About iSH’s pending removal from the App Store
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Software developers can’t build on a foundation that is constantly, capriciously shifting. This on top of the App Store's already-onerous restrictions and the fact that it’s the only practical way to get your software on one of the world's largest computing platforms has already engendered a deep antipathy [1] among Apple developers, and there are no signs it’s getting better. Something has to give.
From my experience, it always follow the same path. Some promising developer gets infatuated with Apple's supposed ease of use and looks at the shiny aggregate numbers like $155 billion paid out to developers. Said developer jumps through all the hoops and builds a great app. Users love it, but since competition in the app store is insane, the developer barely makes back his/her initial investment. Then Apple changes the APIs and rules, the app becomes unusable and/or expensive to maintain and over time the developer burns out and gives up. Thus, there's now an opening for the next promising developer to start building an app.
As long as Apple doesn't run out of new developers happy to join the App Store, they can treat their 3rd party "partners" as badly as they want. It's kind of the same power dynamic that makes sure that hair saloons all over the world treat their employees badly.
Don't make an app that allows users to run unapproved software. I think that's a pretty clear rule.
If your app makes money (directly or indirectly), pay Apple whatever portion of your revenue that Apple demands. I also think that's a pretty clear rule.
If there's something that should obviously be regulated out of existence, it's allowing them to use terms like "buy", "own", etc. for platforms that you clearly do not control. You are renting the software and the device just comes with it.
So how is that different from iSH? Apple has approved a bunch of apps that can go get third party code and run it.
You have to stop viewing the apps from a technical perspective. App Review is _intentionally_ non-technical, as frustrating as that is for us developers. They enforce App Store policy from a non-technical standpoint
I produce an app which can download and run code, and was rejected many times through App Review. I was able to point to many other apps which _technically_ also downloaded and ran code — but the difference, to App Review, was entirely in the appearance (my code was text based, it "looked like code" and not like Scratch's visual programming, or nodes, or whatever)
I disagree with the App Review decision in this instance, but I think they are enforcing policy consistently. It just looks random to those of us with enough technical experience to look past the visuals and to the implementation
Please, no, this is not how security and sandboxing works at all. Otherwise, the moment you have an arbitrary code vulnerability, you'd get full access to everything.
The way effective sandboxing works is by giving a process a set of capabilities/permissions, what have you, that is enforced by the kernel. Those permissions can be "can I open files", "can I talk to the camera subsystem", etc. Then, even if you somehow manage to generate the right function call at runtime, the call will fail. And to be clear, this is how apple's own security works.
This isn't true. You can sandbox arbitrary machine code by restricting the process it runs in (this is how seccomp works on Linux).
> unapproved software
> unapproved software
> unapproved software
> unapproved software
How is it 2020 and we're okay with this phrase? What the hell happened?
Apple is an enemy of computing and the DOJ needs to break them up.
We're OK with the phrase because the alternative was people's phones being infested with malware and viruses.
It's pretty obvious that's what happened. Apple built a phone you can let your whole family use without worries. Why are you confused by this?
If computing is your goal, then an iPhone is obviously not the device for you. Fortunately for you, there are tons of other platforms for computing.
Exactly! Next, I hope Apple will apply the same curation and registration requirements to websites if they want to be browse-able on Safari. Internet is a dark place full of scams, fake news, and privacy pitfalls. It's time to replace the open web with a curated premium web. /s
That's a very weak argument. Actually this is a part of Apple's marketing for ignorant people.
I have been using various Linux distros and Android phones for years and never got a malware and virus because: - I install software from trusted sources or compile from the source - I keep SW, OS and kernels up-to-date - It is getting harder and harder to exploit modern systems thanks to improved sandboxes in browsers, namespaces, ASLR and other techs
What people just need is a bit of training on how to use a computer. They don't need Apple.
Plenty of people aren't okay with Apple's actions but there aren't exactly great alternatives.
Nothing is stopping Apple from allowing other stores other than control and in app purchase profits.
The security of the iPhone comes entirely from the sandbox and not app curation.
Shareholders happened, that's why.
The lines between company and customers are blurred, giving perverse incentives to defend company practices that wouldn't fly if there were a clear distinction.
