Then don't. How is this relevant? They say the app has been downloaded 500,000 times, so many people are fine with the name.

These stories keep coming; they should remind us that nothing is more precious than the open web, and all those stores or walled gardens, their "rules" and vague TOS are the ennemy.

Apple was promoting Amphetamine not that long ago:

https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1470456860

FWIW, it's a net downside for me that my professional workstation has an app named "Amphetamine", so I'm quietly in favor of a rename. But it's obviously the author's prerogative to choose its branding, so long as it falls within (consistently) applied policies of those who they rely on to distribute it.

I'd have to see a documented event of this happening rather than a hypothetical scenario to believe a downside actually exists.

Most corporate PCs are windows. On a fraction of the macs users are allowed to install their own software, on a tiny fraction of those amphetamine is installed, on a tiny fraction of a fraction of those maybe someone exists who has a problem with HR.

I'm not sure the last subset actually exists in the real world nor that we ought to support censorship to help imaginary people deal with imaginary morons.

Like they said, doc or it didn't happen.

Just because people use the app doesn’t mean they like the name.

They are not telling the author they can't call his app whatever they want. They are saying they will not sell it in their app store under that name.

And that's the bargain you enter into when you sell in a walled garden ecosystem.

But they were indeed selling it under that name for 6 years!

How would you like it if you spend a lot of money to advertise your company or product and create a brand value to it, to one day Apple telling you that they would like you to change the name or they will not distribute it on their store?

Yes, the app store is a closed environment where they can dictate some terms. But don't forget that the developers PAY THEM to use it, and as such their terms cannot trump the consumer laws that exist to protect against such abuse. (By the way, "my shop, my terms" have already faced legal scrutiny some of which were found to be illegal - popular ones include refusing to serve people of colour or gays.)

So they are in fact telling the author that he can't call his app whatever he wants. Because if he does, they will do everything they can to prevent anyone else from ever using that app.

You might be able to bypass the notarization requirement as an end-user, if you have enough technical know-how, but good luck explaining that to your customers. Especially when all the dialogs are calling your software malicious, untrustworthy, etc.

This is not exactly true and you know it. For example:

>if you have enough technical know-how

You right click the app and then click open.

>Especially when all the dialogs are calling your software malicious, untrustworthy, etc.

Another lie. The dialog says "this is from an unidentified developer" and does not say anything about being malicious or untrustworthy. What is your beef with Apple that you're so willing to say so many outright lies on a forum filled with people who know better and can call you out on it?

Windows does this with UAC. Many Linux distros require executables to be explicitly set with the +x flag. macOS is not unique in this, and like with the other OSes it's a security feature.

Check out the warning and "bypass" for yourself: https://www.macworld.com/article/3140183/how-to-install-an-a...

GateKeeper will also flag your app as malicious and having the potential to damage your Mac if Apple revokes your certificate, which they have done in the past by mistake.

> Beginning in macOS 10.14.5, software signed with a new Developer ID certificate and all new or updated kernel extensions must be notarized to run. Beginning in macOS 10.15, all software built after June 1, 2019, and distributed with Developer ID must be notarized

People keep saying that but nothing on my Mac has ever stopped me from installing whatever software I want. I wish people would stop repeating this lie.

I remember Apple revoking Epic's access to Apple's developer tools because of a disagreement over their developer program TOS, but that only stops Epic from using Apple's tools. It does not prevent me from installing any software.

I have a ton of software on my Mac that's not part of the Apple developer program and the developers have never asked Apple's permission nor given Apple any money for the software and Apple has never once tried to block those developers from creating that software or me from installing and running it.

This isn't unique to Apple. Debian and other Linux distributions have also had similar discussions when considering the distribution of packages with obscene, morally repugnant or inappropriate names, as well as the package contents themselves.

Whether it's a commercial entity or a volunteer organisation, there are considerations regarding image and reputation. People can and will push the boundaries of what is acceptable, and somewhere you're going to have to draw a line.

Edit: This keeps the computer awake until 6 PM each day.

  caffeinate -u -i -s -t $(($(date -j -f "%a %b %d %T %Z %Y" "$(date +"%a %b %d 18:00:00 %Z %Y")" "+%s") - $(date +%s)))

If a thing isn't bad, then it isn't, and if someone is ignorant and makes associations and assumptions that are wrong or unsupported, then I'd rather add my tiny influence against that rather than help it.

Or do you yourself do the same thing to your clients? What features of your clients do you use to prejudge them and make unfounded assumptions about them? Should your clients worry what clothes they wear in case you think it means they are gay, which maybe you associate with having Aids... Personally I woukd think things like that are none of my business but apparently you don't think like that.

