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Avoid the Apple App Store

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Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#231

Post by amanzi »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #18
wackget wrote: post #14

Wow, that gallery of Wordle clones is really infuriating, especially when seen in the context of OP's submission. The absolute gall of Apple to reject OP's submission repeatedly despite him providing differentiating features... but then to allow all those trash-tier blatant clones into the app store. That's what infuriates me the most.

If I were Apple, the clones should not be on the App Store and Apple appears to be removing them. However, I don't really know if the OP's original submission should be approved either. Yes, it uses a different language, but the name is very similar, it's being released around the same time as a trend, it looks like a clone.

An interesting question, which the author raises, is why Apple's App Store reviewers should care about a copycat of a third party website or app that does not exist on the App Store. (I can understand them not wanting copycats of existing App Store apps.)

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#232

Post by dkonofalski »

Apocryphon wrote: post #229
dkonofalski wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What actionable feedback could there be? The author is copying Wordle. The very nature of the project is to copy a copyrighted application/website.

Is the inherent game mechanic being the same the problem, or could that be alleviated if the screens looked more distinct? And it is in a different language, after all. Are Wordle's mechanics even copyrighted?

Yes. Apparently, it was one of the first things the NY Times did when they purchased it.

Edit: It was trademarked only. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30378491

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#233

Post by Apocryphon »

dkonofalski wrote: post #232
Apocryphon wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the inherent game mechanic being the same the problem, or could that be alleviated if the screens looked more distinct? And it is in a different language, after all. Are Wordle's mechanics even copyrighted?

Yes. Apparently, it was one of the first things the NY Times did when they purchased it. Edit: It was trademarked only. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30378491

In other languages as well? And then why isn't the Times DMCA'ing all of the more straightforward English Wordle clones out there right now?

Based on the screenshots, it also looks like this whole app rejection process took place prior to the NYT purchase.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#234

Post by philosopher1234 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #59
ectospheno wrote: post #13

I love the App Store. If you want my money then you will be on the App Store. I have purchased zero items for use on my phone from places outside the App Store. I am very happy with this. I love my walled garden. I purchase apple products for this as I consider it a feature. I understand why some people don’t like this and don’t participate. I spend very little time discussing it as people should be able to make thei…

If you think Apple is doing this because they care about you, gentle user, then you will get burned, eventually, probably really badly, and you won't even have any kind of inkling as to why or how you could have avoided it. Behind the cutesy facade is a rapacious, consumer-hostile monster. The facade is paper-thin, and it's only a matter of time until you rub it the wrong way and it flakes off, then the monster will…

This seems light on facts and heavy on fear. I also disagree that removing the head phone jack is user hostile.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#235

Post by Anthony-G »

Apocryphon wrote: post #229
dkonofalski wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What actionable feedback could there be? The author is copying Wordle. The very nature of the project is to copy a copyrighted application/website.

Is the inherent game mechanic being the same the problem, or could that be alleviated if the screens looked more distinct? And it is in a different language, after all. Are Wordle's mechanics even copyrighted?

> Are Wordle's mechanics even copyrighted?

My understanding of intellectual property is that not only are the game mechanics not copyrighted, they aren’t even copyrightable. The code and assets that are used to implement the game mechanics are automatically protected by copyright but not the gameplay itself.

Bringing copyright into this discussion is an irrelevant distraction.

Edit: as both Apple and the NY Times are based in the US, I thought I’d double-check what the US legal situation is (in case American rules differ from the Berne convention). It turns out there’s a whole Wikipedia article dedicated to this subject¹:

> There is a long established Copyright principle called the idea–expression distinction, where Copyright is meant to protect a creator’s unique expression, without giving anyone a monopoly on a broader idea. The US Copyright Office specifically states that “Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game.”

Also: A Stack Exchange answer² provided a reference for the quotation cited in the Wikipedia article. The original US Copyright Office URL is now a 404 but here’s the archived version of their article: https://web.archive.org/web/20160403041628/http://www.copyri...

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...

