Apple amping up purges of apps that are similar to iOS 12 Screen Time
Apple has eliminated 11 of the 17 most popular screen time monitoring and parental control apps from the App Store, and has done so with increasing frequency since it launched its own monitoring tool, Screen Time, in iOS 12.
Apple's withdrawals started arriving shortly after Screen Time arrived in iOS 12, and have progressed to more and more apps as the months have worn on. Reportedly, there has been an escalation since December, when the removals were first spotted.
"They yanked us out of the blue with no warning," Chief Executive of OurPact Amir Moussavian told the New York Times in a new report published on Saturday. "They are systematically killing the industry."
In many cases, the apps that had demands for feature removal were more full-featured than Apple's ScreenTime. Some third-party apps removed allowed for iPhone-owning parents to monitor Android devices. Others blocked in appropriate content on browsers other than Safari. Neither feature is available in Screen Time.
The move is explicitly authorized by the terms of conditions that all developers agree with, when they publish apps through the App Store. In speaking with Apple on Saturday morning, AppleInsider was told that the feature removal requests and app withdrawals fall under section 5.2.5 of the App Store app review guidelines, specifically saying "don't create an App that appears confusing similar to an existing Apple Product, interface, app, or advertising theme."
Developers have also been told that they were violating guideline 2.5.1 of the guidelines, which prohibits use of public APIs in an unapproved manner.
Some rejection letters seen by AppleInsider since the original December report inform developers that the apps, as submitted, potentially have too much access to a child's data, in possible violation of section 17.4 of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and the related section 1.3 of the App Store terms. However, many of the sections of COPPA cited by Apple's rejections can be bypassed by parental consent, which presumably the parents would grant, if they're installing some form of monitoring application on an iPhone.
"We treat all apps the same, including those that compete with our own services," Apple said, in a statement to AppleInsider and other venues. "Our incentive is to have a vibrant app ecosystem that provides consumers access to as many quality apps as possible."
In social media, the app removal report is bringing up the long-time neologism "Sherlocked" for when Apple replaces a third-party application's functionality with something baked into the operating system. Over 15 years ago with the release of MacOS X 10.2, Sherlock 3 was a substantively similar Apple-generated clone of Karelia Software's Watson. Ultimately, Sherlock 3 effectively killed Watson, spawning the "Sherlocked" term.
Apple's withdrawals started arriving shortly after Screen Time arrived in iOS 12, and have progressed to more and more apps as the months have worn on. Reportedly, there has been an escalation since December, when the removals were first spotted.
"They yanked us out of the blue with no warning," Chief Executive of OurPact Amir Moussavian told the New York Times in a new report published on Saturday. "They are systematically killing the industry."
In many cases, the apps that had demands for feature removal were more full-featured than Apple's ScreenTime. Some third-party apps removed allowed for iPhone-owning parents to monitor Android devices. Others blocked in appropriate content on browsers other than Safari. Neither feature is available in Screen Time.
The move is explicitly authorized by the terms of conditions that all developers agree with, when they publish apps through the App Store. In speaking with Apple on Saturday morning, AppleInsider was told that the feature removal requests and app withdrawals fall under section 5.2.5 of the App Store app review guidelines, specifically saying "don't create an App that appears confusing similar to an existing Apple Product, interface, app, or advertising theme."
Developers have also been told that they were violating guideline 2.5.1 of the guidelines, which prohibits use of public APIs in an unapproved manner.
Some rejection letters seen by AppleInsider since the original December report inform developers that the apps, as submitted, potentially have too much access to a child's data, in possible violation of section 17.4 of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and the related section 1.3 of the App Store terms. However, many of the sections of COPPA cited by Apple's rejections can be bypassed by parental consent, which presumably the parents would grant, if they're installing some form of monitoring application on an iPhone.
"We treat all apps the same, including those that compete with our own services," Apple said, in a statement to AppleInsider and other venues. "Our incentive is to have a vibrant app ecosystem that provides consumers access to as many quality apps as possible."
In social media, the app removal report is bringing up the long-time neologism "Sherlocked" for when Apple replaces a third-party application's functionality with something baked into the operating system. Over 15 years ago with the release of MacOS X 10.2, Sherlock 3 was a substantively similar Apple-generated clone of Karelia Software's Watson. Ultimately, Sherlock 3 effectively killed Watson, spawning the "Sherlocked" term.
Comments
Pointing to Apple's guidelines that state that developers may not have apps with similar features to those in iOS is of little consequence from an anticompetitive point of view. If the guidelines result in anticompetitive behaviour from Apple, a regulator will force Apple to change them. I hate to say it but I think the regulators to need to have words with Apple to put them back in their place a bit.
It’s unlikely that Apple cares very much that apps compete with their own. What they do care about is how those apps affect the user experience of their product. If there are apps which appear to confuse the built-in function then of course they’re not going to be happy with it.
Sometimes this approach hurts other developers, but it’s not a desire to dominate anything but the user experience.
Apple’s user experience, while not perfect, is better than others. And if 3rd party developers could do whatever they wanted the user experience would overall be worsened.
you could, of course, try open sourcing your code. I hear that’s a way to provide code without any rules...oh wait, the GPL...
I wonder why you can get 3rd party calendars, browsers and email programs, but not system utilities?
They violated Apple’s terms and they didn’t even get a slap on the wrist.
https://www.wired.com/2012/02/google-safari-browser-cookie/
So it’s not a viable excuse. It’s not a question of security, it is an example of abuse by Apple dating back to Sherlock on the Mac. That was almost an identical copy to Watson.
Now that Apple is the size it is and isn’t a niche player, it won’t be able to get away with this behavior for much longer.
Better to leave the other Apps alone, it will end up costing Apple less in the long run.
something doesn’t make sense here.