5 ms·

Delisted Overnight: A Cautionary Tale for Indie iOS Developers

217 points by rooster8 7y ago

msmollin 7y ago
This is truly unfortunate and I hope Apple resolves this. Happy Scale is a fantastic product and it would be a shame to see the developer have to give this up full time.
benmdi 7y ago
Wow. I literally use this App every single day. I think it was $5 and I have gotten enormous value from it for 3+ years. Sad that what is probably a random glitch on Apple's part can just kill a person's livelihood overnight. I used to be a full time iOS contractor but have moved away from it in the last couple of years. Dealing with this kind of junk is one of the main reasons why. I have lots of similarly frustrating stories from my clients.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- v011d 7y ago
  where have you moved to?
  - benmdi 7y ago
    Some general backend and web work, and some blockchain stuff as well. The latter is the opposite set of tradeoffs. Completely permissionless, but lots of riff-raff and scammy nonsense going on.
    - GuiA 7y ago
      Sorry to take the topic a little off rails, but - I meet so many contractors who do "blockchain stuff", and I've never asked until now - what kind of blockchain stuff are people paying you to do?
- ShameButTrue19 7y ago
  Between putting all eggs into one basket and fanatically favouring a closed garden what was expected to happen here really?
floatingatoll 7y ago
Changing the tagline to "Predictive Weight Tracker" might have an interesting (positive) effect, for a variety of reasons. It seems likely Apple has downrated the phrase "weight loss" altogether. It's odd that the app marketing doesn't explain how it's useful once you reach a target, and doesn't offer any hint that it can be used to set weight gain targets for people who are looking to reach a new weight class. If I reach my weight loss target, does the app become useless?
- benmdi 7y ago
  >It seems likely Apple has downrated the phrase "weight loss" altogether. What makes you say that?
  - floatingatoll 7y ago
    Apple takes a more long-term view of health self-care than “weight loss” alone can encompass, and so it wouldn’t surprise me if a phrase that is highly prone to fraud and snake oil outside the App Store was eventually punished. “Reach and maintain your target weight” with at least one screenshot showing an increase phase and a maintenance phase rather than decrease would be vastly more inclusive and health-forward than today’s “weight loss only” content. Is this app useful for recovering anorexics, or for maintaining a target weight after reaching it? I imagine it is, but I couldn’t tell from its App Store page.
    - asveikau 7y ago
      > Apple takes a more long-term view of health self-care than “weight loss” alone can encompass, I suspect this is an unintentionally humorous phrasing. How many brands do we interact with without asking their owners for their "view of health self-care"? Fitness tracker features notwithstanding, I would most certainly not expect it from a phone vendor. I would expect them to let their customers decide how they will or won't care for themselves. Now, your point that the term might have a lot of snake oil products using it... That is somewhat plausible.
      - 7y ago
laurentrivard 7y ago
That's terrible and really puts indie developers at risk. One small change on Apple's side and your business might not survive. Hope Apple fixes it quickly!
- mft_ 7y ago
  Totally agree with you. It's another sad case, of many that seem to have hit the HN front page in recent months, of a developer having to resort to social media (i.e. blog, Twitter, HN, etc.) to try to get sufficient attention to get a problem fixed by (Apple/Google/etc).
- stcredzero 7y ago
  What's clearly broken here is the sudden changeover. If things were working correctly, placement would change gradually, based on a shift in the marketplace. From the information in the post, it looks like Apple just decided, "Okay, your turn is over! Next!"
- nodamage 7y ago
  This is a risk that has always existed and is not particularly new - how many web-based businesses have died due to changes in Google's search algorithms, for example?
CurlyDay 7y ago
Happy scale created a way for me to track what i was doing every morning already - jumping on the scale while looking at the mirror....
- rooster8 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing that! Really nice to hear from a satisfied user amidst all of this.
stcredzero 7y ago
This is one of the primary ways that the culture's general knowledge is lagging behind technology. Our culture still thinks in terms of "notoriety," as was known in Julius Caesar's day. Andy Warhol was a bit more advanced. ("Everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame.") In 2019, the mental model should change to encompass algorithmic and viral discovery. In 2019, it's not just reputation which matters. It's not just the ability to merely publish which matters. It's the ability to leverage algorithmic and viral discovery which truly matters. In 2019, the people who control algorithmic and viral discovery are the ones who hold the reins of cultural and commercial power behind the scenes. In 2019, having the ability to publish, but not having a solid strategy over discovery, is like in 1960, concentrating on the newspapers and neglecting television. In 2019, ceding control over algorithmic and viral discovery to a few megacorporations is handing over the keys to the most potent commercial and cultural power.
- benmdi 7y ago
  Interesting thoughts. Not sure what the developer could have done differently, here? The App is published on Apple's Platform, and it's impossible for him to distribute outside the store. He has been working on it for years, been a good citizen of the App Store, and created something people seem to genuinely love and value. Honestly, this is one of the reasons I hope the legal system does eventually require Apple to enable opt-in, third party app stores. We need to have SOME release valve from being at the mercy of Apple's whims.
  - stcredzero 7y ago
