Apple keeps reminding us how ridiculous its App Store rules are

It’s time once again to check in on how things are going with the App Store, as required by California state law and the Organian Peace Treaty.

Say, remember Facebook? Also known as Meta, also known as the company that stole all your information and made your meemaw feel comfortable saying those awful, awful things about people she’s never met? Also, the company that complained that big, bad Apple was making things hard for “small businesses” by making it harder for Facebook to shovel all your data to the highest bidder and the lowest bidder and all the bidders in between? And the company that whined that the App Store taking 15 to 30 percent was charging “monopoly rents” that blocked competition and innovation?

Sure you do.

WELL. Funny story.

“Apple Says Plan for Nearly 50% Commission on Metaverse Purchases ‘Lays Bare Meta’s Hypocrisy’”

You read that right! Meta/Facebook plans to charge a 47.5 percent commission for digital purchases made in its upcoming “metaverse” which you should avoid not so much like the plague but plague-infected zombie werewolf Hitlers.

Facebook, we knew you had no shame, but…

Well, nothing. This is not in any way surprising.

As the Macalope has often noted, it’s not like the App Store is perfect. Indeed, it’s gotten so big that running it sometimes seems like Apple’s trying to carry in just its hands a beachball-sized amount of Jell-O across a hot stadium parking lot. Apple seems to think it can one-size-fits-all the situation but it often works out to that without the “it.”

“Apple warns developers it will begin removing ‘outdated’ apps from the App Store”

Well, no one likes old apps!

Uh, wait a minute. People actually often love old apps.

Developer Protopop Games received a notice from Apple that it would be removing its game Motivoto from the App Store because it had “not been updated in a significant amount of time”.

As it turns out, it had been about three years since the app was last updated. Now, there are valid reasons for Apple to want apps to be up-to-date for compatibility with the latest releases of the operating system and the latest devices. However, the Macalope downloaded and played Motivoto and it played perfectly fine on the latest release of iPadOS. And updating apps for the sake of updating them is not a trivial matter as the developer notes. Version control is the fire in which we all burn.

The Macalope may have heard that aphorism from a developer, but still.

Deleting old apps that don’t work is an obvious thing Apple should do. But requiring developers to devote hours to updating apps that don’t need to be updated is ridiculous.

Yeah, the App Store continues to be not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Very wrong in many instances, in fact. But the idea that Facebook has a principled take on, well, anything, let alone the App Store… you can take that idea to the other side of the river and try to sell it to the Forest Elves.

And good luck because they don’t use money. They’ll give you handfuls of leaves and a wan smile and then disappear into the woods.

The Macalope never did get that watch back.