We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it • Hacker News Board

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#261

Post by scottdw2 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

metafunctor wrote: post #90

scottdw2 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A shelf space analogy doesn't make sense. With a real shelf, there is scarcity. Only so many shelves can fit in the store, and only so many products on a shelf. The marginal cost of a virtual good is zero. Apple's ability to support apps is effectively infinite. There are over 1M apps in the App Store. This is not about "shelf space".

There is a kind of scarcity in abundance. When the marginal cost of shelf space approaches zero, another factor comes into play: time spent by the buyers. With too many shelves in the store, many products will never be bought, no matter how good they are.

There are already 1M apps in the App Store.

There's already too many apps, so preventing "over choice" isn't their goal.

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#262

Post by scott_karana » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 5:51 PM UTC

mjolk wrote: post #180

veeti wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTC. Sony. Moto. Just ignore Korean trash completely.

I bought the Motorola flagship phone[1] of last year and it's just as bad as he's describing, if not worse. Unfortunately, it goes way beyond just small UI and physical design issues: -The "Play Store" is filled with low-brow, tacky crap (above and beyond that of Apple's "App Store"). -Even though my phone has multiple cores, the audio output is seemingly competing for resources with events like changes in network or…

> Little weird issues: type a text, hit enter, and start typing again too quickly? Sometimes the final word of your previous line will be entered as input on your current message

This has been occuring since my Galaxy S2 was released, so it's not even a new problem. Presumably, Android developers don't use their own phones enough to have fixed it yet... :/

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#263

Post by jliptzin » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 5:52 PM UTC

asdfologist wrote: post #19

With all their patent trolling and absurd tyrannical control over the app store, I have no idea why so many tech-saavy people still love Apple.

What's also particularly frustrating is that you have to wait 5-10 days after each one of these rejections (and there could be multiple before you finally get a revision live). So we're finding that for minor feature additions that on other platforms we build, ship, and tweak all within a 24 hour period, on iOS that iteration cycle is extended from hours to weeks (if the feature is even approved, which sometimes it is not). This consistently makes for a poorer experience on iOS than on any other platform.

Apple should just make everyone's lives a lot easier (including their own) if they took the innocent until proven guilty approach that Google takes, rather than the guilty until proven innocent stance they currently abide by.

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#264

Post by cbr » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 5:57 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #48

First of all, that sounds like a really cool idea for an app. I want it. But secondly, of all the app rejection stories I've ever heard... this one is the easiest to fix. Just add some more features, who cares, and resubmit it. Ideas: annotate/categorize the things that are making you happy/unhappy. Maybe have categories/icons for them. (Friends, party, loneliness, exercise, ate well, ate bad, had sex, no sex, fought…

    I'd rather rate my happiness on a 1-10 scale rather than
    compare with yesterday, and also maybe be asked 3-4 times
    a day.

I use TagTime for this on Android: http://www.jefftk.com/p/happiness-logging

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#265

Post by Ensorceled » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:03 PM UTC

ikurei wrote: post #240

mattmanser wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was so original. I can't believe anyone contests this. I remember seeing an iPhone for the first time. Compared to all other phones it was 10 years ahead in vision. All other phones were suddenly ludicrously laid out, with stupid designs. Even the settings section for the iPhone blew every single other phone in existence out of the water. Something that simple, that essential, had been revolutionised by this thoug…

It blew every other phone, but it wasn't that original over PDAs. I had a Windows 6.5 pda then, and I thought the iPhone was way cooler and well-designed. Of course it was inmensely superior to my PDA, but not so incredibly original. It didn't do anything at all I wasn't already doing with PDAs, it just did some of them (chiefly, web browsing) way better, most of them in a cooler way (pinch to zoom, animations), and…

Jobs was pissed for two reasons; one, Android copied a lot of things from Apple and two, the company that was doing the copying had their CEO (and a very technical CEO at that) on the Apple board of directors.

I'm not sure why people always ignore the second part of why Jobs was pissed. It was the Schmidt one-two sucker punch that really pissed him off.

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#266

Post by clarky07 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:26 PM UTC

levosmetalo wrote: post #250

cwp wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The implication behind this statement is that if most users don't use something, the one's that do don't find it useful. Not at all. The implication is that if few people use a feature, few people will be affected if you remove it. They may be really, really upset, but there won't be many of them.

