Apple bans vaping apps from the iOS App Store | Hacker News Reader

Apple bans vaping apps from the iOS App Store

arstechnica.com

33 pointsProAm15 comments

Apple is taking a moral stance against addictive substances? Perhaps they should ban Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram next, to really free us from these unhealthy addictions.

This is just another warning to avoid being dependent on Apple and the App Store. Imagine being a hardware startup that invested in a mobile app to control your device and then mass produced and marketed that device only to have Apple pull the app without warning.

I’m not defending this Apple decision, but in general I’m very tired and annoyed with hardware that insists on unnecessary apps. Especially when they are 5% useful and 95% data mining.

Both Bose and Sony were found to be scraping listener data via their apps. I believe these are both optional for now, but companies keep normalizing apps being required and I’m very uncomfortable with it.

Someone on here a while ago said “protocols and not apps.” That’s definitely the right way to look at things, especially when it involves hardware.

I'm guessing this applies to every type of music app though? Might as well throw Ultimate Ears, JBL, etc etc into the ring too.

I can't imagine Apple won't be seeing lawsuits from this.

The PAX app was taken off even though most people use it for dry bud/flower marijuana, which has never been a part of this big vaping health scare. Collateral damage, I guess.

Signaling and politics. Called it in a previous post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20942910. If a person or entity has no skin in the game WRT a prevailing topic, but there is moral high-ground to stand on, they will get involved or form an opinion solely for the opportunity, essentially a photo-op, of them standing on that high-ground. "Protect the children" is probably the most popular high-ground used in this way.

Apple doesn't make a vaporizer, nor do vaporizing apps amount to more than a rounding error in revenue for them. Right on cue, they take the opportunity to make this token action, so that this article can be published.

It is a selfie of them standing on the high-ground; in the same way people stage a carefully framed IG post of them out "exploring" when they are actually in their backyard.

I checked Storz & Binkel app, and it’s missing from App Store. S&B makes vapes for dry herb, which are completely outside of the controversy. Fortunately, most of their models are perfectly usable without the app so no real harm for users has been done.

While Apple policy seems heavy handed and completely out of touch, I hope situations like this will bring back physical controls to devices.

What on Earth is a “vaping app”??

It controls the hardware e-cigarette.

Seems like there are still a lot of cigar-related apps in their app store. What say you, Apple?

I really can't stand all the double standards, hypocrisy, and ignorance around vaping.

Steve jobs knows what is good for you. Other people same bad practises.

Steve Jobs has been dead for over 8 years.

Exatly. But they still follow his bad principles.

American tech imperialism in the real world. Apple thinks the US has the moral authority to ban the vaping apps...except maybe the rest of the world disagrees.

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