It's hard to see this appeal going anywhere. The app store guidelines even explicitly mention this use case as one that requires in-app purchases to be used.
> Apps may use in-app purchase currencies to enable customers to “tip” the developer or digital content providers in the app.
Apple lists the limited scenarios where alternative purchase methods can be used and this one is not included. Since they mention it in the guidelines it's clearly something they are aware of.
You may disagree with Apple's policy, but bigger companies have fought this battle and lost. Intentionally (or unintentionally) misreading the guidelines isn't going to hold water on appeal.
I don't think the section you quote tells the whole story
> If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, (by way of example: subscriptions, in-game currencies, game levels, access to premium content, or unlocking a full version), you must use in-app purchase.
> Apps may use in-app purchase currencies to enable customers to “tip” the developer or digital content providers in the app.
Using "must" for unlocking features and "may" for tipping is pretty odd if they need to be treated identically.
This is especially clear if you look later in the document where an almost identical phrasing is used in the other direction:
> If your app enables the purchase of real-time person-to-person services between two individuals you may use purchase methods other than in-app purchase to collect those payments.
> If your app enables people to purchase physical goods or services that will be consumed outside of the app, you must use purchase methods other than in-app purchase to collect those payments
Certainly the person-to-person transactions aren't required to use purchase methods other than in-app purchase despite the use of "may" in the same context.
This section could probably invalidate it although its extremely confusing because only "reader" apps (3.1.3(a)) are allowed to direct to other purchasing methods but physical goods apps are required not to use IAP. How would they avoid using IAP if they can't direct to other mechanisms?
> Apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in-app purchase, except as set forth in 3.1.3(a).
I'm outside of the edit window on this comment otherwise I would make this more prominent, but way below in the "Other" section they do actually have a "monetary gift" rule that aligns with what the dev says:
> (vii) Apps may enable individual users to give a monetary gift to another individual without using in-app purchase, provided that (a) the gift is a completely optional choice by the giver, and (b) 100% of the funds go to the receiver of the gift. However, a gift that is connected to or associated at any point in time with receiving digital content or services must use in-app purchase.
Although I think it still depends on what Apple means by "associated at any point in time with receiving digital content or services". I think they may be intending to allow something like GoFundMe or Venmo, while disallowing something like Reddit gold where users give gifts based on the digital content created even though that content isn't gated by payment.
Perhaps the developer's use of Bitcoin complicates things as well. Does Apple consider that a "monetary gift" or "digital content" or both?
True. Apple can also choose to stand their ground, which would likely work if the developer doesn’t have the resources to fight a court battle. There may be other viable strategies for them to remove this application in whatever legally valid way.
Still, a plaintext interpretation (as far as I can tell) of Apple’s current rules seems to favor the developer, given the circumstances.
Yes, I think their phrasing in that sentence is vague. It should be structured like the functionality one to make clear that tipping _may_ be added, but if implemented it _must_ use in-app purchases.
However, since tipping is not listed in the exceptions, one should read it as not being allowed.
Agreed, from historical context it definitely seems like the intention was confirming for developers that tipping is a valid use case for IAP and not creating an exemption, but I can see why a motivated party would read it differently, and it is made even more confusing by the App Store review notice seemingly acknowledging that some tips are exempt.
So can't people who want to offer an in-app "tip the developer" feature simply comply (without paying Apple's commission) by selling a token physical good such as a button, sticker, t-shirt, or other merchandise?
It sounds like that should be allowed. But I think that fulfilling button, stickers and t-shirts orders is pretty expensive, and only makes sense if people give big tips (eg. if someone tips 5€, there's not going to be much left after you pay someone to mail them a sticker).
Yeah this case seems incredibly obvious, and I feel like any suggestion from the developer that they aren't violating the policies is disingenuous.
Whether the policy is a good one or not is a fair question, but not one that App Store review will (or even can) answer, and trying to do anything there is barking up the wrong tree.
The right place to challenge this sort of thing is likely with organisations like the FTC, Competition and Markets Authority, or the EU equivalent.
The developer had a meeting with Apple representatives where they assured him that tipping profiles would be okay so he adjusted his app so people would tip profiles instead of posts. Then they still rejected the app.