    Interesting thoughts. Not sure what the developer could have done differently, here? He couldn't have done anything different. That's my point! If we cede the power of algorithmic and viral discovery to large corporations, we're ceding the powerhouse of 21st century culture to them.
prohoney 7y ago
I hope that Apple will soon give an explanation. I suspect your app is not the only one to take a hit.
- laurentrivard 7y ago
  Probably not, but it doesn't seem like OP has seen chatter online about it. If it truly was a bug, a lot more people would be pissed
jwr 7y ago
This is why I think every app should be sold in a subscription model. The current users of this app are very happy with it, and yet they will suffer when the developer can't make enough new sales. It's like a Ponzi scheme: everything falls down if you can't enroll enough new users. That's not sustainable.
- benmdi 7y ago
  Generally I agree, though this App does have a broad enough market that it could probably be sold as sustainably as a one-time upgrade for years without exhausting the potential, especially if it's a one man project.
- jsty 7y ago
  For apps you install on your own machine, I think the JetBrains perpetual license model is probably my favourite so far. After a certain period you can stop paying the subscription and keep using the old version. But if you want to keep up to date with features and bug fixes, you keep paying the subscription. It just seems to align incentives on both sides quite well.
  - rbritton 7y ago
    I agree. I completely avoid any locally installed software that's subscription only (e.g., Adobe Photoshop CC) because in most cases, I don't need the continual updates. I'm perfectly fine using a single purchase for years and just buying the update when the OS upgrade triggers it.
  - function_seven 7y ago
    I really like their model as well. I think the really novel part of it is that, when you decide to stop paying the subscription, you keep the perpetual license for whatever was current a year ago. So if you just updated to the latest and greatest, and you love it, then you need to pay one more year subscription in order to "buy" it out right. I think that's clever
    - bitL 7y ago
mrkstu 7y ago
I think he already has his answer- Apple doesn't guarantee search placement- though it is odd that he'd fall all the way off altogether. If you're relying on Apple (or Google) to feature you in their search results, you're already at their whim with no recourse.
- benmdi 7y ago
  That's a BS answer, and if it's the one Apple wants to give, then they should not be surprised when they 1) are seen by devs as a unattractive platform to build a business on 2) Get treated like a monopolist in courts.
  - groovybits 7y ago
    I'm not sure I understand this reasoning. Why should Apple or Google be responsible for promoting your app? If I walk into a supermarket and I don't see the item I wanted on their front feature displays (meaning I need to walk down the isle to find it), does that mean the supermarket is monopolistic? Does that mean the item vendor should stop selling their product in that supermarket?
    - benmdi 7y ago
      Those situations are in no way comparable. It's wild to me you think they are. No one is saying they are responsible for promoting your app. What we're saying is that if they're going to lock down their platform so that you can't install apps without going through their store, then they shouldn't arbitrarily, with no explanation, destroy years of good will thats been built up by genuinely building and delivering a high quality app people love. I think you're suffering from the "just world bias", honestly. Look it up if you haven't heard of it. TL;DR is that as much as you want to believe they don't, shitty, unfair things happen everyday. Pretending they don't doesn't help the situation.
      - groovybits 7y ago
        mrkstu's comment was: > If you're relying on Apple (or Google) to feature you in their search results, you're already at their whim with no recourse. But your response is: > No one is saying they are responsible for promoting your app. Does higher search placement not equate to promotion, in this case? Also, I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis I'm not sure how it relates to my questions.
xwdv 7y ago
Take it from someone who’s worked with client apps making ten times as many downloads at similar price points: if you want to be successful in the app business you need to look beyond optimizing App Store search terms. You need to be marketing and promoting your application across multiple channels to a wider audience. It does not sound like this developer was doing that, so while it is sad he has had revenue slashed in half overnight he could have avoided this kind of big hit if he was reinvesting some portion of revenue back into promoting his application.
- benmdi 7y ago
  This is just another way of saying "Apple doesn't give a f*ck about indie developers." Might be true, but it's still shitty.
  - drivingmenuts 7y ago
    Why should Apple care more about indie developers vs a much larger developer with multiple apps and more marketing reach? Sure, you've got grit and determination but who's making them more money?
  - busterarm 7y ago
    Or just another way of saying "if you put 0% of your budget in to marketing your business, you're hurting your product's demand"
    - blunte 7y ago
      The app dev put time and energy into understanding and optimizing for search within the store (and also keeping analytics), so to say they put 0% of their budget is not correct. Their time is money.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    Apple is not a marketing service.
    - 7y ago
stingraycharles 7y ago
Reddit did the same. I was a paid user of Alien Blue (no ads), then Reddit acquired it, killed it and now we have the new Reddit ad-rich app.
- volkk 7y ago
  yeah, check out narwhal. its pretty good. not great, but better than reddit-facebook
  - jachee 7y ago
    As another option, Apollo[0] is fantastic, and also independently produced. 0: https://apolloapp.io https://apolloapp.io
- aquabeagle 7y ago
  How is that at all related to this story?
- mynameisvlad 7y ago
  Not only is this not relevant at all, but Reddit also gave you 4 years of Gold (now Premium) as part of that sunset for buying the paid version. On top of however much use you got out of that initial (and tiny) fee for Alien Blue pro. Reddit Gold/Premium includes an ad-free experience on their site and app.
