
Apple has locked me out of my developer account - rwc
https://rambo.codes/personal/2019/11/20/apple-has-locked-me-out-of-my-developer-account.html
======
rgovostes
> I’m just an indie developer trying to make good products.

Apple should separate Rambo's software development from his reporting rather
than retaliate against him, if that is indeed what is happening, but it is a
little disingenuous for him to make the above claim.

Rambo reverse engineers Apple products and publishes findings on 9to5Mac.com,
in particular future product references that have slipped prematurely into
releases. (To be clear I have no problem with this, but it likely violates the
terms of the Apple Developer Agreement.)

Recently, Rambo published an article where he got early access to Apple
Arcade, which I think may have crossed a line:

[https://9to5mac.com/2019/08/17/apple-running-early-access-
pr...](https://9to5mac.com/2019/08/17/apple-running-early-access-program-for-
apple-arcade-heres-what-it-looks-like/)

In a later post from a collaborating author, they described how they gained
access to the unannounced service through their own Apple account, rather than
a leak from an employee, which could easily be argued was unauthorized access.

~~~
atonse
Said it better than I could've – there are some pretty obvious reasons why
Rambo's account could've been suspended, the clear violation of NDAs being the
main one, with him publishing information about unreleased products. I'm
honestly kind of surprised they let him keep his Developer account all this
time.

My bigger issue here is the complete lack of transparency or visibility into
the process. It's this kind of stuff is why I strongly support some government
action to change the current state of affairs with regards to the App Store
being the only way to get apps on iOS.

These companies have been notoriously opaque in how they make such decisions
(and sometimes inconsistent), and the fact that their stores are monopolies on
their platforms makes this much worse.

~~~
cmcd
_with regards to the App Store being the only way to get apps on iOS_

The App Store is the only Apple supported way to release apps, there are
unsupported third party app stores as well. Lack of transparency is not good,
but I'm not sure what the issue is with there being only one officially
supported way to download apps.

It is Apple's product and software, they are selling the "Apple Experience" as
much as the hardware. Having a single store with strict guidelines and QC
helps to ensure the most consistent experience.

If you only care about using the hardware how you see fit you can JailBreak
and get access to almost anything. You take the same risks you would if there
were other, easier to access, unsupported ways to download unmoderated apps.

~~~
saagarjha
Apple would very much like that there was no way to jailbreak your device.
It's not like they've purposefully left an "out" to install unauthorized
software.

~~~
sjwright
As someone who owns an iPhone and recommends iPhones to older family members
with a wide spectrum of computer literacy, I'm very glad about that.

If you want freedom buy an Android.

------
dewey
Because it's not mentioned in the article but could be hint on why this
happened (could also be entirely irrelevant).

It's the guy who brought us a bunch of early iOS 13 leaks among other things:
[https://www.hackingwithswift.com/articles/164/interview-
guil...](https://www.hackingwithswift.com/articles/164/interview-guilherme-
rambo)

~~~
ceejayoz
> And he’s successful: he leaked marketing images for Apple Watch Series 4, he
> found iPhone X glyphs showing the notch, and more.

Presumably in violation of the developer program's NDA.

~~~
djsumdog
Then why not just say so in all his support calls? "You've violated the NDA,
so we've disabled your account permanently." Now you have a clear reason and a
clear violation. Apple gate keepers get to show their insane dominance over
all parts computing on their hardware.

Personally I hate this new move towards Apple/Microsoft/Google being
gatekeepers for everything that can run on a machine. It's fucking bullshit.

~~~
intpx
Because lawyers. Apple currently is under no obligation to release the
rational for their decision. If they publicly tell him why, he can challenge
it much more effectively. The apple NDA is possibly too broad to be
enforceable and given that ALL of their competitors are allowed access to the
developer system, gives them no traditional protection of trade secrets. Id
est, It gives them an unintended benefit of controlling the public story (and
thus some degree of market forces) about their products, but does not keep
their market competition from peaking inside. If they divulge the rationale,
and he challenges it in court it would upend their (and lots of other)
developer programs, or at the very least cost them lots of time, attention and
goodwill fighting to preserve it.

