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Comment by thesis | Hacker News Reader

Psh, screw Apple. They made us remove the .com from anything that said domain.com because it would help users recognize that we have a site that allows purchasing.

We complied of course. :(

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Apple apologists frequently claim the walled garden is meant to keep bad guys out, but this seems a clear cut instance of the garden's wall being used to keep people in.

The Berlin Wall was also marketed by the old DDR government as keeping the bad guys out, when in reality it was to keep their own citizens from fleeing to the west.

“Mr. Cook - tear down this wall!” :-)

Unless you cannot just go buy any phone or tablet you like, this may be considered an insult to all these families who were split by that wall. How on earth do these analogies cross some minds.

Might seem a frivolous analogy, but they are essentially equivalent remarks (made by DDR and Apple) in the real world and the digital world.

Personally not a fan of people who are offended on behalf of "others".

Then you must be not a fan of android users or store abusers who "take care for freedom" of those who are comfortable with apple.

This analogy crossed my mind, because my family was split by that wall. - And people on the locked in side of the wall had a legendary sense of humour[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_jokes

I'd bet there are more Apple apologists than Germans who are offended by this analogy.

No, Mr. Cook, please keep the wall up!

You always have the choice to move to Android/Windows and never see Apple ever again. People enter the garden of their own volition, because it's a garden compared to all the crap out there.

None of this whining is about protecting the people, but rather about grabbing a slice of the billion-user pie, which Apple has historically denied other companies ever since they refused to put AT&T bloatware on the first iPhone.

Can you imagine what that would have been like?

People fucking loved the iPhone -because- Apple kept every other company’s bullshit off it!

And people who love curated platforms will continue to love it.

1 Downvote = 1 Trillion (funny how people advocating for freedom try to bury all dissent)

Classic "the walls are for your protection" gaslighting. Requiring a developer to remove a link to their website has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting users; it's a transparent attempt to pull wool over the eyes of users, to keep them in Apple's system so Apple can take a cut. Citing other supposed good acts from Apple doesn't refute this.

Did I miss anywhere on Apple.com explanation for the users that they are a walled garden? If it’s not there, then I bet most people are not aware while buying and simply buy due to the brand.

> You always have the choice to move to Android/Windows and never see Apple ever again. People enter the garden of their own volition

iMessage has (or at least had) engineered non-interoperability with non-iPhone devices and has a significantly degraded user experience for everyone if anyone has a non-iPhone device in a group chat. There were multiple people who "freely" made the choice to switch to an Android device, only to have their friends drop them from group chats and remake it without them.

> The Berlin Wall was also marketed by the old DDR government as keeping the bad guys out, when in reality it was to keep their own citizens from fleeing to the west.

It worked out pretty well in both directions actually.

It accomplishes both objectives quite well.

The issue is that it mostly makes sense for them to recoup the cost of running the store and also make money from this massive service they run. The issue is that apps come in all shapes and sizes, and with different monetization models, but Apple's way of coming up with a fair cut for everyone just doesn't work or make any sense.

And then they need to keep adding these strange restrictions and rules to try and contort every app so that their rules kinda work, but it's just such a mess.

The solution is to allow sideloading on iOS. If you don't like the app store ToS then you have the option to not use it.

Nobody is prevented from leaving Apple.

There's virtually no chance of running into Apple if you don't own an Apple device and choose not to use any Apple services (iTunes, Music etc.)

Little more than a typical "protection" racket, only dressed up in a modern/tech jacket. Antitrust issue for sure.

Despite many making a reversed-logic assumption: because a company is not legally punished (yet), shows that what they do has to be legal, history on the other hand is littered with examples of powerful entities proving that assumption utter bullshit. Involvement with anything modern regularly being a key factor, in the law only slowly catching up. The USA becoming ever more like a corrupt and tribal banana republic, sure doesn't help either.

Good luck to you all, from across the pond.

Open the App, be directed to the website, get scammed, ask Apple for your money back because an App in the Appstore scammed you. That's the problem Apple is solving. Unless transactions go through Apple they can't act as a guarantee on the App - which is what they have defined their role as.

> Open Safari, get scammed

Get real. Apple's behaviour is profit seeking, not altruistic.

Apple's policies on this seem pretty messed up. I watched a video today where an app developer had to rip out user generated content (comments section) which seems crazy to me! Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QzHu-sjdB8

Have you thought about just putting 30% fee on your users? For example google when you subscribe to youtube premium in the iphone app just charges you a straight 17 USD with no info or note saying that it is 12 USD through the website. (which I'm sure they were made to do as well)

It was a consideration to raise prices. We believe it does violate their terms as well. Also it's illegal in some countries.

They wouldn't approve the app with any mention of the site at all.

It's all a load of BS. My Ring app tells me I can only buy it on their site. But since we don't have a lot of "power" we are screwed.

IIRC raising prices only on IAP was violation of terms but now it's possible

One solution used by companies like Blizzard for dealing with region-specific rules and taxes is to sell a different product in each region with its own pricing/rewards. Given that Apple and Google already don't want in-app virtual currency to be transferable between platforms (otherwise you could work around the 30% cut), it's not unreasonable to sell different products to different audiences. Who knows whether they'd decide to punish you for that anyway though...

If anything, I hope this changes. Why shouldn't you be able to tell your customers about your website in an app that you built? Even if you want to say hey go to www.myapp.com and buy there, so what?

I really don't understand comments like this.

No retail store that sells your product allows you to put a giant sticker on it that says "buy this product from us instead and get a 30% discount".

You're intentionally trying to benefit from the store's distribution channel at the same trying to screw them out of the money they need to finance it.

I just saw some Quip toothbrushes at Target recently. The box clearly has a starburst advertising $5 brush heads online, while Target sells them for $10.

Many developers would love to not "intentionally benefit" from Apple's distribution channel. The issue is Apple forces them to use the App Store for distribution.

This isn't talking about the store. No you probably shouldn't be allowed to say "Go here to buy this app for cheaper" in your App Store description. But inside your app, you most certainly should.

Physical goods are not the same as digital goods, but even if you do want to go with your analogy, brands will often times include coupons and refill offers and other promotional material with items they sell and push the consumer to buy directly from them and retail stores still carry their products.

Maybe within the store you’re right. This is more about a city allowing only one store to operate. People are complaining (well, companies, not people as much) about not being able to put a giant sticker in the city to go to the other store - because city allows only one store to operate!

Users can download a "reader app" (arbitrary definition), but users can't find out how to sign up for them?

This UX is bad for customers.

You can do it on Android.

If you buy a printer at a retail store there is nothing stopping the manufacturer from having a flyer in the box advertising a cheaper place to buy replacement cartridges.

Apple is like Walmart taking a 30% cut off Xbox live subscription fees after a customer buys an Xbox from them.

Unless the store has a policy against it, which would be perfectly legal and pretty normal.

Even accepting this terrible analogy, the sticker in this case is NOT a giant sticker on the box but rather a leaflet inside the box that the user has paid for.

I'm staring at my brand new Keurig coffee maker that has the website URL right on the top of the box in prominent lettering. Almost everything you buy has a URL on it or in it. Booklets, warranty cards, QR codes, and on and on.

So, reality disagrees with you.

There are stories of apps being pulled because they link their privacy policy page, and from there you can get to the rest of the webpage which may sell things. Or they link to support documentation. But it's all for security...

I can only wonder if they would/did do the same for SalesForce, seeing as they market themselves as salesforce.com.

That seems easy to work around by committing to the name. You're not Company, you're Company.com! The trademark is "Company.com" in a fancy font!

Apple can and will reject your app if you use that as your excuse.

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