
Apple rejecting applications which use Dropbox - dannyr
http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=59350
======
kennywinker
This has gone way too far. The other day I downloaded the Google Play Books
app. I started it up, signed in.. and nothing. No prompt to go buy books
online, no hint at what the app does... just a blank screen.

It's completely scummy. You can buy Apple's iCloud storage upgrade from within
the OS, and now you can't even LINK to a place where you could link to a place
where if you click the right link you could buy Dropbox storage.

~~~
ChuckMcM
[I have a zillion snarky type replies that itch to be free, but we'll keep
that monster in the box today.]

"Way to far" is an interesting characterization. Apple has rules about their
playground, they like their rules, they make Apple very profitable.

So the question becomes can Google leverage this liability to increase the
penetration or market share of Android tablets? Once these tactics hurt Apple
in the market they will change. Until then, well its their town and you either
have to play by their rules or not play at all.

~~~
jvm
I think parent was speaking as a consumer, not moralizing about it. In the
eyes of the law or economics, of course this is completely reasonable, it is
absolutely Apple's right to do this. But the consumer experience is horrible,
something parent is probably not used to from Apple.

~~~
greggman
Is it Apple's right to do this?

Didn't IBM lose the case where they said you can only run IBM software on IBM
360s?

IANAL but it sure would be nice for someone that is to speak up on why many of
these old cases don't apply.

Is it that it is legal, Apple just doesn't have to feature it in their store?
Phone companies were forced to allow 3rd party phones on their network. So
where/are mobile companies as far as I know. Car companies are require to
honor car warranties even if you change out the car stereo AFAIK.

Is there some reason similar rules don't apply to Apple (and Nintendo, and
Sony, and Microsoft)?

~~~
baddox
> _Is it Apple's right to do this?_

It should be.

~~~
throwaway64
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_ought_problem>

~~~
baddox
Well, the real problem is that "right" is a very broadly-defined term that
sometimes refers to _is_ and sometimes refers to _ought_. I was operating on
the definition (which I think is more useful) that a "right" is something a
person (or corporation) deserves regardless of whether they're actually given
it, so it's appropriate for me to answer with _ought_.

------
k-mcgrady
After reading through the thread it seems they are rejecting apps because a
piece of the Dropbox SDK breaks the App Store guidelines. They are not simply
rejecting Dropbox integrated apps.

It's well known that you cannot link the user to make a purchase outside of
the iOS ecosystem. It was a huge issue with the eBook apps last years.

I'm not saying I agree with Apple's stance on that but they are not rejecting
apps which use Dropbox because they don't like Dropbox. Dropbox is breaking
the rules and as soon as they fix that (it seems they already have) there will
be no more problems.

~~~
thought_alarm
They are rejecting apps that use the v1.0 or greater of the Dropbox SDK, or
apps that use the Dropbox OAUTH API.

Or, perhaps they're rejects apps that allow you to create a Dropbox account.
That would cover all versions of the Dropbox SDK.

The specific reasons they gave are:

\- "This app contains a link that takes the user to Dropbox via Safari".

\- "The concern with this app is that the user is taken to Dropbox's website,
if they do not have Dropbox installed on their device, where they have the
option to purchase additional storage space."

How would you read that? They seem to suggest that you can't link to _any_
page on dropbox.com.

The problem is that neither Dropbox's login page nor their create-account page
provide any links for purchasing anything, nor do they provide links to
Dropbox's main site. <http://rfc64k.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/dj-
xhtrivxl.png>

So it seems that merely because the login page is hosted at Dropbox.com, it is
forbidden because Dropbox.com can be used for purchasing things. That would
rule out all forms of OAUTH.

Their proposed solution was to remove the "Create Account" link, but it's not
at all clear whether that was the original problem, or whether it solves
anything.

The bottom line is that if your app currently uses any version of the Dropbox
SDK or the Dropbox OAUTH API your app may be rejected and you're now in a
state of limbo.

~~~
alexhaefner
I agree with your assertions, and I'd like to bring a bit of rationale to this
discussion rather than the "How can Apple be allowed to do this?" and other
flamboyant language.

This is on Dropbox to fix, not Apple.

Imagine you provide a marketplace, and you curate that marketplace. And you
say to customers who come to that marketplace "Don't worry, we're going to do
everything we can to protect you from bad purchases". Then you say to sellers,
"No deals behind closed doors. You want access to the marketplace? Sell out in
public." Every time you use the iOS in app purchase API, Apple has a way to
track the payment. Lets say the customer pays for a service inside of an app
that never gets rendered. The customer can then contact Apple who can verify
if the payment was processed, and can go about returning the customer's money
while policing the marketplace. But if the purchase for a service rendered
inside the app happens outside the app, then customers will have a much more
difficult time getting recourse for making payments to a service provider (app
maker) whose app doesn't work properly or doesn't provide the services that
the user payed for.

Having said all that, Dropbox provided this API to developers. They should
have built it to work inside these rules. They could let users create Dropbox
accounts, they just would not be allowed to charge users from outside of an
app for services that would then be rendered inside the app. It sucks, I know,
but it's an important part of ensuring the quality of Apple's marketplace.

~~~
stickfigure
This is on _us_ to fix - we, the consumers. The way to tell Apple that this
behavior is unacceptable is to _stop giving them money_.

~~~
jopt
By extension, since Apple is still in business, their behaviour is de facto
accepted and thereby necessarily acceptable.

------
starnix17
I had a simliar rejection because of my app's Rdio integration.

If the user had Rdio installed, my app would open the song in the Rdio native
app.