~~~
gwerbret
In order to challenge the decision to revoke his developer account in court,
he would have to show that Apple has a legal obligation to provide and
maintain such accounts. I suspect that Apple has no such obligation, and
therefore a fear of lawsuits would not be a reason for them to conceal the
reason for his account revocation.

------
kemayo
Lots of people saying that Apple doesn't owe him any explanation, and that
telling people why they're banned is just going to prompt "yes, but..."
arguments in response. I've dealt with humans, so I'm sympathetic to that...
and I've also been caught up by false-positives, so I can see how it can go
horribly wrong.

I feel that what's being missed here is that Apple, per Rambo, explicitly said
they'd get back in touch with him and tell him what's going on:

> Developer support then called me, and I gave my previous case number to a
> nice person on the other end of the phone, who explained that my case had
> been escalated to a supervisor, who then escalated it to their supervisor,
> and that I would hear back from them “soon”. This was in mid September. In
> early October, I called again and was told I would receive an e-mail
> explaining the situation, I haven’t.

Regardless of whether Apple should or should not, in the abstract, tell him
what's happening... they've said they will, and they're messing up by not
doing so.

(Though, yes, he's being quite disingenuous by not even alluding in the story
to the way he almost-certainly has violated their developer agreement.)

~~~
jjtheblunt
Your last sentence, in parentheses (yay, Lisp!), is what I was thinking.

The person seems to be flagrantly defaming Apple, in tantrum fashion, because
the person violated Apple rules and got scolded?

~~~
jachee
That's the thing... he doesn't know _why_ he's locked out. They haven't
"scolded" him or told him that he violated Apple rules. They simply locked him
out and are giving him the silent treatment.

~~~
jjtheblunt
oh, that's more dysfunctional! yikes.

------
hnarn
It feels like I'm living in a bizarre world where this event is being parsed
by so many people as "Apple can't lock any account they want, force them to
apologize!", when what people should be saying is "Wow, monolithic software
pipelines controlled by a corporation sure are bad and this is just one of
many entirely predictable consequences"

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
To be fair, having a contract terminated by violating it isn't really the
result of "monolithic software pipelines controlled by a corporation".

~~~
hnarn
I feel like you're missing the point. A "contract" with a company shouldn't be
at the center of the question of whether you can develop software for a
specific platform or not to begin with. It feels like this was understood and
controversial only ten years ago, while nowadays people all over the Internet
will argue with you to defend Mordors god-given right to rule over every
single behavior in the world's most popular smart phone. It's quite worrying
to be honest, of this continues people won't know there even was a debate
about net neutrality and software freedom a few decades from now.

~~~
slavik81
It reminds me of something out of The Right to Read.

> Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in
> 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and
> bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind
> a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises.

------
gwbennett
If Apple believes Rambo violated the Developer Agreement, why not let him
know? Why not give him a warning? Both Google and Facebook recently violated
Apple's Enterprise Developer Agreement, had their accounts locked, and within
48 hours their accounts were reinstated after they were allowed to correct the
issues. Same has happened over the years to other companies.

If Apple did lock his account because of some violations(s), why not give him
the same opportunity?

------
liquidise
Apple's relationship with developers has been a strange one for some time. It
shows up in all kinds of ways, from their app development ecosystem to
decisions on their hardware.

I used to think the swap to a Unix-based OS was a fundamental shift to move in
the developer direction. During the days of XServe i think that might have
been true. These days though it more like the development community is some
noisy group meant to be ignored. I would argue that the return of a physical
Escape key is the only overtly pro-developer move from Apple in the last
couple of years. Issues like the OP describes resonate well here because many
of us have experienced Apple's tomfoolery in 1st or 2nd hand ways, too.

It is horrible to have your hard work, creative platform and livelihood torn
from under you without explanation or for what may feel like arbitrary
reasons. If HN comment sections are early indicators, devs are moving on. We
are potentially a few years away from OS X apps no longer being best-in-class
for dev tooling. That should scare people who are long Apple, a group that
presumably includes their management.

~~~
Answerawake
What is the alternative to Apple?

I don't see Linux being solid in a few years time (or ever really). I say this
after trying Linux again every year in the hopes that this is the year it is
solid.

