The Apple App Store: A Necessary Evil?

In recent years, the Apple App Store has become a staple of iPhone and iPad ownership. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and Apple's reluctance to give consumers and developers a choice is a major concern for many users.

One of the main issues with the App Store is its lack of transparency. When an app is reviewed, it's often unclear what criteria were used to determine its suitability for all ages. This can lead to apps being approved that are not suitable for children, as was recently seen with the "Dominatrix and Dogman" game. According to David, this kind of thing makes him wish that the App Store was more restrictive.

"I actually wish that the App Store would be more restrictive," he said. "Some of the scams that come into the App Store are truly bizarre. I don't want my kids to see some of the stuff that's out there." He believes that a more curated approach, with a smaller number of apps in the store, could help alleviate these issues.

David pointed out that Apple has painted itself into a corner by trying to have 2 million apps in the App Store. "That's just not a thing you can do," he said. "You can't adequately curate 2 million apps." He believes that Apple should focus on creating a high-quality store, rather than trying to be all-inclusive.

This approach would allow developers to distribute their apps directly, without having to go through the App Store. According to David, this could be a good thing for both consumers and developers. "The majority of users will continue to use the App Store," he said. "But some people will choose not to, or they'll choose to use alternative stores." He believes that Apple should be more willing to allow competition in the market.

In terms of how this could work, David suggested that Apple would need to hire a more qualified workforce to review apps. "We'll have certain standards and everything is going to be better," he said. "I think on both ends it would be such a benefit." He believes that Apple should aim to create an App Store that is more restrictive, but still allows for competition and choice.

David also suggested that the App Store could focus on creating a more curated experience, with fewer apps in the store. "We can have 10 apps a day reviewed by qualified reviewers," he said. This would help ensure that only high-quality apps make it into the store.

One of the main benefits of this approach is that Apple would be able to remove apps that are not suitable for all ages. According to David, this could make a big difference in terms of user experience. "We'll have certain standards and everything is going to be better," he said.

In conclusion, the Apple App Store is a complex issue with many different perspectives. While some users may prefer the convenience of the App Store, others believe that it should be more restrictive. By creating a high-quality store, with fewer apps in the market, Apple could alleviate some of the concerns surrounding the App Store.

Ultimately, David believes that Apple has the power to create a better App Store experience. "The door is open," he said. "Apple can open it at any time and say okay, fine, we'll make the iPhone work like the Mac." By creating a more curated store, with higher standards for app approval, Apple could alleviate some of the concerns surrounding the App Store.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to the Apple Insider podcast this is your host Steven roblas and joining me today we have a very special guest David hinam Hansen he's known as dhh on Twitter he's the creator of the Ruby on Rails framework co-founder and CTO of base camp and hey.com and if that wasn't enough also a race car driver apparently David thanks for joining me on the show thanks for having me you know I thought we should get the most controversial question out of the way upfront and so my question is after having driven 24 hours at lemons what did you think of the movie Ford V Ferrari I thought it was beautifully done and actually much better than I feared it would be most movies about racing are not only boring but bad and this one wasn't even if it wasn't particularly realistic it's one of those things for example how they zoom in on um two racing drivers are coming up next to each other and one of them then does this dramatic downshift right that never ever happens it never has happened that's just not how cars work right um if you're a race car driver you're already driving in the gear you're supposed to be in there's not this thing where you drive up next to each other but other than that I thought it was pretty good okay I mean yeah having no information on that world personally it was it was a fun movie to watch and based on a true story it was pretty compelling so what what made you get into that just you want to go fast I had all always liked uh racing games so I've long I mean since I was I I don't know four years old or 5 years old whenever I tried my first video games been into video games and racing games was one of my favorite genres but I didn't get my driver's license until I was 25 and I thought I kind of had to make up for lost time so I got my driver's license at 25 sat in my first race car at 27 and thought gez this is good I want to do this some more and it reminded me frankly a lot about programming a lot about systems design driving a race car is very much an optimization problem you're driving around in a circle mhm I mean there are some corners but you keep getting the results you keep getting the Benchmark oh this lap was 1 minute 34 seconds and 210 and you go like well let's try something else let's try to take this corner slightly differently and you get instant feedback and that feedback loop is really intoxicating and addictive in much the same way that I've found programming to be interesting so we're going to get into some topics that you've been historically pretty vocal about on Twitter and as though you were preparing to record the show I saw a flurry of tweets right before we hopped on the call so before we get into those topics I wanted to ask obviously you're a technology guy you've created Ruby on Rails co-founder of base camp and hey but when it comes to technology daytoday are you an Apple guy do you kind of flow between operating systems or what do you actually prefer to use dayto day I am Apple through and through from 2000 one I think I got my first um one of those white clamshell MacBooks ey books yeah yeah the iBook the iBook and from that moment forward uh the Mac has been my primary operating system and computer I've dabbled in others I mean I just actually when was that last year just before Apple finally admitted the feat with the butterfly keyboards and I was just so frustrated by my own uh MacBook being broken again dipped my feet into a Windows machine and checked that out and hey the keyboard worked and was actually great but I wasn't a huge fan of windows so it was a relief when Apple finally said okay okay we can't fix this that we had broken for four years no matter how many people have told us and now we're going to put out some back to the future version of our laptops and put some scissor keyboards in to work again so the Mac in many ways and this is what's been so frustrating about particularly the last let's say year of of my relationship with apple I mean I'm saying that as though it's a two-way street it's mainly a one-way Street like I have a relationship with apple apple doesn't really have a relationship with me but what's been so frustrating is that I've literally spent 20 years not just being a Apple user but an apple evangelist yeah an apple promoter in I think 2004 Jason freed my business partner and I recorded pro bono an advertisement frapple that they featured on their website it's still still on YouTube it's it's very cringeworthy you have 2004 me going on and on about how important the Mac is right to my creative uh Endeavors and then as late as when the um Corona pandemic broke out I think it was in maybe May or something like this um we got a call from someone inside of Apple we'd been friendly with for a while said like hey um remote work is new to us at Apple wow do you mind coming and talking about this I mean you wrote Guys wrote a book back in 2013 called remote off is not required maybe you can give us some pointers and we're like awesome sure yes again totally pro bono we show up do a session for 250 Apple employees just because like hey apple is an important part of my story as a technology user as a programmer and to be able to give back to that um felt great yeah it's it's felt less great I'd say after than what happened last summer but I still I try to be able to separate Apple the monopolist Apple the policy abuser from Apple the producer of technology I mean that's getting harder and harder but I think it is still possible and I can still Marvel for example at the M1 chip and what they've been able to do with speed and uh power consumption and all these other things and go like you know what that's legitimately awesome technology yeah that's great and we should applaud that and we should celebrate it and I can do that and and chew gum and walk at the same time and also go like hey we have some serious problems here with the most valuable richest most profitable company in the world they have an amount of power now and they're exercising in ways that are really just unfortunate and and we should talk about that we should do something about that yeah and that's what I wanted to establish because as we get into criticisms of their policies and what they've been doing recently you know you are a user it's not like never used a Mac or mainly Windows user you're an Apple guy I've seen you tweet love for the iPhone 12 mini as something that you really enjoy using yes and so I'd like to start a little bit about what Apple might be doing right and as you're saying hardware-wise development their products great there I'm curious what you think about their strides in privacy Apple is very vocal about privacy Tim Cook's speaking about it not only at Apple events but even to the press and in interviews iOS 14.5 is out with the apps have to surface that ad tracking opt-in screen Safari on Mac has increased its privacy tools do you believe that apple is making the correct strides at least when it comes to privacy and users data yes but and I'll explain the but yeah the butt is that I think I used to believe that this was just purely the good intentions of Apple that this was just something they inherently and deeply cared about and I think there's some of that and I think there's definitely people inside of Apple who do that right but I think on an overall scale like why are they doing this in a way that others aren't is because their business model aligns with it unfortunately it aligns less with it now than it used to do when Apple was a company that derived the vast majority of its revenue and profits from selling Hardware it was a complete no-brainer for them to be 100% in the Privacy court right now that they're moving into services and that's become a more and more important part of the business I think we're starting to see in some ways where this thing sort of cracks that Apple for example now sells advertisement and in fact that they'll sell targeted advertisement you know what that's not great I I wish that Apple would be able to take the historic stronger stance on this and simply say like that's just we're not going to derive revenue from advertisement like that's not the kind of company we're going to be and by saying no to that we get to say yes without any butts to the Privacy angle which in my opinion is both more worthy of a cause and I also believe ultimately Better Business uh Apple stands on privacy is one of those key reasons why I remain despite it all an iPhone user and I think it's one of those things where you can see sort of the outlines right that companies respond to the incentives that they have and apple the pure hardware company making money on an ever expanding iPhone Market responds to those incentives really well the Apple company that now is moving into services and making that never more important part of their portfolio and start selling ads and and track ads and so forth it becomes harder because the incentives aren't a straight but still I mean if we compare them to Google or Facebook or Amazon I mean they're leagues ahead when it comes to basic privacy protections and that's good and we should celebrate it okay so you've talked about Monopoly a lot and you you've tweeted and support of some of the stuff that the US House committee is doing the house antitrust subcommittee the chairman is David sisini and you know he's been after Amazon Apple Google and Facebook saying monopolies must end and so I want to explore this idea of Monopoly and when you think of those four big companies Google I think it is pretty natural to see there's a monopoly on search maybe even independent Video Creator Platforms in YouTube Amazon with online shopping Facebook in the social media space aside like the App Store on the iPhone is