“There are only two industries that refer to their customers as 'users': illegal drugs and software. " — Edward Tufte
Apple is a friend of people who want a curated store.
There are other options for those who don’t.
This is a straw man.
Support allowing users to add alternate stores on iOS devices.
Having one choice is not freedom. And it has nothing to do with curration. If Apple's model is superior, then their app store will win against fair competition.
Consumer behavior won't change Apple. We need the strong arm of the DOJ to tell Apple not to do this.
> Apple is a friend
Apple is not a friend of anybody. They're a for-profit company.
As much as I dislike Apple, their ecosystem works for them and their users. Unfortunately the general public isn't aware of the restrictions imposed on them until it matters, like when their screen is broken and they can't pay $$$ for a first party repair.
We need regulation coining and enforcing accurate terminology for the relationship between vendors like Apple and Tesla, and their users. It's not ownership. If I can't run whatever software I want on hardware that I paid for, I don't own the hardware.
Can you imagine if your mattress didn't work with third party bed frames? Or pillows?
We are just encouraging the rest of you who actually enjoy computers to leave too, and warning app developers to avoid that platform if your app is actually interesting or if a lot of people's careers ride on it, since who knows what apple may decide is not acceptable in the future.
- If I buy an Apple I buy into this developer unfriendly ecosystem with a big gatekeeper.
- If I buy an Android I pay with all my privacy, on top of that Google is also a big bully to small app developers.
- Besides Google or Apple, what choices are there?
Is it? Apple can one day decide that a web page with JavaScript loading in an app is “unapproved software.” And now your entire app/business is in jeopardy.
And what about apps like Reddit and Imgur that host tons of NSFW content, yet are allowed to be published in the App Store?
Apple has more blurred lines than Robin Thicke.
This is a non sequitur.
"Don't do things that are not 'approved' even though 'approvals' are to a great extent, arbitrary"
Apple shifts their interpretation of rules all the time, more problematically, they literally change the rules themselves, and can do so at any time.
They will continue to push and try to eat into other business models to the extent they have the power to do so.
If Apple could interpret or change their rules so as to take a 30% cut of Uber's business - they would. They only reason they don't, is because they don't have enough power to do so. Yet.
This 'just follow the law' rhetoric reminds me of some other kind of populism ...
If you think curl or wget are evil unapproved software I don't see how presenting a rational argument as a counterpoint could possibly be of any benefit. Sometimes I forget that people with such opinions actually exist.
This is almost literally like the people I've seen freak out about seeing someone do complex things from the command line in a public place (coffee shop, etc) and jump to the wildly wrong conclusion that something was being "hacked".
I hear his voice in my head when I read your comment.
Translation: don’t make an app that put users in control of their own devices.
I’m sorry, but I take issue with such user-hostile behaviour.
The issue is whether the App Store restrictions are arbitrary and constantly shifting, and that has been consistent basically since Apple started allowing third party software on iOS.
Makes you wonder why they bother ? Maybe it's because the very rules you say developers hate are the ones users find appealing.
If you're building a to-do app supported by a monthly subscription, there's no shifting foundation there. If you're building a free-to-play game whose in-app purchases consist of "handful of gems," "bag of gems," and "trunk of gems," you have nothing to worry about from App Review.
If you're building something without obvious precedent, however, trying to break new ground in the spirit of tech entrepreneurship – the answer is no longer so clear-cut. And so the App Store has in many ways self-selected developers for "safe" categories over the past decade, and yes, many of these have found great success (even if that half-trillion dollars tends to follow a power law with most of it going to the top earners in each category).
What the App Store is definitively not, however, is conducive to innovation, experimentation, and risk-taking. There are outliers, of course, who have managed to do something novel within the constraints set down by Apple. But the biggest risk you take when building your business on the App Store is not that your product will fail in the market, but that Apple will prevent it from ever reaching the market.
People tend to like iOS better because the app ecosystem is better and it is that way because of restrictions. The restrictions aren't necessarily the exactly correct set to achieve the quality and profit apple seeks, but if they were all that terrible, the iOS experience would be terrible and it isn't.
