Avoid the Apple App Store | Hacker News Reader

Avoid the Apple App Store

heyman.info

223 pointsjonatanheyman265 comments

Wow, that gallery of Wordle clones is really infuriating, especially when seen in the context of OP's submission.

The absolute gall of Apple to reject OP's submission repeatedly despite him providing differentiating features... but then to allow all those trash-tier blatant clones into the app store.

That's what infuriates me the most.

If I were Apple, the clones should not be on the App Store and Apple appears to be removing them. However, I don't really know if the OP's original submission should be approved either. Yes, it uses a different language, but the name is very similar, it's being released around the same time as a trend, it looks like a clone.

Yes. Apple still sucks at curation (as does google, as does Steam), and needs to be more consistent here.

Steam curates? I always thought they let anything in considering what you can see on the later pages of some search.

Steam basically doesn't moderate content unless its illegal as a matter of policy.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/27766192/view/

Exactly this. I am all too happy for a walled garden on my phone, but spend some of your $$$ actually curating it to prove that your walled garden is worthy. What we need is an ecosystem of competing curated app stores.

How does it benefit the Swedish consumer to ban a game that uses their native language because it's a clone of a game in English?

By also banning Swedish I.P. apps when somebody makes a foreign clone of them.

And stealing bread is illegal for rich and poor alike!

There is no sale of a Swedish Wordle app that would impinge on a sale of an English Wordle app, so this reasoning makes no sense.

An interesting question, which the author raises, is why Apple's App Store reviewers should care about a copycat of a third party website or app that does not exist on the App Store. (I can understand them not wanting copycats of existing App Store apps.)

It points out to me another issue with the App Store though. While the author's "Wordle" was Swedish and different in other regards, why would you even want to submit a Wordle-like app into that fray?

I think it's almost a given that you cannot charge for your app. A neighbor's adult daughter down the street told me (and this was perhaps eight years ago), "No one wants to even pay 99 cents for an app."

In-App purchase? Do people do that? Isn't that a little distasteful?

I just don't see a way to monetize your effort. And if you're going to essentially give it away, just make it web-based (like everyone's beloved Wordle).

The main drive for me (OP) was that I loved the game idea. Also, when I first decided to build the app, there were no Wordle-style games in the store (that I could find).

> And if you're going to essentially give it away, just make it web-based (like everyone's beloved Wordle).

Oh, you bet I regret I didn't take that road.

Apple needs to reign in subscriptions. I was looking for a "photo vault" app the other day, basically a place to store photos that is password protected. I didn't need cloud storage, no fancy features, just a place to store photos with a passcode lock.

So I went looking for an app and I must have reviewed close to 50, every single one had a "subscription". Now I get it, apps aren't easy to make and aren't free either, I get paying $2, $3, hell $5 or $10 for the app, but don't make me pay you $2.50 per month for all eternity.

Now I get subscriptions, I happily pay for Netflix, Spotify, and even some lesser known apps that have a subscription. But in every case those apps are providing me with a great value, 1Password is another great example. But to charge for a subscription to just use an offline app? No.

> But to charge for a subscription to just use an offline app?

So, if they make you sign in to their service to use the app, you would be ok with a subscription? Do you want/expect that app to be updated/supported over time?

As someone who grew up with purchased box software followed by the pervasive availability of open source software, I severely dislike subscriptions for software products. In fact, auto-renew subscriptions in general are often a dark pattern IMHO. OTOH, I have to imagine that as a developer, if an app I produce is going to be used by 100 people, I can't financially sustain it by selling it for $2 one time. Also, if it's niche enough or novel enough to be difficult to reproduce, I can get away with a subscription.

I think you hit the nail on the head with "But in every case those apps are providing me with a great value." Each developer is effectively a small business trying to create a product in exchange for money. If they price it too high or have unlikeable terms, they lose customers.

I've known several people that were exceptionally talented and provided a product that couldn't otherwise be had...They were also really bad at business. Paying on time, Billing on time, TRACKING DOWN outstanding bills...pricing their services at a fair and competitive rate and doing so in a way that keeps them fed.

It's not the magic trick, it's the marketing that makes or breaks a business.

I think we should go back to upgrade pricing. Software subscription doesn't work, it makes sense from a developer and business perspective, but makes zero sense to consumer. Apple trying to court consumer to subscription has largely failed.

A fair way would be the Apps wont be updated to include iOS (new) support. So after a few years if you decide to upgrade iOS, you will have to upgrade the Apps as well. Or basically buy the new version of App with upgrade pricing like you did in the old days.

Doesn't Apple REQUIRE a subscription on most apps? Like haven't there been multiple devs talking about how Apple rejects "free" apps if they "don't seem to have a unique purpose" or whatever, and you need to have either an up-front cost or a subscription model for Apple to accept it?

No. I have a free app (100% free) on the app store for a few years now. No issues with Apple.

Unlike many people here, I'm not ideologically opposed to the idea of a walled-garden phone (though my preference would be to have the ability to sideload). But it kills me just how poorly Apple is behaving here. It's like they don't care at all about pissing off the developers that help make their platform attractive, and they'll belligerently go on not caring even as government agencies around the world gear up to take them to court, consequences be damned.

Reigning in copycat developers is not a bad thing for the consumer base. Have an original idea and one with more effort than what could be summarized in a youtube tutorial and I don't see why they would reject. I don't want to discredit OP's 'hackathon' night of coding, but making a blog post because you paid the annual $100 and Apple rejects your mud that you threw at the wall hoping it would stick is why I like being an Apple user.

If Apple cites copycat as a rejection, there's already likely 50 other apps just like it and the pattern of app is finally being rejected. There's still opportunity, but you need to be an 'early copycat' to make it so.

I think the developer made a very clear case as to why they do not have a simple copycat experience. Please read the essay.

The developer's post assumes that those other clones won't be removed. It also assumes that every review process is exactly the same. We only know one side of the story here and it's full of assumptions and conjecture.

That highlights another problem with the process- the complete lack of transparency. Apple could be more forthcoming about the review process, yet they aren’t.

Do they need to be? They told the developer why it wasn't allowed - it violates the Copycat clause of the ToS. At that point, the developer is just attempting to make minimal changes to differentiate it enough to bypass that restriction and then resubmitting over and over.

I don't think anyone is under the illusion that this isn't a Wordle copycat. Even the author knows it.

It doesn't allow the developer any actionable feedback. They could have included screenshots highlighting the exact ways this app is a copycat. What if the developer changed the UX differently- would it then no longer be a copycat? It also downplays the which the app isn't a copycat, namely that it uses a different language. As it stands, just calling something a copycat is not substantiative, you actually need to provide justification. See Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co.

What actionable feedback could there be? The author is copying Wordle. The very nature of the project is to copy a copyrighted application/website.

Is the inherent game mechanic being the same the problem, or could that be alleviated if the screens looked more distinct? And it is in a different language, after all.

Are Wordle's mechanics even copyrighted?

Yes. Apparently, it was one of the first things the NY Times did when they purchased it.

Edit: It was trademarked only. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30378491

In other languages as well? And then why isn't the Times DMCA'ing all of the more straightforward English Wordle clones out there right now?

Based on the screenshots, it also looks like this whole app rejection process took place prior to the NYT purchase.

I would imagine that it's unique to Wordle right now because of recency. There were probably a deluge of Wordle-clones that were submitted to the App Store recently to capitalize and take advantage of both the buzz and the name.

> Are Wordle's mechanics even copyrighted?

My understanding of intellectual property is that not only are the game mechanics not copyrighted, they aren’t even copyrightable. The code and assets that are used to implement the game mechanics are automatically protected by copyright but not the gameplay itself.

Bringing copyright into this discussion is an irrelevant distraction.

Edit: as both Apple and the NY Times are based in the US, I thought I’d double-check what the US legal situation is (in case American rules differ from the Berne convention). It turns out there’s a whole Wikipedia article dedicated to this subject¹:

> There is a long established Copyright principle called the idea–expression distinction, where Copyright is meant to protect a creator’s unique expression, without giving anyone a monopoly on a broader idea. The US Copyright Office specifically states that “Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game.”

Also: A Stack Exchange answer² provided a reference for the quotation cited in the Wikipedia article. The original US Copyright Office URL is now a 404 but here’s the archived version of their article: https://web.archive.org/web/20160403041628/http://www.copyri...

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...

² https://law.stackexchange.com/a/4653

As the writer of the post, I would love to hear Apple's side of the story. The reason I didn't include more quotes from Apple was that they never cited anything other than "resembles Wordle" and "leverages Wordle" in their replies. But clearly, given that they don't apply these rules when it comes to other apps (such as Scrabble, Minesweeper, Tetris, etc.), there is something else going on.

With respect, you don't know that they aren't attempting to take action on those other apps. Wordle may be a recent copyright issue since NYT has purchased the original. It seems like their rules do apply to these other apps but they just haven't gotten the attention that Wordle has so there's less bias towards those.

