Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Numerous Apps Caught up in Apple's New App Store Review Policy to Ban Gambling-Related Apps
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If "unrestricted web access" is an automatic 17+, then some apps are being judged differently than others. Let's look at one example here: Facebook.
Facebook is currently listed 12+, but it's pretty trivial to do a search for Google and then use the search engine to find anything else. Perhaps the extra step of tapping Google exempts Facebook.
Facebook is currently listed 12+, but it's pretty trivial to do a search for Google and then use the search engine to find anything else. Perhaps the extra step of tapping Google exempts Facebook.
But Gatcha isn't gambling right Apple?
Is that because of the billions in revenue or because one only wins digital cash and prizes?
Is that because of the billions in revenue or because one only wins digital cash and prizes?
I'm glad Apple is taking a hard stance against these gambling apps/games, especially since they often times prey on children. Just look at states like Hawaii that have started trying to crack down on this since it is so prevalent, and games like CS:GO that are notorious for this.
Yes, some apps will accidentally get caught in the fold but it can easily be reverted by Apple. However, the more important thing is that Apple is finally doing something about it.
Yes, some apps will accidentally get caught in the fold but it can easily be reverted by Apple. However, the more important thing is that Apple is finally doing something about it.
I'm of course talking about all the 'free' apps that play 30 second full screen ads after every other action. We've all seen them. The puzzle game that you press start, an ad plays, you complete the simple puzzle, another ad plays, you fail the next puzzle, another ad plays, you finish the next puzzle, another ad plays, and so on. I'm not saying they should be banned, but if Apple is so concerned about the user experience, they should implement a policy that stops apps from being allowed to play more than one ad every few minutes.
Last edited by a moderator:
The amount of censorship (save for the Alex Jones incident) on the app store has not changed much since it's inception. Apple continues to implement their own guidelines on their walled garden.
[doublepost=1533823169][/doublepost]
You do realize that gambling isn't the issue here, right? The issue is circumventing parental controls, and this is a bandaid fix. Instead, apple needs to implement parental controls into the API.
Well if gambling is a problem, then I wonder when all the stock trading apps will get banned...
I wonder if this is intended to apply to games that utilize loot boxes. You can definitely argue those are gambling.
But somehow thinks it's okay to take a 30% cut from developers despite their total incompetence.
I am so disappointed in Apple over this. They just banned my little free card game that I spent TWO YEARS writing and give away. It was called Fimble Cincinnati Poker, and did not involve real money or gambling in any shape or form. It was simply a little 3 card game that I give away. It doesn't even have ads in it. If this ban stands, I'll throw away my iPhone and nobody in my family will replace them with another Apple product again. I hate Android, but they are leaving me no choice here. This censorship is outrageous and incorrect on so many levels.
I'm all for protecting the vulnerable, ie children, who are still in a formative stage and not yet capable of making fully mature decisions. But if that was really what this was about, there is far more predatory activity going on in social media apps, which are absolutely by design intended to produce highly addictive behaviour. This is not a secret. I don't see Snapchat/Facebook et all getting banned. And then of course there is the increasingly documented real harm being done by smartphones themselves. Lowered attention spans, reduced cognitive abilities, damage to eyesight, it goes on and on.
So don't try and tell me this is about protecting children. That's a bit rich.
What I do find incredibly offensive is the ever-creeping nanny state protecting us from ourselves. UGGGhhhh. No thanks.
I happen to think gambling is nothing more than a tax on the stupid. Take even a single unit of entry-level probability mathematics and you'll never wager again. But I defend, stridently, the right of people to be stupid and do things they enjoy, yes, even to the point of inflicting self-harm, although I may not agree with all of their decisions. The choice to do such things is part of what makes us humans and slightly freer than animals.
Stories like this depress me.
So don't try and tell me this is about protecting children. That's a bit rich.
What I do find incredibly offensive is the ever-creeping nanny state protecting us from ourselves. UGGGhhhh. No thanks.