that the Monopoly or when you think of Apple and monop what area of the industry do you feel like they have Monopoly control over over the most important pocket Computing platform in the US in December of 2020 Apple was responsible for I think 65% of all pocket computers or as we like to call them smartphones in the US and the other seller was was Google's operating system there were many more sort of vendors there there Samsung and LG and Sony and so forth but if we just take in terms of operating system which is really where the power comes from right apple is the dominant platform and even that 65% number does not reveal the extent of their power so as we found with hey.com our new email service that had um let's just say a skirmish or perhaps even a fight for its survival with apple last year um to this day something like 77% of our paying customers are iPhone users MH right so the amount of Market power that Apple has through the iPhone is Extreme in the US now things are differently internationally right and in some areas like uh Europe like they have nowhere near the same amount of power they still have a lot of power if you go to India for example they have much less power if you go to bunch of other areas there's much less power but in the US which is what the house antitrust subcommittee is about where our business is based this is really what we're talking about Apple's power is dominant so the problem with that power is is sort of um uh interesting like monopolies in and of themselves don't have to be a problem right you have a dominant market share but you're not abusing it you're just like Hey we're the thing that most people pick to use and you can go okay that's something to have a watchful eye on but there isn't necessarily an offense the offense comes in when you take that Monopoly and then use it in abusive ways and that's where the App Store comes in that Apple has this dominant platform and then they say okay if we're just talking about the App Store problem there's only one path to get software onto your pocket computer it's through the App Store who controls the App Store we do who sets the rules for the App Store we do what are those guidelines based on they're based on what we want so it gives them this outsized power to do these really abusive things like saying do you know what um 177% of app developers should just like pay for the whole thing and you go like wait why um because they sell digital goods and services and we believe that's the easiest loot to capture and and you go like but but what about Uber what about GrubHub what about some of these other no no no they can just they can process their own payments they can take the credit cards and then you go like but what about Facebook they they make billions of dollars off this right how many resources does Facebook use out of the App Store um system and in terms of bandwidth in terms of everything right like it's got to be astronomical how much does Facebook pay for all of that uh a $99 developer license fee right right and then I go like oh but I want to sell a um an email service if I make uh a million bucks on that or just over a milli a million1 how much do you have to pay for that oh 300,000 yeah a year what and could like you know the the hey.com debacle you know we we reported on that and I really want to dive into that in a moment kind of in the det details of of how those interactions went with apple but when it comes to Monopoly or you are saying that Apple has a monopoly on its product no I'm saying that in the US right again we have to distinguish like right because internationally this is not the case internationally iPhone is not predominant platform right in the US the iPhone is the predominant platform in sort of segments of the market that's the other thing right like iPhone or the smartphone market or the poet computer Market whatever you want to call it is also stratisfied right and the Lion Share of the economic activity that happens through Commerce on this general computing platform happens on the iPhone people who buy iPhone spend money basically right exactly they spend way more I saw I I don't know how out of date these numbers are but I thought I saw at one point that the absor process something like four times as much as the Play Store did right so that they had 75% of of the economic activity and that's the part that gives it the problem right but is that Apple's problem because they make a product that people who spend more money choose to use their devices right that's exactly what we need to establish is that like in and of itself having a popular product is not a problem right the problem is if you take that market position that dominant Market position and you then start abusing it in certain ways right starting to have discriminatory pricing um as Apple does with like hey you have to pay you don't have to pay if they start using that Monopoly for tying for example oh we see that music streaming has become popular we totally overslept on that and thought it wasn't going to take off and now we're like 4 years late so we're going to launch a me too service like apple music streaming and to make it competitive with something like Spotify that already um done very well in this area we're going to put them at a price disadvantage we're going to Advantage and tie our own product into this Monopoly platform we have that's when the problems start arising which is exactly what the house antitrust subcommittee found they published a 450 page report report uh a few months ago apple is like 120 of those pages where they just go in depth with all the issues with their Monopoly power not just that there is Monopoly power right like the report is not afraid of saying hey Apple has Monopoly power second just here are all the ways in which Apple uses that Monopoly power in ways that are Market distorting MH and here's the ways for example where we have internal Apple employees saying things like yeah the App Store review process is is essentially a front for competitive actions where like well you get to to pay you don't get to pay you get to stay you don't get to stay according to not sort of some higher abstract ideal but just what makes sense for Apple's business right at the time and again it's those Revelations where you have to look at those and say like do you know what that's the problem so let's talk about the app store cuz we're here last year you launched hey.com the email service and it was originally approved for the App Store and then after a minor update it was was rejected because users had to go and sign up for the service outside of the app and apple was arguing that your app doesn't do anything when people open it and you can't have them pay for it elsewhere and force them to sign in to use the service when we reported on it I talked about it on this podcast there were cases that that was blatantly a contradiction of terms when you look at something like Netflix which which had the exact same business model right where you could not sign up within the app you couldn't do anything else with that you had to pay for Netflix you still do you still have to pay for Netflix outside and then sign in so when that Fiasco was happening did you guys have any kind of recourse to talk to Apple directly or was it all through secondary channels or how did that process work out yeah it it's it's funny you mention this contradiction in terms because it became such a joke that someone literally made the website you download the app and it doesn't work.com right right um and that all came from a quote that Phil Schiller gave to gave in an interview with TechCrunch right like he was trying to justify it in the Press of of why why were they picking on hey and then he came up with this new arbitrary standard that is not described anywhere in the App Store guidelines right which just like shooting from the hip in an interview oh uh it's because they download the app and it doesn't work right and then someone compiled this thing you you mentioned Netflix there's people like GitHub on there Google Docs fast mail which is ironic because it is also an email service I'll put this link in the show notes because the website is still it it's amazing there's even apps by Apple on there like the App Store Connect app um where you're just downloading it's just a login form you have to sign up somewhere else yeah so obviously that whole argument was complete bull right but we never got to hear that from Phil Schiller because the way the App Store process works is in itself a form of abuse the only way you get to talk to Apple is you submit your app to for review and then Apple has this internal Communication System around the the review process but for example if they then close it and say like you're denied these things just live in apple system you don't get to take it out you don't get to take the information with you you can't review your your past Archive of of communication and then what Apple does is this really Sly thing where they move all the controversial discussions into phone calls because phone calls have no records which is really convenient when you're discussing things that might one day appear in a lawsuit that's exactly what happened to us that once we hit the dead end on the internal Communication System Apple switched to just calling us it was always this um you could only get the first name and I I doubt it was the right name I I trying to remember what the name they use was like John or something hey this is John from Apple calling Johnny apple seed is that who it was maybe actually maybe that is what it's based on right so you ended up in this weird way where we we couldn't really talk to the people who were making any decisions even though obviously those decisions were being taken at a very high level because as you mentioned first Apple totally approved us and we celebrated that and and we used that to kick off the launch of our home whole thing right like we had held the launch of the service back to make sure that our app was in the App Store and and in the Play Store as well and then that Monday we did our big push y now we're here we're open and then it was also that Monday that Apple showed up and said oh actually uh no you can't be here unless you run all your payments through us and give us 30% of your revenues so the whole communication process was then very odd and of course I mean 5 seconds into it it got even weirder because first on that Monday I just went like what this is a mistake like apple already approved that this is a mistake mistakes happen all the time in the app I've still since learned how the App Store actually operates and of course mistakes happen all the time right app reviewers are hired um not on the basis of any technical or security skills they're hired on the basis of teamwork was one of the things I saw mentioned in the job openings and then they're put under a workload that's 50 to 100 apps to approve per day per day which means they can just uh they can just uh spend a few minutes at most on each app so it's completely predictable that such a system would produce just an endless stream of Errors right are these people actually on campus at Apple like are they full-time employees I don't actually know Apple is very secretive about that whole process and I think it's only in part through the power of lawsuits like the Epic VA Apple battle that has allowed us to peek under the covers here because Apple epic can subpoena um apple or request emails documents doing Discovery and and then you find out these weird things right where you go like oh this now so many things make more sense that Apple hires unqualified people to spend a few minutes per app of course that's going to produce these bizarre outcomes we're having and those were the interactions we had had prior to this right we had had base camp in the app store for at that point like 8 years or 9 years or something and we'd had these weird things in the process where sometimes we'd submit an update and all of a sudden we'd hear about some issue that been in the app for like four years and we go like what where's this coming from and then you just often times the approach then is you just submit it again you're going to get another app reviewer who's going to spend another couple of minutes on it and it's entirely possible that that person is going to come to a different conclusion and your issue is kind of going to go away so that's actually what we tried first like just like do you know what let's just do another update we have some more fixes we've been working on it for a couple of other days let's just submit one more update and then just see where it goes most likely it's just going to go away right so we do that and then the next day first of all that was also a little weird like how quickly we just got a response next day we got the response and the followup and the phone call that was essentially no this has been bubbled all the way to the top it's not going to happen so do do you think it bubbled up because of who you guys were and your guys' relationship with apple in the