Linked List: June 23, 2023

Friday, 23 June 2023

Former App Store Review Lead Phillip Shoemaker Seems to Have an Oddly Personal Grudge Against Phil Schiller 

Neil Long, writing at Mobilegamer.biz, has an interesting interview with Phillip Shoemaker, who ran App Store review at Apple from 2009 to 2016:

Apple’s app review process remains a huge problem for mobile game-makers as they navigate vague guidelines and inconsistent rulings. So we asked Shoemaker for his thoughts on how Apple can fix it:

“The way to solve that inconsistency — and I hate to say it — is: let’s take a page from Google,” he told us. “Especially now with the AI tools that are out there. You can do probably 80% of the work the review team does.”

In the era of app stores, it’s seemed pretty clear that Apple’s has had fewer problems with malware slipping through than Google’s. I’m not aware of a single iOS developer who doesn’t think the App Store, especially review, can and should be improved in numerous ways. But neither “make it more like the Play Store” nor “use AI for review” sounds right to me.

Also, App Store review times have decreased from an average of about 5 days to 1 day since Shoemaker left Apple in 2016. (And my understanding is that new automation tools are a big part of that process improvement. Shoemaker’s gripes about App Store review seem stuck in 2016.)

Schiller appears to be the last holdout when it comes to automating app review compared to Apple SVPs Eddy Cue, Greg ‘Joz’ Joswiak and App Store VP Matt Fischer. “I think the way to radically improve the App Store is have Phil be an Apple fellow and get his hands off the App Store,” says Shoemaker. “That’s what they really need to do. Eddy’s more progressive, Joz is more progressive, and we know Matt is as well. Phil just needs to get his meaty paws off the App Store.”

“If Phil doesn’t step back, it’ll absolutely be the courts making changes,” Shoemaker continues.

If I worked at Apple I’d print up a “Meaty Paws” sign and tape it to Schiller’s door.

“Phil needs to step back, I think that’s the main thing — new blood needs to come in there and make some changes because cutting the price and opening up the guidelines to allow new interesting things is going to be critical.”

Phil Schiller, of course, is the executive who suggested decreasing Apple’s rake in a memo back in 2011.

“It was tough working for Phil…he was one of those guys that would love to throw insults at people, right? I mean he had no boundaries — he’d insult your children and you’re like: ‘Why am I working at this company again?’”

Shoemaker would regularly get feedback from his kids on apps and games and use that feedback in the ERB meetings. “Phil would say things like, oh, that’s a stupid thing to say, are your kids that dumb? And you’re like, are you freaking kidding me?”

Seems like the two Phils did not get along. No word from Shoemaker on whether iWiz is coming back to the App Store, either.

Why Has Mastodon Adoption Stalled? 

Bloonface, in a thoughtful post regarding the stagnation in growth in the Fediverse:

Mastodon is at risk of falling into the trap that a lot of free/open source software does, where the idea of the software being “free as in speech” is expected to outweigh or explain away deficiencies in its usefulness. However, this ignores three salient facts:

  • Most people don’t give a thruppenny fuck about their freedom to view and edit the source code of the software they use, which they would not know how to do even if they cared;

  • Most people are not ideologically opposed to the notion of proprietary software, and cannot be convinced to be because it is simply not important to them and cannot be explained in terms that are important to them; and

  • When given the choice between a tool which is immediately useful for achieving some sort of goal but conflicts with some kind of ideological standpoint, and a tool which is not as useful but they agree with ideologically, they will probably choose the former.

After Elon Musk took the helm at Twitter there was an initial burst of new users and increased usage on Mastodon (and the rest of the Fediverse, but mostly this is about Mastodon as an alternative to Twitter). And then it flattened, and perhaps has even declined.

I would like to see Mastodon thrive. But the platform’s ideological zealotry is obviously holding it back and seemingly isn’t going to change. That’s why I’m much more optimistic about Bluesky’s long-term prospects. Six weeks later and I feel stronger than ever about this quip I posted in early May:

Bluesky: “If you liked Twitter, you’ll love Bluesky.”

Mastodon: “If you hated Twitter, you’ll like Mastodon.”

Hundreds of millions of people liked what Twitter once was, and what it aspired to be. Bluesky might be that.

WebKit on VisionOS Will Support Open WebXR Content 

Ben Lang, writing for Road to VR:

In a somewhat surprising move, Apple confirmed that Safari on Vision Pro will support WebXR. Prior to the reveal of the headset, it was an open question whether the company would entertain the idea of XR experiences through the browser, and even more so if the company would adopt the relatively new WebXR standard. But now Apple has confirmed that Safari on Vision Pro will indeed support WebXR.

The company confirmed as much in its WWDC 2023 developer talk titled Meet Safari for Spatial Computing, in which Apple explained the version of Safari running on Vision Pro “truly is Safari with the same WebKit engine underneath, plus some thoughtful additions for [Vision Pro].”

Thanks to Safari on visionOS being a fully-featured version of the browser, existing websites should work exactly as expected, the company says. But to go beyond flat web pages, Safari on visionOS includes support for WebXR for immersive experiences and the new <model> tag for 3D models.

I don’t find this surprising at all. Apple has always embraced open content and the web, to the extent that it makes sense in the overall platform experience. Web browsing on mobile phones was practically non-existent before the iPhone. (Steve Jobs aptly described the circa 2007 mobile web as “the baby Internet” during the iPhone introduction.)

Perhaps most tellingly regarding VisionOS, Apple hired Ada Rose Cannon a year ago — she’s co-chair of the W3C Immersive Web Working Group and a preeminent figure in the WebXR community.