I happen to think gambling is nothing more than a tax on the stupid. Take even a single unit of entry-level probability mathematics and you'll never wager again. But I defend, stridently, the right of people to be stupid and do things they enjoy, yes, even to the point of inflicting self-harm, although I may not agree with all of their decisions. The choice to do such things is part of what makes us humans and slightly freer than animals.
Stories like this depress me.
I'm rapidly losing patience with Apple and this unilateral, brick-wall approach they take when clearly such an approach is not what's warranted because obvious and numerous errors are being made! Why are they removing a magazine app for gambling?
And then their stupidly joining in on the town-square style book burning straight out of the German Student Union's playbook by banning a number of Podcasts of anti-war, anti-violence, pro-freedom, pro-peace activists, ugh, Apple you are making some very, very bad decisions these days that in my opinion will come back to haunt you some day.
And then their stupidly joining in on the town-square style book burning straight out of the German Student Union's playbook by banning a number of Podcasts of anti-war, anti-violence, pro-freedom, pro-peace activists, ugh, Apple you are making some very, very bad decisions these days that in my opinion will come back to haunt you some day.
I, too, find myself on my last legs with Apple. I can't abide their abhorrent, crude, scatter-gunned approach much longer.
Wow! I was just looking up to see if it is 'group think' or 'groupthink' and found this
Yes good news and ban creeptocurrency apps. They are all speculative gambling on tokens that have been made just to create pyramid schemes to fund scammers, darkweb political groups, extremist groups and fake Chinese start ups (same as reverse merger scam). Start with Coinbase - the main entry point to lose your money to scammers and criminals.
[doublepost=1533828828][/doublepost]
It’s a store. It’s their store. If you had a store and filled it with **** you would lose your best quality customer base.
[doublepost=1533828828][/doublepost]
It’s a store. It’s their store. If you had a store and filled it with **** you would lose your best quality customer base.
I wonder if some kind of automation system has gone awry. It seems like since Phil Schiller started working to improve the App Store for developers both in terms of approval times, features, and clear communication on policies and reversing some of the more onerous ones, things have been relatively smooth for the past few years. I expect he'll have this sorted out soon.
Isn't this why people gravitate toward Apple's ecosystems? They do thinking so you don't have to. They try to make it a generally safer place than being out in the wild of the unfettered internet.
Last edited:
I have filed an appeal for THETA Poker Pro, which AFAIK is the only fully accessible poker app in the App Store. My loyal legion of blind and low vision users will be very disappointed if they can't load the app onto their new iPhones in the fall.
THETA Poker Pro has no in-app purchases, no ads, no online play, and is effectively the same as any of the Solitaire card games in the App Store.
Apple, please do the right thing and reinstate apps like THETA Poker Pro and hawkbug's Fimble Cincinnati Poker! As a dedicated iOS developer (web apps, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Apple TV) for over a decade, I know I deserve to be treated better than this.
THETA Poker Pro has no in-app purchases, no ads, no online play, and is effectively the same as any of the Solitaire card games in the App Store.
Apple, please do the right thing and reinstate apps like THETA Poker Pro and hawkbug's Fimble Cincinnati Poker! As a dedicated iOS developer (web apps, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Apple TV) for over a decade, I know I deserve to be treated better than this.
This makes no sense at all. Using such criteria, Apple should remove Chrome, Firefox, UC Browser and every other web browser app from the App Store, since they all allow unrestricted web access.
Absolutely. I spent TWO YEARS writing this app because I was excited about developing for iOS. I know 3 different friends who switched from Android to iOS just so they could play my game. That's how big of a deal it was to them that I got this written. Now it's banned because Apple is too lazy to actually look at the app and see that it doesn't have real gambling in it? Unbelievable. A scary amount of censorship that I want no part of.
[doublepost=1533832469][/doublepost]It's so sad that they just blindly made this rule, without even opening the apps to check what they were!