past or just because of the nature of the app um it's a good question actually in terms of how much it had bubbled had it bubbled all the way up to Phil Schiller at that point I'm not sure I think it had bubbled up somewhat right because we were raising these objections saying like what this doesn't make any sense we were already approved whatever it had just gone from like it was no longer the individual app reviewer that sat with it at that point right so they had bubbled up and said like no this this is uh this is just not going to happen and then I was like now I started actually get to get concerned it's been two years and millions of dollars developing this new system right we knew when we launched is that we had to be on the iPhone if you launch a major email service and you're not on the iPhone I mean it's like you aren't there as the stat I just quoted earlier reveals like 77% of our customers right have iPhones so you you need to be there otherwise you don't exist or or the business isn't even viable so anyway they communicate back and forth and and and eventually the conclusion is no this is final can't be in the App Store unless you give us 30% of your revenues and that's when I flip my lid on Twitter and just went like you flipped your lid that's so rare in terms of lip fittings I've had on Twitter like this is one of the all-time greatest I think yeah yeah because I was just I felt so ambushed yeah like as in do you know what we've been in the app store for so long right we knew what we thought we knew what both the written rules were and what the unwritten rules were and one of the unwritten rules for example was okay you can have your subscription service that's sort of a multiplatform service in the um app store if you just don't mention it right there was basically this gak order that like you can't link to your service you can't tell users about it but if you do those things right you can't link to your website yeah you exactly and you can't even mention a website it's even wilder than that the gag ORD is deep but we had complied with that yeah there were no mention in the app about any service it didn't link to anything like we had done all the same things that we had done with base camp so we thought that meant that we were safe and then to find out that all of a sudden the rules had actually changed right not the written rules like the written rules asle to point out they haven't changed since 2010 but no no the interpretation of those rules had changed and all of a sudden Apple had made a switch that we were unaware of that now they wanted more apps to pay right and you have no recourse or appeal process at that point you're at their Mercy oh yeah yeah yeah totally totally apple apple basically just said like this is final this is it so and then it came to the point that not only did they say this was it but it was followed up with the threat like either you do this or you're going to get kicked out of the store it was such heartbreak it really was as I said I've been an apple booster for 20 years right we had literally just months prior done this free um uh webinar whatever you want to call it with apple to to teach them about remote work and you're like and then you just turn around and burn us like this right and perhaps in in some ways this is sort of that privilege showing where you heard about this for years right like I've heard about developers having really bad experiences with the App Store review process all sorts of things that didn't make any sense and like man this isn't right and in fact I had i' gone to testify in front of that committee we've talked about the app store or the uh house engent subcommittee about six months earlier I they were looking into all these uh four major big Tech platforms and I'd spent some time talking about the App Store problem particularly around Apple but it was never sort of my problem right it was sort of this is a problem in the industry huh someone should really do something about that we're probably special like we have all these contacts with apple we've done all these things for apple apple when they launched the iMac Pro sent me a free iMac Pro because they were basically like oh we want to know what developers uh think about this stuff and you're a programmer and like uh essentially hey we'll send you a free computer and then we'll get some some good uh publicity or whatever so like we thought we had a special relationship and of course that in itself is a form of corruption but when you're in it you go like right and this was what we first thought we thought like you know what let's just reach out to some of our many Apple context and we did and then it was really weird it was total crickets yeah no one from with inside of Apple wanted to touch this thing with a 10ft pole because they kind of knew that like okay this has had bubbled all the way up and and eventually ended up in in Phil Schiller's lap which of course like no one inside of Apple is going to stick their neck out when Phil Schiller's on the other side the argument now in the end you guys were able to work something out where they weren't getting the 30% cut is that accurate um I think work something out is is probably the kindest euphemism you could possibly apply to how would you how would you say how would you say well what what happened was we kicked and screamed for two weeks straight and this came as the at the most inopportune time for Apple right they had a rock and a hard place The Rock was the Apple developer conference was kicking off like the following Monday the hard place was that Tim Cook had already been summoned to appear in front of the antitrust subcommittee uh I think like 3 weeks later right right so this was just the worst possible time for Apple to have this blow up in their face yeah and I think at first they thought hey we're Apple if if we tell developers to jump they jump they ask us how high right like they were completely taking in a back by this idea that a developer could say no right like is just a foreign concept to someone with Apple's amount of power so when we said no first they were like well I mean we'll just make them I mean we can threaten to kick them out of the App Store and we'll destroy their business overnight surely no one would be so dumb as to keep fighting once they know we can burn their shop down and and I think we were that dumb right I was that dumb I mean I literally said that on Twitter that like I'd rather burn the business down then let Apple get away with this let Apple take 30% of our business in in this regard so we don't already put the stakes out there and we' already put our red lines and this was just a terrible time for Apple to have this issue so they went like all right make it go away and the way they made it go away was essentially they retreated from the original position of saying oh we have to use the app payments and to the this this bizarre Twisted logic of you download the app and it doesn't work right that this became even though again wasn't at the time and has not since been introduced in the App Store guidelines this is not a thing that exists outside of Phil schill head as he made it up in an interview but that then became the governing sort of discussion point right that okay you have to do something to the app such that it does something when you downloaded it Phil Schiller can fa say face in in front of the tech crunch interview that he did and that'll be our compromise so we ended up doing this thing where we bolted on an additional service on the side of the thing we wanted to do which was a temporary email service with a generated email address that you could use for things like I don't know you're you're doing a yard sale and you don't want people to have your email address you can put it up temporary whatever it's it's dumb super weird yeah it it's weird it's totally weird right and it's totally confusing this is also the point I think is really important to make here is that like apple keeps saying like oh we're doing this for users no no no apple made us introduce an additional service that keeps luring new hey users into this weird path where they then complain like what do you mean it's temporary why can't I pick my email address why does it stop working after 2 weeks right we are constantly dealing with a stream of confused customers that Apple deliberately made us confuse yeah and this is the part that just really just blows my mind in all of this is like aren't we supposed to be on the same side here like hey we make cool software we put it on the iPhone customers get to use our cool software and they get to feel good about your iPhone why would we conspire to make it harder to understand why wouldn't we conspire to confuse people oh well this this is this is the strategy tax right so that's where we ended up today hey is in the uh App Store we've spent again um another year of development and another uh uh many hundreds of thousands of dollars developing and improving that app for Apple's Computing platform and it's not paying the 30% and and that's I don't want to call it good because it's not good right like we're still in this weird position where why can't we just make a great app like we're just trying to make a great email service for your product right why can't we just do that and that continues to infuriate me but at least we're not sort of out of business so it's been almost a year and I imagine there hasn't been communication back and forth between you guys and apple but have you contemplated like maybe taking away the temporary email thing or do you know for sure if you remove that you'll be booted again from the App Store I think at this time if we remove that we probably would be booted for the App Store Apple would love to have an excuse to boot us from the App Store but because we've been a pain in the ever since I think perhaps I think perh perhaps Phil Schiller and the rest of the team at Apple thought like all right if we'll let them get away with this wink wink Notch Notch they'll shut up about it right right right which is a profound misunderstanding of how I uh process my relationship with the world which is no absolutely not right like this infuriated me to no end and put me on essentially this path of like do you know what we got to do something that's not just a a buy off to us right like it can't just be like apple bought us off with this weird compromise we got to fix this at the root core and that was when then put me on the um on the path to start providing testimony in ton of different jurisdictions I've testified at a bunch of different US states we've submitted documentation to to EU member states uh talk to the EU talk to a bunch of regulators and legislators who can actually do something about the root cause issuing this is clearly something that's thankfully caught the interest of regulators and legislators around the world and I am showing up to all of that so I'm sure Apple would love to just shut me up with that but we're kind of like in a stalemate on the Apple question in that regard as long as we don't screw with how things are like I'd be surprised if Apple suddenly goes up like all right let's let's smack these people down it would just look terribly right like we're like we're retaliating against you right so my question for you then is going to be what is the solution and you know Apple has been touting the security of why the App Store is the way it is and why it's closed and now recently we've had developers and people tweeting all these scam apps that have made it through you tweeted one even this morning again and so it the picture is becoming a little clear that the security argument is not holding the same water as it maybe had in the past and not to mention their other major operating system Mac OS allows users to install apps from third party developers directly outside of the App Store so do you feel like the solution is that that user should be able to install apps from developers directly not needing the app store or the solution that epic is probably going to be pushing for in their case coming soon of multiple app stores on the iPhone I think if you pay $1400 for a new pocket computer you should be able to install the software you want to install so that's sort of my fundamental stance that's what I want when I buy a a new iPhone I want to be able to install the software that I'm interested in installing not just the software that aie is Apple or that Apple thinks is in their interest for business model reasons or otherwise to have on their store so I think that ultimately is the solution and as you say apple already has the answer the Mac works like this I've not had any issues with the MAC at all for both base camp and hey we distribute native software for the mac and we don't go through the app store because we don't want to pay 30% and we don't need to downloading software off the internet to to install on your Mac is great it totally works right and in fact in many ways it's even better as these latest scams have revealed that when Apple goes out and say no no no no our App Store with 