[HN Gopher] An iOS app update that annoys me
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An iOS app update that annoys me
Author : pcr910303
Score : 99 points
Date : 2021-05-16 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jpmens.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (jpmens.net)
| Operyl wrote:
| You might be able to do a full encrypted iOS backup to your
| computer, which usually includes the Documents of most
| applications. It has to be "encrypted" though, or the backup
| excludes a lot of things.
| sneak wrote:
| Thank Apple for deciding for you that you can never install any
| version of an app (on your own device!) that isn't current.
|
| More in the stream of neverending censorship bullshit from the
| App Store.
|
| Apps aren't even included in "backups", so restoring a device
| from backup won't actually put it into the state it was before:
| you get the current versions of any apps (if they are even still
| available, sometimes they aren't) re-downloaded at time of
| restore. This is, of course, contrary to the entire concept of
| what a backup is for.
|
| Of course, you can't download any apps at all without an Apple
| ID, and also providing your unchangeable hardware serial number
| to Apple (transmitted when you launch the App Store like a
| supercookie). You also can't get the Apple ID without providing a
| telephone number that can receive SMS, so you basically have to
| dox yourself to restore a working backup.
|
| I've had every single iPhone that has ever been produced (except
| the 3G - I went from 1 to 3GS), but I'm fairly confident I have
| purchased my last one.
| mttjj wrote:
| What phone will you be switching to?
| sneak wrote:
| Already moved my SIM to this one:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00XAF4J04
|
| As for smartphone, I have a few Pixel 3 XLs I'd like to test
| graphene and lineage on. In general I'm kind of over
| smartphones because browsing the web on them (the main thing
| I do with them) is suboptimal compared to a computer/laptop
| that can run uBlock and NoScript, so I will probably mostly
| just leave an iPhone-sized hole in my life.
|
| The Nokia 106 is also good for receiving SMS, which is the
| only thing I really have a non-data SIM for at this point.
|
| I carry a battery powered gl.inet wireguard/lte wifi openwrt
| router with me with a Google Fi data SIM in it for internet.
| I have root on it and can write my own iptables rules, and it
| only sends traffic via the vpn.
| bitwize wrote:
| Sweet, a Zack Morris special!
| wayneftw wrote:
| Instead of switching, I'd rather users, developers and other
| big tech companies lobby the government to force Apple to
| open up. Especially now that they're rapidly climbing towards
| having the majority market share of all phone users in the
| US.
|
| When 90% of US youths use an iPhone [0], you know that Apple
| will have the greatest majority soon. Then, their despicable
| and obvious market controlling tactics won't be legal
| anymore. The legal attacks we're seeing right now in the US
| and elsewhere are just the beginning. I'm very much looking
| forward to Apple getting knocked down a few pegs legally.
|
| If you want to help out with this cause, please keep talking
| up Apple products! The more users we get on that brand, the
| better.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27164923
| swiley wrote:
| Linux phones are rapidly becoming more and more usable. The
| pinephone is already usable as a daily driver if you're
| willing to put up with a few hacks. For some segment of the
| population I think the trade offs they offer will be worth it
| and you'll probably start to see a decline in both Android
| and iOS market share.
| asddubs wrote:
| I would love a proper linux phone. Seems like they're still
| a couple of iterations away from really being "ready" from
| video reviews I've seen, but I'm excited about something
| happening at all in that space
| wincy wrote:
| I was super annoyed when the really fun Galaxy on Fire 2 HD that
| I paid $9 or so for got bought by a different company and
| suddenly had ads and micro transactions. I haven't played it
| since.
|
| Also annoyed when Apple removed Binding of Isaac which I paid $15
| for, my money and the app never to be seen again.
| mttjj wrote:
| iOS apps are listed in your purchase history and available for
| re-download. Even those removed from sale on the store. So
| unless you've hidden the app (an unnecessarily complex process)
| I'm not sure why you're not able to continue playing The
| Binding or Isaac. Unless of course the app is old enough that
| it doesn't work on newer iOS versions. But that's not what your
| post was implying.
| wayneftw wrote:
| It's a little more complicated than that -
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251183047
| emsy wrote:
| I bought a game (Lumines) that downloaded all the necessary
| game files upon launching from a server. The server is now
| down. No way to play the game even after downloading it from
| the list. screw the app store.
| op00to wrote:
| I had a paid iOS stop working. I got a refund for asking.
| qwertox wrote:
| In German we have a (somewhat unofficial) word for this:
| _Verschlimmbesserung_.
|
| Verbesserung = Improvement. Verschlimmerung = Aggravation.
|
| While the seller calls it a Verbesserung, the consumer calls it a
| Verschlimmerung. Officially it then is a Verschlimmbesserung.
| [deleted]
| asddubs wrote:
| i would say "worsening" is a better translation of
| verschlimmerung in this context, as in the opposite of an
| improvement
| op00to wrote:
| Is there a word in German for there being a word in German for
| that thing?
| nostromo wrote:
| I love the expressiveness of German.
|
| This seems less like an improvement gone awry though, and more
| like a classic case of what in English we'd call "bait and
| switch."