It'll essentially keep staying just bad enough that it doesn't get regulated to hell or abandoned by users... and no better.
People are generally upset because the barrier for entry to create an app is low and the profit for winners can be very high, which means there are an enormous number of people trying and regulating that is hard.
I can’t speak for you but I know that I am prone (as most humans are I think) to project myself on others.
I use iOS because it’s the only OS that runs on Apple-designed mobile silicon, which is extremely good in terms of performance. Also (and this is not a joke) my partner hates green bubbles. You may be surprised how many people feel that way, which I personally think is kind of a shallow opinion, but it’s a real reason more than one person has stuck with iOS. Some people buy it as a status symbol because it is a fairly expensive phone, beautiful (imo) and apple advertises well. Some people can’t buy it because Apple has a great and widespread repair network. I know for a fact that a great many people share your opinion and buy iOS phones because of the App Store, that said I don’t think it’s safe to assume it’s the only or even the primary reason people do it.
Are there any signs that iOS is significantly worse than Android with regards to innovative apps?
Some major pieces that are missing from both are the ability for user-installed apps to auto-update without using the system app stores and the ability for a user-installed app to process call audio.
So the typical App Store app makes $630 in total over its entire lifetime. That's surely not enough to finance its development.
Accordingly, I am convinced that pretty much all iOS developers lose money on their apps. A very few lucky winners get rich, and everyone else is treated as disposable.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimate...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268251/number-of-apps-in...
[3] https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-reve...
I don't know why you think that this comment is relevant given that iSH is free.
The comment is that it's clearly sustainable and stable enough to allow persons to make a significant profit from it even which shouldn't be possible without some stability and predictability to the platform.
The problem with a closed ecosystem that capriciously removed apps isn't that you can't make money. It's effectively protectionism, with those allowed inside the walled garden having less competition and therefore an easier time taking profits.
The problem is the risk.
It’s really pretty obvious what kinds of thing Apple shuts down.
I can't tell you how many conversations I've been involved in where there was discussion of, "yeah, but what are the chances this makes it through the AppStore?" and the answer is almost never 0% or 100%.
Users may not know or care, but it is a stretch to say it is appealing to power users that they cannot run ish. It is not appealing to regular users that they can't buy books from within the Kindle app. Etc. Etc.
Internal emails show how an Amazon ad prompted Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller to block in-app purchases of Kindle books on iOS https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/30/internal-emails-show-how-an-a...
Why You Can't Buy Books from the Kindle app on iPhone or iPad in 2018 https://www.techspot.com/article/1597-how-to-buy-kindle-book...
Software is an essential part of our modern life: transport, communication, manufacture, finance, etc. depend on software.
At least in those areas, we need reliable software and we need device owners to have control over their devices. We need to have a good software infrastructure if we want to progress as a species.
The current software landscape is bad, and Apple is actively trying to make it worse.
If Apple made game consoles, it would be OK, because game consoles are not essential to our society, but smartphones have become essential to our personal lives.
If we wake up unable to access banking, communication or transport, our life would be more or less ruined, for everyone.
This is fairly easily disprovable by the mere existence of Android - which has a healthy app market place, tons of great apps and is for all intents and purposes, just as secure.
Google Play does a fine job of promoting good apps, keeping bad ones out, and I can still go 'off network' and download my IT app or whatever that doesn't conform to Google Play rules.
There are no material negative side effects.
If Apple adjusted their policy to match that of Google, users would have more choice, and be better off.
Moreover, I really don't think Apple users in any conscious way are into this - I have never in my life heard a single user hint at this.
If you were to ask Apple users 'If you could have a bunch more apps right now, that you do not have because of Apple's closed model, and that having those apps would in no way affect the security or integrity of your device' - would they say yes?
Of course they would.
This is getting absurd - the 'restrictions' on Apple, while based on some degree of legitimacy, are also, unambiguously a vector for them to pursue leveraging the control they have on their platform to make money.
This isn't conspiratorial, my gosh, this is exactly the kind of position every business wants to be in, it's like the 'whole point'. They can milk their dominance and suck profits out of adjacent sectors and cover it with some other related policy? It's 'business gold'.
