After Apple rejections, FlickType gives up on popular iPhone keyboard for blind
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Discontinuing FlickType Keyboard for iPhone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28200288 - Aug 2021 (159 comments)
FlickType claims it does work without full access as long as you have VoiceOver turned on.
I don't think it's unreasonable for Apple to require the keyboard works without VoiceOver turned on but it sounds like they've allowed this in the past.
It sounds like they've gone back and forth with Apple on this multiple times. I'm not sure why they don't just "make it work" without VoiceOver turned on so they can avoid this landmine every time they submit an update. Maybe that would be a huge amount of work, but it seems like implementing a crappy basic keyboard shouldn't be too bad.
This company is a money-grubbing dragon and is shitting on innovation left and right so it can maintain control over its money pile.
After the initial purchase, Apple should no longer have decision power beyond patching their software. If they do a good job, you buy a new one.
Apple got lucky enough to ride two of the biggest growth engines in modern history, but that does not entitle them to behave like mobile computing is their own totalitarian state. Just because you own some land doesn't mean you can tax air and tell people when and how they can breathe.
Support congress in their attempt to break up the App Stores and prevent this sort of strong-arming. Call and email your reps. Tell them you want the "Open App Markets Act" to be a strong system of protections for individual small businesses and device owners. People deserve choice, a fair playing field, and the right to repair and use their devices as they see fit.
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati...
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
The future of open computing and right to repair depends on it.
https://fossheim.io/writing/posts/apple-health-dataviz-a11y/
> According to Tex Texin, the first numeronym of this kind was "S12n", the electronic mail account name given to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) employee Jan Scherpenhuizen by a system administrator because his surname was too long to be an account name. By 1985, colleagues who found Jan's name unpronounceable often referred to him verbally as "S12n" (ess-twelve-en). The use of such numeronyms became part of DEC corporate culture.
After crediting him as "Arnold Strong" in his first film and dubbing over his voice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_in_New_York#Productio...
That's in part because of economy of scale, but also another major factor IMHO is the subsidizing by other revenue sources (App Store commissions in case of Apple/Google, advertising/essentially spyware in the case of some others).
But now I’ve invested hundreds (if not thousands) on apps and features. Simply switching over wouldn’t be easy. Some apps I have were single-purchase apps originally, but now have monthly subscriptions (that I don’t pay because of my original license!); if I were to switch os’s, I’d have to pay a monthly fee. I can’t use FaceTime on other OS’s, which is (sadly) the only way to talk to my parents.
So, as of right now, there’s no alternative for me. I have had androids in the past, and I prefer them. But the switch-over cost is huge. It’s not simple. I’m looking forward to the day with “multi-platform stores” where I make a single purchase and the OS is merely a personal choice… this is the future Apple and Google are trying to avoid, imho.
Similarly for a lack of interoperability of services (like facetime) - I guess they're trying to pre-empt Apple's common argument that "smartphones" should be the defined market, and side-step that by demonstrating Apple has created structural barriers to switching that discourage it or make it expensive, or leverage network effects to frustrate users who switch.
What you describe as the future is certainly what I could envisage a CMA action resulting in - they've already stated their view that Facebook may need to unwind their acquisition of Giphy. It seems likely they could decide to push for forced competition in app stores and payment processing, which should effectively decouple OS vendor from store ecosystem and achieve the end goal.
Under a competitive ecosystem, Apple would have to lower payment fees and compete on price, as well as developer experience. Otherwise they'd haemorrhage developers and lose all their revenue from the store, and someone more innovative would be able to take that up. If it swings too far to a free-for-all, someone will build a store with more consumer protections, and compete back... It strikes me Apple and Google could offer competitive stores (without the suspiciously identical platform fees and mandatory use of their payment processing) that use user safety and convenience as a competitive differentiator, coupled with an amazing experience and set of tools for developers. They'd have to start improving soon on their tools and experience though!
I don’t know what argument you are making here. Sure, there are products that only work on one OS, but that’s usually a point that competition uses against the product, not the expected default unless it’s a product specifically for that OS.
Edit: clarity.