If the user didn't have the app installed, my app would open the song on the
Rdio web site in MobileSafari. Apple didn't like this since you could purchase
an Rdio subscription on that webpage bypassing the IAP and Apple's 30% cut.

~~~
rogerchucker
I am waiting for that research paper titled "What came first for Apple - the
money or the user experience?". I can imagine Apple's thinking here - if we
can squeeze every 3rd party service to adopt our 30% cut, then (1) we'll add
more to our bottomline and (2) people will have a better UX (or more precisely
can go back to their old smoother and better UX). Question is - did I get the
order right?

~~~
saurik
The 30% "apple tax" on their App Store is not a major way that Apple makes
money (more on this in paragraph 2). This leads to the conclusion that Apple
is not attempting to hobble stores that undercut them: they simply like using
their control of the store ecosystem to maintain the quality, simplicity, and
consistency of the experience that allows them to provide to their customers,
with the nice side effect of giving them massive leverage over their largest
competitors and power over many external markets. I'd thereby reverse the
order you have.

Checking the numbers, the profit margin on an iPhone is a little over $170,
while the profit margin on an app is <<$1; most of the people I know who own
an iPhone have purchased at least two of them (an upgrade a couple years
later) and have purchased maybe, at most, 10 apps. If you check the Apple
quarterly earnings reports Apple doesn't even bother separating App Store
sales from iPod accessories: both are a tiny line item in comparison to the
profit they make on their actual profit center (core hardware).

However, for content resources, such as books or music, the story is much
different: I know people who have purchased many thousands of dollars of
music, movies, and television shows from iTunes over the years. This is enough
that the iPod and AppleTV can be effectively subsidized by iTunes (something
you don't see Apple doing with the iPhone: they make certain to get their
profit on that at the point of sale, possibly plus a carrier subsidy).

This is why this issue starts coming to the forefront for services like Rdio
and Kindle: those actually hit Apple where it hurts, so Apple would prefer to
use their control to hobble their opponents. But, Apple doesn't really want
30% of the revenue from these sales... it would be much better for Apple if
they just went away, and people used iTunes instead. (I make this clear, as
that is why I then don't feel it accurate to use this as an argument for the
30% being a primary concern.)

~~~
chris_dcosta
The point is not whether Apple makes money on its "apple tax", but how that
affects us developers. In fact it is a pure transaction fee, and if you
compare that to paypal or credit card, or even affiliate commission payments,
it's way too high.

In the long run where does the App developer get to make any money? On app
sales alone? You cannot survive by making a one off sale to your customers,
and apps that seek to generate more income through in-app purchases need to
pay fees that are equivalent to what they would do through credit cards or
whatever.

~~~
jahewson
But it's manifestly _not_ just a transaction fee, it pays for the curation of
the store, server storage space, bandwidth, royalty payments for patents which
Apple have been shaken-down for, advertising on the Apple website, and finally
the actual fee to MasterCard/Visa is all covered in that. It's a store, that's
what stores do, provide some value-added and charge a markup.

------
josteink
I'm surprised it took Apple this long since launching (the relatively
overpriced) iCloud before they started acting like they always do: anti-
competitive and monopolistic.

In the name of UX ofcourse. It couldn't possibly be because unethical market
grabs tend to generate money. Remember: Apple doesn't really care about money.
They care about _you_ and all that money they make is just accidental.

~~~
Isofarro
This is not a new thing. Apple have been clamping down on any revenue
generating activity linked to from an app for at least a year now. They are
forcing developers to pick between giving Apple a 30% slice of revenue, or
don't charge for it, or don't link to it.

Most developers seem to be opting for the third option. The only one that
doesn't impact usability is the one that involves giving Apple 30%.

~~~
kapowaz
Whilst I can see the reason why people baulk at giving Apple a cut, what
doesn't ever seem to be widely discussed are the reasons why that cut might be
justified or even well worth it.

The user experience of in-app purchasing on iOS is very good. Compared to the
myriad online purchasing systems I've experienced in over a decade of buying
things online, it's easily the most reliable and satisfying I've encountered.
Case in point: I've had two separate third-party apps crash or stall during
in-app purchase (one because of a loss of network connectivity, another where
the app just crashed). Upon relaunching, iOS was able to work out where I'd
gotten to with the in-app purchase and reassure me that I wouldn't end up
paying twice.

This kind of reassurance is invaluable to consumers who aren't tech-savvy, and
will almost certainly lead to higher conversion rates. In fact, it means that
the user experience of a customer buying in-app purchase _with a completely
different product_ makes them more likely to use in-app purchase with _your_
product! Where else can you benefit from this kind of self-reinforcing
behaviour? Apple realises that providing this seamless experience is
important, and so does what it can to discourage alternatives where a worse
experience (an experience which might lead a customer to erroneously blame
Apple or the device) might be the result.

Another important point to remember is that Apple targets the iTunes store to
run at break-even
([http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/23/tim_cook_addre...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/23/tim_cook_addresses_questions_about_apple_dividends_a_stock_split_itunes_content_deals.html)),
so accusations that this is motivated primarily by profit are wide of the
mark. Yes, that 30% cut helps run at break-even, but let's not forget what
other benefits you're getting as part of the deal. And if you're certain those
benefits _aren't_ worth it, go try the Android Marketplace, and let us know
how that works out for you.

~~~
Tsagadai
Well we can all see the benefit to Apple. Apple are making a killing with the
App Store, this much is easily visible in their earnings reports. However, I
think you are way off the mark with the _value_ that 30% generates for users.

What Apple are doing with the App Store is not expensive for Apple. They hire
a few people to run some servers and a couple more to filter apps. It's
incredibly cheap and as many of us know you can run a content vending business
pretty cheaply as it is. Sure, the benefits of using Apple's UI are nice but
they are not, in my humble opinion, worth 30% of every purchase.

To put this another way, I read an excellent article about iTunes
([http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-
new-...](http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-
worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/)). Apple takes on zero risk in its iTunes
business and nets 30% minus trivial operating costs for vending out some files
over the internet. What do you call a business model that asks for money
without taking risks? Rent seeking. The App Store and iTunes are both examples
of rent seeking behaviour.