Please don't smooth the way for the wrong things. I can't demand, obviously, that's why it's a request with the word please.

It seems to be a small thing but big things are made out of small things, and you and I can only do small things. All we have is the choice of which kinds of small things we do.

There is a command line tool called caffeinate that ships with Mac OS. Maybe Apple didn’t like somebody using something so similar their system utility name.

Originally I thought it was the same name, so this seems much less likely now that they're merely similar.

I removed Caffeine from the App Store when Apple started complaining that a click on a menu bar icon for an app without a dock icon must always show a menu (offering a Quit option). I wanted it to toggle the active state instead and show the menu on right-click/cmd-click.

> Amphetamine updates have been rejected by Apple on numerous occasions. One time, Apple’s App Review Team did not like my “Preview” screen shots. Another time, Apple objected to the default behavior when clicking Amphetamine’s menu bar icon, saying it must open the menu by default and not start a session.

Good for you! That is exactly what everyone needs do when Apple starts being pointlessly petty. Yes, operating systems have UI guidelines. But they are guidelines - sometimes a developer may come up with something better, especially for power users, and no such developer should have to waste time trying to communicate and convince some committee of this, and worse, wait for an approval from them to launch the product.

It's a neat idea but that is just not the use case the menu bar was designed around and I don't think it makes sense for individual apps to go against the current in that way

However, I did just get a nasty gram to take down my political "Giant Meteor for 2020 - just end it already" yard sign.

I do think this is where a lot of the HOA problems come from - if someone wants to put something up on their front yard or lawn, then neighbors can intervene and say you can’t do that there.

Since you bought the property and it’s yours, why do others get to have a say in it? I know I don’t give two hoots about what the neighbor does to their own home.

You don't give a damn till you need to sell off your property. Once it is in the market, you don't want your neighbours attitude turning of potential buyers, or worse, bringing down the value of your property. (I hate HOA's too, but a decently run one does help increase property value).

Because you signed on a line that said you agree to being governed by the HOA when you bought the house. It’s that simple. The sad reality though is that if you don’t like it, you have to find somewhere else (which doesn’t work well if your whole city is under the HOA)

If you didn't want those strings, then go buy a property somewhere that doesn't have an HOA.

Same with this case, I sympathize with the author and I personally think this is a stupid thing for Apple to do, but the author (hopefully) understood the bargain they were entering into when they chose to enter the walled garden.

The HOA is becoming more and more like your American ISP. When more and more properties demand an HOA, there’s only so many choices for you.

Though I don’t like the answer of “go do it somewhere else” because the real problem is not analyzed and/or solved, I do agree on the Apple front.

Is it the housing market as homeowners who favours HOAs, or is it the builders who favour them? Are HOAs opted in by homeowners in existing communities because of their benefits, or do builders create them force them upon new communities because it benefits them somehow?

I am asking because while I do not have any knowledge of HOAs, I have been following the saga of rental water heaters/furnaces/ACs in Ontario for a while. Long story short, construction companies sign a long-term contract with an appliance company instead of buying and installing necessary appliances like furnaces for new houses. They get a nice kickback for this. If you want to buy a new house, odds are you will be bound by a long-term contact. If you want to terminate it early, you end up paying 30k for an appliance that is worth 10k new and installed. If you keep your contact, you will pay the same over many years.

It is a deal that is very much to the benefits of the builder and very much against the interest of the homeowners. But they have been exploding in popularity. There are relatively more and more homes with rented water heaters and fewer and fewer homes with owned water heaters every year. It would still be wrong to conclude that "water heater rental is beneficial. See, the market has spoken."

It sounds shitty/shady to you (or at least that's how you're framing it here - apologies if I misunderstood) but if people are still buying those homes, then they must think it's an acceptable contract to enter into.

It's ridiculous to even try to say that a home owner will not weigh 50 different factors, and have to tolerate 10 things they do NOT want because they come packaged with 40 other things they either want or absolutely need.

Why does anyone even try to pretend like they don't recognize this unless they are themselves one of the few people actually benefitting from one of these consumer-hostile deals?

You make it sound like there's a lack of options for homeowners when you say this. Where I live (Toronto) that is not the case.

Of course there is no perfect deal, there will always be things that aren't ideal but I don't know anyone (and I'm old enough to know lots of home owners) who has ever bought a house that had some kind of feature or clause they absolutely hated or didn't want.

If it's that bad, you don't buy that house, and you find one that better suits your needs.

Otherwise, you're understanding and accepting the terms, and you're willing to live with them.

I hate the argument that "people" are too stupid/naive/stuck to understand or avoid the terms of an agreement they're entering into.. except for the narrator who sees themselves as the smart person who is yelling about it from the mountaintop.

