My small revenge on Apple

https://javierantonsblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/my-small-revenge-on-apple.html

by collaborative • 5 years ago

326 443 5 years ago

javierantonsblog.blogspot.com

Seems a bit petty to me. As a developer I empathize with the possible lack of documentation (I don’t know, I never tried to integrate Sign In with Apple) but as a user I actually am super happy with it. Nowadays any iOS app that doesn’t support logging in with Apple makes me think twice about whether I really need the app.

dkdbejwi3834• 5 years ago

Nowadays any iOS app that doesn’t support logging in with Apple makes me think twice about whether I really need the app.

I agree. I only create accounts for things reluctantly. Because 1. Why do you want my email address, or DOB, or whatever else? I don't want your marketing, and 2. I can't be bothered, I downloaded your app because I have something I want to get done.

pjerem6• 5 years ago

Why do you want my email address

Because Apple's SSO will not be eternal and nobody wants to have a tier as a proxy on an important account credential.

Apple SSO is ok for throwaway account where your account has no "sentimental value" that you can't recreate easily. But the author of this post maintains a social network : nobody wants to be locked out a social network.

I have active accounts on websites that existed back when Apple was fighting not to die and I would have totally lost access to them if I had to sign-in to them through my Lycos account.

mrtksn• 5 years ago

There's a market for being anti-Apple that's not always based on reasonable ideas. It's popular especially among Web technologists, so maybe if your product targets them it could be a growth hack to "take revenge" and attack the Goliath, then create a literature around that "brave endeavour" that promotes your product.

tonyedgecombe• 5 years ago

It’s popular amongst a few noisy individuals.

shellac• 5 years ago

Petty and hysterical.

The part where the developer puts the word 'privacy' in scare quotes is a bit of a red flag for me. Suggesting that "accept[ing] two "social logins": Google and Facebook. All was well." does not fill me with confidence that the developer respects privacy concerns.

raxxorrax6• 5 years ago

These login methods are the least privacy preserving methods to do a login. The identity provider instantly knows which services you use.

webmobdev9• 5 years ago

Only the naive and the ignorant believe that Apple cares about users privacy. All their "privacy" features are just designed to collect more and more data about its users. Even unnecessary data. And they get away with it because of marketing that leads people like you to believe that they can be "trusted" with your data - the same data they use, and will use, to make more money. They have already restarted their advertising network again, like before. They claim they are no longer part of PRISM, a US government program that allowed big tech to sell user data to government agencies.

collaborative47• 5 years ago

The reason "privacy" is in quotes is that some of us have started seeing through what Apple really means every time they use the word. As the EU's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager has recently said regarding their Apple probe, privacy can't be an excuse to stifle competition.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/07/02/eu-antitrust-head...

All was well because nobody was forcing me (the developer) to include anything I didn't want. Users could still use traditional email signup. You are free to choose whom you trust. If your choice is Apple, well, that is your choice

tomduncalf• 5 years ago

Agreed, Sign In with Apple is a fantastic feature from a user point of view and I also think twice about signing up for an app which does not support it

kraf• 5 years ago

Protest is an important form of participation in a democracy, it's not petty at all. Forcing developers to add Apple ID as a sign-in method is the petty thing. The developers have no power unless they unionize in some form which seems absolutely impossible. So it seems to me that it's all a developer can really do to make a statement and I think it's brave.

user-the-name10• 5 years ago

It is not "petty", it is a way to ensure all users get access to a privacy-conscious method of logging in without giving up your privacy to Google or Facebook.

Being this angry at having to give users the option of better privacy really isn't a great look.

webmobdev9• 5 years ago

Yes. It is important that more developers stand up to this kind of bullying. Apple needs to respect developers more and, if it wants them to integrate Apple services they should instead offer incentives rather than threats to them. As both a developer and an Apple user, I don't care about Apple ID and so why would I wish to waste my precious time adding features I am not interested in? (I use Apple products but I never use Apple ID anywhere because I believe it weakens my privacy - why would I want to share more personal data with Apple, a company that was part of PRISM and used to sell user data to the government?)

nyuszika7h8• 5 years ago

Nobody is forced to add Apple ID login if they don't have any other social logins. Personally I stick to direct signup but if I were forced to do social login, Sign in with Apple would be my first preference as it's the most privacy-preserving compared to Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

pier256• 5 years ago

Apple is extremely hostile to developers. After a couple of bad experiences with the app store I simply refused to do any development for iOS.

karlkloss• 5 years ago

I'm the opposite. I NEVER use a third party login, my it be Apple, Google, Facebook or whatnot. If your website/app doesn't offer their own independent login, I don't even think once whether I really need it.

raxxorrax6• 5 years ago

I use them as a developer to offer it to users, not Apple though and not for apps.

But I wouldn't want any of those companies know which services I use. I am fine with using Auth0 or other third party providers, but only if I have to.

You don't even need to verify the mail in my cases, you could even use a completely fictious one. Clean, easy, anonymous.

Not really sure about smartphone hell, but most identity providers offer up the mail of the user anyway. Maybe that is different in phoneland though.

mattxxx• 5 years ago

I think preferring to use the website/app's own login makes initial sense, but distributing your personal information around opens you up to more opportunities to get tracked/pwned/leaked/whatever.

I used to prioritize the domain's own login, but now I'm starting to mix in some logins with Apple... I just prefer to have _less_ people have my personally identifiable information.

fmajid6• 5 years ago

Agreed. I find the mere sight of the Facebook or Google logo off-putting and resent the implication that it is a higher-priority login mechanism than email, a sort of act of fealty of the app/web developer to the big platform middlemen.

I run my own mail server so it's easy for me to implement vendor-specific email addresses that cannot be correlated with other vendors', but more and more companies are offering that as a service nowadays, DuckDuckGo most recently:

https://www.spreadprivacy.com/introducing-email-protection-b...

I do use GitHub federated login, but only for apps like vulnerability scanners that do need OAuth access to my repos.

CryptoBanker• 5 years ago

Agreed, it screams two things to me. First that the company is supremely interested in collecting my personal information beyond what I would normally expect to provide. Second that they’re just too lazy to implement their own user system.

Neither is a good thing

pier256• 5 years ago

Same.

I'm really annoyed Vercel stopped offering email signups.

webmobdev9• 5 years ago

No, not at all petty. Kudos to the developer for standing up to the bullies that Apple and Google (and other tech companies) often are. Apple really needs to be reminded harshly that it is the developers that add value to their platform. And to share another perspective, I never use login from another service as it means you are sharing more data with them, and you become hostage to their whims and fancies they call their "terms and conditions". So if one day they don't like the app / service you have been using for whatever reason, they can bar you from logging into it without giving you any choice for it.

wayneftw9• 5 years ago

Apple is the most petty entity that I have to deal with on a regular basis. They refuse to automatically capitalize the words Linux or Windows but they'll practically force you to capitalize the phrase "app store" even though they don't have a real trademark on it. They'll try to change your vocabulary from "installing" to "side loading" just to protect their business model. They'll reject your app for looking too different. They're so petty that I think there's probably another word that I should be using to describe the level of pettiness that they've reached. Machiavellian perhaps.

kec• 5 years ago

The autocorrect dictionary contains the name of every app on your device. It’ll learn Linux organically eventually, maybe Windows depending on how much home improvement you do….

elzbardico12• 5 years ago

Before apple introduced apple id, there was a annoying tendency of applications offering only third-party authentication from either google or facebook. Compared to Google or Facebook, Apple is definitely the lesser evil and an acceptable compromise between trusting Google or Facebook and the inconvenience of creating a login for every app. Forcing the implementation of Apple ID on applications that use other providers is actually increasing customer choice for me.

bloniac2• 5 years ago

Apple really has locked down its ecosystem.