~~~
astral303
It's not true that Apple is making a killing with the App Store. Where is it
visible in their earnings reports? Are you sure that you're not confusing
revenue with profit?

The App Store runs at just above break even:
[http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_app_store_runs_...](http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_app_store_runs_just_above_break_even/)
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20008540-37.html> \-- figures of less than
1% or 2% of gross profit. That is not "a killing."

~~~
smackfu
Percentage of Apple's overall revenue doesn't matter here.

It is amazing Apple somehow spends so much money on reviewing apps and
providing the app store that they can't make much money on a 30% cut.

~~~
kapowaz
What I find amazing is that people find it so easy to dismiss the cost of
running an online store with almost no downtime, delivering music, television
episodes, movies and apps to customers all around the world, with fast
download speeds, with all the recovery facilities that iCloud offers for past
purchases. Apple's famous North Carolina data centre cost about $1 Bn to
construct ([http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/apples-nc-data-
cen...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/apples-nc-data-center-
coming-online-this-spring.ars)). At that price, you'd need to collect 30% of
$3.3 Bn in revenues just to break even.

~~~
smackfu
Yeah, but who spends a _billion dollars_ on a datacenter??? Only a company
with more cash than they know what to do with.

------
AJ007
I can not be the only one thinking there is an antitrust issue here? I would
guess the book thing means Apple is under quite a bit of scrutiny.

While I'm not involved in mobile, I've had similar experiences for over half a
decade dealing with the banal, highly questionable, and non-uniformly enforced
rules Google imposes on its own advertisers. Some of the stuff is bad enough
it makes you think it would fall under RICO if this wasn't a large company but
rather an Italian owned waste disposal company.

~~~
taligent
1) Research antitrust. It doesn't mean what you think it means.

2) Apple has done nothing different than has been done before. It is an
existing in app purchasing rule.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
"Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, is law that
promotes or maintains market competition by regulating anti-competitive
conduct by companies."[1]

One could argue that rejecting apps that make use of (or in this case
encourage signup to) Dropbox is anti-competitive conduct since Dropbox is a
competitor of iCloud (isn't it?)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law>

~~~
tptacek
It is hard to name any proprietary product platform, from cars to KitchenAid
mixers, which would not run afoul of this common nerdly definition of
"antitrust".

In reality, the presence of very viable substitutes in the market for the
iPhone (to wit: Android) probably moots the argument here.

To go further with this argument, you will need to venture beyond Wikipedia
summaries.

~~~
olalonde
Your argument would be more effective without the unnecessary ad hominem.
i.e.:

> In reality, the presence of very viable substitutes in the market for the
> iPhone (to wit: Android) probably moots the argument here.

~~~
tptacek
I do not think the word "ad hominem" means what you think it means. An "ad
hominem" argument is one that targets a specific person advancing the opposing
argument. Ad hominem arguments are fallacious when the characteristics of
those people aren't germane to the argument.

Obviously, no part of my argument focuses on whoever it was who said Apple's
Dropbox rejection is an antitrust violation.

~~~
olalonde
You are implying that your opponent's knowledge of antitrust law is limited to
a "nerdly" definition he has read on Wikipedia. Perhaps it was not your
intention, but that's how it came off to me.

~~~
tptacek
My argument isn't that such a definition of Sherman Act violations is
"nerdly". It's that it's wrong. "Nerdly" is just color commentary. And, for
what it's worth: it's from one nerd to another.

Happy to clear that up for you.

~~~
nknight
In light of your recent rantings about "nerds"[1] and the law, it's hard to
see your post as anything other than a continuation of your angry attacks on
anyone who dares speak on the subject of the laws governing our
hypothetically-democratic society. Your authoritarianism has degenerated into
simple mockery. Even when you are right (which I think you largely are on this
matter), you no longer contribute anything of use because any meaningful
content is wrapped in an opaque blanket of anger and hostility.

[1] I do not consider myself a "nerd", by the way, nor do many other people
that you probably seek to apply that label to. Some of us find it quite
insulting. Call yourself whatever you want, but speak only for yourself.

~~~
jacobolus
You’re missing the point of tptacek’s criticism. He’s not trying to _mock_
nerds, but rather to point out that their mental model of how the law works is
woefully mismatched to how the law actually works, with a great deal of
resulting whining and handwringing that could be avoided if they bothered to
learn and think a bit about it. That I’ve seen, there’s been very little anger
or ranting coming from his direction, and the label “nerd” is only barely
pejorative (if at all) in the context of this forum: hardly a deep insult.

I think maybe this is an example where tone of voice is transferring poorly to
internet text, and you’re interpreting his statements to have quite a bit more
bite than he intends (or most others are reading)?

~~~
burgerbrain
Speaking as somebody who enjoys intentionally mocking others (go ahead, check
my comment history. Fuck, I picked this username just to make the then-popular
diet discussions on HN more interesting), if he's _honestly_ not trying it
(and I have a hard time believing that, he is as far as I can tell a
reasonably intelligent person and should be able to analysis himself
objectively) then he is damn good at doing it by accident. _Damn_ good.

I only wish I could convey such attitude through text _intentionally_.

EDIT (posted after jacobolus' reply):

When I first came here, I was annoyed at the entire HN attitude of "a better
discussion board". Good clean discussion is great, but at the time it seemed
too dismissive of the great conversation that happens elsewhere on the web;
too arrogant if you will. Furthermore, I saw that attitude as a sort of
challenge: could I game the system and be _just_ helpful enough some of the
time to allow myself to be an utter asshole the rest of the time without
getting banned?