2 million apps is Totally Secure we've reviewed everything and like there are no scams you totally let your guards down right right and then we find out well oh every app Reviewer is first of all hired without any qualifications for the work that they're supposed to be doing and their task with reviewing 50 to 100 apps a day how could that system ever produce anything where you end up with 2 million apps that are all thoroughly reviewed and aren't scams and so on like that's an impossibility yeah and you would think they would at least check is this app going to charge users $10 a week as opposed to a month or year that that's the thing that really just syncs Apple entire argument right like the whole argument is like payments have to go through us such that we don't have scams and then we just have this Avalanche of Revelations coming out about all the games that are using Apple's own payment system and even worse because in these cases Apple are literally complicit custa who's one of the people who've been revealing a lot of these scams uh showed a scam I think it was last week that had grossed $5 million yeah going through Apple's inapp payment system which means that Apple has made what is that $2 million or something off that scam like they're literally complicit with the scammers because they use the inapp payment system that Apple operates and therefore takes a cut from so apple is in many ways worse off when it comes to uh their reputation and when it comes to protecting it from scams and putting users in the right frame of mind than uh on the Mac than they are on the iOS platform which is just truly bizarre right and it also completely undermines this idea that like you can't technically make a safe platform unless you manually review every app for 2 minutes by people who are not qualified in any way shape or form to do so like that that's the bulwark against malware and virus and so on right I don't know how long you've been using the Mac but as we just talked about I've been using the Mac for 20 years do am I constantly paranoid about viruses no am I constantly paranoid about malware no what I do do is some due diligence right like I don't go to super sketchy sites and download Super sketchy software and run it on my computer right and I was I've been using Mac since 2004 so a few years after you I started and like you said I have not had those issues and now I'm not defending Apple St in the App Store but I do find that on the Mac there will be users friends and family that I know that don't download Shady software but somehow do get malware on their Mac whether it's one of those weird things where it'll automatically go to Bing search engine because Chrome something you know it's not perfect you can install malware even not intending even not going to Shady websites I think that I we at least just need to acknowledge the fact that Apple's primary argument here that the App Store with its 2 million apps is like this totally safe and secure store it's a fantasy yeah it's not and it has to be a fantasy because as we have gotten revealed this idea that like unqualified app reviewers can spend a few minutes reviewing an app and like that's enough to keep everything out it's just nonsense did you get that information from someone within apple or this was revealed as part of the uh epic VA Apple uh lawsuit um got so this this is one of these I I'm sure why Apple is is not keen for this lawsuit either right because during Discovery you get to say like hey Apple give me all your internal emails about absor deliberations this is also where that Smoking Gun came from where Apple's own internal security team raises issue with the absor and essentially says like we're trying to defend against scammers with what was the quote like a butter knife or something right like literally we cannot do the things we're saying we're doing we're in many ways deceiving the public about the security that the App Store is offering right like what we're offering is security theater and what we're selling is actual security and those two things are not the same right again back to the solution if Apple were to allow iPhone and iPad users to install software directly from developer website like you can on the Mac do you think that that fixes a majority of what is dysfunctional about apple right now yes it fixes what's dysfunctional about the App Store being used as this toll booth for access to the iPhone and it fixes it in in many ways right in one way because that's what we would do that's what I would do sure if I could just I'm not looking for Apple to give me help with marketing I mean first of all that that's often an argument that's being trotted out no no no you're not just paying to be in the app store for bandwidth or whatever or even the security theater it's not just that you're paying for you're paying because Apple might feature you right like this is where you find your customers you know what our customers don't find us there right they find us because we have our own brand yeah most developers don't benefit from some kind of apple push more often it's podcasts like this one you know talking about independent developers making small apps yes and Not only would it sort of address that right it would actually make things better for customers one of the huge frustrations a lot of uh Services have on the app store is that they they don't sort of have a direct relationship with their customers so if their customers for example need a discount or need a refund they can't help yeah they're going to go like you got to talk to Apple like technically you're not even our customer you're Apple's customer Apple then buys lenses from us that they resell to you and then you got to go to them if you have any issues I've heard from several C companies who will actually rather than do that they'll just cut the customer a check wow like they never got the money they can't recoup the money but the hassle that it is to process this is so bad that it's simply easier and better for their reputation to essentially say to the customer okay fine you're going to get your money back even if that's like not how it's supposed to work because rightfully so when someone goes to download the hay app do they think they're doing business with apple no they think they're doing business with us of course they are right like it's our app and and and so on and so forth so they think like hey if if if I want a refund or if I think I'm eligible for a discount or something that I should go talk to the hey people right they don't think like I should go talk to the Apple people um but that's how the system works right now so I think actually in in all the ways this would be better even for Apple because ultimately Apple needs to have the iPhone to have the best user experience and what we currently have is a really bad user experience the Mac experience in comparison is far better that's where the problem with the strategy tax comes in right like we make so much money Apple Mak so much money of taking a 30% haircut of all these apps that it's very difficult for them to understand what that paycheck depends on them not understanding well Tim Cook has said he will be resoning probably in the next 10 years are you saying that you'll put your hat in the ring to fix this the the the funny thing is here is like do you know what there are some problems in this world that are very difficult that we're all like oh these are very difficult problems like what is the solution yeah the solution is right here right in front of Apple this is not difficult on neither a technical or philosophical level apple is literally doing it right now with this other great platform called the Mac right so it's not like they don't even have any experience expence here or they don't know how that might go um if Apple simply followed their own example they could get out from all under this but what I do think is interesting is that Apple has a double-edged sword in their personnel ranks which is that a lot of people at Apple has been with Apple for a very long time and they remember a time where Apple were a scrappy little almost out of business company and that image is still in their head in terms of their grievances right like we some of these quotes that have come out of apple where they're like developers just simply owe us right like hey do you not realize that 20 years have passed you're not almost out of business you're literally the most valuable business in the world you are you just returned $30 billion to investors in a single quarter like the you're setting all the high water marks of like capitalism on the alltime records right you're not a scrappy little startup anymore you have to wake up and realize the kind of company you are today and if you do I think some of these would things would change too so some of it I think unfortunately perhaps has to come along or will come along with Personnel change right when did Apple admit that the scissor keyboard was a failure that could not be fixed after Johnny I left in in some ways as brilliant as that man is and and so much of what I like about Apple Hardware comes from the Brilliance of him he was the impediment for them to accept the mistake they had made with their Computing platforms that this what was it a millimeter I think it was um that you gain between the scissor and the the butterfly that that millimeter was so important to him that he would rather have a bunch of broken computers than give up that argument and it took J I getting out of Apple for them to okay do you know what we're going to eat the the millimeter did anyone complain about the millimeter come back right like did anyone go my my MacBook is a millimeter thicker I am not buying this garbage right right no they all went like Hallelujah when I push the keys the characters appear on the screen without being doubled yeah this is amazing right so I think that we've also seen some of this already Phil Schiller shortly after this stuff last summer become an apple fellow yeah exactly that that he was giving up his VP title he was going to move to an Apple fellow which was sort of much the same trajectory that Johnny I first follow right like first you give up some of your responsibilities so you can weave a story of continuity with with shareholders and so on and then slowly you Fade Out I I do think that there is a hope that when Phil Schiller no longer has this personal beef sitting in the way of Apple doing the right thing Apple will do the right thing and I don't think it's even to say the app store has to goes away when I talk to Paul koses you know the Mac has both you have the App Store you have independent developers selling and me as a user I'm glad that I get the choice there are times where there is a benefit to buying in the App Store whether it's because I I just want to know I'll be able to install that app on a future Mac or maybe it's a developer that doesn't have the infrastructure and resource to distribute their app personally on their own personal website and so it can be mutually beneficial and it's not to say that no one's ever going to use the app store again the majority will continue to use the app store right this is what gets me about this that apple is so insecure about their own offering that they don't even dare giving consumers and developers a choice because they fear they will pick something else and some of them will right will pick something else but you know what if I was starting out tomorrow I was like a single person making a new app I'd probably go with the App Store it's just easier they deal with taxes they deal with all sorts of stuff it's worth the 30% at the very low end which is now 15% if you are in the low end exactly even better like until you are starting to to make more money and have a larger staff you can just go like you know what no brainer totally worth it the same thing as a consumer do you know what I actually wish that the App Store would be more restrictive some of the scams that custa in particular have une Earth the latest one I saw this morning with this just truly bizarre uh game that was rated for 4 year olds with some Dominatrix and a dog man you just go like in the icon what I don't even want I don't want my kids to see this can I get a more restrictive App Store like rather than having the App Store be the only gateway to the iPhone just that Apple feels like well we need to have 2 million apps in it could the App Store just have like I don't know a 100,000 apps in it and they were all like carefully vetted like very high quality and there wouldn't be these Monopoly issues because Apple could always just say like hey you can just distribute your stuff directly right right so I think on both ends it would be such a benefit and apple would get out of this pickle um in essentially this impossible mission that they've given themselves right like that they can adequately uh curate 2 million apps that's just not a thing you can do but they have to do it because they painted themselves into this corner but the thing that gives me hope is that this corner there's a door