
We launched an app with $500k annual revenue, and then Apple copied it - anastalaz
https://gopractice.io/blog/sense-story/
======
busymom0
This is some super click bait and borderline deceitful blog. Apps on iOS are
sandboxed so you can't access data about other app's launch and usage. These
apps were using MDM profiles to get that usage data. This also meant that the
user's internet data was going through these third parties which is a pretty
big privacy issue. Plus having MDM profiles gave these third parties enormous
access to the user's device settings. It would allow all your children's phone
data as well as device settings to be accessible to these 3rd parties. That's
bad, exploitative of underage kids, against the TOS as well as using MDM
profiles for wrong intentions. Using MDM profiles are only intended to be used
for controlling employee and VPN access for filtering apps within an
organization/company. They are not to be used for this purpose and as per the
guidelines not to be used for consumer products. Same reason why Facebook's
certificates was blocked because they were abusing the MDM profile for
different purposes. This was clearly against Apple's policies and against the
terms of developer agreement.

The author claiming it's because Apple is trying to eliminate competition
forgot to mention any of the above very important reasons. They also forgot to
mention that what they were doing was clearly against the app store guidelines
which they had agreed to.

Looks like Apple released this info in a press release. NYT's poor journalism
got called out too:

[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/the-facts-about-
paren...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/04/the-facts-about-parental-
control-apps/)

One could argue that Apple should provide an API which lets developers access
to this data. Apple might be working on that or maybe they won't because Apple
has a strict "privacy" policy and providing such sensitive data can be prone
to being used by bad actors.

~~~
kushan2020
It is funny how you assume Apple is first party and it gets to decide who is
trustworthy or not. It might be better at privacy when compared to other
companies, but a for profit company can never be fair or even correct when
making such decisions on privacy.

~~~
busymom0
I am still willing to accept Apple's stance on privacy proven by their track
record over some no reputation company which claims they got the idea from
Onava (an app bought by Facebook to track users).

------
HeavenFox
May I say the title should be taken with a grain of salt. From the article:

> A month before being removed from the App Store, the app raked in ~$45,000
> in revenue. This means the product was operating at a $500,000 annual run
> rate.

It's an extrapolation, from the first month.

~~~
busymom0
That plus they are talking about extrapolated "revenue". They didn't mention
what the server costs were for having to handle the traffic of that many
users. Server costs for such would be pretty high. Also other operating costs,
development costs etc. Revenue doesn't matter, profit does.

~~~
rat9988
I guess you aren't native english speaker. As a french speaker, I got bitten
by it in the past. Revenu is the total income, you have probably profit in
mind.

~~~
smiths1999
Yes - the comment you are replying to is making the point that revenue may be
$500,000 (extrapolated) but if server costs are $1,000,000 then the app is
losing money, not making money.

I see this trend quite frequently, only mentioning revenue but leaving out
costs.

~~~
busymom0
Yep. One thing which I have learnt from watching Shark Tank is that many
companies would come with crazy valuations because they make millions in
revenue. Only once questioned by the sharks would they disclose the much
bigger operating costs and were severely bleeding money instead of profits.

~~~
superfrank
To put it succinctly, "Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity".

------
cheeze
On the flipside, this app looks like it was kind of a hack to get working.
"Tunnel all of your traffic through our VPN to get tracking of social media
use." It doesn't surprise me that Apple would want to offer first-party
support.

~~~
hestefisk
Agree with the sentiment here. Whilst I have all the deepest sympathies for
the guy, it does seem like a hack to tunnel it through a VPN to get it
working. One could argue, the right approach would be if Apple opened up the
hooks to measuring app usage for any 3rd party app, but I don’t think that
will happen any time soon.

~~~
scarface74
You would actually trust a third party app to track your usage?

Apple actually had to lock out Twitter and other apps from logging what other
apps were on your phone for analytics.

~~~
lostmsu
Not only I've done it for years, it was also social, e.g. my friends could see
it. The app doing that used to be called Wakoopa, now defunct.

IMHO, it was great!

~~~
scarface74
If this is the same company, you couldn’t possibly be okay with this?

[https://wakoopa.com/](https://wakoopa.com/)

~~~
lostmsu
They dropped the original product long time ago.