Would you refund those people automatically after removing the feature they use? Since this is not anymore the same value proposition as before. One small feature can make the whole app not anymore worthy those original 1.99$ user paid for.

Can we get rid of the absurd disgust over the huge price of 99 cents people pay for apps? If he thinks the app is better being simpler, let him make his app better. It doesn't matter if he "offers" a refund or not. They can ask Apple for one, and Apple will give it to them. Don't act like the guy is a jerk for removing a feature he deems unnecessary because someone might be upset over the 12 cents of value lost when it very well could improve the experience of the other 99.5% of his users.

I'm sorry, but for 99 cents you don't get complete control over my time and decision making process. Feel free to make suggestions, but for the love of God don't "tell me" that "I need" to make feature X for you. I particularly enjoy 1-3 star reviews that say it's great but it needs X to improve review. As if they would actually come back and change it when it gets X. I promise they don't.

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#267

Post by Greenisus » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:30 PM UTC

rbritton wrote: post #258

kalleboo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got rejected for using rounded rects? What rule did they invoke?

8.3: Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected We found that your app is too similar to iOS springboard icons, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines. Specifically, the rejection relates to the use of rounded icons like Apple's iOS springboard icons.

I was rejected in a similar way for my very first iPhone app many years ago. I wrote the Slicehost app, and it had a tab for managing DNS. I had a friend draw the icons for me, and for DNS I went with a globe. The globe my friend drew looked a lot like the globe used for switching your keyboard to another language, so they rejected me for that. I changed the DNS icon to something else and resubmitted and it was accepted.

The funny thing, though, is that I submitted two versions of the app: a paid version and a free version. They both had the globe icon, and one of them was accepted with it.

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#268

Post by clarky07 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:32 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #239

sferoze wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy only address's the issue form the consumers point of view. What about if you make a product, should you be able to force a distributor to carry your product?

No, you shouldn't, and never did I suggest that. I was addressing your claim that we should think about the App Store like a retailer; which it isn't.

It functions as such. Developers make a product, they convince Apple to stock that product, and Apple takes a cut when they sell it. You can argue that it shouldn't be like that, but you can't really argue that it ISN'T like that.

The only thing you can really argue is that they should allow other app stores to exist that aren't under their control. And frankly, they do exist on jailbroken phones and if you want that you can jailbreak your phone, or get an Android.

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#269

Post by etler » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

guenard wrote: post #256

mcv wrote: post #120

So how's the Android version doing? Please tell me there is one. Because complaining about the walled garden and then ignoring the larger and more open platform, that's rather silly.

Larger? It's not that easy. There is more Android smartphones sold than Apple phones yep, but 1. thanks to telcos a lot of Android users don't even know what is Android/Google Play (= they'll never download apps) and 2. global app store revenues are still higher on iOS versus Google Play.

The downloads stat is no longer true[1]. Revenue is still much higher on iOS, but the trends have been clear, and cannot be ignored. Before, it was "Android is open, but there are way more iPhones", then it was "Android has more phones but iPhones get more downloads", it won't be long until revenue surpases it too.

[1] http://www.siliconbeat.com/2013/07/31/google-play-passes-app...

EDIT: More stats on revenue:

In nov 2012 the gap was 4x

http://www.startable.com/2012/11/

As of Q3 2013 the gap was 2x

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-11-03-google-play...

They're catching up, and fast.

Re: We made something. We use it. We love it. Apple rejected it

#270

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 6:37 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #215

sferoze wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't we think of the App Store in the same way that people and companies cannot force a retailer to stock their own product.

Why do people continue to use this terrible analogy? The App Store is not like Walmart. A better analogy would be a car company that forced you to come to them for all of your service and for any after-market work you wanted to do.

Because it fits. Do you think that Wal-Mart doesn't have rules for vendors?

Perhaps Apple is more mercurial and arbitrary. But the institutional arrogance is the same.

As a manufacturer, Wal-Mart is your best friend and worst enemy. They pay you promptly and order lots of stuff. But they demand steep discounts and punish you harshly if you fail to meet commitments, and you must be able to rapidly ramp up your supply chain when their demand grows.