've recently added clipboard notification if some app tries to paste random stuff from my clipboard (given that we use it so much for 1Password and other password managers). I absolutely do not trust any third party - there are some insane apps like LinkedIn that tri…

Me too, I've chosen Apple devices, mostly because I like Apple's Continuity features and their walled-garden mindset. In particular, I really wish Apple would push Apple Pay and Sign-In with Apple more: I already trust Apple with all sorts of private data (Face ID, iCloud Keychain, etc.), I don't want to also have to evaluate PayPal/Google/FB/whoever as an alternative sign-in or payment vendor.

I am thinking of getting a Mac and iPad too now.

Apple's whole game is to make profit from hardware and their services, not ads.

Even if Apple charged - $50/month privacy fee to keep things secure, I am fine with it.

I'd pay twice as much for an iPhone - at $2000 even - something that keeps everything about my life secure - I have no problems paying for it.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#42
post #5

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple. But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great…

> I am very privacy, open-source, freedom orientated I like to think I am as well. How do you balance this when moving from Apple to Android, where Apple (seems) to be much more privacy-focused and basically at zero for open-source/freedom, where Android is basically the reverse? I think there are ways to make it better (custom ROM, alternative app stores), but you give up a lot of functionality (Play Store, Google P…

Not OP but, I'm on a Pixel for the "bloat" free Android experience. I don't install any apps, I do all webservices through Firefox, DDG and have uBO enabled. I'm only moderately privacy concerned and I fell like this is an ok balance. Seems like every app on either platform comes with some problematic BS.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#43
post #36
post #5

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple. But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great…

Unfortunately going from iOS to Android is out of the frying pan into the fire. Android is much worse from a privacy point of view. You can easily see this by just spying on network traffic and DNS requests from the device. It's constantly telling everyone about you. Your choice in mobile is walled castle or forest full of thieves. I suppose there are open source phones around but I don't personally find them that us…

> can you reserve an Uber on a Linux phone?

Yes. https://m.uber.com

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top of the regular fees to make consumers aware If you don't know that, it is not allowed to sell for more in iOS than in your site, and the app will get banned for attempting that, forget about displaying 30% apple tax to the users explicitly. Edit: Heard from somewhere, likely not f…

Microsoft seem to get away with it: Forza Street on iOS - 125 Gold: £4.99, 255 Gold: £9.99 Forza Street on Windows 10 - 125 Gold: £3.99, 255 Gold: £7.99 Both connect to the same account.

I think YetAnotherNick means the actual words "30% Apple Tax" on the screen.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#45
post #5

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple. But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great…

The play store is getting worse and worse. It will eventually end up being just a bad. Meanwhile every iteration of Android is getting more locked down because of "security". No more external cameras etc.. The future look bleak until we get a true open source alternative running on open hardware.

Absolutely. Unfortunately at the moment it's a case of choose the best of a terrible bunch. I have really high hopes some good will come out of Purism's Librem 5 and the PinePhone.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#46
post #5

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple. But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great…

> so if you don't mind a bunch of binary blobs that track you maybe Samsung would work for you

I've got some bad news for you about Google Services

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#47
post #2

Tweet thread - it looks like Apple is requiring in-app purchases to sign-up for wordpress.com accounts, despite it being an open-source app for any WordPress site: > Heads up on why @WordPressiOS updates have been absent... we were locked by App Store. To be able to ship updates and bug fixes again we had to commit to support in-app purchases for .com plans. I know why this is problematic, open to suggestions. Allow…

This is really sad. On the one hand, sure Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store, on the other hand, they shouldn't be allowed to force apps to do this sort of thing. This will only drive domain prices higher on iOS in order to compensate (in the case of Automattic). If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top…

> If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top of the regular fees to make consumers aware. Course I'm sure Apple wouldn't like this at all either.

They straight up won't allow you to do this.... I've tried before, and got a call from the Apple Reviewer to say that they won't allow anything like this to be published.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#48
Apple seems to be trying to make it as difficult as possible to distribute an iOS app that doesn't result in money moving into Apple's pocket, even when it makes absolutely no sense to enable that... unless you're Amazon, in which case your otherwise unauthorizedly thin margins are suddenly perfectly acceptable.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#49
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem with GPLv2 licensed app?

Short version of the usual argument: GPL says you can't add restrictions on what a user can do when you distribute an app. App Store terms of service do add restrictions, so distributing an GPL app through the app store is a license violation.

But in this case it doesn't matter, because Automattic is the owner of the application, not a licensee -- they can relicense the application if they want, and they're implicitly doing so here. It does make the source code effectively unusable by anyone downstream, though.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem with GPLv2 licensed app?

The App Store TOS specifically prohibits you from redistributing any app you download from it. GPLv2 specifically prohibits that, so any distribution of an app under GPLv2 terms is a license violation. GPLv3 would be even worse as you cannot provide Installation Instructions. However, WordPress/Automattic has copyright ownership, which means GPLv2 terms don't apply. If you get the app from the App Store, then the App…

They openly encourage users to submit contributions in the form of pull requests ^1; they seem to accept pull requests without any special statement of licensing contrary to the GPLv2 repo license ^2; and, they do not openly state in the GitHub repo's Contributor Guidelines any CLA requirement that would permit them to relicense GPLv2 contributions that they merge ^3. (IANYL)

^1 https://apps.wordpress.com/contribute/

^2 https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/blob/devel...

^3 https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/blob/devel...

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