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WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

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Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#31

Post by bdcravens »

strombofulous wrote: post #25
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top of the regular fees to make consumers aware If you don't know that, it is not allowed to sell for more in iOS than in your site, and the app will get banned for attempting that, forget about displaying 30% apple tax to the users explicitly. Edit: Heard from somewhere, likely not f…

Twitch charges $5.99 for a subscription to a streamer in their app but $5 on their website. Are they breaking this rule too? How are they getting away with it?

Are the subscriptions portable between the web and mobile apps? Or only valid one place or the other?

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#32

Post by bilal4hmed »

wmf wrote: post #15
bilal4hmed wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are betting on the fact that arent a majority in any space. Its the best situation for them, then dont have majority market share but make the most revenue. They see Google being split up and therefore being the only game in town.

I didn't notice when this happened, but apparently iPhone now has over 50% of the US phone market.

interesting neither did I. Globally its still 25% however.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#33

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

fermienrico wrote: post #10
turblety wrote: post #5

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple. But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great…

Unpopular opinion that I hold: The walled garden is exactly why I love Apple's iPhone. iPhone keeps the rifraff away, third-party sniffers at check, they've recently added clipboard notification if some app tries to paste random stuff from my clipboard (given that we use it so much for 1Password and other password managers). I absolutely do not trust any third party - there are some insane apps like LinkedIn that tri…

Me too, I've chosen Apple devices, mostly because I like Apple's Continuity features and their walled-garden mindset. In particular, I really wish Apple would push Apple Pay and Sign-In with Apple more: I already trust Apple with all sorts of private data (Face ID, iCloud Keychain, etc.), I don't want to also have to evaluate PayPal/Google/FB/whoever as an alternative sign-in or payment vendor.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#34

Post by frabcus »

scarface74 wrote: post #22
rstat1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen... I've heard from other iOS devs in a similar bind that Apple forbids you from doing anything to recover the 30% cut they take. You either just have to eat it, or make your prices 30% higher everywhere.

This is not true. Both Spotify, when they were in the App Store, and NYT have higher prices in the App Store than outside.

Apple enforce the rules capriciously, and change them on a whim.

Almost certainly, they allow Spotify and the NYT because iOS customers and potential customers would object too much if they were removed from the store.

A well as the 30% tax making all apps worse in quality by removing money from development, the unpredictableness and unfairness destroys many businesses before they even start.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#35

Post by sschueller »

turblety wrote: post #5

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple. But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great…

The play store is getting worse and worse. It will eventually end up being just a bad.

Meanwhile every iteration of Android is getting more locked down because of "security". No more external cameras etc..

The future look bleak until we get a true open source alternative running on open hardware.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#36

Post by api »

turblety wrote: post #5

I know I really don't matter to Apple, but this walled garden and app store dictatorship is what finally made me move away from iOS to Android last year. I had used Android in the past, but it was with Samsung Galaxy's which where very bloated and awful when compared to Apple. But when a friend told me that Samsung just ruin Android [1] and I should try an actual Google phone, I bought a Pixel and it's honestly great…

Unfortunately going from iOS to Android is out of the frying pan into the fire. Android is much worse from a privacy point of view. You can easily see this by just spying on network traffic and DNS requests from the device. It's constantly telling everyone about you.

Your choice in mobile is walled castle or forest full of thieves.

I suppose there are open source phones around but I don't personally find them that useful yet. The main things I want to do with a mobile device is interact with services like Uber, Lyft, Netflix, etc., and get directions. I suppose directions exist via OpenStreetMap but can you reserve an Uber on a Linux phone?

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#37

Post by detaro »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #30
floatingatoll wrote: post #16

They're lucky that Apple hasn't yet realized their app is GPLv2. They're going to end up purged from the app store altogether unless they relicense their codebase, no matter what they end up deciding to do with IAP.

What's the problem with GPLv2 licensed app?

Short version of the usual argument: GPL says you can't add restrictions on what a user can do when you distribute an app. App Store terms of service do add restrictions, so distributing an GPL app through the app store is a license violation.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#38

Post by Hamuko »

snapetom wrote: post #26
Hamuko wrote: post #4

It's quite amazing how hard Apple is pushing this now with all of the extra regulatory eyes on the subject. I guess they're fairly confident that they're untouchable.

It might be more because Epic is forcing their hand. Up to this point, Apple either just nudged smaller players or secretly negotiated deals with larger ones. With Epic shining a light on this, Apple has to more blatantly enforce this across the board. Now, in a legal setting, Epic can't point out how inconsistent Apple is with this policy.

Hey was before the Epic thing and that seemed like the start of the recent events.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#39

Post by stordoff »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #20
giancarlostoro wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really sad. On the one hand, sure Apple should be able to make a cut on their app store, on the other hand, they shouldn't be allowed to force apps to do this sort of thing. This will only drive domain prices higher on iOS in order to compensate (in the case of Automattic). If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top…

> If I were in a position where Apple is forcing me to pay a 30% tax, I would literally add "30% Apple Tax" to the check out screen on top of the regular fees to make consumers aware If you don't know that, it is not allowed to sell for more in iOS than in your site, and the app will get banned for attempting that, forget about displaying 30% apple tax to the users explicitly. Edit: Heard from somewhere, likely not f…

Microsoft seem to get away with it:

Forza Street on iOS - 125 Gold: £4.99, 255 Gold: £9.99

Forza Street on Windows 10 - 125 Gold: £3.99, 255 Gold: £7.99

Both connect to the same account.

Re: WordPressiOS Locked by App Store

#40

Post by kmeisthax »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #30
floatingatoll wrote: post #16

They're lucky that Apple hasn't yet realized their app is GPLv2. They're going to end up purged from the app store altogether unless they relicense their codebase, no matter what they end up deciding to do with IAP.

What's the problem with GPLv2 licensed app?

The App Store TOS specifically prohibits you from redistributing any app you download from it. GPLv2 specifically prohibits that, so any distribution of an app under GPLv2 terms is a license violation. GPLv3 would be even worse as you cannot provide Installation Instructions.

However, WordPress/Automattic has copyright ownership, which means GPLv2 terms don't apply. If you get the app from the App Store, then the App Store terms apply, and if you downloaded the source code from GitHub, then you have GPLv2 terms and can compile and install it yourself. However, you cannot legally submit, say, a modified WordPress app with GPLv2 code in it back to the App Store. This gets tricky if WordPress accepts pull requests under GPLv2 terms, though, as they would then be bound by those terms and no longer be able to offer App Store terms. This is why some Free Software projects require CLAs, so they can both have a strict copyleft and still be on app stores that don't allow that to happen.

Funnily enough I'm pretty sure Microsoft realized this problem, and added an explicit waiver of Microsoft Store TOS terms for software distributed under Free Software terms. I haven't actually checked their TOS in a long while, though, so I may be misremembering things.

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