WHat does "attempting to take action on those other apps" mean? Apple still lists them on the app store for download.

Thankfully (IMO), you can't patent game ideas. There's no legal action NYT can take (and expect to win) to shut down any games that build on the same game rules.

However, even if you disagree with me, and think that there should be no app implementing Wordle-style gameplay on App Store. What's your opinion on Minesweeper, Tetris, or Tic-tac-toe? Should no iOS versions of those games exist? Remember that Apple only ever refers to the original Wordle website in their rejections and never even acknowledges the existence of Wordle clones.

What about Scrabble? If they were applying their rules consistently they would surely kick out Words With Friends, but what about Wordfeud? Should they kick out Wordfeud because Scrabble implementations already existed on the web?

A healthy and well-founded assumption given their track record of mishandling copycats in other app categories that are far more scammy and actively steal people's money.

No, it's not a clear case. That's what the discussion is about. It's overemphasizing the differing features, and Apple seems to also think so. What you and OP think is evidently not what Apple and many other thinks. Please at least attempt to understand another perspective.

But there’s nothing illegal per se about duplicating the gameplay of Wordle. It should only be an issue when, say, assets are stolen, or if the developers use the similarity to Wordle to trick users into making in-app purchases.

Copying apps isn't illegal, but it's annoying and banning the practice seems like a good policy. I think the problem boils down to two things:

1. Apple doesn't actually have a "no copycat apps" policy, instead its an unwritten and inconsistently enforced rule

2. In this case, providing a Swedish version of the game is actually good for users and arguably should be encouraged

> Apple doesn't actually have a "no copycat apps" policy

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#cop...:

4.1 Copycats

Come up with your own ideas. We know you have them, so make yours come to life. Don’t simply copy the latest popular app on the App Store, or make some minor changes to another app’s name or UI and pass it off as your own. In addition to risking an intellectual property infringement claim, it makes the App Store harder to navigate and just isn’t fair to your fellow developers.

I stand corrected. I guess the problem for this dev was that the reviewer cited copyright, which doesn't apply here, instead of referencing the appropriate rule

Apple cited rejection by copycat, not rejection by copycat due to legality. I don't think the legality argument has any relevance here. I for sure would agree with that if so.

It can’t be a copy if it offers distinct features, which the OP lays out factually. It’s not arguable. It’s a fact that OPs game supports languages that the original web app doesn’t. That alone even ignoring the other distinctions should indicate that it is not a clone. You can’t just say “that feature doesn't matter to me because I don’t speak Swedish so it doesn't exist”. You’re deliberately ignoring reality and it’s frankly kinda “racist”. Swedish people can’t play Wordle in their language on iOS because it would be a cheap knockoff of an English website and somehow detract from your appstore browsing and general mobile platform experience? Jeeze…

Unfortunately, they're obviously not distinct enough in Apple's eyes. Also, Swedish or any nationality is not a race, I would drop that train of thought altogether.

We have no indication of the many, many other copycat apps that were let through may also already support Swedish. So if that low hanging fruit is covered, scratch that as a distinct feature...

That’s why I put it in quotes. Point is you cannot categorically exclude an entire population of people from an experience.

I don't care what Apple or you think. I’m calling both you out for being insensitive or at best oblivious douchbags and telling you you’re wrong. You are free to disagree but your comment is going dangerously grey so citation needed on your assumption about how many others agree with you.

I don’t mind the App Store removing shameless copies. But games with distinct features (eg offering Swedish) and which don’t use anyone else’s intellectual property should probably not face such an uphill battle.

Further, they only pay such attention to Wordle clones because they were publicly called out on it. Other clones, even ones that violate IP laws, still get a free pass.

And it’s not as if they’ve stopped allowing Wordle clones in, either.

I agree with this. I don't understand why some make it and some don't. I've said in a different comment that I believe if OP rolled the dice with a new app that didn't have copycat reject history, he has a decent chance to get it approved IMO.

I'm not sure there's an easy solution here. I don't like copycats for more than one reason, but I don't think it's clear what criteria Apple should apply to determine whether an app is sufficiently distinct.

If we considered language differences as sufficiently distinct, would that also mean allowing companies that watch for any new interesting idea and replicate it in language X?

I'd argue that the language of the dictionary is far more critical for a word game than just the UI language of a random app.

Outside of wordle and other VERY POPULAR apps (a very narrow scope) it's impossible to expect that apple has a way to tell if any given submission is a copycat of anything.

> I'm not ideologically opposed to the idea of a walled-garden phone (though my preference would be to have the ability to sideload).

The App-Store is, in this context, merely a Content Filter. So why not allow multiple content filters?

Because it creates customer confusion and anger when they hit the genius bar with a phone that is bricked because the customer used a non-apple appstore to install software that resulted in a bricked phone. It further causes apple support increased support costs when they have to prove that it wasn't their fault.

Perhaps if apple had approval on those third-party appstores and held them to a standard and charged pushed those support charges onto them..

Apple should just provide proper sandboxing.

If some alternative appstore manages to break the sandbox, then they have different problems.

The problem is not that Apple can't make this happen. The problem is that they don't want it.

Apple can just very publicly and visibly issue disclaimers that it is not responsible for the after effects of users installing non-App Store content. Just as it does not offer coverage for water damage to MacBooks. Then the boundaries are made clear, and user anger will be directed at whatever malicious third party instead of Apple itself.

But how do you prevent the users from thinking the problem was the non-App Store content instead of an update? They ARE going to contact support anyway

Simply, if you enable sideloading/downloading from non App Store, you make it very visible in the UX that you are essentially in a "non-safe mode" (the actual security status probably varies, but Apple would probably go out of its way to hype up the potential of danger here), and you consent to all sorts of disclaimers disavowing Apple's responsibility here, and recommending they make backups before doing so. In fact maybe they could distinguish between pre- and post-sideloading enablement backups.

If users complain after sideloading was enabled, the Geniuses can simply tap on the sign.

Way back when apple first released boot camp for the intel macs, I worked retail. A customer came in one day fuming mad and demanding a refund of their new MacBook. They described a series of issues they’d been having for the past month, some of which were known issues that were addressed with a firmware update months earlier and some of which sounded like nothing that should be able to happen in OS X at all.

After some taking the customer allowed us to take a look at things before we did the refund. It turned out her nephew, whom she had turned to for help setting up her new computer decided for her that she didn’t need a mac, she needed a mac running windows. He had resized the Mac OS partition to as small as it would go, installed windows and configured boot camp to boot entirely into windows. As a result all the problems she’d had under windows remained (made worse by not having antivirus because “macs don’t need antivirus”) and she never got any of the firmware updates because Mac OS was never booted and never checked the update servers.

Boot camp was an involved process at the time, with plenty of scary warnings and no official support at all. But the end user never even saw them because the “tech” person in their lives just set it up anyway.

The result of this was a few hours of employee time and and out of policy assurance of return long after the normal return policy if the customer still wasn’t happy trying the proper Mac and Mac OS experience for a while.

No amount of disclaimers, not taking responsibility or sign tapping would have gotten a better response, and not taking that responsibility even though Apple explicitly disclaimed responsibility would have resulted in brand damage, costs in terms of returns and restocking and the loss of future sales that (later happy) customer represented.

In the end, customers aren’t impressed with your signs and disclaimers. If apple is the product vendor, they will demand apple fixes it.

That's fair, but it would seem that the entire set of problems related to Boot Camp have since gone away over time, and Apple's brand has been no worse for wear. (Though I'm not even sure how widespread Windows on Mac use is these days, and the Apple Silicon licensing issues would seem to pose a threat to that continued use. Yet I haven't seen any urgent fears about that lack of support.)

At some point you're just going to have to expect users to grow and learn alongside the platform.

Edit: I should also note that Apple is perfectly fine with taking credit, as product vendor, for content that they are hosting on one of their apps, but not actually producing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30191126

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-podcasts/id525463029

2nd Edit:

> No amount of disclaimers, not taking responsibility or sign tapping

I've also wondered about that. Apple is a master of UX patterns. The whole green vs. blue message bubbles alone has become a social/cultural signifier. Let's say the UX was similarly tweaked if a user had sideloading enabled, maybe an unsightly header. If there were similar color filters or distinguishing UI that specified installed apps as not from the App Store. Wouldn't that be enough to create user behavior to distinguish between "official" App Store apps and sideloaded ones? Emergent behavior will arise from simple prodding. The green/blue division is real.

> If users complain after sideloading was enabled, the Geniuses can simply tap on the sign.

Denying service to a lot of users still means having to talk to them. And will leave users upset.

> you make it very visible in the UX that you are essentially in a "non-safe mode" (the actual security status probably varies, but Apple would probably go out of its way to hype up the potential of danger here), and you consent to all sorts of disclaimers disavowing Apple's responsibility here, and recommending they make backups before doing so. In fact maybe they could distinguish between pre- and post-sideloading enablement backups.