Sure but reading the guidelines that Apple representative was clearly mistaken. Unless they said "we acknowledge what the guidelines say but they are incorrect", it just seems like poor developer relations comms (from Apple, never!).
I can't find the bit from the dev you're referring to so don't know if they have screenshots of it in writing or something, however, what I suspect is more likely (based on my experience talking to Apple reps about similar things) is that they gave a very charitable description of their feature, and the rep gave a non-committal "sounds like it could pass, try submitting it".
I don't get why the developer is so convinced that their tip system for tipping people based on their activity on their app is not tipping for "digital content". Unless you can only tip randomly with no control over who it goes to, or tipping is for the user's activity off-app, digital content (i.e. posts etc) are literally the only thing you could be tipping for.
The Apple representative may have been mistaken, but they did represent Apple and as such have very clearly overruled the guidelines. It should have ended there.
The degree to which people will twist themselves into pretzels to defend mega-corps is something I find hard to understand, for this guy it is their life line and for Apple it is a non-issue. Apple doesn't get to hide behind their own guidelines if even their own representatives don't know them well enough to adequately represent the company.
It's unfortunate confusion, but a mistake from an employee is not a policy commitment. If Tim Cook said it, sure, but a low-level "representative" is just someone doing a job.
The actual policy at issue is tucked away in the "Other Business Model Issues" section and uses the term "monetary gift" instead of tip:
> (vii) Apps may enable individual users to give a monetary gift to another individual without using in-app purchase, provided that (a) the gift is a completely optional choice by the giver, and (b) 100% of the funds go to the receiver of the gift. However, a gift that is connected to or associated at any point in time with receiving digital content or services must use in-app purchase.
Because the benefits of side loading on iOS are so massive that everyone will use it i.e. you can use private APIs, bypass Apple's privacy controls, implement device tracking, harvest data e.g. contacts.
It's going to be a huge transfer of power and wealth back to the likes of Meta, Epic etc
I’m happy with the one that doesn’t allow crypto crap.
Also free speech is a practical impossibility. Standard email is a free as it gets and it turns out nobody wants that because if you have completely free speech your inbox gets spammed into oblivion. Everyone draws the line somewhere.
People really like to use the slippery slope argument to mean "I took the most expansive interpretation of what someone did throwing away all context and came up with the worst possible thing they could do with that."
That's because if a bad actor was given the opportunity to make a lot of money doing the worst possible thing they could do with something someone will do that thing eventually 100% of the time, no exceptions. This isn't even an "Only siths deal in absolutes" scenario either.
There are plenty of people in the world who will do anything in this world for money, power, wealth, and control over people and they don't care who they hurt in the process of achieving that goal.
There's a thing some people seem to be unable to understand, and it's that... coming after bad things can be good, actually.
The thing about the "first they came" poem is that attacking the socialists, trade unionists and jews is already bad. There's a reason it doesn't start with "first they came for the murderers, but I didn't say anything because I wasn't a murderer".
The poem urges us to stand up against injustice even if it doesn't affect us directly. The poem doesn't argue that all slopes are slippery.
> There's a thing some people seem to be unable to understand, and it's that... coming after bad things can be good, actually.
Going after bad things can be good, but going after a developer who wants to be tipped in crypto isn't a bad thing. Apple being able to take down an app because it allows the user to monetarily reward a developer in the way the dev chooses *is* a bad thing.
> allows the user to monetarily reward a developer in the way the dev chooses is a bad thing
I honestly don't believe anyone can argue this in good faith. First off it's not user->developer but user->user and second "the way the dev [or user] chooses" is just silly. At the end of the day people want fiat currencies, Bitcoin (or any other crypto) in this case is clearly meant as a way to bypass the app store cut. It's not because "they really wanted bitcoin", no, they wanted a loophole. We can argue about if Apple/Google deserve 30% but pretending people actually want crypto for any reason other than avoid rules/regulations is silly.
If you wanna argue that going after cryptocurrency is a bad thing, make that argument. Don't just use the poem to make a lazy slippery slope argument.
And apparently, this isn't even about cryptocurrency but Apple's normal 30% tax. If that's true, then it means that the lazy slippery slope argument is even less applicable.