It’s kinda depressing that there isn’t more choice and competition in the mobile space. Your choices are Android and apple.

dkdbejwi3834• 5 years ago

As someone who owns multiple Apple devices and is generally pretty happy with their hardware and services, I agree. I wish there was at least a third option, if not more competition in this space.

RIP Windows Phone, WebOS, Meego, Firefox OS, et al

zdkl2• 5 years ago

FfOS would have been a great alternative. I kinda still hope that a similar software setup (boot to browser, sandbox all the things to there) will one day be flashable to any generic handheld device, like older Android phones or the Pinephone.

bloniac2• 5 years ago

They all got beaten because Apple and google thrashed them in all the ways that mattered.

AshamedCaptain2• 5 years ago

Competition is no longer possible these days, as banks, towns, etc. start to require an _unrooted_ Android/iOS device for basic operations (e.g. authorization of credit card operations, paying taxes and fines, COVID stuff, etc.).

pabs32• 5 years ago

There are lots of open mobile distros. I'd say postmarketOS is the best option for installing on random devices. Or for devices with preinstalled OSes, PinePhone or Librem 5.

https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile#Distributions

viktorcode2• 5 years ago

On the contrary. Starting from the release of the original iPhone SDK in 2008, developers gained more capabilities and app entitlements than they lost.

RL_Quine2• 5 years ago

This seems extremely petty, does the author actually think that this reflects well on them? It really doesn't.

quenix2• 5 years ago

That's what I was thinking. This is a stupid article.

snemvalts• 5 years ago

I wouldn't obsess over the design of Apple's "Sign up with Apple" button, if the default darkmode just applies an inverted filter (inverting Google's and Facebook's logo in addition to the UI), and paddings and margins are all over the place.

ChrisMarshallNY4• 5 years ago

Someone else was complaining about Apple rejecting their app, over the Sign In With Apple feature. They cast it as “kafkaesque.”

They showed a screengrab of their app, and they had altered the design of the button, by filling it with gray (I agree that Apple’s choices are fugly). The writer couldn’t understand why Apple kept rejecting their app, and Apple’s rejection reason was not helpful at all (we often need to read tea leaves to figure out why our apps were rejected. It’s because they have a limited selection of canned responses).

Recoloring a branding element will definitely trigger a rejection. The Apple Brand is the most valuable brand in the world, and they won’t brook having it reinterpreted. No corporation would allow this, if they had a choice.

dep_b• 5 years ago

I remember Facebook doing the same if you wanted their stuff on your website. You can't make the Facebook button the same color as all of your other buttons.

Dylan168073• 5 years ago

The rejection reason was that the option did not exist. It was the very first option. Calling that Kafkaesque is fine, and there is no reason for you to act so smug.

tdjsnelling• 5 years ago

Right? A different colour border on the Apple button should be the least of OPs design concerns here...

gregoriol2• 5 years ago

While the grudge against Apple is real and has been discussed time and time again, the revenge described here is a joke: no-one will seriously use a web version when an app is available, the experience is really not as good, the findability is not there and for many apps device-features will be missing.

muxator• 5 years ago

When given the possibility, I always use the web version over a native app. I do not want to install as few software as possible on my device, and (at least for the time being) the security model of the browser is well-known and customizable (to an extent).

carlob• 5 years ago

The browser supports ad blockers, apps do not. It's a no brainer.

collaborative47• 5 years ago

I used to agree with this. That was before I developed the web version and was able to compare real performance. Web (WASM) beats both Android and iOS native apps. Only downside is initial data transfer (1.2MB). A bit funny since the iOS app is 20MB and the Android one is 5MB

gregoriol2• 5 years ago

Do you have some source or docs on what you did? You probably didn't need any device feature like the camera?

Dobbs• 5 years ago

This seems a bit trashy and tone deaf. Apple does have plenty of problems, and shouldn't be as rich as it is, but that doesn't justify ignoring the legitimate complaints that lead to apple's work to hide email addresses and personal information from vendors.

I might want to use app Foo, I might even want to have an account on app Foo for syncing purposes, but that doesn't mean I want marketing emails, and spam, and all sorts of other crap from the makers of app Foo.

Closi2• 5 years ago

that doesn't mean I want marketing emails, and spam, and all sorts of other crap from the makers of app Foo.

And, more importantly, all sorts of other crap from the companies that Foo decided to disclose your email to.

dspillett2• 5 years ago

that Foo decided to disclose your email to.

Or, just as often, anyone that has picked up my address from lists originally obtained via a hack of some sort because one of those entities has had lax security.

ChrisRR• 5 years ago

Good luck posting anything anti-apple on this site. The fanboys will be out in droves

Where as the advert for an apple keyboard gets voted right to the top

collaborative47• 5 years ago

Thanks, spot on

quenix2• 5 years ago

This isn't cleverly anti-Apple, it's just petty. I have plenty a gripe against some things Apple does, but the piece here makes a net zero good points.

newbie578• 5 years ago

It is hilarious how for a site which is populated by "educated" and "experienced" people, when the subject becomes Apple and how they are not perfect, the very same ones become a herd where they protect their shepherd.

I would be most happy if Apple was the only one out of Big Tech to get regulated. Let them have their Microsoft moment, and for the wolf to lose it's fangs.

anonleb4• 5 years ago

If you were that big of a company you'd do the same to protect your turf.

dspillett2• 5 years ago

Maybe true, but “because everyone else is doing it” was never a good defence in the playground and shouldn't be in the adult world either.

If Apple ran off a cliff, would you?

vletal• 5 years ago

I'm usually exposing my email address while using Apple ID. When I'm logging from non Apple devices I want to be able to log using Facebook or Google and recover my account for this very reason.

egghese2• 5 years ago

The author's revenge seems to be against his users who opted to used Sign In with Apple. Since they will be the one suffering because they trusted to use the particular app. I can find merit in complaining about apple's restriction in accessing payments. But SignIn with Apple, as a user I will always opt for that given my email won't be available with a third party forever for them to spam or sell. I have integrated SignIn with Apple both in an app and backend. I never felt it was particularly difficult or under-documented.

collaborative47• 5 years ago

Apple forced Groups to choose between having AppleID, or losing Sign in with Google/FB. That would have been equally bad for existing users who had chosen Google/FB before Apple ID was even a thing. Perhaps Groups would have happily adopted Apple ID if it hadn't been forced on it

At the end of the day Groups is a passion project. So it can be used to contribute to a world where developers aren't taken for granted

Apple ID was buggy as hell when it first came out.