jedberg 7y ago
Man, if only there were an alternate app store or another way for people to get his app on their phone...
_bxg1 7y ago
This is a good argument for having multiple app stores. I don't totally blame Apple's devs here: it's completely imaginable that small, innocent changes in what's no doubt an enormous codebase could have totally unpredictable effects on individual search rankings. The problem is that there's only a single point of articulation. If half a dozen app stores all got search results "mostly right", then little variations like this wouldn't sink a business. This is far from the only example of the single-platform effect. Facebook gets (or is forced) to be the arbiter of free speech. YouTube gets (or is forced) to be the arbiter of copyright claims. In the world of PC games, for contrast, Steam's algorithms can't totally sink a game because they don't have a total monopoly. There's itch.io, GOG, and now Epic. You can go to other platforms (or all of them!). I love Apple's app store. I love how hard they fight to protect their customers from exploitative and dangerous software. I feel safe downloading apps there in a way that I didn't on Google Play. But monopolies are bad, even in the rare cases where they don't degrade the quality of the product.
- benmdi 7y ago
  Yeah, I agree. I hope the legal system forces Apple to allow opt-in third party app stores. Would go a long way towards alleviating these kinds of situations.
  - andrekandre 7y ago
    personally, i don’t want any more “stores”... like social media,i don’t think we don’t need multiple committees and algorithms deciding to delist or not, what we need is a totally decentralized way to sign and notarize an app (to prove it doesn’t contain any malware etc) and provide it from ones own website (as an option) worst case google changes their algorithm, you can still send an email, print and ad, make a poster for on the train whatever and people can go to your website etc i would prefer that much more than relying on just app stores
  - root_axis 7y ago
    Why should the legal system force Apple to do this? I get that it would prevent this type of scenario, but why should the the law care about this scenario at all?
mproud 7y ago
Silver lining: HN readers now know about your app.
kevin_b_er 7y ago
The developer learned the hard lesson of relying on a walled garden for livelihood. A livelihood that can be taken away without reason or recourse. Looks like they were all in on Apple, too.
segmondy 7y ago
Why should he hold Monopoly on search placement for the phrase "weight tracker"? The other side of this story is that another developer is now happy to be able to feed their family.
- jdboyd 7y ago
  He shouldn't get a monopoly, but going from 1 to not in the top 400 overnight is suspicious. Not that Apple ever promised that wouldn't happen. But it is probably worth complaining about publicly in case that helps shake something loose.
  - AJ007 7y ago
    If an Apple employee connected to a competing app was able to remove the search result then that is suspicious. This doesn’t sound particularly different than people who thought they were entitled to whatever search result position on Google due to their SEO effort and built their entire business around non-retaining users. I recall stories of companies getting sales to their e-commerce site, for free, from Google listings, and taking on long term liabilities and leases for warehouses or fulfillment locations only to end up bankrupt. Who knows what is really going on here, but you certainly aren’t entitled to any search result listing save for your actual app or company name, presuming it isn’t generic.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      The thing, though, is that Apple has chosen to fully control the market place and search engine. They are fully culpable for any disruptions because they refuse to let their system be audited externally. There's an argument to be made that if the market is free or allows competing indexes then Apple is less on the hook, but Apple has a stranglehold on how the AppStore works, they've made their bed in this case.
- LargeWu 7y ago
  There's a pretty wide canyon between "has a monopoly on a phrase" and "drops from long-term #1 to virtually unlisted overnight". Moving up and down organically in search is normal and to be expected. Suddenly going from #1 to completely missing in results should not be expected.
danial 7y ago
If you're reading this, I'm so sorry this happened to you, Russ. The problem is worse than being de-ranked for your keywords. The search is downright broken. Searching for 'predictive weight loss tracker', 'predictive weight tracker', anything with 'tracker' yields no results on my phone. Removing 'tracker' and only searching for 'Predictive Weight' or 'Predictive Weight Loss' gives me only one result: Happy Scale. It almost seems like they're filtering your app on the 'tracker' keyword. That's not fair!
- rooster8 7y ago
  Thanks for your support! Yes, it specifically seems like anything with the word "tracker" in it got axed. Maybe it's just a glitch?
  - bitL 7y ago
    Maybe change "tracker" to "monitor" until they fix it? I usually search for both when it comes to fitness/diet and it might not be blacklisted.
    - rooster8 7y ago
      I do have "monitor" as a keyword, too. The thing about "tracker" that makes it so valuable is that it comes up as predictive text. If you type "weight loss" in the search bar, "weight loss tracker" is suggested, and "weight loss monitor" is not. PS: Thank you for proffering a helpful suggestion!
  - gauravjain13 7y ago
    I just bought your app – looks fantastic! I'm sorry this is how I discovered your app, and hope the issue gets resolved.
    - rooster8 7y ago
      Thank you!
- 7y ago
Isamu 7y ago
Anybody have experience with buying app store ads? I wonder if they could provide a crucial bump in a situation like this where presumably the reviews are good but you drop because of things beyond your control.
_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
Had hoped there was a happy ending, hope for the dev and his family that there will be one.