My anecdotal experience for this year is that the latest Ubuntu release had a
problem where after performing a clean install and rebooting, the login screen
will not allow me to enter the desktop. Turns out the desktop was crashing in
the background because of a Nvidia driver. If they cannot even QA the login
procedure with the default software then I don't have long term confidence. I
will definitely try again in 2020 in the hopes that I am wrong.

Windows is degrading as they add more cruft to the OS while ignoring
fundamental flaws that have persisted for years. Basic things such as smooth
mouse movement and dual monitor scaling still do not work correctly. Meanwhile
I am bombarded with more and more cruft that steals focus from whatever I am
doing.

~~~
slavik81
You'll have significantly fewer problems with Intel graphics. The Linux
drivers are all open-source and they're better integrated with the rest of the
system. The only question is if Intel hardware is sufficient for your
workload.

NVIDIA makes great hardware, but the interface to it is complex and poorly
documented. It's bad enough that Linus once stated that "NVIDIA has been the
single worst company we have ever dealt with."

~~~
Answerawake
You and all the other replies are missing the whole point. The computer is a
tool to get work done. I just want a computer that allows me to get my work
done in the least amount of pain as possible. I don't see how Apple gets
dethroned in a few years time if this is the state of the competitors.

This computer in its current configuration worked fine with last year's Ubuntu
distro. Next year I suspect this will be fixed but something else will be
broken. I could switch to Intel but I still won't avoid the next random issue.
At the end of the day, the time and money spent will be greater on Linux and
for what? So I can say I'm running a complete open system?

~~~
lol768
> You and all the other replies are missing the whole point. The computer is a
> tool to get work done. I just want a computer that allows me to get my work
> done in the least amount of pain as possible. I don't see how Apple gets
> dethroned in a few years time if this is the state of the competitors.

With respect, macOS "allows you to get your work done in the least amount of
pain as possible" precisely because you are used to it and its relative
quirks.

I have to use a Mac to occasionally maintain an iOS app. Here's my anecdotal
experience: the keyboard shortcuts are entirely unintuitive, Xcode and the
Apple store are downright painful to use (Apple's store literally doesn't
accept screenshots generated by its own simulator). Software shipped on the
machine is often outdated or just broken (trying to install .NET Core on a Mac
and dealing with the ancient version of OpenSSL was not fun) and installing
new software is a poor experience compared to using apt-get or yum.

I remember using Xcode and being prompted for some credentials during the
publishing process - except it prompted more than once. And it was never clear
whether I was getting the password right, or I'd typed it in wrong. It turns
out windows shake horizontally when you get the password wrong, and if the
window disappears and immediately re-appears again then you've got the
password correct but you need to type it in again.

Recently I updated Xcode's build component and it decided to silently stop
paying any notice to the CODE_SIGNING_REQUIRED environment variable.

Safari is just as poorly designed. Apple frequently enjoy "doing their own
thing" which defies conventions set by every other platform - tab behaviour is
broken out of the box and does not cycle through links. <iframe> heights are
ignored. On mobile, simple CSS properties such as background-attachment aren't
supported.

Whenever I have to use a Mac I try to open a terminal as soon as I can and do
all work inside one away from Finder and all the other GUI apps, because
that's at least a relatively sane part of the system - but I couldn't ever get
serious work done on one.

My point is that your anecdotal experiences are _far from_ universal.

~~~
saagarjha
> the keyboard shortcuts are entirely unintuitive

IMO, Xcode has the most sane shortcuts of any IDE I have ever used.

> Apple's store literally doesn't accept screenshots generated by its own
> simulator

But…you can? I have a UI test that generates screenshots in the simulator and
I upload those.

~~~
lol768
>But…you can? I have a UI test that generates screenshots in the simulator and
I upload those.

It complained about the alpha channel, and I needed to open (in GIMP) all of
the screenshots created by the Xcode simulator in order to strip it out.

I'm not making this up, countless other developers have wasted time on this
sort of nonsense: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25681869/images-cant-
con...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25681869/images-cant-contain-
alpha-channels-or-transparencies)

