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When you’re an app developer in a walled garden, sometimes the walls start to close in. It doesn’t even matter if a useful app has been around for six years and attracted over 400,000 downloads with high user satisfaction in the form of user. reviews. Apple has its rules and follows them to the letter, sometimes to the detriment of the users of its ecosystem; just ask Epic about that one. An overzealous enforcement of the rules could spell the sudden end of a successful business. This was almost the case for William Gustafson, developer of Amphetamine, which is a power management utility for macOS that has been available on the App Store since 2014.
Gustafson took to Twitter on Friday to post a link to his petition to keep amphetamine on the Mac App Store. He says that on December 29, they gave him two weeks, until January 12, to make sweeping changes to his six-year-old app or face a permanent ban from the Apple ecosystem. Why would Apple ban the app? The company’s gatekeepers told Gustafson that their app did not meet their guidelines, specifically 1.4.3, which states that “Apps that encourage the use of tobacco and vapor products, illegal drugs, or excessive amounts of alcohol are not allowed. on the App Store “.
The thing is, amphetamine doesn’t do any of that. Instead, it is a power management application that will prevent a Mac from sleeping for a predetermined period of time. It could be just while a large file is downloading or it can be set on a schedule. I’ve used Amphetamine since 2018 to make sure my iOS build server is up every work day so the Xamarin tools I use in Visual Studio on a PC can run the iOS simulator, and it’s great. There are plenty of reasons why one would want a Mac to wake up and stay awake. Amphetamine is fully customizable with triggers that still allow a MacBook to sleep when the lid is closed, preventing the screen from going to sleep, and more.
Apple’s specific reasoning for the ban was pretty simple. “Your app appears to promote inappropriate use of controlled substances. Specifically, your app’s name and icon include references to controlled substances, pills,” said the response Gustafson received. As seen from your App Store listing, the app’s icon is a rounded rectangle with a small yellow pill, that same icon can optionally appear on the Mac menu bar as a shortcut, and the name is Amphetamine.
However, we think this was a sign of greatness or virtue on Apple’s part. Amphetamine in no way encourages the use of drugs, legal or otherwise. Gustafson even added additional menu bar icons like a cup of coffee or an owl, things that are associated with being awake. Gustafson said in his online petition that he did not feel that amphetamine violated any rules, and after reading Apple’s App Store safety guidelines, we agree.
Fortunately, this story has a happy ending for the developer. Gustafson filed an appeal with the App Store and had a phone conversation with an Apple representative. After that conversation, Apple apparently rescinded its demands to change the name of the app, so Amphetamine will continue to live on the App Store. In an interview with The edgeGustafson said Apple representatives didn’t know why the app was flagged. “I specifically asked Apple over the phone if this was the result of customer complaints and Apple’s response was ‘I don’t think so,'” he said.
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