As an example of one of many things that are much worse on iOS, I share pictures of friends' and relatives' kids with them automatically via Google Photos. All but one of my relatives also use Android, and this works perfectly. One uses iOS, which doesn't allow background uploads, so I get pictures from them months after the event when they happen to have Google Photos open to reminisce, which is annoying for the rest of us, but a potential privacy invasion for them because we all know when they're looking at their old photos.
For people who use the phone features a lot, the inability of iOS devices to conveniently use Google Voice and similar proxies is a nonstarter.
For gamers, the inability of iOS to support Steam Link and Geforce Now is a nonstarter.
For people who value privacy, the inability to install apps or get your location without telling Apple is a nonstarter.
These are all due to Apple's policies. The hardware itself is nice, but because of all the restrictions, it isn't very useful.
This is the conclusion that I came to, as well, as a developer of several open source utilities for Macs.
Apple has fostered an ecosystem that is hostile to developers, but infinitely beneficial and profitable for Apple.
It isn't worth the time investment when the rug can be pulled out from under me if Apple figures that they might benefit even slightly from doing so.
I have few empathy for these developers. They voluntarily accepted (and thus, promoted) Apple's obviously callous store conditions. They essentially agreed to play lottery with their work. Whatever bad happens to them, they had it coming.
If the current crop of developers leaves the platform then another crop will take their place.
This is not hard.
A huge thanks to all of you for your support of iSH!
https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
Everything is done with "security" as an excuse because it's hard to argue against[1], but I think people are slowly starting to see through that. Apple wants to control every aspect of your life, and if you let it, it will. I wonder whether those who work at Apple and are responsible for doing such things really understand the implications, and whether they agree with it...
[1] Except with that classic Franklin quote.
I don’t expect or want to be productive, as security is more important.
One could describe what Apple sells “system administration as a service” (possibly even “network administration as a service”. They control what software can run on any phone in the iOS ‘network’). I don’t think that’s “wants to control every aspect of your life”. Their privacy stance seems to be at odds with that.
Big selling point for Apple products is privacy, security, and consistency of experience. All of these things are made easier by this policy (including applying to iSH). The cost is less flexibility / freedom.
Not quite Hanlon, but just replace "stupidity" in the original formulation with "unwillingness to spend the massive engineering effort required to provide both security and flexibility".
Though in all honesty I think that even with stupendous engineering effort, it will always more safe to just disallow certain actions entirely. After all, although birth control is a great way to not have a baby, not having sex at all is even better.
Can you explain the existence of the MacBook, iMac, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro?
I wish iSH the best of luck, but I will stick with Termux (https://termux.com/) on Android for now.
Hardware is great, but the keyboard lacks a dedicated ESC, and I was quite uncomfortable with the fact that terminal apps seem like second rate citizens / not well liked by Apple.
IMHO, there's a lot of untapped potential in the iPad as a programming device if Apple was more reasonable. The alternative Android tablet ecosystem, unlike phones, is total a mess. Samsung has a lot of nice offerings, but software is mediocre and they seem to be really unfocused.
I eventually ended up getting a Surface Go, which is quirky is some regards, but supports Linux really well and is a real computer, not a locked appliance.
Upset that ish is being removed - as somebody who has had it since TestFlight came out. I was surprised they got approved for App Store, but once it was on there... seems crazy to have them removed.
Doesn’t have working cameras though, right? I was looking into the Surface Go a bit as a Linux tablet recently, but it sounded like I wouldn’t have a working webcam (which I use fairly often these days for videoconferencing) and I’d need to install a kernel fork since some of the hardware isn’t supported yet in mainline Linux.
I’d be glad to be wrong about these, since a lightweight Linux tablet (especially with LTE support!) would be amazing. My criteria for hardware that supports Linux really well these days though is more “works out of the box” and less “requires tinkering.”
I tried with the Pro, the best setup was to remote into a raspberry pi. Editors are becoming better but it's still clunky partly because of the git integration that must be done with another app and the general lack of multi-windowing.
A chromebook with the linux install seems a best choice for now (didn't try but looked viable enough)
This is what we get from monopoly.
