Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheCowboy | Hacker News Reader

It's not a fact that had he written a blog post admitting guilt that his account would have been reinstated. That's just a carrot dangled by Apple, without a hard contractual obligation to follow through.

If anything, actually writing that something wrong happened would make it easier for them to justify their decision. It could be a trick representatives sometimes use when they assume the party they are dealing with is guilty. It's admitting to fraud and can hurt him more, especially if it didn't work out. And they can always reverse their decision.

View on HN

That's nonsense. Even if Apple was trying to trick him (which they definitely were not), his blog post didn't have to admit any wrongdoing. Nothing he needed to say in there would have been admitting to fraud. It merely would have admitted that his account was linked to one with fraud (which nobody is disputing) and that he's working with Apple to unlink it and restore his account.

I thought his post fulfilled that criteria, which I do agree is reasonable for Apple to request, so I was under the impression that OP was arguing he didn't go far enough.

If his post is not enough, then Apple should consider just sending him a statement including the correct wording for him to use.

He drafted a post and sent it to Apple for approval, but didn't get a response before Apple's PR statement was released and before he reacted by posting that phone call. It's plausible to me that the drafted blog post would have been sufficient, but him posting the phone call probably immediately torpedoed it.

Okay, then you release your recorded call AFTER they defect (I'm not saying he shouldn't have covered his ass by recording the call, that's the smart thing I would've also done). Imagine how bad that would look for Apple.

If I had to guess, Phil & co. wouldn't want to risk that nuclear scenario (and they are definitely smart enough to know better).

> Okay, then you release your recorded call AFTER they defect

Isn't this essentially what happened (at least according to Kapeli)? He wrote the blog post, sent Apple a draft, then Apple went to the press.

Not at all. Apple released a PR statement about what led up to the termination. And nothing they said in there was incorrect, and nothing they said in there would have contradicted his blog post. The PR statement explained that the fraud was detected across 2 linked accounts and from the way it was written it was obvious that Apple was treating both accounts as being a single developer. The blog post would have explained that his account was linked to another one with fraud, and that he's working with Apple to unlink it. Everybody who reads both posts would understand that his account didn't have any fraud on it directly, but was linked to an account with fraud.

That's essentially what the blog post he drafted said: https://kapeli.com/apple_draft

Right, because those 3 points are what Apple said his blog post had to include (if you listen to the call).

I mostly agree with you, but clearly this is not how Kapeli felt for some reason (eg. perhaps because English is not his first language):

> Tonight Apple decided to accuse me of manipulating the App Store in public via a spokesperson.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com