The third-party API rule is the most baffling in all of Apple’s App Store regulations. It’s ridiculous that you can’t make and monetise alternative clients to popular services, as if the first party client is always going to be the best.
Related note: Apple is adding WebExtensions to iOS 15 (and iPadOS 15). Given that many extensions exist specifically to do exactly what this rule prohibits, I can imagine Apple's going to see a lot of user and developer protests as more and more extensions are brought over.
What? How does third party Reddit clients still exists on the App Store then?
"unauthorized": reddit has an official API for third-party clients.
So does Amazon's HTTP API for browser clients. Is Apple going to snuggle up with Amazon and get the Brave browser banned for nuking their ads, trackers, etc?
What do you think? There's no love lost from either company toward Brave. (Which makes me love Brave more!)
I mean it’s not really though. Access != Authorization and stopping bots and scraping is a whole industry.
Because Reddit hasn't asked Apple to remove them (or revoked API access themselves)