Also making security better, like sandboxing all sideloaded apps. But then you are suggesting that Apple takes a lot of time and effort to implement a way for them to lose revenue AND have upset users when their phones are bricked? Even though I want sideloaded apps, I can see why they don't want to do that

I seriously believe only a minority of users will switch to sideloading, thus minimizing the amount of lost revenue (if anything, maybe this might even lead to some switching over from Android if it's now possible to get F-Droid and other Android-only equivalents). This also allows them to sidestep the many, many legal and governmental challenges that are now mounting over their use of the App Store. Saves them both time and money to open things up on their own terms first.

If I buy a diesel car, should I only be allowed to use Apple Diesel? What happens if I fill up with MS petrol and damage the engine? Do I need to go to some Genius to tell me I'm an idiot?

Begging the question, what part of the Apple app store prevents a bricked phone, and why would that not be a feature of non-Apple stores?

Part of their app review process is static analysis and determining if you are using any of the 'private' parts of their apis. Another app store might decide that they don't care to do that level of work and just rubber stamp everything that comes into their queue.

Apple could just provide those scanners as an open service, or make something akin to notarizing on macOS universal even if third party app stores are available.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin...

> Notarizing is not App Review.

Perhaps then Apple should simply block all user installed apps from using any API that can brick a device.

In other words, the iOS sandbox isn't that secure...

Apple deserves the inevitable government intervention that it seems to be begging for with its arbitrariness and blatant anti competitive behavior.

> blatant anti competitive behavior

apple acting self-interested (which it’s entirely justified in doing, IMHO; this is the same company that almost had a tragic death in the 90’s) just opens up more competition IMHO. it’s too bad that true open-source phones are still crap, that android gave too much power to the cell network providers and became bloatware vehicles, and that microsoft completely abandoned its phone efforts even though its OS on there had a promising GUI.

Maybe what we’re seeing is more a symptom of that.

Also blue texts, because Google can’t get its head out of its ass long enough to actually summon and stick with a real iMessage competitor

What does their near death experience of the 1990s have to do with today? Is anyone in leadership from that era even working there now?

Tim Cook's been at Apple since 1998. Apple's near-death was in 1997. Tim's overseen basically the entire rise from bottom to top. Craig Federighi joined in 1996, was there for the bottom of the barrel, left for a time but then returned. But yes, Jobs essentially died in the meantime of misinformation/baseless-beliefs, and Jony Ive has moved on (but he was there since 1992 up until recently). Phil Schiller's been at Apple since, wow, 1987, and Eddy Cue since 1989.

So yeah, I'd say there's quite a few long-time Apple execs who have been there through the thick and the thin. More power to them. Know who else has stuck with them even longer than them? Me. Been an Apple guy since I was 12 in December 1984, when my otherwise-frugal fam got the Macintosh 128k. ;) In 1997 I was doing part-time work as a mainly-Mac computer consultant on the side (while serving in the USAF) and things were DIRE for any Apple believer. But anyway, bygone days.

https://www.apple.com/leadership/

> Also blue texts

Not that Google has an attention span here (I'm still annoyed at them for what they did to XMPP), but RCS exists, and Apple is perfectly capable of at least supporting a fallback spec written this century. Their choice to instead just actively degrade the messaging experience, for everyone involved, when anyone involved isn't their customer, makes the entire market worse.

See also: Safari

Apple absolutely has zero incentive to support RCS as a fallback. Not only that, it's not only been inconsistently supported by Google despite existing for... decades, now?... but isn't even supported by all carriers!

https://www.androidauthority.com/rcs-google-3090142/

> In a word, RCS is like SMS, but better. Except that it isn’t. Not every operator has enabled it yet. Not all phones support it. Not every implementation is the same — especially in terms of encryption since that bit is optional. And even if you download Google Messages and use the now-supposedly worldwide ‘Chat features’ there, you’re still at the mercy of Google’s servers which can go down or become buggy any time. Which they have done rather frequently.

> RCS is also completely reliant on your phone number being active when you send or receive messages (note: Apple stores iMessages for some time offline). This makes it intricately linked to your carrier bill (h/t Ron Amadeo for bringing this into the discussion). If you happen to miss a payment or have an issue with your carrier, or if you live in a country where number portability is difficult or nonexistent, your line goes down and so does your ability to use SMS and RCS. This is unlike IP-based chat services where you can connect back at any point in the future, get all of your pending messages, and continue where you left off.

Google probably guessed (which was reasonable) that an app like Whatsapp would come along and handle this market... which wasn't entirely false... but instead it's been fractured across many apps like Whatsapp instead of having a unified feature set (such as iMessages', such as: end to end encryption, reactions, high resolution photos and videos and livephotos, voice texts, offline storage of messages until devices come back online, smooth transition to a high resolution audio or video chat (Facetime Audio or Facetime), etc.) And Whatsapp STILL doesn't have features I'd consider basic at this point, like Tapbacks: https://www.engadget.com/google-messages-android-imessage-re...

So now Google is realizing that this was a mistake (perhaps due to the unexpected "luxury appearance" of "blue-message cachet") and is NOW pushing hard for RCS... too little, too late IMHO.

As an iPhone user, my messaging is currently scattered across: mostly iMessage, but some Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger (and a smattering of others now and then like Signal). The advantage of the top 3 of those for me is that I can also send and receive them from my laptop... something that RCS also DOES NOT provide. In last place behind all of these we have SMS messages from Android users, where messaging is less reliable (I have literally gotten into fights with people due to missed messages!!), sending a photo along with text either fails or downsamples the photo to a thumbnail, etc. etc. etc. At least I can send and receive SMS to Androids from my laptop in iMessages, through my phone when it is nearby.

So to be clear I generally agree w Amadeo's point, as I'd much rather see every chat network built on top of phone numbers die out like the widespread use of ICQ. Personally I'm much more interested in seeing something like Matrix take hold, because to me a Web-based model, with some sort of user@site identifier and, incidentally, the ability to deploy one yourself, are non-negotiables for anything I adopt as a primary communication spec in the future.

But this isn't about the use of Web-based services, this is about a text client. That's not going to just disappear anytime in the near future, it isn't reasonable to compare them to better chat networks when we're specifically talking about fallbacks, and whether they have incentive to implement a standard for it doesn't mean they should just have free reign to promote ecosystem lock-in for the basic functionality of a phone.

And do I also agree that the implementation of RCS has been less than stellar, but that's in part because of fragmented adoption among vendors, which is a problem that Apple is a part of.

(And speaking of ways that markets are worse because they don't have "incentives" to adopt standards, I forgot to mention their continued use of Lightning.)

> Apple absolutely has zero incentive to support RCS as a fallback

Wouldn't their users gain better security and privacy with RCS (because of e2e support)? Or are you saying that an Apple user's security and privacy is not an incentive for Apple?

Not necessarily. Strictly speaking, the E2E part is being added via Google's network and isn't part of the spec. It's using the Signal protocol, which is just as open for Apple to use as it is for anyone else, but it doesn't inherently come with every RCS implementation.

> the developers that help make their platform attractive

This is where you're wrong about Apple. To Apple, it's Apple that makes the platform attractive. Developers are a dime a dozen to them. Especially indie / small scale devs.

Well, this does look like a straight Wordle copy.

It is also disingenious to say that's a copy of Lingo, when it's bloody obvious it's a Wordle clone.

The fact that other clones were approved by Apple points at another issue.

What's your opinion on the Minesweeper clones? Shouldn't they be allowed on the App Store? What about Scrabble? Or Tetris?

Also - like the post says - the app is in Swedish with a Swedish dictionary. Wordle is unplayable for anyone who doesn't speak English.

Point taken about the wording though, I've updated the blog post to say: "I figured I could make a Swedish Wordle-style game myself"

Microsoft does not have an official Minesweeper application for iOS, never has, and probably never will, so clones are more acceptable in that case.

Scrabble and Tetris are actually trademarked names and have official applications as far as I know. They can sue any competitor for trademark infringement. There are competitors like "Block Puzzle," but they may predate the official Tetris for presence, but I'm not certain on that.

> "What’s even less surprising is how (little) Apple apply their Guidelines when it comes to their own apps" (from post)

Actually, I think any resemblance is forced (particularly with the Translate app) and that the design decisions are more logically-based than copying. How else would you make a Translate app by Apple look?

Several of those are clearly ripping off assets from Windows minesweeper. Which is worse than mimicking gameplay. There's also no Wordle iOS app either, just a website.

Apple also happily accepted 2048 which is pretty much a straight up clone of the earlier Threes.

I bought a Tetris game from EA back when I had an original iPod Touch when the App Store was first introduced.

It was a one time purchase. It was never updated for larger screens and disappeared with the 32 bit to 64 bit transition.

Of course EA released another version around the iPhone 5 with ads an in-app purchases (?)

You are assuming that the original copyright owner is always against the clones. Sometimes they just don't care about it.

The original copyright owner has allegedly nothing to do here; this is Apple rejecting games based on Apple's copycats guidelines, not based on DMCAs as far as it's shown.

