[vulcan01]

I feel like some of Apple's problems stem from their unfriendly stance. Apple should have discussed Amphetamine's branding if they thought it was controversial. Why do they feel the need to turn everything* into "Do this or we'll remove you from the App Store?"

* Everything that's on the news, that is.

[soupson]

Eh. Anything Apple does is giant megacorp against poor indie devs. The scenario you proposed would just turn into the headline “Apple begged us to kill our brand and we told them to fuck themselves” and pretty soon everyone wants a sit down with Tim Cook because they disagree philosophically with the rules.

It’s not clear, despite what it appears here, that the Twitter storm actually changed the outcome. This looks more like T1 support made a call that T2 reversed. Not unusual.

[cptskippy]

> This looks more like T1 support made a call that T2 reversed. Not unusual.

It's not unusual and that's the problem. The process is a huge distraction to the developers and produces a great deal of undue stress if T2 is just going to override it.

Perhaps T1 should not have the authority to remove, ban, etc. They can approve all day long but rejections are escalated to T2, at which point T1 must justify the escalation and perhaps allow the developers to respond if T2 finds the escalation warranted.

Even if this Amphetamine App were found to violate ToS and need to be removed or modified, there was no urgency. It wasn't driving droves of people to Meth addiction.

[LASR]

Yes, but how are we accounting for the cases where T1 already makes the right call?

The reality is that we don’t hear about it unless if we have a situation like this.

So I’m not sure how we can draw any conclusions re: Apple vs Indie devs and the whole Goliath vs David aspect of this.

[cptskippy]

That's why T1 would write a justification of a request for ban to T2. They would provide an argument to T2 and T2 would review it.

Banning shouldn't be the unilateral decision of a single individual. We've had our App updates rejected numerous times for arbitrary reasons that were approved without change when resubmitted because we got a different reviewer.

[pwinnski]

Your frame of reference is the number of times a T1 made a bad call.

Apple's frame of reference is the number of times a T1 made any call.

So let's say they've made hundreds of bad calls. Is that out of thousands of decisions, or millions? Or tens of millions?

If tens of thousands of apps are banned, but only hundreds are banned incorrectly, that doesn't suggest the same thing as if a large percentage of bans are later reversed.

[cptskippy]

It's not about the number of decisions they've made, it's specifically about decisions to ban Apps that were already approved to the store.

How many Apps are banned after having been approved? I would certainly hope they haven't had to ban thousands, millions or tens of millions of Apps after they had approved them to the store. That would speak to a very big problem with the initial review process that admits an App into the store.

[doctor_eval]

> This looks more like T1 support made a call that T2 reversed.

Given the fact that Apple had themselves featured the app, ISTM that T1 didn’t even do the most basic diligence before making this call.

I’d say that’s the problem more than anything. It seems like Apple takes a completely stateless approach to things.

It’s as if they have periodic scrubs of the app list based on some middle-manager defined predicate (in this case, “does app name potentially breach ToS?”) and then they do a mail merge of the results, without even looking at any other metric at all.

IMO that’s not remotely good enough.

It would cost Apple almost nothing to add some other predicates like “has app been around for >12 months? Has app previously been featured by Apple? Does app have more than 100K downloads?”.

If any of these are true, app should go to T2 or even T3 before any contact is made with the developer whatsoever.

I mean this is customer support 101. The stress this must have caused the Amphetamine team must have been huge. And for what? A bad user experience and yet another hit to the reputation of the App Store.

[dannyw]

App removals are serious business that affects livelihoods.

If T1 support sometimes has poor judgement, it should be required to internally escalate to T2 before actually making a decision.

For apps with more than a certain number of users, it should require another layer of escalation and approval, including a review of other apps to make sure rules are enforced clearly, fairly, and reasonably.

Finally, non-security removals should have a grace period of 60 to 90 days.

[souplesse]

> Finally, non-security removals should have a grace period of 60 to 90 days.

That was the part that seemed especially outrageous to me. 14 days to appeal or make changes, with no guarantee of response time?

Even if he imagined T2 might reverse the decision, hedging his bets by going public was only rational, given the ticking clock.

Apple could have avoided this whole circus with a more reasonable time frame.

[saagarjha]

This is really poorly conveyed. Apparently when you appeal they are supposed to stop the clock, but we (iSH) were certainly not told that and we hear that this is the norm with many apps in this process. I don’t know if this is supposed to fuel compliance in desperation or what, but apps that have strong cases are just going to run the the press. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Apple is trying to improve here…

[tempestn]

Isn't this what the appeal process is for though, at least in theory?

[saagarjha]

It is, but the appeal process is quite opaque and uncertain: after all, you’re asking the same people that rejected your app. And with no clear SLA and an apparent deadline, it’s pretty difficult to deal with.

[DubiousPusher]

An appeal which is reviewed by the same organization that made the original determination is theater. It does not conditute oversight, it never has and it never will.

[powerapple]

I start to think maybe they should start to introduce "jury" system into this. I feel that app developers are on trial with their living at risk many times when dealing big platforms.

[vulcan01]

I'm simply suggesting that developers should expect treatment from Apple that they would expect from their employer/manager (as many devs rely on app sales for their livelihoods).

> pretty soon everyone wants a sit down with Tim Cook

Most managers would (except in extreme circumstances), talk to their employee at least once before raising the topic of being fired.

> This looks more like T1 support made a call that T2 reversed. Not unusual.

Most managers would confer with their boss / HR / etc. before making the decision to fire someone.

Devs should expect the same from Apple.

[pjc50]

This is the developer version of the "gig economy". You're not an employee and don't have rights - indeed, you have to pay to be a developer! As in the gig economy, your income depends on ratings and your livelihood can be terminated by automated system.

Respect unfortunately has to be fought for, and going to the press to apply pressure is one channel for that.

[soupson]

Should not developers then be expected to generate a certain return for Apple in terms of sales, or risk being removed from the store?

[saagarjha]

All developers guarantee a return of at least $100/year.

[meibo]

Developers pay a lot of money to have the privilege to become a part of the Apple ecosystem.

The least they can expect is customer service and actual conversation with the people that decide about their livelihoods.

That may not have been the case here, but being forced to rebrand as an indie app developer can be pretty hard on your userbase/potential reach.

[FireBeyond]

They should probably have considered -not- featuring it on the App Store as they did, and then objecting to it.

[soupson]

This is the real kicker. It seems very reasonable that any app that's getting a "change or else" letter ought to be flagged if Apple has featured it. That's basically a brand-endorsement from Apple, and it's in their best interest to white glove those.

[oceliker]

That assumes the people choosing apps to be featured are the same people doing the review process.

[musicale]

That assumes the right hand knows what the left hand is doing...

[fastball]

Is the human body really an apt analogy to a company with 137,000 employees?

[saagarjha]

The number of people in the App Store teams is significantly fewer.

[uselpa]

I hope Apple is not becoming a second Google in terms of customer and developer interaction.

[8note]

Apple doesn't gain anything from those negotiations, and they have nothing to lose by just kicking apps off. The app developer's choice is to do as apple says, or be limited to less profitable android sales

People on HN are happy to say they agree with Apple banning names like this because it protects their experience and brand.

It's hard to use the iPhone as a status symbol when it's associated with meth