- rooster8 7y ago
  Thank you! I will surely post an update if anything changes. I'm sure that no matter how this turns out, my family and I will all be fine.
  - _Codemonkeyism 7y ago
    Good to hear!
graeme 7y ago
Edit: I do not expect it can help resolve the issue much, but I went and left the app a rating as I have used it and find it quite good. I realized I had neglected to do so until now ————- I do not understand the people agreeing with Apple that search results are not guaranteed. App Store search does not nearly exist to serve developers; it exists to help users. This app was number one for years and has good reviews. I’ve used it myself and like it. And then it vanishes. Something went wrong in Apple systems: either they been making a mistake for years, or a glitch has occurred. This developers support ticket is basically a bug report and Apple is ignoring it. It is pedantically correct to point out that search rankings can end at any moment. But this is far from a good result and I am baffled that some people are siding with Apple here to justify what is clearly a bug. To the developer: before pulling the plug I strongly suggest trying a subscription model. I would probably pay a few dollars a year just to keep the app, heavy users would be even more willing to pay. I don’t know if your numbers make that sustainable but there may be a way to do so.
- benmdi 7y ago
  Well said. Exactly right.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  > To the developer: before pulling the plug I strongly suggest trying a subscription model. You're suggesting that the developer begin asking for a subscription for an app they already bought with the understanding that it was a one-time fee? This does not sound to me like a recipe for happy customers, regardless of whether or not it's reasonable. (You _might_ have more success releasing a "Happy Scale 2" and pushing all future updates there. This has the significant advantage of not making users feel forced to buy something new.)
  - graeme 7y ago
    They said they were going to shut it down if search didn’t change. I think customers would prob prefer that to losing it, so they should at least try rather than simply throwing it away. Happy scale 2 could work. Or maybe some new feature, not sure how best to work it. They’d be the one to know what their audience might support, but I think they should at least try. Though hopefully search gets fixed and it won’t be necessary.
microtherion 7y ago
As an Apple employee (not in any role related to the app store), and satisfied user of Happy Scale, I'm sorry to hear about the ranking loss. On the other hand, it's in the nature of machine learning systems such as search that sometimes, a simple update of the underlying model can lead to drastic changes in search results (say, for argument's sake, that there has been a recent influx of apps using the word "tracker", which could lead to the word being considered essentially noise). This can happen without any "bug" in the underlying system, even less a sinister agenda to undermine any developer or help another one. So while these possibilities can and should be investigated, ultimately search results will sometimes change.
- rooster8 7y ago
  Great point. Though I do wonder why many of the other apps that came up as a search result for "weight loss tracker" continue to do so, and mine was singled out. It's an important search term, because predictive text will suggest "weight loss tracker" when you start typing "weight." If tracker were being penalized as noise, then adjusting the predictive text would be a great way to handle the transition.
anjc 7y ago
Is the functionality of your app already included in the Health app? If not, take a guess what feature will be soon included in the Health app. Apple have a history of killing competitors in the App Store, most recently with screen time apps: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/27/tech/apple-screen-time-app-store-banned-report/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/27/tech/apple-screen-time-ap...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
waynecochran 7y ago
Just installed the app. I wish I found this one earlier.
- rooster8 7y ago
  I hope you enjoy it!
TomSwift73 7y ago
I don't know if this is the issue Russ is having or not, but I thought I would post here (I've also emailed Russ). I experienced similar drop-off this week with an app of mine which has been in the App Store for several years. I wouldn't have noticed except I checked after reading Russ's post. My app has space-separated keywords in the Appstore Connect portal. They've always been space-separated and I can't remember the last time I updated them. But the App Store guidance says to comma-separate keywords. Indeed, the newer apps I work on for my day job have comma-separated keywords. Could Apple have changed how keywords are parsed, and broken older keyword sets that used to be valid but now are not? I'll be updating my app tonight and the keywords along with it; time will tell if this is the culprit.
binarysolo 7y ago
Seems like Apple changed the search/discovery algo and he got hit with it. Don't think anything particularly devious has happened, but seems like the App Store search team really hit some folks who were trying to organically build a good app/biz over time. For what it's worth there's some pretty good feedback here for AppStore search + customers who voted up the app individually, so hope that helps.
dangwu 7y ago
One of the things I did with Octal [1] a while back was experiment with different title/subtitle combinations, noting where my app landed in the search results for 'hacker news' for each variation. Then I picked the one that ranked the highest. Example variations were: Octal Hacker News Client - Octal for Hacker News Tech, programming, and startup news - Octal - Hacker News Social tech news from Hacker News [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1308885491?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1308885491?mt=8
bfoks 7y ago
Possible explanation why it happened: https://twitter.com/ilyakuh/status/1134008287068921856 https://twitter.com/ilyakuh/status/1134008287068921856
edisonjoao 7y ago
wow.