My experience begs to differ. Until the original copyright owner files the complain with Apple (as author was suggested to do when he mentioned other Wordle clones), Apple may do nothing. Especially, when copyright violation is not obvious.

If Minesweeper, Scrabble or Tetris were the whirlwind phenomenon similar to Wordle, of which you made a clone trying to ride their coattails and had it rejected, then your question would've been relevant.

But they are not, so it's just a random question only tangentially related and an answer that has very little to do with your situation.

The fact that Wordle is currently popular has nothing to do with the logic of the situation.

Isn't Wordle a Lingo/mastermind clone then? How many Tetris clones are there?

Not that it matters to the point about the App Store, but Mastermind (aka Bulls and Cows in the original pencil-and-paper version) plays significantly differently from Wordle—needing to be a word constrains both combinations and guesses severely. It’s a simple change (once someone has thought of it), but influences gameplay a lot, more even than for Threes! vs 2048, which are also surprisingly different.

Yes, they even say they were inspired by Wordle and included the word 'Wordle' in their original app store submission, then stuffed it with what looks to be IAP's and their own currency system.

Cry me a river!

Banning low-effort clones would make the App Store a better experience for me as a consumer. So the fact that Apple rejected this wordle clone makes me like the App Store more, not less.

Obviously Apple isn’t 100% successful given the screenshot of other clones allowed in, but I hope they improve — not weaken — that process of weeding them out.

How could this be termed a low-effort clone when it's a different language?

With additional features and when no official app store Wordle app even exists. People need to read the essay.

Giving users no option to play Wordle-alikes in their native language is a better experience? I don't see how that's possible. Apple could easily fix app discovery to surface high quality apps that are more relevant to the user, but instead, they take this route.

> The fact that other clones were approved by Apple points at another issue.

It's also irrelevant when evaluating whether OP's app is also a clone. If 100 cars on the highway are speeding and I happen to be the one that gets pulled over, the judge isn't going to care that the cop didn't pull over the other 99 drivers.

Those situations are incomparable. Even if 100 cars are speeding, a cop can only pull over one driver at a time (although I've heard in some states police can do a bit better by patrolling in groups). But apps aren't speeding past app store reviewers onto the store; every app that makes it is explicitly approved. The problem here is not limited resources (at Apple for crying out loud!) but rather inconsistent application of the rules.

>Well, this does look like a straight Wordle copy.

Did you not read the article? It's in Swedish, so not actually a straight copy. That right there should be more than enough to allow it, as presumably there are plenty of Swedes who would like to play the game in their native language.

The simple explanation is that apple is successfully rejecting 99% of the incoming wordle clone spam (as experienced by the article author) and failing and letting in 1% (which still is a large number of apps). The author experiences one of the thousands of rejections, but can see all the acceptances.

I built one of those Wordle clones that made it into the app store. Built it mostly to see how long it would take me to do it with flutter (it didn't take long). The app doesn't collect any data or connect to the interwebs.

Not really sure how I made it through the review process, but once it got through I was subsequently blocked from updating it, with the same policy cited as the OP.

So now it's up there with a double letter bug, the stock flutter icon, and 80k downloads :)

Side note: I did get a takedown notice, which I was expecting, but it wasn't from the NYT. It was from a company purporting to hold trademarks for lingo for both look and feel and game mechanics. I tried to contact them but nobody has responded, and it actually looks like the trademark was abandoned. Plus, you can't trademark a game mechanic afaik.

I don't exactly agree with many of the points made in that post, BUT, I think this was the paragraph that made the best point:

"But even if you disagree with me, and you think that Apple should be allowed to be the only gatekeeper to 60% of people’s mobile devices. Surely you still agree that Apple should apply their rules consistently? In this case that would mean either allowing Wörd on the store, or purging all apps that resemble other apps from App Store. Starting with their own Apple Music and Translate apps."

Contrary to the author's opinion, I actually don't believe his premise that the Translate app and the Apple Music app were visually copies of competitors.

The design decisions appear to me to be more about what makes sense on a phone with a limited screen size than a deliberate copying. The Translate app comparison feels particularly forced.

That point is a good example of casual logical fallacy. Make a statement which is true or universally acceptable ("Surely you still agree that Apple should apply their rules consistently?") and then add incorrect conclusions:

> In this case that would mean either allowing Wörd on the store, or purging all apps that resemble other apps from App Store. Starting with their own Apple Music and Translate apps

Here's the equivalence of copycat status of Wörd and of Music / Translate is implied, which is very questionable indeed.

Also, "you think that Apple should be allowed to be the only gatekeeper to 60% of people’s mobile devices" hides other logical fallacies. First, it is implied by the wording that Apple somehow became the gatekeeper of 60% of devices, whereas customers chose to buy the devices where Apple is gatekeeper, and at least some of them did it because of the fact. Second, the number 60% does not correspond to market reality. Apple is the gatekeeper of all their devices, in all countries, and worldwide share is obviously lower.

Just to add to that, seem like iPhone's market share is around 23% [0]

And as you mentioned, people decided to buy Apple's phones, either despite the App Store, or maybe because of it. Although I don't like not being able to sideload apps (although I had only 1 on Android), and how they are way too prudish (it's annoying you can't configure reddit/imgur on the app to show NSFW content), I surely don't miss how the Play Store is overriden with crappy and VERY dubious stuff. Also don't miss having the Galaxy Store without being able to get rid of it.

So yeah, each person makes their choices regarding their devices, and at least for now, I'm going to stick with iPhone, since it has more pros and less cons according to my tastes.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/216459/global-market-sha...

Market share as in usage, not shipment.

>Surely you still agree that Apple should apply their rules consistently?

For all we know, Apple believes this too and is attempting to make this reality. It's not as simple to do when there are probably hundreds of these clones flooding the store and the review process within the span of a few days.

> For all we know, Apple believes this too and is attempting to make this reality

It doesn't matter what Apple plans, it's been more than a decade. They've made reviews faster and rejections more arbitrary. Resubmissions with 0 changes can lead to approvals. Useful apps are rejected because they don't meet a particular reviewer's standards on a particular day of the week. It's only become more inconsistent.

> It's not as simple to do when there are probably hundreds of these clones flooding the store and the review process within the span of a few days.

That's kinda the point. It's impossible to actually "curate" a store with millions of offerings. Apple should walk the walk and not just talk, and reduce the App Store to a few hundred apps that could conceivably be thoroughly reviewed by trained humans, or be honest and accept that their rules will always be inconsistently applied at current scale.

>be honest and accept that their rules will always be inconsistently applied at current scale

Isn't that currently what's happening?

No, they aren't honest about it at all.

The complaints may be valid but it's a bit hard for me to evaluate because I am so hugely put off by the author going out of their way to refer to it as a Lingo-style game over and over, which is true!, but it's also clearly a wordle clone with a swedish dictionary. The author appears to believe that wordle being based on Lingo is some sort of gotcha and it's distracting from the issue to me.

I left iOS/MacOS development a few years ago for the same reasons. It was never ending soul sucking battle with AppStore reviewers' bs, bureaucracy, everbroken tools (in order to develop for new iOS you have to update xcode, which requires updating macos, go buy a new macbook that supports it), total absence of CI/CD, troubles with testing, the list goes on, and on, and on.

I hated it, eventually moved to backend development and never looked back.

Apple: “sorry Sweeden, you can’t play this game because someone already made one recently for english speakers and published it on a website. It’s kinda popular and having derivatives pop up would lower the appeal of our platform for our english speaking customers.”

If you don't see the problem with this you are the damn problem.

Not a bad time to start building an App Store for iOS apps.

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/28/us-states-back-fortnite...

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/11/ios-sideloading-questio...

Even a better time to escape the walled garden and develop for mobile Linux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30364337

You are implying that the walled garden keeps developers in, whereas in reality those walls are for keeping developers out. One does not escape walled garden; one infiltrates it.

I think it's both.

What would this look like practically? Say I want to port an iOS app to mobile linux? I know it's early days but what does the toolchain and distribution look like?

Perhaps this page has an answer for you: https://linmobapps.frama.io/.

Thanks

Aside from perhaps using some GNUstep classes for the non-visual parts, you'd need to separate the application's logic from its OS integration and then use whatever library you want to target.

One way to go for it would be to make your app use Qt (which is also available on Linux) instead of iOS-specific functionality and then port that Qt app to Linux. But whatever you do, if your app is made for iOS (or any other specific OS), you'd need first to untangle iOS from it and then make a port.

But FWIW i think fsflover had new applications in mind instead of porting existing ones.

As a user of a GNU/Linux phone, I would be happy to have both, new and ported apps.

Thanks for the info, from a quick look it also seems as if some people have managed to get simple Flutter apps running so that looks promising.

Just write the app for Linux (or even better, build a web page instead.)

