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Comment by rvz | Hacker News Reader

It appears that Facebook for programmers now has an official app which has finally surfaced on the App Stores.

However, this may be terrible news for other third-party apps since Apple, Microsoft and Github can work together to forcibly shut down any unauthorised clients with legal action due to this release.

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How?

Well, I see no third party apps for having a full client for Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook or Discord at least on the iOS App Store due to this rule [0], but I certainly won't be surprised if they do the same for Google Play if they succeed on the App Store with Apple.

GitHub can easily file a complaint and Apple will happily remove any infringing app off of the App Store.

[0] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#int...

> If your app uses, accesses, monetizes access to, or displays content from a third-party service, ensure that you are specifically permitted to do so under the service’s terms of use.

GitHub provides an API to access all of these things.

True, but the same was said for Instagram and Twitter. They both still have a public API for developers and then cracked down on the third-party apps and clients on the App Store with a policy change. Sure, developers can still use these public APIs as long as they don't release an app that is a full clone of their official apps.

If Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Discord can draw the line on third-party clones, with the release of the official GitHub apps, they can also do this too.

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