>> This is what we get from monopoly.
Agreed. The Apple / Google mobile OS dualopy leaves few choices.
I think we're witnessing the war on general computation being lost: https://archive.org/details/GeneralComputation
Hell, I was even wondering if this would make it conceivable for me to switch back to an iPhone at some point if I became unhappy with Android.
Of course, deep down I knew it could not last.
Seriously, f* Apple, and f* the App Store.
I also consider it foolish to attempt to innovate on this platform beyond the narrow confines of what mobile devices typically do, or to put too much engineering work into iOS specific stuff. Apple can and will simply revoke your app for fickle reasons. iOS is a pretty dumb term for cloud apps and the web, and that’s it.
That being said I do have an iPhone... because for my phone that’s all I want and it works well and has better privacy than most Android devices. I basically want web, email, texting, calls, and maps, and maybe occasional apps like Uber or whatever. I don’t use it as a “real computer.” I have a real computer for that.
Also Apple: how dare you make a sandboxed shell environment for it
Apple wont change until they are forced.
Both are good for different people.
And I might add. Until you are able to develop an iPad app in itself, it is not replacing "a real one"
Also Apple: "There's an app for that"
There are plenty of people in this world for whom their smartphone is their primary or only computer (by necessity or choice), and it sucks that they cannot actually take full control of their computer.
(For what it's worth, I also think that if you are in the minority who want to run custom software on your TV, the manufacturer should absolutely not be able to prevent you from doing so, because it's your TV - void your warranty while you are using unsupported software? Maybe. Prevent install outright? Hell no.)
Theodore on how the App Review process could be improved: https://tbodt.com/2020/11/08/app-review-experiences.html
Ramblings I wrote on why I believe the guideline iSH was pulled under was incorrectly applied and needs to be rewritten: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2020/11/08/fixing-section-2-5-2/
Related, a-Shell got a similar notice: https://twitter.com/a_shell_ios/status/1325526061099196416
The reviewer could in theory reimplement an os in python or javascript in one of the already approved scripting applications. Then implement apt-get or another package manager and install all sorts of dangerous codes!! /s
Apple tolerate app store developers as a necessary evil. If they could develop all of their own apps they would.
As with suppliers, as with stores, as with everything they would gladly prefer to do it all themselves and give zero access or share the slightest collaboration with anybody.
They are utterly ruthless in this regard and will continue to be for as long as they exist. This includes doing bad and nasty things as well as those the apologists can more readily rationalise.
I am a little surprised anybody takes risks in this arena. Of course for $$$ apps that trivially fulfil apple's arbitrary rules (for now) the potential payout justifies it but for free/open source apps why risk the pain?
For a company that happily generates colossal margins by using the effectively slave labour of a totalitarian state which puts people in concentration camps and disappears political opponents them being unethical/inconsistent in the app store seems very unsurprising. Even in western countries they happily bankrupt suppliers after poaching all their staff. Yet there appears to be shock when they do things considerably less evil... Strange to me.
As the writer of one of the links in that sentence, I almost feel bad for making the post I did. Almost. If I hadn't someone else would have, clearly. I'm not some super hacker that discovered a hidden backdoor here.
It's frustrating, to say the least, that Apple won't let me do what I want with hardware I own. Yep, I know it's a long standing issue, and I'm not the first one to have this gripe, but this sort of nonsense is why I'm moving away from the Apple ecosystem. Once you piss off your power users, I wonder if the ecosystem will survive for long.
Then again, maybe I'm just having a "get off my lawn" moment, and Apple is on the right path. I'm not clairvoyant, I just want to have a nice Mosh client that can run a Python script to find an IP and open a firewall hole. But nope, that's evil scripting, I guess.
No, you are not wrong, and they are not on the right path, except maybe for themselves.
They have no right at all to tell people what they can and cannot do on devices that we paid for, and it's damned time that antitrust regulations somewhere forced them to allow sideloading and alternative app stores.
