Apple has removed us from the App Store
blog.rescuetime.com
blog.rescuetime.com
They're admitting to using background location to infer screen time, which is clearly "misuse" according to section 2.5.4. Whether the decision is right or wrong, I find it hard to believe that the developer is actually confused by this.
They use it for location data to display where you are using your phone. They also use that location data to infer other things as well. Your comment makes it seem like they aren't using it for location data at all.
I agree that users ought to be able to use the app without granting access to location data (opting out of #2). But unfortunately, if Apple provides no way of inferring screen time without use of location, this category of app is impossible.
Multitasking apps may only use background services for their intended purposes: VoIP, audio playback, location, task completion, local notifications, etc. If your app uses location background mode, include a reminder that doing so may dramatically decrease battery life.
Screen time inference is clearly not an intended purpose for location, since the actual location data obtained has no connection to it (i.e. to #1 above; note we're interpreting "purpose" from the user's perspective). It sounds like the rep is misinformed, or that the TOS needs to be updated with an explicit exception.
Etc here could allow almost everything or nothing. Depending on what argument you want to push.
Ultimately it’s Apple‘s walled garden and they have the final say.
[citation needed]
I'm not going to say it's super useful, but it has a use.. I would categorize this in the same bucket as Snapchat needing your GPS.
Anyway, the complaint is that they are using this data for more than features and functionality.
Their side of the story leads me to believe this is not the case, and only Apple knows why they think this company is abusing the data they are collecting.
If you are a map app, location data is fine.
If you are tracking screen time, then no.
Apple's is targeting folks like my parents here. They love that apple just works, no crazy secret battery drains etc. Even the subtle prompts apple gives (the little arrow outline etc) is NOT ENOUGH for folks like my parents. It needs to follow logically from what they are doing (no buried menus / advanced features). Apple largely delivers on this. Check out an older person using an android phone with a total ton of apps (and android 3-5 years old, older folks upgrade MUCH more slowly). It's a honking mess. Seriously the battery life goes into the trash, the phone has got a billion things running on it.
Apple is making BIG money focusing pretty strictly on privacy. The idea that they are doing this to avoid competitors to screen time (which they make no extra money on) is ludicrous.
Incorrect. The complaint is that they are not using Location for its intended purpose, thereby impacting the performance (battery life) of the device. Quoted in the article:
> Performance – 2.5.4
> Your app is misusing background location for purposes other than location-related features and functionality.
The key word here is location-related features and functionality. Not "features and functionality" in general, as your comment implies.
I don't think it could be any more clear-cut. "Screen time" is just about the least "location-related feature/functionality" that one could think of. It's pretty clear that they are violating the terms of service, regardless of the benefit that this feature may or may not provide.
It's quite sad that apple conveniently are heavy handing them now that they have built in screen time. Users can't really complain cause this functionality is not kind of baked into the phone anyways.
It's impressive and hurtful at the same time, Apple has unprecedented amount of leverage over app developers and app developers should be careful not to cross Apple's path if they don't want their time to go waste.
It seems some here maybe confused that location in the app is being used surreptitiously, or ScreenTime measured surreptitiously. In fact, it is explicitly requested, explained to the users who sign up, and reflected clearly in the app with all the necessary warnings about possible battery issues on generations of devices affected (6 and prior) and used to report on location. And screen time.
Our users are installing the app for both features, knowing both are there, in the same vein as a number of other digital tools Apple has allowed in the store, that use the same approach.
I have to wonder whether RescueTime included the mapping feature (to see where you're using your iPhone) just to satisfy this requirement. But in the absence of evidence that this feature was included as a pretext, what should happen?
It would seem fair to require that the "primary purpose" of an API's usage be for the intended purpose of that API. But no such rule exists in Apple's guidelines, AFAIK. Instead, we're just left with the overarching principle that Apple can interpret its rules however it wants.