Apple can open that door at any time of their choosing and say okay do you know what fine we'll make the iPhone work like the Mac we'll have our curated app store and it won't have these weird four-year-old games with Dominatrix and Dogman and all this other stuff because we'll be even more stringent and instead of our app reviewers being both unqualified and overworked will'll hire a more qualified Workforce and we'll have them review I don't know 10 apps a day right so that they can actually spend careful time reviewing these things and we'll have certain standards and everything is going to be better that's a good point and on that note David thank you so much for coming on the show listeners can find you at dhh on Twitter hey.com is your new email service awesome would you point anyone else to any of your work I have started writing in long form at world. he.com dhh I'm trying to wean myself off some of this uh Twitter stuff and I do maybe in the future I'd love to talk to you about social media and you know going back to web 1.0 because that is a whole another conversation to be had so anytime David thank you again so much I appreciate you coming on thanks for having me on don't forget you can now support the show at patreon.com inssider and get an adree feed with all our episodes and if you haven't yet we would greatly appreciate a five-star rating and review and apple podcast that'll also really help out the show don't forget to check out homid Insider that comes out every Monday where we talk about the latest Smart Home and homekit news and devices and the Apple Insider daily podcast get the Top Apple headlines in just a few minutes thanks for joining us we'll catch you next timewelcome to the Apple Insider podcast this is your host Steven roblas and joining me today we have a very special guest David hinam Hansen he's known as dhh on Twitter he's the creator of the Ruby on Rails framework co-founder and CTO of base camp and hey.com and if that wasn't enough also a race car driver apparently David thanks for joining me on the show thanks for having me you know I thought we should get the most controversial question out of the way upfront and so my question is after having driven 24 hours at lemons what did you think of the movie Ford V Ferrari I thought it was beautifully done and actually much better than I feared it would be most movies about racing are not only boring but bad and this one wasn't even if it wasn't particularly realistic it's one of those things for example how they zoom in on um two racing drivers are coming up next to each other and one of them then does this dramatic downshift right that never ever happens it never has happened that's just not how cars work right um if you're a race car driver you're already driving in the gear you're supposed to be in there's not this thing where you drive up next to each other but other than that I thought it was pretty good okay I mean yeah having no information on that world personally it was it was a fun movie to watch and based on a true story it was pretty compelling so what what made you get into that just you want to go fast I had all always liked uh racing games so I've long I mean since I was I I don't know four years old or 5 years old whenever I tried my first video games been into video games and racing games was one of my favorite genres but I didn't get my driver's license until I was 25 and I thought I kind of had to make up for lost time so I got my driver's license at 25 sat in my first race car at 27 and thought gez this is good I want to do this some more and it reminded me frankly a lot about programming a lot about systems design driving a race car is very much an optimization problem you're driving around in a circle mhm I mean there are some corners but you keep getting the results you keep getting the Benchmark oh this lap was 1 minute 34 seconds and 210 and you go like well let's try something else let's try to take this corner slightly differently and you get instant feedback and that feedback loop is really intoxicating and addictive in much the same way that I've found programming to be interesting so we're going to get into some topics that you've been historically pretty vocal about on Twitter and as though you were preparing to record the show I saw a flurry of tweets right before we hopped on the call so before we get into those topics I wanted to ask obviously you're a technology guy you've created Ruby on Rails co-founder of base camp and hey but when it comes to technology daytoday are you an Apple guy do you kind of flow between operating systems or what do you actually prefer to use dayto day I am Apple through and through from 2000 one I think I got my first um one of those white clamshell MacBooks ey books yeah yeah the iBook the iBook and from that moment forward uh the Mac has been my primary operating system and computer I've dabbled in others I mean I just actually when was that last year just before Apple finally admitted the feat with the butterfly keyboards and I was just so frustrated by my own uh MacBook being broken again dipped my feet into a Windows machine and checked that out and hey the keyboard worked and was actually great but I wasn't a huge fan of windows so it was a relief when Apple finally said okay okay we can't fix this that we had broken for four years no matter how many people have told us and now we're going to put out some back to the future version of our laptops and put some scissor keyboards in to work again so the Mac in many ways and this is what's been so frustrating about particularly the last let's say year of of my relationship with apple I mean I'm saying that as though it's a two-way street it's mainly a one-way Street like I have a relationship with apple apple doesn't really have a relationship with me but what's been so frustrating is that I've literally spent 20 years not just being a Apple user but an apple evangelist yeah an apple promoter in I think 2004 Jason freed my business partner and I recorded pro bono an advertisement frapple that they featured on their website it's still still on YouTube it's it's very cringeworthy you have 2004 me going on and on about how important the Mac is right to my creative uh Endeavors and then as late as when the um Corona pandemic broke out I think it was in maybe May or something like this um we got a call from someone inside of Apple we'd been friendly with for a while said like hey um remote work is new to us at Apple wow do you mind coming and talking about this I mean you wrote Guys wrote a book back in 2013 called remote off is not required maybe you can give us some pointers and we're like awesome sure yes again totally pro bono we show up do a session for 250 Apple employees just because like hey apple is an important part of my story as a technology user as a programmer and to be able to give back to that um felt great yeah it's it's felt less great I'd say after than what happened last summer but I still I try to be able to separate Apple the monopolist Apple the policy abuser from Apple the producer of technology I mean that's getting harder and harder but I think it is still possible and I can still Marvel for example at the M1 chip and what they've been able to do with speed and uh power consumption and all these other things and go like you know what that's legitimately awesome technology yeah that's great and we should applaud that and we should celebrate it and I can do that and and chew gum and walk at the same time and also go like hey we have some serious problems here with the most valuable richest most profitable company in the world they have an amount of power now and they're exercising in ways that are really just unfortunate and and we should talk about that we should do something about that yeah and that's what I wanted to establish because as we get into criticisms of their policies and what they've been doing recently you know you are a user it's not like never used a Mac or mainly Windows user you're an Apple guy I've seen you tweet love for the iPhone 12 mini as something that you really enjoy using yes and so I'd like to start a little bit about what Apple might be doing right and as you're saying hardware-wise development their products great there I'm curious what you think about their strides in privacy Apple is very vocal about privacy Tim Cook's speaking about it not only at Apple events but even to the press and in interviews iOS 14.5 is out with the apps have to surface that ad tracking opt-in screen Safari on Mac has increased its privacy tools do you believe that apple is making the correct strides at least when it comes to privacy and users data yes but and I'll explain the but yeah the butt is that I think I used to believe that this was just purely the good intentions of Apple that this was just something they inherently and deeply cared about and I think there's some of that and I think there's definitely people inside of Apple who do that right but I think on an overall scale like why are they doing this in a way that others aren't is because their business model aligns with it unfortunately it aligns less with it now than it used to do when Apple was a company that derived the vast majority of its revenue and profits from selling Hardware it was a complete no-brainer for them to be 100% in the Privacy court right now that they're moving into services and that's become a more and more important part of the business I think we're starting to see in some ways where this thing sort of cracks that Apple for example now sells advertisement and in fact that they'll sell targeted advertisement you know what that's not great I I wish that Apple would be able to take the historic stronger stance on this and simply say like that's just we're not going to derive revenue from advertisement like that's not the kind of company we're going to be and by saying no to that we get to say yes without any butts to the Privacy angle which in my opinion is both more worthy of a cause and I also believe ultimately Better Business uh Apple stands on privacy is one of those key reasons why I remain despite it all an iPhone user and I think it's one of those things where you can see sort of the outlines right that companies respond to the incentives that they have and apple the pure hardware company making money on an ever expanding iPhone Market responds to those incentives really well the Apple company that now is moving into services and making that never more important part of their portfolio and start selling ads and and track ads and so forth it becomes harder because the incentives aren't a straight but still I mean if we compare them to Google or Facebook or Amazon I mean they're leagues ahead when it comes to basic privacy protections and that's good and we should celebrate it okay so you've talked about Monopoly a lot and you you've tweeted and support of some of the stuff that the US House committee is doing the house antitrust subcommittee the chairman is David sisini and you know he's been after Amazon Apple Google and Facebook saying monopolies must end and so I want to explore this idea of Monopoly and when you think of those four big companies Google I think it is pretty natural to see there's a monopoly on search maybe even independent Video Creator Platforms in YouTube Amazon with online shopping Facebook in the social media space aside like the App Store on the iPhone is that the Monopoly or when you think of Apple and monop what area of the industry do you feel like they have Monopoly control over over the most important pocket Computing platform in the US in December of 2020 Apple was responsible for I think 65% of all pocket computers or as we like to call them smartphones in the US and the other seller was was Google's operating system there were many more sort of vendors there there Samsung and LG and Sony and so forth but if we just take in terms of operating system which is really where the power comes from right apple is the dominant platform and even that 65% number does not reveal the extent of their power so as we found with hey.com our new email service that had um let's just say a skirmish or perhaps even a fight for its survival with apple last year um to this day something like 77% of our paying customers are iPhone users MH right so the amount of Market power that Apple has through the iPhone is Extreme in the US now things are differently internationally right and in some areas like uh Europe like they have nowhere near the same amount of power they still have a lot of power if you go to India for example they have much less power if you go to bunch of other areas there's much less power but in the US which is what the house antitrust subcommittee is about where our business is based this is really what we're talking about Apple's power is dominant so the problem with that power is is sort of um uh interesting like monopolies in and of themselves don't have to be a problem right you have a dominant market share but you're not abusing it you're just like Hey we're the thing that most people pick to use and you can go okay that's something to