217 points by rooster8 7y ago

This is truly unfortunate and I hope Apple resolves this. Happy Scale is a fantastic product and it would be a shame to see the developer have to give this up full time.

benmdi 7y ago

Wow. I literally use this App every single day. I think it was $5 and I have gotten enormous value from it for 3+ years. Sad that what is probably a random glitch on Apple's part can just kill a person's livelihood overnight. I used to be a full time iOS contractor but have moved away from it in the last couple of years. Dealing with this kind of junk is one of the main reasons why. I have lots of similarly frustrating stories from my clients.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
v011d 7y ago
where have you moved to?
- benmdi 7y ago
  Some general backend and web work, and some blockchain stuff as well. The latter is the opposite set of tradeoffs. Completely permissionless, but lots of riff-raff and scammy nonsense going on.
  - GuiA 7y ago
    Sorry to take the topic a little off rails, but - I meet so many contractors who do "blockchain stuff", and I've never asked until now - what kind of blockchain stuff are people paying you to do?
ShameButTrue19 7y ago
Between putting all eggs into one basket and fanatically favouring a closed garden what was expected to happen here really?

floatingatoll 7y ago

Changing the tagline to "Predictive Weight Tracker" might have an interesting (positive) effect, for a variety of reasons. It seems likely Apple has downrated the phrase "weight loss" altogether. It's odd that the app marketing doesn't explain how it's useful once you reach a target, and doesn't offer any hint that it can be used to set weight gain targets for people who are looking to reach a new weight class. If I reach my weight loss target, does the app become useless?

benmdi 7y ago
>It seems likely Apple has downrated the phrase "weight loss" altogether. What makes you say that?
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  Apple takes a more long-term view of health self-care than “weight loss” alone can encompass, and so it wouldn’t surprise me if a phrase that is highly prone to fraud and snake oil outside the App Store was eventually punished. “Reach and maintain your target weight” with at least one screenshot showing an increase phase and a maintenance phase rather than decrease would be vastly more inclusive and health-forward than today’s “weight loss only” content. Is this app useful for recovering anorexics, or for maintaining a target weight after reaching it? I imagine it is, but I couldn’t tell from its App Store page.
  - asveikau 7y ago
    > Apple takes a more long-term view of health self-care than “weight loss” alone can encompass, I suspect this is an unintentionally humorous phrasing. How many brands do we interact with without asking their owners for their "view of health self-care"? Fitness tracker features notwithstanding, I would most certainly not expect it from a phone vendor. I would expect them to let their customers decide how they will or won't care for themselves. Now, your point that the term might have a lot of snake oil products using it... That is somewhat plausible.
    - 7y ago

laurentrivard 7y ago

That's terrible and really puts indie developers at risk. One small change on Apple's side and your business might not survive. Hope Apple fixes it quickly!

mft_ 7y ago
Totally agree with you. It's another sad case, of many that seem to have hit the HN front page in recent months, of a developer having to resort to social media (i.e. blog, Twitter, HN, etc.) to try to get sufficient attention to get a problem fixed by (Apple/Google/etc).
stcredzero 7y ago
What's clearly broken here is the sudden changeover. If things were working correctly, placement would change gradually, based on a shift in the marketplace. From the information in the post, it looks like Apple just decided, "Okay, your turn is over! Next!"
nodamage 7y ago
This is a risk that has always existed and is not particularly new - how many web-based businesses have died due to changes in Google's search algorithms, for example?

CurlyDay 7y ago

Happy scale created a way for me to track what i was doing every morning already - jumping on the scale while looking at the mirror....

rooster8 7y ago
Thanks for sharing that! Really nice to hear from a satisfied user amidst all of this.

stcredzero 7y ago

This is one of the primary ways that the culture's general knowledge is lagging behind technology. Our culture still thinks in terms of "notoriety," as was known in Julius Caesar's day. Andy Warhol was a bit more advanced. ("Everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame.") In 2019, the mental model should change to encompass algorithmic and viral discovery. In 2019, it's not just reputation which matters. It's not just the ability to merely publish which matters. It's the ability to leverage algorithmic and viral discovery which truly matters. In 2019, the people who control algorithmic and viral discovery are the ones who hold the reins of cultural and commercial power behind the scenes. In 2019, having the ability to publish, but not having a solid strategy over discovery, is like in 1960, concentrating on the newspapers and neglecting television. In 2019, ceding control over algorithmic and viral discovery to a few megacorporations is handing over the keys to the most potent commercial and cultural power.

benmdi 7y ago
Interesting thoughts. Not sure what the developer could have done differently, here? The App is published on Apple's Platform, and it's impossible for him to distribute outside the store. He has been working on it for years, been a good citizen of the App Store, and created something people seem to genuinely love and value. Honestly, this is one of the reasons I hope the legal system does eventually require Apple to enable opt-in, third party app stores. We need to have SOME release valve from being at the mercy of Apple's whims.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  Interesting thoughts. Not sure what the developer could have done differently, here? He couldn't have done anything different. That's my point! If we cede the power of algorithmic and viral discovery to large corporations, we're ceding the powerhouse of 21st century culture to them.