If so, I could see people liking it as it serves the same function as an HOA: a hedge against bad things happening.

Water heater died? Plumber comes out, no charge. Neighbor starting a junkyard on his front lawn? HOA sends a letter, no confrontation.

Some people will decline an HOA for the same reasons they decline extended warranties: they’d rather deal with situations themselves, as they arise. Others don’t want to be bothered and let someone else handle it. I think there is space for both.

I believe so. But the price is so unreasonably high that you could replace the furnace literally 3 to 5 times and you would still be ahead compared to renting the furnace. How many people would purchase an extended warranty that is priced at multiples of the price of the object they are buying? More than none, but a very small number. New rentals are signed overwhelmingly by builders and not homeowners.

If you buy a home warranty, or an extended warranty for your car, you are (on average) going to be out of pocket more than you would be without it. You are buying it for the peace of mind that comes from not having to deal with an unlikely but major repair expense.

Not at this price. Usually the warranty is a percentage of the price of the goods. So for example, I expect a $1000 gadget to have extended warranty priced at $100 or so. I have never seen the warranty of a $1000 gadget to be priced at $3000 to $5000 dollars. And that is for stuff that break down more frequently, e.g. phones and laptops and cars. The odds of a furnace breaking down are even lower.

I just went through buying a furnace and had a few prospective installers. The first tried to sell the extended coverage: twice annual “checks and maintenance” and a 30% discount on all parts.

The second said he’d let me source the parts myself if I so desired and if I would be responsible for changing the air filter on schedule and hosing down the outside fan every summer I’d be better off putting the annual fee into a sinking fund. Or, I could pay him $200 a year to hold a hose, money he’d happily take. He got the job. ;-)

Or worse, because they are over leveraged and unable to fund a replacement without an installment plan – so they have no better option?

I’m not sure. I can see a consumer protection argument to be made.

If I want to practice drums in my garage the neighbors can go pound sand.

But when a neighbor decides to park their truck in their yard I'm all for HOAs.

I wouldn't read too much from that. The market preferring something doesn't mean most people dealing with it like it, it means that it makes money for the people with most say in the matter.

In this case, I think the sufficient explanation for the phenomenon is that HOAs are good at protecting property values. In my experience, most of the silly / annoying rules can be explained by either protecting property value, or by most people being too busy to attend meetings, allowing a small group of bored people to take control.

Uh yeah, that's their defined purpose that everybody knows about and agrees upon. I've lived in several properties under HOAs, haven't had any trouble, and don't know anyone personally who's had any trouble either.

IMO, HOA problems are of those things that's extremely rare in practice, but makes for outrage-inducing stories on the internet that get upvoted heavily and widely viewed. Since this is well known and plenty of people will do anything for internet upvotes, I'd bet a significant number of the stories are either made up entirely or are highly exaggerated and misleading.

If HOAs were really that bad, you'd see a market for homes advertising the lack of them. We don't though. The better analogy is internet free speech. In theory, everybody likes free speech. But if you create a new forum specifically for the purpose of not censoring anything, it tends to get filled with the worst assholes of the internet. Similarly, you can guess who'd be itching to move in if you advertised your housing development as not having a HOA.

I personally have never dealt with an HOA, so my understanding of their popularity is shaped solely by what I have read online. I must say your comment is the only one I have ever seen that has put them in a positive light.

The ones that hates the HOA are the ones that have paid a ton of money (I’m in the Bay Area) and can’t do as they please. Who wants to pay close to a million and have others chime in and start giving you directions on what to do to your own property.

I rent, but the principe of the HOA is a big enough leech in my mind that I’d hold out for a single home, whenever that is (if at all).

So people aren’t going to like the HOA. But they also offer essential recourse and order.

It’s more like the government of the archipelago decided that they don’t like the name of the island as people interested in such an island are promoting narcotics.

I suspect that Apple has done studies and has a projected “likely lost sales” figure attributable to having an app store overrun with “mature content” apps.

(Edited: tried to clean up a clunky sentence :))

Yes. And the solution is:

1. Creating a viable alternative.

2. Promoting it.

Which is the opposite of what TFA is trying to do: They just want Apple to make an exception for them. Not to solve the root problem.

They name several apps which would seem to violate the same guideline, at worst they're asking for the same exception Apple has already given to others. An argument can be made that they're snitching on the others, but it's also an argument for consistency that one could say is the root problem.

Apple’s policies are bullshit, don’t get me wrong, but let’s not act like download numbers give the developer any leverage.

This is all ridiculous and I don't like where we're headed as a society.

Sure it’s just a chemical. Everything is just chemicals but I don’t need “meth” for my computer. Same reason our kids don’t need toys advertised as “crack for your baby”.

