Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#241

Post by rmc » Wed, May 02, 2012, 9:04 AM UTC

nknight wrote: post #71

tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument isn't that such a definition of Sherman Act violations is "nerdly". It's that it's wrong. "Nerdly" is just color commentary. And, for what it's worth: it's from one nerd to another. Happy to clear that up for you.

In light of your recent rantings about "nerds"[1] and the law, it's hard to see your post as anything other than a continuation of your angry attacks on anyone who dares speak on the subject of the laws governing our hypothetically-democratic society. Your authoritarianism has degenerated into simple mockery. Even when you are right (which I think you largely are on this matter), you no longer contribute anything of…

Now that's an ad hominem attack.

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#242

Post by jahewson » Wed, May 02, 2012, 9:10 AM UTC

chris_dcosta wrote: post #213

saurik wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 30% "apple tax" on their App Store is not a major way that Apple makes money (more on this in paragraph 2). This leads to the conclusion that Apple is not attempting to hobble stores that undercut them: they simply like using their control of the store ecosystem to maintain the quality, simplicity, and consistency of the experience that allows them to provide to their customers, with the nice side effect of givin…

The point is not whether Apple makes money on its "apple tax", but how that affects us developers. In fact it is a pure transaction fee, and if you compare that to paypal or credit card, or even affiliate commission payments, it's way too high. In the long run where does the App developer get to make any money? On app sales alone? You cannot survive by making a one off sale to your customers, and apps that seek to ge…

But it's manifestly not just a transaction fee, it pays for the curation of the store, server storage space, bandwidth, royalty payments for patents which Apple have been shaken-down for, advertising on the Apple website, and finally the actual fee to MasterCard/Visa is all covered in that. It's a store, that's what stores do, provide some value-added and charge a markup.

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#243

Post by epaga » Wed, May 02, 2012, 9:12 AM UTC

Where are all these Apple bashers coming from? If Apple DIDN'T reject the apps using this API, Amazon and many, many devs would have the right to feel pretty angry at the injustice and inconsistency. In-app linking to extra-app purchasing of any kind is explicitly forbidden by the terms. We already had the "debate" about whether those terms are a good idea or not - I believe they're not. But months later it's more a question of Apple being consistent.

So Dropbox updates their API (impressively within a single day!). Done deal. Let's move on to more important things like Apple inconsistently banning the "iKamaSutra" app after it's successfully been in the app store for years. Now THAT stuff scares me as a dev.

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#244

Post by tedivm » Wed, May 02, 2012, 9:20 AM UTC

epaga wrote: post #243

Where are all these Apple bashers coming from? If Apple DIDN'T reject the apps using this API, Amazon and many, many devs would have the right to feel pretty angry at the injustice and inconsistency. In-app linking to extra-app purchasing of any kind is explicitly forbidden by the terms. We already had the "debate" about whether those terms are a good idea or not - I believe they're not. But months later it's more a…

No one is saying the problem is that they aren't consistently applying their policies. Consistently applying a draconian policy is exactly the problem here.

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#245

Post by jahewson » Wed, May 02, 2012, 9:27 AM UTC

beedogs wrote: post #110

Apple's really become a shitty company in the past few years. I was rooting for them when OS X was introduced, but now they're no better than Microsoft in the late 90s, and somehow more arrogant than MS ever was. How does something like this not run afoul of antitrust laws?

Because anti-trust law (trust = cartel) covers price-fixing and non-compete agreements between companies, and that's not happening here.

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#246

Post by anotherthrow » Wed, May 02, 2012, 9:45 AM UTC

sbuk wrote: post #204

zzleeper wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTW, in antitrust terms, they do have a monopoly in that segment, and could be charged for abusive practices.

No. They don't. It is impossible to have a monopoly in a market segment and under the law, it is perfectly acceptable for a business to control a small portion of the marketplace.

Why do you say this?

A market segment just is a market according to the dictionary definitions. And legally, a lot of EU competition law concerns exactly how one individuates such markets/market segments.

Can you draw out what you're claiming more?

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#247

Post by alan_cx » Wed, May 02, 2012, 9:51 AM UTC

taligent wrote: post #138

andrewparker wrote: post #68

Do any of the readers on this thread work at Apple? I'd love to have you chime in. The silence is deafening...

Ive worked for Apple and it is no different to any other company. A policy was put in place that governs the rules around when apps should be rejected or not. The rules haven't really changed for a while now. The current version of Dropbox SDK violated the in app purchasing rules which app developers unwittingly used. Hence their apps were rejected. People forget that the employees who are auditing these apps are the…

Precisely, what's the offending rule?

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#248

Post by kalleboo » Wed, May 02, 2012, 9:53 AM UTC

nupark2 wrote: post #170

davepeck wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's awful, and it's painful for everyone -- not just those using the DropBox APIs. The origins of these clauses are with iBooks and the Kindle app for iOS. I wrote about it in a recent blog post: http://davepeck.org/2011/11/04/kindle-clauses/

In terms of UX and as a consumer, I'd rather the Dropbox API not open a browser or even another app. That is not the best UX, it doesn't provide a security advantage, and it's simply not being done to benefit the consumer. This may not be Apple's primary rational for rejecting these apps, but I'm glad they're doing it. As for the payment question, simply in terms of UX and as a consumer, I want only one payment provi…

Then have fun signing up for Dropbox on you iPhone using IAP and then only getting to use Dropbox on you iOS devices (no Macs or PCs or the web), since IAPs aren't allowed to give you services outside the app

> 11.3 Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected

In app purchases are simply a wildly inadequate solution for many apps and services, and Apple forcing everyone to use them is absurd and helps nobody.

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#249

Post by el_presidente » Wed, May 02, 2012, 10:00 AM UTC

twidlit wrote: post #154

nkassis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you need a certain percentage of a market for this to start becoming a antitrust issue. And it could be argued that they have a strong monopoly on Tablets at this time. If this doesn't feel like anticompetitive behaviour, I don't know what does. They are using their rather large position in the smartphone/tablet market to enter another market (in this case storage) and snuff out the competition. And the…

Its not anti trust because developers can switch to android or wp7. There are no unmoveable market forces that will deem switching as market suicide, in other words there is no monopoly.

If it were so easy to switch, why wouldn't developers target all the platforms? It isn't market suicide, but it's not as easy as recompiling the code either.

Re: Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox

#250

Post by kapowaz » Wed, May 02, 2012, 10:07 AM UTC

runn1ng wrote: post #230

kapowaz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised it took this long for an extremist, reactionary post like this to reach the top of the comments. Remember: Apple couldn't possibly be a large corporation whose objectives and principles occasionally conflict in a way which causes collateral damage to their users or developers. They only care about squeezing out the competition through any means necessary.

So what? They are acting monopolistically and unethically; this is a fact. The "collateral damage" is OK, if you don't have the majority; Apple does, however.

Ethics are objective now? I personally think it's a dodgy move on Apple's part, but I think the knee-jerk reaction is over the top, particularly given how Apple's policies on in-app-purchase are still quite nascent.

It's easy to castigate this as a monopolistic move intended to benefit iCloud, but the reality is that Dropbox and iCloud aren't directly competing services. Really this is about how third-parties offer purchasable services from within iOS. There is a trade-off to be made between what offers the best user experience and what is practical for third-parties though, so I have to imagine Apple will eventually be more flexible.