You see, somebody who is an asshole some of the time and useful the rest of
the time is _not_ a valuable community member. Even if _most_ of the time is
spent being useful that is still not a person that you want in your community;
in short, the karma system is broken. Of course HN isn't quite as broken as a
pure karma system would be, hellbanning still kicks in for people with
positive karma, but it is broken nevertheless. It's pretty easy to keep
individual comments at positive or at least neutral karma by picking your
topic correctly, which gets you around (to my knowledge) all but manual
banning. (I suspect an improved banning system would involve flagging people
for manual inspection after they have too many comments with large amounts of
up and down voting. I can't speak for the false positive rate of such a system
except to say that my honest productive comments rarely seemed to swing)

But I'm done now. tptacek does a better job of what I wanted to do than I
think I ever could.

I think I'm past due on closing this account anyway. I'm out; apologies for
any grief I've caused. I probably owe a good number of you a beer.

~~~
jacobolus
I should clarify: he surely is trying to mock them sometimes, but (a) it’s a
pretty friendly ribbing, and (b) the mockery isn’t the purpose, it’s just a
rhetorical device. By my italicized “mock”, I meant something closer to: “he’s
not trying to shame them into submission, as some kind of ‘authoritarian’
bully power play”.

Edit: maybe it’s better to say that he isn’t _trolling_ them (i.e.
intentionally riling people up just for the sake of being a jerk), but is
trying to be genuinely helpful and advance the conversation, even though
sometimes that takes a teasing sort of tone. Notice all the smiley faces.

------
trieu
This is linkbait because it suggests that Apple is rejecting any app that uses
Dropbox. That's patently untrue. For example:

<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drafts/id502385074>

It looks like Apple is rejecting apps that use the Dropbox SDK in a way that
violates the TOS. But then the headline may as well read, "Apple rejecting
applications which use code."

~~~
nknight
You should look up what "linkbait" actually means. A forum discussion between
developers about a problem using the Dropbox SDK in the iOS app store
assuredly does not qualify.

~~~
neotek
I think he's referring to the article title, which makes an implication that
seems designed to cause anger over a policy that isn't quite as corrupt as the
title might suggest.

------
skrebbel
Is anyone really surprised? This is what happens if you give a single company
so much control over your use of devices. It'll only get worse, we all know
that, right?

~~~
gavanwoolery
In my view, it only gets BETTER -- hopefully this is the beginning wakeup call
that will get people off of OSX. This has been going on for a long time too,
Apple slowly making things more annoying for its users. _Especially_ its
developers. (For the record, I own 2 Macs, an iPhone, two Android devices, an
iPod, and a PC, so I am not really biased in any given direction...)

~~~
fromhet
With "PC", you mean Windows. Right?

~~~
gavanwoolery
Yep, a bit of a vague term, but PC has kind of become a synonym for "Windows
Machine" -- even though a Mac or Linux box is technically a PC as well...

------
snarkinatree
What's remarkable is that Apple is suppopsedly desintined to be the most
profitable company in US history and they still feel the need to do this kind
of thing. It says a lot about the character of the company. Pretty sad
spectacle, no matter how much money they make.:wq

~~~
taligent
It also says a lot about you that you posted this whilst having a fundamental
lack of knowledge about the situation.

Did you even read what you linked to ?

~~~
oblique63
I understand that you've been trying to make the point that this is a non-
story (and I would agree with you, to an extent), but that was just rude and
uncalled for.

Is it wrong for the GP to try and start a conversation about the morality of a
company as large as apple, demanding such a large degree of separation between
users and the ability to make purchases outside apple's control?

I'm about as 'anti-apple' as they come, and even I can see it was just a case
of Dropbox's sdk doing something against apple's rules, but that doesn't mean
what that what apple's doing is 'right', or even necessary for a corporation
as large as them, which is what I believe the GP was hinting at.

In my opinion it's just business as usual. Just look at wall street, and all
the large oil corporations and such; a company as large as apple doing
something dubious is not exactly shocking. If anything, that's what got these
large corporations to where they are in the first place. Is it sad? sure, but
it's nothing that we haven't seen before...

------
azov
What Apple is doing seems to be completely legal and completely disgusting
(and not at all new). Given that there's no ground for legal action, here are
a few things we, developers, can do:

1\. _Don't work for Apple_. This one is really the easiest to implement,
there's more then enough fine alternatives in the Valley.

2\. _Don't develop for Apple_. Unfortunately, not really an option for most
mobile developers. So, the next best thing is "don't develop just for Apple".
Make sure that if your customers want to switch, your app is available on
other platforms.

3\. _Don't buy from Apple_. Again, not really an option for developers because
of #2 (and that's also another example of walled garden - you have to have a
Mac to develop for iOS).

One place where government regulation might be needed is to help create
secondary market for apps. If I have many dollars worth of apps (or, say,
books) and no way to sell them, this is obviously a big barrier to switch. I'd
like to see a law requiring companies that sell digital goods to provide a way
to transfer those goods to other users.

~~~
kitsune_
As a consumer, I stopped buying Apple products some time ago. The last thing I
bought from Apple was an iPhone 3GS. I still have to use Apple products at
work.

Now, I don't think that other companies are inherently more moral than Apple.
That would be a foolish assumption. It's just that one company dominating an
entire market is bad for almost everyone.

If you develop mobile apps, only having one channel of distribution / platform
is such a high risk. I don't understand developers that only target one
platform.

------
tnash
This is really going over the line. People are content in the walled garden,
but if it starts getting too stuffy in there people will want to leave.
Unfortunately it makes "business sense" (read: nonsense) for Apple to raise
the walls of their walled garden as high as they can make them. Hopefully at
some point there will be enough discontent to remove things like this.

