from Hacker News

How Apple Kills Indie Developers

by fluder on 9/26/19, 6:54 PM with 124 comments

• by privateSFacct on 9/26/19, 8:09 PM

  For some perspective on apple "killing" developers.

  Apple is FLOODED with copycat crap apps - 10 different names etc etc. Seriously, the play store used to have lots more of these - maybe now cleaned up. But saying that apple needs to encourage this crap is silly. This is what was killing the play store.

  The guy complaining here has his "privacy policy" as follows: https://github.com/glushchenko/fsnotes

  When someone who doesn't know git or github tries to read his privacy policy they have no chance.

  Why it this all apple's fault? I don't think it is unreasonable to ask for a privacy policy.

  One fix, developers should be able to pay $500 to have someone give them some training on what sections of app review guidelines they are breaking. Do 30 minutes to prep, spend an hour talking with them, then 30 minutes to wrap up.

  Someone has this service - seriously - consider paying for some guidance if you don't want to read through the lengthy Apple stuff yourself.

  https://www.iosconsultant.com/services

• by kemayo on 9/26/19, 7:58 PM

  Glancing at the app store review guidelines[1], I will note that this app's listing[2] is low-key violating the privacy policy requirement by just linking to the github repo for the app, which has no actual privacy policy listed. I have no idea if that's enough for Apple to do a suspension-and-review process like this, but it's definitely a violation.

  That said, I think they should include at least some hint in their communications about why they're reviewing you, particularly if it's going to take as long as it looks like this one has.

  [1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

  [2] https://apps.apple.com/app/fsnotes-manager/id1346501102

• by cumwolf on 9/26/19, 8:02 PM

  The AppStore experience is miserable. It sucks the life out of you as an independent developer when they reject your app for vague reasons and you know the turn around to get your app reviewed again is going to be another 1-3 days. The quality control is highly variant, sometimes my application goes through intense scrutiny, sometimes it gets rejected purely for user error on their reviewing end and other times it gets accepted without a peep. When they do have complaints and reject your app, you can submit comments or an appeal but they are never responded to or acknowledged. The whole process doesn't make me excited to create another app. I've made two different apps, avaialable on both platforms and the Google Play experience is way overall way easier to deal with, probably because there's less human review & scrutiny involved.

• by YooLi on 9/26/19, 8:12 PM

  Feels like there are some pieces missing from the story.

  This isn't a "we won't approve your app because it's not following the app guidelines" rejection or an app stuck in review purgatory. (I once had an Apple TV app stuck in review for 10 weeks before it magically was approved with no changes from me.) This is a "your account did something it shouldn't have done" flag. The whole account is suspended for an alleged infraction of "App Store Review Guidelines’ Developer Code of Conduct". Did your account do contract work on other "spammy" apps or similar? Even if you worked on completely different apps, it's not unprecedented for Apple to just blow the whole account up if it's in any way tied.

  Edit to add Code of Conduct:

  5.6 Developer Code of Conduct Please treat everyone with respect, whether in your responses to App Store reviews, customer support requests, or when communicating with Apple, including your responses in Resolution Center. Do not engage in harassment of any kind, discriminatory practices, intimidation, bullying, and don’t encourage others to engage in any of the above. Customer trust is the cornerstone of the App Store’s success. Apps should never prey on users or attempt to rip-off customers, trick them into making unwanted purchases, force them to share unnecessary data, raise prices in a tricky manner, charge for features or content that are not delivered, or engage in any other manipulative practices within or outside of the app.

• by gameswithgo on 9/26/19, 7:43 PM

  The google store operates in the same way. Application developers need to band together and quit accepting these locked down store monopolies. They aren't good for consumers either. The usual justification is that these stores reduce fruad and malware, but I have found the opposite to be true. Having a single store leads to an aggressive race to the bottom, where gaming the store ranking is priority one. Last two times I tried to find a rather obvious piece of software on apple store (a chess program, and a stopwatch program) I couldn't even find stuff that wasn't misleading adware ridden crap.

• by labmixz on 9/26/19, 8:40 PM

  Kind of one sided. The developer who posted this didn't include his emails to Apple. With that being said, it's hard to determine what was said to support.

  Did said developer ask why his account is currently under investigation? Hard to determine since he only posted what Apple sent back.

  Personally I have 5 Apps on the AppStore, have for many years, they are small bs apps that don't have much to them (stuff like a Migraine Tracker, before HealthKit was a thing, etc..). I've never ran into an issue with my apps being reviewed. Yes, some have taken awhile, Apple is flooded with requests and they've increased requirements (etc) which only makes things take longer.

  But since this really isn't about the Application being submitted, more so about the user's account under investigation. I would venture to say, there's something else going on that said Developer isn't posting.

  Your $99 developer subscription means nothing if you violate their terms. All that $99 does is weed out even more potential malicious developers (as most won't bother with paying $99 and will just go to Android).

  With that being said, the amount of developers submitting apps for review, Apple should find some way to review apps faster, especially since it is something we pay for. But there are a lot of developers trying to be sneaky and make simple applications for more complicated than they should be to sneak in code to either collect or steal data they have no business with. The more developers that do this, the more extensive review process Apple will have, the longer the wait times will be.

• by bitL on 9/26/19, 9:15 PM

  Google:

  REPEAT

  We have suspended your AdSense account due to our ML system flagging you for fraud (yes, we trust it) and we can't tell you why (no, we really can't tell you even if we wanted to).