~~~
saagarjha
I have never gotten a screenshot from the simulator that contains an alpha
channel…

~~~
lol768
You're incredibly lucky then :) There are multiple posts on Reddit,
StackOverflow and Apple's own product support site about this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSProgramming/comments/9fd7qu/taki...](https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSProgramming/comments/9fd7qu/taking_screenshots_in_the_simulator_for_app_store/)

[https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/108462](https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/108462)

[https://stackoverflow.com/a/54653683/5056459](https://stackoverflow.com/a/54653683/5056459)

~~~
saagarjha
Those users have enabled options that add "cutouts" to the images. By default
the simulator will take rectangular screenshots.

~~~
lol768
I've not changed the settings at all - and that's the sort of screenshots that
the simulator generates for me (for e.g. the iPhone X).

------
sanxiyn
> Apple always says that "running to the press doesn't help"

This is a bald faced lie, so you must ignore it.

~~~
xhruso00
As per ex-App Store employee it always HELPS.
[https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=836](https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=836)

~~~
judge2020
Better timestamp:
[https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=1840](https://youtu.be/tJeEuxn9mug?t=1840)

------
repiret
Since day one of the app store, there has been a persistent stream of
complaints of terrible customer service to developers. Apps being rejected for
reasons nobody can figure out, app reviews taking an egregiously long time,
account lockouts like this.

On the one hand, when a developer account is only $99/yr and there is a strong
incentive for some developers to try to get away with things, what choice do
you have but to provide only automated service portals and call center
employees who are powerless to fix any problem not anticipated by their
scripts.

But on the other hand, there are lots of people making big bucks developing
apps, and who are genuinely trying to follow the rules (even if they think
some of them are dumb). Apple should have an option for these people to pay
extra for real customer service.

If I made my living as a solo app developer, I wouldn't hesitate to pay any
4-figure annual price if in exchange I got siloed into a small dedicated
support team so that my apps were always reviewed by one of a small number of
people in order to get more consistent rejections, and reviewed in a timely
manner. And I got an account manager I could call up and get weird problems
like this resolved the same day - even if the resolution was sometimes
unsatisfying: like being told that Apple decided Electron apps use private
APIs and will all be denied until Electron fixes it, or being told that I
violated the terms of my agreement by publishing details of unreleased
products, and so my account has been irrevocably locked.

If I were a moderate sized company, there are many 5-figure annual prices I
would pay for the same.

For many app developers, there's real money on the line. Apple should charge
them real money and give them real support.

~~~
Keats
They already take 30% of all sales through the app, isn't that enough?

~~~
repiret
They make that as a commission for separating end users from their money, and
Apple has made that a really seamless process.

But while developer support certainly is correlated with that income, it's not
tied to it closely enough to make it a priority. If they were to spend an
extra $20M/year on developer support, would it really lead to the extra
$67M/year in app purchases needed to just break even? Whereas if they just
directly charged for premium developer support, they could set the price to
whatever it needed to be for that business unit to make a profit.

------
yig
This developer is also a journalist who has written many scoops on Apple's
upcoming hardware and software:

[https://9to5mac.com/author/guirambobr/](https://9to5mac.com/author/guirambobr/)

This may be why Apple is upset. Is it justified?

~~~
sanxiyn
If this is it, Apple should say so, preferably with reference to Apple
Developer Program Terms and Conditions. Running a Kafka trap instead is rather
rude.

------
fjabre
Ah the joys of being subjected to a dictator's whim. Apple can do as it wants
when it wants for any reason it wants to regarding that app you may have
poured a year of your life into.

Our profitable SaaS web app has 1000s of paying users and those apps also run
very well on mobile safari.

We made a decision a long time ago as a company never to invest in iOS because
of Apple's dictator like policies. We may develop a simple tool on iOS but we
will never put our flagship apps there.

Apple has made it clear from the beginning that they will not be fair in their
dealings with devs and in fact the opposite, they are actively hostile against
app devs in many cases such as this one without being accountable to them.
It's Apple's way or the highway.

Not only do we have the privilege of paying Apple to develop on their platform
(that devs make more valuable to consumers) but we also have the privilege of
paying Apple a 30% cut on virtual goods.

