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Comment by karl_gluck | Hacker News Reader

It's what we "agree" to.

As in, we have no other choice. They could write a clause that said your third child must be named Macintosh and everyone would "agree" to it because there is no other option.

That does not mean it's right.

Consider this: It's the late 1990's and the Terms of Service for Microsoft Windows contains "10.4 Apps that create alternate web browser environments are not allowed".

Microsoft has its pants sued off in court and is almost forced to break up as a company.

I'd argue that Apple has far, far more control that Microsoft ever did, but face no similar consequences for any of their anticompetitive behavior.

That's what upsets me about this.

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Let's keep some perspective here. Apple holds a minority share of the market. One might argue that the money is on the Apple platform. That leads to the question of why? Maybe it's because Apple's carefully curated experience attracts customers who have a large intersection with the group of customers who are willing to spend money.

If we accept that premise, then what's "right" is what builds that user base. You have to take the bad with the good. I sound like a broken record at this point, but there is plenty of history surrounding apps that act as launchers. That singular feature represents a huge overlap with the primary role of the home screen, and the App Store Guidelines clearly spell out that this is a no-no.

Widgets are a new case, because they're not full fledged apps. A widget could not "create an alternate desktop/home screen environment" because it is only a small part of a greater environment itself (Notification Center). However, the intent of guideline 10.4 is pretty clear. Apple wants to control the means by which users launch applications. That goal serves what Apple believes to be the best interest of users. You can disagree with that, but it's not your platform, and you haven't (yet) built a platform upon which millions of dollars are transacted in app purchases every year.

What I'm saying is that Apple isn't exactly clubbing seals here. They're doing what they believe to be best for their platform, and they're doing it in a way that is pretty consistent with past behavior.

The article essentially chronicles surprise that this app would be rejected. What you describe is you believe the terms are unjust. These are two different things.

I may not agree with the speed limit on the freeway, but I am not surprised if I am ticketed for going over it.

A big issue is that the app was approved in the first place. If I'm having an emergency and a cop stops me and says it's fine to speed, then tickets me a mile later, I would be surprised.

Not really the right comparison ... more like: you pass a speed control without being flashed and in the next mile you get a ticket. That can happen.

What happened here, though, is that the cop said it's fine to speed, and then his boss saw you speeding a mile later.

I agree that Apple should have never approved the app in the first place. Once they let it through, there was no good solution.

1. Allow all widget launchers, which they don't want and are explicitly against the TOS.

2. Allow only this widget app to stay, giving it an unfair monopoly. Cue kingmaker article.

3. Allow this version of the widget app to stay, reject all updates. Like #2, but worse in every way.

4. Pull the app off the store; allow it to continue to function for people to have it.

5. Push the big red button to pull the app off the store and every phone.

Any time a flagrant TOS violation sneaks through, whether by App Review oversight or by subterfuge, this happens. Apple always chooses #4.

Oh, we most certainly do have a choice, especially as developers. If enough of us don't support their infrastructure or buy their products then we most certainly can effect change and their bottom-line. Don't be upset and powerless, be proactive and don't support Apple in any way.

If you don't develop for Apple because you are under the misapprehension that the Play Store is more open there will be plenty of people willing to take the money.

The Play Store does allow app launchers (alternative home screens and themes are even popular), but they do still ban other non-malicious apps, most notably: pornography, apps that block ads in other apps, and YouTube video downloaders. Though the latter is allowed in the Amazon Appstore, I think.

There are plenty of other choices, though.

Launcher apps have been available on Android since the beginning. I doubt the developer would have seen such a massive initial success on Android unless their app was particularly impressive.

He sounds like an effective developer with good creativity. I'm willing to bet he'll find something new in the future.

at the time Microsoft had > 90% market share of desktop PC operating systems. currently apple doesn't have even close to this market share for mobile handset/tablet operating systems.

remember, the anti-trust laws are meant to curtail abuses of monopolies. they are almost powerless when a company is not actually a monopoly. that's by design. when a company is not a monopoly the remedy to their abuses is to simply buy from their competitor.

As far as I know Windows never contained such terms. You should likely make it clear that that is a hypothetical.

In answer to your point, the likely reason Apple can do it but Microsoft could not is two things:

- Microsoft was a monopoly, iOS is not.

- At the time Microsoft was competing against browser vendors who licensed their software for a fee (e.g. Netscape cost between $30-69) and not only utilised their monopoly to squish that entire industry ($0 browser) but also created an uncompetitive market in another field (leveraged their OS monopoly to squish the browser market). That isn't similar to the 2014 browser market.

>>As in, we have no other choice.

Of course you do. Android, Windows Phone, even Blackberry if that's your thing.

Are you being forced to develop on iOS?

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