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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

Apple has not released a screen dimming app, they will be building it into the OS.

This isn't a case where Apple did something incredibly arbitrary and capricious and then immediately ripped someone off (such as if they kicked all poker games out of the store and then included their own poker app). Apple enforced long standing app store rules.

F.lux legitimately deserved to get yelled at, they used private APIs and attempted to circumvent the app distribution system. Both were against the license agreements you have to agree to if you want to use Xcode.

Obviously you can argue about whether the rules should exist, etc. But there was no question that what they were doing would be 100% shot down.

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While you are correct, the concern to which you have responded to is by no means the community's primary one.

Yes, it is true Apple rejected the app due to private API's. It was against the rules to use those API's, and Apple was within their right to reject them. Just as it is within the communities right to petition Apple afterwards and ask them to open up those API's.

The concern now is that without any form of communication, Apple has gone and released an alternative. It is a "ripoff", and there's no two ways about it. The people from f.lux were very diplomatic in their response.

(You can call it an inbuilt feature instead of an "App" all you want, but the US Department of Justice and EU Regulators have had long-standing concerns against OS vendors bundling in features in an effort to stem competition. To say nothing of the irrelevance of how the feature is distributed.)

I do wonder if it's a ripoff. I'd heard of this idea before flux, and I wonder if Apple is nimble enough to be able to 'respond' that quick. Frankly I doubt it, especially if they put lots of thought into it.

I mentioned 'app' because if it WAS an app (which isn't their style, even their apps are often bundled with the OS it would be especially egregious since they'd be doing the exact thing they told flux not to (and as we all know Apple is happy to break their own rules).

I completely agree that in the anti-trust sense (like what happened to MS) the app/built in this is irrelevant.

Respond "that quick"? Flux has been around for years on all major operating systems. It's even been around for years on the iPhone, and is commonly cited as one of the main reasons that people jailbreak.

It's not really the case that they attempted to evade the distribution system and then play the victim card. They've had no illusions that it would likely remain exclusive to the jailbreak community due to the nature of the platform and Apple's rules.

When Apple surprised everyone by saying they would allow sideloading in Xcode 7/iOS 8, f.lux thought great, we'll post it so non-jailbreakers can have it as well. Apple asked them to remove the sideloading variant shortly after, not because it uses private APIs, but because they were not distributing the source. It's always remained available to jailbroken devices (see https://justgetflux.com/cydia/).

It's so odd to read posts like this. The whole hacker mentality we see for start ups is to break the rules, ask for forgiveness later, be a disruptor... But then when it comes the Apple sacred ground ban hammer so many people become apologists. f.lux has been around forever and is a good app with well-intentioned people behind, Apple is clearly ripping them off in this instance.

As I said elsewhere, frankly I doubt Apple can move fast enough to rip them off based on the popularity shown in November. Perhaps this was already in the pipeline.

I don't entirely buy into some of that philosophy, but to me Apple is different here for one reason: every KNOWS they act like this. It's not like this is some out of the blue thing. I don't have much respect for someone purposely running into a wall and then loudly complaining about it in public.

The first few times some of this stuff happened in the App Store or it was an unwritten rule that was 'violated' yelling was TOTALLY fair.

But violating an obvious and published rule that has gotten numerous others kicked out of the store? Why are you complaining? You knew what would happen.

That isn't what happened at all. At no point were they kicked out of the App Store.

I know. My point was Apple is known for tightly enforcing their rules, especially when an app does something they didn't plan on people doing (using system APIs or not). Figured out an alternate use for the volume switch? Put a calculator in Notification Center? Smack down.

I find it odd that people develop the kind of things that Apple is very likely to dislike and then act surprised when Apple acts totally in character.

I'm not arguing what Apple did is good/ok/legal/fun, but it was totally predictable. Even if the app wasn't submitted.

Apple did not need to move fast because Flux has been there on desktop for ages. They need not copy but implement the basic idea of flux.

> they will be building it into the OS.

f.lux is a screen app. You don't need to build it in OS as it works on screen for everything. Its like, tomorrow building an email app or a browser into an OS. f.lux is an application thing, not a system thing.

No, f.lux only tweens the color profiles of the OS in realtime to shift the white point. It's basically a wrapper around a function already in the OS together with a tween library. The only thing f.lux does is control a hidden API /9 it's not comparable to email or a browser.

Or are you suggesting f.lux passes the entire framebuffer at any given point through their code and adjust the color temperature using a shader on the GPU? (No.)

F.lux has nothing to do with GPU or shader. Its an application which tweeks display temperature controls. All modern OS provides such interface, on Linux, its x server extension, on Windows its GDI interface. So, its an application that uses the OS interface, that doesn't mean that it has to be made part of OS. At OS level, you provide functionality of underlying hardware but don't decide policies or features. f.lux is a feature not a functionality to display.

But by going against the rules they have forced apple's hand, and we are better off for it... if their medical claims are correct, they've actually prevented some number of DEATHS by breaking an app developer license agreement.

I find it hard to fault them when I look at it like that.

We don't know if Apple was already developing this before the November kerfuffle. It doesn't look good, even if Apple has been working on it for 3 years.

But again, because for some reason I had to say this last time too:

DEATHS?

Can we avoid obviously hyperbolic statements? I seriously doubt they could ever prove that.

Did you read the article? Link between sleep / blue light and cancer rates. When dealing with billions of people, small forces can cause big numbers...

Clearly the HN hive-mind agrees with you that I'm being to hyperbolic, but downvotes aside I think there's a strong argument that this is so easy that even a very minor health benefit would mandate adding it to every device everywhere.

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