prohoney 7y ago

I hope that Apple will soon give an explanation. I suspect your app is not the only one to take a hit.

laurentrivard 7y ago
Probably not, but it doesn't seem like OP has seen chatter online about it. If it truly was a bug, a lot more people would be pissed

jwr 7y ago

This is why I think every app should be sold in a subscription model. The current users of this app are very happy with it, and yet they will suffer when the developer can't make enough new sales. It's like a Ponzi scheme: everything falls down if you can't enroll enough new users. That's not sustainable.

benmdi 7y ago
Generally I agree, though this App does have a broad enough market that it could probably be sold as sustainably as a one-time upgrade for years without exhausting the potential, especially if it's a one man project.
jsty 7y ago
For apps you install on your own machine, I think the JetBrains perpetual license model is probably my favourite so far. After a certain period you can stop paying the subscription and keep using the old version. But if you want to keep up to date with features and bug fixes, you keep paying the subscription. It just seems to align incentives on both sides quite well.
- rbritton 7y ago
  I agree. I completely avoid any locally installed software that's subscription only (e.g., Adobe Photoshop CC) because in most cases, I don't need the continual updates. I'm perfectly fine using a single purchase for years and just buying the update when the OS upgrade triggers it.
- function_seven 7y ago
  I really like their model as well. I think the really novel part of it is that, when you decide to stop paying the subscription, you keep the perpetual license for whatever was current a year ago. So if you just updated to the latest and greatest, and you love it, then you need to pay one more year subscription in order to "buy" it out right. I think that's clever
  - bitL 7y ago

mrkstu 7y ago

I think he already has his answer- Apple doesn't guarantee search placement- though it is odd that he'd fall all the way off altogether. If you're relying on Apple (or Google) to feature you in their search results, you're already at their whim with no recourse.

benmdi 7y ago
That's a BS answer, and if it's the one Apple wants to give, then they should not be surprised when they 1) are seen by devs as a unattractive platform to build a business on 2) Get treated like a monopolist in courts.
- groovybits 7y ago
  I'm not sure I understand this reasoning. Why should Apple or Google be responsible for promoting your app? If I walk into a supermarket and I don't see the item I wanted on their front feature displays (meaning I need to walk down the isle to find it), does that mean the supermarket is monopolistic? Does that mean the item vendor should stop selling their product in that supermarket?
  - benmdi 7y ago
    Those situations are in no way comparable. It's wild to me you think they are. No one is saying they are responsible for promoting your app. What we're saying is that if they're going to lock down their platform so that you can't install apps without going through their store, then they shouldn't arbitrarily, with no explanation, destroy years of good will thats been built up by genuinely building and delivering a high quality app people love. I think you're suffering from the "just world bias", honestly. Look it up if you haven't heard of it. TL;DR is that as much as you want to believe they don't, shitty, unfair things happen everyday. Pretending they don't doesn't help the situation.
    - groovybits 7y ago
      mrkstu's comment was: > If you're relying on Apple (or Google) to feature you in their search results, you're already at their whim with no recourse. But your response is: > No one is saying they are responsible for promoting your app. Does higher search placement not equate to promotion, in this case? Also, I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis I'm not sure how it relates to my questions.

xwdv 7y ago

Take it from someone who’s worked with client apps making ten times as many downloads at similar price points: if you want to be successful in the app business you need to look beyond optimizing App Store search terms. You need to be marketing and promoting your application across multiple channels to a wider audience. It does not sound like this developer was doing that, so while it is sad he has had revenue slashed in half overnight he could have avoided this kind of big hit if he was reinvesting some portion of revenue back into promoting his application.

benmdi 7y ago
This is just another way of saying "Apple doesn't give a f*ck about indie developers." Might be true, but it's still shitty.
- drivingmenuts 7y ago
  Why should Apple care more about indie developers vs a much larger developer with multiple apps and more marketing reach? Sure, you've got grit and determination but who's making them more money?
- busterarm 7y ago
  Or just another way of saying "if you put 0% of your budget in to marketing your business, you're hurting your product's demand"
  - blunte 7y ago
    The app dev put time and energy into understanding and optimizing for search within the store (and also keeping analytics), so to say they put 0% of their budget is not correct. Their time is money.
- xwdv 7y ago
  Apple is not a marketing service.
  - 7y ago

stingraycharles 7y ago

Reddit did the same. I was a paid user of Alien Blue (no ads), then Reddit acquired it, killed it and now we have the new Reddit ad-rich app.

volkk 7y ago
yeah, check out narwhal. its pretty good. not great, but better than reddit-facebook
- jachee 7y ago
  As another option, Apollo[0] is fantastic, and also independently produced. 0: https://apolloapp.io https://apolloapp.io
aquabeagle 7y ago
How is that at all related to this story?
mynameisvlad 7y ago
Not only is this not relevant at all, but Reddit also gave you 4 years of Gold (now Premium) as part of that sunset for buying the paid version. On top of however much use you got out of that initial (and tiny) fee for Alien Blue pro. Reddit Gold/Premium includes an ad-free experience on their site and app.

jedberg 7y ago

Man, if only there were an alternate app store or another way for people to get his app on their phone...