I'm not really excited about the prospect of alternate App Store or sideloading. The thing that irritates me about the whole thing however is I feel like we wouldn't be in this position with imminent regulation incoming if Apple executives had not been so stubborn and greedy with App Store policies and completely deaf to developer and user feedback. With some give and take we could have made it work with the App Store but Apple dug their heels in and doubled down on their outdated stance.

I on the other hand really am excited.

Apple devices turn into expensive ewaste when a country gets sanctioned by the US. There are millions of apple phones in Iran, that can't do anything other than browse the web.

There are millions of talented developers in the world that have to avoid iOS because of the $100 fee.

Anyway I'm really really really excited for being able to use a general computer as a general computer.

Well I'm not strongly against it either as I recognise other people need/want this feature, just personally as an iOS user and developer I'd rather not deal with it.

All your points are valid though and perhaps some real competition will force Apple's hand with regard to improving the App Store, their policies and treatment of third-party developers.

So it’s the $100 a year fee that stops “talented developers” who would also have to have a phone that costs at least $400 and a computer that costs at least $700?

Used and repaired hardware is very common in less wealthy areas.

The $700 computer is a big barrier for a lot of people actually!

That $100 fee might be literally impossible for people to pay. Iran has a population of ~85 million - you can do the math!

A computer can in principle be shared among several people. Unix is a multi-user system after all.

A dev account can be shared too…

Make web apps. It’s that simple. People complain about the play store and the Apple App Store yet continue to submit apps there that don’t even require native functionality.

Wordle went from web app to sold in what, two months? Native apps aren’t required. Make web apps and we need to unite and figure out a common distribution method.

When a critical mass is reached - Google in particular - is incentivized to help galvanize even further. Heck, Google tried to make PWAs a thing. It’s Apple that benefits more from app stores at the moment.

The ops app actually does use native features. You can’t set timer reminders in a web app.

Right, yet the core functionality doesn’t really need native functionality.

Neither do half the apps on the app store.

Yes, my point exactly.

A game where I pop in for 2 minutes once per day and type a few letters is not my standard usecase for computing. In fact it's quite unique compared to anything else I do on my phone.

There's a lot of tradeoffs given up when writing a webapp over a native app. It's not just "it's accessed through the browser"

Like the article writer mentioned, this is a very important lesson, but if you're in the 10% of cases where you do require native functionality (like a chat app for example) you're screwed with Apple.

Copycat crazes come and go and trying to jump on them usually leads to rejection like this, especially if you’re a little late to the party.

I remember during the “Flappy Bird” boom they put a filter in place where you literally could not create an entry for an app with “flappy” anywhere in the name. I can only imagine how many clones must have been submitted every day to have made that worth implementing.

This happened to me when Hole.io became all the rage.

I thought the game was a bit dry and slow, so I made my own variation and made it online multiplayer. Hole.io was not multiplayer, people were tricked by the bots to think it was though.

Anyways, I submitted it to Google Play Store and it was doing great for awhile, then 2 weeks later it got suspended for being too similar to Hole.io. I made a bunch of changes and resubmitted, and it lasted for a month before being suspended again with above 4 stars.

I just checked and there are still many Hole.io clones with millions of downloads that were published a couple weeks AFTER I was suspended. Like what the hell, those clones were really poor quality.

You may release the game as an webapp, with less restriction on distribution.

You don't need access to native APIs for the game anyway.

This is infuriating. I've also had my fair bit of trouble with App Store Review but your this really takes the freaking biscuit. C'mon y'all, let's get this post some visibility.

Every time I read something like this I see it as a clue there's a "secret" cult of AppStore reviewers getting paid by scammer to skip validation and just approve everything they're paid for.

Prove me wrong, Tim Cook. If I make a clone app I'm banned. If a bunch of people do the very same app they get approved.

That's not how logic works. The burden of proof that there's a secret cult is on you.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

I can probably find one if I offer enough on some forums or reddit.

I wish it was something as simple as this. The real problem is that it's incredibly arbitrary and capricious. A previous company of mine had an app in the store for a couple years.

A customer paid us to white label it for their private internal use. The only difference between it and our existing app was the logo and color scheme. It was rejected for nonsensical reasons a couple times and then approved after several weeks. When we did the same for another customer, that app was rejected for different reasons and we were never able to overcome those objections. It was incredibly frustrating and cost our small company a ton of money.

I also have a very similar experience with App Store.. The app review process is BROKEN (sharing my experience in the video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOtbjOw7Dwo

This is why I'll never buy an apple device. I know Google does it too, but apple is worse.

What makes apple worse? In my experience, google is far and away the more sinister brand.

Not to mention, their Google Play Store curation, they don't even bother with removing clones of any kind unless they get a threat sent to the Legal department.

No alternate app stores or way to sideload.

God you fanboys are insufferable. Every time I post about not being able to sideload, I get people coming out of the woodwork to argue with me about what defines side loading or some other pedantic take so they can defend their iDentiy.

Am I wrong?

They're both unacceptably bad and I'd go without a phone if I had to choose between the two.

Personally I prefer Apple because there are human reviewers I can appeal to. The option which does not exist if you are rejected by Google's algorithm.

A decade later, it still remains the case that most of the users who are willing to spend money are on the Apple platform.

On the question of whether Apple should be more like Google, the answer has again and again, from Apple, from pundits, from financial analysis been 'oh hell no'.

You are free not to use Apple. The fact that people keep talking about how they aren't using apple isn't the freedom flag waving you think it is. If you all have to keep bringing it up then it's living rent-free in your head. I don't know if it's jealousy, or wanting to have your cake and eat it to, or what else is going on. I don't use Facebook, but you don't hear me talking about it all the time (talking about having to deal with Facebook users is another matter).

In retail 'customers' who don't buy anything aren't customers. They are 'loitering' and many companies have a policy for encouraging people who are not actually shopping to leave. Traffic that does not result in revenue is overhead at best, opportunity cost at worst. A certain amount of overhead has always been tolerated as goodwill or advertising, but in any arena of life there is always someone who tries to take advantage of goodwill efforts.

Customers who don't use apps at all are fine. They aren't costing us anything. Customers that buy lots of apps are great. Customers who just want free stuff all the time are bad news. Especially because they become more expensive when the free stuff ends up causing them problems, which they feel entitled to complain about. Tech support calls are more expensive than most of us realize.

If you make a "clone" of a popular game, you may be infringing on the original developer's copyright under U.S. law (which jurisdiction Apple is bound to). See Atari v. Philips. It doesn't matter that you used different code, different assets, or changed small things about your game. The relevant criteria are "access" and "substantial similarity" (as an audiovisual work).

If you make a game that specifically deals with one particular language, do you automatically own the rights to all language versions of that game? I think this is a difficult question to answer and may be part of the problem. For example, Wordle (English) likely has a catered list of 5-letter words; someone else would have to completely redo this work for any other language

OP here. Fun to talk about something technical :). I didn't make a curated list of words (also, my app supports 4-7 letter words). Instead, I use word frequency data to exclude 80% of the least used Swedish words. The frequency data is based on text from novels released since the 50th, popular Swedish web forums, and Swedish newspapers. Surprisingly, even with the 20% most common words, I've still seen odd words a few times. However, I find it quite enjoyable that it's possible to get a really hard word now and then.

"Sometimes, the humans who do a thing make mistakes, but it's only fair when those mistakes benefit me too." is a weird take.

Is it possible it was rejected because it's called Wörd which is too close to Wordle? Try naming it something else and resubmitting.

Like "Wurdle" which did get through?

I'm proposing why Wörd might have been rejected, not suggesting that the App Store review process is perfectly consistent.

The App Store reviewers are people, and some of them follow the rules more strictly than others. Perhaps Wurdle passed review because it got lucky and was paired with a permissive reviewer, or a reviewer who happened to be unaware of Wordle.

There are two funnels: one for apps that get approved the first time, one for rejected apps trying to get approved after doing some changes. If you're in the second funnel, it's much much harder to get approved then if you would submit the app anew.

So you could simply take the app as is, submit it under a different developer account and see if it sails through this time.

I guess one of the solutions would be to allow custom store fronts with different editors policies. AppStore is not only reviewers and CDN to serve all the packages but also a lot of infra to validate and sanitize the applications as well. Multiple store fronts solution is not ideal but at least would resolve the problem which is described in the article.

OP is not wrong, but no Apple Appstore means no iPhones, and Android's done an awesome job of earning the 'no OS updates after 2 years' reputation and as a security focused IT guy, that just doesn't fly with me.

But I agree, Reddit suffers from a similar banhammer to participation (Reason for removal: "Cuz")

This app contains a large dictionary of swedish words. Could it be possible that it is rejected simply because none of the reviewers know swedish well enough to guarantee that there is no “taboo “ word in the list?

> But in the end, I get that this specific case mainly just concerns me.

Pragmatic, but this defeatist attitude for app stores should be reserved for 2012, ten years ago.

Many people know of this problem by now, and its time to end their reign.

