IOS: End of an Era | Hacker News Reader

IOS: End of an Era

kevinejohn.com

32 pointskevinejohn19 comments

Is Kevin Johnson someone important? Why is this near the top of hacker news? It's just platform evangelism that's rehashing points we've heard a million times.

While I appreciate the OP is angry I don't think this is news to anyone - this is no different from basing your business/livelihood on a web services API, it's a risk you are either happy to take and you factor it into your business plan, or you don't, and you try an alternative platform.

Good luck with Android - I's sure it comes with it's own set of problems.

Uh. What?

Yeah I disagree completely. Apple encourages innovation. There are loads of apps in the app store doing very interesting things with iOS that Apple likely did not expect. So then what happens? They get featured.

OP sounds upset because he was rejected from the App Store. Tough shit. It happens. Apple can do that, like it or not. Android comes with its own set of problems. Enjoy java.

Realistically, that's not how the featuring system works. Sure, if your app is truly amazing and is taking off Apple might feature it. There are only so many apps that Apple can feature, or even notice. And then there are all the established companies who constantly get featured in the cycle because they are great revenue drivers. And it's the same on Android -- the folks running the app stores have a goal with what they do and they do things to make both new and established developers happy.

Looking at the older posts by the author, he is an iOS developer with fairly some technical / tinker apps:

Bitcoin data app: https://sensortower.com/ios/us/zeroblock-llc/app/zeroblock-r...

Bluetooth low energy testing app: https://sensortower.com/ios/us/punch-through/app/lightblue-b...

So the sentiment is reflective of a very 'hacker' person leaving the ecosystem. The Bluetooth app in particular is the most popular one in it's category that supports developer oriented testing, and is free. The other ones seem to be paid/and much worse.

TL;DR: I had an app rejection, so I'm leaving. I'll opt for a freer platform and I don't care if it comes with less possibilities for making money of your apps.

Any details on why the app was rejected? I understand that the walled garden can be frustrating at times, but having no walls can lead to its own set of problems too.

Why should I care about what he uses? Why is this valuable to me? "End of an Era" - Era? Thanks for the big title and my time wasted reading.

This post doesn't make any sense without context. I now know that a person I've never heard of is no longer going to do a thing that I didn't realize that they were doing.

For someone that doesn't know who this blog belongs to, why is this hissy fit relevant?

First off, the HN title should be "iOS" not "IOS" unless it happens to be a critique of Cisco's products.

Secondly, there doesn't seem to be much content to the post other than a notice. For those of us devs who might be contemplating a switch, some information on the specifics of your situation might be helpful and instructive.

AFAIK the title-casing of submissions is automatic so anything that starts with "iOS" will show up as "IOS".

The actual article doesn't include iOS in the title. Perhaps adding it at the end of the HN title, or using a space at the beginning?

With billions of cash in the coffers (albeit a substantial portion of it, offshore and quite tricky to bring it home without losing a chunk in taxes) could Apple not afford to offer non-curt remarks as to why a certain app was rejected; perhaps throw a bone to the developer in the form of suggestions and comments as to what was lacking or what was overdone?

If the Apple legal team had indeed convinced Tim Cook et al. that including remarks and suggestions with app rejections would be tantamount to inviting a lawsuit frenzy, then Apple had truly lost gumption and chutzpah since Jobs left the reins.

Often it is not the rejection itself that stings but the manner in which it is 'dispatched'.

As someone who has had a number of rejections from Apple (most of which have been corrected and thereafter accepted), I disagree with the comment.

Every time I have gotten a rejection, I have been pointed directly to the app store guidelines the specific bullet point or line item(s) as the reason for the rejection.

Most of the time, reading thru those bullet points were enough for me to figure out the "error" in my ways (although, some may argue that the guidelines themselves may be a bit draconian, but that's definitely a topic for another conversation...), and I was able to make the proper corrections, resubmit, and it was accepted.

Only on two occasions, was that not enough -- one time I disagreed with their assessment, and on the other time, I was confused as to how the guideline applied. Both times I submitted an appeal, and both times I received a response from an actual person / case manager who explained in much more detail what was going on.

(Now, whether or not the responses were timely is another issue... but I again, I digress...)

So, at least from my experience (3+ years of iOS development now), I haven't seen any cases where an app I was working on was rejected, without enough information to make the necessary corrections to fix the problem.

Sure, it'd be nice and incredibility useful to the innovation curve if the information was dispatched a more time efficient manner... but to say that the information was "lacking" and "curt" just hasn't been the case, at least for me and my experience.

>> "If the Apple legal team had indeed convinced Tim Cook et al. that including remarks and suggestions with app rejections would be tantamount to inviting a lawsuit frenzy, then Apple had truly lost gumption and chutzpah since Jobs left the reins." Seriously, the Jobs thing again? Rejection worked the same when he was in charge. In fact it was worse. Communication through things like the Resolution Center has much improved in the last couple of years.

"They dictate what you can and cannot do on it based on their whim."

I thought Apple did have it's set of rules. You might not agree with them but I don't think they just make up their rules as the go.

Good luck with Android

Seriously. Apple isn't "developer friendly" usually for two reasons, 1) developers aren't always "user friendly" and 2) developers aren't always "apple friendly"

It can suck if your app is perpendicular to Apple's goals, but Apple has a product that's very consistent. As a user, the phone is an absolute joy to use.

Android is "developer friendly" in the sense that developers can usually do whatever they want, but look at the sorry state of the apps that Google has let rot and tried to push people to use the new Play versions of. Trying to release an Android device without doing exactly what Google wants is a pain in the ass. And in Google's ecosystem, absolutely everything is integrated with and dependent on Google services. Android is hardware vendor unfriendly as much as iOS is developer unfriendly. So much for openness.

Guess which one of the two is a worse experience for users? Every time I have to use someone's android device for something, I cringe. I haven't come across a single UI schema for Android that didn't give me fidgets. Making money on Android is far harder - an overwhelming number of people are just going to steal your app that took you more time and money to develop on an increasingly splintered platform.

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