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Comment by Humdeee | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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