_bxg1 7y ago

This is a good argument for having multiple app stores. I don't totally blame Apple's devs here: it's completely imaginable that small, innocent changes in what's no doubt an enormous codebase could have totally unpredictable effects on individual search rankings. The problem is that there's only a single point of articulation. If half a dozen app stores all got search results "mostly right", then little variations like this wouldn't sink a business. This is far from the only example of the single-platform effect. Facebook gets (or is forced) to be the arbiter of free speech. YouTube gets (or is forced) to be the arbiter of copyright claims. In the world of PC games, for contrast, Steam's algorithms can't totally sink a game because they don't have a total monopoly. There's itch.io, GOG, and now Epic. You can go to other platforms (or all of them!). I love Apple's app store. I love how hard they fight to protect their customers from exploitative and dangerous software. I feel safe downloading apps there in a way that I didn't on Google Play. But monopolies are bad, even in the rare cases where they don't degrade the quality of the product.

benmdi 7y ago
Yeah, I agree. I hope the legal system forces Apple to allow opt-in third party app stores. Would go a long way towards alleviating these kinds of situations.
- andrekandre 7y ago
  personally, i don’t want any more “stores”... like social media,i don’t think we don’t need multiple committees and algorithms deciding to delist or not, what we need is a totally decentralized way to sign and notarize an app (to prove it doesn’t contain any malware etc) and provide it from ones own website (as an option) worst case google changes their algorithm, you can still send an email, print and ad, make a poster for on the train whatever and people can go to your website etc i would prefer that much more than relying on just app stores
- root_axis 7y ago
  Why should the legal system force Apple to do this? I get that it would prevent this type of scenario, but why should the the law care about this scenario at all?

mproud 7y ago

Silver lining: HN readers now know about your app.

kevin_b_er 7y ago

The developer learned the hard lesson of relying on a walled garden for livelihood. A livelihood that can be taken away without reason or recourse. Looks like they were all in on Apple, too.

segmondy 7y ago

Why should he hold Monopoly on search placement for the phrase "weight tracker"? The other side of this story is that another developer is now happy to be able to feed their family.

jdboyd 7y ago
He shouldn't get a monopoly, but going from 1 to not in the top 400 overnight is suspicious. Not that Apple ever promised that wouldn't happen. But it is probably worth complaining about publicly in case that helps shake something loose.
- AJ007 7y ago
  If an Apple employee connected to a competing app was able to remove the search result then that is suspicious. This doesn’t sound particularly different than people who thought they were entitled to whatever search result position on Google due to their SEO effort and built their entire business around non-retaining users. I recall stories of companies getting sales to their e-commerce site, for free, from Google listings, and taking on long term liabilities and leases for warehouses or fulfillment locations only to end up bankrupt. Who knows what is really going on here, but you certainly aren’t entitled to any search result listing save for your actual app or company name, presuming it isn’t generic.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    The thing, though, is that Apple has chosen to fully control the market place and search engine. They are fully culpable for any disruptions because they refuse to let their system be audited externally. There's an argument to be made that if the market is free or allows competing indexes then Apple is less on the hook, but Apple has a stranglehold on how the AppStore works, they've made their bed in this case.
LargeWu 7y ago
There's a pretty wide canyon between "has a monopoly on a phrase" and "drops from long-term #1 to virtually unlisted overnight". Moving up and down organically in search is normal and to be expected. Suddenly going from #1 to completely missing in results should not be expected.

danial 7y ago

If you're reading this, I'm so sorry this happened to you, Russ. The problem is worse than being de-ranked for your keywords. The search is downright broken. Searching for 'predictive weight loss tracker', 'predictive weight tracker', anything with 'tracker' yields no results on my phone. Removing 'tracker' and only searching for 'Predictive Weight' or 'Predictive Weight Loss' gives me only one result: Happy Scale. It almost seems like they're filtering your app on the 'tracker' keyword. That's not fair!

rooster8 7y ago
Thanks for your support! Yes, it specifically seems like anything with the word "tracker" in it got axed. Maybe it's just a glitch?
- bitL 7y ago
  Maybe change "tracker" to "monitor" until they fix it? I usually search for both when it comes to fitness/diet and it might not be blacklisted.
  - rooster8 7y ago
    I do have "monitor" as a keyword, too. The thing about "tracker" that makes it so valuable is that it comes up as predictive text. If you type "weight loss" in the search bar, "weight loss tracker" is suggested, and "weight loss monitor" is not. PS: Thank you for proffering a helpful suggestion!
- gauravjain13 7y ago
  I just bought your app – looks fantastic! I'm sorry this is how I discovered your app, and hope the issue gets resolved.
  - rooster8 7y ago
    Thank you!
7y ago

Isamu 7y ago

Anybody have experience with buying app store ads? I wonder if they could provide a crucial bump in a situation like this where presumably the reviews are good but you drop because of things beyond your control.