As someone who's been on the receiving end of this principle, I have to say I'm not a fan.
I develop an app that does similar features, we are currently still in the store but apple won't let us release any updates for 3-4 months now. They keep saying rubbish like this but at the end of the day they don't want competition for this own apps.
If they do kill this category of app, I’d say there’s a 99% chance it’s either for technical (for example battery drain) or more likely, privacy reasons.
You were misusing multiple APIs and hoped that the reviewers won’t notice.
Facebook used to play silent audio in the background to prevent their app from being suspended. They got found out too and had to stop doing it. Suck it up!
I hope Apple would one day reject those apps that misuse silent push notifications for uninstall tracking too.
If Apple is preventing developers from providing useful apps for arbitrary technical reasons, that's Apple being bad, not the developer.
That's different from uninstall tracking that surprises users in a bad way.
Ultimately, Apple gets to decide what is allowed and what isn’t. If I make a handwarmer app that purposely runs the CPU at 100% I’m pretty sure Apple would reject that too, even though it would be useful for users.
That's like letting appliance makers decide what food people can store or cook, or letting phone makers decide who people can call.
I understand this is the status quo, we can also discuss whether it's right, even if it's currently technically possible and legally permitted.
And it’s not like iPhones are being forced onto people. People go out of their way to buy iPhones... Maybe there is some merit to these Draconian rules? Just look at the sorry state of the Google Play Store with all the low-effort adware or outright maliscious crap.
On the other hand, there clearly exist good product ideas* that need more privileges, long-lived background execution being one. There ought to be a way for a proven good actor to get blessed for special entitlements where they're critical to the product. (There's already at least one entitlement in this model: "Hotspot Helper".)
On a technical front, Apple's positioning the iPad as a laptop replacement; well, the users who are going to buy into that are going to be using authoring, productivity, and communications software that they'll want to be flexible and responsive. That might mean -- horrors -- the occasional helper daemon...
*I don't actually know if RescueTime is in this bucket; I'd never heard of it before this article.
But then again, I’d highly doubt Apple would ever allow general-purpose daemons on the iPhone. On the iPad Pro, maybe.
No, Apple clearly said this is not OK by rejecting the app.
This is not a courtroom where you get to debate how the letter of the law should be interpreted.
If I invite you to my garden party, but don’t like your behaviour then I can throw you out.
I don't have a reason to mistrust them, but I also don't have a reason to give them this much of my trust either. A breach of the RescueTime database would be insanely invasive.
Apple's issue here is there is no consistency for "misuse" where misuse is defined as location being secondary or primary to the API use. That is what their review board is claiming, and it so far used in a capricious and anti-competitive fashion.
Note: this is Mark from RescueTime.
Also, can you explain a bit more why you need to capture location information for measuring the users screen time? The two things seem pretty unrelated to me (but I’m not an user of the app either).
As the APIs stand today, the only way the phone screen pick up event can be captured, is if the persistent location capability is in place. Of course, a users location is very informative for work goals and what a users hopes might be for screen time, so it also matters as a data point (think, office vs transit).
So a number of apps have used both together, for the purpose of tackling digital wellness. The decision as to which is "primary" has been applied without consistency by the reviewers.
https://academy.realm.io/posts/altconf-josh-michaels-depreca...
Description at the link: "It’s every Apple developers worst nightmare. Your app is doing well, business is going fine, then all of a sudden BAM! Something changes in Apple’s world and suddenly everything is at risk. Sometimes it’s as simple as Apple deprecating an API you depend on. Other times it’s a policy matter - a change in rules that has Apple requesting that you change or remove your app from the store. Sometimes it is a bug in the platform which you have to hack a creative workaround for. No matter what the specifics, developers should be prepared to handle that day when Apple pulls the rug out. After more than six years of working on apps in Apple’s land I’ve had more than my fair share of these experiences. In this talk I will go through four different examples from multiple developers covering the most common situations in which changes in Apple land can disrupt your app. Through these stories I will offer best practices for handling these difficult situations from how to interact with Apple to how to deal with the gripping frustration that can come along with these challenges. The goal of this talk is to better prepare attendees for that inevitable day when something goes wrong and in doing so help reduce the ambient anxiety many developers feel about the possibility of such problems."
