6 ms·

iDOS 3 Rejected by Apple

232 points by brigham 2y ago

grishka 2y ago
Apple seems to be really afraid that if they give people the ability to emulate an old computer on an iPad, they'll just install Windows 98 on there and stop using iOS nearly as much.
giancarlostoro 2y ago
Apple seriously needs to make all internal coms about rejecting apps public to the person being rejected. I do mean all this way, when people blog about it, there's no more ambiguity and it can be assessed. Also, you can see if they're rejecting it for something they already approved of prior. It feels like some people doing the reviews dont look at prior history at all. Maybe they dont even get access to it, or maybe they dont want to do it. Let the applicant see their entire history, let them better clarify. This is so embarassing to see every time.
- lawgimenez 2y ago
  I have the same weird Apple review experience a couple of years ago too. Sorry for hijacking this post. But every year Apple is just throwing random rejections with our app. https://law.gmnz.xyz/2022/02/02/submitting-urgent-hotfix.html https://law.gmnz.xyz/2022/02/02/submitting-urgent-hotfix.htm...
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  It should be illegal for them to prohibit an app on their store and alternative distribution. Triply so if it at all competes with them.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    > It should be illegal for them to prohibit an app on their store and alternative distribution. Triply so if it at all competes with them. My very amateur reading of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40773883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40773883 is that it probably literally is (edit: in the EU, to be clear). It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      Well it very simply is because the EU has demanded third party app stores
- bhawks 2y ago
  This type of chest beating principal lacks nuance, there are certainly reasons why a reasonable person would agree it is in Apple (or any marketplace operator) not to share rationale directly with the creator. The easiest example would be comms indicating that Apple is detecting malicious behaviors (spam, fraud, abuse, etc) in the app. Disclosing information what can (and implicitly what cannot be detected) is self defeating. There are literally hundreds of reasonable variations in these situations. I think what is effective is that all violations where the creator is working in good faith to abide by guidelines should be treated with reasonable transparency about how the conclusion Apple came to was reached. What fraction of Apple devs are working in good faith? Obviously the vast majority. So therefore most rejections should have clear rationale.
  - realusername 2y ago
    They won't provide any rationale the same way a justice court in a dictatorship doesn't need to refer to actual laws to justify their decision. The appstore process is arbitrary by design, to keep power inside the company.
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      I mean, even a court doesn't publish all the deliberation that goes into arriving at a decision. They prepare a final verdict and deliver it–while it would be interesting to see, we have reasons we don't post things like "juror 2 thinks what you did was barely legal".
      - troupo 2y ago
        Courts at least try to justify these decisions with supporting documents, evidence, and links to precedent. Apple just rejects, or approves, or approves and rejects and often cannot say why.
        saagarjha 2y ago
        Sure. But I don't think them showing their internal discussions would help solve the problem here, because their internal discussion is likely to be inconsistent and poorly documented.
fragmede 2y ago
[flagged]
- shortformblog 2y ago
  Why should the creator of an app have to link to a Verge story?
  - fragmede 2y ago
    when the verge story details your app, why your so was denies from the app store, why future apps from the same developer might be blocked from the app store, I'd consider it relevant
    - kelnos 2y ago
      Maybe they disagree with the conclusions in the Verge article and don't think it deserves further publicity. Even if they're wrong, they're not obligated to argue against themselves.
      - fragmede 2y ago
        They're not obligated to, but when I talk to the first person and they tell me a story, and then I talk to other people and I hear a completely different story, I start to question the first person's framing of things.
- hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
  >If you flag, please don't also comment that you did. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - fragmede 2y ago
    [flagged]
Kenji 2y ago
[dead]
LeoPanthera 2y ago
Apple gets a lot of flack for making iOS a closed system and I genuinely believe that the decisions they make are what they believe are in the public good. ...except for App Store reviews, which are frequently irrational, contradictory, and kafkaesque. (Automatically denied because the app shared the name with a version disallowed under the previous policy? Then denied because they had tried too many times? This is all absurd.) Apple seriously needs to do a complete reset and reevaluation of how the App Store review system works, because the unfairness and absurdity of it all is tarnishing the reputation of everything else they do.
- threeseed 2y ago
  > frequently You can't make statements like this without looking at it statistically. There are tens of millions of updates a year and we only see the most egregious rejections make its way into the public sphere.
  - Larrikin 2y ago
    Because you risk getting punished for the arbitrary back and forth crap that might not get you banned completely if you hear give in to seemingly random whims and how much the reviewer feels like looking through your app that day. As an Android developer that works with iOS devs it's frustrating that the problems that crop up on their side are becoming more common in Play store reviews now too
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago
  > Then denied because they had tried too many times? This is all absurd The purpose of the system is what it does
- cebert 2y ago
  > I genuinely believe that the decisions they make are what they believe are in the public good. Yes, because users would much rather make purchases outside apps like Kindle because of Apple’s revenue cut. Apple is such a great company that it’s inconceivable they’d ever to protect their own interests and stifle competition.
mortenjorck 2y ago
Original post is from April, but there is an update at the bottom from June: > Got a call from Apple after 2 months. They have decided that iDOS is not a retro game console, so the new rule is not applicable. They suggested I make changes and resubmit for review, but when I asked what changes I should make to be compliant, they had no idea, nor when I asked what a retro game console is. We need a DMA over here yesterday.
- LeoPanthera 2y ago