~~~
stickfigure
I would argue that the success of the _entire_ Android ecosystem is because
users are unhappy living inside of Apple's clenched fist. It's not like people
buy Android because the UX is better. You can't even claim it's because of
AT&T anymore.

~~~
jarcoal
I would argue it's because they've become the default freebie phone.

~~~
stickfigure
That doesn't explain the success of the expensive Android phones.

------
stbullard
Looking at the link, it seems that only those apps using the latest version of
Dropbox's SDK (1.2) are being rejected, for violating Apple's long-standing
platform policies.

Dropbox has since released a version of their SDK without the offending links.

Is that a fair assessment?

~~~
5teev
Yeah, I hear a lot of complaining about Apple here, but not much about how
Dropbox's SDK update broke apps that would otherwise be approved, and now
Dropbox has a new version that fixes the problem.

------
AncientPC
I don't understand why people think this is new.

I created a website that announced the launch of a small mobile app for both
iOS and Android platforms. I was told by Apple that my app would not be
approved as long as I had links to competitors (i.e. Android) on the _web
site_.

~~~
premise
How’s that possible? There’re a lot of (thousands?) multi-platform apps for
iOS, Android, Blackberry etc. For instance, Angry Birds has versions for
“iPhone/iPad/OS X,” “Nokia Devices,” and “Android (Amazon/Google Play)” on
their website: <http://shop.angrybirds.com/us/games/mobile-games.html>

Needless to say, the full list of platforms Angry Birds runs on is (according
to Wikipedia) much bigger.

~~~
AncientPC
I don't know, we were a really small shop?

It was the first app launch, and we prominently showed an iPhone and a Nexus
side by side with our app. Whoever reviewed our app didn't like that, so we
took the Nexus image down.

We probably could have just posted the old design back up after the app got
approved, but the company didn't last very long past that.

------
ianloic
Apple has been doing this with other APIs for a while. If your app links to a
way of signing up for an account that could be used to pay for something
you'll be rejected. If you mention the existence of such an account you'll
probably be rejected.

Personally I don't like being treated like this - as a user or a developer. So
I take my time and money elsewhere.

------
robomartin
Well, the more fundamental problem is this business of Apple taking 30% of
everything. I am not disputing their right to set the rules within their own
ecosystem. No issues whatsoever there. It's their product and they deserve to
do as they wish.

Having said that, that is not to say that I agree with their decision. For
almost any business 30% is a huge percentage of gross. In most cases the
margin is dangerously close to or lower than this number. What this means is
that there are a whole host of goods and services that cannot be offered
through the platform due to their fee structure.

Then again, it's their sandbox and their rules.

This is somewhere where companies such as Microsoft could make a significant
dent if they keep their paws off the content creator's revenue stream (or take
a very small bite). In my opinion a 5% "finder's fee" is reasonable. If they
handle the financial transaction then there's the customary credit-card
billing stuff.

Two things that iOS does not offer that someone could offer:

1- Less intrusive cut taken from revenues, as discussed above.

2- Open access to I/O, file system and various resources that Apple locks down
tight.

As an example, if I wanted to design a general purpose iPhone to RS-232 serial
cable, well, it's impossible. You can make one married to a specific
application but you can't make one that's a plain-old open-to-all serial port
converter. There are tons of applications in industry that could use such a
cable, but Apple chokes the hardware side so tight that even something that
simple is impossible.

Another example is the choke-hold on proprietary Bluetooth. I'd love to create
apps for kids to use to control their Lego Mindstorms with an iPhone/iPod.
Mindstorm blocks have built-in Bluetooth. Apple's version of Bluetooth, for
various technical reasons, is not compatible with "normal" Bluetooth. The only
way to do it is to purchase Apple-approved Bluetooth chips and get permission
to build a device subject to their approval...but you can't build a generic
device. In other words, you are building a specific speaker that uses this
chip and these codes to identify you and the app. Period.

I feel that companies trying to compete with Apple are not seeing the elephant
in the room: Closed vs. Open.

------
superxor
This is a horrible way of treating 3rd party developers. Apple should keep in
mind that one of the major reasons any platform has ever been successful is
because of a strong suite of 3rd party applications, be it Windows, iOS or
Android.

Microsoft is paying its way to please developers and Apple is literally
spitting on their face.

I've had very bad experience dealing with Apple for the past couple of months.
I am maintaining an app developed using Sencha and PhoneGap. Apple suddenly
rejects an update, reason cited was 'the app is not dynamic enough'. When I
inquire further, they ask me to implement Push Notifications. Implementing
Push Notifications is not a problem, its just that I or my client have no
freaking idea what data we could Push to the app. There is just no need for
such a feature.

It's obscenely preposterous for Apple to dictate what my App should be. I know
I should be grateful that Apple has provided me a platform for writing apps
(after all its their ecosystem), but I hope they keep in mind that 3rd party
developers like me are an asset to them.

------
petercooper
While here, let's remember who'll control the dev certificate validity for
Gatekeeper on OS X 10.8. Will we end up with cases where people break
arbitrary yet-to-be-defined terms and boom, their standalone app no longer
works on a default OS X install?

~~~
mcantelon
Yeah, the Lion default, if I remember correctly, is signed apps only. Apple is
really pushing to become an entity devs and publishers must pay tax to.

~~~
protomyth
That is the Mountain Lion default, not Lion.

------
valgaze
To get a sense of Apple's power:

Via Amazon, download any sample chapter to Kindle on iPad/iPhone. Scroll to
the end and click "Buy Now" this is what you'll see:
<http://i.imgur.com/Flqfp.png>

This power is good when it comes to muscling user-friendly dataplans from
carriers, but with other stuff they are really playing hardball

~~~
Tloewald
This is Amazon's way of handling the issue. Another option would be to cut a
deal with Apple. Anyone having a free sample on their Kindle app presumably
got it from Amazon's website and knows how to buy the full version.