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago

Had hoped there was a happy ending, hope for the dev and his family that there will be one.

rooster8 7y ago
Thank you! I will surely post an update if anything changes. I'm sure that no matter how this turns out, my family and I will all be fine.
- _Codemonkeyism 7y ago
  Good to hear!

graeme 7y ago

Edit: I do not expect it can help resolve the issue much, but I went and left the app a rating as I have used it and find it quite good. I realized I had neglected to do so until now ————- I do not understand the people agreeing with Apple that search results are not guaranteed. App Store search does not nearly exist to serve developers; it exists to help users. This app was number one for years and has good reviews. I’ve used it myself and like it. And then it vanishes. Something went wrong in Apple systems: either they been making a mistake for years, or a glitch has occurred. This developers support ticket is basically a bug report and Apple is ignoring it. It is pedantically correct to point out that search rankings can end at any moment. But this is far from a good result and I am baffled that some people are siding with Apple here to justify what is clearly a bug. To the developer: before pulling the plug I strongly suggest trying a subscription model. I would probably pay a few dollars a year just to keep the app, heavy users would be even more willing to pay. I don’t know if your numbers make that sustainable but there may be a way to do so.

benmdi 7y ago
Well said. Exactly right.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> To the developer: before pulling the plug I strongly suggest trying a subscription model. You're suggesting that the developer begin asking for a subscription for an app they already bought with the understanding that it was a one-time fee? This does not sound to me like a recipe for happy customers, regardless of whether or not it's reasonable. (You _might_ have more success releasing a "Happy Scale 2" and pushing all future updates there. This has the significant advantage of not making users feel forced to buy something new.)
- graeme 7y ago
  They said they were going to shut it down if search didn’t change. I think customers would prob prefer that to losing it, so they should at least try rather than simply throwing it away. Happy scale 2 could work. Or maybe some new feature, not sure how best to work it. They’d be the one to know what their audience might support, but I think they should at least try. Though hopefully search gets fixed and it won’t be necessary.

microtherion 7y ago

As an Apple employee (not in any role related to the app store), and satisfied user of Happy Scale, I'm sorry to hear about the ranking loss. On the other hand, it's in the nature of machine learning systems such as search that sometimes, a simple update of the underlying model can lead to drastic changes in search results (say, for argument's sake, that there has been a recent influx of apps using the word "tracker", which could lead to the word being considered essentially noise). This can happen without any "bug" in the underlying system, even less a sinister agenda to undermine any developer or help another one. So while these possibilities can and should be investigated, ultimately search results will sometimes change.

rooster8 7y ago
Great point. Though I do wonder why many of the other apps that came up as a search result for "weight loss tracker" continue to do so, and mine was singled out. It's an important search term, because predictive text will suggest "weight loss tracker" when you start typing "weight." If tracker were being penalized as noise, then adjusting the predictive text would be a great way to handle the transition.

anjc 7y ago

Is the functionality of your app already included in the Health app? If not, take a guess what feature will be soon included in the Health app. Apple have a history of killing competitors in the App Store, most recently with screen time apps: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/27/tech/apple-screen-time-app-store-banned-report/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/27/tech/apple-screen-time-ap...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

waynecochran 7y ago

Just installed the app. I wish I found this one earlier.

rooster8 7y ago
I hope you enjoy it!

TomSwift73 7y ago

I don't know if this is the issue Russ is having or not, but I thought I would post here (I've also emailed Russ). I experienced similar drop-off this week with an app of mine which has been in the App Store for several years. I wouldn't have noticed except I checked after reading Russ's post. My app has space-separated keywords in the Appstore Connect portal. They've always been space-separated and I can't remember the last time I updated them. But the App Store guidance says to comma-separate keywords. Indeed, the newer apps I work on for my day job have comma-separated keywords. Could Apple have changed how keywords are parsed, and broken older keyword sets that used to be valid but now are not? I'll be updating my app tonight and the keywords along with it; time will tell if this is the culprit.

binarysolo 7y ago

Seems like Apple changed the search/discovery algo and he got hit with it. Don't think anything particularly devious has happened, but seems like the App Store search team really hit some folks who were trying to organically build a good app/biz over time. For what it's worth there's some pretty good feedback here for AppStore search + customers who voted up the app individually, so hope that helps.

dangwu 7y ago

One of the things I did with Octal [1] a while back was experiment with different title/subtitle combinations, noting where my app landed in the search results for 'hacker news' for each variation. Then I picked the one that ranked the highest. Example variations were: Octal Hacker News Client - Octal for Hacker News Tech, programming, and startup news - Octal - Hacker News Social tech news from Hacker News [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1308885491?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1308885491?mt=8

bfoks 7y ago

Possible explanation why it happened: https://twitter.com/ilyakuh/status/1134008287068921856 https://twitter.com/ilyakuh/status/1134008287068921856

edisonjoao 7y ago

wow.