Oliver Reichenstein

Founder of iA. This is my personal account, where I connect the dots between design and philosophy. Follow @ia.mastodon.online for official iA news.

Website: https://ia.net

Public Key

npub1af60g8f44yykjfluaukwsp59xt22u9h6rlq3gdtp0u7ptld0y9vsmuazn7

NIP-05 Address

reichenstein_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsw5a85r566jztfyl7w7t8gq6zn949wzmaplsg5x4sh70q4lkhjzkguhnm4t

Author Public Key

npub1af60g8f44yykjfluaukwsp59xt22u9h6rlq3gdtp0u7ptld0y9vsmuazn7

Show more details

Last Notes

2024-10-09 07:40:37

Just as with the post on iA Writer for Android and Google Drive, the post about Panic and Google Drive doesn't show up on Hacker News top page, even though statistically it also should be at least a top 10 post (300 points, lots of comments). Looks shadow banned as well. Why?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41780395
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/276/328/262/046/575/original/c58ca0eb6b053654.png

2024-09-26 12:37:38

- reply

That escalated slowly. So, finally, we're freezing our Android app: https://ia.net/topics/our-android-app-is-frozen-in-carbonite

2024-09-26 05:26:06

I'm not rolling on the floor laughing out loud, but I am shaking my head a little bit.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/202/121/361/495/070/original/56e98b4291a729be.png

2024-09-24 06:57:10

- reply

At this point even the names of all these stupid devices trigger me. I don't want to buy another device, not another latest Poco X6 Pro and not another Pixel7, and not another iPhone 16 Pro Max with AI. I want to flip a couple of tables with all the latest XP PRO MAX BS ULTRA.

2024-09-24 06:51:33

- reply

You know how many Android devices there are? Should we buy each and every device and install 25 versions and 100 flavors of Android to catch every bug, to make a couple of bucks? It's not like I don't understand frustrated customers, but it's not viable to buy device after device to catch bugs.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/191/191/123/910/628/original/aa5a6435ac5b7938.png

2024-09-24 05:59:23

- reply

I am also really tired of hearing that honest people want to buy our app and then we need to tell them that there is a known general is Writer independent issue with the Onyx Boox and now the Pixel 4 or whatever that sometimes doesn't allow payments or forgets receipts. I am tired of buying those specific Android devices to reproduce a bug that is then are still not reproducible. This is not working. It's been seven years we tried to make this work... We need to change gears.

2024-09-24 05:53:12

- reply

I don't know what we're going to do but I'm not going through a six week process every year paying KPMG a multiple of our revenue so we don't get hammered by users that can't use Google Drive. Not being able to use Google Drive on an Android device is not really reasonable either. Killing an App that a football Stadium full of people use and love is not an option either. I need to figure out what to do, but I won't comply with this ridiculous request.

2024-09-24 05:43:04

- reply

Close to 50,000 users are using this app every day. A lot of people love it. But the way Google turned this into a distopian bureaucratic time waster, the way Android is fragmented in versions, flavors and a junkyard of devices, the overall economy of Google Play (no one really expects to pay for apps, except games), the ease of pirating, the 1,000 hacks (delete and reinstall to restart the trial infinitely) to use apps for free, the hostile atmosphere... it's just a ball and chain.

2024-09-24 05:30:48

- reply

They want us to do this CASA certification with KPMG or similar every year. In the mean time we're getting hammered with bad reviews as users think it's our fault.
Instead of fixing their crappy core frameworks (often people can't pay for apps they want, or they pay and Play Store forgets) Google keeps us busy updating this, complying that. I just sent them a stack of paper last week.
Both Apple and Google are squeezing devs with the same percentages. But at least Apple's stuff works.

2024-09-24 05:17:16

- reply

So we tell them that our users (not us) need read write access to Google Drive so they can write their texts, and they want us to go through a scanning process that takes at least 6 weeks. One of the suggested vendors for the CASA scan is KPMG.
It probably costs more than what we make with an app that has more pirate users than regular ones.
Guys, we want our users to be able to access their Google drive so they can write and stop 1-staring us for something we didn't do.
Close to giving up.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/190/809/751/155/313/original/b2aee9505a0b13f6.png

2024-09-24 05:00:07

It has been several months now and days and days of work that we have been trying to get Google to approve that our users can access their Google Drive again through iA Writer for Android. (They suddenly cut it off). Last week we supposedly passed the last test.
This week they come back and want us to downgrade the scope to read only. Read only? It's literally a writing app!
I think we're not dealing with humans but with an AI that just keeps wasting our time. I'm flipping-tables annoyed.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/190/748/811/066/414/original/98e53388c2c04147.png

2024-08-10 15:47:02

- reply

It's so passive aggressive that no one really cares to understand what Apple is saying.
"Pay us 20% and 5% and then 20% for everything and then 20% again if someone renews anything, and we also own your grandmother if you don't sell through the AppStore. Or just do what we said in the first place."
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/9/24216181/apple-eu-app-store-services-fee-external-links

2024-08-10 15:09:06

Apple's answer to the EU: Puts a big golden middle finger in a box and sends it to Brussels. https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/9/24216181/apple-eu-app-store-services-fee-external-links

2024-07-07 15:49:55

- reply

If you have an internal design team working on your own products in Figma and you don't opt out, you'll allow swift competitors to build now what you have only planned for next year. And they wouldn't even know that they copied you. They would just have gotten some super neat initial ideas from Figma, and then built on it. Then you launch after them what you designed before them, and now *you* look like the copycat.
Didn't they see that coming? Did they think at all?

