Dash for iOS: Back on the App Store | Hacker News Reader

Dash for iOS: Back on the App Store

blog.kapeli.com

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Dash is excellent and on my best-of software list for programmers who use a Mac.

Fast documentation search works brilliantly and I especially like the offline capabilities.

The Dash iOS app is a great addition -- try it on an iPad with the Duet second screen app.

Best of all, the author is responsible and responsive. Well worth buying.

> The Dash iOS app is a great addition -- try it on an iPad with the Duet second screen app.

Better (for me) is setting the iOS app up as a remote for the macOS app. In Emacs, I can hit `C-c d to` and the iOS app will open the docs for the function my cursor is currently over. I can use my iPad as little docs-only viewer under my monitor.

there's also helm-dash[1], which gives you the documentation part inside your emacs.

1. https://github.com/areina/helm-dash

> Best of all, the author is responsible

I guess you didn't read the the drama from the last time this app was featured on HN.

it's hard not read that parent comment without a bit of skepticism, especially after what the author of Dash was caught doing.

It's good, but not great. The search just isn't very smart and, for many documentations, I often end up in the wrong place and have to follow an endless number of ->see also links. There's no fuzzy search, and no understanding of documentation or source code semantics.

Most importantly, the saga of Dash being banned from the App Store, and the author's blatant attempt to use the community as his private army in an attempt to blackmail Apple, have completely ruined his reputation and any goodwill he may have had at some point,

>Most importantly, the saga of Dash being banned from the App Store, and the author's blatant attempt to use the community as his private army in an attempt to blackmail Apple, have completely ruined his reputation and any goodwill he may have had at some point

Why would that "ruin his reputation"? Seems like a very OK and logical act: get your users to add their voice against the mistreatment of their app by some store's policies.

ADDENDUM: Hmm, reading into the story, the actual issue is false promoting his apps with fake reviews, not that he tried to use the community to help his case with Apple. The problem is that his case was problematic in itself.

[EDIT: not related to Karelia software -- mixed-up Kapeli and Karelia]

Out of curiosity, what else is on that list?

I've been using Dash + Atom for a while now, and have found it's a wonderful addition to my workflow.

https://github.com/blakeembrey/atom-dash

> The Dash iOS app is a great addition -- try it on an iPad with the Duet second screen app.

I'm confused: Duet is an app for viewing a macOS desktop on the iPad. How would you use it with the Dash iOS app?

When Duet is on, the iPad is akin to a second monitor and can show macOS Dash.

When Duet is off, the iPad is typical and can show iOS Dash, which can handle inbound searches such as from a laptop.

Got it, thanks.

That's excellent news! I've been using the macOS version all along (and happily paid to upgrade to the new version that came out recently), but I've definitely missed the iOS version.

On a side note, much as I love the app, the circumstances behind it being pulled came across as shifty. Whatever actually happened, I hope it never happens again.

What exactly was shifty, do you think?

The author released an unauthorised recording of a phone call with Apple. That itself was probably not illegal (though it would be if he had been in California as well).

But, and that made me question his sanity, it basically contradicted everything he had said before, and made it clear he had been lying to the developer community to put public pressure on Apple.

Even worse: when that call was made, Apple had actually given in, and was only asking for him to publicly acknowledge that they had tried to contact him (but only using one of two e-mail addresses on file). He had succeeded in leveraging a minor reputation into a PR defeat for Apple, but got so drunk on power that he threw it away.

I would've wished for a bit more soul-searching in the community that was so eager to grab the pitchforks because the story fit so well with the common narrative of Apple abusing small developers, but oh well...

The initial incident is also pretty well known now: "Someone", with his credit card and developer credentials, created some spammy apps and marketed them with fake reviews. Those apps were signed using hardware registered in his name, which was, from time to time, also used to sign new releases of Dash.

According to him, the spammer was a friend/relative who he was helping to get started.

Background: https://blog.kapeli.com/dash-and-apple-my-side-of-the-story/

From the Apple guy on the phone:

"We need it to be accurate, right? So, accurately stated, we believe the account was linked to an account with fraudulent activity, and accurately you are working with Apple to unlink your account and bring the account back into the program."

"We want to work with you, right? But we want to make it clear that WE didn't make a mistake."

I've never had customer service that bad from Apple before. The ONLY THING this guy wanted was for the guy to write a blog post saying Apple didn't make a mistake!

What? He was caught spamming and defrauding customers on the App Store, and under the pressure of the developer community that believed his story about a "friend" using his credit card/hardware/name they actually gave in and would have let him get away with it... All for the small price of admitting that at the very least he should have read the e-mails they send him before suspending the account.