The worst answer we've had to our use of the APIs has been "the API might change in the future and your app might stop working" - about the location API
> It also happened to capture screen time, obviously important to the app. Be clear here: Apple has not said this aspect is misuse.
In your article, you link directly to a clause:
"Your app is misusing background location for purposes other than location-related features and functionality."
It would seem Apple are directly telling you that this aspect is misuse, on account of they call it that, and the actual disagreement here is "We do not ... agree that this is “misusing” the method". Apple's position seems clear.
> Screen time recording is blessed by Apple
What's your evidence for this? That they provide it themselves? There are plenty of things that Apple bless for themselves to do via apps, and not for 3rd parties to do. Is your evidence that the rules aren't being applied consistently? That's not evidence, that's an appeal to fairness.
> Apple's issue here is there is no consistency for "misuse" where misuse is defined as location being secondary or primary to the API use.
This seems an odd sentence to say just after "Apple has not said this aspect is misuse".
You argument boils down to "everyone else is doing it so why can't we". A reply to your comment shows that Apple appears to be cracking down in general, and as a well-known brand, it shouldn't be that surprising that you're getting targeted first.
The problem for is more that it's open and inconsistent interpretation, in their own words, when they decide that. Their position is "clear" with the respect to the other apps in our space that they banned, and then allowed back in. So "clear" to one entity combined (-1) * "clear" to another has the sum of zero clarity.
> What's your evidence for this? That they provide it themselves? There are plenty of things that Apple bless for themselves to do via apps, and not for 3rd parties to do. Is your evidence that the rules aren't being applied consistently? That's not evidence, that's an appeal to fairness.
This evidence is not shareable here for others privacy and respect. It is the combination of content of a number of conversations between app developers we communicate with, and with Apple's conversations with all of us.
> This seems an odd sentence to say just after "Apple has not said this aspect is misuse".
This is admittedly a poor and opaque hint at the above note.
We haven't been targeted first, we are in the pool of targets, and some Apple has let back in. These apps list screen time management as their primary raison-d'etre.
I am sorry, but location data has become a really hot topic to come in digital privacy related debates. And your usage is not justified. I would love to use your app but with "Always" flag off.
I don't know the people to whom this is a valuable bit of information, but I don't know of the people who really want to know how much time they are spending in different apps either.
“Our take is that, eventually, all native apps will disappear and be replaced by web-based tools. This trend is just getting started and it might well be that, in a few years, there won’t be any app stores and we’ll be back to how it’s supposed to be in the first place: open web applications.
Now there are these gatekeepers, such as Apple, who have a hold over how the technology works and how the marketing channels work, but once we are back to some sort of open Web, other players such as startups will get fair chances and space to grow.”
https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2018/11/06/8-tech-predic...
This was years ago, and probably on an older phone. Perhaps the newer phones handle this more efficiently? I ask because I'd love to use one of these apps but am wary of the battery impact.
You can go download Moment from the App Store right now and find out :)
Related question: now that apps are not backed up when an iPhone is backed up to a computer, is it possible to keep a removed-from-App-Store app when upgrading from one iPhone to the next? Or will I lose all these apps (if they are removed) when I get my next iPhone?
Mute App: Startup to Shutdown by Nick Kuh https://link.medium.com/GVbEIzHhIR
A better comparison would be a general contractor in your city. You can build for yourself, for others on spec, custom per customer, tract homes, etc. The rules for where and how you can build are clearly laid out in advance in the building code. You’ll need inspections and sign-offs from the building dept that you’re following the building code. It’s sometimes annoying, and occasionally unfair. But if you want to build in their jurisdiction, you play by their rules. You’re welcome to go build in the middle of nowhere where building codes are lax or non-existent, but guess what, there are no customers there.