  UNTIL customer goes away or the case gets enough upvotes on HN to be a PR problem

  Amazon:

  REPEAT

  We have removed your seller privileges due to a change in our policies we didn't communicate to anyone and you likely selling a brand that was recently put on a gated list or our ML system is thinking you are a fraud because you logged in in private mode.

  UNTIL customer goes away or hires a consulting company with ties to Amazon managers

  Apple:

  REPEAT

  We have placed your account under review with opaque "policy violation" but we won't tell you why (like Google we can't tell as some of our ML models have good day flagging you for reasons known only to them). Or you might have tweeted something 5 years ago against a company we just acquired. Well, bad luck.

  UNTIL developer goes away

  FAANG customer service in a nutshell.

• by ineedasername on 9/26/19, 7:57 PM

  basically this: "You broke a rule. We won't tell you what rule, or how you broke it. But we're going to punish you for it."

• by FpUser on 9/26/19, 8:06 PM

  I really feel for those who fall victim of this huge companies that under various disguises trying to get full control of people's lives and business. I am lucky that so far I have managed to avoid all this walled garden madness. All of my products so far are either desktop based or browser based and servers are hosted on my own/rented hardware, no cloudy stuff. Other than paying for security certificates every now and then I have no interaction with the "authorities of the Internet"

  Frankly I do not understand why do people submit to this kind of stewardship

• by urda on 9/26/19, 8:53 PM

  Each time I've seen this type of article make the news cycle it's as follows:

  - Apple does X against small / indie developer! I know it makes for a great headline.

  - Indie developer did no harm, rights a heart tugger of a blog post.

  - Post reaches front of HN, reddit, etc ...

  - Further digging shows not only did the indie developer not follow guidelines, they blatantly ignored them.

  - Indie dev is exposed for not following Apple guidelines.

  The way the issue is written makes it seem a considerable amount of information is being hidden. I'm going to wait until the dust settles before I take any sides.

• by css on 9/26/19, 8:24 PM

  Back in 2013/14 I got into it with the approval team [0] but I was at least able to get responses and feedback. I am really surprised they outright ignore devs now, especially since they have significantly scaled up review team sizes [1].

  I also don't see how this is related to apple "killing" indie devs; there are tons of notes apps in the store, this one is probably just breaking some guideline.

  [0] https://chrissardegna.com/blog/posts/get-an-app-approved/

  [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-28/why-did-a...

• by phendrenad2 on 9/26/19, 8:46 PM

  If Apple put the care and attention into app store reviews that they put into their iPhone/iPad hardware and iOS, they would have actual humans review everything. But the "race to the bottom" mentality has taken root, and if left unchecked will spread to the rest of the company IMO.

• by dlojudice on 9/26/19, 7:49 PM

  I just think its weird when someone blames Apple for being so much in control of their app store

• by edpichler on 9/26/19, 8:32 PM

  I have a similar problem with Youtube. I created original content and they blocked, saying that is not original. No details, impossible to talk with a person.

  I always end up enforcing my theory that some companies are becoming too powerful.

• by msephton on 9/27/19, 9:12 AM

  This is so disheartening! It is guilty until proven innocent.

  I've had similar experiences as a seller on eBay: when a buyer reports you they react in favour of the buyer because buyers make their business model work.

  I suspect it's the same here, that Apple have received some sort of complaint about the iOS app (given that the macOS app is unaffected) and the automatic "guilty until proven innocent" system has been activated. And sadly the only thing to do is wait for it to finish. It could be something like waiting 60 or 90 days without any further complaints of the same nature. You could hope for intervention by a sympathetic App Store employee or rep, but I don't know how likely that will be.

  To add insult to injury there is also the fact that this is an open source app and dishonest people are cloning it and selling it, and Apple are slow to take them down if they do at all.

• by ropiwqefjnpoa on 9/26/19, 7:40 PM

  Any idea why they would want to kill your notes app? There are already a bunch out there and Notes has been around forever.

• by fluder on 10/2/19, 8:36 AM

  Some news. App approved without any clarifications. I am still dont know why updates was blocked. Investigation warning still exist in my account.

• by crb002 on 9/26/19, 11:37 PM

  Sue them in Iowa State Court where the are building a a massive new data center. Recommend Attorney Gary Dickey or attorney Julia Ofenbakh.

• by xenospn on 9/26/19, 8:05 PM

  This is very odd. I’ve always found interactions with the Apple App Store review people to be very smooth and they always tell me exactly what they’re looking for while reviewing my app. If they can’t find it, i get back to them and they finish their review in under an hour. I get the feeling someone isn’t telling the whole story here.

• by vxNsr on 9/26/19, 7:45 PM

  Do you have any speculation about why they would do this?

• by antoinevg on 9/26/19, 8:08 PM

  Antitrust moves slow but when it comes it hits like the proverbial hammer smashing a wall-sized tv screen.

  Remember when all the Microsofties were gloating about how it was never gonna happen to them?

  Pepperidge farm remembers…

• by mikepechadotcom on 9/27/19, 12:38 AM

  Time to ditch native

• by hesburg on 9/27/19, 1:50 PM

  Huh, I was waiting Apple to approve my app about 7 weeks.. I really started to wonder whole app development in IOS platform.

  Why in earth we need to pay 100 dollars to keep our Dev license and keep apps in store ?

  Anyway, android app development has less sandbox feeling at the moment..

• by happyweasel on 9/26/19, 8:06 PM

  Write your core app in cross-platform C++, decoupling the UI (maybe using MVP or similar approaches), then switch to another platform.