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Comment by bhousel | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't consider "Stop what you're doing or we will end you" a slap on the wrist.

I'm not well versed on App Store TOS, but if this were done by an indie developer is this the response that they'd have gotten?

My guess is the app would have been removed from the store. Uber was able to get away with just a warning.

Apple usually provides warning before removal. For example, when they decided portions of Transmit were unacceptable, they asked Panic to change them before deleting the app.

https://panic.com/blog/transmit-ios-1-1-1/

Panic by far and away isn't an "indie developer". In the Mac dev space, they're pretty big.

There have been countless posts on HN from smaller devs getting their apps immediately pulled upon an update review for something they got no warning for.

Panic isn't a tiny player, I agree, but they're not Uber. there's a possibility the human reviewer assigned to its case hadn't heard of the company. If I were a reviewer and I had no personal experience with the app or did not immediately recognize the name, I'd be inclined to treat them just like anyone else.

I would not be surprised if the big hitters are not already tagged as such when the reviews get sent in. Whether there's something as small as a tag for the reviewer to know, or even a separate queue, I sure as hell can bet they go through an expedited and streamlined review process for their updates and such. They're the bread and butter of the App Store, so it's in Apple's best interest to treat them well.

Panic's warnings were in good faith. Cabel's team clearly thought something was permitted, and was simply told "no, you misunderstood" by the review team at Apple.

Uber actively tried to deceive the review team.

Dash might be a better example. The account generating fraudulent reviews was contacted before apps were removed from the store. It's entirely possible that Apple screwed up by not communicating with the account used to publish Dash, but that's not what I'm arguing here -- I'm saying that even in clear cases of fraud, Apple usually talks to the developer first.

Didn't they remove iFixit because they didn't like that they made a guide for Apple Watch? There are tons of apps removed for much less.

Sure, but what does this say to developers when the policy appears to be "if we catch you doing sketchy things, you will have to stop"?

Doesn't this simply teach would-be bad actors that they get to act with impunity until they get caught, and then simply stop?

It seems that this is current modus operandi in the business world.

Yea, but they can't actually end Uber. That would make it obvious to the consumer Apple can't give them what they want.

I'd call not enforcing the actual punishment a slap on the wrist.

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