Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

tirania.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 125 posts

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#111

Post by pyman »

Valkhyr wrote: post #71
wvenable wrote: post #35

I'm a parent -- it's never been easier to control what your children are doing on devices. My son isn't an admin on his laptop. I don't let him download arbitrary apps and he doesn't even own his own i-device yet. He's only slightly older than Miguel's kids, and he has a Switch (with parental controls on), but I don't see any need to give him his own iPad. When he wasn't old enough to learn about dark patterns, we di…

> What's not an opportunity is locking down the entire world so children can't screw up. Massively agree. It's also not good to teach children that computers are locked-down things you can't control.

Kids between 2 and 11 years old spend an average of 5/6 hours per day in front of a screen. And kids between 2 and 3 see an average of 25,600 ads a year. This article is not about parenting, it's about regulating the software industry.

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#112

Post by pyman »

sassypotato wrote: post #107

The author has given an iPad to a one year old, and even taught them (read: nudged them into) getting adicted into phone games. This is terrible parenting.

This article is not about parenting or restricting the use of mobile devices, it's about regulating the software industry. For example: what Apple should/shouldn't allow developers to do when creating a game.

It's very easy to loose track of the real problem, which is technology. Kids between 2 and 11, like it or not, spend an average of 5/6 hours per day in front of a screen and see an average of 25,600 ads a year.

The solution is not to remove technology from the equation, but to regulate it.

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#113

Post by pyman »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #82
zamalek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, he's been very heavy-handed with his support for Apple through any and all criticism. I follow him on Twitter and, from the tweets of his that I have read, he's defended Apple every single time they have appeared in the news, irrespective of circumstance or evidence. He is definitely not an objective and unbiased source when it comes to Apple. Just because he is a well-known individual, and is incredibly…

You can download apps on Windows from anywhere and there is no sandboxing.

You are comparing tomatoes with potatoes. 1) Kids use the iPad/iPhone as gaming console, and 2) parents don't give their young kids a Dell laptop to play Talking Tom Cat. So your interpretation of the problem is not realistic and therefore incorrect.

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#114

Post by grumple »

systemvoltage wrote: post #78

When a company sides with the consumer, the developers complain (HN crowd). When developers are given free access (side loading, jailbreaking), the consumers suffer (most times without knowing). I only see one sided opinions from Developers here on HN. What happened to your sense of understand that capitalism ensures that companies will do every bit to milk privacy and money from the customers by hook or by crook. Do…

How do consumers suffer from an open system? Most people I know have androids and are perfectly happy with them. Nobody has accidentally downloaded an app and had their phone compromised.

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#115

Post by fakedang »

Tainnor wrote: post #104
fakedang wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans and Brits have always been obsessed with trying to protect their children, from experience. Mainland Europe is slowly joining the bandwagon too, what with all the "Let's think about the children" talk, which never was much of an issue 10-20 years back. The wealthier folks of East Asia and Latin America behave similarly to Americans, while the not so wealthy take a totally hands-off approach, perhaps being a…

This is totally a tangent now and not related to the original topic anymore, but I'm just curious: is it only a trope from movies and TV shows or are American parents really so afraid of their teenage kids having sex? Because, apart from maybe very religious families, I've never seen this to be that much of an issue where I grew up (Western Europe), people just know that teenagers are going to have sex.

I'm not American, hence can't speak for them, but I think it has a lot to do with America's religious roots in orthodox Protestantism and largely Catholic immigration.

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#116

Post by user5994461 »

wvenable wrote: post #86
liontender wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been absolutely fascinating to see my 3 year old interact with his grandparents as he "helps" them play Scrabble on their iPad. Together they decide to watch in-app ads; try installing some free-to-play game apps that seem like they might be amusing for an adult to show a child how they use; and otherwise explore the bounds of what you can do & learn on the modern walled-garden Internet. The grandparents are p…

A lot of dinner time conversation revolves around stuff that any of us, including the kids, have read or seen online. A few months ago (while school was closed and we were quarantined), my son relayed to us all information about COVID-19 that he had come across online (likely via YouTube). I was expecting a bunch of misinformation but all of it was spot on! We've also talked about Flat Earthers. The other day we ende…

>>> The other day we ended up discussing why Wikipedia isn't allowed as source at school.

Because Wikipedia has made obsolete all research tasks given by schools? One search and the wikipedia article will tell you everything there is to know about a subject.

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#117

Post by user5994461 »

izacus wrote: post #106
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not really a fair argument. Parents have been over worked for decades. But 30, 20, even 10 years ago (first iPad was released 10 years ago!) you couldn’t accidentally buy digital rubbish. The kids sat in front of a TV and you had to beg your parents for toys. Now toddlers can discover things for themselves and frankly a lot of content for kids is trash. We haven’t caught up with how to deal with this.

The author still wants Apple to ban software for everyone on the whole world - Americans, Indians, young people, old people just to conform to their ideas of what their children are supposed to consume. Whole world and everyone. They're not calling for a separate play store, restricted subsection - but they want every single person to be limited so they don't have to be careful about what exactly their child might ac…

FYI: This is how TV works in Europe. Ads are banned during children programs, early morning before school and evening after school.

Sometimes a blanket ban is a good thing.

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#118

Post by user5994461 »

Tainnor wrote: post #38
reader_mode wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But 30, 20, even 10 years ago (first iPad was released 10 years ago!) you couldn’t accidentally buy digital rubbish. That's not true - I clearly remember those TV telenovelas arround here having a paid line where you could get a summary of next episode and the number advertised during the show. The only people I ever heard about calling the service was kids racking up parents phone bills.

When I was a kid I found a very sketchy game on the teletext where you had to repeatedly call some phone line. My parents ended up with a 600 bucks phone bill. I also repeatedly fell for weird "order this set of dinosaur cards for free (but then it's an ongoing subscription)" kinds of scams. All of that stuff was annoying. And my parents ended up taking appropriate measures (blocking paid phone numbers, or just talki…

You were lucky that you parents were well off. There are many families what live paycheck to paycheck and wouldn't be able to feed the children after they lost 600 bucks in a phone scam.

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#119

Post by yoz-y »

Spivak wrote: post #89
encom wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cynic would say that Apple manufactured the problem, and is now selling the solution.

Aside from offering the ability to collect IAP in general I’m not sure what the case against Apple is here. Did they do something specific to incentivize the creation of these kinds of games?

Not really, mostly "the market" happened. For productive applications one could argue that the lack of upgrade pricing and trials has fueled the race to the bottom but this was never really a thing with games (as one could easily have a free demo and a paid full game on the store).

Re: AppStore Reviews Should Be Stricter

#120

Post by oaiey »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #18
chrismsimpson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. Do you even know who Miguel de Icaza is?

His credentials just make this complaint seem even more weird.

I also think there is a mismatch. I mean he was a free software advocate and an AppStore is a curated repository in the end. Whether that is free software or not is a different discussion. The sandbox and the walled garden is a different story. And there is the conflict.

However, I share the opinion that he generally buys into the Apple philosophy of things. And, he is a family father with a different perspective (they call that diversity).

Post reply on HN