Developer account removed by Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#291

Post by lapcat » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 7:57 PM UTC

woadwarrior01 wrote: post #285

lapcat wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It never did. Please read links before posting them. The original developer open sourced it under a GPL license and a few people decided to re-package it and resell it, in violation of the source code's license. Um, how about you take your own advice? https://twitter.com/kapeli/status/867424309274390529 "Dash for iOS is back on the App Store and it's completely free" https://blog.kapeli.com/dash-for-ios-back-on-the…

Why is it currently not on the App Store?

That's a funny-looking apology for yet another overconfidently asserted falsehood, but:

https://blog.kapeli.com/goodbye-dash-for-ios

"I’ve decided to discontinue Dash for iOS, as maintaining it is no longer sustainable.

Every year, Apple releases a new version of iOS, which requires updating Dash to support the new OS and work around any new bugs. Dash for iOS worked great on iOS 12, but is an unusable mess on iOS 13 and will only get worse.

Dash for iOS also uses UIWebView extensively, which won’t be accepted on the App Store starting with December 2020. Migrating to WKWebView would be more work than it’s worth."

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#292

Post by rchaud » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 7:57 PM UTC

treprinum wrote: post #161

mm263 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company is liquidated, which means he doesn't do business in Russia. Also, I love living in the world where doing business is suspicious because of my nationality.

A former colleague was denied studying at Berkeley due to being Russian (they told him that).

The US consulate in Russia is closed since the war began -- getting a visa wouldnt be easy, and universities have to get DHS approval to issue an I-20 status document to a non-American. And that's before any issues around eligibility for scholarships, bursaries or loans.

As a foreign student myself, I would not risk trying to navigate the US visa process knowing my status could be jeopardized at any time. Berkeley isn't the only university in the world worth attending.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#293

Post by sidlls » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 7:58 PM UTC

paranoidrobot wrote: post #177

waihtis wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not in the interest of the DOJ to do so - 95% of people are technologically completely inept and it would expose them to fraud, malware and such at unprecedented scale

I don't see how this follows. Android phones can have alternate appstores, and yet we don't see widespread malware, fraud etc from that.

We don't?

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#294

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 8:01 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #85

nottheengineer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any amount of money was meaningless to apple, they wouldn't be where they are today.

That's not how money or business works. Opportunity costs means that many "amounts of money" can be meaningless to the business depending on the activity to get to them, the negatives (from processing hasles like lawsuits to PR and brand image), their overall strategy and focus, and other such concerns. A company at Apple's level absolutely doesn't see "frozing $100K" from random devs (or the amount that would result…

The irrationality is the problem. $100k is nothing. The loss of developer good will is worth far more than that.

But Apple doesn't care, because it relies on shady apps for a significant part of App Store income.

So the decision is "Do we make significant money from addictive games and scams and tolerate the occasional false positive that nukes a legitimate developer? Or do we spend significant resources curating an App Store full of quality apps and no noise, with high quality support for devs with problems?"

Guess which one of those is going to bring in significantly more money.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#295

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 8:02 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #98

echelon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn’t necessarily found a good solution yet. The most essential device of the century is owned by two companies. The ability for them to completely control software and business activities on top of something that is almost as essential as public transportation is appalling. The DOJ needs to remove the "app store" racket for essential computing devices. Software needs to…

One of the main draws of iOS is its resistance to malware, adware, and outright scam apps. Requiring third party app stores disproportionately harms those that purchased the device specifically for these purposes (such as people at higher risks of being targeted by nation state actors). And this isn’t something that can be addressed with a new uber-secure product just for these people, because the EU will deem it a g…

If you want to resist malware, Just don't sideload apps and don't install apps from third party app stores.

Refusing other users the freedom to run the apps they want without Apple's permission just because you might get mildly inconvenienced by it seems very immoral to me.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#296

Post by SeanLuke » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 8:03 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #87

SeanLuke wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lede. Yes, it's an unusual word.

> "Both “bury the lede” and “bury the lead” are acceptable spellings of this phrase... Whether to use “lede” or “lead” depends on your audience and context. If you’re writing for a news publication or using the term in a journalistic context, “lede” is the preferred spelling. However, if you’re writing for a general audience or not referring specifically to journalism, either spelling is acceptable." https://proofed.…

etymologyonline says at least 1965. Other sources date to 1950.

The term was invented to distinguish the head paragraph of a story specifically because it would cause confusion with "lead", which at the time was widely used in newspapers to refer to lead type and to actual strips used to add spacing between lines (indeed it's still called "leading" in typesetting). It is standard newspaper jargon. But more importantly, "bury the lede" is specifically a newspaper phrase. I think that saying it should be changed to "lead" for the uninformed is like saying that you should change "Smalltalk" to "Small Talk" when addressing the uniformed. No! It's Smalltalk.

More importantly, HN is definitely not the uniformed when it comes to newspaper printing technology and journalism.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#297

Post by ano-ther » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 8:03 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #40

Manuel_D wrote: post #8

If the fake reviews are indeed the reason why the apps were taken off the store, that does strike me as an inappropriate action. Take down the reviews, yes. But closing the developer account creates a big opportunity to eliminate competition by buying fake reviews for your competitors. There's also nothing developers can do to prevent this since they can't curate or reject reviews from what I know. That said, other c…

This was talked about by Phillip Shoemaker (head of App Store Review 2009-2016) in this talk[0], where some developers figured out that if they hired marketing firms to commit review fraud on a competitor’s app, their competitor would get terminated because there’s no clear way to actually attribute the fraud to the developer. I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn’t necessarily found a good solution yet. 0…

That’s a very thorny problem. How can you distinguish such a bot attack from a self-promotion?

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#298

Post by throwaway892238 » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

I don't understand why anyone tries to build a livelihood on these stupid platforms. It's a virtual certainty that you will get screwed over and have no recourse.

If the platforms continue to be a major source of income for many people, then those people need to petition their elected representatives to force the platforms open. The OS has to give you a choice of browser, so the smartphone should have to give you a choice of app store.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#299

Post by joshmanders » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

practice9 wrote: post #204

mm263 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company is liquidated, which means he doesn't do business in Russia. Also, I love living in the world where doing business is suspicious because of my nationality.

Choose a better government, then. Preferably, a one without Soviet/death cult/imperialistic tendencies. The nation will be judged by its government's actions, because the gov is supposed to be kept in check by the people.

> Choose a better government, then.

Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now?

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#300

Post by rchaud » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

jensenbox wrote: post #207

Every time I read one of these stories, the first thought I have is: "We should be pushing to have PWA be more robust and be positioned as a first class citizen". My thinking is that would remove the need for a singular approval process. Liberating all developers to build what they want. Of course security is always a concern. PWA in sandboxes of some sort sounds like the best path forward.

That won't happen, because PWA support relies on Google and Apple doing the right thing with their browser engine. Chrome supports PWAs, but could deprecate it at any time. Firefox bizarrely does not support it without a config flag enabling "site-specific browser". It's effectively unsupported as the majority of users aren't going to be messing around in the settings.