2024-07-07 15:49:33

- reply

Figma is so lazy, condescending, and neglectful of their clients that it's difficult to even take them seriously. I just shook my head in disbelief, at first. Today I was sitting on the train calculating the consequences for those who failed to opt out. Agencies would leak their clients' intellectual property and future strategy, with potentially catastrophic legal consequences for them.

2024-07-07 13:31:52

- reply

And yeah, this is a completely absurd, surreal example, reminiscent of a Louis Buñuel script. It's hard to even find a realistic analogy for this type of brazen behavior and the timid discomforted reaction from the designers.
Figma has now disabled the "Make Design" feature. But, unless you opt out, the AI training opt in by default is still there. Lalalalala. If there has even been a case where opt out has to be the default it's this one.
https://youtu.be/NZVKC_rtgnQ?si=65gyAOTWHR2pk5Z0

2024-07-07 13:04:52

Imagine renting a bakery. A great space. Oak wood floors, brand new equipment. The landlord wears Air Jordan's. A couple of years in, he renews the contract. A month later, he changes the door locks over night and leaves the doors wide open. No new key for you. The next day, at plain daylight, other bakers enter the shop, get behind the counter, and without even saying hi, fill their bags with your products. They leave silently, nodding and smiling. You didn't read the fine print.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/745/210/873/291/915/original/9dcde31a26765605.png

2024-03-24 08:41:10

- reply

A lot is being said about 65% or 70% not being a real monopoly. And some point to the global market share. As a developer that knows the Apple, Android and Windows marketplace that argument makes me both laugh and cry. Look at the revenue that software generates on iPhones vs Android phones, look at what type of revenue they create and you realize that in terms of software market Apple has a strong monopoly. As devs we know that.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/149/706/173/134/756/original/c09a802aca7811b1.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/149/706/765/668/403/original/83bcaa10364727a0.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/149/757/996/281/506/original/3aabb897fb2cb377.png

2024-03-24 08:16:50

- reply

Comparing the DOJ suit to the kneejerk reactions of my Apple friends (close to 100% iPhone and Macs in my social circle) the tech community and Apple pundids, I realized that it's not them that don't understand, it's us. The cognitive dissonance of blaming the DOJ's lack of tech (or Apple) savviness for what Apple's executives stated black on white is nuts. Two things can be true at the same time: (1) Apple makes great products and (2) they use their position of power to control their market.

2024-03-24 08:09:18

- reply

Reading through this document I remembered how I felt when my sister moved to an Android phone and how every time she sends me a photo, I think: "Yeah, that crappy Samsung phone there..." She then moved to WhatsApp, which also comes with Zuckerberg chains and bad status vibes. I remember that one reason why I move from the Sony headphones to the overpriced AiPods Max because Sony's headphones always had trouble connecting, needed an app and downloads and I always blamed Sony fo that.

2024-03-24 08:04:05

- reply

Apple is really good at connecting hardware and software, at building an eco system. They make superior devices and operating systems. They're expensive, but worth it. As a consumer, I am sold. Our house is all Macs, iPhones, TV, HomePod, iPod, iPad, AppleMusic, Pay, CarPlay, Watch. I bought iPods Max 2 weeks ago and love them. Yesterday, we just got a new iPhone 15. We spend 10,000s on  goods. Our company makes  apps and builds them 100% on  products. I always saw that as a choice. But...

2024-03-24 07:48:56

- reply

Done with my first read. I have a lot of highlights, notes and comments to go through, still, but one thing I can say with certainty: This is a well educated and highly educating document. I can sympathize with tech people trying to find hairs in the technical soup. It's hard not to—here and there I may have spotted one myself. But, rather than feeling superior ("I get Apple"), I tried to read it like any other legal document, where I'm *not* the expert, and what I've learned was quite a lesson.

2024-03-23 07:34:36

- reply

Yesterday we saw the first wave of tech journalists, VCs and bloggers without any legal expertise but a very strong bias that likely haven't read the paper but believe that they "get it".
They now meet a second group of legally trained minds that took the time to read the document:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/22/24109033/doj-apple-antitrust-lawsuit-legal-expert-praise
Note: Most devs will be careful to not bite the hand that feeds them.

2024-03-23 07:26:52

- reply

I'm about half way in and I see nothing of the supposed lack of understanding that gives tech and Apple pundit's reason for the middle school party of snippy "they don't get it!" quips. If anything deserves snark it's the self-incriminating quotes of the Apple executives. In fact... I thought that, being on the developer's side, we probably know enough about all the unnecessary restrictions that Apple imposes on devs under the guise of "security"… But I didn't know half of it. I am learning.

2024-03-22 06:15:50

Reading the DOJ suit, tech blogs, collecting the tech blogger's, Apple fans and pundit's reactions:
Tech bloggers: "The DOJ doesn't understand technology."
Apple bloggers: "The DOJ doesn't understand Apple."
Apple fans: "The DOJ doesn't understand anything."
No one doubts their own legal understanding. It's not Hackernews, it's a suit. I'll read it before opining. So far it seems fairly comprehensible. It's aggressive, but it's a suit, not a lullaby. Much easier to read than the DMA.