As a developer who has released over 30 apps: “procedurally moving their concerns up the chain” is not a thing with Apple. They. Do. Not. Care.
When it’s your business that’s on the line, you’ll do everything to save it.
Stop defending Apple, it’s juvenile. Hundreds of frustrated developers out there, and you don’t have the slightest clue what it is to be in the trenches.
I’m not defending Apple. I have no idea whose fault this is. I’m just pointing out that running to the press isn’t going to solve the problem either.
If it’s as bad as you claim, why on earth are you still doing this? Life’s short. Don’t waste your time on things that do not bring you joy.
And just for the record I was, in fact, a developer at one time (the 90s). Apple was great to us, but that’s too long ago to matter in this case.
As a developer who has released over 30 apps: “procedurally moving their concerns up the chain” is not a thing with Apple. They. Do. Not. Care.
When it’s your business that’s on the line, you’ll do everything to save it.
Stop defending Apple, it’s juvenile. Hundreds of frustrated developers out there, and you don’t have the slightest clue what it is to be in the trenches.
I’m not defending Apple. I have no idea whose fault this is. I’m just pointing out that running to the press isn’t going to solve the problem either.
If it’s as bad as you claim, why on earth are you still doing this? Life’s short. Don’t waste your time on things that do not bring you joy.
And just for the record I was, in fact, a developer at one time (the 90s). Apple was great to us, but that’s too long ago to matter in this case.
That is a good question.
Mouths to feed… it’s not easy to stop a moving train. You don’t want to go bankrupt. But I was lucky and successful regardless; I sold my company to a larger tech company and am now part of that company (which in return is about to be bought). But many struggle. I would never go back to do what I did for 14 years, although it was an amazing creative endeavor which I miss.
The app industry is brutal. People complain about paying less than a beer for a game that costs hundreds of thousands to develop. You get maybe exposure for a week and then you’re buried in the next 500 releases. You lose out to Apple’s ad system where the top-25 devs buy up exposure and devs are able to spend sometimes millions per day on user acquisition. The top-25 barely moves because of it: they pay to keep taking that spot.
Apple and Google, but Apple first, have caused a lot of issues by kickstarting this race to the bottom. At one point in time it was unheard of to offer an app for free. Now the perception of value is completely skewed and a developer has no power to try to monetize outside the App Store rules. I cannot express how rotten the mobile App Store ecosystem is to devs…
Another example: I have lost crucial deadlines for games that were about to be released alongside major theatrical releases because Apple didn’t bother to review them in time or declined the submission, being in complete error. We lose hundreds of thousands missing the opportunity to make money, and after weeks they suddenly accept a new submission with a build that was exactly the same binary as the one before.
No way to reach a representative, and when filing feedback you have to wait for days to receive a bot-like response.
Another one was Apple actively forcing us to bundle a game with other games (“make one game that links to smaller ones in a single SKU and go for a subscription model”) because we were using a Disney property and Apple had ties with Disney - apparently an Apple exec who was buddies with a Disney exec.
We didn’t want that for marketing and monetization reasons. They forced us nevertheless. The result? We didn’t make any money with these particular games because of ten pushing us to do something we didn’t want, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on an IP purchase with a minimum guarantee to Disney.
And there is obviously no way we could have sued a trillion dollar company for this. No way to release it through another store or by side-loading.
As you said - the 90s were definitely different. Special. A time when development was special, where devs were pioneering and Apple was still small enough to have… personality.
Reminds of the conundrum the Pre - Jobsian Apple found themselves in with Clones.
They thought the clone vendors would attempt to expand into new markets but instead they simply sought to cannibalize the company with inferior offerings.
What incentive does Apple have to allow a significant amount of vendors to leverage their distribution platform at minimal cost and reap the financial benefits outside of Apple's sphere?
If they were inferior offerings how was it they were able to cannibalise Apple's sales?
A lot of the clones were excellent. That was the problem, they were faster, more feature-rich and cheaper than Apple's Macs.
This is different. Apple's incentive to allow vendors to sell on the App Store is increased sales of iPhones. Besides, Apple distributes Facebook, X and a multitude of apps completely free, so why try and force this small developer to pay especially when they've already got another app through with the "reader" clause? And considering the amount of trash on the App Store - and as the dev points out, Google has heaps of apps that could all be mangled into one. Why did Apple allow Messenger to be separated from Facebook?
UGH. I maintained many, many clones at a university. NO, they were NOT the same build quality.