² https://law.stackexchange.com/a/4653

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#236

Post by dkonofalski »

Apocryphon wrote: post #233
dkonofalski wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Apparently, it was one of the first things the NY Times did when they purchased it. Edit: It was trademarked only. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30378491

In other languages as well? And then why isn't the Times DMCA'ing all of the more straightforward English Wordle clones out there right now? Based on the screenshots, it also looks like this whole app rejection process took place prior to the NYT purchase.

I would imagine that it's unique to Wordle right now because of recency. There were probably a deluge of Wordle-clones that were submitted to the App Store recently to capitalize and take advantage of both the buzz and the name.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#237

Post by dkonofalski »

jonatanheyman wrote: post #189
dkonofalski wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The developer's post assumes that those other clones won't be removed. It also assumes that every review process is exactly the same. We only know one side of the story here and it's full of assumptions and conjecture.

As the writer of the post, I would love to hear Apple's side of the story. The reason I didn't include more quotes from Apple was that they never cited anything other than "resembles Wordle" and "leverages Wordle" in their replies. But clearly, given that they don't apply these rules when it comes to other apps (such as Scrabble, Minesweeper, Tetris, etc.), there is something else going on.

With respect, you don't know that they aren't attempting to take action on those other apps. Wordle may be a recent copyright issue since NYT has purchased the original. It seems like their rules do apply to these other apps but they just haven't gotten the attention that Wordle has so there's less bias towards those.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#238

Post by Steltek »

bastardoperator wrote: post #224
Steltek wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homebrew is not Apple so you're just reinforcing OP's point: you need to go to a 3rd party to get a CLI that's worth a damn. Nor is Homebrew supported by Apple which is totally outrageous, given that without it, you might as well buy an iPad for how useful MacOS is.

And yum, dnf, dpkg, apt, pacman, emerge, zypper are not Linux. Like brew they repackage software. Let's also not pretend that in the world of Linux I haven't had to add a 3rd party repo to get something working or look to community repos or even enable testing/unstable branches assuming I can get what I want working to work. There are trade offs everywhere. Considering it takes an entire second to add brew to a machi…

You're classing essentially nonprofit Linux community efforts as "3rd party" then you're comparing it to one of the flagship products of one of the largest tech companies in the world. Are you even listening to yourself? This is absurd.

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#239

Post by FalconSensei »

Apocryphon wrote: post #208
FalconSensei wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how do you prevent the users from thinking the problem was the non-App Store content instead of an update? They ARE going to contact support anyway

Simply, if you enable sideloading/downloading from non App Store, you make it very visible in the UX that you are essentially in a "non-safe mode" (the actual security status probably varies, but Apple would probably go out of its way to hype up the potential of danger here), and you consent to all sorts of disclaimers disavowing Apple's responsibility here, and recommending they make backups before doing so. In fact…

> If users complain after sideloading was enabled, the Geniuses can simply tap on the sign.

Denying service to a lot of users still means having to talk to them. And will leave users upset.

> you make it very visible in the UX that you are essentially in a "non-safe mode" (the actual security status probably varies, but Apple would probably go out of its way to hype up the potential of danger here), and you consent to all sorts of disclaimers disavowing Apple's responsibility here, and recommending they make backups before doing so. In fact maybe they could distinguish between pre- and post-sideloading enablement backups.

Also making security better, like sandboxing all sideloaded apps. But then you are suggesting that Apple takes a lot of time and effort to implement a way for them to lose revenue AND have upset users when their phones are bricked? Even though I want sideloaded apps, I can see why they don't want to do that

Re: Avoid the Apple App Store

#240

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

eps wrote: post #5

Well, this does look like a straight Wordle copy. It is also disingenious to say that's a copy of Lingo, when it's bloody obvious it's a Wordle clone. The fact that other clones were approved by Apple points at another issue.

The simple explanation is that apple is successfully rejecting 99% of the incoming wordle clone spam (as experienced by the article author) and failing and letting in 1% (which still is a large number of apps). The author experiences one of the thousands of rejections, but can see all the acceptances.
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