  The DMA stifles innovation and would make many recent iOS features illegal. Apple Intelligence - points you to Apple Music or Apple Maps as a response to your query? Illegal. iPhone Mirroring - doesn't work with Windows or Android. Illegal. Shareplay screen sharing - doesn't work with Windows or Android. Illegal. There's a reason those features are not getting an EU release.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    The problem isn't that it's illegal it's that it's unknown. DMA enforcement is about the spirit of the law rather than the clear meaning and so everything is vague and subjective. And with the fines being so ridiculously large it's not worth the risk.
    - troupo 2y ago
      1. Every law has the spirit of the law. Otherwise you wouldn't need courts to interpret laws, and no law would ever be made because it would have to describe every single permutation of every single possible human endeavour 2. Fines are capped at high numbers. It doesn't mean you will be immediately slapped with one. Stop perpetuating this bullshit. The law says up to, not just this fine and that's it. EU especially doesn't like fining companies. The usual process in the EU is "please fix this -> please fix that -> minor fine -> greater fine if persisting in breaking the law -> even greater fine -> ..."
  - infotainment 2y ago
    Honestly, good. If Apple can't make those features interoperable, then they shouldn't exist at all. With Apple's size and access to development resources, there is absolutely no excuse for them other than greed.
ed_mercer 2y ago
Submitting apps to the App Store is one of the more frustrating things in life. Reviewers are lazy, random and don’t do any homework. You roll a dice and hope you don’t have any issues. Couple that with a bloated Xcode that still hasn’t learned anything from VS Code, long compile times, long processing times, bullshit compliance checkboxes and the time-consuming filling out of information of what your app is all about. Oh, and you can do the same again for Google’s Play Store! No thanks, I’ll stick with PWAs.
- ilaksh 2y ago
  Or go with a more open platform like Android. Although, people might think you are poor. Which would be.. worse than death? Rather just not have an app for some people? lol
  - cageface 2y ago
    Google Play Store review might actually be worse now. It's certainly slower. It's great that you can sideload at least on Android although making money off a sideloaded Android app is very challenging to say the least.
    - II2II 2y ago
      Challenging is better than impossible. That said, I am left wondering why more major software publishers don't have the option to sideload Android apps. (It was a while since I looked into it, since I mostly use open source apps these days, but it seemed as though most companies were switching to a Google Play Store only route a few years back even though they had the brand recognition to bypass Google's store altogether. The only thing I can think of are support costs, since few people would know how to enable the ability to load apps from other sources.)
      - cageface 2y ago
        You can't get push notifications in a sideloaded app right?
teruakohatu 2y ago
It is worth mentioned that iDOS 2 was a paid app on the App Store for 6-7 years before it was booted. https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/23/22590511/idos-2-emulator-apple-app-store-takedown-notice https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/23/22590511/idos-2-emulator-... Safari on iOS has no issues emulating DOS games, other than the UI, I am surprised someone has not just wrapped a WebView in a console-esque UI.
- lxgr 2y ago
  Careful now, or you might just get Safari banned by the App Store reviewers... Kidding aside, PWAs (also almost killed by Apple in their furious stomping on the ground after the DMA getting passed) used to be the canonical way to get around many App Store limitations in the past. There were quite a few emulators available for it, as well as game streaming clients for things like Stadia. > Safari on iOS has no issues emulating DOS games, other than the UI, I am surprised someone has not just wrapped a WebView in a console-esque UI. There's a-Shell, which does something similar, but for WASI as a runtime target instead of DOS. But to Apple, it usually doesn't even matter how something is accomplished if they don't like the outcome. If they say that "DOS is not a retro console" (what does that even mean!?), they won't allow it in any form. (Sometimes they do care about the how; can't have third-party browser engines, for example.)
  - isodev 2y ago
    > Careful now, or you might just get Safari banned by the App Store reviewers... Haha, none of FruitCorp's stock apps are able to pass review if they were ever submitted.
dang 2y ago
Related. Others? “Apple has removed iDOS 2 from AppStore, citing the same old 2.5.2.” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122895 - Aug 2021 (2 comments) iDOS 2 will be gone soon - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27924207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27924207 - July 2021 (409 comments) IDOS strikes back, returns to the App Store - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123727 - Jan 2011 (1 comment)
pilif 2y ago
Called it: https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1c8vkid/idos_is_hopefuly_coming_back/l0v0uzb/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1c8vkid/idos_is_hope...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ggm 2y ago
Being excluded from the store doesn't mean your code cannot run. It just means people have to want to jump over more hoops to run it. Ultimately, it might mean $99 for a developer account, Xcode, and signing your own binary. Contract law covers how you get the code to compile. I only say this because there is no sense in pretending this is an absolutist position, that Apple has forbade their CPUs from executing instructions in sequence to the effect this or any other rejected app direct: what they stopped is making it transactionally easy, or chargeable under their model of revenue flow.
- Kwpolska 2y ago
  This app was also rejected from EU alternative app stores (which is illegal BTW), so the only way to get it would be something like the classic AltStore, which requires a real computer, and allows only three apps to be installed, and the apps expire every 7 days. https://faq.altstore.io/how-to-use-altstore/your-altstore https://faq.altstore.io/how-to-use-altstore/your-altstore
  - InvOfSmallC 2y ago
    You can use sideloadly my friend. No need of a computer after first installation of sideloadly itself.
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      Doesn't that require root/jail break?
    - hu3 2y ago
      in iOS?
teekert 2y ago
I have AltStore installed and am ready to see some nice apps in it!
BaculumMeumEst 2y ago
Becoming big enough to actually have an explanation for your app store rejection is the new American dream
LocalH 2y ago
It seems like their issue is that DOS is available for use, underneath everything. I wonder if they'd apply the same restrictions to, say, a Commodore 64 or Apple II emulator that provides BASIC access?