It's absolutely wild to me to see someone take a poem about the genocide of millions of people and apply it to an app being banned from a digital store over cryptocurrency tipping.
You’re saying that Bitcoin is “crypto crap”, or just talking in general?
And regarding the “free speech” topic, you’re saying that’s ok not finding new censorship resistant solution because essentially censorship is ok?
Just asking to better understand the underlying knowledge on the topic before putting myself into this valley of tears.
> if you have completely free speech your inbox gets spammed into oblivion.
Don't know for your provider, but on Gmail, I click on Spam and there are all there. It's not censorship, it's sorting. I usually go see them once a month, just in case something got badly sorted (it's also quite entertaining to see the scams attempts).
In what world is it censorship to choose to read something or not too? It may be censorship for sure that something is blocked (and still can be argued upon), but choosing not to read crap is not censorship, just like choosing not to read every scientific papers in the world is not censorship…
I mean anyone who would work on or with a google platform certainly isn’t. They’re the least cypherpunk, most bland and corporate, evil tech corp I can think of that makes consumer hardware outside of MAYBE Meta.
It's known that iOS is the best platform to make money and targeting iOS makes more sense because of that. They probably have an idea of how much they're willing to spend to fight Apple on this because if they win it will be huge for them and they stand to make more than releasing on Android. This is also putting them directly into the news and will reach those Android people so it almost doubles as a genius marketing campaign to fight Apple. I highly doubt they see all this as a waste of money and time and I can see them fighting Apple until they are forced to release an Android app to recoup the money they've lost.
Android users are notorious for not spending money (IIRC Apple users spend double the amount of money on subscriptions vs Android users) and it's unlikely Android users would tip content creators, or even watch the content they're putting out there.
Android (more strictly, AOSP) is an open source linux based operating system that can be used standalone with no google shenanigans whatsoever. I don't like google either, but at least I can use whatever software I want on my machine. To say android is as restrictive or more restrictive than Apple is to be disconnected from reality. To say that using Android is less cyberpunk than using a completely vertically integrated system like the iPhone with it's thousand dollar accessories because "evilcorp" is absurd.
Sure. It’s nice to have. I absolutely give google (limited) props for ASOP. Tho it’s “open” in mostly the “you can see & download the code” sense, not the “we’re open to contributors from the community” sense, but still… it’s great they did that.
But it doesn’t make using the “open” software that’s completely controlled by the giant corporate empire any more “cypherpunk”, does it?
A little more, yes. Of course, ideally, I'd love a BSD mobile operating system that runs TUI applications I made myself. But it's a world of compromise, so I compromise.
From my phone (in Minecraft), I run an IPFS node, I communicate over distributed encrypted channels, I share files over BitTorrent, I probe networks, I zap people on nostr, I do all sorts of things the big powers would rather me not be doing, even though they aren't necessarily illegal. I can run literally any sort of software that I like, period, with nobody's permission or even knowledge of the fact. In computing, I take into consideration absolutely nothing that these corporations would prefer that I do. That's pretty cypherpunk, even if I do it all without google explicitly giving me an AMOLED black theme in their operating system. I use one of those too anyway.
This is what happens when you give a single company monopoly over your computing. I know there's a lot of apple fans around here, but I think it's largely social proof, apple products are jewelry in my eyes. Why anyone would develop for such an unpredicrably restrictive platform is beyond me. Apple is just too controlled for my taste. If I developed mobile apps I wouldn't even try to build an iPhone version.
I can't believe the EU, which has fined Microsoft because of having IE as the default browser, is OK with Apple having a total walled garden in iOS. Which by the way only has one "browser", because other browsers are forced to use the safari engine.
They’re not even in the same league as what MS was doing. At the time of the EU vs MS suit they had a 91% market share, and had only recently come down from a fraction over 95%
THAT is why the EU took action. Apple isn’t in a monopoly position in phones at all, they’re not even the dominant OS.
What they are, is the one that makes the most money.
As far as EU jurisdiction goes the only stat that matters is the EU. If Apple had 100% of market share in the US, the EU would still have no governing power.