I still don't understand why so many devs have given into this. But it
probably has something to do with Apple's monopolistic power.

~~~
pier25
Totally agree.

MacOS dev is also going down the hill considering all the uncertainity about
developing for the platform (deprecations, transitions to new SDKs and
language, etc).

For example it would seem ObjC and Cocoa will be abandoned one day. When? In 2
years? 5 years? When will OpenGL not be distributed with macOS?

It would seem the safe bet is switching to SwiftUI for macOS but as of today
you lose support for most macOS users. Plus SwiftUI is not ready for prime
time yet from all the complaints I've read.

I was planning on working on a macOS exclusive product but for many reasons
(including some of the points you have mentioned) this doesn't seem a wise
decision at all.

~~~
saagarjha
Considering how long it took to remove Carbon, I wouldn't expect Cocoa to go
away any time within the next decade.

~~~
pier25
I agree, but do you know for sure?

Nobody knows.

------
JohnFen
The risk of this sort of thing is why I have never, and will never, develop
for platforms that I need a "developer account" or the approval of the company
for.

It's far too dangerous to allow any company to be in a position where they can
flip a switch (intentionally or not) and turn your business off.

~~~
nixpulvis
Exactly! Especially for developers of cross platform software, it's bad enough
having to emulate or find hardware, now what they need a plethora of developer
accounts too?

------
saagarjha
A number of commenters have mentioned that Rambo has a day job where he
publishes leaks and other internal details of upcoming Apple releases. I'm not
sure why he hasn't mentioned this in the article, but if it is related, it's
still not the best look for Apple. The only time I can think of where the
company has done something like this was banning Charlie Miller from the
program, for publishing an app that allowed remote code execution to the App
Store and then doing a presentation about it. In this case, Rambo has
certainly done things which would violate the developer program NDA–but
_every_ news outlet that covers Apple does this by posting images of NDA'd
prereleases, including developers and journalists that Apple has a great
relationship with. It might be that Apple thinks it is wrong and/or illegal to
look at their unreleased intellectual property (as Rambo has had access to
internal-only builds presumably leaked to him by engineers) but silently
banning him from his developer account is obviously not the correct way to
deal with this, either. And finally, if Apple honestly thinks that this would
prevent leaks: they're just wrong. Even on the software side, I can think of a
handful of ways that would work just as well at finding prerelease
information, completely legally, even without violating my developer NDA. The
only thing stopping me is the fact that I don't spend time doing this
professionally.

------
3bodyProblem
I don't like the walled in gardens that google and apple have created don't
get me wrong. But at the same time the author made a life choice to be an ios
developer. Something I don't understand, while you know that this job is
putting your food on your plate. Why also burn bridges with gray area stuff
like reverse engineering nda stuff? If it's your hobby, sure, but you'r using
it to have an income. It's a bit naive to think you can get away with it. Two
wrong definitely doesn't make a right, but this situation has a scent of
surprised pikachu to it. Don't think going on the offense like this will help
his case either. Perhaps it's time to overthink if he wants to stay a
developer in the IOS ecosystem.

------
judge2020
Slightly unrelated, but in the Developer portal, you can only create 5 of the
"Developer ID Application" certificates per developer team. When you want to
generate another one past 5, there is no option to revoke old certificates nor
is there an option to ask for an increase.

I had to contact developer support asking them to revoke the old ones so that
I could generate a new one (since the past keys had been lost to MacOS wipes);
but it took over two months between Dev support asking the product security
team for assistance, and the Product Security team not responding, before they
finally made an exception and allowed my account to generate one more
certificate. I realize I should have backed up the previous keys (as I have
done for this most recent one), but I find it odd you can't revoke existing
certificates.

~~~
GordonS
There is even a limit with the Apple Enterprise Developer program, which we
had problems with just the other day. IIRC, the limit was also only 5 - it
seemed arbitrarily low.

------
djohnston
Brutal, the frustration is palpable. Forgive my mobile engineering ignorance,
but does developing on Android pose similar risks or is control less
centralized to Google?

~~~
ngngngng
It's worse on android. You'll lose access to every google account you have
(email, photos, drive) and if you circumvent by creating a new account and are
caught then you will be banned again as well as all of the accounts that are
associated with the new account. This could potentially destroy an entire
business if they hire a banned individual and get their entire company banned
because of it.

~~~
JohnFen
But you don't actually need any access to Google's stuff to develop for
Android, so Google can't lock you out and destroy your business. Google can
just cause a lot of inconvenience.