In both cases, you are operating inside a platform economy. I.e., an economy that's embedded inside the real economy, and it's being regulated by a company (as opposed to the government).
These companies can do anything they want. The premise is "if you don't like what company X does, then find work elsewhere".
The only subtle tweak I'd make to your comparison is that Apple's rules are not clearly laid out in advance. In this specific case, Apple had previously approved the same app for literally years, without a change in the relevant rule they claim to now be enforcing. That same rule Apple claims they're now in violation of is intentionally vague — it sort of hand-waves away what behaviors Apple wants to allow or disallow location tracking for, giving editors lots of leeway to turn a blind eye or not.
This could be a call to action included in the Rescuetime newsletter.
Despite their occasional authoritarian moments, Apple generally listens to enough frustrated customers.
Closed source comprehend such situation, FOSS does not.
[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/16/apples-app-store-revenue-n...
If "browsers" were a market at the time of the Microsoft anti trust ruling, a $70B app store space is very much a market according to prevailing economic theory.
You just don't like the truth about Apple, which is understandable, as they're a loved brand. But evil
I moved into an apartment.
The title also claims other time-tracking apps were removed, so was is the reason?
UPD. I see the title was edited, and they have retracted the others apps claim now. The first question still stands though.
This similar to how they ban apps that do cryptocurrency mining in the background.
With the exception of a few specific Apple apps (Mail is actually the only one I know of now, and I believe it is more that the Mail app is a renderer of the system mail process) and apps which use particular API (such as VOIP and navigation-related location), you cannot have your app run persistently in the background to preserve power and resources. Using these API has always required you actually be an app in these categories.
Independent of draining battery and tying up the CPU/memory - it sounds like the primary purpose of this app (tracking your phone usage) broke if you didn't consent to a secondary feature (reporting where you were when you used your phone). Which means the app was fundamentally broken. Which isn't a surprise, because the API doesn't let you make this sort of app.
Apple has dozens of daemons that run continuously that handle everything from push notifications to fetching calendars to performing backups.
Apple has chosen to position itself as the only way to install apps, which I feel is generally fine, but as Apple's customer, I have every right to complain to them when they harm my experience with their product by denying me a product I want based purely on business decisions and that don't protect me.
Apple does not remove apps from your device, it stops you from downloading them. So this is still like a store refusing to sell something rather than a storeowner coming to your house and taking things.
Just because they've never done it doesn't mean they can't.
> So this is still like a store refusing to sell something rather than a storeowner coming to your house and taking things.
You conveniently ignoring the fact they've still gone and left trash on my device is noticed.
What type of content will Apple be allowed to ban on its store? Do you want the government telling Apple what they have to allow third parties to access on thier OS? Should the government tell them that every developer should have root access? Access to the Secure Enclave?
And do you want to set up a “government app review board” to decide on a case by case basis when Apple is denying an app for “competitive reasons”?
PS: We really need a community-backed hackernews.org
They’re the only taco store on this block! I demand the government force them to lower their prices so I don’t have to walk more than 50 feet!
If you don’t like it, switch to Android. But of course, the real problem is that people don’t want to switch to Android. They want to have their cake and eat it to, but that’s unfair and illogical, so they start slicing down the market to where they can cry monopoly and ask the government to force the business to give them what they want.
Android apps and Iphone simply aren't substitutable goods, so they are different markets.
But people who care about “freedom” and “openness” and not being in Apple’s “walled garden” can easily by an Android.
But how aren’t the two substitutable?
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM... [2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/1072648
It "nationalizes" the monopoly app by creating a generic version of the same app.
The problem is, the generic app versions are exceptional in that they have much deeper access to the phone than a traditional independently built App Store app.
Seems unfair.
