Shutting Down a Service with 500M Requests per Month

http://danielamitay.com/blog/2015/5/29/shutting-down-a-500mm-requestsmonth-api

by danielamitay • 11 years ago

104 56 11 years ago

danielamitay.com

shiv86• 11 years ago

Thanks for sharing. Must be tough. But Iam sure you'll move onto bigger and better things in the future.

throwaway34234• 11 years ago

You are an unethical person. I'm pleasantly surprised Apple shut this down.

coreyoconnor• 11 years ago

I am ignorant of what iHasApp means in terms of users. Much less the ethics of it all. Why is what iHasApp did considered unethical?

tokenizerrr• 11 years ago

From https://github.com/danielamitay/iHasApp:

The iHasApp iOS Framework allows you to detect installed apps on a user's device. Detection results can be in the form of an array of detected appIds, or an array of appDictionaries from the iTunes Search API.

nilliams• 11 years ago

Presumably parent is offended by the privacy violation. It allows developer of app A to know I have app B installed, which can be used to target adds etc.

killface3• 11 years ago

I completely agree. This is tantamount to spying on users. It's basically equivalent to some random game reading your entire contacts list and sending it to the company.

smtddr• 11 years ago

I don't even think you should be surprised. I don't see how anyone could condone the privacy violation this app commits.

Of course this app should be banned, should have never made it to the appstore to begin with. And the developer should be ashamed of himself. With all the discussions around the NSA & privacy these days, it's tone-deafness & insensitive for a developer not to see the obvious problems iHasApp creates.

themartorana• 11 years ago

Do you really suppose ad providers in millions of apps do anything differently? Do you think Apple's own iAd relevancy engine that allows them to charge premiums to advertisers does anything differently?

It seems odd to be outraged at a practice employed by the very knight in shining armor that just shut them down.

tottenhm• 11 years ago

I share your concern that this functionality could be abused, but disagree with your attempt to treat this as black-and-white or as a matter of personal character.

There are both ethical reasons and unethical reasons why an app-developer would want to know the other apps chosen by their users. On the up side, one could use the knowledge to prioritize improvements/integrations/compatibility with other apps. On the down side, one could punitively react to the presence of competing apps.

Assessing the ethics of how the functionality is used requires greater openness and transparency by everyone. Unfortunately, in a culture as closed as Apple's (eg http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2375476,00.asp or https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/WhyNoiOSVersion ), you are unlikely to see that kind of openness.

rounak• 11 years ago

Twitter and Facebook also have similar solutions. Have they been shut down too?

ceejayoz2• 11 years ago

Twitter and Facebook have extensive OS level integrations put together by Apple.

pyre• 11 years ago

"Too big to fail"

wnevets• 11 years ago

Wouldn't be surprised if they pay for the privilege.

jwegan• 11 years ago

I think at least Facebook's usage would fall under the category of facilitating inter-app communication. They just communicate with almost every app out there.

x3n0ph3n3• 11 years ago

Why do people continue to use MM for "million", especially outside of the context of money?

nostromo2• 11 years ago

M is often used to mean 1,000 from the Roman Numeral, so using it to mean "one million" is confusing.

It's not just finance, but in other contexts too, such as online marketing CPM = Cost Per Thousand.

MM then is used to denote a thousand thousands, or one million. In online marketing sometimes you'll see CPMM = Cost Per Million.

sebastianavina• 11 years ago

k is used for 1000, M for millions... damn americans.

JoshTriplett• 11 years ago

When, whether talking about money or not, have you ever seen someone write 100M to mean "a hundred thousand"? That would be completely ridiculous. Roman numerals are not used for that.

strommen2• 11 years ago

your app uses public APIs in a manner not prescribed by Apple

What an enraging way to phrase this. I understand Apple's desire to shut this down, but they make their contempt for app developers obvious at every possible turn.

killface3• 11 years ago

That seems like an incredibly petty way to view it.

Apple's not out to get you. In fact, I'm glad they did this. That iHasApp looks creepy as hell, and it pisses me off that other devs were using it to basically spy on me. It reduces my trust in all apps.

wlesieutre3• 11 years ago

Yeah, this reminds me of the recent(ish) realization that a javascript could check a link's applied style to determine if it had :visitied, letting advertisers trivially run test a very large list of links to fingerprint and profile anybody who visits a webpage.

Mozilla patched that information leak. I don't remember anyone accusing them of "contempt for web developers."

I'm no longer using iOS regularly, but the fact that Apple can and does police apps that violate a user's expectation of privacy is one of the strong points of the platform.

ploxiln2• 11 years ago

Technical people are accustomed to looking at the technical limitations of a problem space and then coming up with a solution. If the person managing the game then says "rule violation: you can't do stuff I don't like" it seems unfair.

The better way is to design the API in such a way that it can't be "abused". It's Apple's fault that iHasApp was able to do what it did, and it's Apple's fault that Facebook continues to do what iHasApp did.

strommen2• 11 years ago

To be clear - I have no problem with this service getting shut down, as it's clearly intended to violate the user's privacy. But to say you must use APIs as "prescribed" by Apple is way too broad and subjective.

I'm sure the iOS developer Terms of Service forbids this at some level. If not, then update it. Then say you're shutting this down because it violates the TOS.

obstinate• 11 years ago

Only devs seeking private information about users will be harmed by this. It's OK for Apple to have contempt for devs like that.

SrslyJosh• 11 years ago

Privacy.

Fuck enumerating the apps that users have installed.

That's not what the API is for, and no user in their right mind would want that to happen.

outside1234• 11 years ago

I'm totally for this being blocked.

My concern is that this, like everything, will be applied unevenly. For instance, Twitter's app does this, and probably won't be yanked from the app store.

ianstallings• 11 years ago

The obvious lesson is that you shouldn't build a service that skirts right on the edge of "Apple definitely won't like this."

Well at least you kept your sense of humor about it all. It will probably help your chances at employment (or investment of your own business) going forward. Nothing wrong with pushing the barriers a little bit.

sergiotapia• 11 years ago

So why is this kosher? https://support.twitter.com/articles/20172069

x0x0• 11 years ago

one guess

   We will notify you about this feature being turned on for your account by 
   showing a prompt letting you know that to help tailor your experience, 
   Twitter uses the apps on your device. Until you see this prompt, this 
   setting is turned off and we are not collecting a list of your apps. If you 
   do not see Tailor Twitter based on my apps in your account settings, app 
   graph collection is not occurring for your account.

So it's opt-in with a default of off.

second, some partners are more equal than others...

hellameta2• 11 years ago

It's a shame you had to bring this down but it looks like you saw it coming and enjoyed the ride. I think the posts that characterize you as unethical are just not willing to cope with the disillusion that technology is a two sided coin. The information was there and you used it. I commend you on seizing on the opportunity and wish you best of luck in the future.

npizzolato• 11 years ago

Sorry, no. Technology is a two sided coin, mostly unable to be ethical or unethical. The people using technology, however, are surely able to fall somewhere in the spectrum. The OP is using this technology for (imo obviously) unethical reasons and is capable of being judged by that decision.

hellameta2• 11 years ago

Well I certainly don't disagree that he's capable of being judged. And you're right - it's simply my opinion that what he did was not unethical.

ascendantlogic• 11 years ago

I want to be outraged on your behalf over this but I can't really summon it forth. While I understand the ever-present engineer desire to "see if it can be done", no good can really come from this sort of service in my opinion. I guess chalk it up to an interesting technical exercise and that's it.

mherdeg• 11 years ago

Huh, how does this service's behavior differ from what the Twitter App Graph does?

Shutting Down a Service with 500M Requests per Month

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