Apple users will have to understand that Apple's policies can have an impact in what they get from developers. Apple only cares about $ and PR, wish it weren't this way

martimarkov4• 5 years ago

From your post I get that you don’t particularly care about the users who use you it app as you are not offering any way to transition users.

I think apple cares about their users and platform, they just care about your passion project and I can understand how that triggers you. But the users belong to the apple ecosystem. You are essentially a guest there and more importantly the user has a choice to privacy. Most of my friends buy iPhone because of ApplePay, Sign in, and now throwaway emails. Apple just caters to them and forces all developers to respect that.

As an engineer I never experienced any issues when integrating with Sign in. I’ve used it in 3 apps already in the past 2 years. There was also a very long grace period.

egghese2• 5 years ago

A trillion dollar publicly traded company sure care about money and PR.

I understand being a developer who does a passion project or an app. But I can't buy into, Apple forcing any developer to make a decision in a very short term. Almost all new guidelines comes with a 3 months interval before being enforced. And most times the deadlines get extended https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=03262020b

Apple waits a year or more before removing the Apps that don't follow a newly enforced guideline. The restriction is a problem with app submissions that comes in after a deadline

imwillofficial9• 5 years ago

I've never seen such user hostile posturing from a dev.

Will avoid.

elzbardico12• 5 years ago

I am fucking happy that apple didn't allow you to force the choice between Google/Facebook or annoying account creating down the throats of your users. That's exactly the reason I pay more for apple hardware: UX consistency. If I didn't want it, I would be saving money using android and windows for equivalent hardware.

salimmahboubi• 5 years ago

While other comments see this as petty. I see it as justified, big tech knows no limit. Independent app developers are making less and less

Aaargh203185• 5 years ago

Yeah, shame on Apple for protecting their user’s privacy. So evil of them to not allow 3rd party developers to harvest user’s e-mail addresses for no reason whatsoever.

collaborative47• 5 years ago

No reason whatsoever != password recovery

At the end of the day you've made your choice. You believe the reason Apple does this is to protect your privacy. You can't see that they want to close you in and make sure they are the only contact you ever have with anyone. This is to get your $. You're in fact paying a premium because they artificially inflate the price of every software you buy (think fees)

I don't "harvest" (fancy word) emails for anything other than basic password recovery, but just so you know, spam filters are pretty good these days

zapzupnz5• 5 years ago

Nah, the message itself could be justified, the messaging isn’t. Especially the hostility the writer has decided to show to their users.

I don’t care how upset you are with Fruit Co., you don’t take it out on Fruit Co.’s users. Who does one think one is, Epic?

camillomiller• 5 years ago

Wow. What an ideologically loaded article. I distrust right away anyone who writes like this. You just lack any credibility to build a structured and constructive discourse.

djxfade• 5 years ago

The only ones that is hurting by this, is your potential customers. I see it as a lose/lose situation

throwaway4good2• 5 years ago

I think this is silly and doesn’t make the developer / product look good.

Instead of yelling angrily at the clouds, maybe focus on copy writing and graphical layout, if you want your product to go further.

throwaway4good2• 5 years ago

On second thought - given this is on top of hn - is this some sort of guerilla marketing? If so, more power to you.

dnh44• 5 years ago

The tech community has loved operating system flamewars since at least the usenet days. This blog post serves as pretty good bait to draw in contestants so I assume that people wanting to engage have upvoted it.

Toutouxc3• 5 years ago

The best way to convince Apple prisoners is to tell them what they need. Trust must only belong to Apple. Give them your money, your will, your worship, your everything. Apple will keep you safe
Perhaps Apple customers deserve the luxury of "choice" (between different Apple devices, of course)

I don't understand the tone. Do these people actually not understand that different people have different preferences and priorities? Or is it a pose of some kind? I mean, it's 2021, Apple has been on fire pretty much continuously since 2007, they're making a killing everywhere they go and they're, as we speak, pulling off the biggest and smoothest on-the-fly architecture transition ever.

Is it still not clear to some people that Apple users genuinely enjoy using Apple devices and that the company clearly does something right?

rovek• 5 years ago

Your second quote conveniently chops out the main point of the article, which is that Apple abuse their dominance to force developers into having no choice.

Toutouxc3• 5 years ago

Because dev experience isn't what my post was about. I don't agree with some of the ways Apple treats developers, but I mostly agree with how they treat users and I genuinely like (MacBook) or at least understand and respect (iPhone) their products.

Aaargh203185• 5 years ago

Because Apple prioritizes their customers over developers.

If they didn’t force developers to adopt this, they would never do it as it’s in their interest to harvest the e-mail addresses of their customers.

uncomputation2• 5 years ago

I don’t see the abuse here. Sign In with Apple is only required if you already support Facebook or Google or another third-party social sign in. If you support only email and password, that’s fine. If you do support social sign in, presumably you do so because then you don’t have to worry about passwords and stuff. Well, this is exactly the same. I don’t see why it makes a difference.

3np• 5 years ago

I would have agreed with you if Apple had <10% of the market share they enjoy today. The reliance society and businesses have on smartphone apps combined with Apple's closing off of APIs, their market share, and their anti-competitive behavior, make things like this extra problematic in ways they wouldn't be under freer market conditions for users and developers.

Zababa• 5 years ago

they're, as we speak, pulling off the biggest and smoothest on-the-fly architecture transition ever.

That's interesting, I would have said that it was AWS doing that with Graviton. Do you have a source for this?

HWR_148• 5 years ago

they're, as we speak, pulling off the biggest and smoothest on-the-fly architecture transition ever.

I think Microsoft's architecture transitions between OSes were far smoother, in terms of ensuring backwards compatibility and giving developers far more advance notice. Of course, they stayed within the same chip family (well, except increasing the N in N-bit), so it was a smaller transition, but it worked well.

notafraudster• 5 years ago

The author is writing as if the two players in the game are developers and Apple; but there are three players in the game: developers, users, and Apple. Most of the readers of this piece are users, because developers are users just as much as they're developers.

Privacy-preserving federated login options are a good thing. Knowing that the app, which may or may not have security or data protection, has less access to my information is good. I don't necessarily like Facebook, Google, or Apple having access to my information, but if they're the only ones, it's still better than having the app developer have it. Moreover, Apple's login is presented to the user as a user-positive feature: I can obfuscate my personal information conveniently. I like that.

If an app didn't have federated login, I'd make a judgment call about whether or not I want to create an account. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. But if it does have a federated login option, I'd like them to support a variety of options, including Apple.

I'm not sure Apple should mandate it in the way they do, I can appreciate that the developer feels strongarmed... in the same way that I'm sure credit card processors engage in shady strongarming behavior of retailers. But I'd still rather go to stores that take credit in addition to (or instead of) cash, and I don't find it noble that the developer is writing that being forced to do something that his users would benefit from is bad for him.