Based off what I found through a quick search, in Q4 2022 Apple has 29% of smartphone shipment and they have about 38% of mobile OS share. Not tiny, but not dominating the market. Back when Microsoft was being prosecuted, they had >95% of desktop OS share, approaching 99% in some places, and they were accused of leveraging that to muscle out paid-for software vendors that sold directly competing software (both operating systems through exclusivity agreements with OEMs and application software on Windows).
This is missing context: Microsoft made their browser free at a time when Netscape cost $49.
Apple giving away Safari for free at a time when all major web browsers are free is different. Sure, Apple might benefit from being the default but Spotify and Pandora, which compete with Apple Music, are both still in Apple's app store.
Why the quotes? Apps bundling their own outdated web views using old versions of Chromium or WebKit are a legitimate security threat. By forcing every web view to use the fully up to date system bundled one, you automatically eliminate dozens of security vulnerabilities.
Nothing forces anyone to buy an iPhone. They don’t even have a majority of market share. In the late 90s-2000s, Microsoft actually held a monopoly on PCs. Smartphones on the other hand are a very healthy duopoly with diversity and cross pollination of ideas.
Three companies have wall gardens for game consoles and nobody cares about that. Those three companies own the entire console market. There's no alternative.
Why doesn't the EU do something about that? Why is Apple an exception?
This comment makes it sound like Apple shouldn't be forced to open up their hardware, but the better conclusion is that game consoles should be forced to open up their hardware. This is (allegedly) Hacker News, we should be all for giving people more control over the devices they (allegedly) own.
Just don’t buy closed devices if that’s what you want. There’s no shortage of open devices available to buy.
Complaining about iPhones and game consoles being closed is like complaining that your Honda Civic isn’t good at off-roading and won’t tow your horse trailer.
> There’s no shortage of open devices available to buy.
I'd like an open device that supports iMessage and Facetime.
I don't understand why I should have to give up all the iOS software that I really like just because I want to run one app on my device that Apple doesn't allow.
"Walled gardens" when MS has a policy of porting all their games to Windows and also offers an official way for users to run custom software on the device.
Agreed on the other two though, both should also be forced to open up.
Remember: everything you blame Apple of also applies to Sony (Playstation) and Microsoft (Xbox).
Exact same thing.
A phone isn't a "general computing device" like a PC any more than a gaming console is. So if Apple has to allow 3rd party stuff on their phones, it must be so for PS and Xbox too.
Good, I don't know why I should have a problem with that?
Though I disagree that a phone is not a 'general computing device' moreso than a gaming console is, it is hard to come up with a legally-clear definition of one.
Yeah, a phone is definitely a "general computing device", while a video console arguably is not. But considering that you can watch Youtube on a Nintendo Switch, I think they should maybe be considered "general computing devices" as well.
How so, the last two generations of Xbox and PS consoles have been pretty much off-the-shelf hardware.
The Xbox and PS5 are literally using an AMD Zen2 CPU and an AMD GPU, nothing weirdly custom like the PS3's "emotion engine".
There's no reason they couldn't run a standard Linux or even Windows. They have HDMI ports, USB and everything just like a normal PC. Even the PS3 with it's super weird processing system had a _native_ Linux version provided by Sony[0].
Why aren't people up in arms insisting that Microsoft and Sony allow us to install Linux on "our hardware", but are so very pressed when they can't do that with a phone? Why is a console walled garden perfectly fine, but on a phone it's anathema? Are people still thinking of the NES when they hear "console"?
[0] Yes, it was there to dodge import taxes, but still =)
It's pretty clear when you look at both how these devices are used, and how they are marketed, that there is a difference between the products' purpose.
However you are right, it is hard to make an unambiguous distinction, so I am with you - consoles should also be forcibly opened up. I do strongly hold the philosophical view that if you own any computing device you, as the owner should have absolute control of what that device trusts as far as any cryptographic 'locks' are concerned. The place where this seems to have both a) the largest negative impact on the market and b) the best chance of people caring and doing something about it, seems to be with mobile computing, so that is where the voice are the loudest, but personally at least, I hold the same view about any device.
Our society has long held that reverse engineering is perfectly acceptable when it comes to interoperability / competition, even if the OEM doesn't appreciate it. Now, we have progressed technologically to the point that an OEM can literally prevent any reasonable manner of that, if they want to. I just don't think our laws / society have really caught up with that fact yet, but for me it follows directly from the reasoning behind allowing reverse engineering that we shouldn't allow this.