~~~
ronsor
>a lot of inconvenience

If that's what you call it, but business have had their paid Google Apps
accounts nuked, and critical data lost. Publishing on Play is basically
mandatory to get users.

~~~
JohnFen
> Publishing on Play is basically mandatory to get users.

Being on Play is an enormous advantage, there's no question. Whether or not
it's mandatory probably depends on what sort of app it is, though.

There are successful apps that aren't in the Play store. But being successful
without being in the Play store requires a larger marketing effort.

------
hootbootscoot
Walled dictatorship treats dissident poorly. Cue "but he violated EULA"
chatter.

Facts that remain: walled dictatorship has crumbling infrastructure, openly
spits upon it's Stockholm-syndrome-afflicted subjects, and we all saw this
coming from approx 1.7km away...

~~~
hu3
Indeed. The double standard is palpable.

When Apple fucks up: "but it's legal, who cares if it's wrong"

When other FAANG fucks up: "but it's wrong, who cares if it's legal"

------
jakozaur
Another case how current tech giants build huge platform with no oversight
exploiting their monopoly power.

This developer should be able to appeal Apple decision for nominal fee (e.g.
$100). There should be independent committee that could judge timely his case.
If committee found developer makes invalid claim, then he loses fee. If Apple
is found, it should be forced to change decision and pay for the committee
cost plus refund $100 to developer.

Being kicked out of platform such as Google, Facebook, Apple is a death
penalty for many companies. Yet there is no equivalent of judicial system that
works well enough in internet era.

~~~
jakozaur
Judicial, Execution and Lawmaker branches should be separate in $10Bln+ tech
platforms play:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers)

------
mikece
Notwithstanding that this developer was also a journalist using his access to
beta software to learn about upcoming announcements before Apple wanted them
announced, I have to wonder how suspending his developer account without any
explanation isn’t grounds for a breach of contract lawsuit. If they told him
right from the start that he was booted for violating NDA or even just for
pissing off their marketing team that would be fine... but suspending and then
ghosting him? Apple needs to pay and pay big for that.

~~~
richardwhiuk
The Apple Developer Agreement states: > Your rights under this license to use
and access the Content will terminate automatically without notice from Apple
if you fail to comply with any of these provisions.

They also state that it's against the agreement to share pre-released
information.

There's absolutely no grounds for someone to complain here.

------
kuon
It took me a while to understand an accept how closed and proprietary the
Apple ecosystem is. I don't mean it is bad or good, but it is their platform,
their product and they control it fully.

There is no point in saying "it's not fair, they locked me out...", they OWN
the platform, they can do whatever they want with it.

There is also no point is trying to work around it, hackintosh, vm, whatever,
I did it and it's just pain.

If you don't agree with how Apple does things (I don't), then walk away. It
took me a long time, but I am now fully free of the Apple ecosystem and I
develop for other platforms.

What I am saying is that we cannot have it all, we cannot have a well funded
platform, with marketing done for us, distribution done for us... and be fully
free (as in freedom).

This is why it is important to think things properly when using proprietary
technologies, they are more polished, have support, but have a freedom cost.

We should not complain about google, apple... closing accounts, we should
create new open alternatives, for everything. Of course it's not easy, it's
hard, way harder than complaining. For this, they are multiple tools,
technical ones (writing open source stuff), but also political and legal ones
(like GPL).

------
logfromblammo
This is a great argument for union-like organization of independent Apple-
ecosystem developers. If one member gets banned in an arbitrary and capricious
manner, the others can strike, by pulling their programs from the App Store.

If hitting the front page of HN is really the best way to get a substantial
response from Apple after a drawn-out runaround, that cries out for a
counterweight organization to Apple that can punch back and actually make it
hurt.

------
technofiend
Tangential at best but this is why I literally created a new user ID yesterday
solely for Google's Stadia. They have a tendency to lower the ban hammer with
little discretion and I'm quite sure sooner or later griefers will figure out
how to allege cheating complaints that result in account closure. I'd rather
not lose my real Google account to someone's online indigestion.

~~~
reaperducer
_this is why I literally created a new user ID yesterday solely for Google 's
Stadia_

Not enough. Google's ban hammer can hit not only an allegedly infringing
account, but also any account it suspects is even related to that account.
Share an IP address? Log in from the same place regularly? Machine has cookies
for both? It's all gone.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Scary. Presumably you have some real world examples of this?