have a watchful eye on but there isn't necessarily an offense the offense comes in when you take that Monopoly and then use it in abusive ways and that's where the App Store comes in that Apple has this dominant platform and then they say okay if we're just talking about the App Store problem there's only one path to get software onto your pocket computer it's through the App Store who controls the App Store we do who sets the rules for the App Store we do what are those guidelines based on they're based on what we want so it gives them this outsized power to do these really abusive things like saying do you know what um 177% of app developers should just like pay for the whole thing and you go like wait why um because they sell digital goods and services and we believe that's the easiest loot to capture and and you go like but but what about Uber what about GrubHub what about some of these other no no no they can just they can process their own payments they can take the credit cards and then you go like but what about Facebook they they make billions of dollars off this right how many resources does Facebook use out of the App Store um system and in terms of bandwidth in terms of everything right like it's got to be astronomical how much does Facebook pay for all of that uh a $99 developer license fee right right and then I go like oh but I want to sell a um an email service if I make uh a million bucks on that or just over a milli a million1 how much do you have to pay for that oh 300,000 yeah a year what and could like you know the the hey.com debacle you know we we reported on that and I really want to dive into that in a moment kind of in the det details of of how those interactions went with apple but when it comes to Monopoly or you are saying that Apple has a monopoly on its product no I'm saying that in the US right again we have to distinguish like right because internationally this is not the case internationally iPhone is not predominant platform right in the US the iPhone is the predominant platform in sort of segments of the market that's the other thing right like iPhone or the smartphone market or the poet computer Market whatever you want to call it is also stratisfied right and the Lion Share of the economic activity that happens through Commerce on this general computing platform happens on the iPhone people who buy iPhone spend money basically right exactly they spend way more I saw I I don't know how out of date these numbers are but I thought I saw at one point that the absor process something like four times as much as the Play Store did right so that they had 75% of of the economic activity and that's the part that gives it the problem right but is that Apple's problem because they make a product that people who spend more money choose to use their devices right that's exactly what we need to establish is that like in and of itself having a popular product is not a problem right the problem is if you take that market position that dominant Market position and you then start abusing it in certain ways right starting to have discriminatory pricing um as Apple does with like hey you have to pay you don't have to pay if they start using that Monopoly for tying for example oh we see that music streaming has become popular we totally overslept on that and thought it wasn't going to take off and now we're like 4 years late so we're going to launch a me too service like apple music streaming and to make it competitive with something like Spotify that already um done very well in this area we're going to put them at a price disadvantage we're going to Advantage and tie our own product into this Monopoly platform we have that's when the problems start arising which is exactly what the house antitrust subcommittee found they published a 450 page report report uh a few months ago apple is like 120 of those pages where they just go in depth with all the issues with their Monopoly power not just that there is Monopoly power right like the report is not afraid of saying hey Apple has Monopoly power second just here are all the ways in which Apple uses that Monopoly power in ways that are Market distorting MH and here's the ways for example where we have internal Apple employees saying things like yeah the App Store review process is is essentially a front for competitive actions where like well you get to to pay you don't get to pay you get to stay you don't get to stay according to not sort of some higher abstract ideal but just what makes sense for Apple's business right at the time and again it's those Revelations where you have to look at those and say like do you know what that's the problem so let's talk about the app store cuz we're here last year you launched hey.com the email service and it was originally approved for the App Store and then after a minor update it was was rejected because users had to go and sign up for the service outside of the app and apple was arguing that your app doesn't do anything when people open it and you can't have them pay for it elsewhere and force them to sign in to use the service when we reported on it I talked about it on this podcast there were cases that that was blatantly a contradiction of terms when you look at something like Netflix which which had the exact same business model right where you could not sign up within the app you couldn't do anything else with that you had to pay for Netflix you still do you still have to pay for Netflix outside and then sign in so when that Fiasco was happening did you guys have any kind of recourse to talk to Apple directly or was it all through secondary channels or how did that process work out yeah it it's it's funny you mention this contradiction in terms because it became such a joke that someone literally made the website you download the app and it doesn't work.com right right um and that all came from a quote that Phil Schiller gave to gave in an interview with TechCrunch right like he was trying to justify it in the Press of of why why were they picking on hey and then he came up with this new arbitrary standard that is not described anywhere in the App Store guidelines right which just like shooting from the hip in an interview oh uh it's because they download the app and it doesn't work right and then someone compiled this thing you you mentioned Netflix there's people like GitHub on there Google Docs fast mail which is ironic because it is also an email service I'll put this link in the show notes because the website is still it it's amazing there's even apps by Apple on there like the App Store Connect app um where you're just downloading it's just a login form you have to sign up somewhere else yeah so obviously that whole argument was complete bull right but we never got to hear that from Phil Schiller because the way the App Store process works is in itself a form of abuse the only way you get to talk to Apple is you submit your app to for review and then Apple has this internal Communication System around the the review process but for example if they then close it and say like you're denied these things just live in apple system you don't get to take it out you don't get to take the information with you you can't review your your past Archive of of communication and then what Apple does is this really Sly thing where they move all the controversial discussions into phone calls because phone calls have no records which is really convenient when you're discussing things that might one day appear in a lawsuit that's exactly what happened to us that once we hit the dead end on the internal Communication System Apple switched to just calling us it was always this um you could only get the first name and I I doubt it was the right name I I trying to remember what the name they use was like John or something hey this is John from Apple calling Johnny apple seed is that who it was maybe actually maybe that is what it's based on right so you ended up in this weird way where we we couldn't really talk to the people who were making any decisions even though obviously those decisions were being taken at a very high level because as you mentioned first Apple totally approved us and we celebrated that and and we used that to kick off the launch of our home whole thing right like we had held the launch of the service back to make sure that our app was in the App Store and and in the Play Store as well and then that Monday we did our big push y now we're here we're open and then it was also that Monday that Apple showed up and said oh actually uh no you can't be here unless you run all your payments through us and give us 30% of your revenues so the whole communication process was then very odd and of course I mean 5 seconds into it it got even weirder because first on that Monday I just went like what this is a mistake like apple already approved that this is a mistake mistakes happen all the time in the app I've still since learned how the App Store actually operates and of course mistakes happen all the time right app reviewers are hired um not on the basis of any technical or security skills they're hired on the basis of teamwork was one of the things I saw mentioned in the job openings and then they're put under a workload that's 50 to 100 apps to approve per day per day which means they can just uh they can just uh spend a few minutes at most on each app so it's completely predictable that such a system would produce just an endless stream of Errors right are these people actually on campus at Apple like are they full-time employees I don't actually know Apple is very secretive about that whole process and I think it's only in part through the power of lawsuits like the Epic VA Apple battle that has allowed us to peek under the covers here because Apple epic can subpoena um apple or request emails documents doing Discovery and and then you find out these weird things right where you go like oh this now so many things make more sense that Apple hires unqualified people to spend a few minutes per app of course that's going to produce these bizarre outcomes we're having and those were the interactions we had had prior to this right we had had base camp in the app store for at that point like 8 years or 9 years or something and we'd had these weird things in the process where sometimes we'd submit an update and all of a sudden we'd hear about some issue that been in the app for like four years and we go like what where's this coming from and then you just often times the approach then is you just submit it again you're going to get another app reviewer who's going to spend another couple of minutes on it and it's entirely possible that that person is going to come to a different conclusion and your issue is kind of going to go away so that's actually what we tried first like just like do you know what let's just do another update we have some more fixes we've been working on it for a couple of other days let's just submit one more update and then just see where it goes most likely it's just going to go away right so we do that and then the next day first of all that was also a little weird like how quickly we just got a response next day we got the response and the followup and the phone call that was essentially no this has been bubbled all the way to the top it's not going to happen so do do you think it bubbled up because of who you guys were and your guys' relationship with apple in the past or just because of the nature of the app um it's a good question actually in terms of how much it had bubbled had it bubbled all the way up to Phil Schiller at that point I'm not sure I think it had bubbled up somewhat right because we were raising these objections saying like what this doesn't make any sense we were already approved whatever it had just gone from like it was no longer the individual app reviewer that sat with it at that point right so they had bubbled up and said like no this this is uh this is just not going to happen and then I was like now I started actually get to get concerned it's been two years and millions of dollars developing this new system right we knew when we launched is that we had to be on the iPhone if you launch a major email service and you're not on the iPhone I mean it's like you aren't there as the stat I just quoted earlier reveals like 77% of our customers right have iPhones so you you need to be there otherwise you don't exist or or the business isn't even viable so anyway they communicate back and forth and and and eventually the conclusion is no this is final can't be in the App Store unless you give us 30% of your revenues and that's when I flip my lid on Twitter and just went like you flipped your lid that's so rare in terms of lip fittings I've had on Twitter like this is one of the all-time greatest I think yeah yeah because I was just I felt so ambushed yeah like as in do you know what we've been in the app store for so long right we knew what we thought we knew what both the written rules were and what the unwritten rules were and one of the unwritten rules for example was okay you can have your subscription service that's sort of a