232 points by brigham 2y ago

Apple seems to be really afraid that if they give people the ability to emulate an old computer on an iPad, they'll just install Windows 98 on there and stop using iOS nearly as much.

giancarlostoro 2y ago

Apple seriously needs to make all internal coms about rejecting apps public to the person being rejected. I do mean all this way, when people blog about it, there's no more ambiguity and it can be assessed. Also, you can see if they're rejecting it for something they already approved of prior. It feels like some people doing the reviews dont look at prior history at all. Maybe they dont even get access to it, or maybe they dont want to do it. Let the applicant see their entire history, let them better clarify. This is so embarassing to see every time.

lawgimenez 2y ago
I have the same weird Apple review experience a couple of years ago too. Sorry for hijacking this post. But every year Apple is just throwing random rejections with our app. https://law.gmnz.xyz/2022/02/02/submitting-urgent-hotfix.html https://law.gmnz.xyz/2022/02/02/submitting-urgent-hotfix.htm...
jncfhnb 2y ago
It should be illegal for them to prohibit an app on their store and alternative distribution. Triply so if it at all competes with them.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  > It should be illegal for them to prohibit an app on their store and alternative distribution. Triply so if it at all competes with them. My very amateur reading of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40773883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40773883 is that it probably literally is (edit: in the EU, to be clear). It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    Well it very simply is because the EU has demanded third party app stores
bhawks 2y ago
This type of chest beating principal lacks nuance, there are certainly reasons why a reasonable person would agree it is in Apple (or any marketplace operator) not to share rationale directly with the creator. The easiest example would be comms indicating that Apple is detecting malicious behaviors (spam, fraud, abuse, etc) in the app. Disclosing information what can (and implicitly what cannot be detected) is self defeating. There are literally hundreds of reasonable variations in these situations. I think what is effective is that all violations where the creator is working in good faith to abide by guidelines should be treated with reasonable transparency about how the conclusion Apple came to was reached. What fraction of Apple devs are working in good faith? Obviously the vast majority. So therefore most rejections should have clear rationale.
- realusername 2y ago
  They won't provide any rationale the same way a justice court in a dictatorship doesn't need to refer to actual laws to justify their decision. The appstore process is arbitrary by design, to keep power inside the company.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    I mean, even a court doesn't publish all the deliberation that goes into arriving at a decision. They prepare a final verdict and deliver it–while it would be interesting to see, we have reasons we don't post things like "juror 2 thinks what you did was barely legal".
    - troupo 2y ago
      Courts at least try to justify these decisions with supporting documents, evidence, and links to precedent. Apple just rejects, or approves, or approves and rejects and often cannot say why.
      - saagarjha 2y ago
        Sure. But I don't think them showing their internal discussions would help solve the problem here, because their internal discussion is likely to be inconsistent and poorly documented.

