Apple pulls ProTube from App Store following complaints by Google's YouTube
Despite it being available for nearly three years, Apple has removed a popular alternative YouTube client -- ProTube -- from the App Store, allegedly bowing to pressure by Google.
Google, which owns YouTube, first asked Apple to pull ProTube over a year ago on the basis that it violates the company's terms of service, developer Jonas Gessner said in a blog post. Similar takedown requests were reportedly directed against other YouTube clients.
Eventually Google insisted that Gessner stop making ProTube a paid title and disable all of its signature features, such as background playback and an audio-only mode. This would've rendered the app useless versus the official YouTube client, but since ProTube's arrival Google has launched YouTube Red, a service which includes some of ProTube's features -- but for a monthly fee.
Gessner said he tried to negotiate with Google but found communication "very difficult," without the chance to get a direct response to questions. The company is said to have threatened legal action, and hanging over the process was the chance that Google would simply switch off ProTube's access to the YouTube API.
Ultimately Gessner found that letting the app get pulled was the best decision, since it would end the fight with Google while letting existing users hold onto the features they paid for.
ProTube 1 is still available on Cydia, a distribution system for jailbroken iPhones and iPads, but Gessner said that he decided against putting ProTube 2.x on the platform since relatively few people have jailbroken hardware, App Store purchases can't be carried over to Cydia, and Google might still pursue legal action.
Developers have sometimes complained that App Store rules can be fickle, making it hard to count on the store as a source of income. Last month, a group of 28 Chinese developers filed a related antitrust complaint.
Google, which owns YouTube, first asked Apple to pull ProTube over a year ago on the basis that it violates the company's terms of service, developer Jonas Gessner said in a blog post. Similar takedown requests were reportedly directed against other YouTube clients.
Eventually Google insisted that Gessner stop making ProTube a paid title and disable all of its signature features, such as background playback and an audio-only mode. This would've rendered the app useless versus the official YouTube client, but since ProTube's arrival Google has launched YouTube Red, a service which includes some of ProTube's features -- but for a monthly fee.
Gessner said he tried to negotiate with Google but found communication "very difficult," without the chance to get a direct response to questions. The company is said to have threatened legal action, and hanging over the process was the chance that Google would simply switch off ProTube's access to the YouTube API.
Ultimately Gessner found that letting the app get pulled was the best decision, since it would end the fight with Google while letting existing users hold onto the features they paid for.
ProTube 1 is still available on Cydia, a distribution system for jailbroken iPhones and iPads, but Gessner said that he decided against putting ProTube 2.x on the platform since relatively few people have jailbroken hardware, App Store purchases can't be carried over to Cydia, and Google might still pursue legal action.
Developers have sometimes complained that App Store rules can be fickle, making it hard to count on the store as a source of income. Last month, a group of 28 Chinese developers filed a related antitrust complaint.
Comments
Nothing much that Apple can do about it at the end of the day, despite trying.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+evil+youtube&rlz=1CAZZAB_enUS739US739&oq=Google+evil+youtube&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.5700j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Tangentially, one thing my brief stint with YouTube TV emphasized was how poorly designed Google's apps are. Google/Alphabet just isn't as good at software as its reputation suggests. And their attracting a lot of high profile employees is just fluff, just like a lot of the X projects are. All the better to recruit young, impressionable graduates. (Now, I do have great respect for the company's ability to track people, store the data forever, and the potential to mine the data in the future as their software improves.)
Apple:
Apps should not include content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, or in exceptionally poor taste. Examples of such content include:
Defamatory or mean-spirited content, including references or commentary about religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, or other targeted groups, particularly if the app is likely to place a targeted individual or group in harm’s way. Professional political satirists and humorists are generally exempt from this requirement...
Inflammatory religious commentary or inaccurate or misleading quotations of religious texts.
Google:
We encourage free speech and try to defend your right to express unpopular points of view, but we don't permit hate speech. Hate speech refers to content that promotes violence against or has the primary purpose of inciting hatred against individuals or groups based on certain attributes, such as:
There is a fine line between what is and what is not considered to be hate speech. For instance, it is genearlly okay to criticize a nation-state, but if the primary purpose of the content is to incite hatred against a group of people solely based on their ethnicity, or if the content promotes violence based on any of these core attributes, like religion, it violates our policy.
Twitter:
You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. We also do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories.
Seems like Google and Apple and Twitter are all on the same page. But Facebook is a bit different and I'm assuming is more aligned with your views?https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-censorship-internal-documents-algorithms
The first amendment needs sub-law clarification. As the government cannot restrict one’s freedom of expression, any resource that receives government funding should not be able to restrict one’s freedom of expression, as its existence and actions are an extension of government whims. As such, rather than necessarily need to break up certain monopolistic companies (for this specific purpose alone), simply make it illegal (unconstitutional) for any group which receives government funding from engaging in censorship. That, ironically, will shut them the fuck up regarding their current crusades. It’ll also make them want to rely less on Daddy Government and Mommy Welfare.
Gessner was able to sell these things as a fixed priced app because Google was paying all the recurring costs for bandwidth and servers. It comes under the heading of "well, it was good while it lasted".