Agin not offended its just not a good name. Even if let’s say you build an app that’s hooks into some other program and you sell said app for two dollars, you may think it’s hilarious to call it “two dollar hooker”, hell I myself might even chuckle. But only once, then I’ll just get annoyed every time I see “two dollar hooker” in startup, “two dollar hooker has crashed” etc.

I also would not buy your product if it were called alcohol poisoning. I love alcohol. I’m drinking a beer right now (happy New Years everyone). But naming a computer program after it sounds like an odd thing to do. And more to your point would also be a violation of the same rule Apple is using in this case.

I can see why Apple chooses the family friendly route and rebranding probably is the best option in this case as fighting it would most likely be futile.

I don't think they went overboard with the name in general tho. It makes sense for the app as much as the other coffee/coca branded ones do.

They explicitly chose "amphetamine" over "meth" which is a medical term and has valid uses.

> I also would not buy your product if it were called alcohol poisoning. I love alcohol. I’m drinking a beer right now (happy New Years everyone). But naming a computer program after it sounds like an odd thing to do. And more to your point would also be a violation of the same rule Apple is using in this case.

What about an application that assists in force-quitting other programs? One might call that "Scotch", since that's what it does ("It 'scotches' other processes, you see..."), and the application might have a cutesy whiskey glass as its icon. Would that run afoul of your sensibilities?

Scotch vs scotch whiskey is more of a word play joke as well than a direct analogy. But I see your point and your totally right that one sounds less bad to me. I'm only stating that as a matter of taste I do not like this particular apps name.

And since it's apple's store they have the right to not like it either. I just don't think this is a profound "free speech argument" like some do in these comments.

Personally I think it's really odd that someone would need an app to keep their computer from sleeping. This says far more about macs than the arbitrary naming policy.

I generally dont like obnoxious marketing either, but unless it is inappropriate for the setting i dont think it should be banned, and this is far more tame than other apps on the app store

Headed?

Similarly, I would avoid naming something potentially weird or offensively for much the same reason, no matter how appropriate or funny it might seem at the time.

While rebranding might be a pain, I suggest just doing it. This not a free speech hill worth dying on, in my opinion.

Hehe your fucking five, but then it just gets annoying.

To most people, it refers in this context to the noise an elephant makes.

This disingenuous take on the term does not help your case nor reflects positively on your reputation as a honest person. Amphetamines have a long reputation as recreational and illicit drugs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphetamine

Amphetamines, much like cocaine and heroin, are not a mere chemical, nor do they convey a mental image of chemists doing science in a lab to the public. And please don't try to pass everyone as a bunch of stupid idiots by claiming that an app designed to keep a device awake is named after a mere chemical, with a long track record of being used as an euphoriant, without any popular connotation with drug abuse.

Whether you find the situation distasteful, it has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Neither the offended people nor Apple is infringing on the developer's freedom speech.

We can have lots of lively debate about how to draw the boundaries. But we'll get a lot farther if we can move beyond the two-state absolutism of "allowable everywhere" vs. "outright banned with breath-taking severity."

Freedom of speech means the government won't/can't prosecute you for what you say. It doesn't have anything to do with how companies or private citizens respond to your words.

You're (usually) legally allowed to say you'll fuck my mom but I don't have to bring you over for family dinner.

One could contend that apple's refusal to host this app on it's store is in itself free speech.

Either way, the government jasent gotten involved so nothing here treads on free speech issues.

The First Amendment says this. Freedom of speech is “a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction” [1]. It is broader than the First Amendment, and gave rise to it, though the First Amendment is its most successful codification in the modern world.

A society that shuns those who say “bad” things, even without state action, may not hold true to the values of freedom of speech.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

You don't get to choose peoples reaction or the way they view you after you say something. That would be infringing on their right to hold or express opinions about your views.

What's complicated about that?

You say "[we] don't get to choose [people's reactions]", but this is not at all relevant. We're not asking whether their actions are legal or whether we can legally dictate what they think, we're asking whether they're acting ethically.

One is law, the other is a principle.

(By the way, "my shop, my terms" have already faced legal scrutiny, some of which were found to be illegal - popular judgements include that shops cannot refuse to serve people of colour or gays.)

I'm guessing it's been slowly changed by people big enough to realize the name doesn't matter.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Mozilla

Well it gives you an argument I think. Along the lines of a trademark infringement -- if you have let people use your trademark name for years without protest, that can work against you if you suddenly start demanding that it be enforced.

Not sure it would hold much weight here, since it's a case of Apple deciding what they want to allow in their own store.

A stimulant drug, just happens to be legal.

Or Coca? A plant that release a stimulant when chewed.

Now if the app was called "Sweet Meth", you'd have a better parallel with "fuck sleep", but it's not.