Love how people commenting here pretending to know the whole fucking situation based on the very limited and curated information presented by DHH, who has gotten famous by nastily smearing Apple 24/7 in order to raise his own profile. And this article is pretty pathetic in how it just parrots his complaints. There's always more to the story, and DHH's narrative is almost always dishonest and misleading. Remember his public, expletive laden, nasty tirade when his wife didnt get approved for an Apple Card or something? Had nothing to do with Apple but he took it as an opportunity to accuse from of everything from sexism to fascism.
Given how Hey’s email system works not sure I see why they’d want a second app that talks to the same account?
if they are doing that why not do a newsfeed app to pull those distractions away from the email stream. Seems to be if they are trying to sort out time sensitive verse insensitive distractions you’d want to move the insensitive ones out rather than separate the time sensitive ones in two places
Here’s a suggestion for Hey: Apple really hates it when obscure developers run to the press with their complaints instead of procedurally moving their concerns up the chain.
To me it does sound like some kind of misunderstanding, or maybe I don’t know how Hey’s pricing model works because I have zero interest in Hey’s products (or indeed, all third-party email and calendar products).
Try going through developer relations and maybe the matter will get resolved faster.
You must not be a developer with decent apps in the store. If you don't go public you get the run-around because Apple doesn't give two shits about you if you are not Uber, Google or any of the other big firms they make exceptions for. Apple should instead crack down on the thousands of extremely obvious shady apps with in-app purchases, but no, they won't. This is actively discouraging developers from developing for iOS just because Apple wants a few pennies. This behaviour is not even in the interest of the user.
The drama queens over at Basecamp. Everyone I know who used Basecamp moved to Slack. Maybe they are bitter on losing out on a billion $ payout
Also, I looked up Hey Mail in the App Store. Minimal downloads and traction. Looks like a failed product. FWIW
This is just such an ignorant and low-effort argument. They seem to be doing just fine with all of their apps, even their old version of Basecamp. If you moved from Basecamp to Slack I don't know what to tell you, Basecamp is a totally different product. Regardless, if they suddenly start applying rules, apply them to Google, Microsoft, Uber, Walmart, etc. But they don't. Apple fully deserves antitrust inquiries with this behaviour.
“Hey apps are free, standalone apps that access a paid service. This is similar to how apps like Netflix and Spotify function — the app is essentially a reader app that accesses off-device content.”
How is this app similar to Netflix or Spotify? Does it stream video or audio content?
I’m not privy to the whole situation, but my impression is that the developer seems to be looking for a fight.
I have multiple apps in the store just like Hey, for my clients. Zero problems. Maybe I got lucky with the reviewers? Or maybe there is something else going on? there are exceptions for certain types of apps, listed in the rules. Hey follows those rules just fine, so why does Apple deny multiple times?
Comments
Mouths to feed… it’s not easy to stop a moving train. You don’t want to go bankrupt. But I was lucky and successful regardless; I sold my company to a larger tech company and am now part of that company (which in return is about to be bought). But many struggle. I would never go back to do what I did for 14 years, although it was an amazing creative endeavor which I miss.
The app industry is brutal. People complain about paying less than a beer for a game that costs hundreds of thousands to develop. You get maybe exposure for a week and then you’re buried in the next 500 releases. You lose out to Apple’s ad system where the top-25 devs buy up exposure and devs are able to spend sometimes millions per day on user acquisition. The top-25 barely moves because of it: they pay to keep taking that spot.
Apple and Google, but Apple first, have caused a lot of issues by kickstarting this race to the bottom. At one point in time it was unheard of to offer an app for free. Now the perception of value is completely skewed and a developer has no power to try to monetize outside the App Store rules. I cannot express how rotten the mobile App Store ecosystem is to devs…
Another example: I have lost crucial deadlines for games that were about to be released alongside major theatrical releases because Apple didn’t bother to review them in time or declined the submission, being in complete error. We lose hundreds of thousands missing the opportunity to make money, and after weeks they suddenly accept a new submission with a build that was exactly the same binary as the one before.
if they are doing that why not do a newsfeed app to pull those distractions away from the email stream. Seems to be if they are trying to sort out time sensitive verse insensitive distractions you’d want to move the insensitive ones out rather than separate the time sensitive ones in two places
This is just such an ignorant and low-effort argument. They seem to be doing just fine with all of their apps, even their old version of Basecamp. If you moved from Basecamp to Slack I don't know what to tell you, Basecamp is a totally different product.
Regardless, if they suddenly start applying rules, apply them to Google, Microsoft, Uber, Walmart, etc. But they don't. Apple fully deserves antitrust inquiries with this behaviour.
I have multiple apps in the store just like Hey, for my clients. Zero problems. Maybe I got lucky with the reviewers? Or maybe there is something else going on? there are exceptions for certain types of apps, listed in the rules. Hey follows those rules just fine, so why does Apple deny multiple times?