Think about cars. You can take a vehicle manufactured for US market and take it to, say, Japan, but it won't be a smooth experience. Being in an environment so different requires you to (for want of a better word) "emulate" your way to adaptability. Cars in US have the wheel on left-hand side. Cars in Japan have the wheel on the right-hand side. But modulo emission limits[ß], their engines and transmission systems are mostly interchangeable.
The final product, the car, is analogue for software. The inner plumbing, the components that make the product actually offer its functionality, is analogue for data and protocols.
ß: Yes, I know. There are a whole lot of other requirements and regional regulations to consider too.
The majority of the population are unable or unqualified to make decisions about drug approvals, judicial topics, and military strategy. This is why our government has people and systems in place to keep our population and economy healthy without our 100% direct involvement on every issue.
I trust our policy makers to listen to qualified experts in industry about this issue so that they can understand the steps that need to be taken to create a better future that is fairer and more equitable for all. Certainly one that is better for the 99% of companies that are not Apple.
If Apple is regulated, the chances are that it will emerge as a healthier company because of it.
I don't either think that closing down the device is good for Apple: people that nowadays are not so expert will continue to use iPhone locked down as they are, people that wants to hack them they always find a way anyway, and with opening up the devices you would attract the power users that nowadays mostly uses Android.
And if you ask why Apple should bother of doing something to attract the power users that are a minority, the answer is because these are the users that recommends which phone to buy to less expert family members and friends and provide support to them.
First, Apple is driving innovation, obviously, not "shitting on it".
Second, no, Apple should retain the power it has over how software works on its platform, the vast majority of users emphatically want that, and that is because of the various concrete benefits the approach has.
Third, no, Apple did not "get lucky" and "ride" the growth engines in question, especially in the case of the modern smartphone. It created that engine.
Fourth, your comparison to controlling how people breathe is ludicrous.
Fifth, no: we will not be asking Congress to break up Apple's sensible security controls over its platform, because we fucking like them.
Sixth, this issue has absolutely nothing to do with the right to repair.
To some Apple fans, employees, and shareholders.
Plenty of people agree with me and hate Apple's shitty behavior. Many of them would be happy Apple customers if Apple would knock off the bad behavior (myself included).
Unfortunately this issue won't go away by ignoring Apple. It will remain a plague on small developers and the industry as a whole as long as Apple is allowed to continue their anti-competitive, anti-consumer practices.
> First, Apple is driving innovation, obviously, not "shitting on it".
Areas where they do substantially innovate (M1) are driven by a desire to control the supply chain. Other innovations (AirTags, AirPods, Mac, iPhone) are stale or copies of other innovations. Apple has enough firepower to decimate entire product areas by cloning and integrating them with their ecosystem.
Maybe they look and feel superior? That's because Apple is a Death Star of engineering that you can't compete with.
Many people feel software companies should not be hardware, platform/distribution, and services combined. Especially at scale.
> Second, no, Apple should retain the power it has over how software works on its platform, the vast majority of users emphatically want that, and that is because of the various concrete benefits the approach has.
That doesn't mean it's healthy for the world. Apple is the de-facto computer for 50% of Americans, and they impose taxation on all commerce and Baptism for all developers working on the platform. Apple is unilaterally controlling 50% of modern client code execution. That is single handedly the most unhealthy problem with modern computing.
> Third, no, Apple did not "get lucky" and "ride" the growth engines in question, especially in the case of the modern smartphone. It created that engine.
Patently false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone
Apple took the lead at an inflection point. Others were already developing similar devices, but Apple had brand recognition, the iPod ecosystem, and enough polish to pull ahead by a large margin.
Steve was a fantastic product person, and Apple had the software and logistics to make an awesome device. But this was a competitive edge, not a Bell Labs moment.
> Fourth, your comparison to controlling how people breathe is ludicrous.
Not really.
Have you had your software denied by Apple?
Have you had to use their dev tools?
I'm sick of it.
I also own dozens of devices for motion capture that I would like to remove from the Apple toolchain entirely. I bought the hardware and don't care about the App Store.