Compare this with trying to read a Nook, iBookstore, or DRM free ePub on a
Kindle Fire. I'm sure it can be done, but it's well hidden.

------
beedogs
Apple's really become a shitty company in the past few years. I was rooting
for them when OS X was introduced, but now they're no better than Microsoft in
the late 90s, and somehow more arrogant than MS ever was. How does something
like this not run afoul of antitrust laws?

~~~
Tloewald
If Apple were like Microsoft in the 90s then they would have implemented their
own Flash player for the iPad and made its frequent crashes look like Adobe's
fault, they'd make it impossible to uninstall or remove Safari from the
desktop or dock, and switch Chrome and Firefox for Safari as your default
browser every time you upgraded Safari (which would be every time you
patched). Every time a mew version of OSX shipped, competing third party apps
would become unstable. Software compiled with non Apple tools would generate
bogus error messages on pre-release copies of OSX. Apple would develop its own
version of Java that ran faster but encouraged developers to use features not
available in Java. They'd also bundle apps together so that anyone buying
Apple's popular video editor, say, would have a free image editing and page
layout programs. They'd steal code from third party developers and turn them
into free add ons for their OSes. Oh and they'd simply kill off competitors by
releasing free clones of their products. They'd license their OS to hardware
vendors on the condition that those vendors pay a license fee for every box
shipped even if it didn't have the OS installed. When successfully sued for
misconduct, they'd pay some of the fines in the form of strategic donations of
software to their competitors' best customers.

Each of these items can be mapped directly to something Microsoft has been
demonstrated to have done in the 90s.

~~~
Duff
I recall using Netscape in 1998 or so on Windows Nt. Where do I find the
download link for Chrome or Safari on iOS?

~~~
Tloewald
Did google try to release chrome for ios and get blocked by Apple and I didn't
hear about it? There are a ton of third party web browsers for ios.

~~~
option_greek
There is big board hanging on the door saying its not allowed. Why would any
company spend resources on projects that can't be shipped. All the third party
browsers currently in app store are either skins on safari or interprets stuff
on server side like opera mini.

In other words there is only one true browser allowed on ios - Safari.

------
jsilence
Are you complaining about the height of the fence of the walled garden?

Not to be meant as flamebait or trollposting, but as a brief reminder that
this is a symptom of a closed ecosystem.

I'd love to add "Remove the cause and not the symptoms", if I only knew a way
that could seriously be suggested. But as long as every Joe and his dog simply
love the iPhone, OpenSource mobile revolution is in the land of unicorns and
golden glitter dreams.

------
bitops
Since I see a lot of people using the term "antitrust" incorrectly in this
article, here is a Wikipedia link on United States antitrust law.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law>

------
da_n
At the risk of being labelled an Apple 'fanboi', let me play devil's advocate
here. What if I created an SDK for developers that had a sign-up system
linking to a new storage solution I had created called Dropboxplus.ru. In any
app using this SDK it has a link that regular Joe can click where he is
redirected to the Dropboxplus.ru website and offered an account upgrade option
where the user just needs to put in their credit card details to 'unlock' new
features etc.

Now most people here will know that most consumers are utterly ignorant of
what an API or SDK are, and barely even understand the concept of an 'App'
(some of the reviews on the App Store I have seen critize Apple themselves for
making such an app, they don't even understand there are third party
developers who make the apps). My point is I don't think the walled garden is
just for the sake of greed, I also think it is for the sake of consumers who
unlike HN folk need a walled garden to keep them from doing dumb things. I
think Apple want to ensure they can control where the user is enticed to part
with money to keep them in their safety net. Do they do this in a fully
transparent and open way? No, and maybe this is one area they can improve on
to become less opaque, but if you play in their space you need to respect
their TOS and this was a clear violation.

------
jpdoctor
The message is clear: If you put apple in your critical path, prepare for crap
like this.

------
peterkelly
Wow, this _really_ freaked me out when I saw this. I've just spent several
months working on an app, which I hope to release soon, of which Dropbox
support is a major feature. If they didn't allow my app on the app store
because of this I'd have to seriously cripple the functionality of my app to
get it accepted.

Sure, there's iCloud, but it's only about 50% there - all the support is there
on iOS but there's no generic way to get at your iCloud documents from a PC or
Mac in the same way you can with Dropbox and similar services. I'd be happy to
support iCloud if it did this but it's simply not there yet.

Dropbox is a hugely important thing for iOS apps, since the iPad provides no
generic user-accessible file system. Dropbox is by far the most convenient way
I've seen for syncing data between the iPad and your computer, and I think
Apple would be foolish to prevent people from doing this because it would make
using an iPad for content creation-type work very inconvenient.

Fortunately from reading about this it sounds like the issue can be resolved
by changing the way the account authorisation step works. Dropbox have already
released an updated SDK and I've just downloaded this to try it out.

~~~
josteink
So you saw how Apple burned all the bridges between you and your customers,
and left just a thin rope for you to hang on to.

You just saw this and still you think basing your business on anything
controlled by Apple is a good idea? Seriously?

------
siculars
Someone explain to me how what Apple is doing is not the same sort of monopoly
the government squashed with Microsoft. Basically MS used their os monopoly to
push IE. Apple uses its monopoly to get a cut of all action on its phone.

~~~
latch
It isn't even funny just how different it is:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish>

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Halloween_documents_leak)

------
nicholassmith
I've tried to defend some of Apple's more dickish policies in the past, as
logically they make a lot of sense in terms of business requirements, and hey
it's Apple's wild ride.

This is fucking stupid though. The 30% cut logic works fine when dealing with
items, but trying to apply it out to services is a nightmare as most users
either don't care about the paid aspect of the service or have already paid
for it.