You're assuming that owning an iPhone means you also own Apple hw to build the apps
It's not obvious
That's the point, isn't it? When I had an iphone, I always understood that there are no local terminal apps because apple banned them. They shifted the rules slightly since then to make it easier to make apps for teaching programming, but the goal was never to make generic dev environments. When I heard about this app, I assumed there had been a fairly fundamental change in the sorts of apps apple allowed. It seems like no such change occurred - apple just didn't notice what the app was doing until after it was released.
Good on the iSH people for giving it a shot. I doubt they'll break through the apple wall, but there's always a chance.
>https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#sof...
>Educational apps designed to teach, develop, or allow students to test executable code may, in limited circumstances, download code provided that such code is not used for other purposes.
"in limited circumstances", "provided that such code is not used for other purposes". This is worded generically enough that they can pretty much ban anything that downloads code with it. They also have this:
>Such apps must make the source code provided by the Application completely viewable and editable by the user.
Arguably, allowing a user to download binary code instead of source code is expressly banned.
While it would be nice if apple took the stick out of their ass for once, I can't say I'm surprised by this development.
1. Build the app first and hope for the best (this seems to happen a lot)
2. Get some type of preliminary approval by Apple so they don't sink all the money into building the app if it won't be?
Apple has shown time and again that they’ll crush your project/business in an instant without recourse or a second thought.
Nothing on the App Store, regardless of whether it complies with Apple’s policies currently or not, has any guarantee it won’t be disappeared tomorrow for non-compliance when the wind blows in a different direction (like any number of parental control apps prior to Screen Time).
I wasn’t aware iOS actually provided enough low level access for 3rd parties to develop anything like that.
I’m not surprised they didn’t keep them in the store.
The project is not my main job, so time is precious.
I was asked to create a new functionality: Allow companies to buy and borrow e-scooters between company employees.
But what happened is that I had to implement Apple Login, since FB and Google did work already.
Who should I take care off? Apple or the customer/users? Is it optimal to prioritize the Apple Login, that nobody requested?
I don't care about monopoly persse, I'm concerned because it doesn't let me be user-centric, consumer-centric.
(and I can't leave apple, because I can't leave my users)
You have to. That's the only thing that will ever stop Apple doing this, if devs leave and users leave. Otherwise why would they care?
Apple is controlling his product roadmap.
Whether people use it or not is not the point. It's the it's the opportunity cost of having built something else that would have been MORE impactful to customers.
Took me about 2 months, since I do it on weekends, and had to move the deployment of the back-end microservices to a ci/cd docker instance since .so files of openssl can't be compiled in mac and used in linux ( i use Aws lambdas). And of course, I have a MAC because HOW else I would BUILd and Archive my ApPLE XCOdE IOS app haahah? In my prev company we had a Mac machine plugged with SSh to Jenkins!!! GOd! A company that has 700milion visitors A MONtH is forced to do this!
You see, the problem is they force my choices All the time, and by forcing it I have to make bad decisions.
I’d love to be wrong. Every time I think about buying an iPad keyboard I get cranky that I can’t run brew and CPython (or shoot, Swift outside of the subset in Playgrounds) and everything else I can on a real Mac.
So nothing on iOS devices is executed in an environment they don't control.
How does this improve security?
If they want you gone - you’re gone.
1. Users can be foolish or even tricked into installing apps and entering commands. If iSH provided a possible attack vector, these kinds of users would get bitten (and they would complain about weak Apple security). As Apple really does seem to be making a strong effort on security (and privacy, it appears?), losing a few useful apps and a few users is worth the trade.
2. This is a bit more of a stretch, but for various reasons Apple wants to control the macos/ios development process. Whether it's to force developers to own Mac computers (when xcode could probably run quite well on iPad Pro...), or to perhaps guarantee a more consistent outcome (which ultimately should affect the users in a positive way, or at least a less negative way), Apple wants to control the process.
is this a literal statement where some human from Apple called on the telephone to speak to someone about this situation, or is this a phrase that actually means they received an email notification about the situation? I ask because it seems well outside the norm of no-human contact regarding support from FAANG companies.
I'll just mention the famous case when a developer actually recorded the phone call with Apple: https://blog.kapeli.com/dash-and-apple-my-side-of-the-story
When I had a battery issue I called them and they called back with instructions on where to send it to it fixed.