------
matwood
This story has been repeated time and again. There is even a term, 'getting
Sherlocked'.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)#Sherlocked...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_\(software\)#Sherlocked_as_a_term)

~~~
shkkmo
The damning part to me is not so much that Apple copied it, but that they
copied it, then removed their competitor from the app store.

~~~
woadwarrior01
It was removed as a part of a general thrust towards removing shady VPN apps.
Onavo the VPN app that’s mentioned in the post was also removed from the App
Store around the same time. The article is trying to spin the narrative of a
causal connection between Apple removing their app from the App Store and then
introducing the same feature in iOS, but that doesn’t seem to be the true.

------
AimForTheBushes
This app pretty much goes against everything Apple is trying to achieve with
'Privacy First'. Personally, I would have never used it because routing all
traffic through their vpn seems malicious in itself, but a non-tech savvy user
may not understand the consequence of allowing that.

------
Someone1234
This blog post is worth a read REGARDLESS of if you think the app itself is a
good idea (i.e. VPNing all of a user's traffic to track/block social media
usage). There's a lot more here than the app itself/complaining about Apple.

For example they talk about getting their first users, techniques they tried
for growth (ads, influencers, etc), and revenue streams. All matters of keen
interest to anyone considering a startup/app.

I happen to agree with Apple on squishing this app. But I still find the blog
worth while.

------
throw20102010
I know lots of people on HN aren’t a fan of patents- either because of patent
trolls or because they believe that patents harm FOSS. So knowing that, I
expect a few people to disagree with what I say.

This is exactly what patents are supposed to protect you from. If you have a
good idea, then file a patent and protect yourself. If it’s worth $500k per
year then it’s worth having a patent lawyer help you do it right. Get the core
stuff patented, not just the fluff. This way Apple can’t just pull your
livelihood from you.

If you tried to patent your idea and it wasn’t patentable, then it’s probably
not really _your_ idea, and you can’t feel bad when Apple steals something
that isn’t yours.

But you have to do this sooner rather than later. If you wait until your app
has become a feature in iOS then it’s too late.

Want proof that patents are necessary? Just look at how many patents that
Apple, Samsung, SpaceX, etc. have.

~~~
tetrep
But patents wouldn't protect them in this instance. Patents are explicitly for
implementations, not abstractions/ideas. I highly doubt they could get a
patent on an implementation sufficiently abstract that would block any
statistical tracking/monitoring of app usage, or at least one that wouldn't
run into prior art issues.

Apple isn't tunneling everything through a VPN to track it.

------
wp381640
This app is spyware - it's no different to Facebook and Onavo in how it can be
abused[0]

[0] [https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/facebook-removes-
onavo/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/facebook-removes-onavo/)

~~~
em-bee
it's not spyware when tracking is the explicit intent of the app. that's a
users choice. spyware is doing it covertly without telling the user.

------
didibus
I'm not sure Apple copied it. I think the idea to have a way to track and
limit phone usage was pretty widespread, even 5 years back. I multiple time
looked for an app like that.

The problem is that of security, and any app of the sort needs too many
permissions over other apps. The VPN solution poses a big security risk to
users as well. This really only makes sense as a first party feature.

Now, the part where Apple removed their app from their AppStore I find more
strange. Was it breaking any of their rules?

~~~
cardiffspaceman
> _Was it breaking any of their rules?_

The rule against using VPNs to gather usage data, which apparently is new.

~~~
didibus
Didn't know, but happy they have this in place now.

------
threeseed
"Prior to its acquisition, Onavo had developed a mobile VPN app .. tracked app
usage and sold this analytics to other developers."

"We decided to take a similar approach."

Pot. Kettle. Black.

------
totaldude87
This is the story of almost every other indie App developer with a good app
idea/implementation , either you will be bought or destroyed.

(or rake in millions when you can to sustain for few more months)

~~~
threeseed
You can also become Instagram, WhatsApp or one of the many other multi billion
dollar companies.

Or does that not fit your narrative ?