I then read the second post the author wrote about getting his app removed from the Play store for not including a link to the privacy policy and it kinda comes off the same way. I don't necessarily like Google arbitrarily removing stuff with no notice, but I do like that Google has decided that a privacy policy should be a requirement of an app, and I sort of resent the guy complaining that he shouldn't have to follow that rule, which benefits me. He characterizes this as a "bad experience for users". I don't really agree.

CivBase5• 5 years ago

I agree with pretty much everything you said. My only concern is that by forcing devs to support Apple ID, Apple has effectively eliminated all incentive they have to make it a compelling experience for users and developers. Whatever Apple decides to do with Apple ID from here, everyone else just has to deal with it.

I really like the idea that an SSO can also server as the single point of trust for personal information like an email address. I just wish Apple let that feature speak for itself. I wish they put in the effort to make Apple ID a popular auth solution because both devs and users actually want it - not because they're forced to have it.

wdb• 5 years ago

PayPal is even worse than Apple, they keep your money hostage without any notice

thom• 5 years ago

There appear to be multiple threads to the backstory explaining some of the bitterness that the developer is clearly feeling, and I can understand the frustration at the ever-changing table stakes required to get a seat at the mobile app table, but this is an appalling attitude to what is an entirely valid and useful privacy feature.

raxxorrax6• 5 years ago

But it isn't a privacy feature. A privacy feature would be to create an account with a password without mail validation.

I you use Apple ID, Apple gets the info which services you are using. The service might request additional infos about your person. Most people will always confirm that in reality. This way many services will end up with more user information. Many people will just share everything but might think about it if they needed to provide this info manually.

It is maybe a privacy feature because Apple might be better than Google or Facebook. Well...

Jcowell• 5 years ago

Privacy , like security , has its own “threat models” and compromises depending on who you’re trying to get privacy from. So this is absolutely a privacy feature and it astonishes me that amount of people who don’t get this and try a No True Scotsman.

Vake93• 5 years ago

I had to integrate apple sign-in and it was pretty straightforward implementation. I don’t know what’s so difficult and why the author has opted to create a sub par experience for the users of his product…

elramon• 5 years ago

someone is a bit frustrated here, cringe

joshuaissac• 5 years ago

Revenge against Apple users, not Apple. Apple users who are also users of his product.

If he actually wants to help users, he can let users click through via Apple login on his site, then ask those users to also authenticate via one of the other methods (e-mail, Google or Facebook) and link the two. That way, he would be able to let his users still log in to their accounts via e-mail if Apple tries to shut him down (like Google did temporarily).

I think his focus should be on limiting potential damage to his users, not exacting revenge against large companies.

joejohnston• 5 years ago

stick it to the man!

avnigo• 5 years ago

So here is my small revenge: I am refusing to port Apple ID to the web version. Apple users who logged into Groups via the app with Apple ID will need to create a second account. Am I hurting myself? Am I shooting myself in the foot? Probably. But this is war

So, help me understand here -- the revenge is punishing their users that signed up with Apple ID? In what way is this revenge against Apple?

randyrand• 5 years ago

Because websites that do this will associate Sign In with Apple as being inferior / worse for interop.

tzfld• 5 years ago

Time to admit, tech giants don't want any further important players in the field than those large ones existing today. Probably will never see a Netflix or Facebook banned from different ecosystems/app stores but if you are a medium/smaller or even a larger one you are seen as a threat.

user-the-name10• 5 years ago

None of this makes any sense. All players, big and small, are required to follow App Store rules. Those rules say that if you offer third-party sign in, you have to also offer Sign in with Apple. Nothing to do with how big or small you are, and nothing to do with being seen as a threat.

danpalmer4• 5 years ago

Similar to how in-app purchase/subscription fees of 30% just _does not work_ for certain kinds of business with certain kinds of margin, Sign in with Apple has limitations far beyond other social sign-in systems that mean it is a complete non-starter for certain businesses.

Like us. We have Facebook sign in (appropriate for our market), but couldn't integrate Sign in with Apple because the email private relay limits how you can send email to it so much, and we use the email address as a fraud signal for some payment providers.

It comes down to the fact that we share email addresses and Apple have stopped that from working. They see it as stopping advertising and spam, but in our case they're preventing certain payment options, delivery notifications, refund notifications, all the sorts of emails that users tell us again and again are very important to them. We're not sharing emails without consent, we're doing it where users know what's being shared and why, and want these features.

Edit: I wrote up a bunch of these issues at the time it was launched: https://danpalmer.me/2019-07-02-on-signing-in-with-apple/

user-the-name10• 5 years ago

If your users actually value those emails, they will share their email with you.

If they do not share your email, that means they do not actually value your emails as much as you seem to think.

WesolyKubeczek2• 5 years ago

Can you present your users with explanation that "increased privacy provided by Apple" comes with a price in the form of degraded customer experience? Sorry, but you can't both have your cake and eat it, too?

I might believe your intentions are noble, but for one of you there are hundreds if not thousands of bad apples, so to speak, and the controls Apple is giving me as the user help mitigate it somewhat. And there are initially good apples that turn bad after a while — as their authors are desperately seeking ways to get into black, or just sell their apps to some unscrupulous businesses.

drclau• 5 years ago

But you can still ask the user to provide the email address (and I think I've seen this already in some apps), even if the user signs in with Apple w/ hidden email, right? Since you say you are already asking for permission to share the email address, why would this be a problem? You now have to ask for the email and the permission to share it. A negative answer from the user would mean you are not allowed to share it anyway, so why have the email address in the first place then?

Or am I missing something?

collaborative47• 5 years ago

That wouldn't fly past App Review

Nextgrid3• 5 years ago

we use the email address as a fraud signal for some payment providers

This is not in the interest of the user. As a user I do not want yet another company getting my details and assembling a profile on me under the excuse of fraud prevention, especially when my bank offers 3D-Secure which shifts all fraud liability back to the bank.

all the sorts of emails that users tell us again and again are very important to them

According to every company every single one of their spams is important. It's not up to you to decide. If the users want your notifications they will find a way to receive them (as far as I know the Apple relay email address does just forward emails, so unless you're breaking a - presumably reasonable - rate limit it shouldn't be a problem).

danpalmer4• 5 years ago

As a user I do not want yet another company getting my details and assembling a profile on me under the excuse of fraud prevention

This is only done after an explicit opt-in when using just that payment method. It's actually done as part of a credit check and those have to be very explicit.

mrweasel• 5 years ago

we use the email address as a fraud signal for some payment providers.

I'm sorry, I understand that that is not your point, but an email address is a terrible fraud signal.

Also, if anything having the email go through an Apple relay, means that the user have an iCloud account, which seem no more risky that a random Gmail account.

nyuszika7h8• 5 years ago

I agree. If you use an email address as a fraud signal, you need to seriously reevaluate your decisions. I've met a site that blocked my Gmail address as "spam" once, but another Gmail address works just fine.