> Fifth, no: we will not be asking Congress to break up Apple's sensible security controls over its platform, because we fucking like them.
Well, I am and have been asking. I know plenty of others that are too.
> Sixth, this issue has absolutely nothing to do with the right to repair.
Oh yes it does.
It also has to do with the file scanning on your devices where Apple treats you like a child predator / terrorist / whistle blower / state enemy.
Apple is the opposite of "too big to fail". It's "too dangerous to let live".
It needs to be regulated.
There is a ton of anecdotes from iOS/iPadOS devs in the tweet thread that prove that some reviewers don't care at all about what they are doing: apps have been rejected for bad reasons, apps have been rejected except that the rejection screenshots were for... another apps(!!), and sometimes rejected for absolutely no reason.
It is a shame to see Apple that see devs as evil people, until they prove they may be angels... however, devs money smells like the other for Apple.
There are 2+ million apps which assuming average 10 updates over their lifetime = 20+ million reviews. Of course there are going to be mistakes, differences in interpetation between reviewers and edge cases.
But situations like this show exactly why a review process is useful. A keyboard app with network access is something that deserves a lot of scrutiny.
From what I gather, both Apple and Google are failing at consistency, comprehensiveness, transparency, and the appeal process.
Both Google and apple seem to do fine without that accountability
It sucks and it is annoying, but what you do when it happens is reply with more explanations, and eventually the app will be re-reviewed and approved. I have had to do it quite a few times. Losing your temper over it helps not at all.
It seems like Apple's intent here is to create an ecosystem with a general rule of "don't be a prat", but is struggling to quantify the precise definition of "prat", and where the line sits, and what sits closest to the line, on each side of it.
That Apple doesn't allow anyone else to provide payment services or app distribution is a separate question of antitrust, but increasingly it looks like (putting aside the cash cow nature of extracting revenue from developers) this is starting to become a problem that doesn't have an Apple-esque problem to it.
Content moderation is inherently quite subjective, as the hyper scale social platforms are discovering. Apple is effectively trying to do highly technical content moderation, through (as I understand it) a web of outsourced contractors with varying levels of understanding of the content matter. It's starting to get to the point where this will surely impact on consumer confidence and reputation? Apple's annual SEC filings acknowledge the potential material revenue impact if they can't continue to hold a monopoly on payment processing and distribution on the store.
It seems like any antitrust/competition action taken there may implicitly force the issue of app review to be fixed or disrupted (allowing competing stores would let them do their own review, or choose not to do manual review as they wish). Perhaps that's the long-term likely outcome, even if not one Apple would wish today. They could then use their walled garden as a competitive differentiator and see if they can compete with others to win customers on that basis. That could give a very significant incentive to improve the developer experience, lest developers shift to a store with a better experience.
This is simply akin to calling up some place again, perhaps for a discount on a bill, hoping you get a new representative that will give you what you want. And it works...
Apple kept rejecting it as it would crash when logging in. We didn't get any crash reports and could not replicate any issue ourselves. Several submissions later, the decision was made to put in a whole bunch of analytics and tracing, we get the logs back and... The "crash" was a pretty clear error message because they weren't following the simple 2 step login instructions provided to the reviewer.
> Apple says the keyboard needs to work even if a user doesn’t give it “full access” to network access and other iOS features
Having a keyboard app with any sort of network access is a red flag as it would make it the easiest way to secretly build a keystroke logger.
Which makes me think the internet access can be used for some internet search gateway or something
> But Eleftheriou says that if Apple actually tried to use the app, or consulted their earlier discussions, they’d see that the keyboard works.
No one is claiming that the app doesn't work. Only that it needs unusual permissions.
It "not working" without full access is literally the reason Apple gave for the rejection, so yes, Apple is very much claiming the app isn't working.
I guess I am naturally suspicious about such things.
I get the idea that you don’t want people to download programs they can’t use, but I think a better solution would be to update the App Store to better communicate the requirements and make the refunds easier.
Yes. You are allowed to use this API, but it is a very risky API, and people will not feel comfortable allowing it. Apple wants people to feel comfortable and safe using their device, and if apps can randomly force you to turn on unsafe APIs, that is ruined. Therefore, you are not allowed to require accesses to protected services to function.