Plus all this effectively does is say 'if you've got a paid service with an
API, you're not welcome'. Less API access on the iOS platform is not a good
thing for developers, which makes it not a good thing for users, which makes
it in the long run shitty for Apple. Lets hope they pull some sense together
and fix the rule properly this time.

------
charlieok
The "remote storage" category seems to be the new platform battle. Apps and
their per-user storage are becoming more decoupled (which is a good thing) and
people are going to be picking a place to consolidate their personal storage.
Companies offering this type of service are adding features to differentiate
and (probably) increase lockin.

Wherever users put their data, and whatever remote storage developers support
with their apps, will become entrenched.

Some big players so far (?):

    
    
      Dropbox
      Box
      SugarSync
      Google Drive
      Microsoft SkyDrive
      Apple iCloud?
    

A stardization effort:
<http://www.w3.org/community/unhosted/wiki/RemoteStorage>

------
chj
this is an antitrust issue even if it isn't by law.

sometimes i think developers should unite and pull all apps from appstore to
protest.

------
andrewparker
Do any of the readers on this thread work at Apple? I'd love to have you chime
in. The silence is deafening...

~~~
bryanlarsen
I'm fairly sure that a comment on this thread by an Apple employee would
result in a pretty quick firing. It's a pretty tight ship over there.

~~~
tar
This shows just how differently Apple works. I've seen people from Google and
Facebook commenting here whenever issues come up.

~~~
bruceboughton
You sound surprised.

------
jsz0
I'm usually inclined to believe Apple has some good reasons for doing what
they do but this seems like it's crossing the line. The built-in functionality
of iOS and the Apple ecosystem is fantastic, and it's understandable they are
given precedence, but if they are to so severely limit third party
applications access to alternative services it would make iOS practically
unusable for anyone outside of the Apple ecosystem. As much as I like iOS I
really can't continue using it if I am unable to access DropBox in
applications especially since there's no easy way to simply download the file
from DropBox and edit it locally. Hopefully someone at Apple realizes this
pretty much kills their platform. Cloud storage of different types are only
going to become more important. (benefit of the doubt: Perhaps iOS6 has either
DropBox integration or some other cloud storage abstraction and Apple wants to
start discouraging developers from using a deprecated method of accessing
DropBox. If so they should just come out and say it.)

------
j_col
The only thing I feel is sympathy for users who continue to buy Apple
products.

------
vegas
Microsoft eventually overcame Apple's superior market position and better
product because the market is going to act to increase choice on the part of
intelligent consumers of information technology(i.e. competitive
organizations).

Apple was able to superscede Microsoft's platform advantage because everything
became a web application(thanks Netscape!)

At the moment a bunch of guys with drool on their spreadsheets are trying to
turn the world of web applications back into a platform one so that they can
collect rent. It seems like this particular escape from freedom isn't going to
occur because:

1) A major appeal of mobile devices is the idea that you can give people who
are disinclined to serious computer literacy a tool that is easier to secure,
and requires less support staff to show them how to use.

* However, it seems unlikely that large profit seeking organizations will thrive by handing their nervous systems over to other large profit seeking organizations.

Ultimately companies are going to want their locked down devices for their
less computer literate employees to be completely within their control. Either
there will be some sort of arcology/vertical integration type deal where there
are all these companies that are in effect subsidiaries of their chosen mobile
technology provider, or, the more likely answer:

IBM will make a metric crap ton of money supporting in-house Tizen[0] projects
for serious people who don't want their IP floating around their mobile
providers network 'secured' solely on good faith and contractual
assurances.(ultimately this probably goes for cloud applications as well)

2) The second big appeal of mobile devices is the idea that you can program
Angry Birds in your spare time, sell it 'directly'[1] to consumers and quit
your day job. It seems to my rather cursory investigation that this isn't
happening as much as it could be due to people duking it out nastily to try
and secure maximal app store rent, and not doing enough to support developers.

[0] Thank god they stopped calling it MeeGo
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen>

[1] Honestly, 30% is reasonable marketplace rent. Documentation needs to be
less opaque, and support for marketing analysis needs to be better for it to
really be fair rent, but it's the standard marketing upsell in a lot of other
industries, so it seems reasonable for apps as well.

------
sev
Dropbox...design a slicker phone and a better phone OS than Apple, now is your
chance!

------
salimmadjd
What is the big deal? Lets have some context here first.

One, apple is very clear about their rules. If you're surprised by them, it's
really your fault for building a product without reading the guideline.

Two, lets just remember, not long ago, how difficult it was to build or create
anything for mobile prior to apple.

Dropbox should just strike a deal with apple quick and give apple their 30%
cut, instead of playing the victim here. The other option is the android and
google drive, which I'm sure dropbox would rather not see becoming to big.

------
denismars
At some point a line will be crossed that will forever signify Apple's
transition into the Orwellian entity it once rebelled against - that time may
be upon us.

------
randomStuff
The US gov & EU need to go sue Apple like they did MicroSoft fo they anti
competitive behavior w/respect to Windows Exploiter. Apple better recognize,
federal trade commission done come after publishers that signed up for Apple's
iBooks and agreed to collude on prices. Apple need da see the da light and
reform they ways before it be too late and they need da settle wida govament

------
oscardelben
My github app was rejected for the same reason, users without an account could
have bought one from the app if they wanted to.

------
mrharrison
This is nothing new, they have been doing this for the past year with news and
magazine agencies offering subscriptions. Its not in retaliation to Dropbox
being in competition with iCloud, its just part of their guidelines for
selling subscriptions through the app store. Old news people.

------
wslh
For me, the new controlled platforms make me laugh about previous Microsoft
monopoly accusations. It seems like in the mobile and cloud space people do
not have any voice or are brainwashed because the major part of the people,
including HNers are accepting these rules.

------
ilkandi
I must be old; if Microsoft had even suggested taking a 30% cut of every PC
application or purchase via the internet they'd have been lynched. Have most
developers gone conformist/apologist?