Under the radar had some good coverage here: https://www.relay.fm/radar/234

I find it interesting that another issue developers usually have with App Store is that Apple is not enforcing copyright strictly enough.

I think the main lesson here is to not to jump onto trains copying the latest trend.

As for double-standards of later clones being allowed, it's probably just that this app got caught in the initial copycat-sweep with some rejection-notice visible for reviewers that will be re-used for later updates and unless fundamentally different it isn't going to pass. Later apps probably pass since they don't care adding new notes.

It might suck, but it's how the world works.

No! That’s not the lesson. Swedish people cant play Wordle. Period. This contribution to the space brings an existing english-only experience to Swedish people. It’s by definition NOT A COPY. It’s a derivative work at best which the original Wordle also is. To write this off as a fad and say only English speakers get to experience Wordle is frankly racist.

https://www.ordlig.se/

I'm literally Swedish, most of us apart from old people knows English well enough to enjoy it.

Also the original Wordle is a web-app, there was nothing preventing OP to do the same instead of complaining about Apple policing their own walled garden so calling it a racist move is quiiiite a stretch!

Seems to me like a blatant copy of Wordle. I only agree that the other clones shouldnt have been approved.

Ugh, this is the entire point of having a curated app store, and they are not doing it. Sad.

Related-unrelated. Does anyone know of an english 6-letter Wordle clone?

https://www.wordleunlimited.com/ lets you choose the number of letters between 4 and 11. It also allows playing many times in a row, instead of once a day.

How about their battle against Epic Games? Is it still ongoing?

"But all the other cars were speeding too!!"

Developers and consumers really need to rise up against walled gardens in computing. Sadly we have a whole generation of young people who don't even know what they are missing.

Even inside a mobile browser’s sandbox, JavaScript gives me way more for free today than Metrowerks CodeWarrior Learning Edition gave me for ten weeks of pocket money back in the late 90s.

I’m not a fan of Apple’s puritanism, but I really don’t think people are missing out in the way you do.

The problem with this is that while it gives you freedom as a developer, it takes a ton of freedom away from the user who has practically zero control over where and how to use your application or even which version of your application to use (some people may prefer to stick with an older version even if they lose support or whatever because they don't like later changes - this is something people often do with native/desktop apps, but it is impossible to do with web apps) - and that is the minimum of issues, without entering into accessing data, etc.

A browser that downloads and displays the web pages, without automatic updates may be a good idea.

When a file is updated remotely, the browser may notice the user of update, but let the user to decide to display which version.

The App store is one of the most disappointing things to happen to personal computers. Instead of empowering indie devs it shut them out and empowered corporations.

What's crazy to me is that Apple could still win over a ton of developers by actually listening to the sentiment and responding to it.

As someone who's been dabbling in native development after over a decade of JavaScript/Ruby/Python/PHP, the iOS development toolchain does seem quite nice even though I don't own an iPhone. If Apple quit with the highway robbery and took the unfairness of their system seriously, I might actually want to buy an iPhone and work on building iOS apps.

But with Apple taking a massive cut of revenue and having this inconsistent and headachey review process, why would I do that? Life is too short. For many, that's still their thing, but there are easier ways to write code and get it out there. iPhones aren't the end all and be all of app development.

copycat going to copycat, and then complain that's unfair that others copycatted before he was rejected.

I’ve only gotten the answer that I’m free to “report” these apps if I believe they don’t follow the Guidelines. I don’t think these apps breach the Guidelines, but I guess Apple intentionally chooses to misinterpret me.

Apple's not misrepresenting him. He just chooses to disagree. You can argue that it should not be allowed, but his argument is totally based on the fact that he disagrees on the guidelines, and therefore it should not apply for him.

The point that apple needs to be consistent is fair, but also, scammers are scammers. They do a lot to get crappy copycat and plain old illegal apps into the store.

This is frankly racist and it really pisses me off.

The fact is, despite everything else and even in face of wanting to keep a storefront free of low value clones and fads, which is understandable, Swedish people cannot play Wordle and this derivative work brings that experience to people who don’t have it. It’s NOT a copycat for them.

Apple needs a policy revision and consistent guidelines for applying the copycat rules so they don’t exclude entire countries and cultures from enjoyable experiences. Period.

How do you know there aren't already a hundred copycat apps that already support Swedish?

Even if OP is first and only (very unlikely), this isn't what racist means btw...

I think you know exactly what I mean. You’re categorically excluding an entire population. Call that whatever you want, it’s not right.

Great question! Unfortunately on the App Store app for iPhone (as opposed to iPad) there doesn’t seem to be any support for search filters, making it even more opaque and near-impossible to filter searches by language.

I love the App Store. If you want my money then you will be on the App Store. I have purchased zero items for use on my phone from places outside the App Store. I am very happy with this.

I love my walled garden. I purchase apple products for this as I consider it a feature.

I understand why some people don’t like this and don’t participate. I spend very little time discussing it as people should be able to make their own decisions.

What I don’t get is the angry soap box lectures from the people who disagree. The intense planning on their part to mess up a thing I love just because they couldn’t make their money… Oh. Nevermind.

You don't see anything wrong with the obviously highly subjective and demonstratably hypocritical approach that Apple is taking here?

I like the AppStore and want it to be good. Clearer, more consistent app reviews and better developer experience would increase the quality, quantity and variety of apps available to me in the AppStore.

So the answer is no?

> I have purchased zero items for use on my phone from places outside the App Store. I am very happy with this.

Because you cannot install anything on your iOS/iPadOS device from anywhere else.

I absolutely hate App Store and their stupid policies, I hate that I have an iPad Pro on which I cannot install everything I want because of their idiotic policies, on a device I paid more than 1000 EUR.

I cannot wait till EU will force them to allow competing app stores on iOS/iPadOS

"on a device I paid more than 1000 EUR"

Then why did you pay for it? Buy a Galaxy Tab. They've got similarly-priced high-end models with OLED screens and an App Store model you like.

Not every product has to be designed for your wishes and needs. That's what competition is for.

I used to own a Galaxy Tab S3, and it became horribly slow (a Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus released just the next year in 2018 was faster) after barely more than two years of use. This isn't an isolated case, as there are threads on Reddit documenting slowdowns (with more recent models) due to software updates [0][1].

In contrast, users report the iPad reliably lasting at least 5 years without noticeable slowdowns [2]. There are surprisingly few other Android tablet alternatives aimed to compete with the iPad (especially the iPad Pro).

This makes the iPad the only option for a high-end tablet that lasts years without upgrades. There are also other benefits of the iPad (e.g. better stylus with the Pencil, better variety of apps in the App Store, less buggy apps from the App Store), but these can be considered as reasonable tradeoffs in favour of an Android tablet (no walled garden). However, I personally don't believe that the short lifespan of the Galaxy Tabs make them a reasonable competitor to the iPads.

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/GalaxyTab/comments/mzwzew/s5e_slow_...

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/GalaxyTab/comments/od1f4v/galaxy_ta...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/ipad/comments/m4013a/how_long_do_ip...

It's hard to argue with Apple's specific design choices (locked down App Store) while also complaining that the competitor's device fails to deliver the same quality and experience. Apple's design choices around stuff like the app store are part of the package they use to deliver that superior experience. That's the tradeoff.

IMHO, the solution is iOS on mobile, Windows on desktop and Linux on the server.

The old adage goes: macOS for work, windows for games, linux for servers :)

This sentiment comes up every time people complain about the App Store. If you only want to use Apple's App Store, great--keep using it the same way you've always been using it. Nothing will change for _you_.

> What I don’t get is the angry soap box lectures from the people who disagree.

The failure of people to put themselves in other people's shoes is mind-boggling sometimes. There's a reason why so many people are angry.

Apple pundits will never be able to do this unless the other pair of shoes were made by Apple.

> If you only want to use Apple's App Store, great--keep using it the same way you've always been using it. Nothing will change for _you_.

That's not really true. The security implications. The effort of having to fix my mom's phone because she got tricked into sideloading something.

The last day of my dad's life in a hospital bed was interrupted by my mom's malware filled android phone playing voice advertisements for a casino app every 30 minutes. It was from some supposed "emoji pack" she installed online. I got her an iPhone the next week.

Let me have a locked down device. Opening it up will negatively affect the experience of users who want that.

While I mostly agree with you, I think there are some reasonable arguments for why allowing alternative app stores could degrade the iOS experience, for example:

  - Security, no matter how many warnings you throw up/hoops you make users jump through some number will be convinced to install scammy app stores and apps and then will blame Apple for it. And I imagine the App store has some deep hooks into the rest of iOS which would be difficult to change without opening potential security holes
  - Fragmentation, competition is great if it serves the user, but multiple app stores could just mean an explosion of exclusivity arrangements and other user-hostile tactics that companies use to try and gain market share

That concern of Facebook or Google launching their own third party app stores and being successful at it are probably overblown. At the very least, even if they did do that, they would be unlikely to take their apps off of the existing App Store.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30280457

The points in that post make sense to me, I'm not too worried about the major players breaking away from the app store (although if it's anything like streaming/TV some may try it). I think the more likely scenario is that some smaller App developers break away from the store for one reason or another, and then users are asked to install yet more app stores/use yet more payment providers when it provides no benefit to them, or risk losing their Apps/data.