multiplatform service in the um app store if you just don't mention it right there was basically this gak order that like you can't link to your service you can't tell users about it but if you do those things right you can't link to your website yeah you exactly and you can't even mention a website it's even wilder than that the gag ORD is deep but we had complied with that yeah there were no mention in the app about any service it didn't link to anything like we had done all the same things that we had done with base camp so we thought that meant that we were safe and then to find out that all of a sudden the rules had actually changed right not the written rules like the written rules asle to point out they haven't changed since 2010 but no no the interpretation of those rules had changed and all of a sudden Apple had made a switch that we were unaware of that now they wanted more apps to pay right and you have no recourse or appeal process at that point you're at their Mercy oh yeah yeah yeah totally totally apple apple basically just said like this is final this is it so and then it came to the point that not only did they say this was it but it was followed up with the threat like either you do this or you're going to get kicked out of the store it was such heartbreak it really was as I said I've been an apple booster for 20 years right we had literally just months prior done this free um uh webinar whatever you want to call it with apple to to teach them about remote work and you're like and then you just turn around and burn us like this right and perhaps in in some ways this is sort of that privilege showing where you heard about this for years right like I've heard about developers having really bad experiences with the App Store review process all sorts of things that didn't make any sense and like man this isn't right and in fact I had i' gone to testify in front of that committee we've talked about the app store or the uh house engent subcommittee about six months earlier I they were looking into all these uh four major big Tech platforms and I'd spent some time talking about the App Store problem particularly around Apple but it was never sort of my problem right it was sort of this is a problem in the industry huh someone should really do something about that we're probably special like we have all these contacts with apple we've done all these things for apple apple when they launched the iMac Pro sent me a free iMac Pro because they were basically like oh we want to know what developers uh think about this stuff and you're a programmer and like uh essentially hey we'll send you a free computer and then we'll get some some good uh publicity or whatever so like we thought we had a special relationship and of course that in itself is a form of corruption but when you're in it you go like right and this was what we first thought we thought like you know what let's just reach out to some of our many Apple context and we did and then it was really weird it was total crickets yeah no one from with inside of Apple wanted to touch this thing with a 10ft pole because they kind of knew that like okay this has had bubbled all the way up and and eventually ended up in in Phil Schiller's lap which of course like no one inside of Apple is going to stick their neck out when Phil Schiller's on the other side the argument now in the end you guys were able to work something out where they weren't getting the 30% cut is that accurate um I think work something out is is probably the kindest euphemism you could possibly apply to how would you how would you say how would you say well what what happened was we kicked and screamed for two weeks straight and this came as the at the most inopportune time for Apple right they had a rock and a hard place The Rock was the Apple developer conference was kicking off like the following Monday the hard place was that Tim Cook had already been summoned to appear in front of the antitrust subcommittee uh I think like 3 weeks later right right so this was just the worst possible time for Apple to have this blow up in their face yeah and I think at first they thought hey we're Apple if if we tell developers to jump they jump they ask us how high right like they were completely taking in a back by this idea that a developer could say no right like is just a foreign concept to someone with Apple's amount of power so when we said no first they were like well I mean we'll just make them I mean we can threaten to kick them out of the App Store and we'll destroy their business overnight surely no one would be so dumb as to keep fighting once they know we can burn their shop down and and I think we were that dumb right I was that dumb I mean I literally said that on Twitter that like I'd rather burn the business down then let Apple get away with this let Apple take 30% of our business in in this regard so we don't already put the stakes out there and we' already put our red lines and this was just a terrible time for Apple to have this issue so they went like all right make it go away and the way they made it go away was essentially they retreated from the original position of saying oh we have to use the app payments and to the this this bizarre Twisted logic of you download the app and it doesn't work right that this became even though again wasn't at the time and has not since been introduced in the App Store guidelines this is not a thing that exists outside of Phil schill head as he made it up in an interview but that then became the governing sort of discussion point right that okay you have to do something to the app such that it does something when you downloaded it Phil Schiller can fa say face in in front of the tech crunch interview that he did and that'll be our compromise so we ended up doing this thing where we bolted on an additional service on the side of the thing we wanted to do which was a temporary email service with a generated email address that you could use for things like I don't know you're you're doing a yard sale and you don't want people to have your email address you can put it up temporary whatever it's it's dumb super weird yeah it it's weird it's totally weird right and it's totally confusing this is also the point I think is really important to make here is that like apple keeps saying like oh we're doing this for users no no no apple made us introduce an additional service that keeps luring new hey users into this weird path where they then complain like what do you mean it's temporary why can't I pick my email address why does it stop working after 2 weeks right we are constantly dealing with a stream of confused customers that Apple deliberately made us confuse yeah and this is the part that just really just blows my mind in all of this is like aren't we supposed to be on the same side here like hey we make cool software we put it on the iPhone customers get to use our cool software and they get to feel good about your iPhone why would we conspire to make it harder to understand why wouldn't we conspire to confuse people oh well this this is this is the strategy tax right so that's where we ended up today hey is in the uh App Store we've spent again um another year of development and another uh uh many hundreds of thousands of dollars developing and improving that app for Apple's Computing platform and it's not paying the 30% and and that's I don't want to call it good because it's not good right like we're still in this weird position where why can't we just make a great app like we're just trying to make a great email service for your product right why can't we just do that and that continues to infuriate me but at least we're not sort of out of business so it's been almost a year and I imagine there hasn't been communication back and forth between you guys and apple but have you contemplated like maybe taking away the temporary email thing or do you know for sure if you remove that you'll be booted again from the App Store I think at this time if we remove that we probably would be booted for the App Store Apple would love to have an excuse to boot us from the App Store but because we've been a pain in the ever since I think perhaps I think perh perhaps Phil Schiller and the rest of the team at Apple thought like all right if we'll let them get away with this wink wink Notch Notch they'll shut up about it right right right which is a profound misunderstanding of how I uh process my relationship with the world which is no absolutely not right like this infuriated me to no end and put me on essentially this path of like do you know what we got to do something that's not just a a buy off to us right like it can't just be like apple bought us off with this weird compromise we got to fix this at the root core and that was when then put me on the um on the path to start providing testimony in ton of different jurisdictions I've testified at a bunch of different US states we've submitted documentation to to EU member states uh talk to the EU talk to a bunch of regulators and legislators who can actually do something about the root cause issuing this is clearly something that's thankfully caught the interest of regulators and legislators around the world and I am showing up to all of that so I'm sure Apple would love to just shut me up with that but we're kind of like in a stalemate on the Apple question in that regard as long as we don't screw with how things are like I'd be surprised if Apple suddenly goes up like all right let's let's smack these people down it would just look terribly right like we're like we're retaliating against you right so my question for you then is going to be what is the solution and you know Apple has been touting the security of why the App Store is the way it is and why it's closed and now recently we've had developers and people tweeting all these scam apps that have made it through you tweeted one even this morning again and so it the picture is becoming a little clear that the security argument is not holding the same water as it maybe had in the past and not to mention their other major operating system Mac OS allows users to install apps from third party developers directly outside of the App Store so do you feel like the solution is that that user should be able to install apps from developers directly not needing the app store or the solution that epic is probably going to be pushing for in their case coming soon of multiple app stores on the iPhone I think if you pay $1400 for a new pocket computer you should be able to install the software you want to install so that's sort of my fundamental stance that's what I want when I buy a a new iPhone I want to be able to install the software that I'm interested in installing not just the software that aie is Apple or that Apple thinks is in their interest for business model reasons or otherwise to have on their store so I think that ultimately is the solution and as you say apple already has the answer the Mac works like this I've not had any issues with the MAC at all for both base camp and hey we distribute native software for the mac and we don't go through the app store because we don't want to pay 30% and we don't need to downloading software off the internet to to install on your Mac is great it totally works right and in fact in many ways it's even better as these latest scams have revealed that when Apple goes out and say no no no no our App Store with 2 million apps is Totally Secure we've reviewed everything and like there are no scams you totally let your guards down right right and then we find out well oh every app Reviewer is first of all hired without any qualifications for the work that they're supposed to be doing and their task with reviewing 50 to 100 apps a day how could that system ever produce anything where you end up with 2 million apps that are all thoroughly reviewed and aren't scams and so on like that's an impossibility yeah and you would think they would at least check is this app going to charge users $10 a week as opposed to a month or year that that's the thing that really just syncs Apple entire argument right like the whole argument is like payments have to go through us such that we don't have scams and then we just have this Avalanche of Revelations coming out about all the games that are using Apple's own payment system and even worse because in these cases Apple are literally complicit custa who's one of the people who've been revealing a lot of these scams uh showed a scam I think it was last week that had grossed $5 million yeah going through Apple's inapp payment system which means that Apple has made what is that $2 million or something off that scam like they're literally complicit with the scammers because they use the inapp payment system that Apple operates and therefore takes a cut from so apple is in many ways worse off when it comes to uh their reputation and when it comes to protecting it from scams and putting users in the right frame of mind than uh on the Mac than they are on the iOS platform which is just truly bizarre right and it also completely undermines this idea that like you can't