Their whole phone support system is kind of weirdly different, at least in the countries I used it (South America and Europe). It doesn't have call-centre noise, the accent matches the region I'm calling from, and the person on the other side seems to have WAY more freedom to go off-script and even joke with us. It's almost like calling a friend.
I guess that's why the products are expensive.
I generally don't have to spend long in the "Anything but talking to a human" distraction gauntlet.
They don't always tell us what we want to hear, but they do call.
It should be a starter kit of any developer for Apple platforms, just in case, you know.
(Recording calls from numbers you don't recognize as a habit is not that stupid. Who knows, one day it's a robocall, another day Apple, still another day some death threats you'd want to hand over to police.)
If you record the conversation without consent and shame them on the Internet, you can be sure Apple will sue. It is one the most litigious companies in our industry.
They didn't want to go on record for such an innocuous thing — why? Because they know a paper trail could hang them to dry in a court? Okay, now we've got an INTENT here.
What if I don't record them, technically, but put them on a speakerphone instead and let two to three reliable witnesses listen to the entirety of it?
Ironically, as far as I know, at least in some countries they record all their support calls ("for quality improvement") and you either have to agree to it or no support for you.
Seems Apple is on the WASM-banning track already:
I grabbed a copy after reading this and very nice work by the developers but easy to see how an app that lets me install other apps on ios would be banned.
They argue that Apple’s policy should be changed to allow scripting: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2020/11/08/fixing-section-2-5-2/
It looks to me that Apple’s main reason for not allowing scripting is to prevent an app from deploying other apps within itself (preventing any competition with the app store), with a secondary reason being security for users (harder to argue against).
I can’t see Apple ever allowing a shell app into the store, as that would turn your iDevice into a general purpose computer.
The WebView exception [edit: that used to exist] is from an older version of the agreement, but it helps indicate what they mean: “3.3.2 An Application may not download or install executable code. Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple’s built-in WebKit framework, provided that such scripts and code do not change the primary purpose of the Application by providing features or functionality that are inconsistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application as submitted to the App Store.”
If scripting were allowed, how would you or Apple ensure iSH doesn’t break any of the other 2.5.x clauses.
I understand on one hand Apple wants to prevent Epic from installing their own competing app store on iOS, and they also probably don't want to be sued by Nintendo for hosting emulators (even if emulators are probably legal.) It's pretty obvious that a) it's Apple's walled garden so they can mostly do what they want, b) the vast majority of iOS apps are games and c) other game platforms are similarly restrictive.
On the other hand, Apple probably doesn't want to kill Scriptable or Pythonista (and I don't want them to either.) One of the nicest features of iOS (and macOS) is that you can use scripting apps and languages to construct workflows that use multiple apps, access the internet, etc.. Scriptable and Pythonista are also useful as personal programming and learning platforms.
Good luck I guess.
@everyone We got a call this evening from someone who runs App Review. They apologized for the experience we had, then told us they've accepted our appeal and won't be removing iSH from the store tomorrow. We'll stay in contact with them to work out details. Thanks everyone for your support!
I mean, the app store fiasco sucks, but at the same time if you're advanced enough to want a command line on an iDevice you're probably advanced enough to do 'git clone', hit the build button in XCode, and do a local install. It's grade school level of difficulty.
Ideally they'd offer a release that you can build and install locally that's full featured and is wholly unfettered by concerns about app store policies.
I am advanced enough to sideload applications via XCode. I have done so. I stopped doing it, because reinstalling every 7 days is an annoyance that no app was worth. I switched to Android instead.
As another comment notes, this also does not cover people who have an iOS device but no Mac. Which is definitely an overwhelming majority of iOS owners in general (just looking at iOS vs Mac hardware sales), though I don't know about power users. I could see people who consider themselves iOS power users to also likely have a Mac, but at the same time I could also see them as wanting to use the Mac as little as possible.
So, the App Store fiasco sucks, and doubly so for those who are not already entirely inside Apple’s walled garden.
That's not for granted
Good luck to them and their iOS developer minions.
Macs and iOS devices are for completely different purposes.