In my case it was just a nickname, but using an email as fraud signal also feeds into racism. People who don't have an average white American-looking name will suddenly be flagged for fraud.

danpalmer4• 5 years ago

I'm over-simplifying "fraud signal" here, but it's a component of one of our payment provider's signal, mostly around "friendly fraud" where people might just have lots of overdue payments or not be responding to payment requests. It's less about signal about addresses and more about the same address being re-used on multiple stores.

Edit: being super clear...

The payment method is a pay-later service, it's literally a loan. The email is used to look up to see if the person has paid their loan balances off late before and other factors like that. "Fraud" was probably the wrong term to use here.

draw_down• 5 years ago

It’s funny this guy thinks Apple users don’t want this functionality. A lot of us absolutely do.

I don’t care about your app and I don’t care about maintaining yet another stupid account. And I don’t want your emails. Sorry.

chemmail• 5 years ago

This is also something what happens to Apple Music. My friend recently got family and he had extra logins so I join his group with my iphone but my wife has android. Lo and behold they actually have an Apple music app on android. Try as I may i cannot get her logged into it. What i had to do is use another iPhone, sign in and accept the Apple music sub on the iPhone before it would work on the Android. Luckily I still have a collection of iPhones or no Apple music for android ppl.

joedoejr• 5 years ago

I want to thank you on behalf of Google, Facebook and all third party ad aggregators you selling client tracking and data (including emails). The more app developers will be hostile to their clients, the more profits we can squeeze from our platforms keeping it old new norm. Keep the classy work, don’t forget, it is your app, your rules! Fck users! Fck them hard!

WesolyKubeczek2• 5 years ago

The best way to convince Apple prisoners is to tell them what they need. Trust must only belong to Apple. Give them your money, your will, your worship, your everything. Apple will keep you safe

While I firmly believe anyone's data can be breached, and Apple ain't no exception, it's more likely for a Joe Random Developer to make his unauthenticated document-based database listen on a public IP address than Apple. I say that even taking into account my firm opinion that Apple is very inept at clouds among their peers, evidenced by the atrocious quality of practically all their network-based offerings.

But Apple developers must be told, threatened, shut down if necessary.

All developers, not only Apple's! At least Apple has some leverage over its paying developers. I wish it started harassing them over unreasonable memory/CPU usage too, but it's hard to do if your own platform is guilty as charged.

Am I hurting myself? Am I shooting myself in the foot? Probably. But this is war

Petty and reminds me of scaring a hedgehog with a naked butt.

schipplock• 5 years ago

So the creator/developer of "The King of Organigrams and Family Trees" (that's the title of the app's website (https://www.groupsapp.online)) is complaining that Apple is giving its users the ability to hide their email information, am I right? So isn't this a good thing? For me, it is. I don't want to give away my actual email address. I get too much spam already. So I thank Apple for this feature.

And of course, it's terrible Apple doesn't allow their login button image to be altered so that an average user could quickly identify it as "oh yes, this is Apple". However, I don't see why this could be not good. Also, as an end-user, I don't care if the Apple button is black, the Facebook button is blue, etc.

It seems it's always the others who are wrong (see this: https://javierantonsblog.blogspot.com/2021/07/my-app-just-go...).

I'm not so sure about the app. From these two posts alone, I wouldn't trust this app.

collaborative47• 5 years ago

Frankly, I couldn't care less about whether you trust the app or not

The fact is, I send 0 emails and privacy and security are top priorities. I am passionate about E2E encryption so I have integrated loads of that in the app too

The only purpose an email address serves is password recovery. Period

TBH I am a bit tired of people trusting big tech so much. They are businesses, meant to make money. I make no money and don't intend to cash out because I am passionate about what I do. It's so frustrating to see how people blindly favor big tech

dmitriid3• 5 years ago

I send 0 emails and privacy and security are top priorities. I am passionate about E2E encryption so I have integrated loads of that in the app too

- "privacy and security are top priorities".

and then

- Wants to force users to only use the least private log ins: via Facebook and Google

- Is pissed when privacy-conscious users hide their emails via Sign-in with Apple

I am a bit tired of people trusting big tech so much. They are businesses, meant to make money.

Yes, yes they are. So why do you trust FB and Google and force your users to use those log in methods?

nyuszika7h8• 5 years ago

The only purpose an email address serves is password recovery. Period

And you can still do that with Apple's email relay. So I fail to see where's the problem.

CubsFan10602• 5 years ago

I feel like you’re getting personally offended here. And I get it, you’re likely a responsible person who will be respectful with my information.

However… when looking at apps and signing up for them, can you tell me how I would differentiate someone like you (who I can probably trust) with someone who will sell my information, or send me a ton of emails?

Even with good developers, some will make mistakes and lose data. Some will get sold and the new owner will do different things. As a user, not only can I not pick out the bad from the good, but I don’t know that the good will be good forever.

(I say this as someone who has been burned a few time. Always using a different email address when signing up allows me to track who is doing bad things. It happens far too often)

SP2njsPl2WmlAwM• 5 years ago

To be clear: This is not meant as a direct attack, just to highlight some of the pitfalls of creating your own e2ee chat protocol.

I had a quick look at your app's e2ee and summarized my findings here: https://telegra.ph/Reviewing-the-app-behind-My-small-revenge...

Feel free to correct.

agloeregrets• 5 years ago

The guy complains about those login buttons but the app is very much possibly the worst design I may have ever seen when I looked on his site. It harkens back to bad knockoff Metro UI text designs where the designer failed to read any form of typographic guidelines.

The author seems a little in need of therapy and to walk away from this for a little while with just how angry, sarcastic, and tonedeaf it all reads and to be clear, I'm in therapy, it's great and helps.

Honestly, I don't know why he is offering social login on an app that advertises E2E chat anyways, you are just giving them all the Keys to the Kingdom.

dgudkov• 5 years ago

Why the drama? Why not use a web app instead of a native app?

BulgarianIdiot• 5 years ago

So here is my small revenge: I am refusing to port Apple ID to the web version. Apple users who logged into Groups via the app with Apple ID will need to create a second account. Am I hurting myself? Am I shooting myself in the foot? Probably. But this is war

So in the headline you call it "revenge on Apple". Apple is hurting, supposedly.

In the content you say the above thing. You're hurting supposedly.

The only option that's missing is the correct one. You're not hurting Apple, and you're not hurting yourself. You're hurting your users.

As an iPhone/Mac user, we don't need developers who lead these confusing, petty ideological battles with Apple at our expense.

Wanna win your tiny, tiny "war"? Good, remove your app from the AppStore, we need less garbage in there, and if Apple did their job right they'd have done this for you already.

gowld4• 5 years ago

I'm happy that this person is amusing themself.

I liked the part where the author says Google and Facebook are good, but Apple is bad, and then two paragraphs later says Google betrayed him, but still prefers to make war on Apple.

