How this is possible for iOS? Can someone share technical details on this iOS implementation? IMO this cannot be done without validating user privacy and giving app some crucial screen reading permissions.
Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
121–130 of 322 posts
Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
#122How this is possible for iOS? Can someone share technical details on this iOS implementation? IMO this cannot be done without validating user privacy and giving app some crucial screen reading permissions.
The answer is jailbreak or sideloaded modified ipas.
Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
#123How this is possible for iOS? Can someone share technical details on this iOS implementation? IMO this cannot be done without validating user privacy and giving app some crucial screen reading permissions.
It’s currently Android only. There is a waitlist on their website for the iOS version.
Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
#124How this is possible for iOS? Can someone share technical details on this iOS implementation? IMO this cannot be done without validating user privacy and giving app some crucial screen reading permissions.
Yeah, this is not possible in iOS because there is no equivalent of Accessibility services for apps to control other apps behavior.
Not sure what OP is running waitlist for, my guess is a combination of screen time + focus modes + content blockers in Safari.
Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
#125As others have said, the permissions required to make this work are scary and require a lot of trust. The fact YouTube and Instagram don't allow you to disable endless algorithmic short form content is straight up evil.
I'd recommend just uninstalling the apps. I'm still able to get the content I need, and scroll mechanic doesn't work as well on the websites so a lot of the temptation to doom scroll goes away.
Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
#126I just uninstall the app on ios, and dns filtering, but with ublock on ios you can block it too.
Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
#127I the one reason I use iOS is the built in chat is pretty good and has most all my friends and family and so between that and many of the other built in apps I can avoid needing so many third party apps.
So my scrolling fixation is mostly limited to the browser. One nice thing about meta is they ALL of their mobile webapps are terrible so they don’t get me, but YouTube shorts does very often. I wish there was a good way to block all shorts on YouTube through the browser.
Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
#128How this is possible for iOS? Can someone share technical details on this iOS implementation? IMO this cannot be done without validating user privacy and giving app some crucial screen reading permissions.
For Android I did it using the Accessibility Service API, iOS doesn't provide any similar API, the platform itself is much more restricted. So I think is technicaly not possible
Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
#129This kind of control is what we miss out on when we leave web apps for native apps. Ideally this would just be a simple browser plugin. But the app requires major accessibility permissions so that it can access the API it needs to see into the Android apps, something that doesn't even exist on iOS. Just to do what should amount things like deleting a ".reels" component. That said, props to OP for figuring out how to…
I've tried adding rules to ublock origin but sites like youtube and many others now have "component obfuscation". Meaning there is no unique ID on their components/elements and it makes it much harder to target.
And some element titles/names are even on a different component than the content, which is even harder still. So it says "reels" on one component and the actual reels are on another.
Blocking now has to be a logical combination of CSS selection, text identification and a target-action component.
Re: Show HN: I built an app to block Shorts and Reels
#130In my opinion tech is not the solution to issues of self-discipline.