"Fraud" seems like a pretty strong word for fake reviews.

Isn't it pretty much the definition of fraud?

No.

It doesn't sound at all like Apple believes he ran both accounts on that phone call.

That's certainly an unusual request/demand. On the other hand, it seems clear that Apple didn't make a mistake. Even if the Kapeli guy wasn't personally responsible for the fraudulent activity (but there's some evidence he might have been), it still occurred, on an account using the same credit card as his, and it was reasonable for Apple to initially assume the accounts were operated by the same person and ban them. Further, the specific "accurately stated" language the rep suggested, about the accounts being linked and trying to unlink them, seems to indeed be accurate. So is it that unreasonable to ask him to make a statement to that effect?

Small point of interest, this app was involved in some other controversy in the past too:

https://twitter.com/wakaba_en/status/322751026211983360 https://dribbble.com/shots/1046492-Dash-app-replacement-icon

Yeah, sounds like he had some problems with honesty in the past, however he seems to really be trying to legitimize himself with Dash over the past while, so I'd give him a pass. There aren't that many people willing to reform their ways.

Has he confessed to the fraud?

I guess he did not confess to such a thing, but I don't think he committed fraud, more of a disinformation campaign, but my point is why keep harping on it? He seems to have stopped it and at least we got Dash for iOS open-sourced as a result, so perhaps not ideal, but what do you want to do? You're free to not give him any business, but some people still find it useful.

There are companies like Nestle, IBM and Coca-Cola with much shoddier business practices that I am pretty sure you wouldn't mind doing business with. Bill Gates also did many shady things in the past, yet am sure you used Windows, so did Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt etc.

Pretty strong refutation to his version: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-says-1-000-fraudu...

https://daringfireball.net/2016/10/apple_dash_controversy

Oh good, since I assume this means that the document sets available for Zeal will keep being updated.

(Zeal is a Free Software offline documentation browser for Windows, Linux, and BSD: http://zealdocs.org/)

1) I wish there was license for FOSS software developers without making them wait for every document 10seconds.

2) I only can pay from App Store i wish macOS version was in App Store too.

1. Well, how could you enforce this? How do you know a project is open source?

2. Dash was pulled from the App Store due to conflict between Kapeli and Apple. See the links in the comments above for details.

1) you are right. There is no simple solution, One good policy would be for a first step, the free version of DASH to support only documentation for libraries with GPL license.

2) I do have a serious problem with their business model. Reselling their app after new version. I don't like that business model.

> Quite a few “developers” have even added it to the App Store themselves, violating the GNU GPL license in the process

What violation is the OP referring to?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization

There's debate on whether the DRM imposed by the App Store qualifies as equivalent to hardware restrictions that prevent executing modified software.

Oh I see, GPL v3, but the OP has accepted pull requests and makes no mention of copyright assignment, so the source of Apple App Store version also under GLP v3, so OP is also violating the GPL?

"Quite a few “developers” have even added it to the App Store themselves, violating the GNU GPL license in the process."

Oh, so now the developer is all about following the rules, huh? Rings a bit hollow to me: https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/13/evidence-against-dash-develop...

Can't get the .NET Framework docs to download, restarts after 100MB or so. Anyone else?

I live in Australia and I can't download it without switching my app store country (which is a pain)... Are there any plans to enable it in other countries too?

Please review your link styling to make them more discoverable. As it is, it's impossible to find any links in the article on my mobile.

Dang, I thought it would be the wallet app. :(

Damn Canadian App Store.

Kapeli pls.

Just downloaded in Canada. Don't know whether there was propagation delay or he flipped a switch.

Please, HN, don't promote this fraudulent* developer.

*) https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/13/evidence-against-dash-develop...

(Considering that he has a history of buying user ratings I guess it's also quite possible that the upvoting of this story and (selective) upvoting of its comments is also bought.)

> don't promote this fraudulent* developer

He WAS fraudulent, however he still makes a useful tool and seems to have since corrected his ways, so I'd give him a second chance.

I'm disinclined to support even an ex- plagiarist and app fraudster. Besides, Dash requires me to go to a separate app to look up docs, it's much better to have them integrated into one's editor.

I'll leave the dev's reputation aside as it's already being discussed elsewhere. That said, I think Dash is great. I can pop it up with a global keystroke, not just inside my editor, and I use that a feature lot. It also integrates with just about every editor so that you can open docs from inside those editors with a keystroke.

I very much love having Dash open on my small laptop screen, with Emacs open and filled with code on the much larger external monitor.

This is in the very recent past. October of last year, ffs.

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