~~~
m4tthumphrey
> bought or destroyed

Fits the narrative precisely.

~~~
threeseed
Pinterest, Snapchat, Uber, Spotify, Pandora, Candy Crush etc.

We can do this all day. Many of the top tech companies we have today exist
because of mobile apps.

------
slg
Cached version since the HN traffic seems to have killed the original:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190617200100/gopractice.io/blo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190617200100/gopractice.io/blog/sense-
story/)

------
ubersoldat2k7
Two things I see here:

Apple didn't copy their app, they copied Android's.

Second, the VPN thing is shaddy AF. I understand this is a workaround but
shit, they could be doing some nasty stuff with MITM attacks. No wonder Apple
took it down once it was clear how it worked.

------
gist
It's business. Not only that it's stated almost certainly when you get
involved with the app store. Wouldn't make sense for Apple to do it any
differently.

Apple did this in the 90's with peripherals such as video boards which at the
time (80's/90's) were products that you almost always had to buy from a third
party. Then Apple built them right into the hardware themselves. There is zero
wrong with any company 'business' doing this. If you think there is you are
not a business person. (Even if the competitors products are removed from the
'store').

------
abc_lisper
There were other companies with a similar idea and product before these guys
came along. "Location Labs" and "Life 360" come to mind.

------
GuiA
_> A month before being removed from the App Store, the app raked in ~$45,000
in revenue. This means the product was operating at a $500,000 annual run
rate._

No, this means you had a revenue of $45k over one month (congrats! It’s a
number to be proud of in itself). This artificial extrapolation of sales data
to get attention grabbing headlines is so frustrating.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
It's not like they launched a game like flappy bird that was a one-month hype
and died out after, where launch-month revenue is not indicative of annual
revenue.

They released it, then iterated on it for 1.5 years, at the end of which they
were generating $45k a month. If anything, there's reason to believe it'd have
topped the $500k. There's no guarantees but I don't think it was disingenuous
to extrapolate in this case.

------
gentle_p
A lot of privacy paranoia in comments...probably super trendy now. Apple is
fine with VPN based on their last update [https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/#vpn...](https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/#vpn-apps)

~~~
scarface74
Apple has had built in support for standard VPN protocols since iOS 4 - no app
required. I expect to connect to a VPN to access internal company resources.

------
gentle_p
There are a lot of parental control apps that use vpn in the same way and it's
okay...[https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/screen-time-parental-
control/i...](https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/screen-time-parental-
control/id1055315077)

------
tantalor
> I didn’t write this article. My wife, Lyuba Vyaznikova, did.

Then put her name in the byline!

------
ilikerashers
"In mid-September 2016, we began the development process. In early December of
2016, the “Sense – Social Media Time Tracker” app made its debut in the App
Store."

That's an incredibly fast build time!

~~~
threeseed
I used to work for a mobile agency and we used to complete a decent sized app
from concept to in-store in about a month.

Very easy if the tooling is good, the testing is easy (only a few device
types) and it's only one target platform.

------
miguelmota
Stopped reading after the author mentions "$500,000 annual run rate" but the
revenue chart shows nothing close to that. Nothing is more frustrating than
clickbait titles.

------
TuringNYC
I know Apple is less known to do this, but was there any approach from Apple
for an acqui-hire your group and help develop a more strategic product from
within Apple?

~~~
scarface74
Apple’s implementation doesn’t intercept all of your communications.

------
toephu2
Amazon does this all the time. Think AmazonBasics. Pretty killer business
model if you ask me. Sucks for the little guy though. Good for consumers
however.

------
jrvxo
As an end user, am I happy that Apple took your idea and built it in the OS,
stripped of ads, premium features, tracking and analytics, etc? Yes, yes I am.

~~~
namesbc
This type of app would have been possible to build without a VPN on any other
OS. Apple has chosen to make it difficult for anyone other than themselves to
build such apps.

This is an abuse of market position in one market to expand in another, and
has a long term negative effect on the health of the industry if only the
large players that own the ecosystem can profit from it.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
Do you really want 3rd party developers to be able to write apps that can
introspect all other apps running on a phone?

~~~
lacker
Yes. "top" and "ps" are pretty useful tools.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
Those are developer tools, so of course they need to do things you would never
want Slack to do, for example. Also, Apple themselves ported Dtrace to MacOS.
If you want the ultimate computing surveillance tool, Dtrace is a good bet.

------
AlphaWeaver
Each time I see one of these stories pop up, I'm hoping that the lawyer for
the Apple Antitrust case is making a note to include these testimonials as
evidence of a problem.

~~~
scarface74
I can see the plaintiffs argument. Apple wouldn’t allow an app that spied on
users and sold analytics.

This is about how anti virus makers threaten to sue MS because they wouldn’t
allow the right hooks into the OS that destabilized it.