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| I don't really see how these "there's a word for that in
| German" are much, if any, of an improvement over their
| English equivalents. Verschlimmbesserung
| Improvementagrrivation
|
| It's only three characters shorter, and English being a
| Germanic language, English is often referred to as
| _simplified German_ , the languages maps pretty much one to
| one in the general case.
|
| English does the same sort of thing were you'll see something
| like _use case_ become _use-case_ and then _usecase_.
|
| This is called _portmanteau_ in English, and here 's the
| Wikipedia article, with some common examples.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau
|
| Edit to add: also _compound words_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_(linguistics)
| m463 wrote:
| This happened to me with _countless_ ios apps.
|
| Just the same, I will count some of them:
|
| - I used an app (gas cubby) to keep track of my car mileage. You
| could enter your vehicles. When you filled up, you would select a
| vehicle and enter mileage and gallons and cost, and it would keep
| track of everything. You could export the data. You could also
| enter lots of other things, like VIN, insurance, service
| intervals, etc.
|
| It was a decent app and offline.
|
| And one update - everything changed. It made everything cloud
| based, uploaded all your very private information and added a
| login. jerks.
|
| - I used an app (camscanner+) that would let you take a picture
| of a document, it would find the edges and turn it into a .pdf
| file. This was sold to tencent, which had no privacy policy
| (broken link) and uploaded all your data to the cloud. When the
| privacy policy link eventually worked it was in super ambiguous
| broken english and basically said they use all your personal
| information.
|
| - I used an app called adblock ios that created a VPN at
| 127.0.0.1 and allowed you to filter your phone traffic. Apple
| made them change (cripple) it. Happily I read the 1-star reviews
| and didn't update.
|
| I think I'm a pretty astute user, the general population just has
| to get used to being worked over in this fashion.
|
| Apple is 100% in the wrong here. You should:
|
| - be able to know what your phone is doing, what sites apps are
| contacting
|
| - be able to firewall your phone - even to apple
|
| - know of changes - especially change of
| policies/behavior/ownership before installing an app
|
| - be able to revert apps
|
| I think the GPL is becoming more and more important as this stuff
| has taken root.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Is there a business opportunity here?
|
| 1. Find a handful of decent apps you use _and like_
|
| 2. Copy the apps functionality and user interface
|
| 3. Wait for the inevitable update that breakes your use-case
|
| 4. Launch
| bombcar wrote:
| Sounds like an opportunity for someone here to throw together an
| app that doesn't have these deficiencies- charge a few bucks for
| it and slap it up.
| 32gbsd wrote:
| oh the good old app hell in which we live.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I have used the iPad for over 10 years now, and I can now say
| that most of the apps that I have had in the past that were
| actually useful are now unusable or worse than they were.
|
| It is actually amazing that Apple's ability to prevent people
| from downgrading aligns perfectly with developers wanting monthly
| subscriptions for everything.
|
| The only application that has gotten better consistently over the
| last 10 years has been iThoughts, which is one of the best tools
| ever for high-level abstract thinkers, and it is the only reason
| I use the iPad now.
| asddubs wrote:
| I do wonder about the legality of an update taking features
| away and charging for it, as is the case in the article. It
| sounds like it's illegal from previous examples I've heard. I
| guess no one is going to sue over some relatively cheap niche
| app though
| alister wrote:
| > _iThoughts, which is one of the best tools ever for high-
| level abstract thinkers_
|
| I took a look at their demo video. It seems to be a diagramming
| tool like Visio. Which is fine for doing diagrams for reports
| and presentations. But you said "high-level abstract thinkers"
| and you have me curious about how you actually use it day to
| day.
| Causality1 wrote:
| Many apps follow a similar curve. They peak at a certain
| value/annoyance level and then the developers realize they're as
| high as they're going to go in terms of revenue. Then they start
| looking for ways to further monetize their users. For some of
| them that's adding dumb trendy features like social integration.
| For some that's locking previously available features behind a
| paywall. For a few it means selling your whole app to a third
| party to fill your users' phones with adware.
|
| It's disgusting and it's not getting better. Probably 50% of my
| screen time is spent on apps I no longer update because the new
| versions are unacceptable.
| anoncow wrote:
| Sadly, there is no way for you to install an older version of the
| app on iOS.
| darig wrote:
| What is stopping you from making your own app? This is barely
| above a "TODO" list app that you'll find ubiquitously in beginner
| tutorials.
|
| Screw those guys. Take your ball (your data), and go home.
| mkoc wrote:
| Anyone knows good alternatives with a similar feature set?