For example I use FDriod as much as possible only using the Play Store to get the few non-open source apps I use
This case is because of the performance implications of persistent background location services, not because it competes with Apple. That logic makes no sense anyway since Apple makes money from this app! And, admittedly, similar apps haven’t been blocked, so clearly this isn’t a business “strategy” but one of technical implementation.
Out of curiosity: Is there a generic version of RescueTime?
> The problem is, the generic app versions are exceptional in that they have much deeper access to the phone than a traditional independently built App Store app.
This is what Microsoft allegedly did with Office. Sysinternals' Mark Russinovic documented that so called "Native API" in the late nineteens. Of course the pages are all gone since Microsoft bought Sysinternals but they are still in archive.org[1].
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20040630004415/http://www.sysint...
EDIT:
Latest working snapshot is from 1 Sept 2006:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060901032614/http://www.sysint...
>Thoughts along these lines usually lead to the Native API conspiracy theory: Microsoft is keeping the API for themselves and their own application to unfair advantage.
From my memory of the discussion back then I think "their own application" was understood as mainly MS Office. The back this up bit more the Analysis of the Inadequacies of Microsoft [1] by the DOJ specifically mentions "the Internet Explorer browser, and Office in desktop applications".
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20080625000937/http://www.consum...
Apple are most likely to cop the flack for that, and given a few recent poor choices on Apple's part regarding making un-acknowledged changes to try and maintain appearance of good battery life, it's not _too_ surprising they're choosing to more heavily enforce rules in that area to reduce the number of complaints that hit _their_ support lines which are directly attributable (but not to the majority of iPhone owners) to people bending or breaking app store rules...
In the "mobile apps" market, Apple is an overwhelming monopoly with 66% market share [1]. Some stats:
- Total app store market revenues for 1st half (1H) of 2018: ~$33B
- Apple's app-store revenue for 1H-2018: $22B
- Apple's market share: 66%
They constantly abuse their power and stifle competition by:
1. Banning apps (this app, steam streaming, ....)
2. Stifling the iOS browser's compliance with W3C spec, to force developers into their app store.
The EU and FTC should have ample data to stop this abuse.
[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/16/apples-app-store-revenue-n...
I would have thought most people at this time would know that Apple does not take lightly a situation where an app is sending lots of privacy related user behavior to some kind of server somewhere. At a minimum, store this analytics on the phone only. But then again, you may use APIs for reasons other than their intended purpose.
[1]: https://www.cultofmac.com/552995/app-store-rules-steam-link/
After all, there are permissions dialogs. If an app needs location data, and asks me for it, why can't I decide to grant permission of the app to use it for novel new use cases like screen time management?
This not only inhibits innovation, it takes away my own agency and ownership of my, very expensive, device.
This kind of nanny state, closed source, locked down stuff used to cause everyone to rebel on HN. We'd have people quoting Richard Stallman, etc.
These days, it seems like HN has abandoned a lot of its original culture, and is totally willing to cede control of computing to a proprietary, locked down, centralized control mechanism that permits no exploration or hacking, and certainly no forking.
Can't we protect users AND allow them to make informed decisions? What if I want to use a battery draining service? There's lots of games that will nuke your battery very fast. Hell, the Camera app on my iPhone 6 used to drain my battery fast.
And hanging over this is the spectre that once again, this is Apple killing off third party apps that compete with iOS 12's own built in screen time management features.
What does the price of a phone have to do with anything? If someone buys a $300 iPhone, or a $25 flip phone, do they not deserve the same amount of privacy or choice?
Unfortunately, the answer to this question currently seems to be “no”. I have not found a system that both allows people to have “choice” and also prevents the average user from messing up their device.
The answer is not for users to switch to Android, but for the FTC & EU to step in, as they did for Android, and for MSFT's browser related cases.
So if you don’t like the policies of Sony with regards to the PlayStation do you want the government involved their too?