This lock down will just get worse as they allow running iOS apps on macs and developers start hacking these things to bits and bypassing AppStore.
Apple will have no choice but to make macOS basically follow iOS model.
It wouldn’t impact iOS at all, so it wouldn’t be any worse than the current situation.
its sad... i remember the days when os x was hitting home run after home run, and polished third-party (many indie) innovative apps were flourishing... maybe im just being nostalgic idk
Is there any reason to use iSH over the native system shell when jailbroken?
Got a windows laptop recently, and the developer experience is much better than Mac OS which surprised me. Thinking about getting a surface pro to replace my iPad for traveling.
Edit: the only thing that keeps me on the iPhone right now is that their hardware (chips in particular) are so much better.
Interestingly enough, all these issues only happened on the first version of each product line.
You can't fight a duopoly as if it's a competitive market.
Long term plan is to keep an eye on Librem and get one when it actually ships possibly after an iteration or two. Or not, I might get one sooner if I think I have some time to try to build something for it.
Average people would never think to use these independent Linux phones the way they are today, and it's not a given that the situation will noticeably improve in 5-10-15 years.
I want good options available to everyone, not just a subset of the typical desktop-Linux audience.
You don't want do to that? Good, don't. Make it so that I can, if I have to tick a box somewhere hidden in Apple's labyrinthine and undiscoverable Settings app.
Of course, we already know the answer why I can't do what I want with my phone, because it isn't my phone, is it, Apple continues to think of it as theirs and they simply grudgingly rent it to you for awhile all the while treating you the user as the enemy.
You have a legal right to jailbreak it and hack on it in any way you like.
well, you kind of can, you just need a mac and xcode ^^;
If you want a phone for just getting the normal stuff done in a curated world, then pick iOS as that’s what they are trying to do. If you want a phone/device that is wide open to play with, extend, and hack on in a basically open manner, then pick Android as that’s what they are trying to do.
What seems like a waste of time is to pick one side and then complain about it not being enough like the other side. Pick your flavor, the world offers both. And then quit whining if the other side is more successful by some metric... Make your chosen side better or switch.
The problem with "consistent enforcement" is
1) the guidelines are purposefully vague
2) there are reports of unwritten internal rules that are different from the public rules
3) I suspect that the amount of revenue that a company brings through their app also affects how rules are applied
But, it's their platform and they can do whatever the hell the way with no (legal) consequences at all.
The guidelines are quite specific. What has happened is that over time new applications and use cases have arisen for which the guidelines were never designed for e.g. remote app streaming.
Also Adobe, Google and Microsoft contribute significantly to Apple's bottom line and they have all had apps blocked.
The fact that these stories about multiple parties interpreting the same exact guideline different, and in some cases even Apple interpreting it differently I think justifies the usage of "vague".
It didn't affect Epic. Break the rules, get the boot.
On the contrary: it can be distributed through TestFlight, and potentially even available in AltStore. If added to AltStore, it would make that platform much more well known. In addition, if users install it from the App Store right now, it's signed and won't disappear or expire after any period of time. AltStore, TestFlight builds, etc., all require routine maintenance to stop from expiring. The iOS App Store release, however, will continue to function indefinitely, even if Apple pulls it from sale.
Not for long. There was a post, a couple months ago, by a developer that was screaming about having his developer account permanently banned, because he was using TestFlight as his distribution system.
What would this app be useful for?
Apple isn't going to let people sidestep copyright on iOS. It doesn't matter whether youtube-dl or curl or wget have legitimate uses. If they can be used to sidestep copyright, Apple will ban them.
I'm an Apple user. This pisses me off too.
Google lets apps prevent users from taking screenshots [1]: 315 points in 14 hours
Devs on HN shrug it off when an app screws over users, but they take to pitchforks when an app is removed.
There's also a heavy bias in favor of Google and against Apple on HN, but Apple does nothing nearly as hostile to users, and so millions of people will continue to happily give their money to Apple.
Only user-hostile developers fail to understand this and clamor for Apple's restrictions to be weakened so they can prey more freely upon users.
As for hype…I guess you could claim that? But we’re “promoting” and app that won’t be on the store after tomorrow.