Ask HN: Is Apple Going Nuts?

[mittermayr]

Super curious to hear from other iOS devs what you're doing to cope with this. Just today, I had yet another app (this time from a client) get rejected for the exact same reasons the Spotify/Epic/EU drama spiralled out of. Except, for a free app!?

It's getting extortionately uncomfortable:

I have a free (!) app (completely 100% free) on the macOS App Store. It's getting mostly 5-star reviews and has done so for many years. Good. I used to offer the app through my website mainly, but people asked for security (despite it being signed), so I put it on the AppStore, many years ago. I make this app for fun, no profit, it's 100% free.

I recently pushed an update and Apple rejected it. The reason: They clicked on my website (which they found mentioned in the about section, last tab, bottom line on the Settings screen).

On my website, where I SELL NOTHING, no upgrades, no premium services, etc. — they found at a link to buymeacoffee.com/roman — I think in the FAQ page, where I address the question of what people can do, if they insist on supporting the project.

Then, Apple said: because of this link, they had to reject the app; I am offering paid services, and doing so, must be done through In-App Purchases. These were third-party donations, no deal involved, the app does not even know about this, there is no advantage to anyone donating anything.

I tried to reason with them over course of a week, but no, if there is ANY WAY for the app user to pay me, despite the APP ITSELF CHANGING IN NO WAY, WHATSOEVER, then I must use IAPs. I was crushed and nothing made sense anymore.

Fast-forward to this week. I help a client update an old iOS app. Only thing the app does: serve exclusively as a companion app (to scan/photograph documents) for an enterprise SaaS. There is no additional features, there is no purchases in the app, nothing of that sort. You scan a QR code, you scan a document, and the app uploads that scan and that's it.

Apple, however, went all the way to browse the company's website, found a mention of "subscription" somewhere, screenshotted that, responded to us through review that the update has been rejected. All and any subscriptions or purchases must be handled in the app and through IAPs.

I mean, what in the world is going on? I am not making this up!

In neither one of those two cases is the app meant to freeload off of Apple's ecosystem. I get the idea of having to pay a fee to participate in a market, I have paid apps and those are all via IAPs and so forth, yada yada, but a free app?! It can't be how this will all play out, can it?

[talldayo]

Silly developer, Apple hasn't gone nuts. They're simply using their vertical integration to protect you from attaining any form of revenue they can't legally demand a part of. From Apple's perspective, it's you that's gone nuts and is trying to destroy their ecosystem with your heinous donation scheme: https://developer.apple.com/security/complying-with-the-dma....

It's about safety; that's iPhone. (cue the trailing list of comments a-la "Exactly right, this is why I bought my iPhone.")

[mittermayr → talldayo]

Fantastic link, thanks for that, I actually hadn't seen that before. Thank god that Apple is protecting their users. Me not collecting any data, not using advertising ID, or even knowing anything about anyone using the app is suspiciously uncommon, so surely, I can only be scheming for greater evil here. Luckily, the forced IAPs I had to add now allow me to pay them back for having to remind me of it all. Sigh.

[bell-cot]

"Going Nuts" does not seem like a useful descriptive for relentless greedy behavior by the corporation which is very plausibly the Reigning World Champion of relentless greedy behavior.

What financial upsides might there be for Apple, if they somehow started behaving in ways which you considered less crazy?

[xenospn]

I found Apple’s approval process to be hit or miss. Most of the time everything was approved without a problem, sometimes you get a nasty reviewer and all you had to do was just resubmit and it would usually go through.

[mittermayr → xenospn]

Going through this with the client app now, hoping it will eventually pass. Did not work at all with the free app, they kept on ignoring anything I replied with and just copy/pasted the same response. Disheartening.