Apple pulls iTether from App Store | Hacker News Reader

Apple pulls iTether from App Store

loopinsight.com

45 pointsraganwald53 comments

Awfully hard to feel much sympathy for a team that builds and submits to the app store an application which overtly contravenes one of the very first terms of the AT&T wireless terms of service.

Intuitively, I believe AT&T's tether pricing to be a travesty, but rationally I also know that it's their network and their terms are going to be their terms, even if I find them odious. Both intuitively and rationally, an application that exists solely to bypass their most basic terms of service seems more like an elaborate troll than a real offering.

But there are hundreds (?) of carriers worldwide, all of which support the iPhone. AT&T is just one of many.

So I don't see what the AT&T TOS has to do with Apple's App Store. Five years ago, sure, but not now.

It directly violates Verizon's terms of services too.

We could (unproductively) relitigate whether Apple should police submissions to the app store at all, but as long as they do, they're obviously going to reject applications that violate the terms of the vast overwhelming majority of their US users carrier contracts.

If they're set on policing, why not filter available apps by the capabilities you have? Going to the lowest common denominator seems like a bad compromise. They already filter by country and know who your carrier is, the parts are there.

iOS has built-in tethering support for carriers that are OK with it.

They are set on policing, so let's not pretend there's a debate to have where there clearly isn't one.

>We could (unproductively) relitigate whether Apple should police submissions to the app store at all

Transparent false dichotomy. This has nothing to do with curating versus anarchy. It is the standard of a subset of carriers in one country dictating policy for all Apple devices worldwide. Wasn't Apple the one who saved people from carrier influence and control?

No matter how outraged anyone pretends to be about this incident, not a single person on this thread would have bet $50 at any odds on Apple not pulling this app out of the store. That's all I'm trying to say.

> But there are hundreds (?) of carriers worldwide, all of which support the iPhone. AT&T is just one of many.

All of these carriers can enable the built-in access point feature of iOS. In fact, it's enabled by default so all of these carriers can not disable the built-in AP feature of iOS.

> So I don't see what the AT&T TOS has to do with Apple's App Store. Five years ago, sure, but not now.

The TOS in question have to do with tethering/cell-as-modem, not with the appstore, I'd guess.

> But there are hundreds (?) of carriers worldwide, all of which support the iPhone. AT&T is just one of many.

On the carriers which do not have a TOS forbidding free usage of the data plan for tethering, iOS's built-in tethering is already enabled, and this app violates the rule forbidding apps from duplicating built-in iOS functionality.

The only possible reason for this app. is to subvert a carrier's TOS, since iPhones have tethering capability built in.

Still very easy to feel no sympathy for the Apple. Their app policies are great in one way (quality over quantity) but very bad in a way that they are blocking (potentially) great apps. This, Google Voice (they used to), Opera Mobile, ...

There's no question of feeling sorry for Apple: a the largest Tech company in the world brought to it's knees by "iTether"? Not likely. But, it's really easy to feel no sympathy for the iTether guys. NO ONE was surprised they'd take it down: it's completely expected that if you violate Apple's terms you will be removed. Period.

On another note: GVoice and Opera are there. Honestly, they're crap. I'd also note to all of the conspiracy theorists, Apple doesn't care if you use Opera, and the make no $$ off of using the phone app – they let in crap, but crap that makes an effort to follow the rules.

Yes, Opera for iPhone is crap. That's the idea behind Opera Mini: it loads web sites fast, pretending JavaScript and HTML5 don't exist. It's one rung above Lynx [1].

However, parent was talking about Opera Mobile, which isn't available in the App Store.

[1] http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/productspecs/

How is tethered data access a "most basic" term of service, though?

I mean, it's more or less by definition undetectable by the carrier. They can't (in the general case) tell what you're doing with those bytes. But they sell them anyway.

The issue with tethering is practical. "Usually" desktop software uses "more" data than "mobile" software. Sometimes. So they outlaw it and try to sell it as an upgrade, but it's a fragile hack. It will always be a fragile hack.

That they write it into their contact verbiage doesn't make it inviolable. They have lots of other crap in there that people ignore routinely, I'm sure. Why is this one special?

It's "most basic" in the sense that it's among the very first things spelled out in the terms of service you agree to when you sign up for data service with AT&T.

How easy or hard tethering is to detect has zero to do with the validity of that contract.

I honestly think you're flat wrong about that. Contract terms aren't like code. They have squishy validity that depends on interpretation. IANAL, obviously, but I think the ability of one side to even tell whether or not the contract condition was violated certainly does have an effect on whether that clause is enforceable.

Companies put all kinds of crap into contracts. It's routine that this stuff turns out not to be enforceable when and if it goes to court.

My quibble is that you're starting from a weird place in your argument: it's OK for Apple to pull an app because a different company decided to put something in their contract. And you wave that away by saying that it's "obviously" a violation. And I don't see the obviously part at all.

The app doesn't violate AT&T's contract. Using the app does. You haven't read AT&T's contract, or you wouldn't have phrased your objection this way. Go read it and guess why I predicted you hadn't already.

OK, timeout. Now you're just flaming. The words "an application which overtly contravenes one of the very first terms of the AT&T wireless terms of service" are yours, not mine.

So now you've completely lost me. Can you explain from scratch why you think Apple is justified in enforcing AT&T contract verbiage on the rest of the iOS world? I just don't see it, sorry.

By definition, "tethering" means "using your data service to enable another device to access the Internet". If you look at the contract --- which, again, respectfully, I don't think you've bothered to do yet --- there's no way you can accidentally violate the term.

I'm just not interested in arguing with you about whether tethering clauses are enforceable or not. We both know that Apple wasn't going to allow this app into the store. Everyone here knows that.