~~~
reaperducer
I haven't experienced it personally because I limit my exposure to Google as
much as I can. But it's been discussed on HN a number of times.

------
CodeSheikh
This guys wrote a ranty article without telling/hinting/speculating us what
went wrong? I am sorry but I feel like you have wasted our time by making us
reading your article and as a reader and a supporter of indie dev community I
am unable to conclude if Apple has done any wrongdoing here.

------
kiba
One wonder how those problems managed to continuously get ignored as issues
get escalated up the ladder.

~~~
ben509
Probably a ticket in a queue that's languishing as the easy tickets are
handled to make stats look good. Also, he doesn't mention that he's leaked
stuff in the past, so it may be that various managers are reluctant to be the
one to put in writing what they cancelled him for.

------
backtoyoujim
It has always seemed weird to me to pay someone yearly to write software for
their OS.

Having to pay for the tools that ban you reminds me of a digital (urban
legend?) "bullet fee" like that Mao supposedly levied to the families of
executed prisoners.

------
mzs
I didn't have to agree to anything to develop for my handspring, just used
gcc. I did have to click some agreement for the emulator ROMs but those
weren't strictly necessary either. There weren't any recurring charges, app
review process, or forbidden APIs either. I didn't have to buy a computer from
handspring or palm and nobody could stop me or the authors that wrote books. I
miss those days.

------
rocky1138
We need an open phone. Today.

~~~
mrec
AIUI the Librem 5 is already shipping.

~~~
mattl
I don't think so. The first batch went to staff.

------
fouric
I wonder how long Rambo will have to wait for his account to get unlocked,
relative to when this story hits the front page.

When it happens, everyone should act like it didn't, because any corporation
that fixes issues only after they become known at a large scale isn't
operating in the best interests of the user anyway.

------
blisterpeanuts
What a strange predicament. Perhaps a naive question, but is it possible to
create a new developer's account and then request a transfer of your apps?
Given that you have the sources & password to old account etc.

~~~
george_perez
You could, but they would probably not be able to get to the page to transfer
ownership to another Apple ID because they'll probably get sent to the contact
form dead-end.

------
iamaelephant
I mean yeah. If you play with tigers you get bit. Stop contributing the walled
gardens, and definitely don't rely on them for your income. A harsh lesson
learned.

------
mikhailt
I know this won't be a popular opinion but this kind of behavior is why I'm
leaning toward some of the ideas that big companies need to be broken up with
firewalls between them.

Just because he leaked some details about stuff from their hardware/software
divisions (violating NDA) does not mean he deserves to be treated like this
and be locked out of the App Store entirely like this.

I understand there has to be some incentives not to break NDAs but given that
app stores are becoming such a massive part of our lives, we cannot shadow-ban
people just because the platform owners are not happy.

------
notadoc
Public shaming a corporation often reverses course, fortunately for this
particular developer they enough exposure to stir that up.

------
ok_coo
This is why you develop for the web.

------
chmaynard
Try sending an email to devprograms@apple.com and ask for an explanation.

------
Apocryphon
Customer service via Hacker News. It's terrible these huge faceless
corporations have backed us into this corner, but that's the nature of the
power asymmetry. Let's hope we can signal-boost this until Apple is forced to
acknowledge their failings.

------
ddingus
Surely people like this have a non dev friend who can lend a hand...

------
helpPeople
Apple deleted apps for China, gets hacked by the FBI, locks out developers,
sells broken keyboards, overcharges for hardware, uses proprietary software.

Evil company, their fanatics cling to the "privacy" marketing.

------
thiht
Just stop developing for Apple platforms, seriously. This is what happens when
you encourage their walled garden.

------
Cypher72
Windows anyone?

------
Cypher72
Windows.

------
kd3
The fundamental mistake this guy made was trusting Apple and developing for
their platforms. Let us all take note and learn from his mistake.

------
MattP86
Do you have an app related to vaping?

