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Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

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Re: Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

#121

You’re angry. I’ve felt this in a trademark lawsuit. You think the world should get behind you and change the corrupt system. My advice is to immediately rebrand as gracefully and effectively as possible and use all that activist energy to effect the transition. They kind of have a point which doesn’t make them right, but they hold all the cards and you will lose this one and regret the wasted bandwidth.

I disagree. First, I recommend sending this to the following people: - Any congressional representatives that target Apple for antitrust - Facebook's PR team. - Various tech new outlets

If anyone is willing to make a big case out of this then you can use that media attention to grow your application's user base. This has potential for easy free advertisement through media controversy.

After you have gotten enough free advertisement, go forward with this recommendation of changing your branding.

Re: Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

#122
post #24
post #2

That's very silly. The times are ready for a new job title: software product namer, to make sure a name won't offend anyone or violate trademarks and store guidelines.

Honestly the real enemy (if people are genuinely offended I tend to side with them) is people being offended on behalf of other people.

It may be a little nastier than that.

In some cases, they're selective about which groups will and will not be sheltered from offense. And they may refuse to admit that, let alone engage in a public, civil debate about their choices.

Re: Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

#123
What a dumb application of this rule in this context. I remember a similar app called caffeine (not sure what happened to it).

Amphetamine is great - I use it daily to stop annoying infosec rules from locking my computer after 2min since I’m working from home. It’s my favorite kind of software, focuses on one issue and does it well.

Re: Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

#124
post #69

Can we stop endlessly puting Apple's various authoritarians missteps under the spotlight? It's been literally decades now, we know they can and will do whatever they want in their walled garden. Stop giving them attention. Complaining clearly does not work, if you want to make a difference, change platforms. Nobody is forcing you to develop for Apple.

Do you similarly think that American newspapers should stop publishing articles about China's various authoritarian missteps? You could just ignore articles that don't interest you, and you certainly don't need to go to the trouble of commenting on them, although I support your efforts to encourage people to change platform (and reduce their customer base by half).

Are you seriously equating a company choosing not to host an app with the genocidal policies of a communist government?

Re: Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

#125

You’re angry. I’ve felt this in a trademark lawsuit. You think the world should get behind you and change the corrupt system. My advice is to immediately rebrand as gracefully and effectively as possible and use all that activist energy to effect the transition. They kind of have a point which doesn’t make them right, but they hold all the cards and you will lose this one and regret the wasted bandwidth.

They don't have a point based on the wording of their own rule, because amphetamines are not a class of controlled substances.

They don't have a point based on basic common sense either, because this application isn't telling people to use amphetamines. It's a metaphor.

Re: Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

#126

You’re angry. I’ve felt this in a trademark lawsuit. You think the world should get behind you and change the corrupt system. My advice is to immediately rebrand as gracefully and effectively as possible and use all that activist energy to effect the transition. They kind of have a point which doesn’t make them right, but they hold all the cards and you will lose this one and regret the wasted bandwidth.

> They kind of have a point How is just using the word or a charicature of it encouraging drug use? This puritanism is a mind disease.

Yeah and I'm sure you'd have no problem with your kids using an app that happens to be called Pedophile. Or maybe you'd have no problem with your wife using an app called Slut. After all those are just words and you don't suffer mind diseases.

Re: Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amphetamine on the other hand has only one very well defined use case. Are you referring to the widespread use of it as an ADHD medication for children all throughout the nation?

Apologies, where I come from this is not a common treatment for ADHD. I’m not a specialist but as a father of two lively boys I did my share of reading about diagnosing and treating ADHD in Europe.

I apologize if I'm misunderstanding your comment. But just to help others avoid confusion, ADHD isn't the same as being extra energetic.

Re: Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

#128

You’re angry. I’ve felt this in a trademark lawsuit. You think the world should get behind you and change the corrupt system. My advice is to immediately rebrand as gracefully and effectively as possible and use all that activist energy to effect the transition. They kind of have a point which doesn’t make them right, but they hold all the cards and you will lose this one and regret the wasted bandwidth.

> They kind of have a point

They don't (the claim is the app promotes drug use, which it doesn't), and it's quite likely that it's a reviewer mistake that will be overturned once the stink on social media gets big enough to reach the right person.

Re: Apple has threatened to remove Amphetamine from the App Store

#129
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the opposite—not that they should censor/moderate their other stores, but why are they hypocritical (edit: or inconsistent, if you prefer) in saying that certain content is harmful when consumed as an app, but not as a book or movie that they are happy to sell to you?

That's not hypocritical; it's surprising you can't see that. An app is software that can be harmful to your device. Books and movies are not software and can't affect your device in any way. Therefore, there is a very obvious justification for disallowing some apps; that doesn't apply for books or movies. It's also not "hypocritical" for Apple to choose to have a curated App Store (which is feasible and realistic) bu…

> An app is software that can be harmful to your device.

I'm only discussing moderation for content, rather than moderation for security, privacy, stability, etc.

> actively censor books (which isn't really feasible)

I don't think it's infeasible. I just searched for a piece of literature today on Apple's Book Store and instead found a book with a pretty raunchy title. Could they not at least moderate that?

Keep in mind they make it seem "feasible and realistic" that they can analyze apps to determine if they "can be harmful to your device," but anyone familiar with static analysis would know there are serious limitations to how much you can deduce about the behavior of an arbitrary binary.

See, for instance: https://www.reuters.com/article/apple-security-idUSN1E7A71ZS...

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