I'm also not interested in arguing about whether Apple has a legitimate interest in enforcing AT&T's contract. They obviously don't care whether you think their reasoning is legitimate, and they have far more arbitrary restrictions on app store apps than "designed specifically to contravene AT&T and Verizon contracts".

Just wondering: if I paid the $99 bucks to become an Apple Developer, could I write and then self-sign a tethering app that would run on my phone (without jail breaking)?

Yes, that would work.

Don't self-signed apps expire in three months? If yes, it would be really inconvenient.

I am going to say yes, I am also sure there are sourced tethering ios apps out there.

Yes, or just grab one off github.

https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy

Yes, in fact here's one: https://github.com/tcurdt/iProxy

Others have answered that this is technically possible. I'm guessing, however, that it would violate your agreement with either Apple or your mobile carrier. Since there are lots of mobile carriers, does anyone know whether it would violate Apple's developer agreement?

OT, but I saw this on John Gruber’s site... Showing once again that he is capable of criticizing Apple, especially as pertains to his pet peeves of design inconsistencies and app store approval insanity...

Can you link to the criticism? I only found a two sentence statement of fact that the app was pulled.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/29/itether

He wasn’t firing up a rant, but he mentioned that the app was only in the store for a few hours. But you’re right, it’s not nearly as pointed as quips like this:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/29/app-store-ninja-...

Or this skewering:

http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_revi...

Gruber criticizes Apple often enough, it just doesn't make Hacker News.

(Though I don't see any criticism in this story, except that he is reporting it, but then I'm not sure what there is to criticize, I don't know how the app got into the App Store in the first place).

Well, you could criticize that the App made its way onto the AppStore in the first place as an example of how arbitrary (and possibly ineffective) the approval process is.

I suppose it is reasonable to judge such an innocuous observation as "critical" on the Gruber scale of Apple commentary.

Herein lies the problem with Hacker News -- raganwald may be a regular, but such a completely irrelevant, bizarre reference to John Gruber has zero place in this story. I intentionally left a counterpoint that got the expected downvotes, but how about there be some consistency.

This coddling of the regular names diminishes this site.

http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

OT -> ‘Off Topic'

Yes, no kidding. Gruber is a polarizing figure on HN (largely because he is an unabashed hyper-cheerleader for Apple the corporation -- seriously, his infatuation with AAPL profit levels, margins, and P/E ratios is hilarious), and you just had to drag him into a conversation having nothing whatsoever to do with him. If the populace of HN didn't recognize your name as a guy who lives on HN, you would be living in negative double digit land.

We should test your conjecture that there's a "pro-raganwald bias." Ping me the next time there's a contentious topic like Gruber on the front page, and we could try three vaguely similar comments: one from you, one from me, and one from a throwaway.

The results may shock me and ought to make for an interesting blog post at the very least.

Interesting that tethering is part of the standard plan on Telstra in Australia. What's the reasoning behind the restriction on some carriers? As long as I stay within a data cap what does it matter whether it is done on the phone or tethered?

Reasoning? Surely you jest.

"We can make more money this way" covers pretty much everything when it comes to telcos.

When considering rates for services, you will often (as is the case here) be better off thinking about it in terms of who pays, not what is paid for. Every fee extracted from tethering users creates money that the carrier can use to improve their general data rate and thus attractiveness in the market.

You can be irritated that this nickel-and-dimes you, but what you're dealing with is an allocation decision, not an evil effort to defraud you. AT&T is about as up front about the tethering issue as they reasonably can be; "tethering" is a product option every data customer is presented with when they sign up.

Because no carrier in Australia has unlimited data plans.

That's assuming you have a data cap. I have a data plan that's truly unlimited, with no throttling. There isn't even a fair use clause.

So understandably, there's no way my telco will allow me to tether with that plan.

Yeah, I read it as there is still a data cap, just a surcharge for the ability to use it with tethering. I guess on unlimited they reason that you are unlikely to start using your phone to download gigs of stuff then transfer it to other devices.

I think my biggest problem with this is that these sorts of things should be rejected before they get on the store, before people pay money for things. I don't like the precedent that's set by "oops we decided we don't like your thing so it's going bye-bye".

If Apple can't stop stuff like this at the onset, you have to start asking other questions, like how closely they are looking at the apps they let in. Is it really a safe walled garden?

Or is it simply "Hey we don't like that app anymore. It competes with us somehow. So get out."

Sadly I suspect both of those cases are true.

"my biggest problem with this is that these sorts of things should be rejected before they get on the store, before people pay money for things."

If you bought it, you get to keep it. I actually have a half dozen apps that after I bought it have since been removed from the App Store.

I do too. But I have to restore from my backups. I don't get to grab it from the store again. And bugs won't get fixed, OS incompatibilities (read: iOS 5 fixes) won't get in there either.

If only there were a way around the Apple store.... some way to install any app I wanted....

Neither of those cases are germane here. There was no way Apple was going to allow this app into the store.

I thought "pulled" meant it was pulled out of the store. Not rejected.

Waiting for

1. An open source iTether

2. An open source way to hide it in an otherwise innocuous application (iJpDoctorClock) as an easter egg

3. 10,000 submissions to the app store.

Why was this approved in the first place? Of course it's going to burden the carrier network--it's the raison d'etre for the whole thing. Weird that it was ever there at all.

I only vaguely knew the details of how iTether worked, but with the app pulled, does this impact users who've already installed it and the computer client software? That is, was there any need to touch base with iTether's servers?

This article:

http://tidbits.com/article/12651

Claims that existing users will be fine.

The app still works as of 8:00 PM ET on my AT&T iPhone.

Based on what I've read about others tethering apps, Apple will not remotely disable Tether.

The only major downside is that I will never see any updates. It's only a matter of time before an OS upgrade breaks the app permanently.

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