I don't think Apple will notice or care. No one is going to drop their iPhone for "Groups".

collaborative47• 5 years ago

I'm happy that you are happy then :-)

Although I never said I liked Google, just that "all was well" with having 2 social logins. It sounds more funny the way you describe it though

qeternity3• 5 years ago

Anyone who puts privacy in quotes has totally lost the plot.

Is it really so inconceivable to some two-bit developer that I absolutely do trust Apple more than I trust them?

Hell, I trust Apple more than I trust Facebook and Google. Apple ID is my go to SSO these days. Is Apple perfect? No. But this is a game of lesser of evils.

collaborative47• 5 years ago

Hi, here the 2-bit dev

You don't need to choose between Apple, FB, or Google. You can sign up with your email address, which means these companies get no analytics on your behavior

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/07/02/eu-antitrust-head...

djrogers4• 5 years ago

You can sign up with your email address

You’re still missing it - we don’t trust YOU with our email address.

Before today we didn’t know who you are or what you stand for, and we didn’t trust you with our email address. After today, I’m sure I wouldn’t trust you with my private relay address, as you clearly care very little about your users.

wayneftw9• 5 years ago

I think it's adorable that anyone actually believes Apple is concerned with user privacy.

Sorry to burst your bubble but you can read all about how hypocritical Apple is about your privacy right here on HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24109695

qeternity3• 5 years ago

It’s really adorable to watch people embarrass themselves by not reading/comprehending the entire comment.

As I said: lesser of evils. I don’t care if Apple truly cares about privacy. I just care whether they will trample on it less than the others will, which I do believe, not because they care but because it might be profitable for them.

But good attempt, kiddo. You’ll get em next time.

coldtea2• 5 years ago

3 Weeks ago Google temporarily removed Groups from their Google Play store with no warning. This has led me to start working on a "web" version that will withstand the whims of big tech. So here is my small revenge: I am refusing to port Apple ID to the web version. Apple users who logged into Groups via the app with Apple ID will need to create a second account.

I think he took his revenge from the wrong company...

collaborative47• 5 years ago

You put those 2 sentences together but they actually belong in separate paragraphs. The latter is a closing statement to the entire post. And the former says that a web version is in the works

But nevermind, it sounds more funny the way you put it

coldtea2• 5 years ago

You put those 2 sentences together but they actually belong in separate paragraphs.

They belong in two successive paragraphs.

And the Google thing is a non-sequitur otherwise, given that most of the post he laments against Apple ID's requirements.

downvote_korok• 5 years ago

off-topic:- We use only SMS. Our family owns a grocery chain in NorthEast India, Last I built a ecommerce app where only login method is through SMS (OTP). Initially we thought this will be very bad. But now we have a significant amount of revenue coming from the app (Native and Web). In india most of the Govt and Private apps use only SMS as login method.

mnw21cam• 5 years ago

Beware. SMS is not secure.

ksec4• 5 years ago

But it is the only method where people understand and use. And social engineering / account take over from MNO are something that is non-existent in many countries.

Popegaf• 5 years ago

While I agree that Apple is evil and all, war would be convincing others to quit Apple or to stop developing for it and make a significant dent in their XXXbn. A small message and loss of users probably won't do it.

Maybe make your app a Progressive Web App, make it with Flutter and available everywhere besides iOS, stop (or don't if you haven't yet) buying any Apple devices, sell the ones you can't root and put Linux on the ones where it's possible, start or join an anti-Apple group that pushes against it spreading, etc. Maybe that'll be more effective.

The effort is appreciated though.

hrbf• 5 years ago

Stopped reading immediately after “Apple had to convince their fans…”.

viktorcode2• 5 years ago

We are denied customer interaction

And that is why I am still an Apple customer. Or, 'prisoner', by author's words.

oxymoran• 5 years ago

Do you guys not understand that Apple doesn’t really care about developers? You all are just a replaceable means to an ends. Everything they do is either for the benefit of Apple or it’s users. Stop whining about it.

jerrysievert• 5 years ago

For example, I am absolutely sure that Groups would have had loads of more IAPs had I been allowed to offer Paypal on top of Apple Pay and what not

hm. I can't see it as a bad thing that there weren't a ton of additional IAP micropayments in an app.

mosselman2• 5 years ago

This is a perfect example of why Sign in with Apple is so great: it hides my e-mail and real name from people like the author who are clearly intent on using this information to sell me stuff I don't want.

imwillofficial9• 5 years ago

Exactly, they are totally cool with a Facebook login, but decry an Apple login. Incredible. Literally.

collaborative47• 5 years ago

nah, I'm cool with both, so long as no one is forcing me to add them to my app. Which Apple is doing, so go figure

collaborative47• 5 years ago

To this date, I have sent 0 marketing emails trying to sell stuff. Heck, I don't even try to sell anything, I develop out of love and passion. The only reason email is needed is for password recovery

But yes, Apple is great. Again, Apple is great. Apple good, good good good

BugsJustFindMe6• 5 years ago

To this date

To this date. Tomorrow, though, no one knows.

I have sent 0 marketing emails trying to sell stuff.

"I", "I", "I". It's not you. It's me. I don't care what you say you're going to do with it. I don't want to give you my email address to store in another database. I'm sure you're very nice, but sorry not sorry.

The only reason email is needed is for password recovery

You don't need my email at all if I can use Apple ID.

The fourth sentence on the page says "sending personalized emails" as if it's no big deal. I don't care what you think the purpose or value of your emails is. I don't want emails from any app unless it's a support response to an email I sent first.

jasode• 5 years ago

To this:

To this date, I have sent 0 marketing emails trying to sell stuff. Heck, I don't even try to sell anything, I develop out of love and passion. The only reason email is needed is for password recovery

And your other reply in the thread:

Frankly, I couldn't care less about whether you trust the app or not The fact is, I send 0 emails and privacy and security are top priorities. [...] TBH I am a bit tired of people trusting big tech so much.

Some constructive criticism about your replies... You come across as tone deaf.

Trust is not granted to you just because _you_ self-report that you're honest. Your comments will be perceived as another variation of, "Hey trust me, I'm an honest guy! Really!"

If you're tired of people "trusting big tech" so much, why would that have anything to do with you being "small tech" (e.g. Javier Antons's small company Collaborative Groups)?

The implicit cognitive consumer heuristic is not "He's a small unknown company -- therefore I trust him _more_ with my email address than a big company like Apple Inc."

You're focused more on your needs from a perspective of a developer instead of a perspective of an untrusting user.

That said, you definitely should remove Apple as an option if they make life as a developer not worth the time.

EDIT to add a link that may help your public relations strategy:

Fyi... your insistence on being perceived as trustworthy is a form of "countersignaling" and it makes people distrust your app. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersignaling

xondono2• 5 years ago

And yet you ask your users to trust Apple and you and another developer for each app they use,

I’d rather just trust one party, and have a single entity to complain to.

elzbardico12• 5 years ago

If you are using Apple Id for authentication, why you need to have a password recovery functionality?

wayneftw9• 5 years ago

...people like the author who are clearly intent on using this information to sell me stuff I don't want.