So I don't know why you keep bringing this up as if it is a counterpoint. Yes, it's a similar situation, and yes anything we do about Apple should apply to Sony as well.
A bunch of bureaucrats somehow outsmarting one of the most well resourced and talented machineries out there is the thing I am skeptical about. The two systems are not equal by a long shot.
While I personally agree with your latter sentiment, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines bureaucrat to be simply, “a member of a bureaucracy”. Where the top definition of bureaucracy is:
A government is by definition a bureaucracy, but so is any private corporation. Any organization of sufficient size becomes one out of necessity. Any time you have a bunch of people together and you need to establish any kind of pattern for how things get done, you have a bureaucracy.
What is funny is the way people use the word derisively, as if bureaucracy is inherently evil in some way. Bureaucracy is like math, it is netiehr good nor bad, it simply is. Like math, it can be used to do good or bad things.
Yes, domain names have existed since forever, but I don't see how crypto domain names are any different or changes anything.
Does a domain name need a token attached to the service in order to operate?
I would say it is still a scam as it is airdropping ENS tokens that were minted out of thin air and insiders pump and dumping the token to make a profit.
You can't do that illegal stuff with traditional domain names.
The name itself is the non-fungible token. You just pick your own ENS name and buy it from the system, much like DNS, though they did add a bit of complexity in an attempt to limit name squatting. (ENS later airdropped a fungible token used for things like voting rights, since this is meant to be a decentralized project and there's no reliable way on Ethereum to identify individual people for voting purposes.)
Ethereum is essentially a database, so certainly centralized databases can do similar things. The point is to do them with decentralization, openness, censorship resistance, and an economic model where users pay the expenses as they go. You may or may not think those things are valuable, but some people do; Ethereum and similar projects fill that niche.
AFAIU the token is only needed in case you want to participate in the voting of governance events, related to the roadmap of the ENS project. You don't need ENS tokens to register or use ENS domains.
IMO the token might be an illegal security indeed; and if that's the case I hope the SEC crushes them. But in the meantime I'll be using ENS names happily as a user and watch the events with popcorn.
> but I don't see how crypto domain names are any different or changes anything.
It will prevent that a big corp with the court on their side redirect your domain-bought-in-a-complete-legit way to them.
"It will prevent that a big corp with the court on their side redirect your domain-bought-in-a-complete-legit way to them."
No, it will absolutely not. It does not matter what method of accounting or voting you use, you will be made to comply with a court order. If you don't comply, you're going to prison.
Sometime I'd like to see a court rule on the SEC's theory that a token airdropped to people who made no actual financial investment nevertheless passes the "investment of money" clause of the Howey test.
Could you elaborate? There are a lot of proposed NFT usecases that sound superficially useful (e.g. magically preventing secondary sales of event tickets), but don't actually solve any real problems when you think about it properly.
In the case of shipping it was about providing a cryptographically verifiable chain of custody for each shipment.
It’s just a cryptographic enhancement of existing systems, but a nice use of the tech (standardized rather than proprietary too).
One company also used smart contracts to update other systems & such automatically. It was quite a nice system, crypto-based or not.
Personally, as a huge crypto skeptic (and I have worked in the space), I think this kind of use has much more long term utility than the gold rush value stores.
The ticket thing you mention could be useful, but I’ve never seen an implementation that was worth any company (let alone Ticketmaster) bothering with. It “solves” a mostly solved problem.
The use case that I am most familiar with (just from reading about) was to allow artists to sell digital work derived real work, and have them benefit financially from any resale of that digital work. Not sure if there's a non-NFT way to accomplish the same.
Now that the jpeg craze is dead, capital should be allocating itself towards more virtuous NFT use cases, should it not? That's where economic activity in an efficient market would move towards.
The marketplace decides what the purpose is. The use case people wanted was an easy way to launder real money into jpegs of arbitrarily set ETH values. Now that the PPP loan and ZIRP era is over, the bottom has fallen out of NFTs entirely. NBA Top Shot was one of the few non-jpeg early succes stories but that's flamed out as well.
It really isn't, because if you either don't trust the sender or the shipping company, then your real issue is that the shipment or its contents get stolen, not that the shipping information is wrong.