technically make a safe platform unless you manually review every app for 2 minutes by people who are not qualified in any way shape or form to do so like that that's the bulwark against malware and virus and so on right I don't know how long you've been using the Mac but as we just talked about I've been using the Mac for 20 years do am I constantly paranoid about viruses no am I constantly paranoid about malware no what I do do is some due diligence right like I don't go to super sketchy sites and download Super sketchy software and run it on my computer right and I was I've been using Mac since 2004 so a few years after you I started and like you said I have not had those issues and now I'm not defending Apple St in the App Store but I do find that on the Mac there will be users friends and family that I know that don't download Shady software but somehow do get malware on their Mac whether it's one of those weird things where it'll automatically go to Bing search engine because Chrome something you know it's not perfect you can install malware even not intending even not going to Shady websites I think that I we at least just need to acknowledge the fact that Apple's primary argument here that the App Store with its 2 million apps is like this totally safe and secure store it's a fantasy yeah it's not and it has to be a fantasy because as we have gotten revealed this idea that like unqualified app reviewers can spend a few minutes reviewing an app and like that's enough to keep everything out it's just nonsense did you get that information from someone within apple or this was revealed as part of the uh epic VA Apple uh lawsuit um got so this this is one of these I I'm sure why Apple is is not keen for this lawsuit either right because during Discovery you get to say like hey Apple give me all your internal emails about absor deliberations this is also where that Smoking Gun came from where Apple's own internal security team raises issue with the absor and essentially says like we're trying to defend against scammers with what was the quote like a butter knife or something right like literally we cannot do the things we're saying we're doing we're in many ways deceiving the public about the security that the App Store is offering right like what we're offering is security theater and what we're selling is actual security and those two things are not the same right again back to the solution if Apple were to allow iPhone and iPad users to install software directly from developer website like you can on the Mac do you think that that fixes a majority of what is dysfunctional about apple right now yes it fixes what's dysfunctional about the App Store being used as this toll booth for access to the iPhone and it fixes it in in many ways right in one way because that's what we would do that's what I would do sure if I could just I'm not looking for Apple to give me help with marketing I mean first of all that that's often an argument that's being trotted out no no no you're not just paying to be in the app store for bandwidth or whatever or even the security theater it's not just that you're paying for you're paying because Apple might feature you right like this is where you find your customers you know what our customers don't find us there right they find us because we have our own brand yeah most developers don't benefit from some kind of apple push more often it's podcasts like this one you know talking about independent developers making small apps yes and Not only would it sort of address that right it would actually make things better for customers one of the huge frustrations a lot of uh Services have on the app store is that they they don't sort of have a direct relationship with their customers so if their customers for example need a discount or need a refund they can't help yeah they're going to go like you got to talk to Apple like technically you're not even our customer you're Apple's customer Apple then buys lenses from us that they resell to you and then you got to go to them if you have any issues I've heard from several C companies who will actually rather than do that they'll just cut the customer a check wow like they never got the money they can't recoup the money but the hassle that it is to process this is so bad that it's simply easier and better for their reputation to essentially say to the customer okay fine you're going to get your money back even if that's like not how it's supposed to work because rightfully so when someone goes to download the hay app do they think they're doing business with apple no they think they're doing business with us of course they are right like it's our app and and and so on and so forth so they think like hey if if if I want a refund or if I think I'm eligible for a discount or something that I should go talk to the hey people right they don't think like I should go talk to the Apple people um but that's how the system works right now so I think actually in in all the ways this would be better even for Apple because ultimately Apple needs to have the iPhone to have the best user experience and what we currently have is a really bad user experience the Mac experience in comparison is far better that's where the problem with the strategy tax comes in right like we make so much money Apple Mak so much money of taking a 30% haircut of all these apps that it's very difficult for them to understand what that paycheck depends on them not understanding well Tim Cook has said he will be resoning probably in the next 10 years are you saying that you'll put your hat in the ring to fix this the the the funny thing is here is like do you know what there are some problems in this world that are very difficult that we're all like oh these are very difficult problems like what is the solution yeah the solution is right here right in front of Apple this is not difficult on neither a technical or philosophical level apple is literally doing it right now with this other great platform called the Mac right so it's not like they don't even have any experience expence here or they don't know how that might go um if Apple simply followed their own example they could get out from all under this but what I do think is interesting is that Apple has a double-edged sword in their personnel ranks which is that a lot of people at Apple has been with Apple for a very long time and they remember a time where Apple were a scrappy little almost out of business company and that image is still in their head in terms of their grievances right like we some of these quotes that have come out of apple where they're like developers just simply owe us right like hey do you not realize that 20 years have passed you're not almost out of business you're literally the most valuable business in the world you are you just returned $30 billion to investors in a single quarter like the you're setting all the high water marks of like capitalism on the alltime records right you're not a scrappy little startup anymore you have to wake up and realize the kind of company you are today and if you do I think some of these would things would change too so some of it I think unfortunately perhaps has to come along or will come along with Personnel change right when did Apple admit that the scissor keyboard was a failure that could not be fixed after Johnny I left in in some ways as brilliant as that man is and and so much of what I like about Apple Hardware comes from the Brilliance of him he was the impediment for them to accept the mistake they had made with their Computing platforms that this what was it a millimeter I think it was um that you gain between the scissor and the the butterfly that that millimeter was so important to him that he would rather have a bunch of broken computers than give up that argument and it took J I getting out of Apple for them to okay do you know what we're going to eat the the millimeter did anyone complain about the millimeter come back right like did anyone go my my MacBook is a millimeter thicker I am not buying this garbage right right no they all went like Hallelujah when I push the keys the characters appear on the screen without being doubled yeah this is amazing right so I think that we've also seen some of this already Phil Schiller shortly after this stuff last summer become an apple fellow yeah exactly that that he was giving up his VP title he was going to move to an Apple fellow which was sort of much the same trajectory that Johnny I first follow right like first you give up some of your responsibilities so you can weave a story of continuity with with shareholders and so on and then slowly you Fade Out I I do think that there is a hope that when Phil Schiller no longer has this personal beef sitting in the way of Apple doing the right thing Apple will do the right thing and I don't think it's even to say the app store has to goes away when I talk to Paul koses you know the Mac has both you have the App Store you have independent developers selling and me as a user I'm glad that I get the choice there are times where there is a benefit to buying in the App Store whether it's because I I just want to know I'll be able to install that app on a future Mac or maybe it's a developer that doesn't have the infrastructure and resource to distribute their app personally on their own personal website and so it can be mutually beneficial and it's not to say that no one's ever going to use the app store again the majority will continue to use the app store right this is what gets me about this that apple is so insecure about their own offering that they don't even dare giving consumers and developers a choice because they fear they will pick something else and some of them will right will pick something else but you know what if I was starting out tomorrow I was like a single person making a new app I'd probably go with the App Store it's just easier they deal with taxes they deal with all sorts of stuff it's worth the 30% at the very low end which is now 15% if you are in the low end exactly even better like until you are starting to to make more money and have a larger staff you can just go like you know what no brainer totally worth it the same thing as a consumer do you know what I actually wish that the App Store would be more restrictive some of the scams that custa in particular have une Earth the latest one I saw this morning with this just truly bizarre uh game that was rated for 4 year olds with some Dominatrix and a dog man you just go like in the icon what I don't even want I don't want my kids to see this can I get a more restrictive App Store like rather than having the App Store be the only gateway to the iPhone just that Apple feels like well we need to have 2 million apps in it could the App Store just have like I don't know a 100,000 apps in it and they were all like carefully vetted like very high quality and there wouldn't be these Monopoly issues because Apple could always just say like hey you can just distribute your stuff directly right right so I think on both ends it would be such a benefit and apple would get out of this pickle um in essentially this impossible mission that they've given themselves right like that they can adequately uh curate 2 million apps that's just not a thing you can do but they have to do it because they painted themselves into this corner but the thing that gives me hope is that this corner there's a door Apple can open that door at any time of their choosing and say okay do you know what fine we'll make the iPhone work like the Mac we'll have our curated app store and it won't have these weird four-year-old games with Dominatrix and Dogman and all this other stuff because we'll be even more stringent and instead of our app reviewers being both unqualified and overworked will'll hire a more qualified Workforce and we'll have them review I don't know 10 apps a day right so that they can actually spend careful time reviewing these things and we'll have certain standards and everything is going to be better that's a good point and on that note David thank you so much for coming on the show listeners can find you at dhh on Twitter hey.com is your new email service awesome would you point anyone else to any of your work I have started writing in long form at world. he.com dhh I'm trying to wean myself off some of this uh Twitter stuff and I do maybe in the future I'd love to talk to you about social media and you know going back to web 1.0 because that is a whole another conversation to be had so anytime David thank you again so much I appreciate you coming on thanks for having me on don't forget you can now support the show at patreon.com inssider and get an adree feed with all our episodes and if you haven't yet we would greatly appreciate a five-star rating and review and apple podcast that'll also really help out the show don't forget to check out homid Insider that comes out every Monday where we talk about the latest Smart Home and homekit news and devices and the Apple Insider daily podcast get the Top Apple headlines in just a few minutes thanks for joining us we'll catch you next time\n"