For all the problems with Apple's rules I do believe some of them at least prevent some of the shenanigans that go on in other platforms and reduce the cognitive overhead of managing software on user devices (which may partly explain why iOS users are happier to spend more money on their devices/apps)

> I think the more likely scenario is that some smaller App developers break away from the store for one reason or another, and then users are asked to install yet more app stores/use yet more payment providers when it provides no benefit to them, or risk losing their Apps/data.

I think that there would be as much friction against smaller developers doing that, as against the big players. Same headache for users of having to set up and deal with multiple memberships and payment methods would still apply. The smaller indie devs would be disinclined to do that for the most part. What will end up happening is that there might be one or two major alternative app stores at most, and probably well-curated by the most dedicated and motivated of volunteers. On Android, that exists with F-Droid, which is a useful case study of how an independent third party App store for hobbyists can arise. These niches will exist for those who choose to pursue them but users will not be “forced” to go to them as they will not need those stores.

Your point about streaming/TV apps make sense, like the major gaming publishers, they both have unique content that might be the most compelling reason for users to pursue them, and the most motivation to get away from the 30% cut.

Or maybe we already have put ourselves in their shoes and realize that they have other options that fulfill their qualms regarding Apple?

>If you only want to use Apple's App Store, great--keep using it the same way you've always been using it. Nothing will change for _you_.

And if you don't want to use Apple's App Store, don't. Nothing will change for _you_ when they do something.

All you've done is created a straw man. No one is arguing that the app store shouldn't exist or that if you choose to you shouldn't be allowed to use it exclusively. The argument is that alternatives should be allowed to exist and that people should be allowed to install whatever software they like on the devices they own.

If other app stores or modes of installation exist, that ruins nothing for you. You can just ignore them and go on as you do now.

Considering that you replied to this specific article, are we to assume you enjoy seeing tons of 1-to-1 Wordle clones in the app store, but not those providing actually different features?

Or did you just want to do an "angry soap box lecture" without much relevance to the article?

edit:

Just to clarify, this was not an article about Apple having rules, strict rules, or even content curation. This was an article about Apple rolling the die when deciding to accept you or not, and not caring about quality in the slightest.

> are we to assume you enjoy seeing tons of 1-to-1 Wordle clones in the app store

The article is about rejecting a clone game app, the author is just complaining that this rule is enforced without 100% consistency. If I had to guess Apple hit some sort of clone limit on this concept and started cracking down on new submissions. So author missed the bus.

> and not caring about quality in the slightest

Dunno where this claim comes from, but the author literally spent 1 day on their app lol.

> So author missed the bus.

The author specifically mentions that many of these other clones were approved after Wörd was rejected.

> Dunno where this claim comes from, but the author literally spent 1 day on their app lol.

So you did not read the article. Got it.

It's a feature for Apple. To extract money from you and the makers of the apps you love.

For you? It's a prison. Apple is glad you like it.

Is it a prison that I don't have to install a hundred different launchers ? that I have a reliable way to refund my purchases ? That I don't have to share and trust a random developer with my credit cards ?

Yes, because none of that requires the app store.

Yeah high quality guaranteed... https://twitter.com/keleftheriou/status/1480626605370142724

The problem is the lack of an alternative.

To put it bluntly: you might like your nanny filter but other people might have different preferences.

The alternative is non-Apple phones.

Not an alternative if you want the Apple ecosystem.

But it sounds likely people in this case do not want the apple ecosystem. If you want the apple ecosystem, you want the app store.

But this explains the problem.

When there are only 2 companies, both providing a multitude of features, then the more features there are, the easier you run into the problem that the features you want are not covered by both companies.

Therefore, the features should be decoupled from the platform companies as much as possible. Features should be orthogonal to the platform.

For example, imagine you cannot buy shoes separately from your pants and your shirt. If there are only two companies making outfits, then you'd easily run into trouble finding an outfit you like.

> When there are only 2 companies

There are at least a dozen companies selling Android phones, each of which is free to customize it to their heart's content. For that matter, Android users are free to customize their phones to their heart's content, download apps from sketchy app stores, sideload them....

Not necessarily. The "ecosystem" refers to every product Apple makes, not just the fact that they control app distribution.

You may have friends, colleagues, or bosses who insist that you use iMessage or FaceTime. The former is Apple-exclusive, and the latter... well it technically supports web browsers, but the setup is way clunkier than just getting or sending a call from an app. Apple has internally discussed this and absolutely does not want the process of sending messages to iPhone users from Android users to be easy, lest kids buy cheap Android phones.

Or, alternatively, you want to use an item-tracker to track lost items. AirTags are the best option available because the app for it is built into iOS; whereas Android-compatible competitors like Tile or Chipolo absolutely do not have that kind of network size. In fact, this actually made Android phones slightly dangerous to use, because all of the anti-stalking features AirTags have are designed around the stalking victim having an iPhone.[0]

Or you like AirPods, which have firmware that only updates on Apple devices. You can use them with Android phones (I do), but even things like battery status require third-party apps, auto-switching doesn't work, and you can't configure all the settings the AirPods have. This also applies for MFi hearing aids, which is actually the thing that got my dad to switch off Android and onto iPhone.

Every product Apple releases is another thing Android phones can't do or can't do well, and another reason why someone who might absolutely hate the App Store would buy an iPhone despite instead of because of it.

[0] Yes, I'm aware of the Tracker Detect app. As far as I'm concerned, that's a half-measure, because most stalking victims are not going to be aware of it until they've already been stalked. To misquote Steve Jobs, it's a feature, not a product. You need to bundle that feature into something else that people might actually install - like, say, actual AirTags support apps.

If you think Apple is doing this because they care about you, gentle user, then you will get burned, eventually, probably really badly, and you won't even have any kind of inkling as to why or how you could have avoided it.

Behind the cutesy facade is a rapacious, consumer-hostile monster. The facade is paper-thin, and it's only a matter of time until you rub it the wrong way and it flakes off, then the monster will eat your money and anything you've entrusted to it. Apple products eat people's data, hungrily and mercilessly, then the company blames you when it loses it.

It will get the world hooked on their fashionable products then make them less and less usable. Those little mini-stereo to lightning dongles are the worst-made products imaginable. Guess what you can get a mini-stereo port on? An iPod Touch. Very brave, Apple.

Instead of offering developers a real userland, you get forced onto zsh because Apple would rather die than ship GPL later than v2.

Don't get it twisted, Apple hates you, and loves only money. It's only a matter of time until each and every Apple user is taught that.

Comments like these are needlessly cynical. Corporations care about money else they would not have a reason to exist and apple is no exception.

What apple sell is something that is accessible to the majority and usable by most. Their sales are testament to this as is the fact that several ios apps are generally higher quality than their android equivalents. This is a natural consequence of the average ios user spending more on apps. There are no two ways around that.

As a counter to you headphone jack argument, i could equally make the case that many phone users care about their phones working, not much else. Apple's products are quite durable and many here will attest to using laptops from 2015-2016 and phones equally as old.

The short story is that apple provide products and services that people value. Period.

Excuses. Please understand that these are excuses. You are accepting lower quality products and accepting nothing in return, even accepting higher prices. Apple doesn't make the iOS apps that people use and love. They just provide an increasingly crappier platform to put them on.

That's what people make for Apple every single time they get burned. Apple lowers the quality of their manufacturing, people don't care. They remove features, people don't care.

The reality is, people are irrational and will stay in the pot long after the frog has jumped out. With other products, with other companies, people will absolutely not accept this kind of behavior. The nation empowered Teddy Roosevelt to bring down Standard Oil. Today's robber barons have slicker marketing campaigns and PR departments and social media managers.

My main computer is a MacBook from 2013. The battery is a bit flaky now, so I keep it plugged in, but that's some pretty heroic performance.

You're making my point for me. 2013 MacBooks were great. New ones, not so much. IIRC, 2013 was around the high water mark for MacBook quality.

Yeah, the M1 chip is blowing your argument out of the water. The performance and battery life are nothing short of impressive. Find me another OEM that isn't just cobbling parts together and selling it to you in a plastic shell versus actually designing an SoC/CPU.

It's a new processor. Great. What about the rest of the machine?

It's an SoC so it's definitely not just a processor. If you can't appreciate the engineering there isn't much I can say. What parts of the machine bother you the most when compared to other laptops?

The rest of the machine is kind of amazing. Better audio than a 2013, WAY better microphones, great battery life, better screen than all the early Retinas, non-mechanical trackpad that lasts longer, keyboard is great again. And that's an entry-level machine, whereas an Air in 2013 wouldn't be as powerful as this. Don't be fooled, the products are great despite your personal feelings on the company.