Once again, crypto is trying to solve problems that don't actually exist while completely failing to address the ones that do.
> then your real issue is that the shipment or its contents get stolen
No, the chain-of-provenance use-case is to prevent people from being able to sell grey-market products while claiming that they're official products. E.g. selling iPhones built out of reconstituted parts from iPhones that were pickpocketed from their owners and then scrapped for parts. (Yes, this is a big issue — Google "my stolen phone ended up in shenzhen" and you'll get a ton of news stories.)
If you (or a retailer) forces the retailer (wholesaler) to provide a chain of digital signatures demonstrating each hand-off of the parts all the way back to the factory that produced them, then you implicitly reject any assemblage of parts where some of the parts were black-market-sourced. Which allows for legitimate refurbishing using legitimately acquired parts (i.e. it doesn't put the Shenzhen phone-repair stores themselves out of business); but destroys the demand for the electronics "chop shops" these stores currently sometimes order parts from.
In this case, a "blockchain" here is an open-public-participation multiparty ledger that tracks ownership of physical goods; with a digital signature inherent to each transfer of the digital asset representing the physical good, which should be done at time of transfer of physical goods. Unlike other use-cases, you really can't simplify the solution — to enable this use-case, you need a system with pretty much all the properties of a blockchain.
Hashing and hash stores are not unique, or particularly original, so really this is just applying common crypto tooling/standards to an existing problem.
Regulatory oversight in addition to Apple looking for its cut is a good reason why this would have been blocked anyway. Few things out there are more regulated than the transfer of money, something the crypto economy is desperately trying to avoid.
Anything else you want banned just because you don't like it authoritarian? If you don't like it just don't use it. You're financially privileged, just stick to your transactions your bank let you do and let other people do what they want.
The problem with letting people do what they want, is that you will inevitably have bad actors ruining things for the rest of us.
That's where regulation comes in, where government comes in, where centralization comes in.
Do you seriously believe, that if Bitcoin becomes the global currency, that crime won't skyrocket due to people getting robbed relentlessly? You just need the PK dawg, and it's very easy to tell if you were told the truth - access to the wallet opens up.
I think you are just naive about the nature of mankind. We need rules, structure and order - the key question, is how do we create the environment that allows enough structure to not interfere with the creative process to allow us to continue growing and developing new technology?
Bitcoiners have a sad, yet fascinating trend to talk about nothing but Bitcoin. Take a look at your comment history.
You've said a lot without making any real points there.
How does allowing people to send small tipping amounts of Bitcoin for fun from their hot wallet mean "bad actors ruining things for the rest of us"?
>Do you seriously believe, that if Bitcoin becomes the global currency, that crime won't skyrocket due to people getting robbed relentlessly? You just need the PK dawg, and it's very easy to tell if you were told the truth - access to the wallet opens up.
And if people have geographically distributed multi-sig cold storage for the bulk of their wealth? Will they be getting "robbed relentlessly"? If you follow best practice and take self custody seriously you'll be fine so no I don't seriously believe people would be robbed relentlessly.
So I'll ask you too, what's your problem with other people sending small amounts of money P2P in a fun way to each other in a currency they prefer? Just don't use it if you don't like it.
>Bitcoiners have a sad, yet fascinating trend to talk about nothing but Bitcoin. Take a look at your comment history.
Again, what's your point? I'm stirred to reply to fiat brained financial authoritarianism, that's what I find weird and sad.
Considering the App Store is 99% adwall trash and subscription scam apps I’d say if you hate Bitcoin you’d have to admit it’s right at home with the rest of the content there.
And? This is as expected as you can get, Apple does not allow you to by pass them for payment. Next thing you know, the dev will have a rule on its website enabling certain features once you tipped, Apple isn’t gonna wait till that happens
> Apps may use in-app purchase currencies to enable customers to “tip” the developer or digital content providers in the app.
Apple lists the limited scenarios where alternative purchase methods can be used and this one is not included. Since they mention it in the guidelines it's clearly something they are aware of.
You may disagree with Apple's policy, but bigger companies have fought this battle and lost. Intentionally (or unintentionally) misreading the guidelines isn't going to hold water on appeal.