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's a shame this guy can't easily roll back to an earlier
| version of the app. This is one of the reasons why Android users
| back up APK files of the apps they like. That way, you're still
| free to use the software you already use, license withstanding.
| josefx wrote:
| Steam has the steamdb listing all versions of packages that are
| available for download. As long as you have a steam account
| that "owns" a license for the software you can use that info to
| download any listed version through steam.
| kccqzy wrote:
| The thing is, it used to be possible on iOS but along the way
| Apple crippled it. Back in the days you'd connect iOS devices
| to your computer and sync them, the syncing can involve
| transferring *.ipa files from the device to the computer, and
| can also install new apps. If you wanted to roll back, just
| delete the installed app on the device and ask iTunes to
| reinstall it using the file from the computer.
|
| Eventually other features (app thinning?) got prioritized and
| this is no longer possible.
| saurik wrote:
| Starting in August, Google is requiring new apps in the Play
| Store to start using app bundles instead of APKs; I have
| never tried to work with these .apkm files, but I would be
| concerned Android is moving in the same direction here.
| grishka wrote:
| The big difference is that Android doesn't require apps to
| go through Google.
| dan1234 wrote:
| They may not require it, but if companies the size of
| Epic can't survive away from the Play store[1], I don't
| hold much hope for indie apps.
|
| [1]https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/21/21229943/epic-
| games-fortn...
| Anon1096 wrote:
| I believe what the parent comment is saying is that since
| you can sideload apps on Android, if you want to roll
| back an update, all you need to do is grab the apk from a
| website such as apkmirror and then install it. The Play
| Store moving to app bundles shouldn't affect this.
| saurik wrote:
| ...but the APK file never existed if the app was shipped
| as an app bundle. The APKMirror people seem to claim you
| will at least need a special installation app to install
| the bundle components, which is fine for now as _that_
| app can be an APK, but... this is feeling sketch.
|
| https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/apkmirror/apkmirror-
| installer-...
| grishka wrote:
| Yeah it's this. Android itself has no idea about Google
| Play requirements.
|
| edit: just tried to back up an app that was definitely
| installed as a bundle, and yes, the result was a regular
| apk
| saurik wrote:
| That doesn't make any sense at all, even merely
| cryptographically (as you would need the signing key to
| merge the bundle back into a normal apk file and sign
| that new different file), and doesn't match the behaviors
| people talk about on various blogs and stack overflow.
| grishka wrote:
| Well, the app I tested -- YouTube Vanced -- is installed
| as a bundle, you can see Vanced Manager download its
| parts. I did check with jadx, that apk is validly signed
| with v1, v2, and v3 signatures.
|
| Now, as far as my own knowledge of apk signing goes, v1
| signature should definitely be fine because it operates
| on files inside the archive, so naturally merging
| multiple apks signed with the same certificate would keep
| it valid. But v2 signs the archive itself, which means
| merely repacking it would render the signature invalid. I
| don't have much of an idea about v3. Maybe there's some
| algorithm to merge multiple apks such that signatures
| remain valid.
|
| Related question that needs research: how are bundle apps
| stored after installation? I know that installing a
| regular apk copies it into /data/app, extracts native
| libraries from it, and adds its metadata to some XML
| files I forgot names of. Again, it's been too much time
| since I did something serious for Android, so I'm not
| quite up to date on this stuff.
|
| (are you the guy behind Cydia btw?)
|
| edit again: apparently it doesn't back up the additional
| parts $ pm path
| com.vanced.android.youtube package:/data/app/~~JV
| hMJHpiRhB5U1ZM1MHNmw==/com.vanced.android.youtube-
| iqpVMVaXRD4XezgeqdjBHQ==/base.apk package:/data/a
| pp/~~JVhMJHpiRhB5U1ZM1MHNmw==/com.vanced.android.youtube-
| iqpVMVaXRD4XezgeqdjBHQ==/split_config.arm64_v8a.apk
| package:/data/app/~~JVhMJHpiRhB5U1ZM1MHNmw==/com.vanced.a
| ndroid.youtube-
| iqpVMVaXRD4XezgeqdjBHQ==/split_config.en.apk pack
| age:/data/app/~~JVhMJHpiRhB5U1ZM1MHNmw==/com.vanced.andro
| id.youtube-iqpVMVaXRD4XezgeqdjBHQ==/split_config.ru.apk
|
| The apk I backed up earlier is base.apk, so that mystery
| is solved. It probably just adds them all to the
| classpath in runtime like regular JVM does with a bunch
| of jars.
| DennisAleynikov wrote:
| there seem to be edge cases where the bundle isn't
| extractable back into an apks but despite packaging my
| apps as bundles and downloading from the play store they
| still end up as useable apks in the end.
|
| as far as I've gathered bundles are a way of adding
| multiple ABI's into a smaller shared apk that then is
| split into per abi by google but I may be entirely off
| base here
| sprite wrote:
| I would link the blog post to the app developer. Maybe they will
| revert some of the changes or fix them.
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