fragmede 2y ago

[flagged]

shortformblog 2y ago
Why should the creator of an app have to link to a Verge story?
- fragmede 2y ago
  when the verge story details your app, why your so was denies from the app store, why future apps from the same developer might be blocked from the app store, I'd consider it relevant
  - kelnos 2y ago
    Maybe they disagree with the conclusions in the Verge article and don't think it deserves further publicity. Even if they're wrong, they're not obligated to argue against themselves.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      They're not obligated to, but when I talk to the first person and they tell me a story, and then I talk to other people and I hear a completely different story, I start to question the first person's framing of things.
hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
>If you flag, please don't also comment that you did. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fragmede 2y ago
  [flagged]

Kenji 2y ago

[dead]

LeoPanthera 2y ago

Apple gets a lot of flack for making iOS a closed system and I genuinely believe that the decisions they make are what they believe are in the public good. ...except for App Store reviews, which are frequently irrational, contradictory, and kafkaesque. (Automatically denied because the app shared the name with a version disallowed under the previous policy? Then denied because they had tried too many times? This is all absurd.) Apple seriously needs to do a complete reset and reevaluation of how the App Store review system works, because the unfairness and absurdity of it all is tarnishing the reputation of everything else they do.

threeseed 2y ago
> frequently You can't make statements like this without looking at it statistically. There are tens of millions of updates a year and we only see the most egregious rejections make its way into the public sphere.
- Larrikin 2y ago
  Because you risk getting punished for the arbitrary back and forth crap that might not get you banned completely if you hear give in to seemingly random whims and how much the reviewer feels like looking through your app that day. As an Android developer that works with iOS devs it's frustrating that the problems that crop up on their side are becoming more common in Play store reviews now too
ClumsyPilot 2y ago
> Then denied because they had tried too many times? This is all absurd The purpose of the system is what it does
cebert 2y ago
> I genuinely believe that the decisions they make are what they believe are in the public good. Yes, because users would much rather make purchases outside apps like Kindle because of Apple’s revenue cut. Apple is such a great company that it’s inconceivable they’d ever to protect their own interests and stifle competition.

mortenjorck 2y ago

Original post is from April, but there is an update at the bottom from June: > Got a call from Apple after 2 months. They have decided that iDOS is not a retro game console, so the new rule is not applicable. They suggested I make changes and resubmit for review, but when I asked what changes I should make to be compliant, they had no idea, nor when I asked what a retro game console is. We need a DMA over here yesterday.

LeoPanthera 2y ago
The DMA stifles innovation and would make many recent iOS features illegal. Apple Intelligence - points you to Apple Music or Apple Maps as a response to your query? Illegal. iPhone Mirroring - doesn't work with Windows or Android. Illegal. Shareplay screen sharing - doesn't work with Windows or Android. Illegal. There's a reason those features are not getting an EU release.
- threeseed 2y ago
  The problem isn't that it's illegal it's that it's unknown. DMA enforcement is about the spirit of the law rather than the clear meaning and so everything is vague and subjective. And with the fines being so ridiculously large it's not worth the risk.
  - troupo 2y ago
    1. Every law has the spirit of the law. Otherwise you wouldn't need courts to interpret laws, and no law would ever be made because it would have to describe every single permutation of every single possible human endeavour 2. Fines are capped at high numbers. It doesn't mean you will be immediately slapped with one. Stop perpetuating this bullshit. The law says up to, not just this fine and that's it. EU especially doesn't like fining companies. The usual process in the EU is "please fix this -> please fix that -> minor fine -> greater fine if persisting in breaking the law -> even greater fine -> ..."
- infotainment 2y ago
  Honestly, good. If Apple can't make those features interoperable, then they shouldn't exist at all. With Apple's size and access to development resources, there is absolutely no excuse for them other than greed.

