Graham Spencer

1005 posts on MacStories since January 2011

Former MacStories contributor.
graham@macstories.net

This Week's Sponsor:

Hello Weather

Half Off for WWDC Week, Just in Time for Summer.

Apple Launches Developer Insights Webpage→

Alongside yesterday’s WWDC 2016 announcement, Apple also added a new webpage providing tips and insights from other developers.

The App Store makes it simple for users around the world to discover, download and enjoy your apps. Grow your business with resources designed to help you create great apps and reach more users.

The featured developers and topics are Seriously (focusing on building a brand), Grailr (bringing CARROT Weather to Apple Watch), Evernote (localising its app for Japan), and Smule (growing a thriving community of loyal users).

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Tips

[[graham]] Here are some of the shortcuts and gestures for the Apple TV’s Siri Remote: Press the Home Button Twice: Activate the app switcher UI to quickly go back to a previously open app. Swipe up on an app to force quit it. Press Menu when on the Home Screen: This will instantly launch the...

Web Snapper

[[graham]] If you missed the news last week, you can now download all 50 issues of what we’re calling the Classic MacStories Weekly – those email newsletters which we sent prior to the launch of Club MacStories. Simply go to your Memberful account page, go to Downloads and you’ll be able to download an archive...

Apple Pulls Third-Party Reddit Clients for NSFW Content

Update (4am PDT 12 April 2016): Some of the third-party Reddit clients have now returned to the App Store. Both Narwhal and Antenna are now available in the App Store, but both have been updated to remove the NSFW toggle that used to be in their apps. It is our understanding that Apple’s objection is with the implementation of those NSFW toggles. Apple wants them removed from all Reddit apps so that if a user does want to view NSFW content, that toggle must be manually changed from the Reddit website.

Today, numerous third-party Reddit clients were removed from the App Store by Apple for breaching clause 18.2 of the App Review Guidelines. This clause states that apps will be rejected if they contain “user generated content that is frequently pornographic”.

The official Reddit app, which launched last week and was featured by Apple on the App Store, currently remains in the App Store, but other Reddit clients including Narwhal, Antenna, Eggplant and BaconReader have all been removed for sale. These third-party Reddit clients were removed from Apple without any advance notice to developers, despite some of the apps being available on the App Store for well over a year. It should also be noted that many of these third-party apps, such as Narwhal, did have a filter to enable or disable NSFW content.

It is our understanding that Reddit did not ask Apple to remove the third-party Reddit apps. This aligns with Reddit’s statement from last week (after the launch of the official Reddit app) in which Reddit’s VP of Consumer Product stated “if you already have an app you like, you’re free to continue enjoying it”.

Rick Harrison, co-author of the Narwhal Reddit client provided this quote to MacStories:

It also seems that a few other popular third-party Reddit apps were removed from the store, but not the official Reddit app. I reached out to Reddit asking them if they knew anything, and they informed me that they did not request Apple to pull these apps, and they were also receiving issues from Apple about 18.2. I think that Apple did not pull their app because they are a big company and were recently featured. As shown time and time again, Apple does not really care whatsoever about indie developers. From taking 30% of barely any revenue to rejecting apps based on features that have been available for 18+ months.

It is too soon to say, but Apple’s actions today may well be the latest example of policy and procedural failure on App Review. We covered this topic in detail in a story last month which chronicled the depth of developer frustration at App Review.

We will continue to monitor this story and provide further updates and details as we come across them.

Apple Pay Now Supported by Barclays in the UK

Barclays, the last of the United Kingdom’s big four banks, has today finally added support for Apple Pay. With the addition of Barclays, there are now 15 banks in the United Kingdom that support Apple Pay today, nearly 9 months after Apple Pay launched in the UK.

As a quick status update, Apple Pay is today available in 5 countries; the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and China. Apple Pay is supported by virtually all banks in the United States (1,110 to be exact, as of today), and it is supported by 15 banks in China since it launched there earlier this year as a result of Apple’s partnership with China UnionPay. By contrast, Apple Pay is not supported by any Australian or Canadian banks - in those two countries, Apple Pay is limited to those with an American Express-issued card.

[via MacRumors]

Q&A

Question: Following up on last week’s Fantastical alert question: Apple’s stock iOS Calendar app allows the user to create a “Time to Leave” alert if a location is entered for the calendar event. Is it possible to create this type of alert in Fantastical iOS? (Jason Williams, @jet_pilot)

Federico

The problem here, Jason, is that...

PDF Squeezer

[[graham]] This week I was completing an online form which required me to upload a PDF. Unfortunately this online form had an upload limit of 1MB and the PDF I needed to upload was much larger than that because it was comprised of a number of high quality scanned pages. I initially tried Preview’s PDF...

Streaming Live TV with a Synology

[[graham]] I resisted the urge to buy a Synology for a few months, but I finally caved and purchased a DS216play in mid-February. It has only been a few weeks, but I can safely say that I’m really happy with my purchase. Throughout March I’ve been playing with various apps and generally geeking out with...