Where was that made clear? My best guess is when the author said:

We are denied customer interaction, freedom to offer any non-Apple payment methods, etc. For example, I am absolutely sure that Groups would have had loads of more IAPs had I been allowed to offer Paypal on top of Apple Pay and what not.

Offering a non-Apple payment method is selling you stuff you don't want?

BugsJustFindMe6• 5 years ago

Where was that made clear?

The post appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to cajole people into giving app developers access to their email inboxes as a general rule by throwing insults at Apple for daring to hide email addresses from app developers. Even if this person never tries to sell me things, that rule is clearly meant to enable other people to do so.

It frames "sending personalized emails" as though:

1) The only reason to send personalized emails is for "offering alternative payment methods".

2) Sending personalized emails is no big deal.

But both of those are wrong.

mikeryan2• 5 years ago

It’s also the reason they had to make it mandatory. No one would use it otherwise. I use it all the time for the privacy it provides.

CivBase5• 5 years ago

That's evidently not true. Plenty of apps, including the author's, use Google's and Facebook's auth solutions without being coerced into doing so.

EDIT: Can someone explain how this is wrong?

CivBase5• 5 years ago

This comment is pointlessly accusatory and misses the whole point.

The problem wasn't that the author couldn't access your precious email. The problem was that Apple used their power to force their auth solution onto the author, which means Apple has no incentive to make their solution good. It caused this developer enough grief that they intentionally removed support for Apple ID on other platforms as a small protest.

Please do not accuse people of malicious intent without evidence. You can discuss the merits of Apple ID without being a jerk.

tibbetts• 5 years ago

I wish there were more established patterns around progressive disclosure of personal information. I want to use an app for a while before I start inviting them into my inbox and text messages.

OJFord• 5 years ago

Android (from v10 I think?) does that - deferring the request for permission X until it's actually used.

No more giving Camera permission to an app just because it supports sharing photos, which you know you never want to do, or whatever.

(Yes, this was possible beforehand by manually refusing specific permissions after granting all, or vice versa. But it could be unpredictable and cause app crashes etc.)

rob_c• 5 years ago

I just wish we'd move on, skip the next 10 years of this and end up where this will likely go, an "open" standards of sort where you have a unified ID system that allows you to connect your different accounts with different providers.

Working in academia where OAuth2 is now (finally) being pushed heavily by certain converts who look upto "big tech" as having all the answers. It's annoying obvious to the people having to work this however that big-tech in this case is way behind where they could be in this regard.

It's not "simple" there's always money and power which the article alludes to, but as a user, I just want my account of "me" where I can use secure tokens issued from each authority once they've accepted that I'm probably me.

Until this is all resolved and unified a lot of this song and dance just reminds me I'm more and more the paying product for most systems.

rudian• 5 years ago

Is this year 2000? Because pretty sure someone tried OpenID a decade ago and that was replaced.

matttrotter• 5 years ago

Will David beat Goliath? We'll find out...

ppetty• 5 years ago

I stopped reading here, at "who cares!” That was where I started to agree. Most of the language and tone is so negative I lost interest during the first paragraph. I’ve probably already read a constructive version elsewhere, but if I haven’t so be it.

ajaimk• 5 years ago

OP is the problem. When your “revolt” is to actually hurt your users as a petty act of aggression towards Apple, then you are the problem.

mwexler• 5 years ago

Does "sign in with X" not lock you into X's ecosystem? That is, if I lose my Apple account or my Google account due to their judgement of my actions, have I lost access to the services I authed via those accounts? That is, if I change my email, most services allow that data to migrate to the new username. Do the "sign in with X" allow the same capabilities? (I ask from ignorance, not from sarcasm, I really don't know.)

sleepydog• 5 years ago

Theoretically a service could allow you to convert an externally authenticated account to one protected by a password. In practice, I haven't found any services that allow it. I've found plenty that support conversion in the other direction.

Orphis• 5 years ago

Spotify used to do this.

tintt• 5 years ago

TIL that login through Apple ID shields my data from the service that I’m logging in. Idk about the dev side, but as a user I like it. I may start using this feature after all.

allenu• 5 years ago

This is a very strange “revenge” and the idiom of “cutting your nose off to spite your face” applies perfectly to it.

I don’t understand the end game here. Users are annoyed about lack of Apple ID sign-in on the web and so stop buying Apple products as a result?

somehnacct3757• 5 years ago

I like the angle of "Sorry, Apple ID only works on Apple devices." The rest of the popup seems unprofessional and would make me reconsider using the software, out of fear for what other unprofessional things may end up happening.

But the bit I highlight is a nice jab at Apple and something I think you can get away with professionally in a web app. It mars their login brand a bit by showing that it isn't useful everywhere.

collaborative47• 5 years ago

Thanks, the web app isn't published yet and I will take this into consideration

echelon• 5 years ago

Thank you for fighting the good fight.

Apple is making it impossible to have real customers and real businesses. They're turning us into serfs of their unfair ecosystem.

It's one thing to build interconnected products, but to grow the pie so large that all commerce and communication with 50% of Americans goes through their polished gates, to be stripped, taxed, and even cloned, is an abuse of power and position. It's a strip mining of our industry. An over fishing that has greatly decreased the probability of success for small, independent players.

Until the DOJ forces them to open up (or break up), we're stuck in this war zone.

I'm going to follow in your footsteps. Hopefully many more do as well.

wlesieutre• 5 years ago

For a more professional notice, I'd try something more like "Apple required us to choose between either supporting Sign-in with Apple in the iOS app, or disabling the logins of all existing users who had signed in with Google and Facebook. In protest of these abusive requirements, sign-in with Apple will not be supported online."

cwizou4• 5 years ago

I like the angle of "Sorry, Apple ID only works on Apple devices."

Except it's inaccurate, it works on Android, Windows and in browsers https://support.apple.com/kb/HT211687

Agreed on all other points though, if you want to garner sympathy from your users, that's definitely not how to do it.

Sebb767• 5 years ago

Except it's inaccurate, it works on Android, Windows and in browsers

I'm pretty sure there is an implied "on this app" in there. But I agree that the formulation could be seen as ambiguous.

eganist• 5 years ago

Okay.

"Sorry, we're only able to support Apple ID on Apple devices at this time."

Wowfunhappy• 5 years ago

And I actually think the message is more biting with only the first sentence. It works better when you don't take it too far.

leokennis• 5 years ago

Yeah I don't care about your personal beef with Apple.

If you make me go through hoops or hamper my enjoyment/use of your app because I am an Apple user, I am going to stop using your app.

I'm not going to stop using an iPhone or the excellent "sign in with Apple" service just so I can run your app, I will find an alternative.

robteix• 5 years ago

I'm confused about the "revenge" aspect of this. Seems like you're doing what Apple is asking you to do -- implementing Apple Sign-In -- and then going the extra mile to make sure your users have a worse experience than they should otherwise have. How is that revenge on Apple?