ed_mercer 2y ago

Submitting apps to the App Store is one of the more frustrating things in life. Reviewers are lazy, random and don’t do any homework. You roll a dice and hope you don’t have any issues. Couple that with a bloated Xcode that still hasn’t learned anything from VS Code, long compile times, long processing times, bullshit compliance checkboxes and the time-consuming filling out of information of what your app is all about. Oh, and you can do the same again for Google’s Play Store! No thanks, I’ll stick with PWAs.

ilaksh 2y ago
Or go with a more open platform like Android. Although, people might think you are poor. Which would be.. worse than death? Rather just not have an app for some people? lol
- cageface 2y ago
  Google Play Store review might actually be worse now. It's certainly slower. It's great that you can sideload at least on Android although making money off a sideloaded Android app is very challenging to say the least.
  - II2II 2y ago
    Challenging is better than impossible. That said, I am left wondering why more major software publishers don't have the option to sideload Android apps. (It was a while since I looked into it, since I mostly use open source apps these days, but it seemed as though most companies were switching to a Google Play Store only route a few years back even though they had the brand recognition to bypass Google's store altogether. The only thing I can think of are support costs, since few people would know how to enable the ability to load apps from other sources.)
    - cageface 2y ago
      You can't get push notifications in a sideloaded app right?

teruakohatu 2y ago

It is worth mentioned that iDOS 2 was a paid app on the App Store for 6-7 years before it was booted. https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/23/22590511/idos-2-emulator-apple-app-store-takedown-notice https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/23/22590511/idos-2-emulator-... Safari on iOS has no issues emulating DOS games, other than the UI, I am surprised someone has not just wrapped a WebView in a console-esque UI.

lxgr 2y ago
Careful now, or you might just get Safari banned by the App Store reviewers... Kidding aside, PWAs (also almost killed by Apple in their furious stomping on the ground after the DMA getting passed) used to be the canonical way to get around many App Store limitations in the past. There were quite a few emulators available for it, as well as game streaming clients for things like Stadia. > Safari on iOS has no issues emulating DOS games, other than the UI, I am surprised someone has not just wrapped a WebView in a console-esque UI. There's a-Shell, which does something similar, but for WASI as a runtime target instead of DOS. But to Apple, it usually doesn't even matter how something is accomplished if they don't like the outcome. If they say that "DOS is not a retro console" (what does that even mean!?), they won't allow it in any form. (Sometimes they do care about the how; can't have third-party browser engines, for example.)
- isodev 2y ago
  > Careful now, or you might just get Safari banned by the App Store reviewers... Haha, none of FruitCorp's stock apps are able to pass review if they were ever submitted.

dang 2y ago

Related. Others? “Apple has removed iDOS 2 from AppStore, citing the same old 2.5.2.” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122895 - Aug 2021 (2 comments) iDOS 2 will be gone soon - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27924207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27924207 - July 2021 (409 comments) IDOS strikes back, returns to the App Store - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2123727 - Jan 2011 (1 comment)

pilif 2y ago

Called it: https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1c8vkid/idos_is_hopefuly_coming_back/l0v0uzb/ https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1c8vkid/idos_is_hope...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ggm 2y ago

Being excluded from the store doesn't mean your code cannot run. It just means people have to want to jump over more hoops to run it. Ultimately, it might mean $99 for a developer account, Xcode, and signing your own binary. Contract law covers how you get the code to compile. I only say this because there is no sense in pretending this is an absolutist position, that Apple has forbade their CPUs from executing instructions in sequence to the effect this or any other rejected app direct: what they stopped is making it transactionally easy, or chargeable under their model of revenue flow.

Kwpolska 2y ago
This app was also rejected from EU alternative app stores (which is illegal BTW), so the only way to get it would be something like the classic AltStore, which requires a real computer, and allows only three apps to be installed, and the apps expire every 7 days. https://faq.altstore.io/how-to-use-altstore/your-altstore https://faq.altstore.io/how-to-use-altstore/your-altstore
- InvOfSmallC 2y ago
  You can use sideloadly my friend. No need of a computer after first installation of sideloadly itself.
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    Doesn't that require root/jail break?
  - hu3 2y ago
    in iOS?

teekert 2y ago

I have AltStore installed and am ready to see some nice apps in it!

BaculumMeumEst 2y ago

Becoming big enough to actually have an explanation for your app store rejection is the new American dream

LocalH 2y ago

It seems like their issue is that DOS is available for use, underneath everything. I wonder if they'd apply the same restrictions to, say, a Commodore 64 or Apple II emulator that provides BASIC access?