Yep. I still can’t find several games that I purchased before simply because they are no longer in the App Store. There was a really solid iOS version of Final Fantasy VI/III, almost the entire catalog of games from Origin8 seems to be missing too. Would love to get them again but can’t for some reason.

This is more than likely because the apps were abandoned by the developer and not updated for the new hardware when iOS moved to 64-bit.

> There was a really solid iOS version of Final Fantasy VI/III

Square stopped selling those in anticipation of upcoming remastered versions, but if you already bought them you can still download and install them, you can find them in "Purchased" in the App Store

Thanks for the tip

Alright, I have to respond to this.

> Instead of offering developers a real userland, you get forced onto zsh because Apple would rather die than ship GPL later than v2.

    export BASH_SILENCE_DEPRECATION_WARNING=1
    brew install bash # if homebrew is installed
    chsh `which bash` # if homebrew is configured correctly

Done. I've been running without zsh just fine. oh-my-bash even exists! https://github.com/ohmybash/oh-my-bash

> Don't get it twisted, Apple hates you, and loves only money. It's only a matter of time until each and every Apple user is taught that.

No. Quod grātīs asseritur, grātīs negātur.

Homebrew is not Apple so you're just reinforcing OP's point: you need to go to a 3rd party to get a CLI that's worth a damn.

Nor is Homebrew supported by Apple which is totally outrageous, given that without it, you might as well buy an iPad for how useful MacOS is.

And yum, dnf, dpkg, apt, pacman, emerge, zypper are not Linux. Like brew they repackage software. Let's also not pretend that in the world of Linux I haven't had to add a 3rd party repo to get something working or look to community repos or even enable testing/unstable branches assuming I can get what I want working to work.

There are trade offs everywhere. Considering it takes an entire second to add brew to a machine, it's not a big deal or what I would hang my argument on. I've spent much more time messing with packages in Linux versus troubleshooting brew. I disagree it reinforces anything. I'm using a lot of rust tools on my CLI today and they're all available via brew, on Linux not always because the developer isn't targeting all of the different Linux package managers.

You're classing essentially nonprofit Linux community efforts as "3rd party" then you're comparing it to one of the flagship products of one of the largest tech companies in the world. Are you even listening to yourself? This is absurd.

I actually wrote a pacman wrapper in Bash that makes it feel a lot more like Homebrew: https://github.com/pmarreck/pac

Nowhere in OP's comment did they imply that Apple provides the App Store out of the goodness of their hearts. Obviously they do it to make money, like every other corporation. They have clearly sat down and said "We think building this 'walled garden' will make us more money." No debate there. Why does it make them money? It makes them money because a lot of end users are like OP, prefer the 'walled garden,' and are willing to spend their money there. You can argue that they are wrong to like it, but that kind of argument tends to go nowhere on the Internet.

And they're going to get burned. Each and every one of them. And when they do, they'll make excuses. Other companies that burn them, they won't make excuses for. Apple, they will.

I feel like you hate Apple more than Apple hates me. Your boogieman analogy is over the top or laughable. Also:

  bash --version
  GNU bash, version 5.1.16(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin21.1.0)

You may be running non-standard bash.

In macOS Monterey 12.2.1:

  ┍ … Thu Feb 17 09:09:44[~] 
  ┕ which bash
  /bin/bash

  ┍ … Thu Feb 17 09:10:25[~] 
  ┕ bash --version
  GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin21)
  Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

I absolutely do. I want some parity with Linux so I also install gnu coreutils via brew and alias with bashrc.

  which bash
  /usr/local/bin/bash

  which ls
  /usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin/ls

Or, hear me out here, maybe just run Linux. Your life can be very simple and easy without having your system subjected to Apple's caprice.

Imagine it, a system that you, and only you, control.

I run both, on top of FreeBSD and Windows. Being an OS zealot isn't what pays my bills.

Apple actively doesn't want to know anything about me. I pay Apple a lot of money because of this.

Our incentives match. Apple gets the money they love. I get devices that actively work against third party tracking.

This seems light on facts and heavy on fear. I also disagree that removing the head phone jack is user hostile.

> Apple would rather die than ship GPL later than v2.

So would I, so I'm not about to blame them for that.

>>I love the App Store. If you want my money then you will be on the App Store. I have purchased zero items for use on my phone from places outside the App Store. I am very happy with this.

I read this as: I am currently a happy apple customer. I do not buy apps on other app stores because they do not exist.

>>What I don’t get is the angry soap box lectures from the people who disagree. The intense planning on their part to mess up a thing I love just because they couldn’t make their money… Oh. Nevermind.

Apple's practices as a company are things that, historically, have more or less gotten other companies into a lot of legal trouble. The whole world is watching and waiting for a legal system somewhere to step in and say, "Ok, enough is enough."

I hate the apple App Store, if you want my money, don't be on the Apple App Store.

The hidden argument in this “30% is anti-competitive” thing is that it has never been easier for me, as a consumer, to cancel a subscription than to go through Apple to do it.

All my subs on one screen with a single click to cancel at any time, without forgoing my pre-paid time.

I wish everything were like that.

>I have purchased zero items for use on my phone from places outside the App Store. I am very happy with this.

Because this is impossible, so how the fck would you judge the grapes you can't taste.

I assume the commenter’s choice of which smartphone to buy is related to these preferences. If the commenter wanted a smartphone that supports sidelining, they could switch to the other smartphone platform (the one that is vastly more popular than Apple’s).

We all know switching is not free, you might have a lot of digital assets locked inside the garden. Still nobody would force him to give money directly to a developer/artist he can continue feeding poor giant companies and you can check Google Play Store and see that is full of apps(includng Facebook,Apple and Microsoft apps) so there is no risk that an alternative will empty out the official store.

>angry soap box lectures

Have you ever considered that you are the one that’s wrong and emotional about it? No one wants to take the App Store away. In fact, I can think of many things the App Store could do to improve my experience. Maybe some competition would be the necessary motivation.

No one wants to take your walled garden away from you. Freedom for me maintains freedom of choice for you also. You seem to want to limit my freedom because the only available option happens to be your preference.

I would recommend that you read the angry soap box lecture before responding to it. Because you didn't say anything about the actual article, you just asserted that you think Apple is a benevolent consumer union and that you have no interest in being told otherwise.

If you had read the article you would know that this is another case of a developer being summarily dismissed with little explanation. This kind of story is rather common among iOS developers and it shouldn't happen. In this specific example they said "no copycats", without really explaining what does and does not make a game a "copycat". So the only assumption the developer could make is Apple has an internal policy of "nobody is allowed to make games in which you guess words" because they got embarrassed by a news article on Wordle clones.

Whether or not you think this particular developer is justified or not is immaterial. It could be the case that you just happen to really, really hate Wordle clones. However, there is still an issue here: Apple is very much non-communicative with, if not outright hostile to, smaller developers. I doubt you really intended to say "if you want my money you will be a large monopolistic enterprise with a dedicated App Store compliance department and the market power to embarrass Apple", but that's the implication of what you wrote.

>The intense planning on their part to mess up a thing I love just because they couldn’t make their money… Oh. Nevermind.

And... what's wrong with that? Apps take time and money to develop[0]. These kinds of no-comment rejections are Apple basically throwing your work in the garbage. It's not "hey you need to change this in order to get approved", it's just a flat "no".

[0] More generally, I'm getting the same vibes from that last comment that I do from really angry pirates trying to justify piracy on the grounds that "publishers only care about money".

> What I don’t get is the angry soap box lectures from the people who disagree. The intense planning on their part to mess up a thing I love just because they couldn’t make their money… Oh. Nevermind.

Do you support arbitrary and nonsensical reviews? Do you support everything described in the article? Do you support Apple saying that there is one set of standards for all developers even when this is clearly false?

You say you spend very little time discussing this point, yet you come and post 150 words about how you love the app store and how great it is (which I get) but you don't address a single claim made in the article. Rather you refer to it as an "angry soap box" and insinuate that the author might be acting in bad faith because of a failed business.

The author is upset because Apple failed to properly enforce the rules, and this egregious error cost the author the ability to ship an iOS app. Please respond to this rather than just say, "I love Apple".

Wouldn't all of these arguments also apply to Internet Explorer in the 90s? Just because you currently love the quality of the bundled and "approved" software packages doesn't mean that will keep being true or that you shouldn't be allowed to install software from other sources

I'm with Apple here. Despite not really affecting me, I would also classify it as another copycat app. It'll exist to increase the scroll bar and reside somewhere in the bottom half of the search queue and sit there relatively unused. These apps bloat the AppStore. I think the few features that differ slightly are likely overemphasized here, and Apple also seems to think so.

What I do agree with is the amount of copycats they let through. If you don't have the history of being rejected and resubmit as a new app, I believe you may have a higher chance to reach your elusive 'Ready for Sale' status. But please, this is simply reinventing the wheel with a very slightly different tread, despite the work put in.

If don't break any copyrights or patents, why does it matter if there are many copycat apps in the store?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com