It is a very good rule for users.
So in general I agree that using "full access" should require, say, closer review. But in this case, they've been closely reviewed & approved over the same issue in the past, and FlickType says the keyboard continues to work when full access is off, as it should. Pretty much no matter how you cut it, in the absolute best-for-Apple interpretation here, Apple is still doing a pretty awful job of explaining their review criteria or enforcing them consistently.
1. Number of apps/updates is huge.
2. The process of app review is based on a lot of policies (not talking about developer guidelines from documentation). Some of the policies, let's be charitable and say supermajority, are pro consumer. Some exist to protect business interests. Some are probably outdated or based on miscommunications, misunderstandings, or just plain misguided. Apple is a big company, and it is likely there is a lot of politics that goes into crafting app review policies.
3. App policies change as Apple tries minimize false positives/negatives and keep control of the ecosystem.
4. Because of 1, number of people working on this has to be substantial.
5. Because of 4, it's fair to assume some of those people will be bad at their jobs or at least have more protectionist interpretation of app policies which will result in more false positives.
6. Because of 2, 3, and 5 some of the cases will be misjudged. We mostly hear about good apps being blocked and terrible apps being let through, so it's hard to estimate the error rate in review process.
7. Big enough companies have Apple people embedded to smooth the process over. This is interesting, because it inherently gives big companies an advantage.
8. It is fair to assume that Apple has internal app review false positive/negative metrics that they optimize for. Given the size of the company and amount of investment here, those metrics are probably somewhat high.
Looking at the above, two most obvious to me ways Apple could try to improve the process:
1. Make process review more transparent - this will definitely help false positives, but also likely will increase amount of false negatives.
2. Put someone in charge who could cut through the politics of app review policies and instill a better culture. Problem here is that situation could turn out worse as well.
So do most Linux distros, which have very similar rules.
Giving Apple THE MOST (and in this case, I think, excessive) benefit of the doubt here, one could say that their perspective is that the app should "work" for all users, so an experience that essentially breaks down with no real feedback for a "sighted" user could be taken as being broken, even if they are actually not the target user.
Given it's a keyboard for the blind, that seems like a long limb.
"a keyboard app" is different than "this keyboard app."
A number of commenters have pointed out their experiences in resubmitting the same (unchanged) app and getting s different outcome.
Similarly, in this case, it sounds like an issue came up in the recent review which had previously been addressed 3 years prior.
I wonder if improved continuity would let Apple offer higher quality reviewing and a better developer experience? It seems like many of the complaints of arbitrary decisions could be coming about from a lack of continuity in one app's review.
Clearly at Apple scale, they aren't likely to have the same human reviewing the app repeatedly for years on end, but I wonder if there's a low-difficulty patch to this process to get better communication and continuity between reviewers, and more context in the communication with developers.
I don't have experience with this review process in particular, but often these processes favour "ticket" style ways of working - developer caries out an event which results in an item entering a queue, and items from the queue get served by the first available server (aka reviewer). Given the review process takes time, I wonder if it would be more productive for the review to appear as more of a conversation? Perhaps even semi-synchronous or asynchronish?
At the reviewing side there must be a fairly significant amount of mental context switching taking place between apps, re-submissions etc. Maybe Apple is simply expecting too many high quality context switches per individual per shift, resulting in mistakes in reviews, but isn't doing enough oversight to spot mistakes and optimise to reduce them? Is there any incentive to drive them to improve their mistake rate?
It doesn’t really matter that it’s not requiring network access to work, when clearly the app makes it appear to need network access. What they ought to do, the developers of the app, is to remove the text about network access, and probably the whole network access feature, and make it clear how to use it with voiceover. I mean I get their frustration as a fellow developer, and I’ve not tried the app because I’m don’t want a keyboard that even asks for network access, but I think they need to try and look at what it looks like from the outside you know.
What do they use the network access for?
To me, this is the biggest takeaway. All it took was 2 decades for Apple to start their own campaign of embrace, extend and acquire.