S_A_P• 5 years ago

Not saying I don't see where you are coming from, but will echo what other people have said here and can say the message sounds a bit unprofessional. I would also encourage you to look at this from a users point of view. They generally care about none of this stuff. They don't want to know about your "war" with apple, and just want to use what you built. It is a bad look.

Edit: It seems that 2 weeks ago you had a beef with Google as well. Maybe this blog is your way of venting the sorts of frustrations that come with developing your app. To offer some unsolicited advice. Take the time to learn and fully understand how the social logins work, and focus on providing the best experience possible. Badmouthing Google and Apple(and is Facebook next?) is not the way to get traction.

yalogin2• 5 years ago

I don’t get these kind of posts. Apple ID is mandated for a reason. If OP can declare war the least they can do is provide technical reasons about why they are declaring war, instead of a couple UI buttons and lot of anti-apple prose. I was looking for atleast a link to the technical reasons.

Angostura• 5 years ago

This guy is taking revenge on his users not Apple. I trust Apple with my login details and I like their option to let me hide my real email. I’m not logging in with Facebook or Google.

It’s not Apple he’s hurting.

crad• 5 years ago

I think what the author is missing here is context. Some (many it would seem) prefer the curated walled garden approach that the Apple ecosystem has. Not for hype, not because we're brainwashed, but rather because we enjoy the consistency and overall experience more than the "Linux Desktop on my phone" experience you get with other platforms.

The post comes across as angry and immature.

nicholasjarr• 5 years ago

Looks more like a revenge on the users to me. If he put it on the app why not put it in the web version too? I'm not a fan of Apple's guidelines, but this won't change a thing on the guidelines.

clint• 5 years ago

What a cry baby

cwizou4• 5 years ago

There are plenty of reasons to be unhappy with Apple's policies, or lack of documentation, or undocumented API changes, or even the dismissive tone they can take when talking about 3rd party developers (especially when defending against various anti-trust inquiries), but that's a very weird thing to be angry about.

Apple mandates changes all the time, and mandating Apple ID if you already use 3rd party logins is about the least controversial thing I can think of, and the most uncontroversially pro-privacy, pro-user, with incredibly small drawbacks and requirements feature I can think of. iCloud Private relay comes a close second on real user benefits (there are certainly way more drawbacks for the web at large).

At least it's decently documented (try Homekit documentation for a counter point), it's really not a huge job to implement, and there's a clearly stated purpose, force developers to give a "social" sign up that won't harvest their data.

That's exactly the kind of leaning on devs that's a 100% win for end users and that I, as a user and dev expects and wants to see from them. Less unannounced/undocumented screen saver api changes please, though, but I wouldn't cry a tear either on a ban on 3rd party "SDKs" that harvest any data.

Personally, I think adding a Facebook login to an app is a terrible thing to do, and the excuses of "just because it's convenient for users/will increase my signups" just don't fly with me, but that's just my strongly biased opinion.

Ranting (so inaccurately) to your users like that though? I think we can come to a broad consensus that it won't achieve a thing and doesn't exactly will fill your users with confidence about what you do with their data?

jeroenhd2• 5 years ago

This is the pettiness I'd feel embarrassed about if I'd ever let it come to fruition.

Restricting Apple ID to the mobile app seems more than enough, the snarky popup goes too far. As a user, I don't care about your personal beef with Apple. Simply explaining that the button was added because of Apple's restrictions in the first place and that you never wished to support it in the first place should suffice.

I appreciate your willingness to lose customers to make a point against Apple. A little more... nuance would probably make it a lot easier to gather support from others.

jrsj• 5 years ago

Honestly the whole app could probably use a UI overhaul. The button looking different than other social logins isn’t the problem; the app looking completely alien to any version of iOS released in the last 10 years is the problem.

uncomputation2• 5 years ago

Dude, apps small and large still send personalized emails. If you want your users’ names so bad, just ask. It seems like you would just prefer to do name = google_data_json.name rather than ask your users for their name and let them decide if they want to give it to you. This is exactly why I love that Apple introduced Sign In with Apple; it gives the user more control over what they want to give out since it’s their data.

Also your revenge is not on Apple. They’re a behemoth and won’t notice. You pointed this out in your post so you are obviously aware of it but the only people you are hurting are yourself and your users. If you know this and willingly charge along, all I can say is that says a lot more about you than it does about Apple. Good luck.

djrogers4• 5 years ago

Wow. Artificially creating a limitation, specifically to get revenge against users that chose Sign In With Apple, is a really, really @ick move.

For those who don’t know, SIWA is fully supported for web logins, and it’s implementation is pretty easy.

As the author seems to be active here, let me add my voice to those who are saying I will never choose to use an app written by someone with this level of disdain for me.

xondono2• 5 years ago

I find this ridiculous.

If you force me to use email login, I’m going to feed you a burner email (thank you fastmail!) and call it a day.

The difference with AppleID is that I get a much better experience, my device automatically does what I would do anyway.

You don’t want to support a feature? It’s you app, do what you want. But the post reads like some lame justification (and a petty one at that).

wetjen• 5 years ago

I think you need to shorten the copy a bit.

“Since we were coerced into supporting Apple’s sign on with our iOS app, we’re sandbagging them in return by not supporting their sign-on here.”

amykhar• 5 years ago

I'm perfectly happy with Apple helping me keep my email address out of the author's hands. If he wants it that badly, it's probably not anything that's in my best interest.

sam0x17• 5 years ago

"Hype" and "Extortion" track so well as an explanation for how Apple tackles pretty much any problem. My eyes are opened.

basisword• 5 years ago

Unbelievably unprofessional. If I was a user, even if I was unaffected, I wouldn’t be using any of your software anymore. Treating your users with contempt because of your personal feelings towards a company is bizarre.

cdubzzz• 5 years ago

Am I hurting myself? Am I shooting myself in the foot? Probably. But this is war

I don't think shooting yourself in the foot is necessarily a strong tactic in war.

vermilingua• 5 years ago

Something that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else in this thread is what to me is the killer feature of Signin with Apple: I now don’t need to remember which of the (sometimes >6) SSOs I used to log into an app. If SSO is present, it’s Apple, if it’s not, it’s in my pw manager.

Privacy is a nice plus but for me, the best part is precisely what is pissing this guy off.

Pokepokalypse• 5 years ago

Highly passive-aggressive. I like it.

heartunderbread• 5 years ago

This is one of the reasons why I tend to avoid public-facing mobile app development, the developer ecosystem just feels so restrictive. The alternative here is that I forego publishing on the app store, drastically reducing the audience outreach.

fennecfoxy2• 5 years ago

Interesting the comments here, rather than addressing the issue of "is it okay for Apple to force implementation of their own services in addition to others" the discussion is more "well, nobody's _forcing_ you to do this".

When does it stop then? If Spotify releases their app to the store, do they have to include Apple music functionality in their app? If I have an app with a "listen to this on spotify" button, do I also have to have a "listen to this on Apple music" button?

See no evil, I guess.

stiltzkin• 5 years ago

My small revenge on never recommend this app.

My small revenge on Apple

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