~~~
Kaizyn
No, the difference is that in the days of yore, Microsoft wasn't the market
maker for your applications. Now, with the Apple App Store(s), you are being
put before a large potential customer base. Considering how easy it is to
pirate applications on the Android platform and how many apps are pirated, the
Apple way is the most pragmatic for software developers who want to get paid
for their work.

It isn't all that different than what you see elsewhere in the economy. Now
that there are just a few large corporations who effectively control the food
supply, they increasingly get a larger share of the profits at the expense of
the many supplying farms.

If there were 10 different Apple App Stores you could sell your applications
through that were all of equal quality, then the cut Apple requires would drop
off significantly.

------
thought_alarm
It's back to the old v0.3 Dropbox SDK for me. What a pain in the ass.

------
salem
If Microsoft pulled a move like this there would be hell to pay

------
judegomila
I'm sure the competition commission in Europe will have something to say about
this. Maybe a small $X billion fine or so.

------
marklindhout
God dammit, this is so stupid. Fuck Apple. Fuck closed source know-it-all
fascist companies. RAAAAAGH!

------
jchrisa
The Facebook SDK uses the same method. I wonder how long until it is rejected.

~~~
evan_
Can you buy a Facebook account from the mobile site?

~~~
v21
You can buy advertising.

------
eblackburn
I smell and anti-trust suite hurtling towards Apple? Does anyone else?

------
samstave
the domain "droproxy.com" is available - someone should make a proxy service
to dropbox that would bypass apple's actions.

------
saket123
The sudden rejection of dropbox apps is blamed on 'bad user experience' by
Apple, most of us know that its due to iCloud . So, in future if apple makes a
games or buys a game company expect your games to be rejected from the app
store as they 'are bad user experience' for IOS users or third party games are
just not interesting enough. Don't let someone else make your choices , make
it yourself.

~~~
rsynnott
> The sudden rejection of dropbox apps is blamed on 'bad user experience' by
> Apple, most of us know that its due to iCloud .

What? No. Did you read the linked forum thread, at all? It's due to the
presence of a "Sign up with Dropbox" link in new versions of the SDK.

------
hastur
I reject Apple and its products.

------
akuchlous
comic strip : apple can dropbox! <http://nexthotstartup.com/2012/05/03/apple-
dropbox/>

------
epaga
Where are all these Apple bashers coming from? If Apple DIDN'T reject the apps
using this API, Amazon and many, many devs would have the right to feel pretty
angry at the injustice and inconsistency. In-app linking to extra-app
purchasing of any kind is explicitly forbidden by the terms. We already had
the "debate" about whether those terms are a good idea or not - I believe
they're not. But months later it's more a question of Apple being consistent.

So Dropbox updates their API (impressively within a single day!). Done deal.
Let's move on to more important things like Apple inconsistently banning the
"iKamaSutra" app after it's successfully been in the app store for years. Now
THAT stuff scares me as a dev.

~~~
tedivm
No one is saying the problem is that they aren't consistently applying their
policies. Consistently applying a draconian policy is exactly the problem
here.

~~~
epaga
But people DO seem to be surprised / disappointed that Apple is enforcing this
draconian policy when in fact they have already been enforcing it for months
as can be seen in the Kindle app and many others. And this is what I don't
understand.

------
bobwaycott
Perhaps I'm the only one who thinks this way (sorry, grew tired of all the
arguing about Apple's villainy), but the bigger problem here is yet another
app attempting to make money by building itself on top of another third-party
app/service that is trying to make money and then crying when things go awry.

Nearly all the complaints I see bubble up here on HN regarding Apple's App
Store seem to come from devs who, rather than build a valuable service or app
in its own right, think they have some great idea for leveraging other
people's products/services/apps/APIs, etc. in some less-than-novel way. There
is little innovation, little creativity, little in the way of building an app
that is valuable on its own merits.

This is lazy.

Fuck everyone else's APIs and this lame practice of building whizbangs atop
someone else's. Build a damn app that is worth something. Don't build shit
that depends on your users creating accounts anywhere outside your control.

Honestly, dislike Apple's guidelines all you like (I dislike plenty of them),
but take a page from Apple's book and start to think about your app with the
users first--think about how annoying it is to start up an app and then have
to go through all the hassle of signing up or logging in with other
people's/companies' services _just to use your app_.

Think about your product the way Apple thinks about theirs: depend on yourself
as much as possible to deliver an experience you control end-to-end.

~~~
amirmc
What you're suggesting sounds like re-inventing the wheel.

------
ihodes
Flagged for the linkbait title (which is in fact the title of the forum post),
but I'd love it if the title we just edited to actually reflect what was going
on.

Edit: To answer some comments; it's misleading because Apple is rejecting
_some_ applications which use Dropbox. Or, rather, a single one that we know
of. For a reason other than "Dropbox is used by the application", to boot. A
better title would explain what was actually happening (no offense to OP; I'm
glad s/he cut out the editorializing). But I'm sitting here at -4, so it's
unlikely this is seen :)

~~~
tylermenezes
I don't understand why this is linkbait? Apple is indeed rejecting apps which
use Dropbox.

~~~
taligent
No. They are blocking applications which allow you to make purchases without
using Apples in app purchasing system. See the difference ?

~~~
antonID
...and using the Dropbox SDK is apparently violating that

~~~
taligent
THIS version does. And a NEW version doesn't.

There is no specific probelem with Dropbox.

~~~
sbov
But... there... was? Not too long ago? And it might require action by users of
the Dropbox SDK?

I get notifications of security updates for apache. Guess I shouldn't though,
because by the time I get any it's no longer a problem with apache. Maybe I
should tell my security auditor that?

